Road Trip Ctd

The Garden of Heroes
 Everyone was moved walking around the cemetery. I fed off of the meaningfulness that the Greek Americans were experiencing from learning so much about their ancestory. Always been a bit green when someone has close ties to a rich culture. My family's been living in the burbs of Texas and Florida for four generations with a few exceptions given to Southern Baptist missionaries who branched out.

I let George take over as he gets starry eyed, talking about the Revolutionary fighters, rebels and politics in general. Just followed closely behind and let the quietness sink in.


After Messolonghi our aim was Kalavryta where we would stop for the night. We stopped first at a roadside taverna that, aside from being Greek, could have easily been ripped up, stuck into the side of Highway 290 somewhere between Centerville and Austin, and none would be the wiser. Red checkered tablecloths, check. Dead animals on the wall, check. Boiled rabbit with pasta.. well... maybe in East Texas. The food was delicious. Everyone ate more than they'd intended and the bill was, I'm happy to report, dirt cheap. It was all part of the plan.

The trip into the mountains takes upward from an hour. We passed fruit, wine, and honey stands, cliff-dangled coffee shops, and herds of goats with clanging metal bells on their collars. 

On the research trip the few days prior, George and I had discovered countless things to impress the people with. There is a great monument waaaay on top of the mountain, overlooking Agia Lavra and symbolizing that day when the heroes (now laid in the garden) stood with Father Germano of Patra and declared their revolt on the Ottomans.

The littlest boy didn't want to get out of his seat. He was so comfortable playing his Nintendo, but when I told him he would be able to hear the bells of the goats from all the way up here, he jumped immediately. The goats had made a big impression on him.

Kalavryta

This was just the first of many things we'd planned for their evening. There was the church to visit, a walk to the monument to the 1000 men and boys that were shot, dinner at a traditional tsipero place with mezze (tsipero is to Greece as fine tequilla is to Mexico) but when we descended from Agia Lavra, arrived at the Ski Cabin-esque hotel and got all of the suitcases at, we took one long look at our road-weary travelers and changed everything.


Pizza and beer in the main square and an 11pm bedtime was the night's itinerary.


But we'd obviously gotten through to them, because I learned the next morning that some of them had gotten up early and taken photographs of the old church with the clock stopped on the hour of the tragedy. Coffee and eggs in the hotel's dining room and we posed our final adventure to them: the ododontos railway descending down the mountain and across the Vouraikos Gorge, into a charming little village called Diakofto. 

The gorge was reputedly formed by Herakles, (Hercules) to get closer to a girl he was in love with named Voura. 

Based on the Arta Bridge experience with the small one, and knowing that one man was afraid of heights and his wife prone to motion sickness, and knowing that this pack was doweled together with Gorilla glue, I was already preparing myself for not getting to go. I say it like this because I've read about this little rail adventure in guides and magazine articles for the last year and a half, and have had it high on my list. But what do you know? They all said yes! 

That one hour trip down the mountain on a non-air conditioned, screeching train was the best part of the whole adventure. The men were all standing on their tip toes looking down the mountainside where the Vouraikos river rushed along, slapping the rocks on her way down. 


"WHOA, A TUNNEL!"
(said the grown ups.)


I was imagining what it would be like if those fearsome klephts still lined the mountain ridge above us, these men who inspired both fear and admiration. coincidentally one of the wives was detailing a story about one of the Prevezans who had been held up by Albanian train robbers. They got everyone off of the train and took everything. He was held hostage for six hours.

Comparing what it would be like to be held up by Klephts in their fustanellas with their broad sashes and handlebar moustaches to Albanians in acid wash denim, their heads shaved except for their rat tails... I got melancholy. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been terrifying to have been held up by Klephts. There are written accounts of them behaving VERY badly, but there was a certain romance to their brigandage that is lost forever. The noble thief. The robber's code. It's gone. 

We curled, curved, and squeezed through a few more narrow tunnels until finally we slowed and arrived at the sort of railway station you see in epic films, one long platform and a line of people, George included. Our chariot had beat us to the bottom and was ready for us to reload.

It's boiling in Athens. The last two days have been relentless, keeping me awake at night, the two fans situated around my bed blowing hot air. Nightmares have plagued the few hours of sleep I've been getting. Now, being called for work is not just an opportunity for industry, it's a climate-controlled refuge.

Waited intentionally until the early hours of the morning after, rather than spoiling the "final" 100 day post with something that was tired, off-the cuff, or just plain uninspired. The unfortunate thing is that I don't have any photographs to accompany this with. I had hoped that my Greek-American clients, having returned to the states a week ago, would have sent me a few supplementary photos so that I could share the amazing road adventure we had with them, but they must still be recovering, something my little camera doesn't seem to want to do. I'm putting it into the universe now that I need a spy camera that takes amazing photographs and can fit in the sleeve of my shirt. I need it to appear roughly in the next 48 hours. :) I don't know what I did to insult the technology gods but it seems a sacrifice is in order to stop this streak of bad luck.

We left off with the Greek Revolution because I was researching it intensely in preparation for this trip, which started in the coastal town of Preveza, in the region of Epirus. This kind, intelligent, boisterous family all branched from a patriarch that we'll call Spiros, and Spiros, in turn, had branched from a kind family from Preveza. Each year he returns home to spend a month or so with his sisters and cousins. It has been twenty years since his sons had been able to join him. This was the first time that their wives and the two punkin' head boys got to go.

When I first wrote about KalAHvryta, (mispronounced Kala VREE ta by most people, especially -and I say it with endearment- ours) it was on the return of scouting out every stone, signmarker, and roadside stand that we would be stopping at with our family. It's how I saw the ruined, red walls of the city of "Nikipolis" or the city of victory, built by Augustus to celebrate his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra, who did you know, was Greek? He was so intent on this city being "celebratory" that he forced people out of their homes in the surrounding villages to populate it.

When we picked up our passengers and brought them to this first stop just outisde of Preveza, they knew it.

"Oh," I said with disappointment. I hate when my clients know more than me.

"Spiros's family came out here and hid from the Nazis during World War II."

"Oh!"

This changed everything.

Imagine being in a small village, invaded by Aryans with the swastika, a Greek symbol from ancient times, turned into a symbol of aggression and cruelty and turned ON to the Greeks, themselves. The only advantage they had was knowledge of the land. The stones, the caves, the hills became their guardian spirits, just as they had in ancient times. It's not a stretch to understand why they believed into the nineteenth century that natural spirits existed and were to be given their due fear and respect. Nature wasn't their only saving grace, however, They had (have) a rebellious spirit. A "who are you to tell me..." kind of attitude toward each other, and the world. It inspired Churchill who famously said, 'Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks'

What it must have been like! All of my nightmares are about being pursued by faceless men, hiding in places where I don't know if I'm concealed well enough, my heart beating so loud I'm sure it will be heard. Imagine if it was reality?

We took some meaningful photographs of the family behind the walls and moved on.


Crossed the Bridge of Arta, where legend has it, the construction was cursed. Each night the bridge would fall down. A bird with a human voice announced to the freemason that he would have to seal the mortar with the blood of his wife. Only then would the bridge stay up. Grievously he tricked her into coming, telling her to go and look for his wedding ring on the partially built bridge, and while she was innocently searching the other men lay a heavy stone on top of her, then another, and another, and she was left only enough breath to curse all those who crossed the damned thing.

 The telling of this story didn't inspire courage in the littlest passenger.

On our way to Messolonghi we passed through a gorge where a church has been built in the cliffs.

Second littlest passenger looked up the daunting set of steps.
"We going up there?"
"Do you want to?"
"YEAH!"

And up we went. Imagine my surprise when I looked behind us, halfway up in the blazing 2pm heat and saw the entire crew trailing behind us.

That's how this family was the entire time. Maybe they were on good behavior but I don't think so. It was solidarity from the beginning to the end.

Once up, they were in awe. I was in awe. Guiltily, or boastingly (is that a word?) I confess that I'm starting to get used to this whole "awe" thing. There's a lot of cliffs in Greece, a lot of views that remind you how small, pink and fleshy we are.

Onto Messolonghi.

 The scouting trip beforehand is also how I learned that Lord Byron, whose heart is buried in the sleepy, sacred town of Messolonghi, was grieved for 21 days after dying of a fever. He had been the bridge between the Greek revolutionaries who, true to Greeks today as it likely was even in ancient times, just could not get along. Not even with a stirring cause like unification and independence from the oppressive Ottoman empire was able to keep their suspicious minds and jealous hearts focused on the ball. It was his death, however, along with the grievous incident at Messolonghi that I wrote about which got the rest of Europe swept up in the romance of throwing out the Turks.

The merciless sun was beating down but the "Garden of Heroes," cemetery of the Revolutionaries and victims of the massacre, was at least ten degrees cooler.

I, on the other hand, here in the present, am getting hotter and hotter, as is my computer. We'll finish this up a bit later today.

City tour with Stavros

Last night I got a message from one of the drivers in our team.
"Paige, you're going to do a full day city tour with a driver named Stavros tomorrow. Be at the port before 8am. Clients name: ***"

So the next morning, like a little soldier, I was standing on Syngrou Avenue at 6:55 because I had called my driver named "Stavros" and told him I would be needing a ride. Up swings a silver bus with an accordian door.

"GOOOOD MORNING, BEAUTIFUL!" said a smile from beneath a large pair of sunglasses.

"Kalimera!" said I, getting in, being careful not to tip over the pink can of basil in the cup holder.

Surveying Stavros, the pink can of basil, blood red chairs and the snow white plush tiger guarding the rear of the bus, my inner smile lined parallel to the outer one.

We did some back and forth banalities on our way to the port. Once wedged in the queue of trip-crazy taxis and elephantine buses he excused himself for a little pitstop.

I took advantage of the moment to explore my surroundings.

Stavros returned.

"My sweetheart! Do you want a coffee?"
He held two packs of cigarettes and two cans of iced espresso beverages in his hands.

"Oh no, Stavros, I don't think so, but thank you."

He shrugged and put the spare in the cooler before getting to his first pack of the day.


7:50 I assumed ranks with the other drivers picking up tourists from the cruise ships.

They're a happy bunch, the tourists.

8:10, I had mine and we made our way back to the Basil Bus. I had a sharp dressed crew that seemed intelligent and polite, two sets of parents and their varied-aged children + one girlfriend. They took their seats, I took mine, "This is our driver, Stavros!" smiling, smiling, all the time smiling, when I look over and see Stavros frantically pulling at his door.

"Den doulevi!" (it doesn't work) he reported, all traces of his "smiling" vanished.

Slam, slam, slam... and one of the clients leaned up and said, "Eh, Stavros, maybe if you pull the seatbelt through the handle and click it into the fastener it will hold.

Stavros followed the first part but improvised on the second by relooping the seatbelt into a magnificent bow. His eyes were raised like McDonalds arches. Sweat beaded down his magnificent forehead. He held the door closed until we reached the first stop, ten minutes down the road.

You'll be happy to hear it magically got repaired.

9:00 my people were at the Acropolis and Stavros invited me for another coffee.

We sat with two other drivers and the three men spoke in rapid Greek. Shop talk from everything I picked up. You can't go that direction anymore, that road is closed, and then, if I'm not mistaken, some idle gossip about who knows who.

(The man in blue is not Stavros.)

(The sandwich next to the styrafoam cup was also offered by Stavros. He was quite the gentleman.)

10:30, to the Marble Stadium where the 1896 Olympic Games took place. 11:00 the Temple of Zeus. I dutifully waited for my peeps, who I have to say, were awfully quiet after the door incident.

Next the stretching of the Evzones on the half hour and the grand trilogy of architecture on Panepistimiou Ave. "And what next, Paige?" "And where are we going now, Paige?" "And what will we do then, Paige?" and I was going a little bit crazy.

Time to drop them off at a museum where they can explore without my yabbering. The two men had me intimidated with their almost undetectable tone of condescencion. I lead them to the left; the enterance was on my right. I'd barely sat down with Stavros along the fencing outside of the Archaeological museum (where he bought me a sugar free ice cream) when they came like a little choo choo right back to us.

"It doesn't open until 1:30."

Think think think! Faster faster faster!!

"Okay! Plan B, let's go for lunch!"

"YAY!"

And we zipped over to Paradosiako where the sun came out and the world looked rosey again.

My intimidating men were even impressed at the quality of the food. Somehow I got credit for it. The moods began to improve.
 "Why don't you eat with us, Paige?"

Well because I'd already had a sandwich and an ice cream but work is work. Sometimes you suffer.

Then THREE HOURS of shopping ensued. I entertained the kids with Greek myths.

"You tell good stories!!"

Where have I heard that...

And after a little bit of kitten-herding I told Stavros we would meet him at the Melina Mercouri statue.

"I'm already here!"

So I tried to hurry them a little, knowing that the po-po aren't kind to drivers idling in this area but two were missing.

"Quickly, quickly.." but it was too late. We came upon Stavros shouting with some extra policey policemen and he looked at me, eyebrows raised wildly over the rim of his sunglasses.

SE PARAKALO! ELLA!

(well, it means get your ass over here, PLEASE, but that's not a direct translation.)

The last two had seen us from far and we jumped in the Basil Bus like bank robbers.

My people were so happy. They had a fantastic day. I was so pleased...


and I was exhausted.

5:00 drop off at the port.

5:30 I was walking down my street.

6:00 I was not.

Bee Lesson

The clouds were lined with gold tonight. Not silver. Gold. I'm not being metaphorical for once. It's so beautiful outside! The wind is licking up the waves and the ropes are clanging against the masts of ships. People are outside enjoying the break from the oppressive heat, but I have to tell you, every gift has it's yang, and the yang is that I couldn't go swimming. The water was just too rough.  Instead I sat and watched the water being pushed around by Zephyros, Attikoulamou resting against the rail of the seawall.

I spent all day doing what is traditionally called the "Argolis" tour with a new driver we're working with. Let's call him Pedro. He drives a Viano, a souped up minivan presenting itself with a Mercedes logo and gray leather interior, one bench turned backward to be more like a limosine.

I sat in the back with my serene (the nice word for sleepy) clients and pointed out the window at various things. There was an echo in the car. It was the father's listening method to repeat the very last part of what I'd said. Demonstration:

"The Marathon Runner statue is standing at the official end of the first marathon race in 1896."
"Oh in 1896. The race."

"The climate in the Peloponnese is perfect for growing oranges and you should have some orange juice with lunch."
"We should have some for lunch, yes."

It was lovely actually. It's so nice to have someone listen to you. The funny part was that he was always chiming in just before I'd finished, like we were doing a campfire round.

My favorite part of the Argolis tour is showing people the Acrocorinth. It's your quintessential castle on a hill, used first for a temple of Aphrodite. When the men-folk took over the goddess worshippers, it was used to spy enemy ships or encroaching armies from far. You can see everything up there. Attica, Nemea, the Corinthean Gulf. You hear the kind of wind-whisper I've mentioned before...where you're sure you're being told something important but the language is such, you've long forgotten it, you just can't remember what it means.

I loved my sleepy people today. In between their choreographed routine of the car-nap head-bob, they made me laugh, I made them laugh, they listened to my stories. I told them all about the priests of Aphrodite being beekeepers, as bees were sacred to the goddess of Love and Beauty.

"sacred to the goddess of love and beauty!"

I noticed Pedro's eyes flicker with attention via the rearview mirror.

While they were at the site of Ancient Corinth, Pedro and I made a dash back to the highway for gas. He looked at me suspiciously.

"What were you saying about the priests of Aphrodite. I want to know."
I repeated that they were beekeepers of sacred bees.

"Where did you learn that?"

Hmmm! Where indeed?

The last two years I've spent absorbing everything I can put my mythologically itchy fingers on, trying desperately to catch up with over 2000 years of history of a culture that doesn't technically belong to me. Ways that I've researched include (but are not excluded to)
*Contacting Authors and having long chats.
*Sitting in bookstores for hours because there aren't libraries.
*Reading countless websites dedicated to mythology and Goddess stuff.
*Talking to people who just seem to know a lot.
*Downloading academic papers.
*Squinting over the tiny print of museum plaques.
*Renting videos from the library. (This was over the Christmas break. Thank you Montgomery County Public Library, I never really told you how much I appreciate you.)

And, I have to admit, after all of these things put together sometimes I feel that I have enough information to connect the dots and make theories of my own. Risky business, but it's the way I learn, also. I promise after I blurb something out completely wrong and hear about it after, I remember forever what is right.

 Now that I'm comfortably in front of my red security blanket, I mean laptop, I did a bit of research.

I found mention of it here, here and here:


The title Melissaios - or Bee-man, has a feminine counterpart in Mediterranean cultures called Melissa, of which Hilda Ransome informs us; “The title Melissa, the Bee, is a very ancient one; it constantly occurs in Greek Myths, meaning sometimes a priestess, sometimes a nymph.” This is an important observation, for the tradition of dancing Bee goddesses appears to have been preserved in a form of Bee maidens known as Melissa’s – or nymphs, and Greek deities such as Rhea and Demeter were widely known to have held the title. Additionally, the Greeks frequently referred to ‘Bee-Souls’ and bestowed the title of ‘Melissa’ on unborn souls. The 3rd century Greek philosopher and mathematician Porphyry of Tyre believed that souls arrived on earth in the form of Bees, having descended from the moon goddess Artemis, and that they were lured to terrestrial life by the promise of earthly delights, such as honey. Ironically, honey was also a symbol of death and was frequently used as an offering to the gods. The dualistic quality of honey is no coincidence, as the nectar and its maker – the Bee, appear to represent the very cycle of existence. One could say that as the Bee returns to its hive, so the Melissa returns to its god in the afterlife; the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning.

The definition of Melissa – the Honeybee

Bees, Melissa’s and caves go hand in hand in Mediterranean mythology – as we saw with Zeus, however the tradition may have commenced with the Bronze Age Mycenaean culture (1500 - 1100 BC) on the island of Ithaca in the Ionian Sea. The island, which was featured in Homer’s epic poems, the Iliad – the first Greek work to feature Bees - and the Odyssey, is renowned for a sacred cave with a curious double entrance; one passage orientated to Boreas – the god of the northern wind, and the other to Notus – the god of the southern wind. The cave was home to Bee goddess nymphs – or Melissa’s called Nagaden. Here Bees deposited honey in stone containers and traveled through the Boreas entrance in order to appease the god of the southern winds, who was known for destroying crops and giving rise to the planet Sirius in late summer. The portal was believed to be a divine ‘Path of the Gods’ that no mortal was permitted to cross, and even today the cave remains elusive to the casual traveler, residing in near anonymity in the vicinity of an ancient Olive tree believed to be at least 1500 years old.

It is fascinating, isn't it? Sparkly, mystical stuff that will have me forever looking at bees with wonder, but all of this to tell you, nowhere did I find that priests of Aphrodite are beekeepers. In fact, seems that the bee is more commonly associated with Artemis.

Did I imagine it?

"I'm a beekeeper," said Pedro.

And the discussion turned from wishy-washy goddess knowledge to hard core bee knowledge. Did you know they're using bees to sniff out bombs? Yes! They're apparently even better than dogs when you reward them with a little food for reacting to a specific scent. Documented here

and



It's worth noting that while searching, I came across this:



I'm not wondering why information gets scrambled in my head anymore.

Pedro loves bees. He waxed on about them as we were fueling, saying that when you study the way bees are organized, you see that humans are really, very silly. Because I don't actually know how bees are organized, I thought I would take a moment to understand. What I learned is that bees are efficiently organized according to their roles. Their roles are assigned accordingly: worker bees are sterile. They are not for making love. They are for making honey. Drones are the lovers. They are for fulfilling the queen, of which there is one. Her job is to make more bees.

There are nurse bees, who are worker bees not ready to leave the hive yet. Their job is to feed the larvae (baby bees) royal jelly. Now I'm quoting from the article because I love the way it's worded (article can be read here)

After that time, worker and drone larvae are fed on a mixed food composed of honey and pollen, while larvae destined to develop into queens are fed on royal jelly during their whole larval life of five days. Thus, queens can be reared from any worker larvae younger than three days.

They're kind of like an Indian Caste system in this way. Sorted out before they've even hatched and handed their destiny, which they live out until their death. They even need different times for hatching, the queen needing the shortest, the drone, the longest.

I learned more, but maybe you're not as interested in bees as me, Pedro, and, oh yes, my painting mentor and her "hippy bee wrangler." Apparently the city of Dallas doesn't appreciate my mentor keeping bees in her backyard and the "hippy bee wrangler" is going to relocate them.

"They do zip code honey in the hood.  my zip is her major source.  Love my gentle sweet industrious honey bees," says she.


So all of this to say, I think maybe I was wrong about the priests of Aphrodite being bee keeper, but it presented an opportunity to learn so much more! (Here would be a nice place to insert my gold lined clouds as a metaphor, but I'm resisting.)

You know, sometimes I'm wrong. That's just all there is to it. I'm Paige. A person. Not a bee. I don't know my destiny. I'm lucky when I know what it is I'm supposed to be doing when I wake up in the day. I do the best I can and lately I end up bitching about what went wrong late at night via this place that I write stuff. It doesn't mean I don't get up the next day and try again. Get a few things right, the other things wrong, repeat.

Just sayin'.

PS

I got a stern lecture from Pedro about cross checking my information. I complained saying that the myths are constantly told in different ways, according to who is telling them, according to the political climate of the time, and whether or not there are hidden meanings in the telling... it's all terribly subjective.

"Yes, but it is important. You must try to learn which is the right one."

If anyone happens to know anything about ancient bee keepers...

First Swim of the Summer

 

It’s been swimming weather for a good, solid month now, but as you might have detected from my posts, I’ve been stretched a bit thin the last few weeks. But my day arrived on the very best day, which is today, or any today, if you get what I’m saying. But my today happened to be this today.

Attikoulamou sailed down the hills, darting between taxis, speeding up at red lights and going down one way streets the other way round. She was so excited to go to the sea that she couldn’t help herself.

Just past a place called Paleo Faliro, historically important due to a botched Naval battle in the 18oo’s, there is a parking lot built around the Tae Kwon Do stadium, built for the Olympic games of 2004. In one corner there is a gypsy camp. In the 1800s I imagine they were in colorful wagons. Now they’re in white vans and pick up trucks, bright on the inside and loaded up in the back with other people’s junk: laundry machines and speakers, spare parts and scrap metal. I sped past a green truck with a brown skinned, big eyed-eyed baby, her face obscured by a pacifier staring at me from the passenger-side window, four of her relatives stuffed alongside of her and one thick arm around her as a human safety belt.

Just further there’s a marina called Flisvos. A long pedestrian road stretches all along the rocky edge of the sea with people jogging, strolling, Pakistani men loaded up like sherpas selling beach towels and sarapis. There are a few openings on the seawall to climb down onto the rocks, flip flops off, six more steps, careful... careful.... and the feet finally hit the water where you can bend over and plunge in, surging out toward the great curviture of the earth, the place where the islands turn misty and uninhabited and sea monsters are hiding in dark caverns where they’ve been sleeping for two millenia.

My system is just that. Start swimming. Keep going. Get as far beyond the noise of the world as possible and just when it’s a dim blur, dip just the ears under the surface of the water while treading so that those strange clicks and misty buzzing fills me with empty space.

I thought of my Indian meditation teacher and what he said about being the sea and not the wave. It’s been since last September that I’ve been able to hear this noise that reminds me exactly what I’m aiming for, this blur that dissipates your sense of self. You just turn into water, remembering you’re just one more thing floating around miraculously held back from dropping off the earth entirely by a wondrous invention known as gravity. How convenient that we’re just the right scale so that we don’t go too far into the sky where gravity stops working. Otherwise we when we stood up to our full height, we would just topple and fall off into the stratosphere. Then what?

And imagine if one day, the universe said, “to hell with gravity and all other natural laws,” and suddenly all of the seas spill out, along with anything or anyone else that isn’t rooted into the earth. So now we have to thank earth, also, for being there as a backup and admire trees for their superior design in case of emergency.

At least that’s how physics look in my mind. I never claimed to be a scientist.

Once out, I looked down through the water, all the way to my ghost-white toes, down past moss covered rocks and all the way to the stones.

Well, in moments like these I have to say to myself, Paigey, you’re a lucky girl. Here you are in sea water that is not only still collected in the giant swimming pool called the Aegean, but you’re in one of the oldest cities in the world with a horrible pollution problem, yet look. You can still see your toes.”

But to my little niece, Scarlett, my second cousin, Lilly, Despina’s two girls and Nicole’s still-cooking son, I wish it for you also. I hope your generation gets to enjoy some fruits of mine, if mine is clever enough to do the maintenance required so you’re able to see your toes in the Aegean when you’re 30 and I'm 60,

because the Gulf of Mexico is shit out of luck.

Long dark hallways

I feel like I've been living in a dark house banging my head into all of the walls, and finally I've found the hall with the doors. One by one they are opening.
Don't think I'm leaving my job... in Greece it's not unusual to have so many hands in so many jars you look like, well...

So while two hands are keeping well occupied the others found it was time to brush up the old resume.

In other news, the Hong Kong Inquisitors simply adored Nafplio. I think. They were full of complements like, "We see now that Greek food is okay but not as good as Italy's." and "Oh, Nafplio is beautiful! A little like Italy!"

I would like to remind everyone that while Italy was enjoying its heyday, building a grand legacy what with the renaissance and stealing pasta from the Chinese, Greece was overrun by Ottomans and fighting to eat day to day. It would be like comparing... well I think the point is that I hate comparing. Even if it's to show how wrong a comparison it is.

I simply adore Nafplio. Yesterday was perfect. The way the clouds were gray and pilfering over the shimmering sea, the sun blaring out the distinction of the horizon... Nikos and I had the welcomed addition of yet another Despina (it's what happens when all of the babies have to be named after Orthodox saints. You get a lot of Georges, a lot of Marias, a couple of Depsinas..) Despina is a tour guide. The purpose of someone like myself is to show the people how to truly enjoy a place. Sure I know a couple of things and would never hold it in just because I'm not licensened, but I would never compare my antedotal tales and trivia to the sort of in depth, comprehensive overview a guide has been trained to offer. On top of that, if she's a good one, she'll adapt what she knows to what you seem to be interested in. Despina was just such a guide. She sat in that bus and talked her head off, answering their every difficult question with patience and clarity, freeing me to enjoying the shapes of the clouds. One was definitely a Minoan dolphin. I also saw a dragon eating a turtle.

While the clients were exploring the quaint roads of little Nafplio, Athens first capital, Despina and I sat at a cafe looking toward the Bourtzi castle, an island fortress just off the harbor. We talked about the love of the job, that we can never say "no" to work, remembered the days we never wanted to work, about how gratifitying it is when you can see on someone's face that they had a wonderful day and you had something to do with it. She also gave some incredulous wisdom through a personal story:

One time she was hired by a wealthy couple who had also taken a driver with a car. They did the entire "Argolida" tour, which is to say they saw the city of Ancient Corinth, made famous by one saint, the Corinth Canal, made famous by French engineering,  the ancient city of King Agememnon, cursed descendant of "Pelops," and Trojan war hero, and Nafplio, adorable, "Italy-like" port town. Then they wanted to go to Sounion.

To give you an idea, it's like she took them to West Texas and they asked to see Galveston.

But Despina, a positive girl, said OKAY and they went. It was a twelve hour day but they made it. She was paid well. On top of the four hundred euro that was her fee for such an itinerary, they gave her a one hundred euro tip. Five hundred euros in one day! She said, 'This is great! I want to make this every day!"

The next day she went out with a friend for coffee in Kolonaki and her purse was stolen with every bill in it.

"NEVER BE HAPPY ABOUT MONEY!!"

I have my own version. The first time I was asked for a private walking tour, I was paid over what I'd asked. The next day I left my wallet in a coffee place on the way to Delphi. It was black and embroidered with red and turquoise flowers. I'd bought it in a bazaar in Istanbul. I'd stuck an interesting cracked button that I'd found in the parking lot in the pocket. And oh yeah, and all the money was inside.

You needn't assume mine has a happy ending even though Despina's didn't. I lost it all.

I don't know that it's so much that you can't be happy about money. I do think that there is something, SOMETHING, about being so surprised that you got a large amount at once you are proving that you don't believe it could have happened, and in some way that disbelief blocks you from believing you get to keep it.

My father is rolling his eyes now, I'm sure of it. "Maybe it means you shouldn't leave your wallet in coffee shops, Paige!" (well Dad, as always, you're right...)
but I'm convinced that good or bad, we bring about the events in our lives, which is why there is no real point to calling things good or bad. They happen in accordance with the decisions we've made and the way we perceive ourselves.

There is probably no real way for someone who doesn't care a lot about living a wealthy life to believe that getting a lot of money isn't a big deal, but it would be nice to start inching a little closer to comfortable. My goal for the future is to believe every penny I'm paid was earned, fair and square. No surprises. Radically alter what I perceive to be a "lot" of money. This is exactly why every opportunity that is coming up to earn a little more is worth my cracking open. Let's see what we got.

So. Door number one....

PS, this is a door in the neighborhood of Koukaki, the neighborhood behind the Acropolis and a neighborhood I would not mind at all opening one of the doors and calling it home.

Such a perfect day...

Just after the full moon, things that you have been searching for always seem to show up. Today was nothing that I expected and everything I wanted it to be. It was everything I've wanted for the entire month of April, but it's found it's way to me now.

This morning I knew was my only free day to go and refresh my knowledge for an upcoming walking tour, but it was May 1. No one even emerged from their houses until 1pm. The streets were empty and the sun was out... everything was in agreement: today was not a day for work, but foolishly I thought I could push on.

First interruption: My father called. This was at ten in the morning meaning some indecent hour in the USA. I was standing in the middle of Monistiraki square, just over the ancient reservoir housed in glass, amidst the pigeons and the fruit vendors and the beggars and street performers. No matter how technology advances, it never ceases to amaze me to get a call from Magnolia Texas when I'm in a setting such as this one.

We didn't have a great connection the first and second attempts, and while I was waiting for him to redial my already overactive imagination was running wild with the reasons for a call at such an hour on their end, but when he finally made it through, a croaky, groggy father just missed his daughter, happened to be up, (has an excellent phone plan) and wanted to chat a little.  I sat back on the glass covering the ancient reservoir, there in front of the old mosque and the "little" monistary and we talked about race cars, upcoming adventures, the ruined Gulf of Mexico and the miserable state of Louisiana, the development of my (very) little niece, 100 day challenges... not much else. Pretty soon he realized he was very tired and we exchanged terms of endearment, closing the phones.

I sat there, glowing for just a minute, then tried to get back on track. Right. Walking tour refresher. I started out... in a different direction. I don't know why, but suddenly I was thinking, "Maybe I could do something a bit different. I want to go see the Keraimakos cemetary." Which indeed, would be a very nice place to see on a walking tour, but impossibly far from all of the other very nice things I've organized and tested long ago. This was occurring to me with each step, but soon there I was in front of the Ancient Athenian cemetary, named after the son of the God of Wine and the Daughter of King Minos, and the patron of Potters. Keraimakos, Ceramics, you see? It is such a beautiful setting. A HUGE Spread of ancient tombstones and statues honoring the mysterious passage from one life to the next. Apparently there used to be little statues and tablets put inside of the caskets, curses created by special magicians directed at those already passed. They were made of lead to speed them down to Hades. I thought, "that's serious business, cursing the dead." It says a lot about the ancients belief in the afterlife.. and all of this was going through my head when my feet took me left instead of straight and I started up a bridge. Why? I don't know.

So I went over the bridge and through a new neighborhood I've never seen before. A quiet, classy neighborhood that is home to "friends of the bicycle" which I am now enthusiastically researching. On my way to investigate their sign, however, I crashed my bare toe, dangling out of my stylish gold sandal (smart as a choice for a day devoted to walking) straight into a broken concrete post. Wow was it putting out some impressive, black blood. Whatever. Took down the website address from the sign and pressed on until I found myself back in the familiar territory of Thissiou and the parking lot sized pedestrian road of Apostolou Pavlou, stuffed with cafe tables and idle coffee drinkers, cigarette smokers, laissaiz philosophers...

Hobbling now and getting beaten down by the intensity of the sun, I passed Vrahakia, a taverna where we've occasionally taken clients because of the pleasant and flexible chef and owner, Christos. Passed it, thinking of him, and then my feet turned right around and walked all the way through the door and up to the kitchen. I was really not in control of anything today.

Still early, he wasn't busy and indicated to a table near the kitchen, grabbing his coffee and his ashtray and ordering the woman still busy at the prepratory work to make me an Hellniko cafe, or Greek coffee.

Conversation turned to the Ancient Greeks. Christos believes everything about them, mostly that they were the most advanced civilization. Ever.

Some Greek people that I've spoken with believe that the Ancient Greeks were the ONLY advanced civilization. Not that the others didn't exist, but that they were actually Greeks. Meaning: Ancient Egyptians? Greeks. Mayans? Greeks. Chinese? " "
So I delicately asked Christos if this was his theory also, swatting away at the judgemental voices in my mind.

"Look, it's simple. Civilization started and people slowly started to move. They went to the north, the west, the east, but the most clever ones came here because the weather is perfect."

It's very difficult to argue with this logic!

I interpreted it as that he acknowledged that there were other great civilizations, but obviously the ones that chose the prettiest water, the nicest spring, the mildest winter, are the ones who had the best heads on their shoulders.

I thanked him for the coffee and continued on my "path," which lead me to an old book seller. Not pressed for time, no one expecting me for anything, I hunkered down and flipped one by one the collected postcards from years past, the black and white photographs, the Greek comic books, and then I saw a tattered, water color illustrated childrens book in English. "Greek Folk Tales: The Good Advice"

I'm going to tell it to you here:

There was once a very poor man who had to find a way to feed his wife and small son, so he left for a bigger town and appealed to a very rich man for work.
"Yes you can work for me, but I will hold onto your wages or you'll squander them." So the man had no choice. He worked for the rich man until ten years had gone by. Finally he asked for his wages.

The rich man thought and thought. "Shall I give him one hundred? No it's far too much. But so is fifty. Is his work worth ten?" And finally he said to the man, "I'm giving you three pounds. I'll give you three more if you work another ten years." But the man was poor, not stupid, so he took the three pounds and started on the road home, despondant.

On his way he passed an old hermit sitting on a rock.

"Give me a pound and I'll give you a good piece of advice!" said the hermit.
Well, thought the man, I'm a poor man with three pounds and I'll be no poorer with two. So he gave the man a pound.

"Don't ask about things that do not concern you. Now give me another pound and I'll tell you advice even more valuable than the first."
And the man thought, I'm poor with two coins and will be no more poor with one, so he gave the hermit another pound.

"Stay on the path you've chosen and don't get lead astray. Now give me another pound and I'll tell you a final piece of advice more valuable than the first and second combined."

The man thought, I'm poor with one coin and there is absolutely no difference with having one and having none at all, so he gave the coin.

"If you get angry at night, don't act until morning's light, and that is my final piece of advice."

The man ends up learning by some very clear cut, folk-talish situations (meeting a giant hanging gold on a lemon tree, passing up a group of laughing men going into a tavern, coming home and his wife not recognizing him) that the man's advice is worth much more than he paid for it. He comes home rich, managed to avoid being mixed up with a gang of thieves, and avoids killing his wife and son because of a misunderstanding upon first appearances.

And I thought to myself, "Huh! Those are good pieces of advice," until I started looking at how I've lived just today.

- I ask about everything that doesn't concern me. I love stories.

- Don't get distracted from your chosen path? What if you forgot to choose one in the first place?

- The last one, let's say I follow it. One out of three is a start.

I closed the book and realized my terrible choice in reading posture had caused both of my feet to fall asleep. I wiggled one, stamped the other and moved along.

Next up, the blue and white train! The Sunshine Express. I've been acquainted with all of the employees so I sidled up and said "Kalimera!" My wasn't I the social one today.

"How are you!?" Said Adriano, the train's ticket seller.

Pointing down at my gorey toe, "Well I've got a new hole..."

"Oh no! We're fixing it now." Just like that a first aid kit was coming out of the driver's cabin. A flurry of Iodine and cotton and suddenly my toe was neatly packaged in a little brown band aid. Off I went.

Finally back to my corner of Athens, Voulis Street, where I see Panos of Acropolis House, George, Vangelis, owner of Deseos...

Then a good meal at Mitso's taverna, eating horta in olive oil and lemon juice, ground eggplant with garlic, horiatiki with a big slab of feta (you might remember a prior entry where I said I would start minimizing this. You forgot it? Yes, so did I.) All while being entertained with old Mitso in his saucer-sized eyeglasses and his hunch backed wife in a flowered dress, screaming at each other in Greek. "Woman, why did you put them at that table? I told you it was reserved!" "Go to hell! It was the only table open..."
I asked George if he thought they had ever been in love.
"Oh, they can't live without each other!" he said in genuine earnestness.

And finally a little bicycle ride to the orange and green. This part is so good it deserves it's own entry. Besides, I've been writing for two hours off and on and I'd really like to get back to Ellen Cherry Charles in Skinny Legs and All before drifting off to sleep.

To end where I started, I said this day had everything I was looking for. What I've been missing lately is relationships. Discovery. Being alone without being lonely. Perfect weather. A still, inner peace. The notion that you haven't been walled in, that you're not in a cage, that there is still more to explore. That you can still be well and happy if everything around you falls to smoke and ashes, and lastly, a couple of concrete facts to help you deal with all of the ambiguity in the world. Example: My daddy called me at two in the morning just to say "hey."


True, I didn't detail how the little adventures of today lead me to some of these grander conclusions but you will just have to trust me that without them I couldn't have concluded anything.

I've said that I hope to become still in spite of the waves. I've said that I'm looking for this country to teach me to be a little tougher, to stand on my own legs. I'm learning that to achieve these things, you must build yourself a strong foundation AND a network of support... and I think I might be rambling at this point. Look, I'm just happy. I have a little clarity for once. Sort of.

I'm going to bed.

Making Friends

My estimation of the big celebration was on the nose. ON THE NOSE. From the hours of 4 (we started a bit late) to 8, I was sitting at a table high above Plaka with the roof line of Athens for my eye candy, delighted to nibble, then gobble all manner of vegetables drizzled, then drowning in olive oil, stuffed mushrooms, little marinated sardines and octopus in parsley and lemon and bountiful pitchers of red wine. Then the second round came. The huge platter of meat. Sausage, lamb, beef patties, grilled chicken, bacon. The sun had the effect of towels just out of the dryer, and we lingered, rolled around in it a bit, laughed. Discussed. Digested. A meal in Greece is hard to replicate in any other corner of the earth. There is some sacred formula to the weather, the olive oil and the wine, all reacting with each other to cause a certain euphoric state that might be the cheap, slutty sister of "enlightenment," but dangit, isn't she fun?

So yesterday was party day and today was school. Sort of. I've made another interesting acquaintance/fellow curioustician (a word I've decided means "one who spends their time finding answers to things which they are curious about) in a distinguished gentleman/ amateur photographer who has lived all over the world solving its problems and now has resigned to photograph its beauty. Today we agreed to go out in the streets and discover history and beauty together. Unfortunately, the beauty was not very photographable today as it was overcast and dreary, but history was pleased to take the spotlight and I think maybe even showing off a little.

We turned right off of Ermou street into the labrynthine neighborhood of Psyrri, an area I've been intensely curious about with its grimy, "Hell's Kitchen" attitude but purely Greek atmosphere. The buildings are crumbling, the grafitti is well executed, antiques are stacked on the sidewalks, indie clubs flaunt their cleverly titled bands to perform over the weekend. This is the area has flavor, but what are her stories? This is what the curiousticians wanted to know.

He knew a great deal, actually. Plenty to get us going in a direction, and that direction lead us to a closed up shop with some wooden puppets in the window. "Ah, Karaghiozi! Now this is something you should know about, it's very interesting."
And he began telling me about the social role of Greek shadow puppetry during the time of Ottoman occupation. To save myself a little typing I found that Mr. Matt Barrett has already defined it in layman's terms. The part of the story I want to write about here is how in the four minutes that we were standing on this deserted sidewalk in painted up, trashy, empty Psyrri, four men had collected around us and one of them produced a ring of keys like a cartoon jailer's. He threw open the door and re-emerged unfolding a giant poster with the set of the traditional Karaghiozi stage painted on it in simple, flat colors.

My friend, let's call him IGS, was carefully pointing out each detail and describing it to me with the patience of a professor. The shopowner, in a voice like cat litter in a garbage disposal, was amused by this Greek man speaking in such refined English and began peppering him with questions.

"Apo pou Eistai?" (Where are you from? )
"Eimai apo ti Athina." (I'm from Athens.)
"Nai, Endaxi, alla o Patera sou!" (Yes, okay, but your father?)
And this went on for a while to my pleasure, as I was following along perfectly.

The kitty litter-voiced man turned back inside of his hovel, I mean shop, and brought with him a magazine article which featured his very window with the very puppets that had stopped us in the first place. The picture showed his own, marshmallow face from the outside looking in. He was proud of the placement but we were interested in the fact that the magazine article was entirely about Psyrri. My gentleman friend asked to look at it.

The article showed individuals in their places of work, living, etc, in Psyrri and waxed romantically about the nature of the neighborhood. IGS read to me aloud, "It is the place of real people, of people with "Besa" and "Filotimo,"

These two words describe a person who, for better or for worse, can be counted on to be true to their words. I say for better or for worse because just as you can depend on them if they've promised to be your avenging Angel, you can be just as sure that if they've sworn to rake your face over a hot stove they're going to find a good time and place to do it.

As we were reading, Kitty litter marshmallow man (in a striking blue blazer, I should mention in his favor) said enthusiastically (to myself, IGS, and the other three men that continued to stare silently on at the "foreigners") that Psyrri is a place where you sense a difference once you step inside. It is mysterious and a place that rebels have always congregated, including the "Manges" and the "Koutsavakides" with their menacing black moustaches, who would stroll with their guns stuffed behind a broad red sash tied around their waists. The "Mortisses" or free-thinking women who had adventurous liasions with men and lived wild, unconventional, nomadic lives in a time when women were still never seen out of a dress, in a country where they often didn't sit in the same room with men.

I even love the way the name looks in Greek letters: Ψυρἰ
That Ψ in the beginning shows that it's something to be reckoned with. It's short and to the point. The people that lived here in the 1800's and early 1900's lived life in the present, too broke and too heart broken from the tragedies they had overcome to be bothered with worrying about the future, so they sang their "rembetika," drank raki and smoked hashish, made their lives and then lived them. I don't know if it's everything that I picked up the moment we turned right into its lair, but the facts are absolutely harmonious with the energy in the air.

I learned a great deal more with IGS but as it is getting latte, I mean late, Midnight to be exact, and I wanted to say a few other things before I sign out.

I am so jealous of freedom. This recording of mine was started with the idea of "mass" communicating things I was experiencing, but oh, the pleasure of just writing without fear of the effect of a word. And really, I believe in taking responsibility for one's words as they hold an awful lot of power. But every once in a while, with the back-clicking of something that might be misconstrued, should perhaps be rethought, maybe is a bit delicate, I would like to again be an anonymous commentator on the state of things, pure and simple. You lucky bastard, wherever you are, with your free streams of thought.

I've been counter-challenged by my fellow 100 Dayer to one up the value of two people, in the world, at the same time trying to consistantly record their days, thoughts, useless opinions, etc. Maybe someone would one day like to read the two alongside each other? Maybe in a time of strangeness, such as the times we're living in now, it might even be historically significant? Maybe it would make a crazy one man show off off-broadway? (Like, Topeka Kansas?)

So when we've reached the finish line we'll unveil our monsters right alongside eachother. It's a deal.

And my last note, excuse me while I give another specific aside, is to the language of Greece.

Dear Greek,

Tonight I sat on a barstool at the Low Profile and talked to my friend Katerina, and I did not have nice things to say about you. I confess, I called you terrible names. I complained, bitched, whined, and said all of the reasons I don't know you better, but really, I think it's time I confessed, I haven't really wanted to know you any better. Me and English, we go way back. I've discovered words and expressions that tickle me even if I say them to myself. I sing in English, write in English, and dream in English, but listen, Greek. I think I'm ready to make peace.

I accept that you're an f'ing tough language. Maybe I can even start to like that about you. You're a little intimidating, being that you come from a language used by Aristotle, that was used for the first bible, and has complex meanings that can't even be interpreted, but your words have little stories in them, and that's very attractive to me.

Maybe we can start over, have a coffee, learn to have fun with each other. I talked with English and she thinks there's room for both of you.

What do you say?


*

Cave Woman

Day three of my one hundred day blogging challenge and I’m faced with what I knew would happen, but I was hoping a bit further on up the road. I’m pooped. I don’t want to write. I spent my morning into my afternoon on top of a mountain, deep in the belly of a cave, in a sanctuary of the nymphs....and this was tiring!

But it begs an explanation.


The belly of a cave is something like the skin of a toad. One has the impression that by staring at it long enough it will start rising and falling like a lung. The earth is soft, slightly catching the heel of my shoe as I walk. It’s cool, shadowy, secretive, and crawling deeper inside, I feel pressure starting to leave me and am sinking quietly into a world that is both primordially familiar and at the same time completely alien. It is like walking in meditation. I make out faces and figures in the crystalline walls of rock. They are expectant, old, watchful, and I find myself composing myself the way I do when I’m in someone else’s house; polite and slightly timid, very careful not to offend.
“Do you mind if I touch a stalactite?”
“Would it be alright if I go a bit deeper in? Or would you rather I stop here?”

And in this gentle, slow introduction, I now know about myself that one of my supreme, most pleasurable places to be in the world is inside of a cave. This revelation has only come about by meeting Tasos, or “Ikarios” (Icharus) as I thought his name was based on his email address which he gave himself in a similar manner to my naming myself “banzai aphrodite,” out of deep respect for mythology. Sometimes we mistakenly address each other by our handles.

I met Tasos when I took my mother and her two delightful friends, Gail and Donna, for their “mystical’ day of touring Athens last Spring. Not many tourists have ever been to Pendeli Mountain, and even fewer have been inside of the strange and eerie cave of Davelis where there is a 7th century church built into the rock, a shrine of the nature god Pan deep within a hole, several mysterious occurrences and, of course, the legend of the Greek Brigand, Davelis, for who the cave was possibly named.

But “Davelis” can also mean “devil,” and the god, Pan, who is deeply entwined with nature, mischief, sex, and the dark, feminine nature of the cave, that early Christians used his goatly visage and character to personify evil. In other words, evil is that which is natural and difficult to understand. Pan represents the parts of ourselves that are tied to the earth and maybe a bit wild and untamed. I think Pan is a good god to remind us that we are, in part, animal.

Mom, Gail and Donna were completely enamoured with the fairytale churches of St. Spyridon and St. Nicholas. When I had visited alone to scout the area, the door of the churches had been wide open, so my stomach sunk when I saw the entrance shut tight, sealed with a heavy iron door. Pulled once, twice...what a time to lose face. In front of your mother and her friends?


We were not alone on the site. There were some loud boys to our left and one lone figure standing off to the side, who I approached and asked in broken Greek if he knew whether the church was closed today.

This lone figure is Tasos, our hero of the story, who has been coming to Pendeli for twenty years as her guardian spirit, patrolling the area and thwarting the efforts of those who would do her harm. The loud boys to our left had provoked him to closing the heavy iron door himself in an effort to discourage them from entering. He told me that he thought the boys would be leaving soon and we could go inside. He even pulled open the mighty door.

When he recognized us as friends of the cave and eager students, he happily began showing us her secrets. Strange carvings on the side, dated all the way back to medieval times. A tiny hole where you crawl on your hands and knees until the room opens and there is an underground lake. This is where the sanctuary to Pan and his nymphs existed in ancient times.
The more he showed us, the more excited he became, and it was through him that we learned the other huge importance of this area. This very side of the mountain was where the ancients cut the marble and painstakingly maneuvered it down to Athens to build the temples of the Acropolis.

As we drove away I said to George, “How am I going to remember these stories so I can tell them?”
“You’re not going to tell them. He is.”

So one year later, we’ve pulled Tasos, “Ikarios” into the fold of our little team as our mountain guide. The last three weeks we have been journeying with him deep into the three mountains surrounding Athens, Parnitha, Hymettos, and Pendeli, judging whether a trail is friendly or a bit abrasive, scouting out ideal places to sit and gape, eyeing the Attica landscape up and down, drinking it in, cool, clear and straight from the source (which can also be experienced. When is the last time you fearlessly cupped your hand into natural water and drank? Would you doubt it couldn’t be done on a mountain sacred to the nymphs?) He's excited to show the mountains to Americans, and bristles when he remarks that it's shameful that they have more respect for the stories and the places than the Greeks himself.

"The Greeks they just look at this mountain and say, why would I want to climb up there. I have a car. Or, Pendeli Mountain, bah. You haven't seen Mount Olympus."

You can see that it physically hurts him when people talk so flippantly about nature, especially Pendeli, which holds a special place in his heart. When the fires burned down one side of it last summer, we didn't hear from him at all. He had sunk into a dark place and was not to be seen or heard from until he had come to the "acceptance" stage of his grieving. In a way, Tasos belongs in this world like wild birds belong in shopping malls.

Today we started low and walked the original, ancient road that was used by the quarry men to roll down the marble for the Acropolis and Temple of Zeus. We saw statues left in the rough, abandoned for unknown reasons, past the sad, spoils of the burned forest from the fires of last summer and the summer before, but lit up with the signs of new life.

Tasos grabbed my leg at one point. “Careful! Look down...” and I saw that below my raised foot was the delicate head of an infant pine tree, shooting from the earth and determined to grow.
Other reasons to step lightly included a baby turtle, lost in a forest of weeds, and a decadent spread of wildflowers in such a wide range of colors, so strange in the shapes of their petals... I think of the pathetic little daisies I’ve drawn a million times and I’m ashamed I called them “flowers.” They are such complicated things, unique and thorny...there’s nothing friendly about a flower. Or at least not these flowers. Not frail, either, when you look at their scorched surroundings. All the same, a pity to stomp on them in all of their effort to bring beauty into the world.

A few motorcycles roared past on the trail above and George, Tasos and I hid behind a hill to protect ourselves from the dust. We spent a few minutes imagining all the ways we could make hell for them in the future, including investing in the rental of a tractor to position boulders in their path, but in the end I firmly believe nature will be the victor in this saga. Eventually we will be reduced to memory through our artifacts, but the flowers will always grow.

The medieval chapels of St. Spyridon and St. Nicholas

See this tiny little place where I'm shining the light? Can you imagine there's a hole in there leading to what was once an underground lake and sanctuary to Pan?

Well believe it. Here's me coming out.

This is inside a cave without a roof, a sanctuary to the nymphs that stayed perfectly preserved until the late 19oo's when digging in the area revealed the place in it's entirety.
Parts of the original cave are here in the open air, but it's nestled, hidden, green. You suspect fairies to come out and start talking to you at any moment.

Did you imagine they start so small?

I been in NAM

The New Acropolis Museum

Yes, the outside is ugly.

Everyone has been in agreement on this. It is modern and gray, big and blockish with lots of steel and glass...everything you would not expect for the neighborhood of the Acropolis which is still relatively charming with it's cobbled roads, houses of stone and red tile, restored neoclassical mansions lining the longest pedestrian street in all of Europe. But the buildup has been so immense! "One of the ten greatest museums in Europe!" "WIll bring 3,000,000 visitors to Greece a year!" "Most affordable coffee in Athens!"

Oh, but this last one had my attention!


And so on opening day I was first in line at 8 am, amongst a good sized, international crowd and a buzz of news cameras. One reporter held a microphone and was scanning the crowd before her eyes fell on me.

"Excuse me but can I ask you a few questions?" she said in Greek first, and than English. (This is a success. I don't smell like an American anymore!)

She interviewed me and the inner-me amusedly sat back and listend to the outer me come up with an interesting version of why I was here.

"Yes, I'm from Texas and I have been planning all year to come to Athens, just for this event! I'm so excited!!!"
Why I felt inclined to say this I can't answer you. Sometimes the muse hits, and sometimes the muse is a chronic liar.

The funny bit was that when she was finished she asked, "So you prebooked your tickets, right?"
"No, I haven't."
"Oh, then you can't get in! For the next three days only those who have prebooked will get admitted."
"Oh."
And the version of myself that had planned my whole year around the opening of the New Acropolis Museum was very disappointed, and rightfully so! The other version of myself realized that this is all a big game and right now the object of this game was to see how far I could get without a ticket.
I stayed in line and watched other people in similar predicaments try to artfully weasel their way into gaining admission. One American woman sidled up to the official manning the crowd and started in with asking politely. When that didn't work, she upped it with it being her father's birthday. When THAT didn't work, she said they would only be here a day, and surely something could be done... and on and on, until she had cornered herself by threatening to never again come to Athens if they didn't let her in! Okay I'm maybe over-simplifiying the conversation, but it was a bit extreme, believe me.

I didn't make it, that time. I got as far as blending into a group amassing in front of the turnstiles, listening to an archaeologist discuss the significance of this "thematic" museum based entirely on the acropolis. I got a good ten minute lesson on the history of the Acropolis from 3000 BC until modern day...which is an impressive show of the art of summarization! Then it was time for us to approach the turnstile and I was stopped and asked to check my bag. I considered running at this moment, but thought I should see it all the way through to a definite no. So I checked the backpack and came back.

"Your ticket?"
"Oh, my friend has it!" And I pointed to a girl in the group.
"So call her name."
Well, sometimes people are stupid and sometimes they're smart. It's always a gamble.

"Sure one second."
I got my bag back and fled.

Three days later this prebooking nonsense was over and I bought my ticket like a normal person.

This museum is built to house everything related to the Acropolis, directly on the ruins of the oldest part of the settlement. The floors are all of plexiglass so that you can see all the way down to the earth with the stones marking old settlements, and all the way up, past the beautiful Karyatids that used to hold the porch of the erechthion on the crowns of their beautifully sculpted hairdos, until you can watch the tiny soles of the feet of visitors on the fourth floor.

The cafe is very large and well organized. A small station island in the center is where the food and coffees are prepared and another staion in the back is where the dishes are dropped. Floor to ceiling windows show a view of the erechthion. There is a terraced section of outdoor seating. Each table has a pot of Greek herbs in white stones. Mine is sage.

As I'm writing this, the couple at the table next to me have been discussing what to have from the menu. A woman in a turquoise tank top and tortoise shell glasses on a strand of beads. has read absolutely everything out loud.
"Do you want the salami with cretan cheese and tomato sandwich on whole wheat? Or, oooh! They have ice cream! Or we could get the fruit platter..."

My Assessment of NAM


As a museum
This place is fantastic! It is laid out beautifully according to which section of the acropolis the artifacts were found in, most of the statuaries set so that you can become personally aquainted with them. Someone knew what they were doing with the overall light and color, or at least this is my judgement based on the museum in the light of the morning. Everything is soft on the eyes and in the colors of stone. As long as the one euro entrance fee holds it's going to be the best deal in the continent. Unfortunately I doubt this one euro entrance is going to hold much further than December, because that's what is advertised.

As a cafe
Staff: Friendly, which is rare in this city. Everyone is required by their job description to speak at least two languages, Greek and English being the basic.
Menu Selection: Very exciting choices! The sandwiches range from Olive bread with tomatoes and oregano to Smoked Turkey with Katiki goats cheese from Domokos.. I chose Lesvos sardines with bottarga of Grey mullet and basil, which I think "Bottarga" means that the mayonaise is very fancy.
There is also Mikonos white cheese with watermelon as a snack, potato salad with parsley dried nuts and orange rinds, Greek custard pie in filo pastry with syrup, and of course beer, wine, ouzo and tsipouro.

Wait time for lesvos sardine sandwich: wait time: 50 minutes price: 3.50
Price of filter coffee: 1.50 for a beautifully presented white ceramic pot of coffee, bowl of brown and white sugar cubes with tongs, pitcher of cream...
if only the coffee had been hot.

View: Unbelievable. You can sit on the rooftop terrace eye level with the Erechthion (I think that's the building you're looking at.)

As a place to work
internet access: yes! But it's broken...
Place to plug: at every table.

I think there are some obvious kinks but it's expected with a brand new museum of this level. I'll give them all the grace they need to work it out if they'll keep the 1.50 pitcher of coffee...