For the first time this week, I woke up not grumpy, even though I again only got a few hours of sleep. Figures it'd be the day I head back to Berlin...
Brandon and I woke up a bit early to pack up and clean Doros's apartment before heading out to Exarchia to say goodbye to our friends.
Even though it was bright and sunny, today was actually windier than the past few days.
There's the youth hostel across the street, where we saw lots of Erasmus students hanging out, swimming, and grilling. Should've joined 'em at some point, but we had far too much fun stuff to do.
We stopped by Thanasis's shop and had a quick coffee with him. We then took turns taking pictures. First, representing the west side...
Then the east side...
We also stopped by Spiros's shop and shared our condolences, since he just lost his mom. The funeral was yesterday, but we heard it went well. I'm glad we could stop by before heading out.
I rushed from there to Syntagma Square to meet with Taso, so we could grab some food/drinks with his wife, Nektaria. I felt awful for being a bit late, but it was a rush getting there from Exarchia.
Tasos also stopped by to say goodbye, and he ended up joining us for a drink at the cafe. I am glad I was able to see them all before heading back to Berlin. They have each been nothing short of generously supportive of me since they first met me.
After that, I headed to the airport, but not before stopping for a few postcards. I wrote them on the hour-long Metro ride to the airport. I was supposed to meet Brandon at the gate, so I figured he'd be there already.
Turns out, he had a 45 minute delay and barely made it to the gate in time. I had already been sitting there for an hour, using the free WiFi on my iPod Touch when he finally arrived.
This morning when we headed out, I felt a dull pain in my right foot (the same foot with which I stepped on a sea urchin yesterday). I thought it was my bone needing a nice pop, but as the day wore on, the pain got progressively worse.
So much so, that I felt like my whole foot was swelling up on the airplane. I took off my shoe for the flight and had to struggle (painfully) to put my shoe back on when we landed in Berlin. In fact, walking up the ramp hurt a lot.
I had to take a bus, an S-Bahn, and a tram to get home, and each switch was more painful than the previous as the sitting down actually caused my foot to stiffen up. It felt like it was still swelling in my shoe...in fact, on the S-Bahn, the lady sitting across from me accidentally kicked me at one point, and she must've heard or noticed me curse under my breath as she took great pains to walk around my foot when she got off. Haha.
Anyway, when I got home, it was throbbing, so I took some Advil and Googled how to treat sea urchin wounds. Apparently, soaking it in warm water or vinegar is best. The problem: I don't think we have vinegar. So I soaked my foot in warm water for almost two hours. Here's the before and after:
Not sure how much the water helped, but the pain did subside a bit, and now I'm using my crutches to hobble around the apartment. I will buy vinegar tomorrow, and if it gets worse, I'm going to the doctor. Blah, I hate going to the doctor...and plus in Berlin, I will have to explain my symptoms in German. How do you even say sea urchin?
Anyway, I had a blast in Athens, and I will miss seeing all my friends there. But as Tasos told me today, "it's not going to be your last time to Greece, so no worries." I concur whole-heartedly.
Sam
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