Another Afternoon in Athens

As I'm grabbing some cereal for breakfast this morning, I look around the hostel and see one empty table remaining near the front windows -- it has an almost empty cup of coffee on it, but no one actually sitting at any of it's tables. So I put my cereal bowl down, go back to grab some coffee for myself, and imagine my surprise when I turn around to see that my table is now being occupied by a large, red-faced and peeling older man! Not to be deterred, I sit at my side opposite him, display a polite smile, and then get around to eating my breakfast.

He asks me if I speak French. Bewildered, I say no, and in very broken English he introduces himself as a French Canadian from somewhere between Quebec and Montreal. For the next two hours, I have one of the best breakfasts so far in my travels, what between our trouble at communication and our combined pleasure at trying to share each's experience thus far in Greece. He'd stayed on the isle of Crete with his son-in-law's family. When he realized that my iPad could access a map (I'd brought it to breakfast with me to upload my latest pictures) he was positively thrilled and got an enormous kick out of being able to zoom into the spot that they'd vacationed at for the last month. He was there with his wife and two daughters, one of whom was married to the Cretan. The whole family gradually joined us, along with a 9-month old baby girl who reminded me something fierce of Julie.

The married daughter and her husband spoke near-perfect English and everyone was nothing but thrilled to be in Greece. The attitude is absolutely infectious -- if I hadn't already been thrilled to be in Greece myself, just sitting with them would have changed my mind. As was, they put me in such a good mood that my entire day started off on a high note.

Not even hearing word of a possible 48-hour general strike starting on Tuesday 6/28, the day I planned on leaving for Delphi, and lasting through the next day when I'd planned on making my way to Meteora, was enough to upset me, though it did make me do some research to see if the long-distance buses I was planning on taking were still going to be running. I'm fairly certain at this point that they are, though I'll have to check again tomorrow just to make sure. And it's possible at this point that the strike will be called off as have the last few called-for strikes, apparently. There is nothing but grumbles and groans about the Greek economy these days. I've read so many news articles about it, listened to many Greeks and their individual views about their country's troubles, about what sort of future is in store. Some young people I've heard from are quite depressed and think their only future lies outsider the country.

At any rate, I'm not going to solve any problems myself and I've got sights to see at the moment!

Today was a fair turn from yesterday. It's as if the sun, herring my many complaints about it's terrible het and reading my blog cursing it for making the day so hot, has bashfully withdrawn in shame, coming out only in sporadic bursts. It was a glorious day for exploring! The cloud cover kept the temperatures down and I scampered about the town like a girl version of Indiana Jones -- never before now have I been so happy with my Adventure Sandals, as John apparently calls them. Jessica told me that once upon a time and the quote was repeating itself n my head through the hours as I went on another Athens Adventure.

When I went to the Acropolis yesterday, I bought a set of tickets that, for the cost of one Acropolis admittance, also let me into some seven other ruin sites. After yesterday, I still had three more places I had tickets to go into, as well as a good portion of the inner city that still needed exploring. The first place I made my way to is an ancient funeral plot called Kerameikos.



It was a lot larger than I was expecting and, for a graveyard, a lot cooler. I think it was the turtle; I saw a turtle crawling around eating grass right near the entrance and if a place has a turtle, you know they're already pretty awesome. There were also plenty of headless statues. I managed to get to one out of sight of the people who run the site and, well, you know...

The picture didn't turn out as good as I was hoping, but every time I saw a headless statue for the rest of the day, I was so tempted to try and get another picture. It was like those photo cut-outs, where get to put your head in a hole and pretend to be a cheerleader or clown or (in Randy's case) a wanted fugitive.






Maybe it's in our blood? Who knows!

I really began to feel like Indy there, as parts of the path sort of faded out and I took it on myself to start goat-hopping through the huge stone blocks that lay scattered through the ruins like some giant's lost legos.

The goat-hopping only got better after that, as I took off towards the Ancient Agora and got instead side-tracked by the Hill of the Muses/Nymphs, where the tree branches twisted into every imaginable pose, it's easy to see how they could look like human shapes. It's a hill to the southwest of the Acropolis and one that climbs to heights equal to that tall point. Near its base was "The Prison of Socrates," which I headed to with an avid interest only to be disappointed by the plaque outside the cove which stated that no one really knew that the place was used for, that it was only by myth the prison where Socrates was kept. After learning that, I wasn't too impressed by the literal hole-in-the-wall and took back to hiking up the hill.

The view at the top was once again spectacular! It was also the home to some guy's funeral stone he commissioned for himself. Note: when I die, I want my life to be commemorated by something like this:



And it has to be on one of the highest points in the city. I'm just making a simple request that I'm sure the people who love me will also love to see happen.

I stomped around the hilltop for some time before heading back towards my original goal of the Agora, but was once again sidetracked by another opportunity to hike up a big rock. Literally, there was a big rock just to the south of the Acropolis and I hiked up it. The information plaque says it was where a judicial committee met to decide fates of murderers and thieves. The steps carved into the stone were ridiculously steep and slick with time. I find it hard to imagine a tribe of judges making their way up to the top just to meet for a discussion that could have far easily taken place at, say, the bottom of the rock.

Finally, I made my twisting way to the Agora. And, in my humble opinion, I thought it blew away the Acropolis.



The view from the top near the Pantheon is still hard to beat, I admit, but the Ancient Agora is not only much larger than the Acropolis, it's also got the least beat-up temple (the Temple of Hephiados, pictured above), a "library" of restored/discovered statues from the work of the American College of Ancient Studies, a neat-looking church, and much-loved shade from tons of trees -- that alone, I think, makes it a "cooler" place to visit than the Acropolis. Get it?! ^_^

I spent a long time walking through there, really just wondering at the thought of what these ancient structures must have looked like in their prime. The temple in the picture about was made sometime around 450BC! It's mind-boggling to think about how long that simple structure has been around, what it's stood through. I look at all the information plaques and their depictions of what the ruins might have looked like, and I really have a hard time imagining it all. The broken bits of statues are enormous as well, huge body parts where their legs knee-down are alone as tall as I am.

(In this picture, I seriously only come up to this guy's knee. It was intimidating!)


When I was walking around Boston, Jared and I passed by some old buildings that were only a few decades old but that had long since been deserted and allowed to whither into ruin. That's what I think of most of our current buildings' futures: that they'll turn into unused warehouses, emptied out sheltered, eventually collapsing into ugly piles of trash. I can't picture any modern day building surviving for 2,500 years! Let alone age gracefully in the process, turning into a structure that future generations will marvel at, will gaze out for it's beauty in splendor even thousands of years later! I know that only a very, very small percentage of ancient Greek buildings have survived, that only a very small amount were able to live through the long years -- but even that small amount is nothing short of amazing! Especially considering the multiple wars and city-sacking that Athens has lived through. It really is amazing!

The Agoras, by the way, were central stations in the city where a lot of commercial and government business went down. When Rome took over, the commercial aspect of it was moved to their own special and shiny "Roman Agora," which was not even a quarter of the size of the Ancient one but was still pretty to look at and walk through.



By the time I had wandered through these last few ruins, the end of the day was approaching. I hadn't gotten to the National Garden again so I'm still putting that on tomorrow's plans, as well as walking through the protestors again to see if there's any noticeable ramp-up in anticipation of Tuesday's strike. I'm going to sleep early tonight and waking up to Skype home, and then to wander to the early-morning market. Some of the girls here have warned me against walking through the meat market by myself, saying that the sellers are almost angrily-aggressive at selling their wares, so I'm probably going to stay on the fruits-and-veggies side.

My Canadian family passed by me earlier, still very happy and nothing but smiles. I haven't gone back up to see if Edwin is having a good day at the rooftop bar but the group of Germans from yesterday said goodbye to me this morning as they headed to the airport. One of the girls in my dorm headed back home to Indiana while her travel mate flew onward alone to Budapest. Life is nothing but continual transition and these hostels are a living embodiment of that.

Transitions and turtles, who are just transition in slow motion.

Location:Athens, Greece