Sunday morning I saw lots of news on the web about the 48 hr general strike including the plan for the air traffic controllers to participate from 8-noon and 6-10 every day. I tried to get in touch with British Airways, but no luck. The bottom line is this happens a lot and the airlines won’t make any changes until within 12-24 hrs of the “event”. I emailed my Cedar Falls contact to interpret what “airport closed” means. It means that planes don’t fly but things are open. I called my Kildeer neighbor’s daughter and she said the same thing. So after 2-3 hrs of this, I gave up trying to be proactive and went out to see the day. I grabbed a weird fast food thing near the neighborhood. Like a submarine with chicken, bacon, ham, cheese, yogurt sauce and French fried in the sandwich.
When you pay for the Acropolis, you get add on tickets for many other archeology sites. So, I used this to visit the ancient agora. This is the word for market and it’s where Socrates hung out and the apostle Paul tried to convert folks. Some parts were intact, but I really needed the guide book to figure out what I was looking at.
Before I had left the hotel, the Kildeer woman called me and asked if I would join them for drinks at their hotel (they have a balcony with an Acropolis view.) The hotel was near the Acropolis Museum and as good luck would have it, it was my final Athens site to see.
We hit it off very well. After drinks, her daughter, grandson, she and I headed out for Italian food. The place she picked was Italian (outside again) and in the Plaka within sight of the Greek Orthodox prelate’s house. Saw lots of guys in priestly black walking around—sort of like the Greek Vatican. The dinner was pricey, 3 hrs, but good and fun. Her husband and son-in-law showed up and the husband picked up the tab. I would have been more forceful, but I think it might have been awkward with the daughter and son-in-law. So, another late night. I still haven’t been to the rooftop hotel bar at my hotel!
