Day One

Greetings from Greece! We landed about 4 pm local time and now I am typing this latest blog in the hotel room. Let me quickly recap the past day. Our flight left Denver at 1pm. We met at the church at 10am. I was able to drop Houston off at Roger and Gloria's because Ken had a track meet that he was to time at Valor Christian. Dropping Houston off was just as hard as I thought it would be. I think he eventually figured something was up, because I kept hugging and kissing him. He was being a good boy and snugging with me right back. I had tears streaming down my face as I left. The only way I could leave was to distract him with playing outside. At the church we loaded up the vans and drove to the airport. We flew Delta and I tried to be prepared with signing up for a Sky Miles number, downloading the Delta app for my phone, and writing down all the important numbers on my phone as well. I think all that preparation paid off because I was able to check in for the flight on the kisok. I think I was the only one able to do that. For others it wasn't working and they weren't giving boarding passes for the Athens leg because that flight was 'occuring tomorrow.' Silly. We had to stand in line anyway to check our bags. We have I think 32 people traveling in the Life Bridge group. Then Dad and I went and got an early lunch. I ate a taco, some fruit and orange juice. I know weird combination, but it's what I wanted. :-) As we were leaving the table, Dad picked up his cheap, hand-me-down duffle bag and the strap broke. Go figure! So we made a pit stop at the luggage store and fortunately he was able to buy a replacement strap instead of a whole new bag. Althogth the strap probably cost three times what the bag did. On to our flight! We left from gate C38. Dad treated us to some frozen yogurt from TCBY and he promptly spilled the strawberry topping on the front of his pants - the pants that he's to wear for the next day. We laughed about that while he went to clean up in the bathroom. Our first flight was to Minneopolis. We landed on time and had a four hour layover. On the short flight over I was looking at the Delta app and noticed Dad didn't have his Sky Miles number in, so we decided to stop at a kisok to get that taken care of. There was a lady there trying to help others in our party get the Athens boarding pass. Dad asked her to help him enter his Sky Miles number because he would much rather have a human help him than a computer. She was happy to help. She directed him to a kisok where she instructed him to get out his passport. Dad said, "My passport? What do you need that for? I'm just entering my Sky Miles number?" She quickly responded, "Do you want a human to help you or not?" That comment brought down the house. Diane Rusaw laughed and laughed and gave the lady a high five. Dad humbly accepted her help and followed her directions. I then asked her about a tram that goes to The Mall of America. I had heard a guy talking on his phone about tkaing the lightrail to the mall on his layover. So the lady directed us to the lightrail and we were headed to The Mall of America. We had a great time buying the tickets, riding on the lightrail (although it looked like a subway because it wwas under ground. The ride was only 5 stops and we were there. We were only able to spend about two hours there because we wanted to get back in plenty of time for the flight. We walked around the Nickelodoan Theme Park which is in the middle of the mall. That was amazing! Then we found some dinner at Famous Dave's. The only store I really wanted to go to was the Disney Store. I knew that Disney had re-imagined some of their stores lately, and I figured that MOA would be a store they would re-do. I was right! The store was so cool! It was much more interactive although the casual guest might not notice much of a difference. I was finding all sorts of things I could buy Houston, but that's no fun. Plus I don't need to lug Buzz Lightyear to Greece, Turkey, and New York City before I give it him. I needed a more authentic toy. We left the mall with plenty of time to return to the airport. There was no line for secruity, so we breezed right through, except for the cranky comment my Dad just had to give the TSA agent. Dad wanted to put his change and his watch in his shoes (which I think is standard practice for him). This particular TSA agent said his shoes had to be seperate and with nothing in them. He said that was stupid and asked her why all the airports are different and why can't they all be on the same page? He was just venting, but she said, "I'm just trying to protect you. I'm not flying today, you are." Later I joked around with Dad that he's becoming a cranky old man. He's not normally like that. He took the comments in good spirits and laughed. But the women in MSP were really showing my Dad who was boss around there. We left MSP on a Boeing 747. Dad and I sat in the middle seats of the plane, on the middle and aisle seats. I changed into my jammies and took my contacts out. We had a dinner that had substance but not quality. Then I fell asleep. I don't know exactly how long I slept, but I did sleep. It was terrible comfortable, but wasn't the worst plane sleep either. When I woke up, we were served a sort of Egg McMuffin breakfast, juice, and a banana. Dad got an extra banana, because I don't like them. The airport in Amsterdam was cool. All the signs were in English but still had Dutch written on the signs, which we thought was weird, because English was the first language listed. We only had a 50 minute layover, so there wasn't time to really look around or shop. We did stop in a 'football' shop and saw the cutest little Adidasis outfits taht would have fit Houston. They were cute, but 55 Euros. I thought about getting him a little soccer ball, but I didn't . We went through customs and got a stamp in our passport. We had to go through security again, which I wasn't pepared for. I only lost my water bottle. On the way to the game, I saw some really cute magnets and I stopped to buy one. It's minature wooden shoes and it says Holland on it. I wanted to buy Gloria some bulbs (since they are the flower/tulip capital), but I was worrieda bout bringing plants back to America. I slept most of the next flight, which was 3 hours. They served us lunch, but I didn't eat it and neither did Dad because it sait it was a Thai curry wrap and they typically contain nuts. We landed in Athens, right on time. We got our bags from carosel 7 and found our guide, Costas waiting for us. Thy were so organzied and helpfu. We got right on the bus and started driving to our hotel. We passed many interesting places and Costas started telling us about what we were seeing. We did pass the Olympic Stadium, which was awesome. I really hope to get back there to spend some more time there. Our hotel is very nice and modern. We checked in, cleaned up a bit, and then met back down in the lobby. We are traveling with another church from Kentucky, so we met them in the lobby as well. Then we walked to a church where we had a short service with a short message (Rick promised that it would be short), singing, and ommunion. On our walk to and from the church, we saw the life of Athens. So many little vendors and carts. Lots of children in strollers. The most expensive apartments in the city were on this walk and facing the Acropolis. The gates and front doors on some of the apartments were amaizng! We could see the Acropolis from a distance and passed the new museum. On our way back, we bought Houston a litle toy that lots of boys were selling and shotting up in the sky. It's like a little helicopter that lights up. They looked so cool flying in the sky. After we returned to the hotel, we had dinner. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Yes, I'm a picky eater and there were many things I didn't even try, but I found enough food to eat. We sat with Michelle and Merv. Dad wasn't able to eat any of the dessert because of nuts, so they brought him his own special bowl of ice cream. It's about time for bed for me. Dad just got back from his walk. I'm glad that I stayed, got in a shower, and was able to type this whole blog post. That's all for today! Tomorrow, the adventure really begins!