We returned to Athens for one night before returning to New York. While there, we visited Kolonaki Square, the setting of James Merrill's "Nine Lives," his disappointed coda to The Changing Light at Sandover. We couldn't find the restaurant he named in the poem, to my own disappointment.

It was nice to be in a luxury hotel in a large city as a way of easing our transition from Mesta back to New York. But I found Athens to be reminiscent of Los Angeles: a sprawling, not too architecturally attractive, smog-infested city located in sight of but not on the coast. We spent much of our one evening there wandering around trying to find a place to eat, before giving up and eating in our hotel.

Of course, I did visit the Acropolis (though Donna didn't join me). It is impressively old and striking high above the city, and you can see most of the other significant ruins in the city from there. But it seemed to be falling apart before my eyes. Rather than giving the impression of lasting in the face of time, it left me with a strong feeling of impermanence and disintegration.

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