My Greek Olympics: Getting started on the work

Kick off meeting with Siemens and sub-contractors:

SAIC decided to have a "kick off" meeting at Siemens with all the subcontractors. This was to be the official start of the project and a get together to meet everyone. As an omen of things to come, it rained very hard that day and the traffic was a mess. Kind of like someone telling us not to bother. So we all made it to Siemens very early in the morning for the start of the meeting. No one and I mean NO ONE in Greece would schedule a meeting so early. Ten o'clock is the average start time but they wanted to start at 8. So we had to wait for everyone else to show, even though we had the longest and most difficult drive, we were on time, no one else was.

Down the street in Plaka

So we waited and finally people showed, since it was raining, everyone was wet and not in the best mood. The meeting was a standard glad to be here talk and not much more. I did get to meet some of the contractors that I would work with for months to come, and they were nice people, mostly. The Altec  people were scum and David and Jay were already trying to get ride of them. The corporate dick's wanted to have a breakfast meeting at 6:30 am, no one in Greece would ever hold a meeting that early, it clearly showed how out of touch they were with the culture. A pointless meeting and a total waste of time, what a great way to start the project off on.

The Central Hotel:

After a few weeks at the Athos, we had to re-schedule our stay because of previous reservations. I had to move out and stay at another hotel down the street for a few days since the Athos was booked by a group. The place was a pit, the ceiling was only 7 feet and the shower area was less than six. I had to bend over to shower since the ceiling was so low, plus the hose didn't reach far enough. I then had to move back to the Athos and juggle rooms, it was a pain.

A hotel around the corner was in the process of being re-modeled and would open soon, I asked when they would open and they said they were but the elevator didn't work and the kitchen wasn't finished but I decided to move there. They had lots of space since they didn't have any reservations yet. So I moved to the Central hotel and was the first guest. It was so new the place smelled like paint and new carpet but it was large and I had a good room looking out to the Acropolis. It was also the same price as the Athos, but much larger. Soon most of the others moved over, I would stay there until I got my apartment and then a time after the Olympics.