Athens to Rome by Mia

We left our little hotel in the shady neighborhood of Athens at about 5:30 am and walked to the Omonia Metro station in the weird half-dark, half-light that happens in the early morning. It was early enough for all the drug addicts and drunks and such were still out from the night before looking really wacked. We actually saw some people in a corner with a syringe! The places mommy picks out for us…. See, this is why you need to come and rescue us in Spain, Bippy and Gramps! We might not live through Italy!!!  I mean, there’s the Mafia….

View from the front of the bus.

Anyway, we made it to the station alive and took the Metro to the airport. We ended up being a little bit late getting there because we had to wait for 20 minutes for the airport train because it doesn’t come as often as the other ones do.  When we got to the airport everyone was a bit tense because we were running late. It didn’t help that the baggage check in system is really weird for Aegean Air. We had to get boarding passes from the little self-service monitor things, then got to the counter to weigh baggage, and then we finally went to a conveyor belt in the corner what sent everything out and tagged all the bags. That conveyer belt was all the way across the giant entrance hall, which added to the weirdness. When we finally got our baggage checked we headed through the duty free shops, went through security (which is a breeze with only a few small bags) and got to the gate to wait. We had 20 minutes to spare, so Zander got out the laptop to type and we hung out like that for a little while. About 5 minutes before we had to board, the gate got changed to B19 instead of B11 so we got to pack everything up and go downstairs to the right gate. When we got there it was pretty much boarding time.

Another view from the bus.

Since it was a downstairs gate we had to get on a bus that took us to the little plane. I don’t really like when we have to bus out because they have you wait in the bus for like 20 min until it’s really full before they take you to the plane. Barely anyone gets seats either, because those buses only have like five seats in them, and they are only for old/ disabled people. It was a good thing no one was carrying bags and that we were all quite happy to be going to Italy, so no one was short on energy. It was so exciting to be going to Italy, because it is one of the countries I have been most excited for, mostly because it has the best food on the planet! When in Rome… EAT GELATO!

The plane ride was about two hours long and went from 8:45 till 11:15 (Athens time, so the clocks actually said 10:15 when we landed in Rome), so we had airplane breakfast. That was made up of rubbery omelets with equally rubbery veggies, bread and butter, and yogurt and honey. I forced down like three bites of egg and almost choked so I stopped, then I ate some broccoli and carrots. I wonder what they do to it to make it like that. You’d think it would be easier to just make a normal omelet and steam some normal veggies than add all that crap that makes it gross…. The yogurt and honey was really yummy though, and you can’t mess up bread and butter, so that was my breakfast. For the rest of the plane ride I looked though the inflight magazines and I found Zander an ad for a private jet to rent that came with a pilot, co-pilot, and stewardess. Then he looked through the magazine and pointed out all the people he wanted to be his stewardess. That was… interesting.

Statue by our apartment.

Nothing exciting happened when we landed except that there were really adorable police German Shepherds by baggage claim. I think they were supposed to be sniffing for drugs or something but mostly they just ran in circles. Then we caught a bus to the city centre and from there we took the metro to the place where our apartment was. Daddy had a bit of trouble working the ticket machines, but that is normal. After that we found a gelato place and sat down with all of the luggage while daddy went and looked at the place and stuff. While we waited we ate some delicious gelato that was only 3 euros for 2 flavours! So amazing!

 We had all been bracing ourselves for some nasty alleyway (like the one we had just left), but the location and apartment are amazing! We are really close to the Vatican, and a few stops on the metro from the city center. The apartment we have is supposed to be maximum 5 people, but we can squeeze. Daddy had to do a bit of ‘misleading’ to get us here though. Whenever the landlord asked how many of us there are he just said ‘Oh, it’s just me and my family’. That’s not technically lying, right? The building its self is really cool. There is a gigantic door that is about two stories tall and 7 or 8 inches thick that leads into a nice courtyard that is surrounded by the building. We are on the 4^th floor and there is an old elevator that takes you up. The maximum load is 3 people, but we kind of overloaded it today with 4 people and tons of groceries. We are still alive, but it made some scary creaking and groaning sounds. Everyone got out pretty quick though, no need to push our luck.

Fountaion near our apartment.

I am really happy to be in Italy! For one, the food is amazing! Rome has major charm, with old buildings, cute cafes, and marble street signs set into the walls of buildings. There seems to be surprises around every turn, and it seems like you could just take a walk and it would be equivalent to going to a museum because of all the old stuff everywhere, just mixed in with the city. On the bus over we saw the old wall and there were apartment buildings right up against it! Rome is just so incredible. I can’t wait to get to the rest of Italy to! Maybe I’ll learn Italian because I’m already half way there with Spanish.