Athens, Greece
The summer of my junior year we were planning to come back home for R&R from Iran. Things were getting pretty tense there. There were stories of women who were not wearing shadirs getting acid thrown in their face, there was a sudden presence of military at major roundabouts, while visiting Tehran a group of men followed me and some friends, throwing rocks at us. Even as a teenager, I knew something was wrong, something was brewing. Unbeknownst to me, dad was wakened from his sleep one night to the sound of machine gun fire and shortly after his driver told him that it was time for dad to leave Iran.
Instead of heading back home for a visit, we headed back home for good with a stop in Europe. The plan was to go to Greece, Italy, Spain and Germany. Our first stop was Greece.
Although I was heartbroken to leave my friends and the country, there was a sense of freedom I felt as soon as we were in Athens that had been missing in Iran. The job had been wearing on my dad. When overseas, he worked 6-days a week, 10-hour days at a minimum. While we enjoyed a type of freedom we would have had in the states, there were restrictions that were always there. We had to be careful about what we wore, what we said, what we did. And suddenly it was gone. Perhaps for that reason, Greece was one of our favorite countries that we visited.
The first couple of days we stayed at a hotel on the outskirts of Athens, enjoying the beach just unwinding. Dad had commandeered a travel book called Europe on $5 a Day. Yes, there was an actual book with that title and, yes, it was a best-seller for quite some time.
The first hotel, The Hotel Rondo, at which we stayed was a little nondescript hotel. What I remembered most was that for the first time ever, we had three hotel rooms which meant Eliz and I didn't have to share a bed, a very happy event for her since she always accused me of kicking her in my sleep. Greg also got locked in the bathroom which made Eliz and I laugh hysterically. It was rather funny, but then, again, I wasn't the one who got locked in.
We spent time at the beach which was hot, but still enjoyable. I remember the sand being much coarser than the sand than California. It was just wonderful to be able to go out in shorts again when it was hot outside.
We took a day cruise to see some of the surrounding islands where the water was blue as blue could be and the towns were picture book beautiful.
After a few days of relaxing and acclimating to our new found freedom, we moved to a hotel, called the Adonis, inside the city so we could do some sightseeing.
The first night in the city, dad was determined to eat at a restaurant recommended in his trusty book, Europe on $5 a day so we roamed the streets of Athens on foot for what seemed like hours, stomachs growling, feet hurting. Once dad has his mind set on something, it's pretty well set in stone. We finally gave up complaining and starting singing to the Ant's Go Marching a song with our own lyrics that went something like this:
The Medina's go marching one by one, hurrah, hurray, the Medina's go marching one by one, hurrah, hurray, the Medina's go marching one by one, the little one stops to suck his thumb and they all go marching down into the street to get food to eat.
We finally did end up eating, but I have no idea if it was the restaurant dad was looking for. I remember the restaurant was empty which was a bad sign to us and that dad tried some olive concoction. The food was okay, but nothing impressive to me. One of our best meals there was the night mom and dad went to the market, bought fresh baked bread, cheese and fruit and we ate like kings.
We spent time exploring the Acropolis, which I thought was magnificent. I truly could not believe I was there.
I also could not believe that tourists could walk around the ruins as we did.
One afternoon dad gave us all free time and Eliz and I roamed the streets of Athens together, arguing (of course) about where we were. I (of course) was wrong, but I wouldn't admit it. She (of course) was right and wanted to be sure that I knew it. If I could go back in time, I would embrace more the time we had together. I wouldn't care if I were right or wrong. I would just be happy spending time with my brothers and sister, mom and dad as we marched into the street to get food to eat.
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