Day 95 (Athens)

Our flight to Rome leaves at 1050, we were suppose to catch an 833 metro to get to the airport around 915. We ended up leaving a bit late, and sprinted the final 100m to the metro connection, I heard a loud beep beep beep… only to see the doors slowly closing and the metro pulling away as we reached it. Utoh… We got on the next one, and ended up arriving around 945. We felt like we had enough time to get on the plane… when we entered into the airport, it was madness. Thousands of people were sitting everywhere you could see, some crying, some dazed, and some just throwing temper tantrums. As I looked at the big board to scan for our flight, I see a solid column of the word “cancelled” … If you don’t know already, a volcano erupted in Iceland, the ash from this spread over the UK and most of Europe… planes can’t fly in this, to quote the ryanair spokesman “it would be like sandblasting the airplane” (not to mention the problems the engines would have). So, I talked to the easyjet guy, he gave me two options 1) get a full refund, or 2) book the next flight out and they would cover the accommodation via filing a claim. This could be done over the internet, so we did bother with the 3 mile line that 90% of the people were standing in just because the other people were standing in it. I texted Chris about the situation, he was more than helpful and let us come back and stay with him, back to Athens we go… We looked at different ways to get to Rome from here, there is almost none other than a bus-ferry-bus combo that would take around 2 days to do. With this being said, I logged onto easyjet and probably was able to get the next flights before a large majority of the people in line even got to speak to anyone. Unfortunately, the next flights out were Tuesday at 2:30PM, landing in Rome at 3:45PM… my flight out of Rome is at 9:30PM that same day, from a different airport. Giving me a total of 5 hours and 45 minutes in the city of Rome, with probably 1 ½ hours of transportation and 1 ½ hour before my flight. So I have about 2 and a half hours in Rome. I guess this is okay, I plan on immediately going to the Coliseum, I haven’t decided if I will actually go in yet – game time decision, and maybe see whatever else is around that, the forum, the pantheon… who knows. Let’s just hope the planes can get up in the air on Tuesday!

After getting everything squared away, and planning out Sunday as well, it was pretty late into Saturday. Brent Chris and I were set on going out and getting some Chinese food, and then going up to Areopagos (the rock of Ares) Hill afterwards (the hill Paul preached on about Jesus to Athens). The Chinese food was probably the best decision ever. We ordered a menu combo of BBQ spare ribs, Pork Fried Rice, Sweet and Sour Chicken, and then added on a plate of the hottest rated dish, Mongolian Beef. The food was outstanding, the beef wasn’t even that spicy, to be honest, although it came with some dried red chilies from China, these had a little kick to them. Chris and I handled most of the Mongolian, as Brent isn’t a spicy guy, but somehow he convinced himself to try a Chili. The first one he tried had most of the seeds spewed out of it because of his poking around of it. Wasn’t too big of a deal for him. So, he tried another one that was in full power, let’s just say it was hilarious for us and very very hot for him. I did capture a precious 1-2 minute video of this event, which some of you lucky people can watch later J. Anyway, food was great and then we headed to the hill at around 8pm I want to say.

We walked up the hill, across from it stood the Acropolis illuminated in all of its glory. All around was the city of Athens in bright lights, churches were glowing, Lykavittos hill jetting up in the background. This was one of my favorite places to be. We sat on the rocks on the hill, along with about 50 other people who were all on the college age side. It felt great, the lights, the atmosphere, the cool air and the physical connection with nature. We ended up talking for over 5 hours on top of that hill, all in depth conversations about life, philosophy, religion, science – everything. A very rewarding time and time well spent. We headed back around 2AM and went to bed. Tomorrow, the city of Corinth, where the books of Corinthians were written (the Bible).