Exasperating beginning, charming ending to a long day

We boarded the plane in JFK...next stop-Athens, Greece. So exciting! For some reason, I have to get on the plane first thing. I like to be settled in and not waiting in the jet-way forever. Tyler and I got comfortable waiting for the plane to finish boarding, and we were really tired from the last night's red eye flight so we decide to take a nap while waiting...and waiting...and waiting to take off. An hour and a half after our scheduled take off time, we eventually get into the sky. I was never really sure what the problem was, I was too passed out to care.

Eventually near the end of the flight, I started to get worried. The travel agent I used to book the inter-island flight to Santorini assured us that the 2.5 hour layover would be fine (our other option was a 7 hour layover). We decided to risk it and risk it we did. As soon as we landed Tyler and I took off running like the family on Home Alone. Tyler was going to grab the luggage and I ran to check us into the next flight. The staff at the desk first told me we were too late. I BEGGED her to let us try and asked to hold the plane.

*The check in lines-there were about 6 sections of these. I had to go past ALL of them to find our line.

We were checked in and actually doing pretty good. We ran off to our gate..and then we saw the security lines. Even more annoying, they made us stand in a line-that WASN'T our line. We tried to explain, but they were strict. Finally after about 10 minutes-the security staff started calling people that needed our gate number to the correct line (that we tried to go to in the first place). I was really frustrated...but I also pretty much accepted that we missed the flight. We finally were in the correct line.

I don't know why the security staff was so SLOW..as well as all the other travelers, but they had each person...one by one... get ready for the security screening. I'm serious-one guy would go up to the belt, slowly remove everything from his pockets, take off his belt, talk to the staff, slowly put the computer on the belt, etc. EVERYTHING was so SLOW! Once he was done, he would walk through, collect his stuff-then they would let the next person START! I was dying. We were sooo close. My expectations were going back and forth this whole time. First I accepted we missed the flight (missed!), then they said they would hold the plane (we'll make it!), then we got the LONG security line(missed!), then they opened up our line (we'll make it!), then the SLOW security process (missed!), then we finally were going through ourselves. At that point, I was waiting for Tyler to come through and I heard our names on the intercom-that meant they were still waiting-right? There's no phone around, no extra staff to let them know were almost there, and Tyler is still starting the process-hope or no hope, I wasn't sure. We grabbed our stuff and made a run for it. (oh, and by the way-sorry for no photos-this wasn't really a photo moment-I was sweating, lol ;)

We made it to the gate, and the looks on the agents faces pretty much told us we missed it. They got mad at us for being late-which was actually pretty funny. We played nice, so they called the plane and asked on our behalf. Not entirely unexpected-they said no.

At that point-I can't really tell you how we felt. First-sad we missed the morning flight to our island, the next flight was at 7 p.m.-our first day was taken away just like that. Second-it was kind of funny and annoying at the same time. After all that energy spent-we had to go back the way we came, wait to collect our returned baggage, then go check in AGAIN! Luckily they didn't charge us anything. We were seriously thinking of making this day better by going and getting massages. Luckily we didn't cross paths with a spa.

Instead, we stored our luggage and hopped on the Metro. We decided to go check out the mall, get our first authentic Greek food, and definitely an iced latte. The metro was actually fun, we loved listening to the Greek and English combination and our favorite phrase- "Please Mind The Gap". You had to be there-it was pretty funny. We hung out in the mall for a while, had a gyro, then went to Starbucks.

The Athens Mall

One of my highlights from this day was the Greek Eclipse movie posters, sad but true, lol.


From the mall, you're able to see the new Olympic Stadium from the 2004 Summer Olympics. The was pretty neat.

After a long, and ironically pretty good day we made it back to the airport (with PLENTY of time) to go through security, have a coffee, and take a nap while waiting. We were finally in the air. Upon landing, this was a lovely sight to see:


SO HAPPY to be here. We got our car from the previously nice-at this point pushy car rental guy that peer pressured Tyler into buying the EXTRA car insurance (at least we were triple covered right?). We took off on the beautiful island road. The air smelt so good-warm, clean, with an ocean scent. After about a 20 minute drive we started getting worried we were lost...this was a small island though, and there weren't very many options to get to Oia. We finally found the town, but was having a difficult time finding our hotel. After a few laps back and forth, we asked a very nice lady were the Filotera Villas were. She told us to wait one minute, then came and sat in our backseat-quite unexpectedly. She then told Tyler were to drive, just about a block, then instructed us to park. She got out quickly (lol) and we followed her up an inclined drive way. Once we reached the top, our breath was taken away.


I loved the bold hospitality of this mystery women. I loved how her and Nicolas (our hotel manager) greeted each other-the whole town and culture was so...Greek. Nicolas greeted us and his wife led us to our room. It was their favorite room, secluded at the bottom of the hotel on the cliff right next to the pool. We had to agree, it was beautiful.

They're called cave houses-built in caves inside the cliff's of Oia. Our room was dreamlike. Our view outside was so beautiful-just stunning. This was by far our favorite hotel.

*View from our deck at night