No Day

Happy "Ohi" Day! "Ohi" is Greek for "no." The biggest manifestation of the "no" for us today was no buses run on a public holiday, but we learned something too. (We have been doing a lot of learning on our tour of Europe.)

On October 28, 1940, after an all-night party at the German embassy in Athens, the Italian ambassador approached the Greek prime minister at 4am to offer this suggestion: "How about the Axis powers get to use Greece for their purposes in the war?"

The answer? One word: "Ohi"-- NO.

An hour and a half later, Italian troops attacked Greek borders.

As our hotel clerk put it, "every year we celebrate the start of war."