Greece Visit Part 1

There was no plan to travel during this year’s summer holidays but as the holidays approached, kids started persuading me to go for one! And being “loving dad” I obliged! Most tourist places were booked and prices for remaining places were sky-rocketing. Greece seemed an obvious choice with sensible prices. It had been on my list since long. Economic crisis & uncertain situation would surely mean less tourists and hence low prices. This is the time I thought so I booked the flights & an apartment.

I have been to Greece, known as Unaan in Urdu, many time in past; first time in 1992 and last time only 12 years ago.  For me Greece equals History, Sea, Ships, islands, Beaches, Olives, Feta cheese, lovely food, beautiful friendly people & two of my uncles who migrated there since I was a child.

Late as Ever

Soon we were packing our bags. Our flight was 7.25 pm so I was confident that no way will we be late but kids beat me on this! Despite working the whole day on packing etc, it was nearly 5.45 pm and we had not left home. Eventually we sat in the car & made our way to airport. And then came the rain; traffic grew on motorway bringing speed to almost crawling. It was only an hour left when we reached airport. We rushed to check-in area. I started check-in on a self-service machine; typed-in all the details, scanned all the passports which took me nearly  5 mins, and at the last step machine declared “check-in not possible, contact staff”. Time was too short by now. If we had not cleared the security 35 mins prior to flight time, we will not be allowed to take flight. I looked around panicking; the queues at check-in counters were miles long; it was the start of summer holidays. One staff member somehow realised and asked me to come over to him (thank you so much whoever you are!). He quickly checked us in and we were on our way to security.

Extra Long Queues

Oh no, the queues at security were even longer than check-ins. Again, God helped us; a lady at security looked at our boarding passes. Realising we haven’t got much time she bypassed us through a special lane. Few minutes later we were running towards the gate to board the flight. The way our flight was arranged that we had a night’s stay at Schiphol airport Amsterdam in CitizenM Hotel. The hotel is just outside airport building so we walked to it leisurely.

It turned out to be such a lovely & modern hotel! All high tech – there were no buttons. Instead all lightening, air conditioning, TV, window curtains etc were controlled by an iPad Tablet. Kids were over the moon; they happily spent their night playing the gadgets. Only weird thing was the nearly “See-through toilet and shower” (see photo).

And next morning we were again queuing up at airport, this time for Athens!

Ancient Greece

So, what is Greece and who are Greeks? Greeks are one of the oldest & most influential civilisations among Chinese, Egyptians and Romans (click on names to read my travel-logs to these places). Alexander the Great, Aristotle, Arts, Architecture, Democracy, Olympics, Philosophy, Science; there is a long list that humanity owe to Greeks. Let me take you back in history. There is evidence that humans lived here around 7000 years BC. The Greeks as a nation rose to fame around 2700 BC. There are a number of ancient Greek personalities that left lasted impact on human civilisation.

Note: BC refers to “Before Christ (Jesus AS). Jesus (Eesa AS) was present around 2000 years ago from now. So 300BC would mean approximately 2300 years ago from now (2015).

1. Alexander the Great (356 BC, also known as Sikander-e-Azam). No, he was not a Muslim as some believe. He was born in Macedonia but somehow Greeks consider him one of them. Alexander conquered a vast amount of land of about 2 Million Square Miles in short time covering from Middle Europe, Egypt to Punjab. People of Kailash (Kafiristan) are considered to be descendants of Greek soldiers of Alexander’s army. Greek government has established some schools & charity organisations here which support this theory.
2. Archimedes (287 BC, known as Arsh-meedas): A great mathematician, inventor & philosopher, he is credited to invent lever, pulley, catapult and famous “Archimedes Principle” after which he ran naked shouting ‘Eureka’ (Story to follow).
3. Socrates (470BC, known as Suqraat): One of the most known philosophers of the history. Some of the saying attributed to him are:

• The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing
• I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think
• Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us

4. Plato (427BC, known as Aflatoon): A great Philosopher & thinker, he was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle.

5. Aristotle (384BC, known as Arastu): Great Philosopher & Scientist. He was the teacher of Alexander.

The list goes on but I would stop here and tell the story of ‘Eureka’ & Naked Archimedes:

To be continued… Read Part 2 Here