By Emilee Shake
I think most Americans get some sort of inner pride during the Olympics. Whether the games suck individuals in each evening or hardly interest them, hearing about the success of the American athletes just makes people proud.
I can’t think about the Olympic games without thinking about the time I visited the site of the 2004 summer games in Athens, Greece.
Just over two years ago—man, time flies—I spent four days in the city of Athens. Let me preface this by saying this was by far the most bizarre trip I’ve ever taken. There were so many random occurrences that were out of my control, though only a few will be mentioned here.
My four travel companions and I, studying at Harlaxton College in Grantham, England, departed for the airport immediately after completing an exam. (“Immediately” means we took a shuttle to the train station where we waited for about five hours before our hour train ride to the airport where we spent the night curled up on uncomfortable benches catching some sleep before our morning flight the following day.)
Upon arriving in the Athens airport, we managed to get metro passes into the city, find the right district and make it to our hotel. (Not too long after that, we banned the “It’s all Greek to me” joke.) After dropping our stuff off and learning a few Greek words from the concierge, we went for a sight-seeing stroll, attempting to get to the Acropolis. Stumbling upon a different tourist spot, we met an American graduate student from Chapel Hill, N.C. who was writing his dissertation on the site.
It was Mars Hill rock, the location where the Apostle Paul first preached in Athens, he told us. That was a surreal moment for me, knowing I was standing in the same place of the first believers in Athens. After sharing some history of the rock, he told us our hotel was located in the district known as the “heroin district,” and we should be careful after dark.
The following night after a delicious, and unsurprisingly eventful, Turkish dinner, we attempted to get back on the metro. On the escalator going underground, we spotted several official-looking men. Attempting to avoid any sort of run-in with the law, we casually hopped on the up escalator, planning to find a different metro station.
The official-looking men didn’t like that idea. A couple of them began shouting at us and following us, to which we quickly stopped and attempted to communicate. The one officer who spoke English demanded to see our metro passes. After presenting them to him, he told us they weren’t valid and asked for our Passports, which we weren’t carrying with us. To that he replied, “You go to Greek jail.”
After some...umm... intense dialogue between he and myself, he agreed to accept money and not take us to jail.
Finally, after coming up with 180euro, paying the officer and buying new metro tickets, we made our way through the heroin district back to our hotel, happy to not be calling the U.S. Embassy.
Saturday we were scheduled for a cruise of a few Greek islands. Due to “hurricane-like weather” that the country apparently experiences one or two days a year, our cruise was canceled. We were definitely a roll-with-the-punches group of travelers, determined not to let anything steal our fun, so we found other things to do. That evening we ventured to the other side of the city to see the site of the 2004 Olympics. We’d already visited the site of the very first Olympic games and wanted to complete our Olympic tour in Athens.
As we stepped out of the metro station, we knew we were in for it. The hurricane-like weather had hit. The wind was blowing so hard the rain was pelting us sideways.
Determined to see site, we persevered, perhaps somewhat idiotically. My umbrella, which I had pointed straight out in front of me to block the rain, was torn to shreds by the wind.
Literally, the metal broke material ripped.
We walked across the clearings against the cold wind and rain only to take some pictures that didn’t turn out because of the conditions.
But we made it, and that was enough for us.
Needless to say, the 2004 Olympic stadium I saw that night wasn’t much like the one I remember seeing on TV watching those games.
n Emilee Shake wants to be a bobsledder someday. After watching “Cool Runnings” and seeing USA’s Erin Pac and Elana Meyers medal, who wouldn’t?
