Day 8: Coming Home

This is my last post for my "Aegean Journey Blog". It's been a lot of work putting it together and staying committed to finishing it. But, just like my "Julia Child Blog" I've actually stuck with it. And now, I have a beautiful archive of photos and a journal of our trip.

Michael and I got our bags all packed the night before because I'm not a morning person, at least not an early, early morning person. Anytime after 8:00 a.m. I'm good to go. We had to get up at 6:00 a.m. get ready for the day, turn in the rental car and check in at our gate at the airport on Crete. On the way to Greece we had only a carry on and a personal bag for each of us. Coming home I had to check in my DVF suitcase. We had Greek wine, raki and other gifts that we couldn't hand carry. Now that the trip was over it didn't matter if they lost my luggage.

When we got to the car rental return, the young man wanted cash for more gas. Michael tried to explain to him that the  tank was between a 1/4 and a 1/2 tank when we picked it up. The young man said it was on a 1/2 tank. The two debated for a few minutes. I couldn't stand it with it still being too early in the morning for nonsense and standing there with a heavy backpack, curbside with my rolling suitcase. I shifted my backpack to a comfortable place on my back and said, "Look, we aren't giving you cash, we returned the car on the mark that it was on when we rented it. We owe you nothing." He said, "Edaxi (okay)." We got everything else settled and the young man hoped we had a nice day and we hoped the same for him and headed to our gate. Still no coffee or breakfast. Thank goodness we still had a half bag of trail mix.

I always get frisked in airports. Even before all the security tightening, I have always gotten singled out and questioned and given the once over. But this time I skated right through and it was Michael that got frisked in Athens. He now knows how it feels to be touched all over by someone you do not know, in front of a bunch of people that you do not know. Not fun.

While waiting for our flight in Athens, Michael walked around to find coffee, while I sat with the bags. He always takes possession of all our important documents, tickets etc. I have no short term memory to speak of and can't remember where I put something just 10 seconds prior to placing it. I glanced down at the passports on top of Michael's suitcase and only saw one. When he returned I asked him, "Why is there only one passport?" Michael looked worried. I picked up the passport and saw that it was mine and then Michael looked real worried. Was he stuck in Athens? This elevated his airport anxieties to a whole new level. He shuffled things around and found his passport. With a sigh of relief he plopped down in the seat next to me and neither of us budged for the next 30 minutes. At least we had coffee. It wasn't a frappe, but it was a coffee.

Then we boarded our flight to head to Paris. We had just enough time to exit the Athens plane and find the terminal and gate and board our next plane. We ran through the airport and made it to the gate just in time.

Heading back to our home in America.

Airplane food is gross. It's barely a step up from the military MRE's. I had lots of water and avoided most of the food. I'm not generally a picky eater, but I'm just not sure what's in that airplane food. The pretzels were awesome though!

We finally made it home after a 24 hour trip with the time change. It worked out perfect for it to be midnight we walked in our house. We scurried around and put away what we could and then went to bed.

Thank you Michael for the trip of a lifetime. I'm looking forward to the next 28 years of our marriage and sharing all the adventure. Follow more of our adventures and trips here