Our Day in Athens

May 17, 2014 by abbeync007 2 Comments

Good morning!
I suppose I should not call this post ‘our day in Athens’ since we spent most of yesterday (May 16) traveling! Technically it was our day in America/Germany/Greece, but that is beside the point. Yesterday was a learning experience for everyone in our group. We had to be flexible with the plane schedules, with luggage regulations, and with each other as we grew a bit irritable. All of our flights went smoothly, thankfully. There was a bit of turbulence, but that’s to be expected. Anyway. All statistics aside..
We landed in Athens and were picked up by Kenn Dirrim, our main American missionary contact. He took us to the apartment where he and his wife Lisa live. Sam and I are staying with them until we all go to a missionary retreat on Wednesday. Jim and Tyler are staying in another apartment about a mile away. The traffic from the airport to the house was a little crazy; road laws are not really enforced here. We took a scenic route by the sea, which was so beautiful. We settled into our apartment a bit, then went grocery shopping, which was another new experience. The store had two floors, so we drove our shopping cart up an escalator-type ramp. I thought that was neat. Everyone in the store knew we were Americans, we could tell, so we felt a bit funny and out of place. Sam referred to us as foreigners, which is what we are really. After shopping, we took some of the groceries back to the boys’ apartment then we all went back to Kenn and Lisa’s. It rained a little bit while we were out. We got some take-out for dinner and hung out with Kenn, LIsa, and another student from Indiana named Daniel who is interning with Helping Hands as well. Somehow, our Juniors Global team managed to make it till sunset before we hit the hay. Well, we went to bed a bit later than that, despite our earlier protests of tiredness. Sam and I slept well; though I am not sure about the boys. We have yet to see them this morning. Saturday is the missionaries’ day off, so we will see how we end up spending the day. I am sure it will be fun no matter what we do. God has been very good to us so far. We made it here safe and sound, without too many bumps along the way. I feel very blessed to be here with our team and am so excited to jump in!
Hope your day is blessed as well, wherever you are reading this from.
Sincerely,
Abbey

 

 Our tiny little plane from ICT to Houston. Three seats across!

   A ‘Breakfast Selfie’ on our twelve-hour flight with Lufthansa!