ELEVEN
The charity function was not being held at a hotel, as I imagined. Instead, it took up the entire upper-floor ballroom of a building in the heart of Athens, which was evidently used for important social events. The other floors were off-limits to the attendees, with the bank of four elevators running only from the ground floor up to the top. Security, I couldn’t help but notice as we passed through a metal detector, was pretty tight. I wondered if it was simply a reflection of the times, or if there was an expected threat. There certainly were enough security guards milling around the lobby, checking everyone’s invitations and waving wands up and down those folks whose keys or accessories set off the metal detector.
We made it through the security, and upstairs, garnering only a f
