End of our European travels
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Landshut,
Germany
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
We've discovered something we didn't know existed. A whole sub-culture of travelers that sleep in airports! Not that they sleep there as a place of accommodation (although in some cases they apparently do), but for long layovers or early flights mostly. Since our ferry didn't dock in Athens until midnight, and we had to be at the airport late the next morning, we decided it wasn't worth the money and hassle of finding a hotel (and thought it would be an experience!). Before we left for Greece we found sleepinginairports.com, a website dedicated to this very art. They have a ranking system of airports all over the world (by the way, Athens is 7th on the list) and for each airport travelers submit reviews. Out of curiosity we checked out Vancouver's YVR and were shocked to read someone's review who said he ended up sleeping in the airport for THREE months! And another who suggested sleeping under one of Richmond's bridges (that's a little too close to being a bum for us!). It is on this website that we learned that this is a very common practice, and also where exactly in the Athens airport we should go.
Our first task when we arrived at the ferry port was to find our bus stop for the airport express. A couple of well-directed questions solved that minor issue and we were soon on a bus packed with others, cruising down the freeway. We got into the buzzing airport (surprisingly there were people everywhere) around 1:30 am and headed straight for the chapel, where we had read was quite isolated and had a carpeted area out front. It turned out the small space was already filled by about ten other backpackers getting some shut-eye, so we settled for a corner of an uncarpeted adjoining room. Thank MEC for Therma-Rest and sleeping bags (and our good sense to carry eye masks and ear plugs)!
So, after the long twenty-five hour journey from Santorini, we are now back in Landshut at Yvonne's sister's. We have a few days to pare down our gear (our Greece trip was a test-run for Asia) and finish packing up stuff to be sent to Australia in January. We also have to get our Chinese visas sorted out. Hopefully we'll also have time to relax too and soak up the comforts! Shortly before we left Santorini our eBay auction for Freda ended. We found out she ended up going for 2000 euro, which was our minimum point, but we'd hoped to get a few more hundred for our beloved campervan. In the end though, we are happy to not have to deal with that anymore. On Saturday the 22rd we're going to Munich to partake in the opening day of Oktoberfest! I'm really looking forward to that since I've never been. The next day we are hopping a train to Berlin, staying a few days, then flying to St. Petersburg.
The first part of our adventure has been nothing short of fantastic. Combined with last year's three month trip we've now done a total of six months of touring Europe and are ready for something completely different, which Russia and SE Asia will surely provide. We're learning so much as we go along, a lot due to mistakes we make on the way. Having to work again is inevitable (unless we win the lottery...or one of YOU does and wishes to finance us!) and something we are obviously not looking forward to, to say it politely. But such is life and we try to keep that thought pushed as far back as possible in our minds. We do miss home and family and friends at times, but we know it will always be there.
