Prague Journal

Saturday, September 18, 2004

After a busy morning of packing (bringing too much, of course, but wanting to be prepared for unanticipated events), we are off to Greece – yes the tickets arrived via Fed Ex yesterday! – to see our dear friend Barb Buchan compete in the 2004 Paralympic Games. We raced to the bus to the Prague airport so that we would have plenty of time to want in line.
The long wait was in Rome, which rivaled any airport we’ve been in in the US for bottlenecks and screening scrutiny. The second Rome airport line was for passport control, which surprised me because we were on a through flight to Athens). The line was so slow that everyone was grumbling and those who had imminent flights were pleading to get to their gate on time. By the time we got to the passport control official, even he was shaking his head and mumbling “Mama Mia,” apparently because of some visa irregularities for a group of men who, after much interrogation, were escorted away for further questioning. We had thought that the 1 ½ hours we had between flights would give us sitting and waiting time, but in fact we had just enough time to get to the gate for boarding.
The airplane from Rome to Athens had video monitors, with no headphones for sound, that showed old Tom & Jerry (Hanna-Barbara) cartoons! The upside of the Rome passport control line was that we were now entering from an EU country and had no passport check entering Greece. The downside is that we have no stamp on our passport to show that we ever visited Greece!Greece is one hour later than the Czech Republic, so it was dark when we arrived. Asking for directions and reading signs, however, was easier than in the US (and much much easier than in the Czech Republic), since everything is written in both Greek and English and nearly everyone in any official capacity speaks English. We had no trouble getting on the bus to Omonia Square (“Congress Square”), a short walk to the Ionis Hotel where Barb had made reservations for us. We ate a late dinner at a Neon Café (a chain of cafeteria-style eateries). Prices are relatively high here – at least twice the price of most places in Prague. Mythos beer is 2.50 Euro– perhaps because the dollar is so weak (one Euro costs roughly $1.25); local brews in Prague at a comparable restaurant would be about $1.

posted by JWinn @ 7:35 PM