Sojourn in Greece: Week 2

After working a half day, I went for a Greek-style outing, arriving in Athens at 4pm.

Vouliagmeni is quite a ways from the city center, and I got to test the Greater Athens public transit in many forms. Going in I hailed a taxi. The driver was disappointed I didn't speak Greek, but as in the previous taxi, the first question is "London?", then when I say "Philadelphia, America", he says "Bush. Bad." Then the driver picked up two tanned young women and launched into animated conversation with much laughter. I was left quietly in my back seat corner.

I took the hyper-modern new tramline along the beach road--so many beaches! So many pleasure boats! So many concrete overbuilt Olympic venues that look empty now. We passed the diving platforms (how does anyone have the nerve to leap off those things head first?) and suddenly, there was the Acropolis, FAR above it, shocking and magnificent in its sheer size and separation from the city. The tram had taken nearly an hour to reach the central square. I decended into the gleamingly perfect new Metro station there and hopped two stops to Thissio station on the far side of the Acropolis.

I spent the afternoon behind the Acropolis, to the west. First at the Herakleidon museum in a newly renovated townhouse on a walkway filled with trendy cafes, motorcycles, and young people. The Vasarely Op Art exhibit was great fun; I was struck by the parallels with quilting design, and picked up some ideas that might be fun for papercutting....

In a cafe with a view of the Acropolis, near this little shrine, I had a dish of icecream that rivalled Italian gelato for creaminess, flavor, and price.

Then I set out to walk the hills to the west, starting with the first known Athens site dedicated to Zeus (and marking the emerging prominence of masculine gods). I took a back way into the parkland onto Nymph Hill, and for 10 minutes or so, saw no one on the paths.It was astonishing to see such a spread of pine-covered hills and valleys, while behind me, a vast expanse of white city buildings with hardly a speck of green stretched to the far reaches of the mountains and sea.The first part of this Athens guide site nicely describes the area I walked, including the St. Dimitrios the Bombadier chapel, where I glimpsed a wedding through the windows and meditated on the supple baritone chant that was broadcast out through the park.

I wound my way down the side of the Acropolis as well-dressed crowds were streaming up to attend the outdoor theater, and a passle of kids were playing soccer. Managed buy a map and magazine, find a bite to eat, and locate the right express bus stop, without having to return to the central square.

The fun of public transit is people watching: the Pakistani man whose "Scotland the Brave" cellphone went off every 2 minutes, the young teen boys out messing around together, the newlywed (?) California couple who couldn't wait until they reached the privacy of their hotel, a smiling Philippino couple who have been here 12 years--although Greece is a safe country, they say, she will go home anyway to deliver their first baby.

Going in took a good hour and 45 minutes. Going home at 8:30pm, the express bus and the local bus took less than an hour and the entire return trip cost .50 euros!

Look, shadow of the gods...or is it just a nymph?
A few more photos >>

Went to the local market, then the beach. My landlady offered me a frappe on her grand balcony. She's been here 12 years but misses her family and community in Australia. Once you've lived in another place, there's always part of you that wants to be there -- you can never be fully "home" again. I took a walk out to the headlands at dusk. You can see a few snapshots from the day on the photo week 2 page.

Another afternoon and evening in Athens. The national gardens next to the parliament (formerly the queen's tropical arboreteum, I gather) have an awesome cluster of tall palms at the entrance; otherwise it has a casual country park feel. Plantings and walkways are not particularly clipped and edged, and the few clusters of roses or marigold borders appeared to have been watered regularly but otherwise left to their own defenses.

Clare and Bob Hopley (Brits who live in Massachusetts and teach at Alba regularly) met me at the snazzy new metro clock, with a geologic-layer slice of the station's archeology the length of the balcony:

They threaded their way through the Plaka quarters, past the fancy shops and tourist stalls, and skirting various ruins. We stopped in to see the reconstruction on the cathedral (damaged by an earthquake), glowing with freshly painted designs and icons plated in silver and gold.

Walls of the Plaka's prosperous buildings were tagged with boldly colorful and sometimes whimsical grafitti. I'm sure the tourist authority doesn't approve, but I kinda liked the contrast between the acropolis above (defaced over time by many people for their own purposes) and the contemporary spray painted commentaries below. "This is our place too!" they seem to say.

Along the back side street of the parkland which I walked on Friday every sign post and map put up for the Olympics had been systematically scratched and spray painted with brown slogans. Politics, not artistry, the motivation. What must it be like to live next to ruins and archaeological sites and dazed tourists, always reminding you that the past, not the present, was your people's golden age?

We wondered why the temple of the winds was so dedicated until we clambered to the top of Areopagus hill right next to the Acropolis. Nuns in their "Mother Teresa" Mission of Charity saris were carefully making their way down a side stairway, following the pilgrimage route to sites where Paul preached to the Athenians: "What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you". Acts 17
The top of the hill is slipperly lumps of marble, worn smooth by centuries of tourists, and the late afternoon winds were nearly blew us off. It does make us wonder whether anyone heard a word Apostle Paul actually said :-) (although I think the actual site is the theater behind the hill!) We followed the nuns and took the safer stairway down.

We lingered over dinner (at a table where the model was posing on Friday), talking about how American professors coming to Alba sometimes transform themselves, relaxing into long conversations and days at the beach, where they have habitually felt too rushed for such pleasures.

The Acropolis turned orange and we walked to the Dora Stratou open air theater in the pines that was built just for folkdance. Lucky for you readers, I'm still not skilled enough with my camera to take decent night pictures, or I would bore you with each set of costumes, musical instruments, and steps: Asia Minor, Thrace, Salamaniki, Pelopponese, Crete...

Dora Stratou founded Greece's premiere folk dance troupe, dedicated to "real" folk dances, i.e. these dances aren't really performance dances; they are more pleasurable to do, to experience, than to watch. I suspect that some of the audience got bored once they'd examined the rich handwork on the current set of costumes.
Very simple steps, mostly in lines, repeated over and over, the singing strong, the instrumental music lively, insistent, repetitive, I loved it. The blurred photo below shows their parallel precision and captures the hypnotic feel of the movements. And my photographic incompetence!

Sorry, all, but it's been a dull week for cultural explorations, hence no postings.

I've taught 6 four-hour sessions now, and am deep into the work that brought me here. The "mini" classes are for MBAs who are studying in night school, the longer classes are for bankers, mostly folks who negotiate business loans. I don't know about the rest of the country, but these folks are as frantic for time as their American counterparts. Pushed hard at work to make high quotas and take on extra responsibilities, staying long hours, trying to squeeze in schooling, family, and socializing on the side, battling for the vacation time in August that the rest of the country takes as a matter of course.

When not too shy about their English, the students freely ask questions, make requests, and are quite game to participate in class activities. (At last, an extrovert in a country of extroverts!) The English level in 3 of the classes is excellent, but of course when you're learning in a foreign language it takes more time to grasp the point and integrate it into your thinking, so I still have to repeat more and cover less. They negotiate the roleplays in Greek, however, so they can't blame their outcomes on language skills!