You Can't Get There From Here. Really.

(October 7) Ok. It’s been just about a perfect trip, right? Lots of sun, gorgeous settings, great food and wine, and great company. We are smiling, relaxed, and nostalgic about leaving.

Leaving? Who said anything about leaving? At midnight on the eve of our departure from Paros, we hear a knock on our door. My thinking is this is never a good sign, and this time is no exception. It is our local travel agent who comes to tell us that the air traffic controllers of Greece have gone on strike, and our flight to Athens (and then home) has been cancelled. We will now need to take a ferry to Athens, and wave bye-bye to our flight out of Athens should it actually leave. Which it did. Without us.

What now? Plan B. Get to Athens, get a hotel near the airport and then start the always endless slog of dealing with the airlines to rebook our departure. One of the dark, little secrets of the airlines is that when you miss a flight and you’re using more than one air carrier, they always point the finger at the other guy. Your problem is never their problem. And, so it was with us. Lufthansa told us we would have to deal with United, and United told us we were out of luck. They could maybe get us out five days later and we would have to buy new tickets at a cost of about $5,000 per couple. That’s right. $5,000. This is not a typo. Sensing this was not an option, we toyed with the idea of staying in Athens, see the sights. Or, maybe go back to one of the islands and wait it out until United deigned to give us mileage tickets at a fairly nominal cost. In the meantime: souvlaki, ouzo, repeat.

What happened instead was we tried another United phone number and were met with a far more compassionate lady who tried her level best to re-acquaint us with the U.S. of A. without draining our bank accounts. She tried to get us on any flight back to the U.S. This meant possible trips to New York, Charlotte, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Detroit, and even Canada. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. (Vegas. She should have tried Vegas. Anything is possible there.) We were stranded. I had visions about now having enough time to learn Greek, or, at a minimum, increase my tolerance to ouzo. I wondered: would Mojo remember us? In fact, would he be cared for since our house sitter had other obligations going into the weekend? Huge stress on this one. (Through a series of emails and texts we were able to get word to our neighbors to take the little guy in. Problem solved.) After rolling up $300 in telephone charges, Compassionate Lady at United forged ahead to find us some minimally sensible solutions, and, amazingly, she found one. We could leave the next day, but would have to stay in London for a couple of days.

Fish and chips anyone?