The Rhode to nowhere

Ariana, Zeev, the twins and I made our way to the airport the day after Passover began for our escape to the island of Rhodes in Greece. After clearing major security to leave the country, we waited patiently at the airport for our flight that ended up being delayed by three hours with no explanation or apologies. We were not expecting the delays and were stuck eating airport food. I ate a kosher for Passover burger from McDonalds that was disgusting and I suspect the meat was made the day before and reheated. As I previously explained the general outline of Shabbat, I must mention that the eve of as well as the day of the holiday are governed by similar rules. So no fries with my meal either!

When we did finally board the plane, we realized the stupid woman at check-in (and I mean stupid) had seated us accordingly to last name. One person seated in row three, one in row 21 and one in row 29 despite the fact she knew we were all traveling together. She also harassed me by going on and on about whether I needed a visa to get into Greece. I not so politely told her this was not my first trip and that Canadians did not require a visa. Everyone seemed to think it was unusual that I was Canadian and traveling to Rhodes for a vacation. I understood soon enough after arriving in our hotel!

Once in Rhodes, we endured the regular customs routine, grabbed our bags, signed into our package and took a seat on the bus to our hotel. We arrived at the Ocean Blue three hours later than expected and while we waited to check-in two young Israeli’s gave us the low down on the disgusting food, the lack of hot water and towels and how they had waited eight hours for their flight the day before and were now paying 150 euros to leave that night! Great way to start the trip! We optimistically threw our stuff in the room and headed to the main dining room to the all inclusive buffet included in our package.

We were hoping for the best and sadly we were left with much to be desired. I have to say from traveling the globe through 27 countries, a cruise and numerous local buffets that this was by far the worst food I have ever been forced to endure. The vegetables that were there were mostly caked in mayonnaise and topped with chunks of ham and the other vegetables were definitely not fresh! I won’t get into specifics on the hot food (if you can call it that)! Zeev and the boys thought the food was fine and grabbed whatever looked appealing. I ate what I could and tried not to heave. We all finished off the night with some TV and much needed relaxing.