The highlight of 2016 was to be 2-week vacation in Greece and Italy. We decided to cover Athens, Santorini, Rome, and Florence in this 14-day period.
It took months of planning. On my part, at least. S spent much of this time doing the following:
a. Nodding dreamily at me whenever I talked about the trip, not hearing or retaining a word I said and then acting greatly surprised when I mentioned the same thing again, weeks later.
b. Cajoling and placating me with unlimited patience whenever I accused him of not being interested in planning our trip.
c. Periodically raising his eyebrows at the debits based on various trip-related expenses and predicting vastly exaggerated totals of what we would spend in all.
Despite this, we finally had everything in place and were set to go. From booking all the flights, ferries, trains, hotels, and tours to research on what to do in each city; I had ensured that all the bases were covered weeks and months in advance.
“I’m giving you ONE responsibility, okay?” I had told S seriously, a few weeks prior to our departure. “You have to figure out how to get from the airport to the hotel/B&B in each city. I do NOT want to rely on cabs, they’ll fleece us.”
I was nervous about Athens most of all, because it was the first time I had booked any sort of accommodation on Airbnb. It is easier to find a hotel than an apartment. I instructed S to watch the video that our kind Airbnb host had sent us on how to get from the metro station to her apartment.
“I’m on it, honey,” said S, determined to contribute successfully, if solely, to this one aspect.
So, of course, one fine Sunday morning we landed, bleary-eyed, in Athens with no idea of how to get to our destination. S frantically tried to access the airport wi-fi to watch the video that our host had sent but could not download it. “I gave you ONE thing to do,” I sputtered helplessly and stared at him, frustrated, as he struggled with the URL, swearing alternately at his iPhone, the airport wi-fi, and his wretched luck.
It was a trying time, but I reminded myself that I had married S, not for his planning skills, but mostly because he was handsome; and thus refrained from strangling him with my bare hands.
It was going to be a fun two weeks.
Red and the City 