When Severin and I were in Poland we decided to start “hashtagging” our vacations. We’d kind of already started this phenomenon with our #TwiceAsSexyAsIntended anniversary weekend in Cyprus, after I had mistakenly booked a $450/night hotel thinking $450 was the price for three nights when it was, in fact, the price for one night. We then had #EpicChristmasRoadTrip. In Athens, we kind of coalesced around the theme of having to go to Greece to escape endless Greek food, after we had a spectacular dinner at a Mexican place (Taqueria Maya, if you ever find yourself in Athens).
Anyway, I wasn’t expecting to like Athens. For some reason, in my head I had built it up to be crowded, grungy, laden with traffic, and polluted. Considering I had never really given much consideration to visiting Athens before our posting to Cyprus, I’m not sure how I had even built up such an image. However, after six months in Nicosia, Athens felt alive — the weather was perfect, we had blue skies except for rain one day, and people were milling about, selling balloons, fresh strawberries, shopping, busking, living. The graffiti was definitely better in Cyprus, the yutes here just spray “ELAM” (neo-fascist organization), an anarchist A, swastikas, or “APOEL” (soccer team) in chicken scratch with no style or color whatsoever.
Athens was full of small joys, due in no small part to it being early spring. It was perfect weather for walking around and doing some window shopping. Unfortunately, many shops were closed on Sunday– more were open than would be in Cyprus, though. Athens had lots of jewelry stores– way too many selling over the top, gold replicas of Ancient Greek jewelry. Others had pushy shopgirls who wouldn’t let me browse in peace. After two and a half days of walking, I finally found a great store with very unique earrings from a young designer, but alas it was closed. I like the store so much I emailed them to see if they would ship to Cyprus, but when they sent a photo of the earrings I thought I loved I couldn’t remember if they were the ones, and they were too expensive to take the risk.
As in Cyprus, the Athenians apparently love cats. We came across this stunning tabby with two different colored eyes on our way up the backside of the Acropolis. Unlike Cyprus, Athens also had a ton of street dogs– it seemed like there was a dog that “owned” each block. Weirdly, they were the biggest and fattest street dogs I had ever seen– they all must have been between 50 and 75 pounds!
Here’s Severin at Hadrian’s library–
As in Cyprus, it’s not unusual to run into an 1,000 year old church. This is the Church of Panagia Kapnikarea, which is located in the middle of a busy pedestrian street in Athens and surrounded by modern buildings. It was built in 1050!
Other observations, as scrawled in my notebook over an espresso in Syntagma Square:
- There is still lots of smoking happening inside cafes and bars.
- Athens definitely feels more European or Balkan than Cyprus, which feels more Middle Eastern.
- One shopkeeper told Severin in English as we walked by– totally unprovoked and somewhat accusatorially– “You look like a Greek!!”
- None of the entrances to monuments were in places that really made sense for passersby. Temple of Olympian Zeus, I’m looking at you.
- We walked more in three days in Athens than we had in months in Cyprus.
- Sev broke out his Greek more than I’ve heard him do in Cyprus; everyone thought he was Greek-American.
- Owls are the symbol of Athens and all over the place! It made me think of my mom, who has developed this weird obsession with owls since I left home.
- The shopkeepers were too aggressive. Any place that won’t just let me browse in peace will never get my money.
- Souvenirs: Our souvenirs this trip consist of several varieties of evil eyes from a store called Mati. The store was about the size of a walk-in closet and was full of all sorts of beautiful amulets and charms for people’s houses. Once I get a good variety going, my plan is to make a little arrangement of evil eyes as art for one of our walls.
