Dinner Saturday night before the Babel Festival is an adana kebab. It’s an incredibly tender mixture of lamb and beef.  And it comes with a roasted chilli pepper.

We know the festival will be unbelievably crowded so we arrive around 9 and start right in. The rock music playing outside is thumping out a good groove and I can feel the bass in the seat of my chair.

The que is pretty long. Everyone is enthusiastic, and the bad signing on Friday is becoming a memory. Our supply of books is dwindling. We sign until the festival closes at Midnight. Exhausted, we go straight home after the show.

The next morning I am in a cab going to meet Chuck Sperry, the rock poster artist I met at the official dinner on Thursday. We’re going to explore some of the ruins around the city.  On the way, I have a surreal moment driving through the twisting streets of Athens while listening to Hank Williams Sr. 

Chuck and I start in the marketplace and head up.

We aren’t going to the Acropolis today; we’re heading up one of the hills opposite – - we’re going to the Hill of The Muses.

On the way we find the old democratic assembly, the birthplace of democracy.  The Wikipedia says: "The word democracy was coined in ancient Greece. The Athenian democracy is today considered to have been a form of direct democracy. In theory, all the Athenian citizens were eligible to speak and vote in the Assembly, which set the laws of the city-state."  The podium where they could in theory speak was right where I’m standing. The Greeks used to vote by putting a mark on a tiny bit of tile.  I think this piece I found might be a hanging chad.

This was a sobering sight; the prison of Socrates. Socrates was imprisoned and forced to drink poison for corupting the youth (teaching them things the government dissagreed with) and being an atheist.  From the birthplace of democracy to the site of its first setback.  

At last we reach our goal: the original alter to the Muses. In the chamber on the right, you can see the thick smoke stains of sacrificial fires.  We both make an offering to our personal Muses.

We lose track of time and have to make our way directly to the Teknopolis where the final night of The Babel Festival is already underway. 

We stop at the bar and have a drink with Lefteris, who reports that sales of the book at the fair and around Greece are far greater than he expected. I walk Chuck to his exhibit area where he finds people are waiting for him.  Then I head over to my area.

The Sunday night crowd is delightful. The beauty of The Babel Fest sinks in…it's a bunch of young, friendly people, pleasantly buzzed, wandering around listening to music and reading comics. Like you can ask for anything better than that. All in all, I had a great time here, and it looks like BONE is in good hands in Greece.  Thanks Lida, and Lefteris. You must be as exhausted as I am. Tomorrow morning I fly to Madrid…