The general word on Athens is that it is not an attractive city, and that's correct as far as I can see. The neighborhood where we are staying is called the Plaka, which is supposedly the one neighborhood with character. I suppose. I mean it's not all modern and nondescript, but for the most part it's not charming. Lots of places to eat and buy souvenirs or jewelry, a decent number of pedestrian streets, proximity to the Acropolis and a nicely busy tourist/local mix of people on the streets. But character? Meh.
It was an excellent trip. We had a really great time, helped by 2 straight weeks of perfect weather, but I'm ready to be home. I'll be happy to not have to remember to put toilet paper in the trash bin. I mean, why not just go in the bin? It seems more efficient than having a toilet and a bin.
We had an unsatisfying day today, visiting the National Archaeological Museum, which has a pretty amazing array of objects
but not nearly enough of what we were interested in seeing. We then walked around a shopping area that was nice enough, but it was way too much walking (like 6 miles total) and nothing really that we wanted to buy, so we spent the last part of the day just resting in the hotel.
No matter how much interesting, fun stuff you do on a long trip, especially to a foreign country, it wears you out physically and mentally. As Ronnie said, too many decisions, one after another, all the time. Beyond the big decisions about itinerary and whatever attractions you may want to see, it's what street should we walk down, where, when and what should we eat (helpful that all the hotels have breakfast included) and what do we do when the best thing on TV seems to be CSI with Greek subtitles. They do seem to like their CSI a lot- it seems to be on once or twice every night. We simultaneously noted that it's one of those shows where people will be talking and wondering about something and as if by magic someone walks in with information on just that thing. Just like in real life!
I got to watch a baseball game on Sunday because I have a VPN that connects me through the US and that allows me to see things like Netflix or MLB.tv wherever I might care to see. That was a nice break. It used to be so hard to follow sports- have to buy the International Herald Tribune or after a while the NY Times at a newsstand. Now I wake up at 7 and it's midnight on the east coast and the west coast games aren't even over yet, but I can keep up easily.
So we kept ourselves awake until 11 watching, and I am not kidding, the snooker world championship. This is not our first go-round with snooker on TV, it seems to dominate the German version of Eurosport- we never saw any other sports anywhere, so snooker in German it was. You don't really need the announcers, and we eventually figured out the rules. They play best of 25 games, which is a lot even though the games only take around 20 minutes.
Snooker is played on a pool table but the rules are pretty different. There are nine red balls and 6 balls of different colors. The red balls are worth one point and the colored ones are worth two to six points and placed in different spots in the table, depending on the color. The basic rule is that when there are red balls on the table, you can only sink a colored ball immediately after sinking a red one. At that point, someone with white gloves takes the colored ball out of the pocket and puts it back in its original spot. This can lead to things like a guy sinking a red ball and then the pink ball 4 times in a row. After all the red balls are sunk, you sink the colored ones in a specified order and whoever has the most points wins. I can't say it's the most entertaining thing I've ever watched, but Who Wants to be a Millionaire in Greek is even less so.
We were both awake this morning when the alarm went off, got dressed and ready to go and taxied to the airport. The Athens airport is pretty typical- like a shopping mall you're forced to walk through to get where you're going. I'm not sure if there's some kind of generalized hearing problem in Greece, but at the airport, the announcements were several ticks louder than in the US and twice as long because they're done both in Greek and English. The music was loud too and generally a mix of 60's and 70's pop, with Stevie Wonder, ELO, Stones, Santana and best of all, the Hawaii 5-0 theme. The people at security and passport control are very officious and insistent that you do things exactly as they wanted, which caused the contents of my pockets and backpack to go in 4 separate bins though the x-ray machine, but at least everything came out the other side.
We had access to a "business lounge", though it was one of the least nice we've encountered. It was hot and airless and bare, with no regular tables and chairs, the juice machine and the bathroom were out of order and there was nothing like regular breakfast food there at 8-something in the morning. There was coffee, however, and yogurt and beers to stow in my bag. We eventually went to the gate, which is sequestered from all the other gates and equipped with its own bathroom and Starbucks. I did like that, as opposed to announcements that nobody can hear or understand, the gate agents had someone hold up a cardboard sign saying which group was boarding.
We're now on the plane and heading home. I want to note that, Although Delta seems to be a well run airline and the people have generally been very nice and helpful, the food in business class is ridiculous. Look at this menu:
Only 8 more hours on the plane!
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