The Hellenic Republic!
Greece was grand, you guys. Just grand!
But it's too hard to write about those two weeks. It will never measure up to what actually happened and all I'll have after is some dilution. Later on, I'll lay down the words to match what I've stored (gently gently) up in my head.
A homemade video for now:
Edit: I finally got down to writing about it! Here's my travel story that came out in the newspaper.
Breathtaking Greece
Posted on 06:14 PM, June 10, 2010
We are in Athens amid its country’s debt crisis. And we are here to prove our waiter wrong.
A few days earlier, he was setting down a plate of octopus on our table in the port town Naoussa when he declared that any spot in Greece -- anywhere at all from its stretch of the Balkan Peninsula to its sun-soaked islands -- was beautiful.
"Except Athens," he qualified. "Athens is a mess."
But before my friend and I could hear him out, we found ourselves back in the capital after six days in the Cyclades. It was just weeks after a protest ended with casualties and a torched bank.
A spate of transportation strikes then followed, including one which ground air traffic to a halt.
Democracy was certainly alive in the ancient city, more than 2,000 years since the first Athenians decided that power belonged to the people.
Luckily, their descendants deigned to come to work the day we arrived.
Where was this mess our waiter warned us of, we wondered as a seamless Metro ride from the airport delivered us to our hostel without incident.
Continued here: http://www.bworldonline.com/weekender/content.php?id=12430
But it's too hard to write about those two weeks. It will never measure up to what actually happened and all I'll have after is some dilution. Later on, I'll lay down the words to match what I've stored (gently gently) up in my head.
A homemade video for now:
You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com
Edit: I finally got down to writing about it! Here's my travel story that came out in the newspaper.
Breathtaking Greece
Posted on 06:14 PM, June 10, 2010
We are in Athens amid its country’s debt crisis. And we are here to prove our waiter wrong.
A few days earlier, he was setting down a plate of octopus on our table in the port town Naoussa when he declared that any spot in Greece -- anywhere at all from its stretch of the Balkan Peninsula to its sun-soaked islands -- was beautiful.
"Except Athens," he qualified. "Athens is a mess."
But before my friend and I could hear him out, we found ourselves back in the capital after six days in the Cyclades. It was just weeks after a protest ended with casualties and a torched bank.
A spate of transportation strikes then followed, including one which ground air traffic to a halt.
Democracy was certainly alive in the ancient city, more than 2,000 years since the first Athenians decided that power belonged to the people.
Luckily, their descendants deigned to come to work the day we arrived.
Where was this mess our waiter warned us of, we wondered as a seamless Metro ride from the airport delivered us to our hostel without incident.
Continued here: http://www.bworldonline.com/weekender/content.php?id=12430