Athens, Greece

I spent the day in Athens and it is a vibrant city. The Greeks are super warm and alive. I arrived last night and was able to rent a cheap room in the city center complete with ceiling fan and balcony. I mention this room, because the hotel seems to double as a prostitute quarters as people seem to be at it at all hours. The room is nice though and it is on a quiet street. Last night I was walking around and this little boy came walking towards me. He couldn't have been more than 3, and he was by himself. No one else was around. I started to ask him in English where he was going. A Greek couple approached and I beckoned them for help as I didn't know what to do with the child. They saw I was speaking to him in English and asked him "Do you speak English?", they then proceeded to speak to him in Greek and he told them that his mother left. We all looked at eachother in amazement, that a 3 year old child would just be left to wander the streets by himself. The child seemed quite content, and was more than prepared to continue his journey and began to march away. A moment later, his father appeared, who looked like he had been drinking, and shrugged like "he does this all the time".

I've been thinking about that boy and his sense of purpose, blindly marching into the unknown, not really knowing where he was going and being quite happy about it. He was a true traveller (or rather, attempting a complex escape from an abusive household...who knows?). I admired the little guy.

I spent the day wandering the Acropolis, reading endless materials on Classical history, and stood, it appeared, at the beginning of :Western Civilization". I went to the Theater of Dionyseous, where Aeschylus, Euripedes and other Greek guys wrote those early tragedies (and comedies) where people gouge their eyes out. I visited the Pnyx, the first real government assembly site of democracy, where people were booed off stage when they sounded stupid while attempting the arts of oratory (Bush wouldn't have made it as a politician at that time). I also went to the hill of the muses, and tried to soak up some inspiration. It was beautiful, covered in olive trees, and it was inspiring, until I read in a book that it is the Hill where artillary was based when it fired on the Parthenon (it is also a notorious location at night for rapes and muggings). I went to the Parthenon, which is being dismantled because over the last few hundred years, they have taken it apart and put it back together in the wrong manner. So the Parthenon is covered in scaffolding. It's interesting how in modern times, we seem to screw up everything, even our own history, so we attempt to fix it and fix it, like a Michael Jackson makeover. They are now installing new marble slabs in the Parthenon to bring it back to its original glory.

I could walk around Athens for another day easily. Every corner has some kind of spectacle. Stray dogs lie in the street, soaking up the sun, old women in black dresses hold their rosaries while on their way to church, young couples, obviously on holiday grotesqely make out while a dozen Greek guys look on, Roma kids hang out in the tourist park waiting for a tourist to sit on a bench and turn away from their bag. All this while the sun shines gloriously in October.

I get the sense that Athens is still recovering from the Olympics, which from all appearances has left this city with a spanking brand new makeover (Michael Jacksonesque?) and a McDonalds that has a permanent showcase of "Athens 2004" on its balcony. Evidently the Olympics has virtually bankrupted this tiny nation, leaving each citizen of Greece 50,000 Euros in debt. This was due to the added costs of security measures thanks to George Bush's Oil war which sent costs skyrocketing 5 times that of the Sydney games in 2000. It's amazing how a small group of people (the far right in America) can devestate the lives of so many people on so many levels. It will be interesting to see how Greece will recover. I'm confident it will. The people seem pretty damn resliiant and full of a beautiful spirit.

Tomorrow, I think I will head to one of the island, not sure which one. I think I'll hop on the first ferry to come along and see where it takes me.

Miss you all.