August 22 We Go To The City

Theodosia is on Aegina Island at another of Sophia's summer houses. I opted out having had a lot of sun and water at Rafina and wanting to see at least ONE museum before returning home. Christos returned to work. Kathy was undecided about Aegina but can go later if she chooses. For now she is in Haidari.

Tuesday Kathy and I set off early for Athens. It was very hot. We took the city bus and then navigated the Metro (subway) after studying the system map. It is really very well labeled, put in place for the 2004 Olympics. We went to Omonia square and had turopita and bougatsa for brunch, checked out a large department store, the greatest virtues of which were clean restrooms and a cafe on the top floor; we utilized both. Then we walked to the Hellenic American Union to check on the cost and format of the intensive course for non-Greeks. 400 Euros for one month, five days/week, 3 hours a day, morning or evening classes. I had purchased a child's story book (7 years and up) in Rafina to help me learn Greek. The story is so clever and fun to figure out that Kathy wanted one of her own. We found "Little Basoula the Witch" is one of a series and luckily the bookstore had a different one from mine so we can trade them when we finish. We went to the National Gardens for a little shade, but we realized the length of time between our rest stops was getting shorter and we had better head home.

Since Christos went back to work and Theodosia is on Aegina the pantry at the house in Athens had not been restocked. Coming home from Athens yesterday I recognized the supermarket where Theodosia took me when I first arrived and it was only a block from the local bus route. So this morning Kathy and I went shopping as early as we could get away. It was still hot. A third wave of temperatures over 100 degrees - never before heard of here! We bought the bare minimums as we were carrying two heavy bags each on the bus but at least we had some necessities - like toilet paper.