Love at Airports
Views from the Rooftop of Love
Rapid Tests Up the Butt
Love at Airports
There is a magnanimous scene in the beginning of the movie “Love Actually” that highlights how love is all around us, especially at airports. If you pause and look around as you are standing at departures or arrivals, you will not just see tired travelers talking tersely about TSA or turbulence. All alliteration aside.. you will see love. It will warm your heartsicles. Airports could really be called loveports, airloveports, loveydoveyports…love is in the air ya know?
It was only a few weeks ago that Kait and I started dating and then of course I invited her to go to Greece with me (or as she sometimes jokes I said “hey, do you want to go to Greece together?” the day we met right as she was peeing in front of me. More about that pee-tastic story can be found on our About US-triches page.
As a teacher, I had a long summer break and so I had already been relaxing in Greece a week before Kait got there. I was trying to become fluent in Greek and get my Grecian tan on before she arrived. The night before Kait was going to take flight she messaged me that all her flights were cancelled. I was like “Nooooooooooooo this can’t be happening!!” It just seemed so bizarre as it wasn’t related to a new Covid update or a world event that would cancel a flight. It must be a mistake, I thought. I was ready to head to the Athens airport to see how I could change her flight back, but then Kait texted me that she’s got this and not to worry. Kait soon later sent me a video of her laughing about how Air France was trying to stop her dating life being magical by trying to cancel her. I felt myself in awe of how Kait was handling this stressful situation. And then Kait called Air France and she got it reversed. Yay!!! A few minutes later, I went to a local shop to get two matching couple shirts screen printed with her now famous line on them “Umm ALL my flights were cancelled?”
And then there I was standing in the Athens airport at arrivals waiting for Kait’s beautiful self to fly into my arms out of the sky. I was holding a volleyball that I had decorated for her arrival that said on it in sharpie “Welcome to Greece Kait!” I looked around and found myself in good company. There was a hum of excitement amongst the crowd each time the arrivals door opened and passengers walked out to find their loved ones. The guy in front of me had a whole thing of balloons. I was hoping Kait would see me through all those balloons.
I ate a Reese’s so my breath would be chocolatey and then found a better spot to wait away from the balloons guy, so Kait would actually see me. As I was standing there, I was feeling BIG sparks in my heart of gratitude and excitement for the adventure about to begin. This moment that I had been wishing for had finally come true. I had travelled up to that point to almost 50 countries but I had never travelled in love. In fact, it had always been my dream to travel in love. To learn love through travel. In that moment when I saw on the arrivals screen that Kait’s flight had landed I felt like the whole world was about to be renewed to me and all of its magic again a surprise.
And then the door opened, and out flew Kait. We hugged and kissed deeply and in that moment I felt like we were in the opening scene of the movie “Love Actually.”
“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate… General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends… If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling love, actually … is all around.”
-Love Actually
Views from the Rooftop of Love
When we got out of the airport, I had a feeling we may find ourselves on a few rooftops. The first rooftop we explored was our own hostel – The Circus Hostel in the heart of Athens. We loved this circus-themed hostel complete with a dress up room, very cute circus-themed rooms, and a nice café and bar in the hostel…and free breakfast! What I loved most about it is when you go up to the roof and you can see the whole city of Athens and the Acropolis off in the distance. The view of the Acropolis from the Circus Hostel rooftop was gorgeous, especially at sunset. Two ostriches in love on a rooftop hugging while watching the sunset – that was UStriches!
Now even though many go to Athens to see the incredible amount of ancient history there, Kait and I mostly enjoyed just meandering around and getting lost in the vibrant colorful city taking in views from rooftops. We walked through the Monastiraki Square which was bustling. Some guys handed us bracelets as a invitation to a breakdancing competition that night. We decided to watch the festivities from above at a rooftop bar overlooking the square. It is one of my favorite pictures of all time – Kait looking out over the square with a wine glass in hand, her eyes wide with wonder and joy.
Views from the rooftops give you a larger perspective and appreciation of your part in the dance of life. It gives you the feeling of flying even if you are a flightless bird like an ostrich or a flightless human. The rooftop of love is this perspective of the rush of the wind supporting your wings to go to new heights and sights together. When you are on a good rooftop you have a chance to see things from a “birds-eye” view. Kait is pretty much a bird and if she is a bird – I’m a bird. Before we got to Greece, Kait and I tried to find rooftop bars for many of our dates because we both loved the feeling up there. The air is clearer up there, you can get away with farts up there more often, and the view allows you to breathe more deeply between farts and gather some perspective on life and love. To be in love and to feel it fully is the greatest gift. It was on the rooftops of Athens that Kait and I really began learning love through travel.
Rapid Tests Up the Butt
This love fest inaugural trip began in Athens and then ended in Athens…but what happened in between is scintillating content for more blog posts coming soon in the next few weeks; Learning Love through travel in Santorini, Learning Love Through Travel in Mykonos, and Learning Love through Travel in Hydra! The first two by me and the second two by Kait/Pidge…only ordered this way because we chose the cities we wanted to write on and then organized our posts by the order we visited them.
On our last day of the trip, I remember feeling sad that it was ending but mostly grateful that it had happened. And I knew it was only the end of the beginning of our travel adventures so I felt so much joy. We got to the Athens airport over 4 hours early for our return flight – just as my parents would have liked just to be safe to make sure we didn’t miss our international flight. We first had to get our Covid rapid tests before going through security and soon found ourselves in a line that was no more than 15 people long. Great, we will be through this in no time – maybe “rapidly” I thought. Little did we know that the line would cause us to miss our flight. At some point about 2.64 hours into waiting and barely moving in line, Kait and I decided we needed to take action. I swooped over to the Air France desk and convinced the manager to move our flights to tomorrow free of charge and Kait checked in with her work and made it okay for us to stay one more day. Then I quickly booked an AirBnB right near the airport. There was a couple in front of us in line who persistently were making negative comments and complaining about this line and their trip and honestly their whole lives. They did have a point about the line but I remember when Kait turned to me and said “promise me we won’t ever be like that couple.” And I promised. I was learning how important it is to work together with your partner to make the best out of unexpected situations and at the right point try to find the humor in it all. I loved how Kait and I worked as a team to deal with missing our flight and honestly I felt lucky to have one more day with her in Greece – yay!
When we got into the last part of the Covid line, Kait and I started laughing really hard. It was just everything. And the couple in front of us looked so uncomfortable with us having fun despite this whole situation. I love that about us. We dealt with a challenging situation and had a good time doing it. Then we got into the Covid test room together and we joke now that Kait almost dropped her pants for the nurse to do an anal covid test even though it was a nasal swab test. I mean what actually happened was Kait just took off her mask completely and wiggled her nostrils and was like too ready and the nurse told her to put her mask back on and anyway you had to be there. We laughed our way out of there and then had a quick facetime call with Kait’s mom who doesn’t believe there should be any space between the phone and her face on calls. I guess she takes the idea of “Face-Time” seriously and I appreciate that.
We went out of the airport to our nearby AirBnB and then went out to a local beach to swim and relax in an area called Marco Polo. I was so grateful for one more day in Athens with Kait and to have a day at a local hot spot was a real treat. We hung out at a café for some delectable delights after swimming and I remember how we had some deep conversations over beers and treats each sharing about our dreams and what we want in this life. Time felt slow and cozy.
We then got a few beers from the local market and made our way back to our AirBnB to get ready for a short night. We had to get up at 4am to get to the airport so that we wouldn’t miss a second international flight! When we got back to the AirBnB we opened our balcony and found that it had an amazing view of the airport landing runway. We watched planes land during the sunset while playing a card game we love called Egyptian Rat Screw. I remember looking over at Kait and beaming in pure delight.
We made it to the airport the next morning at butt o’clock and had a smooth journey back. I remember pretty much making out with Kait the whole flight and at some point Kait was joking with the flight attendant that she didn’t know me, even though I was sitting in her lap, and that I needed to be moved to the back of the plane. Right before landing, we were watching Titanic together, (as lovers do of course), and Kait wrote on a napkin how she was falling for me. I wrote something back to her that I felt with total certainty more than anything else I know for sure in this world. “I love you Kait”.
Then of course we made out the whole landing.
