As most of you know, or not. . . My flight to Athens was the very first time I'd ever been on a plane. I fact, I have hardly traveled.
For the most part, it was pretty uneventful.
Sara and I (Both U of R students going to Athens) Met up at the Rochester Airport. Thanks to her and her flight experience, I was able to navigate security and everything fairly unscathed.
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| Mini Plane. |
Our first flight was from Rochester to Toronto, where we had a 2 hour layover. There were only 9 of us on the flight so they gave us a mini plane. It was roughly a half hour flight.
Boarding was even slightly delayed. One man was called to the plane from the Bar and was escorted into the loading hallway and searched by security. It was kind of amusing. The rest of us stayed in the terminal waiting and taking pictures from the inside of the actual plane. I was able to snap some pictures from my window seat of the first flight. The bonus of the mini plane was that everyone got a window seat! But as
you can see from the picture, it wasn't very spacious. Our carry on bags
had to be stored underneath the aircraft to preserve space. One woman
had to even strap her purse into the seat next to her because it was too
big to be stored under the seat in front of her as was required. Unfortunately, I was in an isle seat on my 10 hour flight to Athens, so I couldn't get any pictures. I did get a good view for the entire trip though.
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| Gaining Altitude. |
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| Canadian Highway System! |
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| View from my window! |
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| Cruising. |
The windows of the mini plane were seriously scratched up for whatever
reason, so the pictures I was able to get look all torn up and stuff.
Although unfortunate, they're better than nothing! A week
before everyone was set to fly out to Athens, CYA sent everyone a
complete list of everyone in the programs and their flight information.
Sara pointed out that about 15 other people were scheduled on the same
connection flight in Toronto to Athens. I had made it a priority to add
everyone on the CYA Facebook page, seeing as we'd all be in the same
program anyway. I sent out a facebook message to everyone I could
contact who would be on our flight. Many student were optimistic about
us all being stuck at the Air port together. We decided to meet
somewhere and pass the time together. As it were, only five of us ended
up meeting up at Starbucks, but it was nice to get a head start on
socializing with other CYA Attendees.Sara and I got food, shopped a
little, and ordered our first
legal drinks at the bar! We had to
give the bartender our passports for proof of age, and he made fun of
our "American" passports for being weird. BUT! In the end we got our
Amaretto sours. It was so worth it. Eventually we made our way to our
terminal. Sara and my tickets were reserved for the very back of the
plane, so we sat down and started a game of skip-BO while we waited.
Much to our surprise, we were boarded first. In line, Sara noticed two
girls with CYA tags on their bags.
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| Landing in Toronto! |
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| Sippin' |
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| Sara! (U of R/ Roommate/ Plane Buddy!) |
So we ended up meeting two other
students right off the bat. We didn't all get to sit together, at least,
I didn't sit next to any CYA students.
I got an isle seat in the middle
of the plane. They gave us pillows and blankets and earphones and we
took off. There was an elderly couple who got to window seat closest to
me. I ogled the view for most of the trip. I'm pretty sure the man
noticed this and made an effort to keep my view from being obstructed,
even when his wife insisted he shut the window shutters because the sun
was blinding her. The ten hours passed slowly. They fed us and stuff.
They had movies playing but I didn't pay attention for the most part.
Initially i dozed of for a little while with my head phones on. But when
I wasn't sleeping, I was looking at the sky. At dinner, I intentionally
ordered the wine, hoping it would make me sleepy. It didn't quite work
out that way, but eventually, I slept. I woke up early, compared to the
other passengers. The sky was still black. There was a light on the wing
of the plane and it took me like, fourty-five minutes to realize that
no, it was not the moon. I felt silly. I did wake up in time for them to
show the Avengers Movie, which was super awesome. So as I watched
Avengers, the sky started to get lighter. They served breakfast. By the
time the movie ended, I knew that we'd be landing soon. We started
getting sea and island views. It was incredible. Everything looked so
tropic and clean. We started our descent and Athens rose up to meet us.
Soon enough, we'd FINALLY landed in Greece. Over all, the flight was
easy. There was a little turbulence at a few different points, but I
found it oddly comforting for some reason. Once we landed and gathered
our bags, we took out Euro's and made our way to the exit. CYA was there
to pick us up, not that it kept us from getting slightly lost in the
beginning. But either way, we found our group. The people were super
friendly and soon enough, we were loaded into our cabs and escorted to
our new home for the next 4 months!
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