DCGreeks.com's
Athens 2004
Summer Olympic Log
August 6th-7th
Themistocles' Log
Friday, August 6, 2004
ATHENS, GREECE -- Having already secured tickets for a fantastic men's
basketball preliminary match-up of Argentina vs. Spain followed by The Greek-American's
"Can't Lose" Special of USA vs. Greece,
courtesy of my friend Eleni, her lack of procrastination, and her luck in
getting tickets for the highly sought-after Women's Gymnastics Finals and Medal
Ceremony on the same night, I set out with my cousin and his wife with hopes of
getting Olympic tickets for a number of events that as far as I knew weren't
high up on most Greeks' "must see" list. As I walked up to Korai
Square next to the Panepistimio (University) Metro stop, I was greeting by two
long lines, 30 people deep, of mostly Athenians waiting to purchase
tickets. I, too, joined the line at 8:30, thinking that there wouldn't be
a problem getting served by 10 PM, the time when the kiosk theoretically
closed. Boy, was I wrong. At 9:30 PM, my cousin gave me the
obligatory, "Let's go. It's impossible that you'll get to the window
by 10, and the guy just said that they're shutting down at 10, 'cause they have
to count the money before they come by to pick it up at 11," speech.
Having already made plans to meet up with some of my cousin's friends at
Syntagma Square, we left. If I wanted tickets, I was going to have to get
up early the next morning and get in line again.

|
Not even one of the few stray dogs that
remain in Athens could tolerate the wait for tickets. |
Now, you may ask "how long does it take to process 30 ticket
orders"? Not very long at all, if you know what you want. The
problem with most of the Greeks in line was that not only are they waiting until
the last minute to buy their tickets, they really aren't prepared with their
orders; they sit there with the 1/2 inch thick Olympic schedule guide open while
they're in line, and when they get to the window, they're leafing through it
page by page asking if they've got any tickets left for a certain sport on a
certain day at a certain time at a certain price, and when they find out they
can't get that exact combination of sport, day, time, and price, they ask,
"Well, what about the next day? No? How 'bout the day before?"
It was taking a good 15 minutes per person, and we're not talking about huge
orders here.
Saturday, August 7, 2004
ATHENS, GREECE -- I woke up around 8:30 to catch a bus from the Athenian
suburb of Haidari to downtown Athens. The public transportation system in
Athens has improved immensely in the four years since I've last been here.
Where the A15 bus used to leave you in an alley near Omonia, it now leaves you
right outside the Metaxourgio Metro Station. Two quick stops on the Red
Line and I was at the Panepistimio station a couple of minutes after 10 AM, with
it seems, the rest of Athens. The line had doubled in size from the
previous night, but I decided to stick it out. (In retrospect, I should
have gone to the Starbucks, yes Starbucks, for something Venti and iced
first.)
 |
11:15 AM... 30 more minutes to go. |
Anytime Greeks have to wait in line for something, it's national news, and
during those two hours I saw at least three or four camera crews there. MEGA
was there asking people in line what events they were hoping to purchase ticket
for, and when they asked the Harry Potter looking kid in front of me why he
wanted to see Judo, I think part of my UVA t-shirt got on TV. In addition
to ΕΡΤ, I think there was a crew from a Chinese news station
there as well. (Listening to a Chinese-Greek interpreter translating the
reporters questions in perfect Greek was mind-blowing.) So around 10
minutes to noon, I finally hit the head of the line, and instead of leafing
through the schedule book, I simply handed the guy behind the glass a
spreadsheet printout of what I was hoping to buy:
Date
|
Time
|
Event
|
Price
|
Number of Tickets
|
Total Price
|
8/17/04
|
20:00
|
Basketball ARG vs. ESP; GRE vs. USA
|
€
0
|
2
|
€
0
|
8/18/04
|
18:30
|
Baseball GRE vs. CAN
|
€
10
|
2
|
€
20
|
8/19/04
|
9:30
|
Softball USA vs. GRE (+ two teams I could care less
about)
|
€
10
|
2
|
€
20
|
8/19/04
|
19:30
|
Volleyball: ARG
vs. GRE; RUS vs. USA
|
€
10
|
2
|
€
20
|
8/21/04
|
14:30
|
Beach
Volleyball Round of 16
|
€
20
|
2
|
€
40
|
8/23/04
|
9:00
|
Athletics (Opening Events for the Men's Decathlon)
|
€
10
|
4
|
€
40
|
8/23/04
|
19:30
|
Volleyball: SCG
vs. GRE; USA vs. BRA
|
€
10
|
2
|
€
20
|
8/24/04
|
18:00
|
Men's Soccer Semifinals
|
€
40
|
2
|
€
80
|
8/26/04
|
18:00
|
Women's Soccer Bronze and Gold Medal Matches
|
€
40
|
2
|
€
80
|
The man thanked me and within 5 or 6 minutes, I had my tickets in hand, and
as I walked away, I saw the line that still remained.
 |
Athenians lined up shortly before noon on Saturday, August 7th, 2004, with hopes of purchasing Olympic tickets. |
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