From Budapest to Athens

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The Romanian hills are scattered with medieval-looking homes. Heavy stone, small dot of a window, big roofs. A very mystical and creepy fog is pouring up from the ground. It's so thick, the figures of horse-drawn carriages and herds of sheep are just silhouettes. Note: was the heavy door chain and padlock given to us by the conductor supposed to make us feel BETTER?


Thessaloniki's a big city but probably quaint compared to Athens. Scooters and motorbikes drive on the sidewalks, in the pedestrian crossings and right through red lights. Cars recklessly park on the city sidewalks! It's very cheap here and I think we're the only American tourists in town. One big personal obstacle: We had a possible pregnancy scare! We talked about what to do.... 1) wait and worry or 2) go find a doctor and see if there's anything available to protect me from getting pregnant at the very offset of a year-long global trek. We picked option 2 but it meant embarrassing questions at a pharmacy where almost no English was spoken. Then there were difficult directions to a hospital and even more difficult was the process of going to all the right places in the hospital. Finally, there was a doctor who spoke English and prescribed a morning-after pill which wound up costing about $1 in total. Inevitably, it made me nauseaus and dizzy the whole next day for the train-ride. Never do I want to have to deal with that again!


But finally, we're in Athens and I'm already used to the traffic. We saw the Acropolis and sent postcards home. So much history but also so much urban sprawl. So many Americans, too. I'm feeling much better now but a trip to the Ethiopian consulate revealed that we may not be able to get our visas! Would that mean spending 4 days in the airport on the way to Nairobi? We'll find out Monday....


Total misinformation! We CAN get a visa but in 15 days - no good. Lily at the consulate says she's called ahead and we can get a visa at the airport in Addis Ababa. But in Athens, at 3am, we're denied the 4-day visit because we DON"T HAVE A VISA!! They've re-routed us to the next flight onward unless, they say, we happen to get a visa. But if we don't they're not responsible. I've already been as upset as I'm going to get. If we're not meant to see Addis, so be it.


But after arriving at the airport, it seemed our persistence paid off. Someone said, "Get your luggage and I'll give you visas." The advice from a nice guy sitting next to us was true - if you have problems, always go right to Immigration. Gotta remember this...

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Photos

At the Metropolis Hotel in Athens
Comfy rooms for about $10 a night.

Peanut vendor
Seen at a Communist rally in downtown Athens

On the way to the Acropolis
We took every little downtown alleyway we could