Ode on a Grecian run

Pacing the landing at South Kensington station with a winter coat, a hiking backpack, and a bead of sweat working its way down my spine, I waited.  There wasn't really any choice in the matter.  Follow the timing of the signs, get on the train...which is going to an obscure branch I don't need.  Get off the train.

At this point, there isn't any room for error.  The next one is going where I need, and will take 32 minutes to get to the second terminal.

Online check in doesn't work because I'm not a euro, and my prepaid mobile won't let me call any of the company lines.  I thought back to when I paused to tie my shoe at Victoria station, and how I might have been able to more or less dive into the train had I continued/sped up the run.  Not really much I can do, now.

The rule is 45 minutes; I'm going to arrive with 37 minutes remaining.  Every station stop on the laborious trip out makes me more and more agitated.  Three stations for Hounslow? Inwardly swearing, outwardly sweating. I arrive on time, as far as the train is concerned...and then it's just running.

All people-dodging skills from Asia come back into full use as I pelt up the escalator out of the station, down a people-mover (amazing pace achieved), and up to the top floor, where the check in machines don't work.  To the desk of Aegean airlines, and a man has dipped in front of me.  I theatrically pant while my boarding pass is printed off: euphoria.
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I really should have got going sooner; no excuse.  My own judgement led to the longest sustained period of hustle/wait in my life, as I got from south Brixton to a boarding gate in comical fashion.  As I sat down in my seat it was incredible to feel the sweat darkening my shirt and to know that a trip I had basically considered impossible an hour before was happening.  I wanted wine; I asked for water.

I got to the hostel after some predictable consternation with the inability to read Greek train instructions, and was offered an ouzo shot.  I had that, and a Mythos beer.

This beer featured in every day plan, because I was on vacation, goddamnit.  This is what I got for all of my outright sprinting up escalators, for all the patience exhibited in the face of adolescent ridiculousness...for everything I'd weathered...to say nothing of the weather. Whether or not it would help my heretofore withering health, it was time for beer...and food.  I ate all of it.

I ate things in Athens that I hadn't liked before, and loved them.  Greece is really quite a good place to get Greek food, as it turns out.  My first meal was calimari and a large block of feta drizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with spices.  Game on, weight loss accumulated via weeks of cold dreary misery.  The best thing came a few days later, though:

Grilled fresh squid with a basil sauce next to salad with house-made pita and tzatziki peeking through the background.  I had a nearly-religious experience as I ate the mollusk, based around the idea that I'd never tried to do this myself.  In China I very happily drunkenly ate grilled squid on skewers at the slightest provocation.  What have I been doing in my largely squid-free life in Canada? My god, man.

I also did all the sightseeing things one does.  I'd get up at my leisure, skipping the spartan fare on offer downstairs in favour of a yogurt bar where toasted walnuts and dark pine honey abundantly topped hand-pressed goodness....where was I...right, sightseeing.

It was my first foray into the land of the classics I've had interest in for so long, and it delivered on monumental architecture.  I'd see a sight in the A.M., go for an inevitably delicious and vaguely pricy lunch, have a nap/read up on something for work, then either see a quick sight or wander around.  The Mythos would come back at a certain point, followed by something revelatory (moussaka! delicious!), a bit of house ouzo (inevitably on the house, which was a nice touch) and more sleeping in.

The only thing that made the trip more pleasurable than it already was was the fact that I came so preposterously close to missing it based on my own stupidity regarding choosing a leaving time from where I was staying.  Lesson learned!  I have three (well, two..but almost three..so close to three) more countries to visit in the next month, before I prepare for my new job in a fourth.

Oh..I could have mentioned that I know where I'll be working in the fall.  Another time, I guess.