Misery Loves Company

The girl on the bed above woke up as I came in and put my things down. She asked the time, and then the standard who are you questions. When she got out of bed, I saw that she had the squat, bottom-heavy frame of a garden gnome, and the buck toothed grin to match. After ten minutes of introductory chit chat, I learned that a garden gnome, inanimate or not, would make a far more interesting sightseeing companion as well-especially if Amelie had anything to do with it (though I suppose that visiting Athens with an animate garden gnome would be hard to top). She was a French Canadian (strike one) Au pair (ball one), who hadn't been to or thought about going to college (strike two), and one of her huge chompers was noticeably more yellow than all the rest (slow trickling ground out to the pitcher...As she galumphed back to the dugout, her low pitched voice, which farted words at a pace that suggested a recent donkey kick to the forehead, caused the manager to kick her off the team).

After showering and dressing quickly, I said, "well I'm only here for a day, so I'm going to head off to the sights," knowing that she had two days and wasn't all that into motion. "Okay, well, maybe I'll run into you at the Acropolis," she said. "Yeah..."

The heart of Athens is relatively small, and after a coffee and some spinach stuffed pastry thing at a coffee shop (where a crazy old Greek man, who may have been at the time considering a career as a crazy old Greek bum, sat at my outdoor table and spouted what I presume were words of wisdom, without even the slightest inkling that I had no idea what he was talking about, since he never so much as paused to see if I had anything to say, even continuing to ramble without so much as an incomprehensible farewell or acknowledgement of my presence as he walked away), I began to walk south to the center of tourist activity, where all of the historic sites are clustered. I stopped briefly to stroll through a fish and meat market I saw on the way, a sight that is interesting in every city, usually because it is a good chance to see the locals doing their thing, but this one also because it featured innumerable whole hanging lamb (I think) carcasses.

A few minutes later and I was at the base of the hill upon which the Acropolis stands, pretty excited to see the Parthenon, which I was expecting to be the most impressive ruins I would ever see.

No sooner had I reached the top of the hill and approached the ticket window than a voice behind me, which I could only hope was Eeyore's and not whose I knew it was, said, "oh hello." Great. She took the train here. Well, I had been alone for a few days, so it would at least be company.

The Acropolis was horribly mobbed. Worse, it was mobbed by middle school groups, i.e. loud, marauding bands of uncontrollable hormones, enthusiastic disinterest, and confident irreverance. The rest of the human interference present was made up of American college students on spring break from their abroad programs, okay fine, at least they're trying, and ignorant middle aged Americans from those parts of the country. Yes, you know which parts I mean. I hadn't seen a fellow patriot in weeks, if not months, and the irony struck me as suddenly as the thought: 'fucking Americans.'

The main structures, the entry gates and the Parthenon, were pretty much covered in scaffolding, my new nemesis, and to be honest, weren't really all that impressive. Okay, The Parthenon is really old, and that it still stands- sort of- is impressive. But in and of itself, it fails to project a sort of aura, albeit perhaps because of the eyesore that comes with necessary restoration work, that would make it anything more than a bunch of columns. The picture does it more justice than it deserves.

Next to the Parthenon is the Erechtheion (no clue), whose six Caryatids support its southern portico (and here, my lovely companion demonstrates that she also sucks at taking pictures).

These would have been cool, if they were real. These are instead casts that replaced the originals, four of which were moved inside the on site museum, with good reason I suppose, but, what the fuck? One of the originals is in the British Museum in London, because they stole it way back when...when...I don't know, during lunch one day when all the Greeks were smoking cigarretes and sitting around, and the location of the other one remains a mystery. Not to them, but to me. There were six. One is in England, four are inside the museum. I felt like I was the only one doing the math.

The museum holds many impressive artifacts that I couldn't learn about because the place was a fucking madhouse, and nobody stopped moving long enough to look at or read anything. It was like they were all making their obligatory pass so they could pretend that they learned. Trying to stop and appreciate anything was like trying to hang on to a twig that extended into a white water river of Greek acne and Texas blubber.

From the entrance to the Acropolis, we did get a good view of the Theater of Herodes Atticus, which had been well restored, but completely blocked off so you couldn't get inside, which was crap.

From the Acropolis we began a tour of the other various must see monuments: the Theater of Dionysus, the Temple of Olympian Zeus (which was in fact quite impressive), the Ancient Agora, which included the well preserved Temple of Hephaestus, and the Roman Agora, with its Tower of the Winds.

To be fair, I've never really seen anything this old, and I should hope that some of our modern architecture lasts so long, but I didn't ever feel like the actual visit gave the structures any more significance than would a photograph. What's worse, you couldn't enter or get close to many of these monuments, most of them again with good reason, but it still made appreciation difficult. Plus I kept thinking that the girl with me smelled like diapers. Clean ones, but still. It's an odd smell.

While in Athens I kept a strict diet of souvlaki, which they really know how to do, smothering them in frecnh fries and sauce. This is something that, surprisingly, the Turks really couldn't do. Their kebabs (the sandwiches that is, because in Turkey kebab could mean a platter, depending) were dry, low on fillings, and sauceless. Even if you'd ask, the best they could offer was ketchup or mayonnaise, both unacceptable. But the Greeks generally buttered up the bread before grilling it and tzatzikied (yes, that's the verb form of tzatziki) the shit out of the things, and served them up overstuffed for 1.50 Euros, which for me was irresistable.

My exasperation climaxed with my next day's visits to the Greek War Museum, and the Roman Stadium, rebuilt in 1896 for the first modern Olympic games. After about an hour of trying to find the museum due to that same faulty Lonely Planet map, I arrived, ready to be fascinated by Iliadesque tales of heroic dismemberment and awestruck by the recovered ancient tools of death. The museum was divided into two sections, 'Ancient-1938' upstairs and '1938-present' downstairs. With a quick scoff, I trotted up one flight of stairs, but then stopped, as the section was roped off. I asked the attendant if it was closed, and he informed me that they were fixing the exhibit space, and it had been closed for almost two years, but would be open again next month. It is at this point that I decide to locate and explode the main Lonely Planet office once my trip is finished. But, the attendant informed me, they did have a whole exhibit on the Greek military since World War II. Oh, well yes, I've often heard of the heroism of the Greek Army in the Great War, of the many young men who sacrificed their vocal chords while sitting around kvetching, of the gruesome casualties: the thousands of spilt olives and pounds of moldy feta, of the millions upon millions of cigarretes gone unsmoked. No, wait...the cigarrettes were definitely smoked. In any case, who cares about Greek wars after 1938, or 938 for that matter? Well, apparently not the group of fifty middle schoolers on their way in either. I left immediately.

My last stop, before catching a train to Patra, where I would get the ferry to Bari Italy, was the Roman Stadium. I expected a ruin, forgetting that the thing was really only 110 years old, and found a beautifully rebuilt stone stadium, perfectly clean and undamaged, with a fresh, new rubberized running track.

It was, of course, completely closed off. They wouldn't let anyone walk on the stands to get a picture, or say, run on the fucking track. It was the stupidest thing I'd seen yet. It was simply a massive waste of space and concrete.

Why keep the people out? To prevent it from getting worn down? Worn down by, what? Use????

The monuments of Athens, while I'm glad I saw them, were something of a disappointment, making good photos but uninspiring sights.

The rest of the city was no better, souvlaki aside, as it simply could have been any city. Just a bunch of streets and buildings. I was not going to be missing any ferries out of here.