Athens, Greece

Saturday October 3, 1992 Athens, Greece

A miracle! My stomach pain is gone, only tenderness remains. I'm up at 7 a.m. feeling like I did before we left home, just pain where the tumors are, not too bad. I can stand it.

At 9 a.m. we are off on a bus through Athens, Greece. It's very congested. The streets are narrow. The buildings are dingy from all the smog. It's about 78 degrees, a lovely day. We climb up to the Acropolis and see the Parthenon and all the ruins of temples erected to Athena. It's amazing to see so many buildings so close together below in the city.

We arrive back for lunch. I have soup and salad. That's OK. I had cereal and toast in our room this morning. I have my hair washed and set in the salon on the ship, write postcards, and take a nap.

After dinner and show we are on deck as we sail out at 11 p.m. I feel so much better!

I'm so glad Mom was feeling better this day. It sounds like eating small meals is the key. Also, the fact that she got so much sleep yesterday certainly helped.

I went on a 10-week tour of Europe the summer of 1974 after graduating from college. I loved the small islands of Greece and the turquoise blue water, but I do remember that Athens was very smoggy and crowded. I checked Wikipedia to see what the air pollution is like there today. "In the 1980s it became evident that smog from factories and an ever increasing fleet of automobiles, as well as a lack of adequate free space due to congestion, had evolved into the city's most important challenge. A series of anti-pollution measures taken by the city's authorities in the 1990s, combined with a substantial improvement of the city's infrastructure (including the Attiki Odos motorway, the expansion of the Athens Metro, and the new Athens International Airport), considerably alleviated pollution and transformed Athens into a much more functional city."