My Bahá'í Pilgrimage During a Crazy Global Pandemic
March 10, 2020
Post 13: A Better Day
[Post 12] [Post 14]
The white, wet rooftops of Athens glittered in sunshine the next morning. Though I still ached from our pilgrimage being canceled, I felt better. The rain had stopped, and we learned we’d get a refund for the sewer-fume-filled Airbnb we were staying in. I sailed out onto the glowing marble balcony to send my family back home a video message to tell them the good news.
Just as I was about to start the video, a handsome, well-dressed man stepped onto the balcony adjoining ours and smiled at me. “Good morning. I am your Airbnb host!” he declared.
I was shocked. Our host lived next door?? The walls in these apartments were paper-thin; surely he had heard every discontented word we had uttered against his establishment. Last night, we’d heard him singing next door as if he was standing in our closet!
Yet he smiled charmingly, as if he hadn’t heard a word. “How do you like your accomodations?” he asked.
I was too caught off guard and exhausted to tell him the truth. Besides, we were getting a refund from Airbnb and had booked our next place. When Travis and Dad came out to join the conversation and realized who I was speaking to, they didn’t say anything, either. We all just politely explained we were leaving a day early due to travel issues.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that!” our host said. “I hope the remainder of your trip is pleasant.”
We thanked him—then quickly packed up and left. I felt a little guilty not telling the truth, but I decided that maybe it was better that I had followed my intuition.
This was our view from our next Airbnb!
Our next Airbnb was far more pleasant, with no sewer gas fumes and three bedrooms with comfortable beds. Katie collapsed onto the couch with a satisfied and exhausted exhale. “This is how it should be,” she declared.
We all thoroughly agreed. Though it had been a great opportunity for spiritual growth to stay in that Airbnb—especially when we learned that we wouldn’t make it to our pilgrimage—I was happy we were in a better place. Now we could focus on enjoying our last two days in Athens.
This was just one display of desserts at the café.
Our apartment was only a few blocks away from the first Airbnb we had rented, which allowed us to walk to the café that we’d fallen in love with, Café Veneti. It had decadant displays of every dessert imaginable, played cheerful classical music, and even had an upper level with tables where you could eat and survey all the delicousness from above. We got to know one of the waiters pretty well. He was a wiry young man who answered any question we asked with blunt honesty. He even admitted that he didn’t like the the café very much, and got tired of listening to the same music every day. I admired his straightforward truthfulness.
Turns out the waiter was a hero, too. As Travis stood to free his coat from underneath his chair leg, his chair tipped and he fell backward toward the railing edge. Instantly, the waiter lurched forward and grabbed Travis’s shirt, saving him from falling onto a table bursting with biscotti below. We all froze.
Dad in his happy place. :)
“Falling on a table full of cookies? That would have been a good way to go,” Dad joked. We all burst into laughter, and sincerely thanked our waiter for saving Travis from an unbelievably comedic fall.
The waiter shook his head incredulously. “I think my heart almost stopped.”
Trying to further show my gratitude for my husband’s savior, I offered the waiter a cookie. He refused with a grimace and a dismissive flutter of his hand. “No thank you. I don’t like those.” Lol! This guy was amazing.
Our evening didn’t involve Travis being rescued from a tasty tumble, but was equally entertaining. Since yesterday had been so dismal, we decided to pretend that today was my and Katie’s birthday. We went to a fabulous Indian restaurant and ate delicious curry, korma, naan, and mango lassis. We all agreed that the day was much better than the day before. Israel may have closed its borders, but at least we were all in good health, and we would be home soon.
We took a hike to the top of the city. It was breathtaking—both because it was beautiful and exhausting lol.
But our trip wasn’t over yet. At three in the morning, I abruptly awoke to Katie turning on a lamp and sitting on the edge of my bed. She looked like she had seen a ghost. “Darcy. The U.S. is shutting down.”
“What?” I said, barely awake.
“Look,” she showed me a video of the president of the United States declaring that the U.S. would be closing its borders to all international flights due to COVID-19 on March 13th, at 7:00 p.m. We were flying home on the 13th.
“We fly in before seven on the thirteenth, but there’s a good chance the flight will be canceled if enough people cancel,” Katie said. “We could get stuck here.”
A cold stone of fear slipped into my stomach. Just when we thought things couldn’t get worse, they did.
Travis was awake at this point and couldn’t believe the U.S. would keep its citizens from reentering the country. We frantically searched online to find more information.
Sure enough, we found an article clarfifying that U.S. citizens would be permitted to re-enter the country at any time. We all crumpled with relief.
“But there’s still a chance our flight might be canceled. There won’t be many Greeks that are headed to the U.S. now,” Katie pointed out.
The thought of getting stranded in Greece terrified me. Not only because we might catch COVID in a foreign country—we also didn’t have the money to stay here for long.
Yet again, everything was out of our control. Our fate was in God’s hands.
As amazing as this trip had been, all I wanted to do now was go home. I prayed for aid and assistance, and a sense of peace washed over me. As daylight glowed through the curtains, I fell back into a deep sleep.
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