"Athens! But you guys told us you were skipping Athens."

Ah, our first trial (or was it a tribulation - I can never tell). We catch our crack-or-dawn flight from Crete to Athens and patiently wait for our connecting flight to Cairo, a few hours away. And we wait and wait. And nobody from Egypt Air shows up. Hmmm. We ask around only to learn "There is no flight to Cairo." I hunt through the bowels of Athens airport for the Egypt Air office only to find it dark and locked. Hmmm.

A few phone calls later I have the following coversation:

• "The Cairo flight was canceled"
• "But we called 3 days ago to confirm!"
• "Yes, you are confirmed on the next flight to Cairo at 8pm."
• "Are we confirmed on our connecting flight to Amman?"
• Pause. "Yes"
• "Can you please tell me how we're going to catch our 6:30 pm connection if the plane doesn't leave Athens until 8pm?" Silence. "Oh."

Anyway, all other flights are full and the soonest we can get to Jordan is three days away. No problem. After discovering that every downtown hotel was full and that its impossible to catch a cab, we finally made our way (by public bus) out to the university section of town where we got a cheap room. Total time from airport to hotel: 9 hours.

The upshot of it all is that the Acroplis is very, very impressive. (map)

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View of Athens from the Acroplis
I couldn't resist this cheesey shot! (No, its not set up.) The Parthenon at the Acroplis Caryatids
"I'm pretty sure the Acroplis is around here somewhere!"	Guess what...

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