They escorted her off the bus

Happy Fable Friday everyone! Now I know I've been MIA for a while but that's because Mom and I have been doing big things. Just a little recap before I get into the main reason for my post. We became proud affiliates to YTC (Your Travel Center) MVT (Montecito Village Travel) and the world-renowned Virtuoso Travel. Keep an eye out for our video talking about this. We also have had some exciting activities going on in our lives, such as my trip to Greece (read below) and Mom went on her first hot air balloon ride! (I will be posting a video of that on our YouTube channel as well.) So we have been busy bees.

Now, with all of that aside, we are going to talk about the topic you came here for, my trip to Greece. Today we are only going to talk about the extremely long trek to get to the beautiful country but let me tell you, it was quite the adventure in and of itself.

Firstly, I want to give myself a bit of kudos here, I did do a great job packing on this trip and I absolutely loved the little bar of detergent I brought. During the trip, I wore 95% of my clothes and was able to wash them in the sink and rewear them. The drying process took a while but besides that, I was happy to have clean clothes and a lot of space left in my suitcase. I also didn't forget to bring anything on the trip this time so that was a great start to my trip.

ow, this is where my adventure really begins. Mom and I got to Greyhound Bus Station about 45 minutes before my bus was supposed to leave. We did this so I could get all checked in and I was able to get in line because the bus did everything by first come first serve. Okay, so this may sound a little rude but there really are some strange people at bus stations and it smelled slightly like a garbage can. So I am standing in line waiting to be let on the bus. I keep looking at the time and the minutes are ticking away, ticking away so much that it was well past the time we were supposed to board. Mom and I were freaking out. With drive time to LA bus station and then to LAX Airport we had budgeted just enough time. So being late was not a good thing. They finally let us board at 9:55 pm (40 minutes after original leave time.) So I say my goodbyes and go find a seat. They had sold out all the bus seats so there was very little space to sit, I found a spot and realized these next 7 hours were going to be long ones. That's when the first fight broke out, we hadn't even left yet and there were two older men yelling at each other and one ran off the bus. We sat there shell-shocked waited to figure out what was going on when this family of four was trying to find seats that were kind of close to each other. But none of the people in the open spots would move to let them sit together (it was ridiculous) turns out one of the ladies was trying to "sell her 2nd seat for a movie" she would only let a person sit by her if they had a movie playing device. Well, this started another fight and the bus driver had to come over. He realized the lady was drunk and the whole bus team had to escort her and her luggage off the bus. After all of this, the bus is now over an hour late and everyone is very antsy to get going. I did take the drunk ladies seat though so I had a seat all to myself, it was very nice.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful and luckily for me, I had Mr. Albert there waiting for me in his black sedan to whisk me off to the airport. Even with being late it was so early in the morning that the TSA at the airport wasn't super crazy yet so I got through pretty quick and found my gate.

The flight from LAX to Toronto was a decent one they had screens to watch movies and the seats were comfortable enough. I did end up sleeping on most of the flight. I am very sorry to my seat mates if I snored on the flight, I did just have a very long night.

Toronto Canada has an interesting airport. They have these kiosk terminals that you have to use to get your transfer to the next gate and the airport is quite large. I definitely got lost finding my gate. But part of that was because they didn't have a normal sitting area next to my gate they had a lounge. Which actually was super cool, they had Ipads everywhere that from your spot you could get food delivered and could check your flight information.

Boarding was smooth. I quickly realized this flight was not going to be as comfy as the last. There were no screens to watch movies, you needed the app (I could not download the app due to international cellphone charges and no WIFI.) I had prepared or a situation like this though and had downloaded movies from Netflix so I was okay. On the positive side, I did have my row to myself so I could stretch out for the nine-hour flight.

 finally land in the country of my dreams. I am exhausted but I have things to do and places to be so I go to get my bag and find the money exchange. I was prepared for the huge difference but just so you have an idea, I gave them $600 American dollars and got $420 Euros back. I have money though and that is all that matters. I go to find the bus station to get to my hotel in Piraeus Port. My bus ticket was 6 Euro, I climb on my bus and wait for my time to get off. Except I didn't know where I needed to get off and the Port has six stops. I rode the bus all the way to the end of the line. The bus stops at this beautiful marina. Although it was beautiful, here I sit no idea where I am, no phone, and there's no one around me. So, I am sitting at this bus stop with no clue what I'm going to do when this bus pulls up and this little old man jumps out and says "Little girl, are you lost?"  I explained my situation and showed him where I needed to go. He told me when I needed to get off, walked me over to the information area and explained my situation to the information guide. The information guide was a savor too, he explained I needed to grab a taxi to get to my hotel. He flagged him down and told the taxi he could only charge me 7 Euro. The taxi man got me to my hotel safe and sound and on the way had showed me where I needed to walk to in the morning to get to my ferry.  I am forever grateful to these three men who saved the lost little American.

I loved this hotel, I actually think it was my favorite of the three. The room was small but very classy and the balcony was AMAZING. The staff all were very helpful and friendly. Shout out to the young lady that let me check in two hours early and helped me get my ferry tickets for the next day.

Those 36 hours were such an adventure! But I would not change any of them. Below I am including the vlog I recorded for those of you who do not want to read this whole post. Also, tune in next week for the next part of my trip, it will have a video has well. Thank you all! Have a beautiful week and I'll talk to ya'll later!