Hellenic Abroag - Part 1: The Queen is Dead, Long Liver the King
The Abroag. Is. Back.
For you OG FatAsses, (still trying to brand my fanbase), aka those of you who have been reading my stuff since college, you’ll certainly remember the Abroag.
For the newer FatFucks, (yeah that one isn’t going to work), boy are you in for a treat. The Abroag was conceived (shoutout sex) the first semester of my junior year way back in 2016. I studied abroad in Cork, Ireland (I’ve been abroad, I’m more cultured/better than you). While there, my friend and somehow still current roommate Slick (his legal name) told me I should write a blog about my travels and international exploits.
I was hesitant, as I hadn’t written in a while and I was worried the blog would be admissible evidence in my trial once I inevitably Amanda Knox’d myself. But after some convincing from Slick and our mutual friend Leah L, I went for it.
I named the blog the “Abroag” (Abroad blog) because I’m less creative than I think I am, and posted 6 weekly installments over my time in Ireland and around Europe. You can still read those original posts today, which leads me to believe I’ve been unknowingly paying Wordpress for the domain this whole time. Whatever, gotta spend money to… nope that’s it. Just gotta spend money.
Anyways, I haven’t had much occasion to dust off the Abroag since then because I:
Don’t go abroad very often
Didn’t have anywhere to post it
Until now. This time last week, I returned from a 10-day family trip to my ancestral homeland Greece. The food was incredible, the sights were amazing, and most of the women were 3-4 points out of my league. Truly perfection.
But in the true spirit of the Abroag, I will only devote a small portion of my time to praising the natural beauty and easy-going way of life in Europe, and instead spend the majority of the blog mocking minor cultural differences like an asshole American.
This was a 10-day journey, and these posts used to run over 8,000 words for a 2-day trip, so I’m going to break this up into a few different installments. Case in point, this first blog won’t even include Greece. It’s about the shitshow that is trying to get an easily agitated family of 5 from Boston to Greece, and our lengthy layover in London. Trust me, it’s slightly more interesting than it sounds. Let’s go:
Part 1: The Queen is Dead, Long Liver the King
See what I did there? I made live into Liver, like the name of this blog. God I’m good.
Our journey starts as many in the Chunias family do, with my parents funding a trip to a nice place because none of their kids can afford it.
This time around, the destination was Greece. Anyone who has looked at my olive-skinned face, rampant shoulder hair, and elevated cholesterol levels knows that I am very Greek. Not as Greek as my father with his sun-dried olive skin, shag carpet of chest hair, and equally elevated cholesterol, but Greek enough.
Two islands were on the itinerary for this trip: Santorini and Mykonos. But before we could get to either, we had to endure a 7 hour flight to London, 3-hour layover at Heathrow, and subsequent 3-hour flight to Greece. Despite the lengthy trip, I was excited! I hadn’t been to Europe in nearly 4 years, which is a sentence that made me finally understand the definition of privilege.
That excitement was quelled quickly though when I remembered the reality of traveling with the Chunias family. My brother Ryan and I are easy enough. We each bring the same duffel bags we’ve had since we were 12 - no fuss.
My parents, Kath and Steve, are on opposite ends of the packing spectrum. My dad likes to pack light, aka he throws like 2 dress shirts into a suitcase then gets bored and starts fiddling around with a spreadsheet. So my mom is left to pick up the slack and ensure that he actually has all the crap he needs for a 10-day trip to a foreign country, like a toothbrush and his wallet.
Now Kath is a bit of a heavy packer. She’s an elegant woman of immense sophistication and class so she has some nice shit. Unfortunately, she’s not great at deciding which shit is worth bringing, so we end up with multiple heavy bags of shit. This is a trait she sadly passed onto her equally sophisticated and stylish daughter Katelyn, my sister.
We arrived at Logan Airport, recently voted “most apathetic travel hub” in the country, to begin our quest. Well… Ryan and I arrived. Kath and Steve showed up slightly after the time that they forcefully requested of us. Katelyn meanwhile, in a common and annoying display of power, rolled in like 20 minutes late touting a bag containing what could only have been her famous collection of water-logged rocks.
(I’ll accelerate the pace a bit).
We got on our British Airways flight, which I quickly discovered is not designed for anyone taller than 5’10.
Equally unfortunate was my mother’s seating arrangement. Kath is a wonderful mother, and is, like any good mother, exceedingly accommodating of her children’s needs before her own. Thus, she eagerly volunteered to sit in the middle seat on the flight to London. Unfortunately for her, that means she got stuck in a Peanut Butter & Belly Sandwich™.
DEFINITION: Peanut Butter & Belly Sandwich (noun)
A phenomenon that occurs when a skinny person is sat between two units (see also: big boys) in a confined space
Yeah that was tough for ol’ Kath, but hey, she married him and gave birth to me so it’s kind of on her.
Once settled, my Dad began his typical pre-flight practice of reading the lyrics to songs like it’s a book. I caught the tail end of it here, but he was doing this for like 5 full minutes:
Now remember, this flight occurred like a week after the Queen traded the Palace Gates for the Pearly Gates. So before we could take off, British Airways would have been remised to not show a 3-minute mixtape of the Queen’s highlights.
The pilot also kept mentioning how they were honored to fly her on numerous occasions and how broken up he was about this terrible loss. Relax dude. Her ghost isn’t going to knight you. Oh and one of the flight attendants had a black armband, which I joked meant he was the captain of the flight because soccer captains do the same thing. Turns out he was mourning the queen. That joke, unlike the plane, did not land.
Other miscellaneous notes from the flight:
To access the plane’s wifi you had to give your seat number to prove you were, in fact, a passenger. Just in case a nearby albatross tried to jack the signal without purchasing a ticket.
I watched the original Top Gun for the first time somehow, which was confusing because I couldn’t tell if my headphones were working since the plane noises in the movie were identical to that of the plane I was currently sitting on. Took me until “Highway to the Danger Zone” started playing before I could establish the distinction.
Actually, 30-second Top Gun movie review:
Liked it ok. They didn’t really bother with much of a plot. Lot of prolonged, close-up open mouth kissing that seemed unnecessary. That one lady fell in love with Tom Cruise in like 2 seconds after an entire scene of her insisting she doesn’t date pilots, which was weird. Goose’s real name is Anthony Edwards, which kept making me compelled to watch Anthony Edwards Timberwolves highlights. Spoiler: Tom Cruise chucks his dead friend’s dog tags into the ocean because he’s mentally gotten over his death. Ok dude, maybe give it to the guy’s wife or something? Your symbolic gesture of closure doesn’t negate the grief of others.
Final score: 6.8/10
Top Gun 2 score: 8.7/10. Fucking sick movie.
This flight took off at like 9PM EST, but instead of trying to get some sleep, I opted to power through and stay awake by playing Angry Birds. This would prove a foolish decision.
We finally landed at Heathrow and got the classic Euro airport treatment of being driven by bus to the relevant part of the airport, which was seemingly a mile or so away. One would think they could just land there to begin with, but what do I know.
Once in the actual airport, we had to go through security again because who knows what illicit items you could pick up while flying over just the ocean for 6 hours. My bag was pulled because I forgot to take my laptop out (hand up, that’s on me).
The security woman took her job more seriously than anyone has ever taken anything and demanded I unzip the duffel, as if I had a dye pack waiting to go off in there. She then dusted my laptop for like 10 minutes and seemed disappointed to find no bomb-making residue on there.
Next she examined my toiletries bag (literally just a giant ziplock), and asked where I was keeping my liquids. I responded I don’t have any. She then asked again where my liquids were, making me question if I was missing some crucial step in my daily hygiene by not using liquids. I responded again that I have none. Matter of factly, she held up a bottle labeled “Hair Styling Powder” and said, “this is a liquid.” At this point it became clear that she either didn’t know the definition of “liquid” or of “powder.” Either way, I was allowed to leave.
Katelyn then got her bag pulled, likely because they were amazed she could fit all that shit in there. The same woman then gave her a 10-minute run around on HER liquids, which she did have, but were all in the right quantities, before the head security guy intervened to move things along. Just know, if you ever think you can sneak liquids into Heathrow Airport, buddy you got another thing coming.
From there, we hung around that luxury mall of an airport that sell items ranging from giant Toblerones to $10,000 Cartier watches. Really something for everyone at Heathrow.
Finally, we boarded our second flight, and were headed to Santorini.
As you can see, 20 hours of sleep deprivation really started to take its toll on me by this point.
Btw, that champagne Kath is drinking at 9 AM EST was for another couple that was celebrating their anniversary. Think my mom got a glass by telling them she was married and therefore also had an anniversary at some point. Gotta respect the move.
That’s it for Part 1! Stay tuned for Part 2 where things get hairy… (Literally hairy — it’s Greece).
