Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Today was just a travel day. We walked to the train station, took a shuttle bus to the airport, flew from Rome to Thesseloniki, Greece, took a bus to he train station, took a train to Athens, took a metro, took a bus, texted our hostess who then met us at the bus stop and walked us to the apartment. 14 hours of travel and we lost an hour changing time zones. We saw a lot of farms, olive orchards, the Aegean Sea, and mountains from the train. Most of the hilly countryside looked like rural San Diego County. We arrived in the rain at about 10pm.
We had some interesting conversations with Greeks while traveling and we are starting to learn some basics of the language. They don't pronounce their alphabet the same as we do. For example, take the letter B: we say Bay-tuh but they say Vay-tuh and give it the V sound. The letter Pi they call Pee. Fortunately, most Greeks speak English rather well, and many signs are in both Greek and Latin characters. And people have been very helpful. The trip has been quite smooth for being so complicated.
After we bought a 1-week transit pass for 14 euros each we learned that they are on strike tomorrow, due to the closing of public TV. Oh, well. There was a brief Metro strike in Rome while we were there, but we didn't need the Metro that day.
Today was just a travel day. We walked to the train station, took a shuttle bus to the airport, flew from Rome to Thesseloniki, Greece, took a bus to he train station, took a train to Athens, took a metro, took a bus, texted our hostess who then met us at the bus stop and walked us to the apartment. 14 hours of travel and we lost an hour changing time zones. We saw a lot of farms, olive orchards, the Aegean Sea, and mountains from the train. Most of the hilly countryside looked like rural San Diego County. We arrived in the rain at about 10pm.
We had some interesting conversations with Greeks while traveling and we are starting to learn some basics of the language. They don't pronounce their alphabet the same as we do. For example, take the letter B: we say Bay-tuh but they say Vay-tuh and give it the V sound. The letter Pi they call Pee. Fortunately, most Greeks speak English rather well, and many signs are in both Greek and Latin characters. And people have been very helpful. The trip has been quite smooth for being so complicated.
After we bought a 1-week transit pass for 14 euros each we learned that they are on strike tomorrow, due to the closing of public TV. Oh, well. There was a brief Metro strike in Rome while we were there, but we didn't need the Metro that day.
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