Take-Aways

Back home for a Big Fat Greek Wedding. It feels good being here. It’s familiar, easy and very beautiful. Athens in August is ideal. Quieter, more relaxed, it has a real summer vibe. The pedestrian street around the Acropolis feels like being on the islands. Cafes and restaurants spill out on the street, the moon is huge, the murmur of the crowd laid back. My friends are here and my family and seeing them I realise how good it is to be among them and how much I miss them. It’s been a sad summer for Greece. Too many forest fires have damaged our precious natural heritage and the saddest record of the most deadly fire is now ours. The mourning, silent protest, staged in Syntagma (Constitution) square, is a testament to our loss. And yet, people do not give up. I have a friend who goes up to the hill of Philoppapou facing the Acropolis and takes shifts to guard the trees, just in case….. People get mobilised at grass roots level where the state seems to fail them. True to our heritage, politics, the interest for the affairs of the city, are well and truly alive. Athens is more and more fascinating and I find it that much harder to leave now each time. Tourists who just wiz past it, miss out. It’s vibrant, full of culture, with an amazing nightlife only to be vaguely rivalled by the Spaniards. Drifting in the cobbled streets of Plaka, the old town underneath that wonder that is the Acropolis, is like being in a maze that is also a little box of delights. It makes me wonder for the first time what it would be like to come back and live here permanently, or at least for a while. Going all around the world, looking for something I cannot define when maybe as most people know already the best thing is to stay still and build one thing in one place. I don’t know….. At any rate, I still have a few months to figure it out. Now starts the second phase of my trip and this one has a beloved companion going along with it. The avowed objective is to see whether 24/7 in each other’s company will make either one of us suicidal of homicidal. Take it from there and the rest, as they say, is history.