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We got back to Athens Sunday night, met up with Michael and Mackenzie at an Athens hotel, and played cards to pass the time since the next flight they could find out was Thursday and our flight for Tuesday was most likely going to be canceled due to the volcano.
Allison, Denise, and I still had to see the acropolis, so Monday we got up and checked it out—pretty cool…we climbed up, took a few pictures, attempted to take pictures without massive amounts of the no-doubt original 400 BC scaffolding, failed, then climbed back down. We went in a bunch of little gift shops around there just to kill the time, but it was kind of annoying because every store-owner in Greece talks to you in broken English for the entire time you’re in their store, trying to make you buy stuff you don’t want. I got my token spoon (I collect spoons from everywhere I go) and we started heading back towards the hotel to see if we could find Mackenzie and Michael for some cards in a café.
On our way, we found one of those little train things that drives on the road and takes you
around town. The conductor guy called us over when he saw the three of us eyeing it up and told us we could get the kids price, so we took a ride around Athens on the train! His English wasn’t all that great, but before we started (as we were waiting for other people to also partake in such a fun and exciting experience) he told us we could “drive” the train. So we all took turns taking pictures of ourselves in the driver’s seat like we were five year old boys driving a train. It was cool.
Then we took off on our journey, driving around the streets of Athens, seeing old ruins and not understanding a word when our conductor person attempting to describe what they were. We passed along a street lined with cafés and outdoor seating and you’ll never believe who we saw—our annoying friend from Ios who we had to share the shuttle van with! He was sitting outside of a café, sipping on iced coffee! We saw each other at the exact same time and were like HEY!!! He pointed to his laptop and said something like, “see! This is my office! Isn’t
it great!?” And then our train kept moving. It was astonishing.
After our train ride, we met up with Tasos again and went to a café that had internet so I could check my email and such (thank goodness I brought my laptop on this trip). At the café, we found out for sure that our flight for Tuesday (the next day) had indeed been canceled. I skyped with my parents which was amusing because I didn’t have my camera or microphone so it was me seeing and listening to them while I would just type back.
We went back to the hotel and found Michael and Mackenzie and debated with them for what seemed like hours on end debating all of our options of getting out of Athens as soon as possible (if you haven’t been able to tell by now, Athens was NOT our favorite city…by far). We were watching BBC news (the only English channel) and at one point a map of Europe came up, showing the cloud of volcanic ash, and it just showed a huge yellow cloud over the entire continent, which made us all burst out laughing.
In the end, since
it seemed like the cloud wasn’t going to let up anytime soon, Denise, Allison, and I switched our plane tickets to the next flight we could find on EasyJet to Paris which was the following Tuesday. We decided that it would be best to just stay put and take the time to leave Athens and find another Greek Island that would hopefully be just like Ios for us to relax on for the next week. Mackenzie and Michael however, got refunds from their flights and re-booked some for Thursday that flew through Rome, whose airport would hopefully be open and then they would be that much closer. We didn’t want to do that because that would mean being stuck in the city of Athens for two more days instead of being able to get out and see another island. Our receptionist at the hotel told us that since it wasn’t tourist season yet, we could literally just go to the port, hop on a boat, and find a hotel there. We fell asleep excited for our next unanticipated adventure! (and happy about our new extension on our papers!)
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Dad
non-member comment
Nice Choo-choo
I love your blog. Need more updates. I'm glad you had a good time.