Travel bits and pieces

I get enthusiastic about foreign birds, apparently. While we waited below the Acropolis two days ago for Diana to pick up our site passes, I wandered away from the group, following a longtailed black and white bird which someone eventually told me was a magpie - not like New Zealand's. (There were grey-brown doves too, with black feathers collaring their necks).

There were magpies on the scaffolding at one end of the Parthenon. (The marble glows so!) And today at the Pnyx: Jeff was telling the group about how in the early days of the democracy the citizens of the Assembly sat right where we were, but used to get so distracted by the view that the speakers' podium was moved to the uphill side of the space and a great big set of seats were built to produce the necessary slope in the other direction. Magpies were swooping around behind Jeff's head while he said this. They move a bit like fantails - which I always think move a bit like dragons - but those long tails give them a really rapid shallow swoop.

Today we had our first example of the forecast ticket-office obstructionism. It was perfectly orchestrated. We'd gathered to go through the gate for the Theatre of Dionysos, but the sensors refused our educational permits, and the woman at the gate said that since we'd already used them to get onto the Acropolis, which was part of the same complex, we couldn't use them again there. So Diana sighed and joined the slow-moving line for the kiosk, ready to buy tickets if the person there couldn't be persuaded. But, yes, said the person in the kiosk, of course you are entitled to go in, and printed two tickets for Jeff and Diana. We also have twenty-three students with us, said Diana. We can't print that many tickets here, said the person in the kiosk, you'll need to pick them up from the office you got your previous tickets from. Since that's twenty minutes walk away and we have three more sites to see before dusk, said Diana, can I just pay for them here instead? (The trip's budget extends to such things, which are not unexpected). No no, said the person in the ticket office, you're entitled to them for free, we can't possibly charge you. But I want to be charged, said Diana. But, said the person in the ticket office, you're entitled to them for free. Diana hurried off in the direction of the ticket office. Five minutes later the woman at the gate, who had not seemed to be watching what was going on, walked over to Jeff and said "You're a group of students? Hmm. Alright, come on through then." So we were admitted to the Theater. Since Jeff had been holding the bag containing Diana's cellphone, she did not turn up for some time, nor in a very good mood. But then there was the shrine to the nymphs newly restored since she was there last, which rather compensated.

And I had in the Theater of Dionysos the experience which a lot of the group had on the Acropolis: 'This is the place where they were. I am standing in that place.'

...

I'm not surprised to find tourist kitch, but the sheer range of very similar yet not identical bronze gods to be had in the shops near the Acropolis is impressive. Sometimes there's also a Bhudda, or a set of archangels, just to keep things interesting. (My favourit so far has been the juxtaposition of the most Christ-like Prometheus I've ever seen with a wild-maned large-nosed Zeus leaning on his thunderbolt looking like the great king of the gnomes). Bakeries take the approach that if you put enough sugar into something it arrives at a singularity and becomes excellent. And now my roomate is home, so I cut this short without describing what good food there also is here, and go to bed.