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Travels through Morocco, Spain, Egypt, Dubai, and Greece
Bottom line - I f***ed around and missed my flight out of Marseille. The un-supportive staff at Air France at the Marseille airport weren't all that much help, but with Rick's help, a few white lies about my tardiness being due to the railroad strike, and a some patience on the part of the ticketing guy, I managed to get rebooked to Paris-Orly for Sunday afternoon. So now the only problem was that my new flight was out of Paris-Charles de Gaulle on Monday morning.
I have a lot of comments about the experience, but none of them are particularly flattering to the French staff. hmmm...g
The original plan was to be up by 7:30 and out the door by 8:30 to finally see the Acropolis before leaving town. The reality was that the funny tasting cheese from last night was probably bad and I woke up around 5:00 am with very unpleasant cramps and abdominal contractions. Thus, I wasn't going anywhere any time soon lest my body take an inopportune moment to purge itself of the toxins. It turns out that Amanda and Ian were happy to sleep until 9 am as well. The bottom line was that there was no Acropolis this morning. We were doing well to get to the airport 45 minutes before out flight.
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I just have to mention two notable events that occured just prior to leaving the hotel. First, Ian and I wandered into some sort of protest march on the edge of Syntagma Square as we were out hunting for an ATM machine. I asked someone what the protest was about, but as they were tourists as well they didn't have an answer. So I took a photo and will have to find someone who can read Greek to translate. The other incident was actually somewhat traumatic. As Ian and I were trying to get my 20 kg backpack into the tiny elevator, one of the straps of the backpack got closed into the doors. As the elevator started to move, I began frantically pushing buttons to stop the elevator, but it was too late. I stepped backwards into the elevator (with Ian strapped to my chest) and watched the 50 lbs of luggage rise to the ceiling of the elevator and then come crashing back down when the strap finally broke off. I shreiked, Ian cried as a result, and all-in-all it was a high stress elevator ride.
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Our flights to Marseille were fine, with the exception of me leaving my purse/camera bag on the plane from Athens when we transferred in Milan. Thus there was no lunch during our 45 minute layover. The no lunch part ended up being not a problem once we finally made it into Marseille. We grabbed a bus from the airport to the bus terminal in downtown Marseille where Rick met us with a pre-arranged taxi. Even the taxi was a treat for me, since I got to sit in the front seat with "Rocky Balboa," the cabbie's permanent canine co-pilot. We arrived at Rick's place around 6, he made us a wonderful big dinner of pasta & salad, and we spend the next few hours doing mundane things like laundry and emailing. It is nice to be in a home again, though it will be even nicer to be in my own!