The flight back to Athens was uneventful. It had been almost 48 hours since we slept, so we actually managed to fall asleep for several hours on the flight. Sleeping in uncomfortable places is simply a matter of being tired enough, we suppose.

We arrived at 1000 local time. Directly across the street from the airport exit is a hotel. It is maybe 1000 yards away. We were planning to go downtown to get a hotel. But this one was so darn close and easy to get to that we couldn’t resist. We walked over to the hotel, checked in, crawled into bed, and instantly passed out. We got in a desperately needed 6 hour nap before it was time to head downtown to meet Christi’s other half-brother, Andronikos, for dinner.

It was exciting to see Andronikos. Andronikos lives in Chicago, USA, so we get to see him more frequently than we see Costas, but we still don’t get to see him often. Andronikos was in town to visit his mother and aunt, and to deal with some administrative headaches that accompany a new Greek law that was just passed.

We went out to dinner at a cute taverna near his apartment. We tried some locally produced white wine. It is regular wine, not retsina, and it is absolutely delicious. And cheap. We also tried fava, which is mashed white beans. The texture is similar to light mashed potatoes. It is topped with olive oil and raw onion slices. It tastes like beans. We like beans, so we like the dish.

Despite the long nap, we were still tired and decided to call it an early night. We strolled downtown to Syntagma station, passing some other important sites along the way, including the opera house, library, cultural center, university, a Catholic church (most churches in Greece are Greek Orthodox, Catholic churches are rare), and a numismatic museum. We have no idea what numismatic means, but the museum was once the private residence of a German who immigrated to Greece around the time of WWII. The fence and appointments on the house are all covered in swastikas. Not just a few — hundreds. We are very surprised that the Greeks didn’t tear out all the swastikas when the home was donated as a museum. Maybe it is a private museum and they can’t. Or maybe they don’t hate the Nazis because for the most part, the Nazis tried to preserve all the national treasures of Greece and made a concerted effort to stay away from the ruins. It may be worth going to the museum another day just to satisfy curiosity.

After our lovely evening stroll, we caught the airport bus back to the hotel and slept for another blissful 10 hours.

Today we spent the day with Andronikos and his mother, Rula (Andronikos, Costas, and Christi all have different mothers. John gets around). We looked at old family photos and went out to lunch. Christi tried a vegetarian dish that we can’t remember the name of. It is small chunks of eggplant (aubergines) baked in a rich tomato sauce and topped with cheese. It is about as traditional of a Greek dish as you can get, but we would have guessed it was Italian if we didn’t know better.

We had a nice time, and wish we could have stayed longer. Our flight to Crete was at 20:20 (8:20 pm), so at 18:00 (6:00 pm) we said our goodbye’s and boarded the train back to the airport.

The flight to Irakleon and drive back to Agios Nickolaos were uneventful. We were delighted to see that Kosmos looked almost exactly the same as when we left her. The staff on duty at the marina seemed happy to see us again. On board, we checked to make sure everything was in order. We were dismayed to see that the leak in the port stabilizer has gotten significantly worse. The oil is low by at least 3 liters, and the diapers Eric had put down were saturated with oil. But the diapers do a good job there was very little oil in the bilge. We’ll have to get that fixed sooner rather than later.