The EPIC Journey

The EPIC Journey

So, the journey has begun. After doing a few little things in the morning to get fully prepared, like setting my out of office at work and buying a travel pillow, I was ready to set off.

With a stomach full of butterflies (or elephants as it felt like), my lovely sister drove me out to the airport. I managed to get booked in without any issues, get my money changed, and turned my phone onto international roaming (so yes, you can call me, but it will still cost an arm and a leg).

I was accosted by a security guard at Melbourne Airport, who asked if I was carrying any liquids, and how big my deodorant was. I was unsure where he was going with that line of enquiry, until I realized that he was asking if I had a bottle of water and what size my shower-in-a-can was. Unfortunately, I had to throw out my bottle of water (as there was no way that I was going to skull 1 litre of water) and my can of deodorant, which was 110ml, 10ml too big. Oh well. I’d just have to buy another one later.

The flight to Kuala Lumpur was pretty good – 8 hours in total. I managed to have a spare seat next to me, so it was a nice relaxed flight. I realized while flying over Northern Territory that this was the furthest west that I’d ever been – Adelaide was the previous final destination, but let’s face it, Adelaide doesn’t really count as a travel destination.
True to form, the food on the flight wasn’t any thing special, but it was certainly not in the “Need to write to Richard Branson” category.

Kuala Lumpur airport has this crazy train that goes between all of the terminals. I didn’t need to get on it, fortunately, because trains inside buildings seem a little odd to me. They did have a bar in the international terminal, though,, where I was able to get a Carlsberg pint, which really hit the spot after that flight.

Next it was onwards and upwards (then at the end, downwards) to Heathrow. This flight took 12 hours, and was a bit more uncomfortable than the flight to KL. I had a rather large fellow next to me (ie. Tall and broad shouldered) who was also on the stinky side. I ended up spending most of the flight leaning out into the aisle to avoid him, and had the misfortune of waking up at one point with my left shoulder wedged into his arm pit. Ew – there’s nothing worse than having 1 shoulder being more stinky than the rest of you, and it being somebody else’s stink. :(

I arrived in Heathrow, and began my 6 hour wait for my flight to Athens. I found a handily located bar, and had the breakfast of champions – a Chicken Caesar Salas wrap and pint of Stella. Mmmm-mmmmm. After getting my second round of Stella, I started chatting with the bartender about the ciders they sold there. He put me onto a Swedish cider names Kopperberg, which has been brewed with Summer Fruits. Wow – that was a hit. I think I’m going to have to steal that recipe when I get home.

The flight to Athens was fairly uneventful, although by this time everything seemed to take on a very random and not-quite-real appearance. So much so that when I got off the plane, I realized that I had left my novel and Sudoku book in the seat pocket. Grrr! Oh well, at least better that than leaving me in the seat pocket.

Going through customs was very easy – I think the guards looked more at the people walking through than at the bags, so there was no real delay there. My traveling companions, Lapzang and Dr Doolittle, had been delayed in Milan, so I arrived shortly before them. I was standing at the exit gate, sing in hand with their names on it, when they approached me from the side. We swapped the perfunctory greetings, and set about trying to find our way from the airport to our hotel. It was about 6pm by this stage.

The seemingly helpful fellow at the train station told us that the metro train from the airport wasn’t running due to track works, so we had to catch the suburban train to the end of the line, and then catch another train from there to our station. Once we had done that, we saw another train pull up, but weren’t sure if it was the correct train. We approached the ticket lady, who told us that it was the correct train… as it was pulling out of the station… and we’d have to wait another hour for the next one. Grrr! It was 7.40 by this stage.

We went to try to find a beer, but being unsure of the drinking laws in Athens, opted for a bottle of water, before heading back to the station. It was at this point that I discovered that the streets of Athens are not as well paved as the streets back home, and my choice of wheeled-suitcase may not have been the best. I may have to look into other options.

Finally our train arrived, and we caught the train… but couldn’t see our station on the map. Hmmmm. We decided to ride this puppy to the end of the line to see what would happen… maybe we were mistaken? No, unfortunately. We got to the Athens Port, and figured that this might be some sort of joke that the transport staff like to play on tourists… a bit of a “Here’s what we think of you…” Fortunately, the lady at this station was much more helpful. “To get to your hotel, go out of here, turn left, twenty metres, catch metro train to this station.”

Yes! It was by now 9.30, and we all just wanted to get some food, have a shower, and have a beer. We found the metro station without any issues, caught the train to the right station, and figured out where we had to go. We had to cross one of the largest round-a-bouts I’ve ever seen, and one of the scariest too. There were a whole heap of people just milling around, looking dodgy, and giving us evil death stares. We were very concerned for out safety, but after Lapzang pulled out his trusty Gherka blade, they left us alone.

We only had to walk about 15 minutes to get to the hotel, checked in, had a shower, and located a fantastic place 3 doors up that has amazing gyros for 1.70 Euro. We each had a gyros, a beer, half a litre of wine, and the total bill came to 12 Euros..

That was the welcome to Athens we were looking for!