My First Foreign Trip

         I was fortunate enough to get an opportunity to do a summer internship in Heraklion, Greece for a period of two months and I thought my experience would be a great idea for my next article. Let me get straight to the trip and cover each leg of the journey one-by-one. 

The cotton candy clouds

         The first flight was at 4 am in the morning from Kochi to Bahrain. It was my second flight experience and my first international flight. The whole journey involved a triple connection flight with 8h layover at Bahrain, followed by a 4h flight to Athens and then half an hour flight to Heraklion which is the capital of the island Crete, located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. initially, I was very apprehensive of my trip since I had no idea of immigration, customs, etc. and though my father had explained to me about it, he gave me all the necessary warnings which as a first-timer freaked me out.

Somewhere between Bahrain- Kochi

While I was collecting my boarding passes, the woman at the counter enquired if I was traveling alone. To my surprise, on saying yes, she called up a person just to lift and place my luggage on to the conveyer belt. Although it was a sweet gesture, I don’t know if I should have gotten offended. After that, I went in for the security check, where I had to put all my electronics stuff onto a tray along with my watch and belt (Terribly bad that they did not give women a separate area given that they had to remove their belts). After collecting my stuff, I found a nice spot and settled in since I had more than an hour to board. Without anything much to do, I did what any other teenager traveling would do, announce it on social media. A few clicks, a few edits later, I was satisfied with the picture I had taken and up it went on Instagram and Whatsapp along with the mandatory status update on Facebook. The boarding went smooth and after destroying my four-hour flight with a two-hour-long Devdas (Don’t ask me why it was the only suggestion I liked to watch in the wee hours of the morning) and some good food (Decent menu which consisted of upma, sambhar, fruit cake, khuboos, butter, and coffee), I slept like a log only to be woken up by sun hitting my eyes. The view that beheld my eyes were just surreal.

The beautiful sunrise

The golden rays of the sun hitting the cloud producing various shades of yellow were something out of dreamland. Eventually, the sun rose up to give way to white cotton clouds. As we neared Bahrain, it got cloudy and the view below consisted of only water.  

The Persian Gulf on the right

I reached at 6.30 am Bahrain time sharp. After finishing off my security checks and doing a few calls, I realized too late that the free Wi-Fi was only for 45 mins and I had around 7h more to spend K. I decided to eat something first, I bought a salad. Now, being a vegetarian, I was afraid I might end up buying some meat which was the sole reason for me to buy that salad. It was a really colorful salad and I finished off the carrots and noodles before I mixed it and to my horror, I found stuff that is a nightmare to any vegetarian if found on the plate (Chicken, of course!). With a heavy heart, I threw it away and bought myself a small apple tart and soda while consoling myself I will get good food on the flight.

The salad that turned into my nightmare

         After roaming, window-shopping, and reading for the rest of the time, I boarded my next flight to Athens. I was damn hungry and my joy knew no bounds when I saw the air hostess serving food. Imagine my condition, when the air hostess informed me that vegetarian food was served only in the Indian sector and I had only an option to choose from chicken or beef. Fortunately, the air hostess gave me all the compliments, which included a pistachio soufflé, bun, butter, and some cold pulses salad. She was sweet enough to provide me with a second helping of the compliments since I could not eat the main course. 

The "compliments only" food I got

Nevertheless, the whole flight, I nearly broke down assuming that I was going to live in a place where the term vegetarian does not even exist. However, for a large part of the flight, the view was mainly desert (The Arabian Desert) with some picturesque places where the desert met the sea. By the time we were near Athens, the view changed drastically to beautiful green islands situated in the middle of the sea which was dotted with a large number of cruise ships. 

 

Somewhere near Tabuk, Saudi Arabia.
 You can check out the place on Google Earth, you can find those circular objects

The Gulf of Aqaba

The end of the Gulf of Aqaba

Gulf of Aqaba, a close-up.
The Aqaba town is visible

Approaching Athens, late evening from Bahrain, hence the blur.
A white trail of a cruise ship is visible

Finally, I reached Athens and it was like the biggest airport I have seen. The airport had like three Starbucks shops within it. It was split into three sections: A wing (I assume to non-European countries), B wing (European countries) and the third central area into where you take the entry from outside. After spending a lot of time looking around, I realized I had only 20 mins to eat something (and boy! Wasn’t I ravenous) and board. Imagine to my delight, when I found there were so many vegetarian options. And the idiot in me wasted half of my time deciding on what to eat.  I finally settled on a mushroom pizza and it was the most delicious pizza in my life (obviously, because I was hungry!!!). I quickly gulped it down and went on to board for the final leg of my journey. 

The pizza that saved my day

        The next flight to Heraklion was at around 20:00hrs. Of the six plane flights (3 to and 3 fro), this short 35-minute flight was the most memorable. I was not fortunate enough to get a window seat and by the time the flight took off, it was dark and raining and the pilot announced that they expected turbulence. And one turbulence it was!!! The whole journey, the air hostess had to sit in their seats and the seatbelt sign was on throughout. The plane dipped and shook and me, the great me, who could not sleep much on the two smooth earlier flights, half slept through this one the whole time. Well, I finally reached Heraklion in one piece and it was dark. I collected my luggage and my Ph.D. scholar was there to pick me up.

Approaching Athens, early morning from Heraklion

Somewhere in between Heraklion-Athens. A cruise ship is visible 

How beautiful that place was is a completely different article. Maybe if I get time, I will write about it and post it soon enough. I took all the pictures posted above through my not-so-great camera so I really apologize for the quality. And note that I have included some pictures which were taken on my return journey (Since those were better :P). Until then, peeps!!! See you soon.  

The island of Crete, off to Athens early morning. The Mediterranean is visible