After a long, long day I finally made it out of Athens last night only a few hours before a general strike began which would have meant I would have been stuck at the airport another day at least and it would have really thrown my plans off. I ended up flying Turkish Airways through Istanbul which was kinda cool but I didn’t get my passport stamped. They have a pretty nice airport terminal and a smoker’s wonderland of duty free shops selling packs of cigarettes in aisles like a grocery store. My layover there was long enough I was able to get dinner and have some Turkish beer, which was pretty good, and it helped me sleep on the plane a little, and on the train station bench, and the bus terminal bench…

I had heard stories that Israeli customs can be really tough to get through, like they ask you a bunch of questions about your family and stuff but it was pretty quick. Probably about the same level of questioning Paul, Phil and I got when going to Prague. One question that I probably should have seen as a warning of things to come was “Where are you staying?” “Oh, I forget the name of the place, it is some hostel in Tel Aviv,” I know what you’re thinking, but give me a break, I only made the booking less than 24 hours ago at the Athens airport, also I didn’t technically have a room for this night, since the website said there was no availability on the 9th, but I figured at the least I could drop my bags off and find a couch to lay down on.

But I made it through immigration and customs with no problems, and I was feeling pretty good at this point and was excited to find a bed to sleep in instead of this airplane seat stuff. After a quick review of my guide book, notes and my hostel info, I headed for the train station, only I literally missed the train that runs once every hour at that time of night/morning by about 10-15 seconds, it started to pull away as I put my ticket in to get through the gate to the platform. Not that it would have mattered that much, since the buses don’t start running until a little after 5 am. Then I got bad directions and got on the wrong bus, couldn’t see any street signs, no stops announced, my map didn’t cover the area the bus route was taking, … ahhh. To make a long story short, I finally made it to my hostel around 8 or 9 am, and thankfully they let me check in so early. I went right upstairs and took another nap.

The place I am staying at has a great location. Literally one block from the beach, which is gorgeous:

So I spent the afternoon soaking up some sun on a Mediterranean beach in December. Also I think my favorite walking shoes that I have had since 9th or 10th grade got a little too wet one too many times in Madrid or Rome because they had been stinking up a storm any time I wore them, so I just had to toss them and get some new shoes. Hopefully these new ones are as good to me as that last pair. After my shoe shopping I went back to the beach and watched the sunset and played in the sand a little, which is probably the best sand on any beach I have ever seen. It feels like something between brown and powdered sugar.

Tomorrow I am going to Eilat on the Red Sea for some snorkeling and/or diving, but I will be back after a few days to visit a little more of the city and hopefully I will have a chance to take a day trip over to Jerusalem before I have to leave. Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know that I made it out of Athens, and am doing well.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 11:01 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.