Athens

Sometimes plans are a lot better on paper than they are in practice.  And our plans to “quickly” visit Athens for one night was definitely one of those cases.  We knew that we didn’t have a lot of time in Athens, but we were determined to make the most of it.  We had timed out that we would arrive at our hotel (the Coco-Mat) in Athens around 3:30 p.m., check in and then quickly turnaround to tour the Acropolis, and then grab a late dinner on our way home.  Easy peasy, right?  Not so much.

The first problem was that our plane took off late from Paros.  Very late.  Funny enough, I think that it would have taken off on time, but a lot of passengers showed up to the airport (granted it was very small) (just one room in fact) about 20 minutes before takeoff.  Normally when this sort of thing happens in the States, the plane leaves without you.  Well, not in Greece.  We waited for all of the late passengers…and then for one very fashionable and determined older woman who refused to take off her heels, sunglasses and hat while going through security.  Luckily, our plane still took off.

But that was just the first hurdle.  Then there was the waiting for the luggage, the waiting for the train, the train delay, the train ride and finally the uphill walk to our hotel.  By the time we arrived (almost 4 hours later than anticipated), we were both hot, sweaty and seriously ready to just have a little quite time.

With less than one hour of the Acropolis left being open, and finding ourselves a 30 minute train ride away, and being very clear that we couldn’t count on things running on time, we decided to cut our losses.  C’est la vie.

our hotel had a beautiful rooftop deck with spectacular views of Athens

For whatever reason, touring Athens just wasn’t in the cards for us this time.  But luckily, we had a beautiful hotel room with an insanely comfortable bed, and that was definitely better than nothing.  So we dropped off our luggage, found some insanely delicious takeout just around the corner, brought it back to our hotel room, put our jammies on and enjoyed a late dinner in bed.

It wasn’t what we had pictured for our time in Athens, but it ended up being the perfect quiet night in.  We have found that with travel, you have to be open to what life will throw your way and be ready with a backup plan or be open to changing your plans.  But I guess that that is true for all of life.

As my friend Nash once told me, “Don’t fight against the current…you just have to keep changing to flow with the rhythm of life.”  Thank you Nash, you couldn’t be more right.