The weather in Athens was still warm but the heat wave was over. Saturday morning was sunny with a bit of a breeze. I went to see Lycabettis Hill, which is near the hotel. I was considering the cable car (funicular), but I was there at 8:30-ish and that didn't open until 9. So I walked down the block and found the path that heads up the hill, which is mostly covered in small pine trees, cactus, and other shrubs. Halfway up the hill I came to an abandoned cafe and some overlooks with tremendous views of Athens, including the Parthenon - I was glad that I had deleted some photos on the camera to make room for more. Athens usually has bad smog, but there was none to obscure the view, fortunately.
Then it was back downhill to the hotel, where I checked out and took a cab to the airport. The cab driver took the secondary roads instead of the expressway, so I got to see some of development that are converting olive groves into suburbs and retailers. It looked similar to the stuff one would see on the outskirts of any city, though there were no shopping centers, just individual retailers alongside the road. Delta had two long check-in lines, one for each of its flights (mine to Atlanta, the other to JFK). Ours was long enough for me to start a time study to predict my completion time. They served, on average, one person a minute, and my total wait was 60 minutes long.
We departed on time, but the flight was very long - over 11 hours, and we had three movies: The Astronaut Farmer (good), Wild Hogs (didn't watch it), and Bridge to Terebithia (very good). I didn't sleep at all; when not watching a movie or eating, I listened to the in-flight audio (especially the country and 80's pop channels - the latter played Africa by Toto and American Girl by Tom Petty) or my book on CD (The Odyssey). I won't finish either of the Homeric epics - reading those needs an environment with fewer distractions, and I still have Dante at home to read.
No comments:
Post a Comment