We reach Athens

My goodness those trans-Atlantic flights are looooooonnnnng! We got up occasionally and walked to the very rear of the plane just to stretch our legs, but you still go just about bonkers when you spend nine hours in a space about the size of an average bath mat. Once again, our Air Canada flight took off right on time and arrived just when they told us it would. The service was pretty darn nice, though the food wasn't anything you'll see written up in Travel and Leisure. The plane's layout consisted of seats in 2-5-2 configuration and I reserved one of the two-seat setups, which meant we didn't have anyone seated with us. Even better, our flight had almost no babies. In fact, I only saw one woman with a baby and she sat way in the back of the plane and I don't think the baby ever made a sound. The biggest disappointment was finding out that our Boeing 767 did not come equipped with the latest seat-back computer screens. There was only one big screen in our immediate area and it was playing a many-years-old Will Smith movie about rampaging robots or something. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning they played Russel Crow's rendition of Robin Hood, but I slept through most of that one, which didn't matter since I'd seen it anyway. So, the bottom line was, the flight was boring in comparison to our first two legs, but we had each brought along our reading books so we stayed entertained. We arrived in Athens about 11:20 their time. We sailed right through customs, baggage claim, and the cab hailing ritual and were soon on our way to central Athens. We were told it could take an hour and were advised by an Canadian-born Athens school teacher on our flight that we should pay about forty Euros for the ride to our hotel. So, when we got to the hotel that's just what I gave him. He murmured something about the cost of the toll bridge so I gave him another five (also to be expected according to the teacher)and he went happily on his way. I always hold my breath when dealing with cab drivers in foreign countries, especially ones who don't run the meter (I didn't even see a meter in our cab today), but our experience was totally positive. He didn't seem to speak a word of English so I tried out my limited Greek, which he may or may not have understood. I couldn't really tell. I did do something smart on a whim yesterday. I printed out the name of our hotel and the address on a small piece of paper which I just handed the driver today. He stared at it for several long moments, then got out of the car and went to consult a fellow driver. When he came back he said he knew where to take us(I guess that what he said, anyway). I'm sure glad I had the paper to give him as explaining where I wanted to go would have been completely useless in this instance. I chose the Lotus Hotel in Athens because it received good write-ups on the web. Some of the downtown hotels can be in fairly rough neighborhoods. The room here at the Lotus turned out to be beautiful with everything looking pretty new and modern. The elevator actually held ALL our bags plus us, which is something I never saw in Italy. Elevators tend to be sort of phone-booth sized in Europe and you have to make multiple trips to ferry your luggage to your room. The WiFi works here in the room sometimes, which is about all I can say for it. For some reason the blog refuses to load unless I try over and over again. Still, I'm on the site now so if it lets me save this entry, I'll be happy. This evening, I'm hoping for some real Greek food and music. This is where it all begins.