What a day. I’m still exhausted even after a night’s sleep. Yesterday was probably the second most grueling day of my travels (the first being the 30 hours I went from the Solomon Islands, to Nauru, to Kiribati, to Fiji, to Hawaii). I got up at 3am in Tel Aviv and left for the airport at 4am for a 7am flight. Here is how my day went:
Tel Aviv, Israel
Getting through Ben-Gurion Airport is a challenge. Especially if you have a ton of Arab stamps in your passport AND if you are carrying a ton of electronics with you, AND especially especially if you have a keffiyah in your bag. The first stage of security is a well dressed young person who will take your passport and start to ask you a ton of questions. I think the only role they serve is to try and trip you up in your answers. They asked me some questions several times, I can only assume to see if my answer was consistent.
After the questions, they put your bags through an X-ray machine and used a chemical sensitive cloth which detects explosive residue on my clothes and bags. After the bags went through the X-ray (and they made me open up my laptop when it was put through the machine), I went to another station where they opened up my bags and inspected everything by hand, and used the residue cloth on everything inside. They also asked me more questions.
After all that I finally got to go to the ticket counter….where they asked me more questions. Once my bag was checked, I went through more security where all my carry on luggage was again inspected and again put through an X-ray machine. This time they inspected every piece of electronics by hand and also did the chemical residue on everything.
I should note a few things about going through security at Ben-Gurion Airport. First, all the security personnel were under the age of 30. I got the impression that working security was either an option for doing your tour in the armed forces, or they get people who have just served. Second, no one acted like a jerk or tried to “respect their authora-tay”, which I’ve noticed is common theme when going through airports in the US. You get people who try to act like a big deal because their TSA job is the only time in their life they will ever have any sort of authority over people. Third, they have a lot of X-ray machines and plenty of space to perform their security checks. You have lines, but it isn’t nearly as bad as what you will see in US airports like in Vegas.
By the time you get through everything, you get the impression that they implement real security, not the security theater you see in the US.
Athens, Greece
I landed in Athens at about 9:30am and didn’t have to board my flight until 5pm. Up until a day earlier, I had no plans to visit Greece. The cheapest ticket I could find had this long layover in Athens, so I figured I’d make the most of it. I had one and only one goal: get to see the Acropolis. I didn’t want to chance trying to cram too much into my time in Athens. Unexpected stuff can happen and I didn’t want to risk missing my flight.
Getting into Athens was very straight forward. A single express bus took me from the airport to the center of downtown. The route to the Acropolis was an easy walk from where I was left off. If I had more time in Greece I’d certainly see more things, but honestly, I’m not sure if I’d spend more time at the Acropolis. You climb up the hill (and it isn’t a very big hill), you walk around the buildings up there, and you go back down. You can’t go inside any of the structures, which I suppose is a good thing. The view of Athens from the top of the hill is pretty impressive.
I had a nice lunch at a Greek restaurant of grilled lamb and some grape leaves stuffed with rice. I got back to the airport with plenty of time to spare and my flight to Rome took off at 5:30pm.
Rome, Italy
The only hitch in the whole day was at the airport in Rome. I some how ended up at the Terminal A baggage claim and my bag was in the the Terminal B claim. All the doors were one way only, so I had to beg and plead to get access into the baggage claim area to get my bag. The train into the Rome city center was simple enough, except most of the ticket windows were closed because it was Sunday evening. I met a couple who were visiting Europe from Vietnam, and were surprised that I’ve actually been to Vietnam.
The Termini station in Rome has many hotels around it so I picked one that looked nice and got a room for the night. It wasn’t designed to be a long term solution, but it was dark and I needed something. I dumped my bags and went out to find something to eat. I had some prosciutto and more grilled lamb.
I didn’t do much the next day. I slept for much of the day because I was still tired from the previous day of traveling. I walked around for a few hours to orientate myself to the city and walked around the coliseum area without my camera. The amount of history here is crazy. You can’t go a block without seeing some old church or historic building.
I’m in a small hotel now for the next week. Its cheap with free wifi and it is very nice and clean. I’ll be posting more from Rome as I figure out what I’m doing.