city on a hill

I've been splitting my time in the last few days between immersing myself in the world of Classical Greece, and finding ways to beat the famously oppressive Athenian heat. Athens is a huge city with bichromatic contrasts between its classical foundations and its modern operation. But before I get into describing the city, I should first explain how I got here.

Once my flight from Budapest finally got off the ground, I benefited from all the traditional pleasures of air travel: tight confinement, seatmates falling asleep on my shoulder, turbulence, unexplained and horrific smells, and a baby, not crying, but wretching out from the dark parts of his 2 year old self the shrieks and cries of a tortured soul. After landing, I set about making my way into Athens. I had very detailed instructions provided by the hostel, which led me to purchase a ticket at the train station adjacent to the airport. It was suggested that the journey, including wait time, should take about 40 minutes. Three and a half hours later, I pulled in to what I determined to be my station, less by comprehension of the Greek letters on the station placard than by simple process of elimination. I had been pretty much everywhere else the train goes. The short story is that the names of the stations, the directions of train travel, and the general system of transfer was a little more complicated that I expected. Happily leaving the station, I examined a local map with serious intensity, hoping that my gaze might frighten the Greek Letters into rearranging themselves into legible characters. Wandering around the train station, futilely looking for the correct street address, the advertised "5 minute walk from the station" turned into nearly an hour. When I finally made it into the hostel, I was hot, tired, and generally happy to be heading up to my room.

Despite assuming that I would simply be taking a shower (which I most certainly did) and passing out, I was seduced down to the hostel bar by the hospitable offer of a welcome shot of Ouzo. Having thus taken said shot, I ended up spending the next four hours chatting with a guy from Australia and group of girls from Portland.

The next morning I stopped by a local bakery (of which Athens has many) and purchased enough baked goods for a breakfast and lunch. Making my way to the nearest park, I sat, ate, read, and tried my best to tune out the cacophonous sound of a million cicadas chipping away in the surrounding trees. Having thus consumed roughly 1900 calories in one sitting, I felt ready to explore the nearby Archaeological Museum.

Athena Parthanos, as she appeared in the Parthenon, less gold adornment and about 1/10 the size. The only other complete statue is in Boston's MFA.

The Archaeological Museum is Athen's largest collection of Greek art and artifacts, and I lingered there for several hours soaking up culture and air conditioning. Unfortunately, one of the most interesting displays - a collection of gold decorations - prohibited the use of cameras, so you'll just have to go for yourself to see the incredible goldsmithsmenship (not a real word) that the ancients practiced.

Poseidon, in bronze, originally with ceramic or marble eyes.

I spent the rest of my day wandering around the classical quarter of Athens. This triangular-shaped area of the city surrounding the Acropolis is by far the nicest part of Athens. The modern city of Athens is huge, and much like the cities of Southern and Central California, has grown by means of urban sprawl. Four and five story cement buildings stretch for miles, combining the urban planning of Los Angeles with the architectural stylings of the former Soviet Union. It is a hot and dirty city, especially in the summer, and its famously congested roads require constant vigilance in order to safely cross. Air conditioner units drip down to the misshaped sidewalks where stray dogs pick through open garbage cans. It is not a great place.

But all of the torpid waste of the festering city melts away under the shining light of the Acropolis in the classical quarter. While still beset by pigeons and strays, and with the added bonus of hawkers plying their wears, its marble streets and charming buildings transport a visitor to the days of classical Greece.

I walked around, taking pictures of the classical architecture and generally admiring the view from above the city. I stopped short at entering any of the sites, as I had planned to take a walking tour of the city the next day, and I was content to simply move lazily through the heat of the early evening. I saw the changing of the guard at the Parliament Building after making my way out of the National Gardens. The National Gardens are home to many wonders, but the most wonderful off all is the public zoo. The National Garden Zoo has earned, in my opinion, the distinction of being the lamest zoo in the world. It contains such rare and exotic animal species as: ducks, chickens, rabbits, two donkeys, and the saddest looking peacock I've ever seen. The animals intended for display make up roughly half of the population of the zoo, with the remainder being made up of pigeons and stray cats. Awesome. Eventually I made it back to my hostel, and got to bed reasonably early.

One of the many rabbits that overpopulated and overran the confines of their cages.

Waking up yesterday morning, I swung by the bakery for breakfast again before meeting up with the tour group. From my hostel, it was just myself and a guy from Oregon with the remarkable condition of being taller than me by nearly 6 inches. We met up with the rest of the English-speaking group, and our tour guide's accent quickly revealed his Southern origins. Confirming the he was in fact originally from South Carolina, I discovered that he had moved here to Greece, married, and was now well settled outside of Athens.

The Temple to Hephaestus in the Old Agora, the most complete temple surviving from the classical era in all of Greece.

The tour was quite good, we visited many of the sites that I walked passed the day before, but there were several places that I had missed, or who's context I had not understood. For me, the crown jewel of the tour was the walk up to the Acropolis. I have marveled at this outcropping displayed in model at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for years. To finally go up, making the approach that I had seen at 1:120 scale, was wicked awesome.

The Acropolis, from afar.

The heat was, as it is now, a constant inhibiting force in Athens, and when we were finally done with the tour, I was anxious to find some Greek food and drink in a shady spot. My American companion from Oregon, Brenden, joined me in seeking out a restauraunt recommended to us by out guide. The food was fantastic, the best I've had on the trip thus far, and after finishing our meal Brenden and I headed back to the hostel where we parted ways planning to meet up later in the bar. I took a shower and met two new American roommates who were returning from 2 months of teaching the children of the Roma (gypsies) in Romania. Professing a need to arrange for a ferry to take them out to this islands, a condition I shared with them, we all headed over to the travel agency where they got their tickets and I got... a little worried. You see, despite what I had been told about getting tickets, it seems as though there were none available. (As it's 1:23 as I'm writing this, I still don't know how I'm getting out to this islands.) But for the time, we returned to the hostel where everyone - the two Southern girls, Brenden from Oregon, a South African expat living in London who was also sharing my room, two girls from Leeds, and two girls from California - had a generally good time. The culmination of the night was the "5 Shot Ouzo Challenge" which left everyone quite set for the night.

Today I'm still trying to work out Greek Isle Ferries. It's probably best that I sign off at this point, and head down to the port to see if I have any better luck in booking a ticket than I have at the local travel agency. Wish me luck!