Like Mykonos, Athens continued the culture of neon bright colors in the window shops, cafes spilling onto the sidewalks, and scooters everywhere. I loved it!!
Someone is looking out for me because once again I had an amazing host, Mihail. I took the 75 minute bus ride from the airport (with the 2004 Olympics they built a new airport 40+ km outside the city!) to Mihail's neighborhood, Piraeus, which is right near the sea and port (read: the giant yachts!). But the bus dropped me off several blocks from where it should have and I wasn't seeing any of the landmarks I had been told to look for. I needn't have worried those 5 seconds because before I could even re-adjust my red backpack on my back, a red scooter zoomed right up to the curb and the driver said "hello!" I cannot tell you how amazing it is that all of my hosts have been like this... Recognizing me out of the sea of faces at the airport when I must look like a deer in headlights, flagging me down at train stations, sending me home-made PDF maps with directions, or being my guardian angel and following behind my bus like Mihail did.
Mihail is quite a Renaissance Man. He is my age, but already has a BS in economics and a Master's in both Political Science and Sociology. He is a Naval Officer (how he pays the bills I presume) in charge of supplies from things like flour to uniforms, and right now he is also in his second year of another Bachelor's program studying winemaking at a technical college in Athens. I'm not sure I caught what holiday it was, but due to that holiday he had off Thursday and Friday when I arrived! Normally he works 7a-3p, but as a supervisor role in the Navy he really only has to work 8-2 and handles his classes in the afternoons. He wants to eventually open his own vineyard in Northern Greece where his parents live and have the land available for him (by the way, he is also one of 5 kids!), but before that he wants more practical experience at other operations abroad, so I put in a strong plug for New York or California wineries. :)
So here's what I learned about Athens and Greece in my first 30 minutes with Mihail:
While Greece has only 11 million people, Athens holds 5 million of them. Not too long ago Athens was only a fifth of its current size, but it has ballooned since the 1970s. The growth happened fast and because of it, most buildings were designed by civil engineers, not architects, and so perhaps this is why some people think of Athens as ugly.
The Greek culture is apparently not one of planning. Per Mihail, Greece is a "western country with an eastern culture." The 2004 Olympics which I'll write more about below is another example of this apparently. As Greece has a lot of newcomers to it, it is a fairly young city in many ways and has yet to sort through some issues from land use to transportation. It is definitely a stubborn culture though so they have that working against them.
One thing I immediately noticed on the long bus ride was ALL THE GRAFFITI. I am talking a ton of it. Everywhere. Covering almost everything. I suppose I started to get used to it, but I never started to like it or appreciate it. It lined the entire bus route it seemed leaving no bus stop, underpass, overpass, garbage can, or building side untouched. I somehow forgot to expect this when I had read just a few days earlier another 'gem' from my guide book. In speaking about a neighborhood where the 1973 student- led revolution to restore democracy in Greece was born: "Graffiti is ubiquitous here, and judging from these colorful displays, Exharia's motto seems to be a sentence that starts with "F" and ends with "the police." But it wasn't just limited to that one part of the city... Graffiti was truly everywhere.
But our first afternoon/night started with some food and I do love staying with the locals because only they know where to go on their street for a delicious €1.50 souvlaki gyro/pita (or only €1 for vegetarian)! We took it to the beautiful sea side near his house to enjoy (by way of red Vespa of course) before heading home for naps! (I love when my hosts are on the same sleep schedule as me and I don't have to be rude to ask to sleep!) That night Mihail gave me an awesome tour on his scooter of the entire city center. We saw Syntagma Square, Monastiraki Square, countless galleries, museums, and my favorite were the olive oil and chocolate factories that he pointed out that were generously giving away free smells. We made it up to Lycavittos Hill, one of the two hills in the city center, just in time for sunset, but kind of continuing on my sunset disappointment there were too many clouds on the horizon for much of a display. (The same thing happened my second night in Mykonos. I didn't have my camera with me or the time to enjoy the BRIGHT PINK sunset my first night as I was very naturally struggling to find my hotel room, so then the second night when I was camped out in Little Venice with the perfect spot to watch, the sun went behind clouds about 30 minutes before setting :( Mihail and I still enjoyed the great views and then made our way to check out the nightlife. Our first stop was actually a CS trivia night at one bar where I generously offered my American knowledge of books, movies, and music - as this place even showed questions by way of TV screens. Very high tech I thought. But I am proud to say I supplied at least 5 or 6 answers that no one else knew and I was told the team ended up winning, though we didn't stay.
You can see the Acropolis aglow at night from Monastiraki Square!
I was very impressed by Athens' nightlife though this contradicts what my guide book tells me which is that nightlife is apparently not easy to come by or at least not what Athens is know for given that Greeks flee for their own islands in the summer. But again, I was totally impressed. I think that the book's writers have never made it to the Gazi neighborhood which is every bit as packed as Sixth Street in Austin or Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It's named after the old gas company that used to be in the area, but has been converted to just several giant blocks of bars and clubs. And I found this interesting after learning in Mykonos that tourism is Greece's only industry - bars, restaurants and other nightlife venues are part of the tourist industry so Greek bar owners take the very seriously. There was no such thing as a dive bar in Athens. And a MacDinton's style junky-looking bar could never compete I suspect. Every place we went had a theme, a very cool name, and amazing decor to go with the theme. Mihail says owners will spend more on their bar befor ever opening than is realistic for them to ever earn back! There was a board game bar, a circus bar, a galaxy bar, a bar called Why Sleep? (with the appropriate decor to match), and a college bar called Gazi College with chalkboards, clipboards, bookshelves, etc to match. Still my favorite were all of the bars that had gardens in which you could dine and drink. Twinkle lights, candles, and flowering trees were the rule and I didn't want to leave one of them! It was a great first night, but by far, the highlight was the scooter.
So a word now on scooters. I actually first thought that Smart Cars were the official car of Athens on my bus ride from the airport when I must have seen at least 25-30 of them driving past. But without a doubt, the best way to experience Athens is by the back of a scooter. In a city and country where rainfall is scarce I don't think there is a reason not to own one. Now I do not think that everything Mihail did was entirely legal, but it was very practical and I imagine most of it would only draw a frown from local police (see more on law enforcement below!)
With a scooter you can:
1. Drive the wrong way on one way streets.
2. Jump on the sidewalk to scoot around a red light and hop back onto the road.
3. If a police officer is blocking traffic from going straight at an intersection you can appear to adhere by turning left with the rest of traffic only to then jump up on the sidewalk on the other side of the road to then jump back onto the road that was going straight to continue on your way.
4. Make illegal U turns and make them even on red lights.
5. Just flat out skip red lights you don't want to wait for.
I suppose a scooter gets to be a car when it wants and a bicycle whenever it wants to too. I just loved, loved, loved riding on the backseat. Imagine the brilliant 80 degree sunshine shining down on you, hair whipping around giving new meaning to wind in your hair and making convertible drivers look like wimps, and zooming along the sea side going 80kph. It was a blast. Granted I do recognize the drawbacks - helmet hair, not being able to fall asleep in the "passenger seat", and getting caught in the rain- but Apollo the sun god treated me well and there was never even the slightest threat of rain.
So now that word about law enforcement. I learned this at brunch on Sunday with Mihail and his uncle. You may have already heard one of the challenges Greece faces that has made their particular situation a bit tougher than other countries is their high degree of tax evasion. Well the simple solution would be to up the tax collection enforcement, and while they do have some creative ways of doing that, the real issue it seems is that everyone knows everyone and almost everyone works in some federal agency (ministry of labor, traffic, education, etc) or knows someone that does. So if you try to impose a fine on one neighbor you might just find that you now have a couple new fines to pay as well!! And again, with a country whose only real industry is tourism and a lot of the people work only 6 months of the year to live for 12 months, I think it's a no-brainer that you have a very relaxed culture on your hands. Mihail also tells me that Greece has the highest percentage of freelancers in the world (I think self employed is what he is referring to) with 35% of its population going into business for themselves/starting their own little service (given the giant lack of industries in the country), but as such, 35% of the population is responsible for paying their own taxes. So one creative way that the Greek government has just started using to catch people is by what kind of car people drive. A new annual registration fee has been imposed on owners of large vehicles (SUVs, etc) and the government now presumes that for these car owners their annual salaries must be at a certain level to be able to afford this more expensive car. This gives the government an opportunity to collect income tax from the "freelancers." I think I understand they are also now doing a similar thing with the size of your house, where they have created income-housing tiers where they can safely presume your minimum annual income given your house size. Mihail also pointed out to me one bar that wasn't giving receipts which means it isn't paying taxes and apparently both the customers and the bar owners are in trouble because as a customer it is your duty to get a receipt. So I think Greece is certainly trying.
Mihail had one test on Friday afternoon so he dropped me off not far from the Acropolis and I got one opportunity to do some exploring on my own. Right away I gave up on using a map. I now understand the expression "it's Greek to me" because you can't even read it to try to speak it! I didn't like this because I like feeling self sufficient and I know I'm a good map reader but I discovered it was more work than was worth it. (Street signs are hard to come by, though not quite as bad as Mykonos.) The city is so dense and the neighborhoods like Plaka run right into Monastiraki and takes you to the National Garden and everything really just surrounds the Acropolis so you're never quite lost. Plus Miguel's scooter ride the first night pointed out so many landmarks to me that I had a couple bearings while exploring on my own. My strategy became just wander for awhile and when it was about time to meet Mihail I would tell him what store I was in front of or ask a local to type the location on my iPad for me. It suppose it worked mostly because almost all cafes offer free wifi, but I think I prefer cities in which I can use a map!
Where Yanni played :)
I found the Acropolis quite inspiring to see it first hand and to think how old it really is and how it was built before modern day machinery and construction equipment. There are four monuments on the hill with, I think, the most famous one being the Parthenon. Mihail reminded me just how much has been stolen from Greece since Greece does a poor job on capitalizing its own ideas, inventions, and culture. From Latin class you would think it was the Romans who first believed in the Gods, but they really just stole it all from the Greeks. And you have likely forgotten that it was the Greeks who invented wine - not the Romans and definitely not the French. Perhaps this is the eastern part of their culture showing through, but they just don't seem to be able to monetize their heritage like western cultures tend to do! But it is good to see that they are preserving the Acropolis... It's undergoing a lot of rehabilitation.
The rest of my days in Athens were filled with further exploring of the Athens city center, scooter rides every which way, trips to the Aegean/Mediterranean Sea, eating both authentic Greek and American meals, fantasizing about who owned all of the giant yachts in the Piraeus marina, copious amounts of ice cream and useless trips to the Vodafone store.
This meal was ordered entirely in Greek at a restaurant that doesn't even have menus. All I was told was that I was getting eggplant!
Greek Parliament... Not in session
The first Olympic Stadium
Acropolis in background
Cherries, Beth, for €2 a kilogram which is like not even $1.50 a pound! I couldn't even finish them all before I left :(
A normal street in Plaka.
The sea :) The water was cold in this Floridian's opinion!
Oh, just eating a kilo of ice cream!
In the National Gardens...admittedly, not as impressive as one might hope.
Looking at yachts all night is exhausting! You need a break every so often!
And finally, things I found amusing, interesting, surprising or all of the above:
++Athens is way behind the times with no bike lanes. Perhaps this is why Critical Mass bike rides don't just happen on one Friday each month, but according to Mihail, EVERY Friday. They are trying to send an extra loud message I suppose. We ran into part of the group late on Friday night.
++Greece is another one of those silly countries that uses an AZERTY keyboard instead of QWERTY. So it's easy to tell if you bought your laptop abroad or not.
++Greece uses a zero button on elevators for the ground floor! It doesn't replace the first floor, so there is still a floor 1, there is just a floor named zero in every building!
++You can't flush toilet paper down toilets. They have very narrow plumbing and pipes. I only was told this on Day 3 though! But it explains why there are giant dumpsters left open in every residential street corner for residents to throw out their trash every day!
++Like Mykonos, Athens has its own water issues. You take showers sitting down which I guess encourages you to turn off the water frequently and helps limit water use. You also must turn on your hot water 10 min before you want to shower. But I guess that is also just plain environmentally smart unless you have the new instant water heaters.
++If you find ruins under your house as you put on an addition, renovation or anything like that you must let them be and wait for them to be checked out. You will more than likely have to find a way to maintain them - either build around them or enclose them and build on top of them. You can't remove them. But if you find a temple under your property, it's game over. You are going to lose your property :)
++Greece also did the analog to digital TV switch like the US did, but theirs was only just becoming effective the week I was there. This had implications on trying to watch the big final basketball championship tie-breaker game on Saturday night where the Piraeus team where Mihail lives ended up winning. Pandemonium in the streets!
++Speaking of the basketball game, Mihail and I were passed on the highway Saturday afternoon by 100+ scooters with 2 policemen on each one. It looked like a giant motorcade that kept going and going and going. I was shocked and intrigued... What kind of an event could need so many police?? Apparently they were riding to the basketball game at a venue ironically named The Peace and Friendship Stadium.
++They don't bring you the bill in a restaurant until you ask for it! Experiencing this all by myself eating dinner one night alone while Mihail went to help a friend last minute reminded me of two French CSers I had in Tampa. They thought it was the rudest thing ever when one night out in Channelside the waitress brought us our bill before we asked for it. They were horrified. Appalled. Disgusted. And they commented on it too!
++Lunch is between 3 and 4pm and dinner is at 10p. Get used to it!
++Athens is another pretty much cash only city. Leave your plastic at home.
++Athens is one of the most expensive airports to fly out of unfortunately. The airport slaps on 35 euro in taxes right away to all departing flights. (This will be a factor I suspect in trying to go back to Mykonos :(
++So Athens won the bid for the 2004 Summer Olympics and proceeded to build an entire complex of venues along the coast for it. However, any city planner I understand would tell you they did just the lousiest job and didn't really take advantage of the opportunity for city and infrastructure investment like a city should (Barcelona is a good example of a city that did). So when I asked Mihail why he thought they won the Olympics he said "well, we sort of have the richest Olympic history!" I guess you can't argue with that, but it's a shame how the site today is sort of an eyesore along the water now. Mihail said something about maybe Dubai investors taking an interest, but I'm not sure I followed all he was saying as I was really enjoying just playing passenger on the scooter zipping along the Aegean Coast!
++I saw a Toyota IQ for the first time in Athens. It's almost as small and tiny as a Smart Car, but it manages to fit in a backseat so the car can actually carry 4 people. It was very cute! I think I want one. :) Smaller cars and scooters did certainly seem to be the rule in Athens and it was actually funny that I had noticed that I hadn't really been seeing any SUVs. Then on my second day, Mihail and I both saw a black vehicle on par in size with a Ford Escape trying to do a K turn in our path and he said , "Wow, that's a big car." Ha, I guess he hasn't seen the Ford Explorer! Also interesting, I never saw a single pick-up truck.
++FroYo has only just recently arrived in Greece and is very popular. You would think with Greek yogurt that they would have had this years ago.
++My feeble memory of the Greek alphabet paid off for me. After stepping out for a bit, Mihail told me to just ring for him on his floor when I came back (because again my SIM card was not working) and I thought, "easy"! Not so. Both names for the 6th floor were totally unrecognizable to me. I had a 50-50 chance of ringing the right buzzer though. But then I realized I knew what an L was - Lamba! I was saved! But would you recognize this as Lafkas?
++Greeks talk with their hands. (Maybe the Italians stole this from them too ;) On that super long bus ride from the airport I was cracking up watching another man on his cell phone. He was having a VERY animated conversation using his hands nearly the entire time and at one point even gesturing to himself pointing at his chest and then even more vehemently to an imaginary person in front of him who I suppose was standing in for the person on the other end of the call. I didn't understand a word he was saying, but I thought it would be perfect for a voice over YouTube comedy video.
++Lots of Greeks say they hate Athens according to Mihail. I personally loved it, but plenty have had no choice but to come to the city for jobs and they haven't really come to like it. They tend to refuse to adopt city life like using public transport. They still use cars to go even very short distances and things like that. And Greeks are rather cynical. They say what they don't like, but don't offer solutions, alternatives, or directions for what they might like. They just say "I don't like that." It makes me think of that South Park episode - "if you hate Athens so much, you can just get out!" But this is one reason I won't be moving to Athens. Grumpy people ....and pedestrians don't have the right of way!
++Greece is a very safe country and culture. If you get hurt every person runs to help you instead of like in the US where they gawk instead. Neighbors come by to offer you a slice of cake after they bake. Mihail says he has seen some changes in the last few years, but it is still incredibly safe though here are much more police on the streets nowadays. I was seeing several every couple of blocks.
++Greece celebrates a lot of holidays. Mihail counted for me all of the days of vacations he gets and holidays he has off and it ended up being about half the year! There were a number of holidays even just while I was there... The Greek Orthodox Pentecost, another day of mourning the dead, and then another one named for a Saint whose name I can't recall but because of it, a lot of Athenians were leaving the city that weekend to vacation elsewhere. Maybe I could live with that :)
++American flags are a trend in Greece right now and I'm not sure why. I saw the flag on Tshirts and as scarves around neck in Athens. Maybe they're celebrating that they no longer need a visa to come to the US? :)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Someone is looking out for me because once again I had an amazing host, Mihail. I took the 75 minute bus ride from the airport (with the 2004 Olympics they built a new airport 40+ km outside the city!) to Mihail's neighborhood, Piraeus, which is right near the sea and port (read: the giant yachts!). But the bus dropped me off several blocks from where it should have and I wasn't seeing any of the landmarks I had been told to look for. I needn't have worried those 5 seconds because before I could even re-adjust my red backpack on my back, a red scooter zoomed right up to the curb and the driver said "hello!" I cannot tell you how amazing it is that all of my hosts have been like this... Recognizing me out of the sea of faces at the airport when I must look like a deer in headlights, flagging me down at train stations, sending me home-made PDF maps with directions, or being my guardian angel and following behind my bus like Mihail did.
Mihail is quite a Renaissance Man. He is my age, but already has a BS in economics and a Master's in both Political Science and Sociology. He is a Naval Officer (how he pays the bills I presume) in charge of supplies from things like flour to uniforms, and right now he is also in his second year of another Bachelor's program studying winemaking at a technical college in Athens. I'm not sure I caught what holiday it was, but due to that holiday he had off Thursday and Friday when I arrived! Normally he works 7a-3p, but as a supervisor role in the Navy he really only has to work 8-2 and handles his classes in the afternoons. He wants to eventually open his own vineyard in Northern Greece where his parents live and have the land available for him (by the way, he is also one of 5 kids!), but before that he wants more practical experience at other operations abroad, so I put in a strong plug for New York or California wineries. :)
So here's what I learned about Athens and Greece in my first 30 minutes with Mihail:
While Greece has only 11 million people, Athens holds 5 million of them. Not too long ago Athens was only a fifth of its current size, but it has ballooned since the 1970s. The growth happened fast and because of it, most buildings were designed by civil engineers, not architects, and so perhaps this is why some people think of Athens as ugly.
The Greek culture is apparently not one of planning. Per Mihail, Greece is a "western country with an eastern culture." The 2004 Olympics which I'll write more about below is another example of this apparently. As Greece has a lot of newcomers to it, it is a fairly young city in many ways and has yet to sort through some issues from land use to transportation. It is definitely a stubborn culture though so they have that working against them.
One thing I immediately noticed on the long bus ride was ALL THE GRAFFITI. I am talking a ton of it. Everywhere. Covering almost everything. I suppose I started to get used to it, but I never started to like it or appreciate it. It lined the entire bus route it seemed leaving no bus stop, underpass, overpass, garbage can, or building side untouched. I somehow forgot to expect this when I had read just a few days earlier another 'gem' from my guide book. In speaking about a neighborhood where the 1973 student- led revolution to restore democracy in Greece was born: "Graffiti is ubiquitous here, and judging from these colorful displays, Exharia's motto seems to be a sentence that starts with "F" and ends with "the police." But it wasn't just limited to that one part of the city... Graffiti was truly everywhere.
But our first afternoon/night started with some food and I do love staying with the locals because only they know where to go on their street for a delicious €1.50 souvlaki gyro/pita (or only €1 for vegetarian)! We took it to the beautiful sea side near his house to enjoy (by way of red Vespa of course) before heading home for naps! (I love when my hosts are on the same sleep schedule as me and I don't have to be rude to ask to sleep!) That night Mihail gave me an awesome tour on his scooter of the entire city center. We saw Syntagma Square, Monastiraki Square, countless galleries, museums, and my favorite were the olive oil and chocolate factories that he pointed out that were generously giving away free smells. We made it up to Lycavittos Hill, one of the two hills in the city center, just in time for sunset, but kind of continuing on my sunset disappointment there were too many clouds on the horizon for much of a display. (The same thing happened my second night in Mykonos. I didn't have my camera with me or the time to enjoy the BRIGHT PINK sunset my first night as I was very naturally struggling to find my hotel room, so then the second night when I was camped out in Little Venice with the perfect spot to watch, the sun went behind clouds about 30 minutes before setting :( Mihail and I still enjoyed the great views and then made our way to check out the nightlife. Our first stop was actually a CS trivia night at one bar where I generously offered my American knowledge of books, movies, and music - as this place even showed questions by way of TV screens. Very high tech I thought. But I am proud to say I supplied at least 5 or 6 answers that no one else knew and I was told the team ended up winning, though we didn't stay.
You can see the Acropolis aglow at night from Monastiraki Square!
I was very impressed by Athens' nightlife though this contradicts what my guide book tells me which is that nightlife is apparently not easy to come by or at least not what Athens is know for given that Greeks flee for their own islands in the summer. But again, I was totally impressed. I think that the book's writers have never made it to the Gazi neighborhood which is every bit as packed as Sixth Street in Austin or Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It's named after the old gas company that used to be in the area, but has been converted to just several giant blocks of bars and clubs. And I found this interesting after learning in Mykonos that tourism is Greece's only industry - bars, restaurants and other nightlife venues are part of the tourist industry so Greek bar owners take the very seriously. There was no such thing as a dive bar in Athens. And a MacDinton's style junky-looking bar could never compete I suspect. Every place we went had a theme, a very cool name, and amazing decor to go with the theme. Mihail says owners will spend more on their bar befor ever opening than is realistic for them to ever earn back! There was a board game bar, a circus bar, a galaxy bar, a bar called Why Sleep? (with the appropriate decor to match), and a college bar called Gazi College with chalkboards, clipboards, bookshelves, etc to match. Still my favorite were all of the bars that had gardens in which you could dine and drink. Twinkle lights, candles, and flowering trees were the rule and I didn't want to leave one of them! It was a great first night, but by far, the highlight was the scooter.
So a word now on scooters. I actually first thought that Smart Cars were the official car of Athens on my bus ride from the airport when I must have seen at least 25-30 of them driving past. But without a doubt, the best way to experience Athens is by the back of a scooter. In a city and country where rainfall is scarce I don't think there is a reason not to own one. Now I do not think that everything Mihail did was entirely legal, but it was very practical and I imagine most of it would only draw a frown from local police (see more on law enforcement below!)
With a scooter you can:
1. Drive the wrong way on one way streets.
2. Jump on the sidewalk to scoot around a red light and hop back onto the road.
3. If a police officer is blocking traffic from going straight at an intersection you can appear to adhere by turning left with the rest of traffic only to then jump up on the sidewalk on the other side of the road to then jump back onto the road that was going straight to continue on your way.
4. Make illegal U turns and make them even on red lights.
5. Just flat out skip red lights you don't want to wait for.
I suppose a scooter gets to be a car when it wants and a bicycle whenever it wants to too. I just loved, loved, loved riding on the backseat. Imagine the brilliant 80 degree sunshine shining down on you, hair whipping around giving new meaning to wind in your hair and making convertible drivers look like wimps, and zooming along the sea side going 80kph. It was a blast. Granted I do recognize the drawbacks - helmet hair, not being able to fall asleep in the "passenger seat", and getting caught in the rain- but Apollo the sun god treated me well and there was never even the slightest threat of rain.
So now that word about law enforcement. I learned this at brunch on Sunday with Mihail and his uncle. You may have already heard one of the challenges Greece faces that has made their particular situation a bit tougher than other countries is their high degree of tax evasion. Well the simple solution would be to up the tax collection enforcement, and while they do have some creative ways of doing that, the real issue it seems is that everyone knows everyone and almost everyone works in some federal agency (ministry of labor, traffic, education, etc) or knows someone that does. So if you try to impose a fine on one neighbor you might just find that you now have a couple new fines to pay as well!! And again, with a country whose only real industry is tourism and a lot of the people work only 6 months of the year to live for 12 months, I think it's a no-brainer that you have a very relaxed culture on your hands. Mihail also tells me that Greece has the highest percentage of freelancers in the world (I think self employed is what he is referring to) with 35% of its population going into business for themselves/starting their own little service (given the giant lack of industries in the country), but as such, 35% of the population is responsible for paying their own taxes. So one creative way that the Greek government has just started using to catch people is by what kind of car people drive. A new annual registration fee has been imposed on owners of large vehicles (SUVs, etc) and the government now presumes that for these car owners their annual salaries must be at a certain level to be able to afford this more expensive car. This gives the government an opportunity to collect income tax from the "freelancers." I think I understand they are also now doing a similar thing with the size of your house, where they have created income-housing tiers where they can safely presume your minimum annual income given your house size. Mihail also pointed out to me one bar that wasn't giving receipts which means it isn't paying taxes and apparently both the customers and the bar owners are in trouble because as a customer it is your duty to get a receipt. So I think Greece is certainly trying.
Mihail had one test on Friday afternoon so he dropped me off not far from the Acropolis and I got one opportunity to do some exploring on my own. Right away I gave up on using a map. I now understand the expression "it's Greek to me" because you can't even read it to try to speak it! I didn't like this because I like feeling self sufficient and I know I'm a good map reader but I discovered it was more work than was worth it. (Street signs are hard to come by, though not quite as bad as Mykonos.) The city is so dense and the neighborhoods like Plaka run right into Monastiraki and takes you to the National Garden and everything really just surrounds the Acropolis so you're never quite lost. Plus Miguel's scooter ride the first night pointed out so many landmarks to me that I had a couple bearings while exploring on my own. My strategy became just wander for awhile and when it was about time to meet Mihail I would tell him what store I was in front of or ask a local to type the location on my iPad for me. It suppose it worked mostly because almost all cafes offer free wifi, but I think I prefer cities in which I can use a map!
Where Yanni played :)
I found the Acropolis quite inspiring to see it first hand and to think how old it really is and how it was built before modern day machinery and construction equipment. There are four monuments on the hill with, I think, the most famous one being the Parthenon. Mihail reminded me just how much has been stolen from Greece since Greece does a poor job on capitalizing its own ideas, inventions, and culture. From Latin class you would think it was the Romans who first believed in the Gods, but they really just stole it all from the Greeks. And you have likely forgotten that it was the Greeks who invented wine - not the Romans and definitely not the French. Perhaps this is the eastern part of their culture showing through, but they just don't seem to be able to monetize their heritage like western cultures tend to do! But it is good to see that they are preserving the Acropolis... It's undergoing a lot of rehabilitation.
The rest of my days in Athens were filled with further exploring of the Athens city center, scooter rides every which way, trips to the Aegean/Mediterranean Sea, eating both authentic Greek and American meals, fantasizing about who owned all of the giant yachts in the Piraeus marina, copious amounts of ice cream and useless trips to the Vodafone store.
This meal was ordered entirely in Greek at a restaurant that doesn't even have menus. All I was told was that I was getting eggplant!
Greek Parliament... Not in session
The first Olympic Stadium
Acropolis in background
Cherries, Beth, for €2 a kilogram which is like not even $1.50 a pound! I couldn't even finish them all before I left :(
A normal street in Plaka.
The sea :) The water was cold in this Floridian's opinion!
Oh, just eating a kilo of ice cream!
In the National Gardens...admittedly, not as impressive as one might hope.
Looking at yachts all night is exhausting! You need a break every so often!
And finally, things I found amusing, interesting, surprising or all of the above:
++Athens is way behind the times with no bike lanes. Perhaps this is why Critical Mass bike rides don't just happen on one Friday each month, but according to Mihail, EVERY Friday. They are trying to send an extra loud message I suppose. We ran into part of the group late on Friday night.
++Greece is another one of those silly countries that uses an AZERTY keyboard instead of QWERTY. So it's easy to tell if you bought your laptop abroad or not.
++Greece uses a zero button on elevators for the ground floor! It doesn't replace the first floor, so there is still a floor 1, there is just a floor named zero in every building!
++You can't flush toilet paper down toilets. They have very narrow plumbing and pipes. I only was told this on Day 3 though! But it explains why there are giant dumpsters left open in every residential street corner for residents to throw out their trash every day!
++Like Mykonos, Athens has its own water issues. You take showers sitting down which I guess encourages you to turn off the water frequently and helps limit water use. You also must turn on your hot water 10 min before you want to shower. But I guess that is also just plain environmentally smart unless you have the new instant water heaters.
++If you find ruins under your house as you put on an addition, renovation or anything like that you must let them be and wait for them to be checked out. You will more than likely have to find a way to maintain them - either build around them or enclose them and build on top of them. You can't remove them. But if you find a temple under your property, it's game over. You are going to lose your property :)
++Greece also did the analog to digital TV switch like the US did, but theirs was only just becoming effective the week I was there. This had implications on trying to watch the big final basketball championship tie-breaker game on Saturday night where the Piraeus team where Mihail lives ended up winning. Pandemonium in the streets!
++Speaking of the basketball game, Mihail and I were passed on the highway Saturday afternoon by 100+ scooters with 2 policemen on each one. It looked like a giant motorcade that kept going and going and going. I was shocked and intrigued... What kind of an event could need so many police?? Apparently they were riding to the basketball game at a venue ironically named The Peace and Friendship Stadium.
++They don't bring you the bill in a restaurant until you ask for it! Experiencing this all by myself eating dinner one night alone while Mihail went to help a friend last minute reminded me of two French CSers I had in Tampa. They thought it was the rudest thing ever when one night out in Channelside the waitress brought us our bill before we asked for it. They were horrified. Appalled. Disgusted. And they commented on it too!
++Lunch is between 3 and 4pm and dinner is at 10p. Get used to it!
++Athens is another pretty much cash only city. Leave your plastic at home.
++Athens is one of the most expensive airports to fly out of unfortunately. The airport slaps on 35 euro in taxes right away to all departing flights. (This will be a factor I suspect in trying to go back to Mykonos :(
++So Athens won the bid for the 2004 Summer Olympics and proceeded to build an entire complex of venues along the coast for it. However, any city planner I understand would tell you they did just the lousiest job and didn't really take advantage of the opportunity for city and infrastructure investment like a city should (Barcelona is a good example of a city that did). So when I asked Mihail why he thought they won the Olympics he said "well, we sort of have the richest Olympic history!" I guess you can't argue with that, but it's a shame how the site today is sort of an eyesore along the water now. Mihail said something about maybe Dubai investors taking an interest, but I'm not sure I followed all he was saying as I was really enjoying just playing passenger on the scooter zipping along the Aegean Coast!
++I saw a Toyota IQ for the first time in Athens. It's almost as small and tiny as a Smart Car, but it manages to fit in a backseat so the car can actually carry 4 people. It was very cute! I think I want one. :) Smaller cars and scooters did certainly seem to be the rule in Athens and it was actually funny that I had noticed that I hadn't really been seeing any SUVs. Then on my second day, Mihail and I both saw a black vehicle on par in size with a Ford Escape trying to do a K turn in our path and he said , "Wow, that's a big car." Ha, I guess he hasn't seen the Ford Explorer! Also interesting, I never saw a single pick-up truck.
++FroYo has only just recently arrived in Greece and is very popular. You would think with Greek yogurt that they would have had this years ago.
++My feeble memory of the Greek alphabet paid off for me. After stepping out for a bit, Mihail told me to just ring for him on his floor when I came back (because again my SIM card was not working) and I thought, "easy"! Not so. Both names for the 6th floor were totally unrecognizable to me. I had a 50-50 chance of ringing the right buzzer though. But then I realized I knew what an L was - Lamba! I was saved! But would you recognize this as Lafkas?
++Greeks talk with their hands. (Maybe the Italians stole this from them too ;) On that super long bus ride from the airport I was cracking up watching another man on his cell phone. He was having a VERY animated conversation using his hands nearly the entire time and at one point even gesturing to himself pointing at his chest and then even more vehemently to an imaginary person in front of him who I suppose was standing in for the person on the other end of the call. I didn't understand a word he was saying, but I thought it would be perfect for a voice over YouTube comedy video.
++Lots of Greeks say they hate Athens according to Mihail. I personally loved it, but plenty have had no choice but to come to the city for jobs and they haven't really come to like it. They tend to refuse to adopt city life like using public transport. They still use cars to go even very short distances and things like that. And Greeks are rather cynical. They say what they don't like, but don't offer solutions, alternatives, or directions for what they might like. They just say "I don't like that." It makes me think of that South Park episode - "if you hate Athens so much, you can just get out!" But this is one reason I won't be moving to Athens. Grumpy people ....and pedestrians don't have the right of way!
++Greece is a very safe country and culture. If you get hurt every person runs to help you instead of like in the US where they gawk instead. Neighbors come by to offer you a slice of cake after they bake. Mihail says he has seen some changes in the last few years, but it is still incredibly safe though here are much more police on the streets nowadays. I was seeing several every couple of blocks.
++Greece celebrates a lot of holidays. Mihail counted for me all of the days of vacations he gets and holidays he has off and it ended up being about half the year! There were a number of holidays even just while I was there... The Greek Orthodox Pentecost, another day of mourning the dead, and then another one named for a Saint whose name I can't recall but because of it, a lot of Athenians were leaving the city that weekend to vacation elsewhere. Maybe I could live with that :)
++American flags are a trend in Greece right now and I'm not sure why. I saw the flag on Tshirts and as scarves around neck in Athens. Maybe they're celebrating that they no longer need a visa to come to the US? :)
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