I'm Not Even Sure What Day It Is

Ok.... so, I'm tired. Like dead dog tired. But, I'm going to try to trek through and make a post since there is so much from this long travel day. I wrote everything down earlier but of course, I left it upstairs and I'm too lazy to deal with the wonky elevators to go up there a third time so hopefully I can just remember everything.

I got up and to the airport with plenty of time this morning and was able to move some stuff from one bag to another to where both of my bags came out right around 50 lbs. (the limit). Then, I'm pretty sure that I didn't get charged the $100 fee for my second bag which was pretty sweet. After a lot of gate crowding (the flight was full and they were having to check carry-ons for those of us in group 5, which Bruce and I avoided by sneaking on a group early), we were headed to Newark. Our flight left about 30 minutes late but we made up the time which was good for some of the others in the group who were on a different outgoing flight from Newark and had a very short layover there. My flight from Newark to Geneva was like half full so everyone basically go their own row to themselves. I had two seats since the guy next to me moved after takeoff and I was splayed out across them both the entire time. Not much else happened on that flight other than me reading two books and watching like three movies (I tried to sleep but couldn't). Then, when I hit Geneva, the fun began.

I discovered today that the Geneva airport is a place I hope I never return to. For some reason, I guess when I think about Switzerland, I think new and shiny and pretty. Nope, not the airport. There were few signs, no guidance, and barely any people around to help. On top of that, there were like three outlets for an entire terminal. That made charging my electronic devices fun. And of course they didn't take Euros so I couldn't get any snacks AND English was not the primary language. At this point, I was starting to feel groggy so after 3.5 hours of waiting, I was happy to get started boarding. However..... the priority passengers got to board with the gate agents and when they were done, they basically said "Ok everyone else. Just come through the electronic self-serve gates" and we all proceeded to push and shove the crap out of each other to get on the plane. And on top of that, we got on an old plan. It took me like 10 rows before I could figure out where the seat numbers were (they were the old light up knob buttons). Once situated, I realized (to my glee) that a British family was sitting behind me and they had nice accents and cute kids with equally cute accents. This was another however though.... they were about 3 times louder than normal people (on planes or really anywhere) and they got into about 4 screaming matches with each other (like the parents and their kids). Needless to say, I developed a love-hate relationship with that family. It was awesome, funny, and super annoying to listen to all at the same time. The best and worst part of the day came when we were about 2 hours from Greece (the last leg was 3 hours). We hit really bad turbulence. Like REALLY bad. Like I was fearing for my life bad and would have been bumped up high enough to hit my head on the ceiling bad. One of the British kids behind me is like "Daddy, we're going to die I think. I think I need a phone game for this. Weeeeeeee I have a roller coaster one!" In between my bouts of nausea, I did get some good giggles in.

We eventually landed in Athens and I picked up my bags in super fast time (they were like out first which was nice) and we made our way to the Oscar Hotel. Athens is.... interesting. It's basically been wrecked by the economic crisis and riots; a lot of the buildings are in disrepair and there's graffiti everyone. The city basically does not have money to hire people to take care of the upkeep. We walked through a bit of the city on the way to one of the study centers tonight. We spent about an hour and a half at a men's Farsi bible study (in which pretty much all of us were dozing off because we were ridiculously exhausted) and then we all wandered off in different directions. I think some of the group is already sleeping, some are walking around the city, and some are up on the pool deck looking at the apparently amazing view of the Acropolis that we have here (sorry, no pic yet; didn't have time but will get one tomorrow). Tomorrow morning we're starting with dental clinics and since we don't think there will be a lot of people here, a group of us are probably going to visit Corinth before more bible studies tomorrow night. I'm not sure what kind of impact we're going to have here. Things are... different. This isn't like Romania but I'm not sure how/why yet. I'm sure I'll figure it out when I've gotten some sleep so stay posted! It's 9:00 pm here and I effectively have not slept in over 24 hours so I think I'm going to go upstairs and try to get caught up!