I am in Athens which is the good news but my bag and bike are not in Athens which is the not so good news. The past couple of days have been an exercise in close calls. Thursday started early (3am) in Tucson to get ready to take Carol to the airport so that she could fly to Oxford for Dasha’s graduation. I then had several hours to kill before my flight at noon. So after a nice breakfast at Bisbee Breakfast Club I spent the morning reading a not so good Brad Meltzer novel. I was also monitoring the weather since there was a big storm going through Memphis and headed to Atlanta. Carol missed the storm in both Memphis and Atlanta but the flight from Atlanta to Tucson which was my plane was delayed quite a bit because it had to fly around the storm.
So we got off late out of Tucson and arrived about 25 min late to Atlanta. Since I only had a 40 min layover in Atlanta this was making for a tight connection. I raced from terminal C to Terminal E and made it as one of the last to board. However, the pilots had decided to go have dinner in downtown Atlanta and then due to Atlanta traffic and the storm they were more than an hour late getting back to the airport. We finally took off for Amsterdam one hour and 15 min behind schedule. That was going to be a problem because I only had a 90 min layover in Amsterdam. They made up a little time in route but we landed 65 min late so I took off running to get to my gate. But first, I had to go through passport control with was very slow. So I finally get to the gate at the time my plane to Athens was scheduled to leave hoping that they would let me get on the plane. Fortunately, the plane was running 20 min late so I got on with no problem. Unfortunately, my bags didn’t make it.
In Athens I had to wait for the bags to not show and then go to a special area they have for tracking lost bags. There was a line. Eventually, the nice lady at the counter located my bags in Amsterdam and hopefully they will arrive at my hotel sometime Saturday morning. I shared my ride to the hotel with another rider, Joan, from Salt Lake City who recently retired from the Nature Conservancy and commiserated about the absurd climbing we have ahead of us.
Finally, at the hotel, I got checked in and went out in search of some food as it was getting late. There are many small restaurants in storefronts all along the streets. Typically they have four or five tables and are quite busy with local customers. They generally have a glass fronted counter along one side with the available dishes visable through the glass. This works well for me since I can’t speak Greek and no one could speak English. However, I can point. So I pointed to a dish that looked good and what came out to my table was much more than I thought that I had selected but it was excellent. My dish included chicken, rice, stuffed grape leaves, stuffed tomatoes, stuffed peppers and stuffed eggplant. It was served with a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, mixed greens, mint leaves, and cilantro and also accompanied with some huge warm pita bread. An amazing dinner.
Hopefully tomorrow I will get my bag and my bike and can start preparing for the ride. We have a riders meeting at 10. No pictures today but I will have some for tomorrow.