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Published: March 24th 2007
Since Crete was the main focus of my trip to lovely Greece, it's only fitting that Crete be the place I stretch my legs and find the pulse of this country of my ancestors.
Chania It all went down in a place called Chania; we didn't spend every day there, but it was our homebase and the place where we got to be lazy. Chania is an old, old town. Inhabited by ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Venetians, and Turks, it was also the capitol of the short-lived independent nation of Crete. Now it's a tourist place, open to anyone in the world with enough money for mediocre Greek food, plenty of booze, and some chintzy trinkets.
We stayed on a quaint little street in Chania's Old Town: rows of medieval buildings rising up from the crumbled remains of a post-crusades Venetian fortress, now reinforced and fixed-up with modern conveniences and signs in English. There was an excellent view from our balcony of either the White Mountains in the south or the Cretan Sea to the North. Get lost in some of the quiet, brick-paved alleyways and you'll soon find yourself at Chania Harbor, where empty
restaurant tables crowd the off-season road.
Avalon I had an evening to myself when we first arrived, and I decided it had to be done in style. My style, of course. That meant satisfying my appetite first, which I did with a plate of beef stew and some bread dipped in whipped-potato/garlic sauce.
While eating, I spied a little bar across the street crowded with long-hairs. I asked one of them if he knew of any places around that played Heavy Metal. Finding good Heavy Metal or Reggae bars had been an obsession of mine since Thailand, where my quest for music was met by such dissapointments as the Immortal Bar (Metal posters and hip-hop DJs) and the Bob Marley Reggae Bar (two over-played Bob Marley CDs and some music from The Eagles). I found my Reggae in Kenya, but I was burning with curiosity at the pounding music Europe might have to offer. Luckily for me, the guy knew a place.
It was called "Avalon" and it was down there amongst all the empty off-season places. In fact, it itself was an empty, off-season place--but it had awesome music. I'm sure they were playing
something great when I came in, but I missed it for my awe at all the fantastic CDs on the shelves.
I requested Manowar's "Courage" and the bartender happily obliged. The two other guys in the bar started nodding their heads and singing along. Before the song was halfway over, we were all in deep conversation about music. There wasn't any strongly-shared language, but we agreed on a love for Power Metal. "Fighting the World" and "Kings of Metal" followed. Then we moved on.
There were songs from Iced Earth, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Dio, Rainbow, Sonata Arctica, Blind Guardian, and others. These guys even introduced me to some bands I didn't know, but have grown to like, including Kamelot, Dianno, and Domine.
I wanted to waste all night at this place, but I was dizzy from all the great discs and didn't even have a dime to spend on drinks. After hearing how many bands the guy next to me had seen live--and hearing the size of the crowds at those shows--I felt a sense of impending doom that Joey DeMaio might come marching in at any minute and tell me to, "leave the hall!"
If
this place was in Seattle it would be my second home, but how they stayed in business here in techno-bopping-tourist Chania was a mystery to me.
Anarchists Back out in the atmospheric alleyways of Chania--another day I suppose--I got onto the trail of a different kind of mystery.
Those alleyways are home to all the beautiful peasant stuff you'd expect to see on a pretty postcard, but amongst the flower boxes and carved-wood signs, you'll also find incogrous spray-painted slogans, circled As, and middle-fingers that say, "only one message for NATO soldiers".
Who could be so angry out there in prosperous, comfy Europe that they fell the need to mar the Old Town beauty with these kinds of messages? Since this was exactly the kind of thing me and my buddies used to do in hippy-happy Northwest Washington, I supposed I was qualified to figure it out.
I went wandering and I followed the clues. The slogans got thicker up atop a Venetian fort wall overlooking the East side of the harbor. There were old banners stored up there, and lots of bicycles. An abandoned-looking building bore the logo of some obvious anarchist group. I decided to go inside.
It was a squat, obviously. A really nice squat. In fact, the long-haired, semi-dreadlocked dude that I met inside told me that this massive building was home to a group of 10. They lived together harmoniously, sharing space, sharing discussions, and sharing a little cafe at the back.
I returned at night when the cafe was open and learned a lot more about the group. They were more like hippies than any of the anarchists that I've ever met back home. They listened to Greek folk-music, played ping-pong, and taught classes in Ceramics. The main function of their cafe was to distribute anti-G8 protest literature, hold discussions about life and politics, and give their friends a place to take strong drink. My longest discussions were with the guy who was voluntarily sweeping all the floors and another who wanted to use their place to put up low-budget travellers.
It seems that their biggest dream isn't to overthrow the governments of the West and run wild in the streets, but to build a practical revolution out of easy, peaceful living and understanding. The migration and defence policies of the G8 that so enrage them are the same ones that I'm pissed-off about. I probably wouldn't spray paint obscenities on the walls or launch paint-bombs at Parliament, but it's safe to say we share many of the same goals.
The Comic Shop My Dad works in metal fabrication. I know, it's not the most exciting field to be in, but he occassionally gets to work on some really cool projects. One of their bigger contracts involved a project here in Crete, and that's how he got to know a local businessman named Zach. We were down at the city market on our second day here, gawking at huge cheese wheels, when Dad and Zach met in person for the first time. Their conversation was obsessively technical and completely boring to me. Blah, blah, blah, metal connector units, etc. So I took off.
Walking back to the place where I was to meet Mom, I stumbled across a really rad looking comic book shop. I went inside and browsed through the Greek-language printings of popular American books. The owner approached me, asked me what I was interested in and if I'd like to see the ones in English.
He was a really cool guy who'd grown up in Denver, Colorado. He was Greek, though, and he'd been living on the mainland since he was 11. Then he and his wife got tired of big-city life and decided to open this little place in Chania and live out their passions.
We talked about Greeks and Americans and Greek-Americans. We went over all the jokes in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". He showed me some new comics from the guys that comic shop owners all love and there were the obligatory nerd-discussions about DC Crises and Marvel crossovers. We ended up talking about Frank Miller's, "300" which has just been made into a big Hollywood movie. His wife and him were going to see it that very night. I figured I would too.
Dad wanted to see the movie also, and we made it down there at a quarter to 10:00. The place was empty, but the movie wasn't scheduled to begin until 10:30, so it's to be expected. There was some panic over which theater to seat us in, and the projector had problems, but our seats were fine and we got to watch the picture. It was pretty lame.
At intermission, I ran into the comic shop owner again. I tried to steer the conversation away from comic books, but it just kept going back there. Go figure. A comic-book shop owner who loves to talk about his work. Some things are the same everywhere.
Ex-Pats You might get the impression that everyone on the island is a Greek or a tourist, but that simply isn't so. Sure, they kicked all the Venetians out, and all the Turks, but now they've got a new wave of foreign invaders: the British.
I heard a statistic today that said 40%!o(MISSING)f British citizens intend to find homes abroad in the next few years, because of social and demographic changes back home. 10%!o(MISSING)f them already live outside of their home country. This situation was illuminated for me by my English friends in Thailand, who said it was all the work, expenses, and concrete that were driving them away.
For retired English "pensioners" like the adorable couple we met in a small coastal village on Thursday, a warm, rural island makes a far better home than the cold, urban one they grew up on. The Scottish couple they'd spent all day drinking with said the same thing. Here on Crete, they can grow oranges, mandarins, olives, tomatoes, grapes--anything they need--and they can live on roughly 50 Euros a week, even with a hefty whiskey-budget.
It was difficult for us to understand most of what they said, but we got plenty of what my Dad referred to as, "British superiority pissing-contests". Anyway, it was the plastered Dutchman with them who wanted to do most of the talking. He had George Bush Jr.'s war on his mind, but it wasn't quite time for that one...
Air Force Chania and it's surrounds were certainly home to interesting characters, but I learned the most from the ones that didn't belong there.
We saw them on the side of the road drinking from huge beer-mugs shaped like boots, and we figured they had to be Germans or Aussies. So I was a little surprised when walking back by and one of them spoke to me in an American accent. They were all from the Seattle-Tacoma area actually, and they were Air Force.
I shared a boot with them and we talked about everything under the sun. It was strange for me, after all my hippy spirit-questing in the lands of Eastern mysteries and the birthplace of humanity, but I managed to hold my own with a group of guys a lot like the ones I grew up around.
They were fascinated to hear about those bits of cultural anthropology, ethnography, and history that I've picked up out on the road. We all agreed that Americans should travel a lot more. It seems none of them like the U.S. Embassies abroad (or U.S. migration policy) any more than I do. But when it came to talking about the war and all it's repercussions, we couldn't really have a level-headed discussion. Even when some of us agreed about things political, others got hostile and most of the guys tuned-out from this subject.
Conclusions That conversation re-acquainted me with something I'm sure I'll find a lot more of back home: controversy. Yeah, I remember now that badge of pride we wear with our opinions, and that prediliction for fronting ignorance when it suits your argument. All adults, facing adult decisions, adult consequences, and adult pains--but man, we sure can act like children when we want to. The weight of the future is settling on our shoulders, but--all insecurity--we run with cliques and throw world-spanning tantrums from our angst.
I guess that's the lesson I took after meeting all these island characters. Like Greece's cities, her Metal Heads, Anarchists, Foreign Drunks--even Comic-Book Nerds--are all adults. Me, my parents, the Air Force guys--Americans: we're the world's teenagers.
But we don't have to be the kind of teenagers that narrow their horizons or shun others over petty differences. I feel quite proud of the fact that I can just as readily blend in with a group of anti-NATO anarchists as a group of NATO pilots, that I can bring inebriated Scots to mumble, "s'glad ee metya Lad'. I see the same themes running through the stories of the comic books as through the histories of these ancient places, and hear the same ideals in the Heavy Metal lyrics as in the legends of these ancient people.
I know I sometimes come off sardonic, but I'm genuinely trying to find good in everybody I meet and feel faith in what they're doing. Maybe that's the kind of attitude that will help us all to grow up.
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Sean
non-member comment
Hey
Hi Nic, Sorry I've been quiet. I'm enjoying your blog and can't wait to see you back home. I'm glad you're into Mr God This is Anna. I think it could be a powerful film. Catch you later. Your friend, Sean Fay