The Fretful Mother's Blog

You would think I would have mentioned this fear a long time ago. I’m assuming most people aren’t that fond of riots. You can count me in that lot. I’ve not really been involved in many riots (as I didn’t live in Los Angeles 15 years ago and can’t really think of any other riots, notwithstanding the annual Super Bowl meltdowns in selected cities). But I was presented with an opportunity on Nov. 17, and I ran with it.
Apparently this is a national holiday in Greece. I’m not really sure what it’s called. Maybe Kill the Americans Day? Anyway, the hotel slipped a note under the door notifying us that there would be unrest as the population commemorated the death of 50 students like 50 years ago when the United States backed some dictator. There would be a mass protest as they marched from the university to the U.S. Embassy down the street. The hotel said it would lock all the doors and encouraged us to stay in our rooms. Well, as Americans we weren’t down with that. We gotta be free.
So we proceeded to the Parthenon as previously planned and decided to return to the hotel later that night. Well, it turns out the subway would not stop at our station due to the riots. We had to disembark at another station populated by the military in full gear. They had machine guns and shields and all that. I took photos.
So then we had to walk to our hotel about 2 km away. Of course, the protesters were just finishing up and were walking toward us. They looked angry. We decided we shouldn’t talk as to not give ourselves away as Americans. If only I knew Greek. I wasn’t sure my “Yo soy un Canadien” would convince anyone. I need to learn some other helpful phrases in addition to my standard “I am lost and my friend is drunk” or “I am drunk and my friend is lost.” You can never be too safe.

This entry was posted on November 30, 2009 at 3:59 pm and is filed under Fear of the Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.