melbourne - thessaloniki, greece

parakalo!!! i think that means thank you, but it's the first greek word i've learned. well, now that a few days have passed, i feel a bit more able to laugh at the very messy start to our trip. it has proven to me once again, that even the best laid plans can go to waste! arghh!! well, the mess all started when... our flight from melbourne to hong kong sat on the tarmac for about two hours due to luggage problems - we didnt care though because we had a whole centre row to strectch out.
The captain came on and welcomed the people who were flying to hong kong today instead of the day before, apparently there had been a massive typhoon in HK that had closed the airport for over a day. it was the first we had heard of it and we didnt think much of it!
we landed in HK about the same time as our connecting flight to Zurich wasw supposed to leave but the captain had said our flight would wait and that there would be groundstaff at the gate to meet us and take us to our flight. Great! we thought but there were no groundstaff. and our flight was not on the board! so we spent the next 30 minutes running around HK airport trying to find the right gate, we were with a big group of people all supposed to be on the Zurich flight. when we found the gate the flight had gone!!!!!!!! bugger. i had had so much faith that it would be there waiting for us! we were told to go to some other desk, that was packed with heaps of very crazy angry people and one little girl on the desk looking stressed out of her head! it reminded me of the new york stock exchange.
eventually she sent us to another desk. as we went through from one end of the airport to the other (it felt, it was 4am mlebourne time) there were people everywhere. they were sleeping on the floor and staff were handing out pillows and blankets. the airport was absolute chaos because they had two days worth of passengers but one day of flights, because of the typhoon. we continued on our goose chase being sent from desk to desk, finally we found the right one! it was crazy, HK people like to yell at each other. we lined up and got to speak to a little man named alfred. he wrote us out an accommodation voucher and told us to ring a special hotline and try to get on the flight to zurich the next day, but we probably wouldnt be able to get on it because it would proably be booked. great. I put my Amazing Race knowledge into practise and asked if we could get somewhere else any faster. London, Rome, anywhere???
He said YES he could put us on a flight to london, YAY we love London!!!!! but the problem was the flight was leaving now!! he said they would do their best to get our luggage on the flight with us. hmmmm..... we think that is when we went one way and our beloved luggage went another. to catch the flight to London i swear we sprinted for kilometres!!! we spent the next few days wondering why our leg were in such pain - i was worried it was DVT until i remembered our olympic sprints through HK in birkenstocks. justine ran ahead because she actually uses her gym membership and held the gate open whike i huffed and puffed up. we were the people on the flight but it turned out not to matter anyway because that flight was delayed for about 2 hours. (please note the pattern here, guys).
we were split up the 12 hour flight, i was lucky to get a window right up the front with lots of leg room. watched some great movies and snoozed for a while. poor justine was slotted in between grunting snorting people.
now if you know me you would know that i have never been keen to visit london, but when we came down through the clouds all the little houses we lined up neatly and looked just like privet drive. i think i even saw dudley dursley. i loved london straight away!! we got into heathrow and it was so quiet and calm and well signed. We were sent on another goose chase (although we weren't running) and eventually found the right desk. we explained our problem and there were very helpful and put us on a flight to athens that would leave in a few hours. justine even spilt coffee all over the lady and she still helped us. we were stoked because the flight would get us to athens in time to catch our flight to thessaloniki! YAY! things were looking up. they tried to locate our luggage but said HK was still in chaos. we were so glad we had gotten out of there!
we should have guessed that our flight to athens would be delayed. it was. so we missed the flight to thessaloniki. every single flight we should have been on (except the first) left on time and every flight we were put on was delayed. we were very glad that athens airport is much smaller than HK and heathrow. the next flight to thessaloniki was at 8pm, but it was full so we had to get on the 11pm flight. we felt so bad because jus's family had been expecting us at 7pm. jus rang her dad, he rang them and let them know when we would be there.
we we so buggered that we went to the gate early and laid down on the chairs. it got to 11pm and we weren't boarding, no, no we didnt board until 12.30am!! our flight was delayed! we had spent 7 hours at Athens airport to catch a 35 minute flight. the irony was lost on me. so by this time we had left melbourne over 40 hours ago and had a few hours light sleep. i was feeling sick from being so tired, and i stank too. we got to thessaloniki/makedonia airport where justine's uncle nick was waiting for us. he put us in a taxi and took us back to justine's yaya's house. even though we were so tired, i got excited driving in the taxi - the landscape of greece is just so different to anywhere ive been. its really rocky and dusty but there heaps of pine trees.
we got to yaya's house and met yaya and aunty maria. they were lovely enough to give us a drink and send us to bed. it was 2am and we were walking, smelly zombies.