Athens struck me as a very urban city. It had major congestion issues, in that every available space on the street was filled by a parked car. Traffic was atrocious and driving etiquette seemed non-existent. The streets were fairly clean with only some clutter here and there, and many shops were still open for business at 8 PM. I don’t know why but for some reason it felt like Mexico. Everyone had tanned skin, there were taco stands on every corner, except here they served pitas instead. I got one and it was finger-lickin’ good. All the buildings were uniform cement apartment blocks, but were not as drab as the ones I’d seen in the Eastern Bloc. The one thing that stood out was people were immediately friendly. Many would just come up and say hello and ask where I was from. This friendliness would be a trait I would come to recognize in the vast majority of Greeks I would come to meet.
The first full day in Athens was to be spent seeing the great sights. The Acropolis was first on my list, as it sat atop a large hill in the middle of town and I could easily see it from where I was staying. The Acropolis itself is an amazing structure surrounded by several others. On the way up to the top of the hill I passed the Theater of Dionysus:
The entire grounds upon which these ancient sites sat was well preserved for structures many thousands of years old. The Acropolis itself was simply an amazing structure, that is, what was left of it. It met its demise when occupying British forces decided to use it as an ammo dump and stored many drums of gunpowder there. The events that followed are lost to history, but it does not take a genius to realize that Murphy’s Law kicked in, and almost blew the entire structure into oblivion. Here is me at the Acropolis:
Here is a panoramic of Athens from the Acropolis:
At the bottom of the hill again, I went down the street, crossed to the other side, and I found myself in a park that used to be grounds where the great Temple of Zeus once stood. There were a couple pillars left, but the size of the surrounding square where the temple would have been left much to the imagination. Here is what is left of the temple and in front of it stands Hadrian‘s Gate:
A few hundred yards down the street from that I found the Greek parliament building.
I was very fortunate on the timing because I had arrived ten minutes before they were to do the changing of the guard, something I had read online was a must-see in Athens. I got most of it on a video from a decent vantage point, and I will share it with you now:
I liked most the little poufs on their shoes, and overall the whacky way in which they stepped.
The last couple nights in Athens were spent in an Irish pub called Mike’s. I had found it serendipitous that within the course of a week Mike and I had visited pubs featuring our respective names. The bar was tended by a big Greek-Canadian by the name of Tito. Tito was born in Vancouver to Greek parents and had served in the Canadian Special Forces before moving to Athens to live. With him was Myrtle, the other barkeep, a Greek-American expat living in Athens to re-establish her roots. Tito was a funny guy, and we both shared an active interest in ice hockey. Myrtle was the more introspective type, often coming over to Mike and I to shoot the breeze about life philosophy and the way things appeared to be to her. We spent hours at that pub, drinking overpriced Guinness and Irish stout and listening to funny stories about Greek life; it appears that the stereotypes portrayed in My Big Fat Greek Wedding were based in some truth, as most stereotypes often are. I was really glad to have met some cool people after a few days of hard travel, and they enjoyed us livening up an otherwise dead pub in the middle of the week. After what seemed to be an informal interview, we exchanged emails and they said that if I ever wanted a job in Athens, they could always use more young, energetic workers. I took this to heart, and stored it in the back of my mind for future consideration.
The train to Istanbul was to be sixteen hours. I boarded it at just past 10 PM and was expecting to get in at 4 PM the next day. The train was packed to overcapacity and there was no air conditioning, as usual. I did not even get a seat, and found myself standing next to the bathroom in the section between cars. After an hour of that, my feet got tired and decided to take the only seat afforded me. I opened the bathroom door, put the lid down, and took a seat. Every time someone had to use it, I got up, exited, waited for them to finish, and resumed my position as soon as they left. Needless to say the smells were ones I would not wish to visit the nostrils of my worst enemies. My only consolation was that I was next to the sink which provided me with water to dowse my hair, face, and arms in an attempt to keep my body temperature in check. I was low on drinking water so that faucet saved me through the wonderful process known as osmosis. Look it up.
As the train lumbered on, I did make some friends with some of the other people stuck in the in-between with me. A young girl began talking to me in broken English, and I do not know whether it is offensive or not for me to speak back in broken English as well, but I feel when communicating with a non-native speaker to talk in a way that they can understand without too much difficulty. From there two young guys jumped into the fray, and we began talking about, of all things, the NBA. Apparently basketball was a huge sport in Greece and they field one of the best teams in all of Europe. One of the guys was ex-military, and told me how Greece has a kind of compulsory military. Essentially, if a Greek national wishes to obtain a passport to leave the country, they must serve two years in the military. I thought that was pretty messed up, but it did go far in explaining why at one stop the train picked up an entire platoon of soldiers. This made me comment to him that the Greek military was very present in Greece. He asked me if it was in the same in America, and I told him that it was quite the contrary, that instead of the American military being in America, it was always somewhere else. He said this was a problem; I concurred.
The other guy was named Makis (Greek for Mike). Mike rolls his own cigarettes and during the course of the trip he must’ve rolled and smoked two packs worth. He was a nice guy though, especially after he went to the galley to obtain four plastic cups. As soon as he returned with them filled with ice, he produced a bottle Ouzo, the famous Greek liquor. After an “Opa!” or two, we had finished most of the bottle, and my throat was now burning from the Ouzo’s licorishy deliciousness.
I talked with Mike the most over the course of the first few hours, because his English, while still broken, was the best out of the three. He produced a laptop and introduced me to a few bands that he liked, ranging from crappy emo bands from San Diego (Black Heart Procession/Placebo) to a Spanish minstrel by the name of Manu Chau to Greek hip-hop/rap group Active Member. He was generally being a cool guy and even teaching me a few Greek phrases. After an hour longer of talking, he asked me if Mike and I would like to surf his couch for the day and then he would take me out to show me his town. We were about to pull up to the halfway point which was the city of Thessaloniki and my sleep schedule had been completely out of sync and I was feeling extremely tired. The offer was very tempting. I had a quick discussion with Mike about it and he agreed that it would be a good thing to postpone our arrival to Istanbul by a day and rest up a bit. At the Thessaloniki stop, we got off the train and followed Makis to an apartment he shared with his older brother. Mike crashed in the spare room while I took the couch in the living room. It was so good to lay down and go to sleep, and I was looking forward to that night when we would go out on the town and party with some Greeks!
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