This was supposed to be a post about what I have learned in my first month of travel. It turns out that it is actually a post about what I learned in just two hours out of that whole month.
DeeDee and Jared joined me on June 25th and I picked them up in Dubrovnik after a long drive to Croatia. It’s been wonderful having them here with me. We had a lot of fun as a family during our time together there, especially on the Adriatic Sea in Orebić where we floated peacefully and hung out with our good friends Amber and Mirela. I’m grateful they are here to share some of the most memorable events of my trip so far, and what I could even say are once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
Yesterday, June 30, we arrived in Athens after two long days of driving from Croatia. I will write more about driving later, but just know for right now that it takes a long time to drive through Montenegro, Albania, and Greece.
We checked into the Hilton Athens and went straight to the lounge for some drinks and food. DeeDee was looking on her phone for things to do and see and discovered that Yo-Yo Ma was playing at Odeon of Herodes Atticus Theater. This is an ancient Greek theater on the same hill as the Acropolis. We were not surprised to find that the show was sold out.
I have been learning a lot about travel hacking and there are a lot of tricks I still haven’t yet attempted. I decided to try Chase and AMEX to see if I could get last minute tickets. Even as I write this, I think about how much class privilege I have to even think this would be an option. After being on the computer and phone for 20 minutes or so, I struck out. No tickets and no Yo-Yo Ma.
We decide to just walk to the theater and see what we could see. Once there, we thought maybe we would find someone selling tickets or maybe some tickets got returned to the box office. We go to the theater to check the box office and this is when the magic of Athens happened. They had some tickets for sale that had been returned, and not only were there enough tickets for us all, they were half price tickets in the 12th row.
After coaxing my shocked self out of what I thought must be a dream and back to reality, we excitedly bought our magical tickets and entered this bucket list venue. The stage had a single chair and microphone, so simple yet elegant, and the ruins behind the stage were bathed with beautiful blue lights. We climbed straight up to our stone seats (that thankfully were adorned with small cushions) where people have been entertained for hundreds if not thousands of years and settled in for the show.
Wonder 
& Joy
Yo-Yo Ma came on stage shortly after we were seated and made his cello do things that I thought were impossible. He performed Bach for 2.5 hours, without sheet music. It was an amazing experience and I was so happy to share it with DeeDee and Jared.
The lesson learned, or at least remembered, was always give things a try. We presumed the tickets would be sold out and we would not get in, but we still went. We were happy just to visit a vibrant area of Athens and decided that even if we did not get in, we would just walk around this historic place, grab some food, and it would still be a great night. Then, something magical happened when we decided to just check anyway for tickets, and we got the seemingly impossible as a reward. This has been my best travel surprise to date. Thank the gods, particularly Dionysus, the Greek God of Theater!