Acropolis

We have an early start to the morning because Oscar decides to wake up at the crack of dawn.  We don’t 

really know what we’re going to do today, but we know we’re taking the metro into town because the walk back and forth to the place will kill us.  I told John that I can tell that I’m old on this trip.  Every night I sit on the bed, and when I need to get up to walk, it’s like my body has rigor mortis.  I thought that I would take the time to do some yoga in the mornings and limber up, but so far, like every exercise goal that I 

have, no dice.  We head two blocks over to the metro stop after some breakfast and the Athens subway is one of the nicest I’ve been on.  London and Paris have nice subways, but these cars are quiet, not jerky, the machines are easy to understand and it’s easy to find your way on them.  John points out that I’ve only ridden the red line for 5 stops, so I can’t really say with authority that this

is one of the nicest, but it is if this route is anything to go by.  We head to the Acropolis stop and I’m expecting that huge reveal that you get when you walk out of the subway stop in Rome at the Coliseum, where you can’t believe your eyes, but no.  The Acropolis is behind and too the side of you, but there’s another way to come out of the subway

where it would be the first thing that you saw.  We decide to head up the acropolis today and Oscar is game for it because it means running up and down ramps and stairs and through twisty things, but he doesn’t want to actually stop and read about anything or soak it in.  He just wants to run.  So, we have

to beg him to stop at times, have to remind him that the marble can be slippery and watch several people lose their footing on the way up.  He does look interested when I tell him that we’re sitting in a theater that is the “birthplace” of theater.  I explain that there wouldn’t be a Canadian Lakes

Players without these beginnings and he seems to get that.  But, I’m being a full on tourist here and have the Rick Steves book in my hand to narrate everything that we’re seeing and walking through.  I have the podcast, but it seems easier to read it at my own pace and tell it to John as I read it.  Oscar gets frustrated with mommy having to read, but we can’t be bothered because we’re climbing through the gates, past the temple to Athena Nike and there’s the Parthenon.  I’ve seen pictures, I’m still in awe, but it’s so much more destroyed than I thought from the pictures that I had seen.  It’s sad and I just want someone to build a

copy so that I can really feel it….so, next year, Nashville here we come.  Full Parthenon there for some unknown reason.  Anyway, Oscar gets hungry and we try to give him some fruit chews, but are told that there is no eating on the Acropolis.  The slopes were fine, but 

not at the top.  So, he’s angry, hungry and embarrassed because a guard very nicely told him he couldn’t eat.  So, we have a stomping, angry child with us the rest of the way around the acropolis.  Even Kitty Hunt with the cats on the top of the hill doesn’t make him feel better.  I found the Erechtheion

even more interesting than the Parthenon, Athena’s olive tree is right there and there are ladies for columns!!! We start heading down and Oscar is able to have his fruit chews, we walk around the whole set of slopes and head out to find food.  Oscar finds a street

vendor with donuts and he’s a happy camper, John gets to find some philosophers to take home and he’s happy, I got to see several of the best ancient wonders of the world and I’m happy.  Then we find lunch where Oscar can watch the trains go by, but there’s a huge fight over spaghetti today.  He

         wants it, until they bring it with parmesan on it and it’s not the powdered kind and he’s unhappy and won’t eat.  This means no visit to Little Kook that we have heard about from several sources as a Willy Wonka kind of wonderland, and now he’s crying.  But John and I feel no empathy because who gets to go to a candy store when 

they don’t eat lunch?  Nobody.  This is how our days go though.  An amazing site, a great time, some arguments and not so great times and then all coming together again in trying to get home and to bed.  These are the

things that we would do at home too, we just get to do them in amazing places now.  Oscar has his moments, but he’s being a real champ.  Not many 5 year olds would be able to handle all this change.