… continued from Episode 2…
Our plane took off at 22:45, so we had the whole day to wonder around Athens (or so we thought). We found some underground shops where we stayed for hours. That was the day when Ovidiu became a fan of “Porcupine Trees”, after buying their CD based soley on their name and pretty cover. It was waaay too cool not to have it… I settled for a shawl. So girlish of me… I know, I’m not as cool as he is 
About 3 hours before the take off of our lovely Airbus A320-200, we realized that it’s getting late and decided to slowly head twoards the airport. Sounds plenty of time? WRONG! First stop was at the subway station where we left our luggage (I think it was Omonia station), and where we changed clothes, brushed teeth, used the deodorant, you know, normal hygene stuff that we could’t do in public restrooms. As a normal girl, 10 minutes were enough. For Ovidiu though, half an hour seemed to be insufficient. And I waited… and waited… I asked him if he was all right – he was; remided him of the plane departure – he knew about it; anounced him about the 2 nice policemen coming to get him out of the bathroom – …
And so I found myself with a half naked, all wet Ovidiu and tons of clothes in the middle of a subway station. Yes, people were staring; yes, I felt embarassed; and yes, I yelled the brains out of the idiot beside me.
Anyway…time to go to the airport. Big surprise! When we finally got to the train station we discovered there were no trains for us to get there in time. Some synapses clicked, ‘cuz this is when I began acting like the Duracell bunny. I took the map, made a weird train-subway combination, dragged Ovidiu and our tons of rucksacs half-way across Athens to another train station, yelled at the ticket counter guys, who seemed to be sedated, and managed to get us on a train barely on time for boarding. Ovidiu was in a complete shut down, and all he said was “Ioana, you do realize we’re not getting there in time, do you?”.
Well, we did get there, exactly when the Boarding started. Unfortunately we were still at check in, with a huge queue in front of us. Blood pressure reached dangerous levels and the sympathetic nervous system was kicking liters of adrenalin on our frustrated receptors… But we cooled down when we reached the gate. True, we were the last to come, but still in time. Ovidiu went to the bathroom once more, blaming the stress, and after 2 minutes gets out of there a lighter person, with 2 wet tickes in his hand (they fell in the sink). No worries! I’m calm! As long as the magnetic tape on the ticket still works, everything’s fine! And it did work. But when Ovidiu’s turn came, I could see his face turning gostly white, pupils dilating, and that damn sympathetic kicking in again. “WHERE’S MY PASSPORT?!?!”
Nice. Are we doomed or something? Are these all signs? Is the plane going to crash and some superior force is trying to warn us not to get on? We looked for the bloody passport everywhere. Do you know where we found it, 2 minutes before gates closed? In the bathroom. On the sink. In water.
… to be continued…
Ioana Popescu
Pacatele mele, ce aventuri……!!!