| Nov. 27th, 2009 @ 10:07 am I got Athened |
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What a day! I tried to be a bit more relaxed than usual about getting to day one of my conference. I knew the Metro journey would take no more than 20 minutes; with even a 15 minute walk thereafter, I could still leave my hotel by 09h10 and arrive with 10 minutes to spare. I even decided, for the first time, to play some tunes on my phone whilst on the Metro.
3 stops in and everyone else gets off the train. Turns out there's track works and we all have to shift to a shuttle bus. Ça ne me dérange pas: I follow the crowd, nab a seat on the first bus, and figure "count stops and get off at your station." Except buddy-the-bus-driver must've had a mate onboard...because at stop #3 he was at stop #2. D'oh!
Each Metro station has a local map and i'm now pretty good at reading Greek place names...so I start walking. 10 minutes later I realize I'm nowhere near where I need to be, so I circle back to the stop and (as I should've immediately) hop on the next shuttle bus. That drops me at my station...but the local map isn't very useful (yes, 2 stadiums, I can see that). And for the first time someone I ask doesn't speak English (he's a Metro attendant)...and he clearly doesn't give a shite either.
I walk away, lest Mrs. Egan's Withering Glare™ (all rights reserved) renders him ash. Yes ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) querrelle, I should be more Zen. Wot. Eva.
I ask another station person, who points me in the right (general) direction. After another 15 minutes wandering, I've finally found Piraeus Street, but have no idea which way to go for the conference site. But there's an outlet mall, and I need a wee...and a chill pill...so I pop in there. I felt I should feign some shopping, having used their water, so I wander around the men's department. Hmmmmm snowboarding pants. For €28.50 a pair. Size S. Fit perfectly. I'll take 2 thanks!
Nice young man at the mall points out where Piraeus Street is, I take what I think is the logical direction, and I"m off. And I get lost again. Holy Mary Muthafucka of Gawd. 15 minutes later I hop on--no, cram on--to a bus to backtrack, and realize if I'd gone left instead of right I would've been right on the money.
My instructions are working to a t and I'm at the right address. But there's: 1.) a school; 2.) a deserted lot; 3.) warehouse; and 4.) an office building. I tried 4...nope, which meant my instructions were fooked. So I walked around the block, checked the side streets for similar-sounding names, and tried not to scream. Though really, in Athens I don't think it'd draw much attention, particularly if I held a mobile phone to my ear whilst I did it.
So I approach the security at the warehouse: "Do you speak English" "No." "Apollan Centre?" "Yes." "Yes? Here?" He motions around the corner....and there it is. It is, turns out, a converted warehouse. And it's a great venue that should really have a sign on the outside somewhere, you know, in strictly kapitalist pragmatic terms. Of course I hate plenary sessions--and all this means I missed it--so it all works out in the end.
The conference itself is very good. Not all the papers, but it's the hallways that are most valuable. Of course, whomever decided that a digitized version of the conference proceedings should be an autorun flash CD-ROM (what, pdf files aren't good enough for ya?) should be spanked. But I met some nice folks, and I'll see them again tomorrow.
Despite it all, I had a lot of fun. Much of it laughing at my own lameness. I friggin' love Athens!!!! |
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