Dodging Bullets

Let me start off by saying if you ever have to go to the airport in Moscow, take a moment before you do to get your wallet and computer out and reschedule your entire trip to avoid this place at all costs. Lord have mercy. We get to sunny Russia and leave our nicely air conditioned plane and walk up the tunnel directly into Hell. After 10+ hours on a plane I am slightly mental to begin with. The first 30 minutes off this plane I thought my head would spin off my body and explode in this craphole of an airport. I don't really wanna get into it but just avoid ever going there. At least you can't say you were never warned. Understaffed and unorganized.  We could have done the same experience in the HK airport 75 times over in the amount of time we exhausted in Moscow, no exaggeration. Only thing I can say positive  was the bathrooms were clean and had seats on the toilets, so the jury is still out on which airport sucks more-Manila or Moscow. All part of the adventure and experience, and it makes for a great story.

 So we go to our gate, so ready to get out of this place. Not an employee of any kind in sight, airport or airline. Large group all around this gate with tics to Athens written on them. We're good right? Look to a couple of Russians around us, "are you going to Athens?". Smile. Nod. Okay, fine and good but I'm pretty sure these people have no idea what we are saying to them. Great. Slight panic comes over that we are not in the right place. The 3 people next to us jump up and start hauling it to the opposite side of the airport. I tell Carrie to hang tight and I completely tail this family. They shoot down some steps to a totally different gate. I'm in full on panic mode now, please God don't let us get stuck in flipping RUSSIA! I race back to Carrie who by this point had realized the same thing I had, we were at the wrong gate! Holy Mother of God. We run like two lightning bolts to the steps this family disappeared down where we found our gate, which was actually a bus that drove us out to our plane? Giant bullet for this day successfully dodged. This was single handedly the closest we have ever been to the gates of Heaven and Hell. I am going to be very nice to people from now on cause I'm convinced if I go to Hell, God will send me back to this place for eternity.

So. Another 3 hour flight still ahead to Athens. Upon arrival at the Athens airport, we are happy to find a full staff of people smiling and doing their jobs. Yay. We have arranged a driver through our hotel for transit as we were arriving at 11:30 pm and we don't know anything about the area, $65 EURO or just under a $100 US.  We arrive at baggage claim and see a few guys holding signs, none that had our name on them. Slight panic rushes through. I attempt the ATM in this area only to be denied due to reasons I cannot decipher. We were told we could charge the transit ride to the room upon arrival so we're still okay, but no driver in sight. Well, we step outside to try and grab a signal on the phone to call the hotel but they say he should be there. We suggest we'll just take a taxi? They inform us that all taxi drivers are on strike due to their failing economy. A good bit more panic rushes over. At this point we have no currency, no driver, and no taxis. Not the best start for our trip to Athens. We go back in to find our non-English speaking fellow holding a sign that reads "CARRIE TURNER" in all bold letters. Enormous bullet number two for this day successfully dodged. I have never been happier to see my wife's name ever before in my life. We were seriously SOL had that dude not shown up. We would have been thumbing it or walking to our hotel, which probably would have taken two days. I have no idea what we would have done. 

I am going to leave this negative post here to rot forever and come back with all the wonderful stories of Athens on a completely different post. I don't even want these two extremes sharing a page together.

Cheers

A

PS- DON'T EVER GO TO MOSCOW