The Labyrinthine Wedding – Day 3

Well, Troy woke us all up at 3:30 this morning, talking, singing, and asking for food.  Then, he didn’t go to sleep again until 6:00 a.m.  Needless to say, we were all tired and slept in.  When we finally got up and had a quick breakfast, it was about 11:00 a.m.  So, an hour later, we had lunch, and my mother-in-law, Troy, and I headed out to ride the subway through Athens.  Most of the stores are closed on Sunday, so riding the subway (or underground train) was the only entertainment I could think of for Troy. 

My mother-in-law only works if she has a mission, which means she has a target, and she won’t stop until she gets there.  Troy is more of a meandering, wherever-the-wind-may-take-him kind of a walker.  So, she would sprint off in a straight line, realize we weren’t with her, and then have to wait for us to catch up.  But that took a while, because Troy was looking at the fountain, dragging a stick along a fence, swishing the plant leaves with his hands…basically everything but walking.  He’ll get there eventually, but at his own pace and by his own route.  I spent the entire time trying to slow her down and prod him along.

Before we got to the subway, my mother-in-law took us to the giant outdoor mall.  Since pretty much everything was closed, we spent some time riding the escalators (or moving sidewalks) and playing at the playground.  My mother-in-law was upset that the stores were closed, but I was trying to explain to her that Troy was perfectly content with this “free” entertainment.  I’m not quite sure she actually knows how to relax and slow down.  She seemed confused and frustrated by our wanting to just ride the escalators up and down for no reason at all.  But Troy is more about quality time with someone rather than stuff.

The only thing open at the mall was a McDonald’s, and it was packed.  But it wasn’t the number of people jammed inside and out with their brown bags of less-than-genuine food that struck me as odd.  It was the fact that every woman there was dressed to the nines with done up make-up, hair, and nails…to go out to McDonald’s…on a Sunday…in the middle of the day.  Who are they trying to impress?!  Do they really expect everyone to believe that this is their casual, going out for a Sunday lunch at McDonald’s “look”?  The funny irony is that none of the men were dressed up at all!

We finally made it to the subway, which Troy thought was cool for the first couple of minutes.  He thought it was neat that a train could move under the city, and he enjoyed watching them appear and disappear from the dark tunnels on each side of the platform.  But he quickly lost interest when he realized that you actually had to wait at the platform for the “stupid” train to arrive.  He also didn’t like that the train had to stop every two minutes at the endless number of stations.  When we finally arrived at Syntagma, he was more than happy to get off and go exploring.

I had been telling him as we rode the subway that when they were digging the tunnels for the trains that the engineers had discovered a lost city buried under the ground.  Rather than destroying the city, they had preserved it, and you could still see walls, and sewers, and aqueducts at the stations.  We stopped for a minute to look at the archeological site at Syntagma Station, but Troy seemed less impressed than I was when I first saw it.

We timed it so that we could stop and watch the changing of the Evzones of the Presidential Guard at the Tome of the Unknown Soldier.  There were quite a lot of people already assembled, so I put Troy on my shoulders, so he could see.  The problem was that he didn’t stop asking questions for the entire 20-minute ceremony.  It got so bad that people around us started to look at him (and his poor father) and laugh.  But I patiently answered all of his incessant questions, narrating the ceremony for him and anyone else that cared to listen.

After that, we walked through Syntagma Square, while Troy chased the droves of pigeons standing around minding their own business.  A few of them narrowly missed pedestrians as they fled from the tiny terror chasing them.  Troy started to quickly get tired after that, so we decided to head back home.  I held Troy in my arms on the subway while he talked to everyone around us.  We stopped at the Veneti Bakery on the way home, and Troy got a chocolate flower to help round the day out.

I had forgotten how fast and erratic my mother-in-law drives, especially when she gets into the city, around lots of cars or when going down narrow one-lane streets.  I was gripping Troy with one arm and the O.S. bar with the other to keep us from being tossed around the car.  I also learned that the stripes on the road are more of a guideline than an actual rule (similar to the Pirate Code)……at least that’s how my mother-in-law treats them.  Her car was regularly wandering from lane to lane or right down the middle of both!  I was very thankful that we had arrived at the house safely.

It was a nice breezy evening, so we all sat out on the balcony enjoying the weather and talking.  It’s funny, but I’m perfectly content to just sit and rest on this trip.  I don’t need an itinerary.  I just need peace.