Eight hours in Athens

Greece is pretty close to Israel.  Dam close in fact.  It only took a couple of hours to fly from Tel Aviv to Athens.  I was bracing for four, so the announcement by the pilot which shaved that time expectancy in half was a pleasant surprise.  However, despite the short air time, you still need to be at the Tel Aviv airport well in advance.  Due to security checks and massive lines, give yourself three hours.  We often fail to remember this, and thus ended up, again, in serious shit.  It's not like we weren't up early.  When you take an international flight out of Israel it is very likely it will leave at 6am.  It is a popular time.  And while a 6am flight may be acceptable when scooting between Melbourne and Tassie, it sucks dead dog's dicks daily when you take into account the fact that you must be at the airport at 4am for check-in.  This means that when you must consider car rental return (which incidentally is about half an hour from the actual bloody terminal), and the security checks, you may as well not even bother going to bed.  We woke up at 3am.  And we were still late.  We had to push to the front of the bag security scanning machines, hurry up the dudes who then searched everything by hand, shove people out of the way at the check-in counter, push in front of the crew at the oversize baggage belt, and bolt for gate B21 screaming "Move it move it" to the kids, who had just woken up and were bleary eyed and still in their pyjamas.  All this before 6am.  It's not an ideal start to the day.

The plane ride was uneventful until landing.  As we zoomed on down, bound for Athens, the plane suddenly aborted the landing when we were almost touching the ground.  In fact, it was so sudden that it totally terrified us, especially when it seemed to be climbing at a freakish rate of acceleration.  Even unflappable Chalks was like "Something's wrong, it's on a funny angle".  At times like this you realise how vulnerable you truly are, and pray that the pilot on Aegean Air hadn't been into a bit of Ouzo before take off.  Talking of Ouzo, one thing I've always been fascinated with is the Ouzo Boozo Cruiso.  This is a boat trip around some Greek islands with all the Ouzo you can drink.  It then stops in a bay and all the passengers then swim to shore and attend an island market.  That's the bit I don't get.  For a start, even if you made the swim - would you be able to drag yourself up the shore?  And then even if by some miracle you made it off the beach would you even want to attend a market completely smashed on Ouzo and dripping wet?  It's a mystery.......I think it's just the name of the cruise that interests me, as I don't particularly rate Ouzo.  Or a boatlaod of backpackers spasticated on the stuff.  Apparently my parents got together for the first time after my Mum got stuck heavily into the Ouzo at a house party in Melbourne in the 70s.  I guess it does the trick.  I owe a lot to that licorice flavoured beverage......

They make Ouzo look so good

This is what it really looks like

This is how it progresses

And this is how it ends - wearing a pink toga and straddling some random

So back to our imminent death.  Finally the pilot came on and made an announcement.  First in Greek (I tried to listen for signs of stress, he was sighing a lot, that's all I could pick up).  Then came the English.  Joy of joys!  It wasn't the landing gear, and nor did he have a Swiss army knife to his throat, held by a disgruntled passenger named Lars.  It was just too busy on the ground, so he was forced to terrify the shit out of all of us.   A similar situation happened to me when about twenty years ago when I was flying from Melbourne to Brisbane.  Again the landing was abruptly called off, and as we circled in the air,  a large group of middle aged Queensland men started heckling me and my friend.  They had all obviously been on a big weekend to Melbourne as they were still pissed and wearing VB T-shirts.  When you are concerned for your life, the last thing you want to hear (and see) is a red faced drunk with a pot belly going "We're all gunna die.....we're all gunna diiiiiiiiiiieeeeeee".  Then his mates start in "Come on girls, give us a tonguey, if we're going down all we want is a kiss before we die.....come on girls come on......".  It was like we had already died anyway and were living in hell.  A plane crash would have been an improvement.  But low and behold, this time (like before) we lived to see another day.  As we touched down at last, the passengers broke out in applause.  I was gutted I didn't try and start it off myself this time, as it caught on so quickly.  I was gun shy after my last failed "get-a-plane-clap-going" attempt.  Anyway, there we were......Athens.

And yet....I'm unmoved

I must admit, due to being a lover of Greek history and mythology, I had always wanted to go to Greece.  This time was just a tiny little taste though.  A transit stop-off doesn't really inspire some serious sightseeing.  But we did hire a car.  It's so much more pleasant than relying on public transport when you have no bloody idea where you're going.  At least with a GPS, you can always pretend you have a clue.  First impressions of the city of Athens.  Boiling bloody hot (I was getting really sick of hot).  The city itself was uninspiring from the ground.  Cleaner than Tel Aviv.  Not much character.  Tons of motorbikes, each one of them crazier than the next.  We headed straight for the Acropolis.  Of course.  Naturally we fucked up, and drove up a no entry road and became completely surrounded by tour buses.  It was a million degrees.  Just as we realised we would have to walk miles up a mountain to get jiggy with the ancient crap, we noticed that the kids were asleep in the back.  We analysed our options;

1. Lock kids in the car and join the stumbling mass of hill climbing tourists.  Come back to find child welfare has smashed in the windows and checked the girls into an orphanage.

2. Hoist them over our shoulders and scale a mountain in the peak of a late summer heatwave.

3. Wake then up and force them to climb the aforementioned mountain to look at some rocks.

4. Say 'fuck the old shit' and go for cocktails.

Regarding item number 4, I am naturally referring to the drinking kind, rather than the Molotov cocktails which featured heavily in a "peaceful demonstration" the day before we touched down.  People had taken to the streets to protest new measures to cut spending designed to pull Greece out of the shit.  Apparently not too popular with citizens.  Fifty thousand of them.  The demonstrations took place outside Parliament House which is incidently located right next to the Grande Bretagne Hotel.  This hotel was most certainly on our planned "to do" list, due to a nostalgic incident involving my beloved, his younger brother, and some gratinated potatoes more than thirty years before.  One day earlier, and we could have accidentally become involved in a mass violent riot.  Sometimes our timing is impeccable.

I can just see us stuck in the middle of the road asking where the Acropolis is

I'd be running too

I find it hard to believe that this old sweetie could chuck a Molotov

His aim is true and finds it's mark

Before the firebombing got underway

Regarding our previously mentioned list of options; it's obvious what we did isn't it?  Sometimes, you just have to make it easy for yourself, no matter what you feel like you should be doing.  I've long got over the feeling like I'm wasting my opportunities by not seeing every last "sight" whenever I visit a place.  More often than not, it's not worth putting yourself through an unpleasant experience just so you can cross another "must see' off your list.  When you finally get to a tourist destination, it's typically crowded, you're hustled by hawkers, you can't take a decent snap without a fat lady's butt cheeks getting in the way (especially of Valli and Cordi - their heads are right at butt level), you're thirsty, hungry and tired.  All you want to do, is be somewhere cool and comfortable, where you can lay your sleeping children down to rest, and sip lightly on a beverage.  Somewhere in fact, like the rooftop bar at the Grande Bretagne Hotel.

Everything looks pretty from a roof top bar and restaurant

The view out over Athens was sublime (see above image for proof).  Actually it would have been the ideal location to view a riot.  But not today.  It was peaceful and welcoming - like nothing had ever happened.  The Acropolis -  perched up there on the the mountain was absolutely inspiring.  And while I wasn't stumbling over the rocks of The Parthenon discovering a fragment of an ancient urn as I've often imagined, I certainly appreciated my current circumstances.  The Acropolis has stood for nearly two and a half thousand years, so I'm pretty sure it's not going anywhere in a hurry.  It will wait for me.  And like my mother-in-law says, "You have to save something for next time".......