(110): My Big Fat Greek Ferry Strike

(110) is Monday, 26 April 2010.

Imagine being Kirill, Liz, or both at this point. You've spent 5 days trying to get out of the Paris airport amid infinite hassle, you finally spend a few days in Rome, and upon arrival in Athens-- a one-night stopover-- you learn that the ferries taking you to the Greek Islands are on strike for the one day you happen to need them. One day! Who goes on strike for one day!?

Well, them. So much for being back on schedule.

Anyway, we decided to make the best of it and see Athens for the one day we had. I think it's pretty safe to say that one day was all the time we needed. There was a great walking tour (for free) that left from the (wonderful) Athens Backpackers Hostel at 9:15 and showed us around all the major sites: Temple of Zeus (more old stuff), olympic stadium, gardens, Syntagma Square, (which is in front of) Parliament, the Fuzzy Foot Brigade (to be explained shortly), a Greek Orthodox church, the flea market, a greek sandwich stand, and the Acropolis.

The Fuzzy Foot Brigade is my overly mocking description of the Greek secret service troops who stand at attention outside parliament, not unlike the guards at Buckingham Palace in London. Difference here is that, every half hour, the two guards engage in a very elaborate ceremony of walking about with extremely long steps. These steps are punctuated by their brushing their shoes against the ground: shoes that have fuzzy stuff on the front.

It's funny until the guide says they're for hiding knives.

The best part of this whole ritual, though, is that it's for them to stretch their legs. Seriously-- they've made an elaborate, tourist-friendly ceremony out of it. It makes sense, but it is just a little too much fun to watch.

So, back up at the Acrop*, the thing was under construction. I thought this was great-- first of all, as Judy pointed out, this is one for the travel article "Except While You're Here."** Renovations are annoying enough if you were really jazzed about seeing something, but here in particular, I have to ask: Seriously? The Parthenon? More than being annoying, doesn't this just defeat the purpose? I mean, they're ruins-- putting up scaffolding here is like saying that Stonehenge has fallen into disrepair.

I just didn't get it. So, I slipped on a dusty rock and landed on my tailbone. Nice view of the city from where I sat, though.

In the next few hours, Kirill and I ran some errands (like adjusting ferry tickets to compensate for the day's strike), and Liz and I took siestas (although I spent mine getting to know our roommate, a girl named Olivia who-- as I later would-- was travelling on her own).

We then found dinner. It was fine, but after a week in Italy, I was not much enamored of what I had here. Suffice it to say I would spend much of the next week living off of gyros.*** This cuisine depends much more on acquired tastes, which, as we've established, I generally don't have. And then there's ouzo... liccorice liquor. How to be witty with this description... Oh, I got it:

It tastes awful.

We didn't really know what to do at night (ended up hanging out in the room with Olivia). Just as well, since we had to get up REALLY early for our ferry.

So, yeah-- the walking tour was basically all we needed, and I'd like to point out that Athens suffers from pollution... I was coughing as I walked, and for once, I wasn't fighting a cold. And we were totally safe, by the way-- those riots you heard about wouldn't break out for another week, by which time we were all safely back in Paris.

Also, if you're in Greece, have fun with the language. This is the only country in the EU with a non-Roman alphabet (they even put the Greek spelling of "Euro" on every bill), and even some of the Roman letters used don't make the same sounds. 'P,' for instance, makes an 'R' sound, while pi (yes, the math thing) takes over for 'P.' I had to get the letters straight before I could get as far as not deciphering the language. And, of course, every piece of Greek I picked up flew out of my memory almost instantly.

Never mind that. On to Santorini!

-Andy

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Footnotes

* I use "Acropolis" and "Parthenon" interchangeably, and here's why: the Parthenon is the famous monument itself, and the Acropolis is the hill on which it sits. The "Acrop," used as an abbreviation here, is also a loving reference to the similarly named 24-hour diner near Vassar, where all good nights go to get even better.

** I've even started a photo album that lovingly commemorates this phenomenon, and it may bear that title.

** For those as unfamiliar as I had been beforehand, a gyro is a circle of pita bread wrapped around various veggies, a creamy/tangy sauce, and meat (pork or chicken) that they shave off of a big rotating spit. You've seen them before, especially if you've been in Paris's Latin Quarter.