Strike in Athens

December 13- 17

The story of our stay in Athens is the story of strikes. The transportation workers were on strike most of the week which meant that with a few exceptions, we had to walk everywhere we went. It was a good way to get some exercise. However, we walked from our apartment to the major sites through a rather bleak neighborhood. Huge piles of garbage sprawled all over the sidewalk on every block as the garbage workers were on strike. Hospital workers and the police were on strike as well.

The first day, we got to the Acropolis too late as we got lost on the way and had to stop and eat. We arrived just before they closed at 3pm. The next day we tried again and this time we had beautiful weather and plenty of time to wander about amid the ancient temples.

Our apartment was warm and cozy with a good supply of DVDs and a French press coffee maker so we were happy to return at the end of the day. Towards the end of our stay, we found a movie theater not far from our apartment so the kids got to see the new Harry Potter film that their friends back home got to see in November. We even had our own private showing with Greek subtitles and an intermission.

We planned to leave on Thursday evening on the night train to Sofia but because of a 24 hour strike we would have to leave Friday morning instead. We spent the afternoon at the archeology museum and returned home to find that strikers held a huge demonstration near parliament that day and set cars on fire. Riot police intervened. We didn’t see a thing.

A huge line of people met us as we entered the train station on Friday morning. We planned to catch the 9:50 to Thessaloniki and then catch another train to Sofia, Bulgaria. Mitch waited in line patiently for about 45 minutes while I ran to get cash and found out that the next train would be at 12:30. Unfortunately, all this information was wrong. The man at the information booth stood there patiently as people began to vent their frustrations after three days of strikes during which the national train lines didn’t operate at all. One lady became so irate and screamed so loudly that the security guard came over. But she just lit into him as well.

After the wait, we discovered that the next train to Thessaloniki didn’t leave until 4:00. The fastest train was the night train and they didn’t sell international tickets at this train station until 4:00 pm. Mitch left to go buy tickets at another office before the Metro shut down on strike at 11:00. Bjorn and Emma watched the luggage and perused a Lego Christmas catalog. We found it in a Lego store near Syntagma square. They didn’t mind that it was in Greek.

After Mitch returned with the tickets we had 12 hours until the train left. We stored our luggage at the train station and off we went on foot to explore the city of Athens one more time.
-Margit