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Published: October 14th 2006
Nervousness
The komboloi, or worry beads, spinning from one man to the nextAthens, like a titillating treat savored for a moment on the traveler’s cycle. It’s a city oozing with the sweets of today’s past, circumnavigating the present world; and with continuous force, persisting to inspire the evolution of mankind. Locked in a prison of Socrates’ mind, the city is that grain of rice, that morsel of bread, that last lick of ice cream to those who choose to linger and explore the many flavors of Athens. From the headaches of navigating the souvenir shops within the alleys of Plaka, through to the markets of Monastiraki and into the culture of the Athenian as Omonia Square revolves into the urban sprawls of various ethnicities. To savor Athens for as many grains, as many loaves, for as many licks of experience as possible is one to leave the insatiable belly churning.
A Saturday for the Senses I was back in Athens. Figs flavored my tongue outside the market on Athinas. Presently, a kilogram of these succulent pearly fruits comprised my afternoon meal as a late seasonal sun continued the trend of shorts, T-shirt and sandals. It was the beginning of October. The heat was diminishing. The fruits became sweeter.
Pleasing to
taste, and as pleasing to observe, a Saturday at the market is an engaging sight. Settled within Athens for two weeks, I knew the cheapest locales for kilograms of fruits, more-filling kilos of nuts, and liters of juices for a vegetarian diet. I scoped and perused indoor and outdoor markets far from the tourist center where prices skyrocket to an unseemly amount. A mere morsel goes for the quantities of the local’s kilo where the tourist hides in a protected zone. But I was for culture, and within this perusing of certain discoveries within the heart of a very cultural city, the engaging pleasure of witnessing the emergence of its hidden citizens by weekend was the largest payoff. One euro for my rapidly disappearing figs, my eyes digested the beauty around me.
A Saturday is a unique day within Athens. During the week, life runs and speeds as usual, accustoming itself to the daily rituals of work, lunch, walking, work and returning home. At night, restaurants spin their clocks until late hours, feeding nightly crowds from Monday to Monday. But with Saturday, free from work and open to see how long the restaurants, cafes and bars will keep their metal
grates wide, people—all people—fall into the streets. Women, who normally remain indoors while their husbands descend to their businesses, flock like hens to the feeding coupe. This feeding coupe was my present afternoon location.
But it wasn’t Athens, Greece. It wasn’t your tan, dark-haired, brown-eyed women with common clothing. It was a far away tradition transforming into an Athenian Saturday tradition deep within a passing Greece, as well as a disappearing Balkan custom and an enlivening African origin. Women in traditional garb gathered in multitudes to the fruit and vegetable market, crossing the main thoroughfare of Athinas to send off into the mist of meaty and fishy alleyways. Furthermore, Saturdays are unique in that it’s the last day until the markets and shops are shut (their metal grates locked) on a Sunday’s Grecian sabbatical. Therefore, Saturday—a day of provisions, women and men, children and young adults running errands to stock up for the one-day business reprieve.
Which Market Are You From? Beautiful, within the late summer’s sun, basking with my basket of ripe, plump, bursting figs. They spilled their sweet jelly upon my tongue, swirling seeds around a leathery skin—chewing, savoring, Athens became most gorgeous.
Before me,
Misty Meat
A bare meat market in the evening calm African women profoundly traveled through brown crowded streets. They stood, moved, swayed with an elegance unlike their challenging stature. With height, in thickness of shoulders descending to hips, the women stood out not only in physical makeup, but also of a tradition carried across the Mediterranean. Tossed in the blaring traffic of feet and wheels, these women’s garb was a tribal rainbow of design. Cloth, silk, lace, and other reverential fabrics wrapped the rotund curvatures of their bodies. Set in a proud manner among the everyday wears of the Western world, they appeared like psychedelic angels come to enlighten a colorless soul; like graffiti of ingenious spray upon crumbling walls.
But unlike a semi-permanent wall overlooking the city center, it was another Saturday, the sole day of the week these exotic angels of fashion and beauty emerge into public eye.
Based around the cultural Plateia Omonias (Omonia Square) for two weeks, I never saw them except on Saturdays when they appeared around the crowded swarm of waves crashing into the littorals of various victuals. And not only African woman from their habitations, but likewise there swept the currents of elderly women from Albania, Bulgaria and the former Balkan States.
These women were contrary to the African continent, though indeed beautiful in their own uniqueness. Their fashion was understandably reserved with black bonnets round a weathered witchy face where bushy brows and a nose touching the upper lip predominated. Dark earth-tone blouses followed a well-fed skin about their chests, and long black dresses firm to the waists and legs revealed pairs of black slippers fit for a peasant. They wheeled little metal dollies loaded with plastic woven luggage—like tweed baskets—storing their fat blue grocer bags of fruits and vegetables atop the brown covering wraps of heated flesh. And side-by-side in their home culture, little Greek women disseminated into the surge of persons. They were adorned in a similar black bonnet with a corresponding hue dyeing the rest of their outfit; blouse, sweater, dress, leggings and slippers.
With feet in slippers, sandals and plush shined shoes, everyone moved as one, in and out in their own distinctive fashions. I ate my figs, joined the river’s course, and disappeared into the Athens on the Saturday of October’s beginning.
‘Safe Travels!’ Spending two weeks in any location, let alone Athens, the visitor can get beneath the surface. Like the market
and its emergence of women and culture, each day is observed for its uniqueness and the length of time permitted to speed-walk about the hot sights freezes.
The clock is of no importance. Wandering between rest, relaxation, reading and sitting on steps, benches or walls is habitualized into an activity that might appear aimless to those with schedules. An extended stay permits personalities to meet and pass by on a more intimate level. Such was the case in the dormitory of the Athens International Youth Hostel.
There were the three of us; George of Australia who had been traveling since January, and Berten from Belgium come to Athens to study art at the art academy for four months. George was looking for work in the city for three months before moving on to Egypt and Israel. Berten was looking for rooms to live in before the start of classes. I was doing absolutely nothing, feeling somewhat of a hobo, occupying a bed and space while others around me had purpose. And in between our threes company in a four bedroom dormitory, travelers came and went.
A couple from Chicago was passing through, coming from the islands. They shared the one
extra bed. Brad and Sandy were bartenders back home. Meeting people at their work and the monotony of a daily schedule passed on the message to flee for the road. They sold their home, packed a suitcase for each, and took off. The two travelers out for their first international adventure hit Europe. Next was Egypt and then India before Southeast Asia.
We all shared stories. Sandy related an infamous place on the island of Corfu off the northwestern shores of Greece in the Ionian Sea. Called The Pink Palace, it is believed through unconfirmed rumors to house 1000 beds, one thousand beds fit for a Cancun vacation. Upon their arrival, pink wristbands labeled them, setting them apart from other travelers. Glances by locals, shop owners and restaurant servers gave them the impression that maybe the
Pink in the Palace was a little
too pink.
But it is a considerably fine deal. For nineteen euros per night, the accommodation includes free breakfast and dinner. Albeit, from the outside it lures the budgeter—and that was me. I had previously thought about a visit before catching a ferry across to Italy, though shortly within the presence of Brad and Sandy, my fantasy
Rise Up
Students and their inner strength as they marched toward Syntagma outside Parliament was thankfully trodden with vagrant mischief.
“When we went to the bar in the hostel,” Sandy recalled. “I asked for a drink. Behind the counter, a man smiled and I knew something was up. ‘I’ll give it to you free,’ he said. Great, I thought. Maybe the pink band isn’t half bad. But he wasn’t finished. ‘I’ll give you all the free drinks tonight if you show me your tits.’”
Brad was right beside her, and without any thought toward decency, the callow bartender thought it was his duty—the duty of The Pink Palace—to make such an offer. They were both disgusted, turned their drinks away and went elsewhere.
“And that attitude was similar throughout the hostel. Young kids were wasted throughout the day. They had stitches, casts, bruises all over their bodies. It was a dank place to be, The Pink Palace.” Brad said they stayed one night to get their money’s worth and disappeared from any symptoms or recognitions of Pink, having removed the wristbands as soon as they had been strapped upon them. “It was the Cancun of Greece,” he added.
Then there was an exhausted young Japanese traveler from Osaka. Susako had just come from Meteora
where 14th century monasteries clung to their cliff-perches overlooking the towns of Kalambaka and Kastraki. He relayed a tale of Athens when he was visiting prior to his departure for Meteora: A man had approached him on the street. He asked if he drank. Susako said yes. He asked if he wanted to go have a drink and talk about each other’s culture. Susako agreed. “I didn’t have places to go. I had nothing to do. Why not?”
At the taverna, they each had one beer—
one bottle of Amstel. As the waitress approached to collect the bill she asked for 130 euros. “I said no way. Two beers, one hundred and thirty euro? No, I wouldn’t pay.” A man came over and said he’d call the police if Susako wouldn’t. “But I didn’t even have any. I showed him my few coin of euro and nothing. So he took me to an ATM and said, ‘Give me one-hundred thirty’. I nodded and then when I was pretending to get the money out, I saw him look away.”
At this point Susako was pissed. He was red in his face as he told his story. He wasn’t going to have any
more of this man’s bullshit, as he told us. So when the Greek guy escorting him to the teller machine glanced the other direction, Susako sprinted full speed. “I ran as fast as I could the other way, and when I turned around he was standing there with no reason in his head. I yelled, ‘F#@K YOU!’ and kept running until I made it to my room.”
This story was typical in Athens. I had been sequestered twice by old Greek men pretending to be interested in me and asking to go have a beer. As I do not drink, and as of reading of this scam before, I knew my answer. Susako had to learn it for himself.
The next night after Susako departed down his road, another Japanese from Osaka filled his bed, and then a Kiwi from New Zealand, a bewitched French-Canadian who rattled the window panes as he snored, and more travelers came and went as the three of us—George of Australia, Berten from Belgium and I—remained stationary in our travels, watching those come and watching those go.
With these passing meetings with various travelers I obtained information on various prospects of onward travel. I learned
A Concert of Words
Political speeches, rallies, protests, strikes, manifestations and finally Election Day to steer clear of The Pink and I learned that rain in Meteora would cause for a foul camping experience. Likewise, I passed on my knowledge of experiences within Greece and those cultures beyond. ‘Hello!’, ‘Goodbye!’, and ‘Safe travels!’
Political Babble Like a tree rooted in the soil, witnessing the passing seasons with their clouds, storms, bursts of light, wind and glistening revivals of summer suns, I saw Athens bloom. It was not just any germinating seed and sprouting bud, in which gave way to the beauty of a glamorous stamen. It was politics, babbling before a crowd of thrown pamphlets, blurred megaphones and continuous stands of people rising up in power.
For two weeks, from my arrival to my departure, Athens underwent a power shift in voices being spoken and money being thrown. Catching these falling leaves of influence, and sucking on the chlorophyll to green their faces from exhaustion, it was a long two weeks of parties and citizens planting their hearts into the election in a city up for a new Mayor.
Unlike any elections known within the United States with party advertisements filling the screens of Prime Time television, the primary medium
Round the Spit
Gyro spits. Lenient, I had my cultural fill. of spreading the candidates’ policies was through word of mouth; these numinous sheets of tossed paper, and defiant manifestations of speeches and protests. Upon my first night’s arrival, I came upon one of these political manifestations. Sheets of paper with the party’s messages were strewn about the court where a plastic booth invited curious onlookers. Being of such nature, my feet followed the eyes and soon a friendly hand waved me nearer.
With white lights blinding the approaching visitor, I fumbled up to the waist-high wall and smiled into a cheerful face. He was an older Greek gentleman who I soon found out spoke little English. “What is this?” I queried.
He looked at me, smiled again and handed me a plate of bread and nuts. “Eat,” he responded. “Eat! Eat!”
I shrugged, replied in a Greek courtesy and he continued. “It’s from the Mayor. Vote for him.” I followed his finger to a joyous gentlemanly fellow dancing in a circle with his male counterparts. Their arms were linked in unison as their feet jittered to the strumming live music.
“I’ll vote him.”
“Good.”
I ate my bread and nuts, I lingered, I listened to
the music and watched as other foreigners intermixed with the locals, everyone scoring a free meal. And with an empty plate, I was invited to more, and more, and more. The gentleman returned. He held a bag of various nuts and handed it over. “Go ahead, he paid for it,” referring to the man who was still dancing. “Remember, you vote!”
Each following day there where other actions. Protests set off strikes around the city. Students demanded to keep the schools private. Others asked for a fifteen percent decrease in tuition. People rallied near Syntagma Square beneath the Parliament while tourists snapped shots of the erect guards in tan pumpkin uniforms. And heavily flaked policemen in riot gear stood round corners in the shades of eves waiting, anticipating, keeping a lazily watchful eye.
With all the rallies, organizing and manifestations with an unwanted suspicion around each perimeter, it seemed the money, each ghastly venue of speeches and camera gear behind broadcasting vans, resulted to nothing and everything.
Likewise, my absence on the Sunday of the fifteenth of October will result to nothing and everything. Election Day is the day of my departure. I leave fortuitously where the time
Late Nights
At a speech; up one night, gone the next and money ends and a new Mayoral position begins. The political babble continues. I take my leave as pamphlets are swept off the streets and stages are dismantled.
A Fond Leave Together, George, Berten and I have shared our moments, claiming our room and poising the question to each new inhabitant, “You snore?” Albeit, each morning, noisy awakenings from our fourth guest stirred an early morning silence. Crinkling plastic, folding sheets and stuffing sacks without an observance of the silence of sleep, a zipper finished off their abrupt departure. And with my 4:30 leave in the morning for Rome, I’ve promised for a stealthy flight in which I’m known for.
In our time, we’ve alighted Berten of our stories of travel while he completes the circle and teaches us the art of juggling. Outside, walking the streets with our collected tennis balls, we throw each other ten-cent pieces, which eventually add to our market’s provisions. From summer into an autumnal cooling, the fruits take their morphing in flavors, sweetnesses and displays. Roasted chestnuts appear more prevalent and gelatinous persimmons make their debut. The flocks of women continue in more abundance on my final Saturday and tourists seem
Silence
Outside Parliament where an hour passes in stillness until the change of guards less and less. The markets flourish, the season changes, and notwithstanding, I continue to discover steamier rice from a hidden Chinese restaurant, new bakeries with browner, oatier loaves and locals who continue to lick their cones of ice cream even on the colder days. A two weeks reprieve in Athens, like Sunday’s business pardon, has brought rest without heeding to the delight of adventure, new findings and an emergence into a genuine city of diversity and culture.
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Dennis Peyton
non-member comment
Hugs and Grins
Thanks Cam. Always a deep sense of LIFE inside your experience. No Words.... Thanks for the Love.