Assistance

Our time in Athens was short but enjoyable, then it was time to move on to the final leg of our trip.

Joe seemed to be getting worse and decided to start looking for a doctor. Being a holiday, options were scarce. But he did manage to find one that would accept him and his insurance. Alan went with him.

After a multitude of tests and a lot of waiting, his diagnosis was Bronchitis. We met back up with them later that evening after dinner. The doctor suggested he not fly for several days and get some rest. 

We were to leave the next morning on an early flight. We discussed his options, and Joe ended up following neither of the doctor’s instructions. He did get some medicine though, and we were all relieved to know that he wasn’t dying from Covid.

The morning came earlier than we hoped, and again there were bouts of coughing heard throughout the night. 

Levi’s flight departed earlier than ours and he left the apartment at 3:30 AM. A few hours later the six of us were in two different cabs making on our way back to the airport.

We’ve grown quite accustomed to using Ubers, I mean Joe has. When ordering an Uber, the client selects kind of vehicle needed for the ride. For six passengers we would ideally need a van to hold us all. In Greece, Uber is almost exclusively run by the taxi cab companies and their fleet of vehicles is virtually identical. The driver told us it doesn’t matter what options we select because we will still get the same thing. Therefore we needed two cars.

The route to the airport was interesting, or rather the streets in Athens are. Almost all streets are one way, and frequently just one lane. It was obvious that the city was laid out before the invention of cars and the streets confirmed it. 

The route to the airport seemed more like the route to sell us drugs on the shady side of town.

We turned right on a small street, then left on a dark alley, then turned right again on some narrow back street, then left down what looked like an off ramp. He kept going back and forth on the narrow roads and I kept looking at my phone maps concerned that the driver was not taking us in the right direction. 

Then all of a sudden the driver tells us we are in the richest area of town, and drove us by the home of the wealthy, and even past the president’s home. But it didn’t look much different than the other houses to us at all. Most of them looked like ordinary apartment buildings. This was certainly no White House. 

Our driver was a well dressed young man in a suit, and drove a beautiful new luxury Mercedes taxi. He was ambitious and told us of his plans. He had just leased the car for 6 months instead of using the taxi from the taxi company. That allows him to keep more of the money he makes although he is still an employee of the taxi company. To buy his own taxi/uber license it would cost about €100,000, but then he could finally have his own business. He was determined and said one day he’ll have one. It was own type of “American dream” to move up in his world. 

The driver also talked about Greece and American politics. He said that overall there is not a favorable opinion of Trump in the country. And personally he feels that Trump’s connection to Putin is all about money, and they will profit during the reconstruction of the cities after the war. 

As we were driving along we passed what we later found out was the Temple of Zeus. It was a large set of ruins so I asked what they were restoring. He said nothing. All the scaffolding just gives the impression it’s being restored but it’s not. It’s too expensive of a project but the government keeps up the facade so people think they are working on it. 

We arrived at the airport in plenty of time and got through security quickly. Joe was rapidly running out of breath and requested a wheelchair. 

Right next to the departure gate, we discovered an airport lounge to which access was included as a benefit of one of our credit cards. Bryan and I ate breakfast there; it was the next best thing to a buffet on the ship.  No check!

We had a layover in Milan. The last time we were in Milan was to switch trains. A gate agent at the Milan airport was going to meet Joe with a wheelchair and asked him to stay on board until everyone else had exited the plane.

The plane was parked on the tarmac and not at a sky bridge, and Joe was concerned about the stairs. After a little wait, a crew arrived in what looked like a large rectangular storage container on a hydraulic lift. The container was slowly raised up to the door of the plane and they wheeled Joe into it. Soon they were gone, and to where, we had no idea.

The rest of us found where our next flight would depart, and then went to the lounge for a free lunch. Finally! It wasn’t a buffet but at least we didn’t have to pay for this one. Joe was delivered to the lounge in his wheelchair. 

As time for the flight approached, a gate agent returned to pick up Joe and the rest of us went to the gate. From there we watched the whole process. No one else could board the plane until Joe was safely placed in his seat. It was a time consuming process and we were all late boarding by the time it was completed. 

After a short flight we arrived at the Charles De Gaulle airport. This time there was a jet bridge so Joe could walk off the plane where they were waiting with a wheelchair. Then off they went. Joe may be handicapped, but he was still far in the front of the group and still didn’t know where he was going. Oh, and Alan was still in the back dawdling, so it seemed all was back to normal.

We had arrived in Paris.