Greece: The Preparations So Far
As some of you will know, I’m off to Greece on Sunday evening to present a paper at a conference. The basic plan is to attend the conference and spend a couple of extra days on Samos until Saturday, then stay with my supervisor’s parents (he’s coming to the conference too) in Athens before heading back home a week on Tuesday.
Sounds simple? Well…
[rant]
Its been a bit of a struggle to get to this point (and we started the process of arranging the trip in February), with a whole load of obstacles to leap over - weren’t the Olympics last year?
First, the funding. One thing the university seems to love even more than research and education is paperwork. Last year, to attend a conference I had to fill in a few forms and the rest was taken care of. This year, I had to fill in twice as many forms, but also apply for funding. Fair enough, apart from I had to apply for funding from two places, each for 50% of the cost. If one of these was an external source, I could have understood. However, one of these was the Department and one was the School. Both internal university entities. Helpfully, the application forms implied that you could only apply to each source when you had secured 50% funding from somewhere else.
Eventually, with a lot of help (thanks to all who intervened), the funding got sorted out. Making sure the money actually reached the conference organisers was another matter. This led to a bit more drama, since they had to receive it by a certain date to ensure my paper would be accepted. Somehow (miracle?) the fees did actually get paid and my paper made it into the conference.
Next step: hotel accommodation. The conference is taking place at the Doryssa Bay resort on Samos, and the organisers have negotiated special room rates at the hotel. You’ve guessed it, they had to be booked by a certain date. There was more confusion when they wanted a credit card guarantee online. University policy dictates that they do not use credit cards over the internet, so we had to work out alternative means of payment. As far as I’m aware, the university have paid for my hotel room in advance. Let’s just wait until I turn up on Monday to find I’m sleeping on the beach.
More problems came about with Nick’s funding, hotel bookings and conference fees, but much of that was more of the same that I experienced. Finally though, we were sorted on two fronts, with just the travelling to arrange.
Sunday will be my first time flying, so the whole airport/aeroplane/flight booking thing is totally new to me. I’d assumed booking flights wouldn’t be much harder than booking a train ticket in advance. How wrong I was, especially as Nick and I are flying in and out of Athens on different days. Anyway, with a lot of help from Nick, we both found flights.
Next problem: My flight to Athens is on British Airways, but Nick’s was on Hellas Jet. Guess what happened? Yep, Hellas Jet fell over, so Nick had to find new flights.
End of the problems? Nope. A couple of weeks ago, Olympic Airlines cancelled our flight from Athens to Samos and shifted everybody onto the next one. My BA flight gets into Athens at 02:10 on Monday morning and our flight to Samos now leaves at 12:10 Monday lunchtime, resulting in a 10 hour overnight wait in Athens airport. I’m currently waiting to find out whether I’ll be allowed a room at the airport hotel rather than staying awake all night.
I think I’ve got everything sorted now, including changing some money into Euros. Not that that was easy either. I thought I’d get it in advance to save time and hassle, so I went to the bank. That was a mistake. Those wonderful people at Natwest proved once again why their slogan is “Natwest - another way”: Two staff members on the counter on a busy lunchtime, with the queue of customers extending onto the street. When I eventually got to the front, I found out they don’t actually hold money there (sorry, my mistake, I thought you were a bank) and they’d have to “order in” my foreign currency. Oh, but actually, they do have emergency packs of 100 Euros each. I’d wanted €250, but I settled for €300 to save having to go back. After a good ten minutes - in which just about every member of staff disappeared into the back of the bank - my Euros finally arrived. These emergency packs? A nice cardboard wallet containing some Euro notes in a Royal Bank of Scotland plastic bag. It was fairly obvious all those staff had been searching for a plastic bag to stuff my money in. Oh, that and printing a colourful sticky label for the outside. So why couldn’t they just have given me the €250? Ah, I see: Natwest - another way.
Something tells me, if I actually make it to Greece, the hotel hasn’t been burnt down and I’ve got the conference dates right, it’ll be a miracle.
[/rant]
If it wasn’t for the novelty of my first time abroad (apart from a couple of school trips to France and Belgium, but sitting on a coach and being escorted around isn’t exactly what I call going abroad properly) and my first flight, I think I’d be rather annoyed. As it stands - believe it or not - I’m looking forward to a great adventure!
