Somewhere over the Atlantic and Then Back Home 6/10/09

Funny thing happened at the airport this morning. As we were checking into our flight an employee came to us and asked us why we came to Athens and where we stayed. We told them we were traveling tourists, visiting the city and other Christians, and that we stayed with some Christians we got in contact with here. When the guy asked us how long we knew them for, we were like, "uh...four days?" When we tried to explain how we got connected with the Reddys, he waved his hand to stop us from speaking, and put stickers on our passports. Uh oh...

After we checked in, we headed over to our gate but the employee looked at our passports and told us to step aside. Soon, they were going through everything in our bags and unfolding our clothes. David and I even got separated and got patted down in separate closed off rooms. I was pretty calm because we didn't have anything incriminating. I'm just glad they stopped short of a body cavity search. Sheesh.

I didn't realize what was going on at the time, but I just realized that the Greek Orthodox church is pretty ubiquitous here, and they probably don't like other Christian groups affecting their dominance. We had no intention of coming as missionaries or anything, but it probably seemed suspicious to them that two Asian guys came to Athens to meet with other Christians. Lesson learned - I'll know how to get through customs more efficiently next time.

We're somewhere over the Atlantic right now, about 5 hours into our 10 hour+ flight. I'm trying not to sleep so that I can adjust to Pacific time when I get back home. Basically, every time the flight attendant walks by I order a hot coffee. I'm glad I saved my headphones from the first flight because the Pink Panther 2 was pretty hilarious (surprisingly!). Paul Blart, not so much.

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I'm back home now. We ate Chinese fast food during our layover in New York, and then Chris and Frank picked us up from SFO. Then, my mom got me from Berkeley. It's about 1 AM and I'm getting packed to go down to Socal for Rya's, Sean's, and Brandon's graduations. Crazy, huh?

What's crazier is that I'm going to go to the gym in a little bit - I haven't been for over two weeks now and I've convinced myself that I'll have trouble sleeping if I don't go. I should be jetlagged because of the 14 hour time difference, but whatever.

I miss Europe. Sigh...it's only an ocean away.