My Trip to Greece - Part 1

What's the story?

I ended up having to take a trip to Greece for work. Weeks before, the subject was brought up. Our boss mentioned in our weekly team meeting,

"I'm going to need someone with a valid passport who can travel".

My ears went up. My fiance, who is the other person that runs this page lives in the Philippines, and as the company I work for has a lot of sites in the Philippines, I thought this was my chance to go out there. Well, he mentioned that the place we have to go to is Greece. My ears "went down" and I stayed quiet. In that time, someone else had volunteered to go out there. That was the end of that, or so I thought.

A couple of weeks later, while on a machine deployment in Arizona, my boss called me and asked me if I was willing to go to Greece. I told him I can go. The reason why he wanted me to go is because I was the only one who didn't have any personal obligations that would stop me from going, such as having to go to school or take care of kids. I simply said,

"Sure, I'll go."

At the time, I felt neutral about the situation. Greece was never a place that I had aspired to go to, nor did I know anyone out there. Still my coworkers, including ones from other departments had mentioned that they were jealous and have been wanting to see Greece for a very long time. Ultimately, there was one thing that could stop me from going. I still needed to get a COVID test.

Throughout my life, I have always missed the big events. Usually, something would keep me back, such as finances, parents, or my own anxiety. Back when I was in school, they would have annual Europe Trips, and I actually wanted to go. The problem was with finances though. I started to feel like something was going to keep me from going, and I didn’t want that to happen. A few days before it was time for me to go, I went to take my COVID test. Waiting for the results didn't take too long. In that time, I started to gather up my stuff for my backpack and roll away. By the end of the day, I was able to get my negative test result back and finished getting ready.

It Begins

My journey began at the San Antonio International Airport. To save money on parking since I'd be gone for a long time, I got an Uber ride to the airport. Normally, I just take my car. After I got checked in, I grabbed something to eat. What I ended up getting was bean taco from Rosario’s, which was a place in the airport. It wasn't too bad though it was a bit overpriced as airport food always is. After waiting for about an hour, it was time to board the plane. I would be on my way to Washington Dulles airport. I thought to myself,

“Hey, I’m going to be in Washington DC.”

I would later come to find that this was not 100 percent accurate.

Once we boarded the plane, we had a bit of delay as the plane had been rained on the night before, and the temperature had now gone below freezing. The result was a plane with a thick sheet of ice on it, which was very dangerous. The trucks came to hose down the plane with their de-icing solution. We started to push back from the gate.

Just was we were lined up and ready to start our engines, the captain announced that we needed another de-icing as there was still a good amount of ice buildup one the plane. We had to wait for about an hour before the trucks came back. By that point, the plane go hosed down a second time. We were about to leave, but then the captain announced that they were getting erroneous readings from the pitot tubes, which are these spiky devices on the front of the plane, which measure airspeed. These need to work otherwise a plane can stall and fall out of the sky because you don't know how fast you're going. It was another hour before the trucks came back to de-ice the plane. People were starting to get mad. Me, I wasn't bothered by this as it's better that the crew take their time with the airplane to make sure it's safe to fly. Eventually, the trucks came back to do their thing one last time, then they took off. Not long after, the planes engines came to live, and we took off for our first stop. See y'all when we land!

-Carlos