Day 00 August 27th
Because there is no free internet in DIA, this log will be uploaded at another time. For now, it is almost six a.m. and the sun isn’t up yet. Lucky sun. He got to sleep in. My parents, bless them, and I were up at 4 and got to the airport by five. It took about twenty-five or thirty minutes to check in and get through security. It took me another five or ten to get to my concourse which, of course, is the one furthest away from the main terminal. It was really hard to say goodbye to my parents. I love you guys. I would take a picture of me sitting in airport typing, but it’s just like any other airport. Now imagine me writing on my computer. Oh, and I’m in a skirt. It was an attempt to get upgraded for free. Not sure if I was… My flight just got bumped back by ten minutes. I have about a four hour layover on the East Coast, so it’s not a big deal. I forgot to ask the agent at the front counter if there was a later flight to Greece. Right now I’m on the 4 p.m. flight that lands at 9 a.m. Athens time [midnight to my parents if our calculations are correct]. Since I can not check into the hotel until at least noon or later, it would be worth it to get on a later flight and spend some extra time on the East Coast. In an airport. That probably looks like this one. C concourse of DIA looks like B concourse in Dallas. I fly a lot. I had a wonderful breakfast before I broke out my computer. It wasn’t on the heart-healthy diet I’m supposed to be on, but we’ll pretend like it was. I don’t think my doctor’s reading this blog. If you are, please know that I have stuck to that diet very well and that the non-sticking to this morning resulted from getting into the shortest line in the food court.
I’m strangely calm for a young woman about to cross an ocean. I have to cross a continent first. I still can’t believe that I’m actually going. I’m in total disbelief. It’s almost as though I’m just headed back for another semester at my college. I keep looking at the visa in my passport going… “I can barely read this language”. While in line for my wonderfully carb-full breakfast an older couple asked me where I was headed to. When I told them that I was going to Greece to study, they beamed at me and told me that I would love Greece. They went there for their honeymoon. The two of them are headed back home to Washington. My aunt said the same thing to me yesterday, “Don’t skip a thing”.
1:50 pm local time… 11:50 am home time
All the plugs in the Philadelphia International Airport are hidden. It’s like they don’t want you to charge your phone or use your laptop with a low battery because you were off-line blogging in Denver. I found a little niche that I’m hiding in. There are a pair of European boys [I think they’re Italian] stretched out on the chairs a few feet from me, and a couple American girls a row over. This seems to be the college age niche for kids who need a place to wait for their connecting flights. Airport security has passed by a couple of times and not said anything to me, so I’m going to keep writing and charging my laptop’s battery. I had an American lunch. It was small, so I’m probably going to get a snack before I get onto the plane. God only knows when they actually feed us and what it will be. I lucked out on the last flight. I was in the only row in the entire plane that wasn’t full. Of course, the guy on the aisle was really mean to the flight attendants. The movie was “Fracture” which I didn’t watch. I updated my travel journal which was about four days out of date and read a book on modern Greek history that my mother picked up for me before I left. PHL is really big. I was lucky enough to only have to go to the concourse right next to the one I flew into. They have a Liberty Bell made out of legos. [see picture] I’m facing an eight or nine hour flight…I’m still a little unsure of the time change. All I know is that it will feel like the middle of the night to me. Then I get to go through customs and stuff like that. For now, I’m going to continue people watching.
