Athens Day 2: Aegina
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Athens Day 1
We wake up exceptionally early: 11:00. PM — body-time. We’re seven hours’ difference and trying to acclimate to the new time. Yesterday’s long day gave way to an exceptionally short night (or so it felt). Hopefully after today, we’ll be fine.
When we began planning this short Athens adventure, we planned the big sightseeing day as our first full day: the Acropolis. We can see it from our apartment; we walked all around its base yesterday evening while exploring Plaka (so many maître d’s inviting us in for dining: street-side dining, rooftop dining — I felt I was continually saying, “No thank you, we already ate”). Today, though, is the day we actually visit the site.
We start with a light breakfast — pastries we purchased on the way back to the apartment last night. The best was the cheese and spinach that K and I shared, the one K mistakenly called chocolate last night to the bemused horror of the shop attendant. I’m sure it went through her head to play along and sell our son the “chocolate” pastry and then imagine the reaction. It went through my mind. We eat on our terrace, which has views to all the antennae and solar water heaters that cover all the roofs.
We’re staying in an older part of town. The taxi driver warned us that it is not the safest neighborhood, but I think she was being the overly-cautious (perhaps somewhat xenophobic — there are a lot of immigrants in this neighborhood) babcia (what’s “babcia” in Greek? Γιαγιά I learn) she was. (A γιαγιά taxi driver? First I’d seen. She took calls during the whole journey, and during each conversation, she sounded like the γιαγιά she clearly was.) When we returned yesterday evening, no worries at all; when we got up, we heard all of them heading out to work like the usually-hard-working immigrants they likely are. I think γιαγιά was exaggerating.
After breakfast we head to the Acropolis: we ordered tickets weeks ago through a third party because the package included a five day metro pass as well as admission to the Acropolis, the Acropolis museum, and a lot more. We reserved tickets for 8:00. When we arrive, the attendant tells us our tickets are for one in the afternoon.
“That’s not possible. We made reservations for 8:00;” we protest.
“But the ticket is for 1:00,” she says pointing to the spot on the ticket that indicated the time: 1:00 PM indeed. So we go from “We’re about to enter the Acropolis,” to “Jeez, what do we do for these five hours? The logical option is just to switch afternoon and morning plans, but our afternoon plans were so loose and free because we thought we’d be coming off the Acropolis, tired, sweaty, ready for something easy and pleasant in the afternoon. Still, what else could we do? So we go to the National Gardens (lovely), then head to the parliament building to watch the changing of the guard, followed by the Panathenaic stadium, the ancient Agora, and modern lunch.
The whole time I find myself thinking about how we made reservations for 8:00 but they registered as 1:00. At first I reason it had something to do with the time difference: “Stupid website somehow took into account the time difference and registered us for 8:00 our time.” But that doesn’t make sense: we’re seven hours different, not five. Where is the difference five hours? Between South Carolina and England, the country that runs the website we used. “That must be what happened,” we reason.
When it’s time to head back up to the Acropolis, we buy more water (we never seem to have enough) and decide to go back via the metro. Unlike the morning, it’s relatively empty, but with the wait times at each station (we had to make two line changes), we end up arriving fifteen minutes after one.
Already riled up, I start muttering under my breath: “If they don’t let us in…” Of course, they do, and of course, we’re amazed with what we see. The main building is of course a temple to Athena, making it sort of the Notre Dame of ancient Greek religion — or rather, the opposite: Notre Dame is the Parthenon of Christianity. Perhaps in a few more millenia, people will be visiting cathedrals like we view the Parthenon now: relics of a bygone time honoring a deity we can’t imagine worshiping. (Are there any who still worship Athena and the other gods? A quick search reveals that Hellenism or Hellenic Polytheism does still exist, but they’re a religious curiosity at this point. Perhaps Christianity and Islam will be the same?)
After our visit, we head back to the apartment to refresh and to relax for just a bit before heading out to dinner. That is, everyone but me: I start working on pictures, which will be especially challenging this trip. I thought I could do everything through L’s iPad, which I guess I could, but I ran into some initial hiccups yesterday and ended up doing all the photo editing on my phone. Long-ish story. It has its benefits: I’m not willing to spend so much time editing on my phone, so I’m more selective, and there will be a lot of unedited pictures I can play with when we get back to the States. But it adds a step to the workflow, and it’s really aggravating working on such a small screen for editing. The second challenge is the new camera, rather its batteries: they take forever to charge, and they die quickly. I’ve never had to be so conscientious of my battery life when photographing. We have two batteries, but we should have brought a third. First world problems — one must keep things in perspective.
Athens Arrival
For all intents and purposes, this has been one, long, sleepless day. We left for Atlanta around 9:30 Sunday morning and arrived in Athens around 2:00 local time.
Add to it the fact that I barely slept at all in the plane from Atlanta to Frankfurt, and took only the shortest of naps when we arrived in Athens and it’s fairly obvious why I’m about to fall asleep typing this.
Busy Saturday
1
Busy day — countdown only.
Final Friday
2
Today is our last Friday in the States before heading for our great European adventure. We’re all excited about Greece, and we all have things we want to do there, but the thought of just going straight to Poland like we always do, heading straight to Babcia’s for hugs and rosol — part of me wishes we were just doing that.
Just the Number
3
Nothing really to say. Nothing to write about. Taking something of a break before the storm of pictures and thoughts in Greece and Poland. But we need the number…
Which isn’t formatting correctly on the main page. I could track down the problem and fix it, but who really cares?
Wednesday Photos
Tornado?
5
The wind came so suddenly, seemingly instantaneously, and it was so immediately intense, that we were sure it had to be some kind of mini-tornado. What’s a F1 tornado’s wind speeds again? The news report later classified it as only a thunderstorm, but I’m not convinced. It came up suddenly, the whole thing lasting no more a minute, then disappeared almost as quickly. There were lingering gusts, but nothing like what the main storm was like. According to the news:
Thunderstorms accompanied with wind gusts as high as 71 mph have caused power outages in areas of the Upstate and Western North Carolina.
As of 10:15 p.m. Tuesday, at least 25,000 customers are without power in the Upstate. More than 10,000 are without power in Western North Carolina.
WYFF News
Still, gusts of 71 miles an hour classify it as a EF0 tornado according to the Enhanced Fujita Scale. What would a EF0 tornado be? Isn’t that just a not-tornado? Strong thunderstorm?
Whatever it was, it knocked out our power. K’s phone only had 5% battery left, so we plugged it into L’s computer to get a bit of a charge.
Fortunately, it’s not a terribly hot or humid night, for the power company estimates getting the power restored some time early tomorrow morning.
The Boy took the opportunity to go to bed early, as did K. And the GIrl? She’s not here. She’s in Gainesville for orientation at the University of Florida. Yes, we looked at our finances, looked at the possibility of getting in-state tuition (do-able, but not this year), and decided it was the better option for our girl. A six-hour drive away, so she’s close enough to be relatively quickly reached in an emergency and far enough for her to feel she’s on her own.
She and I texted extensively this afternoon when she was making decisions about her class load for the fall semester. She’s done AP Calc 1 and AP Calc 2, so her plan was to take Calc 3. She was getting advice from her advisor (because that’s what they do) that she might consider re-taking Calc 2. “There’s some stuff they go over that most AP classes don’t cover” he/she (not sure) explained. “I looked at the Calc 2 syllabus,” she texted me, “and I feel confident in everything on it.” What to do? I explained that it’s up to her: “If you feel you need to re-take it, re-take it. If you want to go for Calc 3 but are a little nervous about it, all universities have programs for assistance in subjects like math and English. You can go there and get help from some grad student, I’m sure.”
That she was asking for advice was a little surprising. She’s so strong-willed, so confident (she planned her entire high school academic course with no input from us, and she never really asked either of us for help or advice) that I took this to be another sign of her maturing. She’s independent, yes. But independence doesn’t mean doing everything solo.
If she comes hope during Thanksgiving break asking for help in Calc 3, it won’t be me helping her. I’m no good in math. Truth be told, I never even took Calc 1. I tried it in college (liberal arts — one or two math courses required for all), but I just got lost. It didn’t help that the professor would fill a whole board with an equation and then stop and erase it all, mumbling “I don’t think that will show what I want it to show,” just when I was thinking, “Hey, I think I’m getting this…” That help will have to come from K. And since she won’t be taking any humanities, I’ll be out of the loop.
Also out of the loop has been the Polska countdown I always do. I have been taking a break from writing, posting only pictures because frankly I had nothing to say. And with a bunch of pictures, my countdown wouldn’t format properly. But we leave in five days. I guess I should update the flag: we’re going to Greece first, but I’m not too worried about that: it’s still, first and foremost, a trip to family in Polska.
Table Rock
Pics
Wet Dog
Our pup is not a fan of baths.
Haircut
The Boy has gone through several hairstyles over the years. When he was little (i.e., when we made the decisions), it was quite short. Given his violent cowlicks, it seemed the safest bet.
As he grew older, his hairstyle preference grew longer. A couple of years ago, he kept his hair almost down to his chin all the way around.
Today, we went to a new barber shop for a haircut. Despite E’s protests, I showed the barber a picture of the long-hair phase: “It was Lord Farquaad style!” the barber said. E just laughed.
Today’s cut was about the best he’s ever gotten. K loved it. “Approved” was L’s verdict.
Paris Mountain Warmup
Repairs
Sometimes I wonder if anyone ever goes more than a few days without something somewhere breaking. Usually it’s small things that we can almost ignore, I think, but the medium and large issues seem to cluster up and hit all at once.
K’s car required some work (issue 1), so yesterday I drove it to our Polish friend who’s also a mechanic. He lives in the north of the county, right off the rails-to-trail project that runs through the county, so I usually drive the car up there and ride my bike back.
But issues never come alone: they always bring company. On the way back, I got a flat (issue 2). In the same tire that I’d just repaired. Or didn’t repair — what’s the difference?
But issues never come alone: they always bring company. The ramp to Papa’s room (it will always be “Papa’s room”) needs to be repainted (issue 3), which means it needs to be cleaned, which E remedied this morning. Upon returning home from Lowe’s with the appropriate paint, I noticed a bit of wood sticking up from one of the knot holes. I bent down and dug it out with my finger only to discover that the entire knot hole had somehow rotted out.
Which meant I had to get a new 1×6 to replace it. Which meant a trip to Lowe’s. Which is where we had just been.
Fixing the board was one of those projects for which the prep and cleanup took longer than the actual project.
But issues never come alone: they always bring company. While I working on this, L returned and informed me that her car stalled three times while driving home.
“And there’s a weird emoji on the dash,” she said.
“Probably the ‘check engine’ light,” I thought.
I checked; indeed, I was right. I cranked the car. It started stalling immediately. It was as if it weren’t getting enough fuel. Fuel pump? Clogged fuel filter? Not sure — and of course I couldn’t find the error reader that would have given me a little more information on the nebulous “check engine” light.
Breakup
Who could have seen it coming? Surely two rich megalomaniacal narcissists should be able to get along if they have the same goal: make themselves richer at the expense of the rest of us.
Who am I kidding: we all saw it coming. What we didn’t anticipate was how fast everything would escalate. Trump remained uncharacteristically calm and approached the border of magnanimity at first, but then the cliche gloves came off:
- Trump threatened to kill Elon’s government contracts and subsidies.
- Elon brought up the Epstein files and claimed (probably accurately) that Trump is in them.
- MAGA diehard Bannon called for Elon to be deported and for the government to seize Space X
- Elon retweeted a call for Trump to be impeached.
All this within a few hours.
There’s a part of me that’s absolutely gleeful about this. But most of me finds this just as horrifying as everything else Trump does. Think of what Putin and Xi are saying about this. Sure, Putin lost a lot of bombers this week, but he’s looking at the long game, and a civil war within the MAGA party that could further destablize America — what a gift for him.
Summer Job
The Boy is well into the “don’t take pictures of me” phase. L is coming out of it — she positively loves having her picture taken if you’re using her phone so she can post them to Instagram, I talked him into this one with the excuse of wanting to send it to K.
The work itself is obvious: our deck needs a refresher of water sealer. We usually do it every two years, but we decided to give it a quick wash and a single coat this year.
No other pictures for the day because I spent a good chunk of it at the computer, working on this site and the other two hosted on this account. Two of them are for school: they’re coming down since I won’t be teaching English any longer. However, I don’t want just to delete them: I might go back to English at some point. So that makes the process a bit more labor intensive.
Memorial
Dam Progress
In an effort to prevent a major ecological catastrophe if the Conestee Dam breaks, the state has finally begun construction of a new dam on the site.
Thursday Ride
In an effort to regain some level of fitness, the Boy and I have been mountain biking several times a week. E, of course, is already somewhat fit: youth and soccer see to that. I, however, have been reverting to a state that could only be described as fat slob. In fact, a couple of months ago, I got on the scale and saw that, for the first time in my life, I was close to 200 pounds. One sees all the internet ads suggesting that cardio workouts do little to help with weight loss, but I do know that eight or so years ago when I set a goal to cycle to work 100 of the 180 days, I lost significant weight relatively quickly. So we’re cycling more.
Today, I went on my own, though: the Boy was not in the mood, and since I want this to be something he enjoys, I didn’t force the issue. One benefit of going solo is that I get to listen to music as I ride; another benefit, I get to go faster. E can keep up with me for a handful of miles but eventually, he tires. That’s not to say I don’t tire. I just enjoy that pain and push through it (or at least I say I enjoy the pain).
When I was riding on the gravel portion of the ride, I encountered this young one:
We used to see a lot of deer during our evening rides, sometimes a dozen or more. Lately, though, they’ve been scarce. I have no idea why they’re suddenly rare. The fact that they can live in the midst of a city is itself surprising. There are developments all around the Conestee mountain biking area; we see deer in our own neighborhood. It seems all they need a handful of trees and a water source.
Track Awards
