All my life's a circle (Santorini - Athens - Dubai - Sydney)

Sorry, only 2 photos today, this is a transit post and the last in this series.

And a Harry Chapin song to bring us full circle and return us to Sydney - the long way. Today we will spend about 30 hours in transit. I'm pumped. Not really. I'm writing the first part of this blog from the Business Lounge in Dubai. At least my Qantas Club membership provides some comforts to take the edge off the travel. I'm sipping Moet while I gather my thoughts. We have already been in transit for 12 hours.

A cactus flower near our suite

Unlike every other post from Santorini we did not begin the day with a late leisurely breakfast. The wake up call happened at 7:30am (yes, I know but work time wake up for us is 5:30am). We were up before the cruise ships had arrived and moored off Fira. That was a first. As usual I cleared email and checked FB before leaving the unit and was surprised to see a post from a former student (hi Ysmael) who was also on Santorini. He was in Fira as a part of a one month tour of Europe with his wife. It was a pity we weren't able to catch up for a drink.

Breakfast was as usual except we scored the picture window with the view down the edge of the caldera. As we finished breakfast we began all the good-byes to the staff. It occurred to me earlier today that I hadn't actually named where we were staying - it was the Honeymoon Petra Villas at Imerovigli and I will be giving it a 5 star review on TripAdvisor sometime soon.

The accommodation was superb, the staff were brilliant, from Harry at the bar, to Nikolas who organised everything for us, to the girls who served breakfast, to the cleaners. Everything was perfect. Yes you pay for it, but it was worth it. If I was going back to Santorini I would definitely be staying there again. A good example is Nikolas; he ordered our transport to the airport for 9:30 for a 15 minute drive and a flight at 11:40am. I thought we'd be burning major time in the airport waiting room.

Fira by night

Given the queue was out the door when we arrived, Nikolas was spot on. We joined the line for Aegean airlines and didn't progress very far for some time. The Australians in the line behind us suggested we should get a boarding pass from one of the two machines available otherwise when we arrived at the baggage check-in desk, we would be sent to the end of the line. Not a happy thought given the snail's pace at which we were moving. Boarding passes secured I tried to help some girls from Tel Aviv who were trying to fathom the curiosities of the system. They had neither booking reference or ticket number that would make the machine happy; we even tried a passport to no avail. I'm not sure what became of them after we moved through the queue and they remained behind.  We eventually discovered, via our new best friends behind us in the queue, that the reason we were not moving was because people who did not have access to the wisdom of Nikolas, and were clearly going to miss their flights, would charge up to the counter and demand to be allowed priority, pushing the patient queuing passengers aside.  Add to this the fact that the baggage taggers were also the people charged with making continual P.A. announcements to chase up missing passengers who no doubt were stuck somewhere in a queue in the terminal like we were.  Our baggage processor was clearly not a multi-tasker and spent a significant amount of time pouring through a binder to locate passenger names to announce while our bags sat on the weighing belt waiting to be tagged... so near and yet so far. And then when she came back to us she printed the first bag tag again so we had to re-commence the whole process.

Once our bags were tagged, we had to carry them over to the x-ray screening machines ourselves and drop them onto the moving belt. As they disappeared into the machine, we turned for the waiting room. It wasn't a large room, maybe 20 metres by 8 metres and it was crammed with people and their ridiculously over-sized carry-on luggage. There were people everywhere. It was hot and there wasn't much air flow despite the blustery conditions outside. Two planes had been delayed and two others were trying to board but there were limited buses (read two) to take the passengers across the tarmac to the waiting planes. The hour we had taken to negotiate the line to check our bags now looked like a walk in the park. Our plane was due to board at 11:10 and there were at least two other flights to Athens before us not to mention three planes bound for other parts of Europe. So, we found an area to squeeze in so we weren't blocking people movement and waited. And waited. And waited some more. You get the picture. 

There was much excitement any time a plane was called for boarding. The Athens bound Aegean plane before ours (11:20am) was called and provided a glimmer of hope - or was that a reflection from outside - then they stood, unmoving for 25 minutes. In the meantime we had salvaged a couple of seats when the crowd from Amsterdam lined up for the bus. We whiled away the time trying not be hit by ignorant passers-by.

One thing that has always fascinated me, no matter where I am, continent or country, is the apparent lack of spacial awareness of some people. Do they not know they are crushing someone's foot? Did they think that crunch as they swung their bag through the crowd was made of air and not the back of someone's head? Or when husband, wife, luggage trolley and one child block almost the entire path - would you consider looking for the other child to ensure safe passage for other travellers? Is it ignorance? Is it disdain? Is it wealth and I don't care? Well, I care. Be more considerate you dicks.

But I digress dear reader. We did get on the plane, late, but we were in row 2 and while there was no designated Business Class, I'm sure we had more space than usual. Yes, yes, it's a 45 minute flight and quite a picturesque one, but at this point I'll take what crumbs I'm offered because I know what is to come.

We were late leaving Santorini but not terribly so and I had allowed a sufficient time gap for us to make our connection to Dubai comfortably. I wasn't really worried about time, until we arrived at baggage carousel 10. And there I waited - again. After 30 minutes the electronic sign flickered and reported that the first bag from our flight had been unloaded. A welcome relief because I had resorted to counting the numbers of times one particular bag had gone around on the conveyor belt. I was at 15 when the sign flickered again and our flight disappeared from the board. The sound of shuffling elevated as people from flight 355 looked for an explanation and then some shouted 9 and we moved our attention to the carousel 9 - then they announced the change. Meh, it's Greece, chill out.

Just as the first bag magically appeared, Jayne materialised next to me. I had left her sitting near the then deserted carousel 11 and she became worried when I hadn't returned. Especially since I had no ID on me - it was all with her. Bags collected it was upstairs to go through the check in process again. We met the Australians from the Santorini airport who directed us to the check in point and then we were through, bag free heading for the security check and then a place to have a glass of wine.

The flight from Athens to Dubai was on a 777 and I rate them. They appear to have more room than the A380, but this will be confirmed with the next leg of our trip. Presently I'm still in the Emirates Lounge and I could bang on about it but suffice to say - lift your game Qantas, it is uncrowded and well-supplied and well-serviced. Moet, mmmmm. And they allow people in wearing thongs. No dear reader, thongs are foot wear, flip-flops. Really!

An ear-piercing alarm was activated down-stairs at 12:54am. It's the sort that would be frequently described as a car alarm. No-one up in the lounge appeared concerned, but it continued unabated. It was difficult to hear the announcements over the din. No doubting the acoustics of the terminal. Very impressive. 28 minutes and then quiet.  By now we were almost begging to get on the plane to get away from the incessant din of the triggered alarm.

I'm not sure there is much else to stay. The next section of the trip was, blah, blah ... I watched movies, was bored, I listened to music (that was cool), I didn't eat (airline food, really?), finally we arrived home. It was almost 31 hours from the time we left Honeymoon Petra Villas until we reached Redfern. A looooong time transit. Was it worth it? Absolutely. It would have been worth it even more had Mel put her ass on an ass for the journey to the church.

Until January when we make our next trip ...