Another day in Athens
Thursday was Majella’s big day at the conference. She was scheduled to present in a session that ran from 6:00 to 8:00 in the evening but was up and out the door around 8:00 am to get the most out of her long conference day. We had agreed to wait for dinner until after she returned.
Emily had plans to return to Viktoria where we had gone on Tuesday evening and she had seen a pair of hot pink shoes that really decided later were too good to let pass. That wasn’t sufficient reason for her to get out of bed early, so I spent the morning dealing with some email, getting the web site up to date and making a start on a DVD project to pull all of our photographs together while Emily rested.
It was late morning before I persuaded Emily to rise. I had not wanted to leave her to go and find breakfast so by that time I was in need of coffee and food. We eventually left the hotel well after 11:00 and strolled up Athinas Street towards Omonoia. Our first stop was at the jewellery store we had found previously where Emily purchased some more gifts. Further along the way I called at the National Bank of Greece where I had been told I might be able to cash a travelers cheque. I eventually found the right counter and they did cash cheques, but not mine because the signature I used on the cheque did not match the one on my passport. The woman who assisted me did give me the address of the American Express office which was not far away so I decided to go there and cash the cheque. We continued up to Plateia Omonoia from where I could navigate into Akadimas Street. By then it was noon we were both famished so we stopped at McDonalds. Emily had a cheeseburger and milkshake while I had the Greek salad and coffee. From there we found Akadimas Street and walked down to the American Express office where I cashed the cheque without difficulty. Because that had taken us diagonally back down town we completed the triangle to get back to the hotel via some back streets. About one street back from our hotel we found a substantial shopping area that we hadn’t seen previously and made a note to check it out later.
We were back in the hotel by 1:00 or shortly after. Emily spent the afternoon resting and watching television. I worked on the DVD. Shortly before 5:00 I managed to persuade her that we should get out and explore a little more. We headed across the street into the area we had found on our previous excursion. Although I hadn’t noticed them earlier it seemed that almost every second store sold shoes so Emily enjoyed herself looking at the shoes and imagining how she might do at extreme fashion. It wasn’t long before she decided she was hungry so we stopped at a cafe where we ordered pastries with ham and cheese combinations. Emily had coke and I tried Greek coffee, with sugar at the insistence of the woman who served us. The coffee came in a little cooker with a long handle from which I poured it into the cup to drink it. It was fine until close to the end where the grounds where like river mud. We pressed on down the hill, crossed a main street where we realised we were looking up to Parliament at Syntagma and went into the market where Emily bought another gift and we headed back to the hotel, stopping briefly to look at the Tower of Winds on the way.
Emily and I rested until Majella returned from her conference shortly after 8:00 pm. She had arrange for us to go to dinner with Tony and Josh so we waited for them to come down to our room and then headed out to look for dinner. We strolled through the area that Emily and I had explored during the afternoon but finished up in the square near the cathedral just across Ermou Street where we ate at the Ithaki restaurant. The food was good and we enjoyed the meal. Afterwards we all went back to the Attalos where we had drinks in the roof garden bar before returning to our rooms to do some packing prior to turning in for our last night in Athens.
