Travel or Why you should pluck out your own eyes with servings tongs instead.

I write this from sunny Crete, where I am now in the 4th day of a 5 day astronomy conference. It has been a bit hot, but otherwise beautiful. Sadly my talk was scheduled for the last day (tomorrow) so I have not been able to really unwind, (i.e., get bombed).

Getting here was a little less pleasant. Warning, the following is a long bitch session. If you don't care that my trip sucked, please feel free to stop here.

The fastest way from Los Angeles to Crete is to fly LAX-JFK and then JFK to Athens
and then Athens to Crete. Needless to say, just getting to Athens is a 17 hour affair, requiring me to leave my home at 5am.

The flights were mostly on Delta, which feels like an airline in bankrupcy (I think it is), as it is understaffed and under-serviced at every opportunity. Despite arriving 2 hours before my flight, checking in actually got a little sticky, because so few people were attending to checking in customers. It didn't help that I discovered they had moved the flight up 10 minutes in the 3 days between my ticketing and the flight. Only by being selected from the middle of the check-in line was I able to check in on time. And then they wouldn't take my frequent flier card, because it differed from that on my purchased ticket by one initial and the roman numeral IV. I was late, and so could not argue.

So, despite morning stress levels climbing to red levels, I managed to board the plane and promptly discovered my seat in the very back of the plane. Thank you JPL travel. The flight itself was uneventful, although Glory Road (or Days?) whatever, the movie about an all black college basketball team breaking down barriers was a little flat and predictable.

In New York I tried to grab a bagel sandwich between flights. I said tuna sandwich toasted, they toasted it, then they asked me what I wanted on it, and I said just lettuce and tomato, maybe a touch of mayo. And that is what I got: a LT. Classic mistake where I assumed she meant what I wanted ON my tuna sandwich and she had forgotten I had said tuna 30 seconds earlier. She put it in a bag, so I didn't discover the error until too late. On the plus side, it really didn't taste too bad.

The flight to Athens wasn't bad, but what a crappy plane. The movie sound went out half way through the second movie (King Kong) and the video for a third of the plane (not me, thank small favors) flickered on and off the whole way. And I think the seats were designed to transfer its metal frame directly to my ass.

Arriving in Athens, I had to check in for my Crete flight (to Heraklion, the largest city and home of the Minotaur, as far as I could determine). I was not excited about this process, as I had been booked on a 3pm flight and I arrived at 10am. Wait, lucky me, I was told they could put me on the 11:20am flight. Even better, my luggage could be transferred as well. I double checked that point.

Flash forward four hours. Yes, four hours. The flight was delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, canceled. We had to go pick up our bags and recheck-in to another flight. But I had no bags. So I had to talk to the nice lost bags lady. Waiting there I had a fairly serious freak out moment, as I knew I needed to get a new flight or possibly be bumped off all flights as every other canceled passenger took the seats. Somehow I managed to avoid screaming, hair-pulling, etc and got to the front of the line. I figured my bags were likely set to go on the 3pm flight, despite earlier assurances. The lost bag personnel seemed to agree, and sent minions off
to look for them. Fifteen minutes later, no luck. The bags were not here and I should go on to Heraklion and deal with it there.

Upstairs to the ticket line, where I discovered they had never canceled my previous 3pm reservation. Joy! I ran across to the check-in line (yes, they were different lines), cut in front of everyone and handed over my ticket. It was after 2:30 (2:35, maybe) and had closed the flight. Great despair. I slunk back to the ticket line and to the same sympathetic ticket lady, who knew I was at the end of my rope and probably understood that a gentle hand was required to keep me from kill kill KILLING. She would get me on the very next flight (6:50) which was a relief, because
up to that point I had suspected I would be shoved onto the 9:40 flight. I puddled on her counter while she wandered into the backroom for some sort of high level negotiations. Turns out she was refunding me the price of the one way ticket for my troubles. 125 Euros. That is nearly 200 dollars, which almost made the next three hours in the Athens airport worth it.

No you can't sit near your gate until you are a half an hour from your flight. No we will provide almost no seats in the rest of the airport. No we don't really believe in air conditioning. I was forced into the waiting arms of McDonalds comfort food and then into a cave-like area in which benches had been thrown. Several vagabonds were huddled together for comfort. I did my best to prevent my exhaustion from developing into full blown nauseau.

In the end I made that flight (passed out on it), arrived in Crete, where they had my bag (it arrived on the 3pm flight). Due to the late hour, I managed to catch the free conference bus which drove another hour across the island to Agios Nikolaus, my final destination. I was so energized at my unlikely success that I even stayed up for dinner at a local restaurant (Don't they have anything except for Greek food?).

Now let's see how things go coming back...