Let Me Go Home

 I dislike Athens in the morning

By midday I hate it

Don't ever make me come into this big noisy, dirty overcrowded city ever again.

We disembarked from the early morning Catamaran around 9.30.  It took 20 minutes of pleading, arm waving and cursing to get a taxi to stop and take us up to the Navy Hospital in Central Athens.

Lots of taxis but they don't stop for 2 pensioners.  Those parked right on the harbour were looking for prey, long  rides to the airport with unknowing tourists paying inflated prices.

It took us half an hour through rush hour Athens traffic to reach the Naval Hospital.   I'd had enough well before that half hour was up.  The taxi driver was good, weaving in and out of bus lanes, taking side streets but he couldn't avoid the crush of traffic.  Sex shops, cabarets and Indian restaurants all the way up Syngrou Avenue. I could smell the curry even at this early hour.  High rise offices with people at desks behind ground floor windows.  How do they get there, where do they live.

Coffee shops every few yards, a tiny window selling coffee and sesame rolls  with 2 tables and chairs on the pavement right next to the endless cars and motorbikes.  All the tables full, friends and passersby hanging over for a chat and a fag.  It's always coffee time for some.

Then the scenery changed, Hadrian's Gate, the Pillars of Olympian Dios (Zeus) , the National gardens, Parliament buildings, tourists in short shorts, sandals, summer dresses, the Hop on Hop off bus, everyone with a small backpack and a phone poised to snap photos.

Up into the narrow streets of affluent Kolonaki, rows of trees , every spare space underneath filled by a motorbike.   Streets so constricted I was in awe, watching as we scraped past motorbike mirrors, goggling at the boutique dress shops and high priced opticians.  Plusher, comfortable cafeterias.

And finally the Naval Hospital . 

We couldn't take the metro . The nearest one has a long up hill walk to the hospital.  We no longer know which line to take, even how to buy a ticket. We have turned into country mice.  The buses are long snake-like, concertina-ed affairs. We've never been on a tram.  Their routes are a mystery.

Even the hospital has changed, updated,  more comfortable seating, but new rules too. Endless corridors, lifts and doors which need codes. The latter for Navy personnel, not for us.  

Hospital corridors.  The same all over the world.  Filled with anxious patients waiting to be seen by some glorified doctor

It took us 15 minutes to find the doctor's office and we were 2 hours late for Ks pre-op tests before his shoulder operation.  We were lucky, the doctor was still there to print out and stamp the tests and send us down to the labs, blood, x-rays, cardio. More stamps. 

Plenty of seating .  I watched the people, our bags and the papers while K traipsed from floor to floor.

Young sailors, girls and boys in Navy whites, retired officers, white haired, tired and mostly overweight. It was hard to reconcile them with stiff backed military officers they used to be.  'Those left behind' certainly do grow old .

Finally it's all over and we have half an hour to catch the return Catamaran. Did we make it? Of course not, even though it took 2 minutes to flag a taxi with a driver who'd driven rallies.  We missed that bloody Catamaran by one minute.

So it's a 4 hour wait till the next one. 2pm and all we'd had to eat was a half litre of water between us.  I found K a seat in the waterfront waiting area and trotted off to find coffee and a sandwich.  Oh boy did I feel like a little country mouse again.  

There are no longer little canteens offering only the traditional basics,  cheese and ham tost (toastie) and simple coffee. I had to dodge traffic and search across the road for a few hundred metres where I found a huge shop called Bread Factory.  I wandered in wondering what I would find. Everything from a loaf of bread to  huge varieties of those ubiquitous cheese pies, donuts and 10 different pizzas sold by the slice.   I went to one serving area which looked as though it served coffee.  It did but I had to pay for that further around at another counter. Then off to another area where they had endless rows of gourmet 'rounds' (no longer called sandwiches), sourdough  bread with salmon or chicken or salami and sauces which 'someone'  wouldn't eat.  Finally I found something plain with chicken and lettuce and some little spinach pies.  Acceptable and not too pricey.  I balanced all those in my hands, dodging pedestrians, scuttling quickly across crossings with lights holding up endless lines of cars and oversized lorries and offered my findings to K. 

I think I saved 2 lives. We were both happy-ier. Our first coffee of the day and a bite to eat

4 hours actually went by quite fast.

 Boarding time.  Damned if we could find our seats.  I finally went and asked for directions. We were looking at the seat numbers on the 2pm tickets. Our tickets had been changed for 6pm with different seating 

In line for the catamaran

Got the seats sorted. Donned jackets because the aircon was freezing.  Now we're off.  I'm finished. I hope.

One hour and we'll be back on Poros.  

Mission accomplished.

Next day..... 

Or maybe not. The cardiologist has asked for more tests. It looks as though we might have to have them done at a hospital in Piraeus, or Athens .  The mood is  dark

And it looks like rain