The magnetic pull of Athens
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Athens,
Attica,
Greece
Thursday, May 22, 2008
It's 8.30 pm and I'm in an Internet cafe in Athens. The scruffy little port of Rafina, actually. Just a 30-minute cab ride from the airport. The cafe is just a couple of blocks from the Hotel Avra, the 2-star accommodations that Aegean Airlines has provided to me gratis.
***
In Santorini I check out of Mill Houses, using my American Express card for the first time since Stockholm on the way to Moscow in 1989. My Mastercard is dead, apparently. The signature has rubbed off along with the three-digit code.
I get to the airport at 11, an hour before the flight. But after the flight is delayed twice "due to winds" I already know the world has other plans for me today. Another Aegean flight to Athens takes off on time, in fact, but our poor flight 355 gang must wait another 45 minutes for the new plane. They explain that they had to switch aircraft from an Airbus to a Boeing.
There are no seats to be had in the tiny Santorini airport and I spend four hours leaning against a wall reading Nabokov's "Pnin." Then in just a little longer than it would have taken to drive from Seattle to Portland, we're on our way at about the time my connecting flight is taking off from Athens to Chania, Crete.
In the Athens airport again by 4 pm, and after whiling away a few minutes trying different lines, I get the news that the last flight to Chania is full and I soon have a standby ticket for the 7.30 pm flight in hand along with a voucher for a complementary snack and soda. I am just 50 pages away from the end of my book when they call the standbys up to the podium to let us know it's a no fly.
So, back to the sales desk again and I'm booked on the 5.35 am flight to Chania tomorrow. It's nearly 9 pm now. I have a 3.30 am wakeup call, so I'd better find the hotel bar fast and drink my dinner.
I should be landing in Chania about 6.30 am Friday, but perhaps it's too early to say.
I'm going to open an agency called Jonah Travel - "Offering departures god knows when to god knows where."
