From February 18 to 22, I was traveling to Athens. It was a trip which I certainly would not forget in my life.
Reason :: I witnessed Snowfall in Athens, in amounts which was even rare for the natives of Athens.
My journey started with me taking the 7PM PST United airlines flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt. I had a lay over of 3 hours for my next connecting flight on Aegean Airlines, to Athens which was at 6PM CET. Before leaving SFO, I had checked on “Weather.com” to check for updates, and it showed weather being cold and chances of light snow.But little that I know that it was going to snow like never before in Athens. I was waiting in the lounge for my next flight when i heard that the flight was delayed by 2 hours due to heavy snowfall in athens. There were couple other guys with me going to same meeting also waiting for that flight.
Then after around 2 hours, we came to know that the situation in Athens was really bad and chances of flight taking off were bleak. Other colleagues of mine who were booked on other airlines (i.e. non Aegean) got their flights canceled. Since we were on Aegean, we were hoping that our flight would go back to Greece.(AS airlines have to pay quite a large amount of money if they halt at non-home airport).
Finally after a long ordeal, they decided to take off and we were on runway by 11.30pm. Within 3 hours we were hovering over Athenswaiting for the ground staff to clear the runaway of snow for landing. The Captain mentioned that the condition was bad and if we couldn’t land in Athens, we might be diverted to Thesalliniki (another city 40-45 mins away by air). After hovering for around 30 mins, finally they decided to land. When the plane landed at Athens, the airport was completely covered in a snow blanket. Snow storm was still coming hard and the visibility was poor.
After slowly gliding down and an extra cautious taxiing, the plane finally arrived at the gate at 3 AM. After getting out of the plane, our (me and my colleagues) next question was how are we going to find any transportation to our hotel which was around 35KMs away. After collecting our baggage, we were waiting for TAXI for around 30 mins in freezing temperatures. Finally we got into one, which hardly had any gears to combat the heavy snow. The tyres were not Winter Tyres and they were strapped upon by Chains, to keep the car from slliding, the wipers were in bad shape too. The driver told us that it snows once in four years in Athens and normally it is just a light snow storm, but this time, it was bad (Blame it to Global Warming). However we can call ourselves Lucky ones that we witnessed such snow in Athens.
The driver, understandably, was over cautious on the road and had to get out of the car several times to strap the chains on
tires, as they were slipping. At one point, when we had to take an exit in an underpass, the roads were so slippery that our
driver lost control of the car and it just skid out of control. The driver could do little but to pray that it didn’t hit any of the sidewalls. But fortunately for us, the car swayed from one side to other and turned 180 degrees and stopped. finally by the time we reached the hotel it was 5AM. These pictures just show the glimpse of that night.
Due to weather issues, our meeting was already scheduled to start at 2PM on Monday. So I slept through the morning and when I woke up and went to the meeting room, it came to my knowledge that many delegates are still stuck at various airports and it would be difficult for them to make it for the meeting on Monday. So eventually our meeting was canceled on Monday. After meeting people who were stuck in this ordeal and hearing their plight, I realized that probably I was the lucky one who just had a “delayed flight”. Many of them had their flight canceled, had to sleep over at airport, wait almost entire day at the gates unsure about when the flight would take of, had very little to eat/drink.
Finally almost all the delegates arrived by Monday night. Since we lost a day due to these weather issues, our meeting was
scheduled to run from 7am to 7Pm everyday from Tuesday – Friday. There was hardly any time to go out and see anything.
However during lunch time and dinner time, we were able to go to local restaurants and try the local favorite, “Souvlaki”
and the “Moushka’s” which are part of authentic greek cuisine. On Thursday evening, me and 4-5 colleagues of mine went to an “authentic Greek” restaurant called ELEA. This was recommended by one of our colleague who for long time lived in Athens. Indeed the restaurant was good. The quantity of the food was also exceptional. I had “Lamb Souvlaaki” there and then had 3 shots of local digestive liquor “Grapa”. It was interesting !!
On friday however, the meeting ended at 4PM and me with bunch of other colleagues decided to go around the city.
Unfortunately the gates to the famous “Acropolis” close at 4.30 and by the time we were there, they were closed.
So we had to be contend with taking pictures from the bottom of the hill. Then we just walked around the city center
and the market. Athens is really crowded place. From the hill you will be able to see only “Concrete Jungle” all over
till the horizon. However the city center still has predominantly European essence. The patio dining, social atmosphere
was really what I enjoy the most in any European city. I was very much amused by the Greek Alphabets, reminded me of all of them that I used in elementary physics and mathematics i.e. the alphas, the betas etc. We just went around, had dinner and finally returned to hotel by 9PM .
On saturday my return flight was at 6AM, so i just crashed into bed at 10PM. I left the hotel at 4Am to catch my return
flight. The first flight to Frankfurt was on time, however I had a pretty long layover at Frankfurt airport (5 hours) and
when finally I boarded the flight, they found a technical problem. So the flight was delayed further by another 2 hours.
So finally it reached San Francisco, 3.5 hrs after the scheduled time and I was so bored by the end of it that I was again
cursing my luck for the delayed flights forgetting that it could have been worse.
Overall the trip was hectic but good. Barring the flight trouble, all other things went smoothly. Athens is a good place to
visit with lots of historical significance and given a chance I would like to visit it again.
Filed under: Travel
