view from the Aeropagus, where ancient aristocrats ruled from and St Paul preachedAthens lives up to expectations, surpasses them elegantly. It is crowded and chaotic on the streets, but still and meditative on Aeropagus next to the Acropolis, or in the National gardens.
It is a city of 4 million, yet when I ask a teenager for directions he walks half a block with me to show me the exact place, just as if it were a village.
It is a city of 4 million, yet when I ask a teenager for directions he walks half a block with me to show me the exact place, just as if it were a village.
Of course the Acropolis, an imposing rock, an island against potential invaders, rises like a fist in the midst of the city and draws all attention to it. Whenever I catch a glimpse of it, it always lifts my spirits... an effect, I learn, that is quite universal.
On or around it, you can see and touch history... the theatre where the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes were performed, the agora where Socrates questioned and Diogenes disgusted the public, the little temple to the god of healing erected when besieged Athens was struck with plague... I could write screeds. Great things happen everywhere, all the time, yet in Athens we have records of them... many records.
Even the underground stations here are museums. Got some free space...? bung up a replica of the Parthenon freize. Better yet, display the ruins we discovered when digging this place out. Sometimes you can't move in Athens for ruins.
I've heard at the Acropolis in September you can't move for tourists - well, just a month later, it is a spacious place except on Sunday (Sundays November-March are free). It's also very warm and comfortable outside, unseasonably so... climate change is definitely noticeable to Greeks. There are down sides to travelling in November though... most sites close their gates by three oclock, meaning I have to plan my days quite carefully in order to see all the old stuff I want to see.
Standing on glass above the ruins that surround the foundations of the new Acropolis museumNo closing hours on the sites of my own personal pilgrimages though: through hints in history books and talking to local shop owners I manage to find the ruins of Plato's Academy, in a park in a district near Larissa train station. Well outside the walls of the ancient city, I rest here for a while, as people walk their dogs and scooters buzz near me. Visiting these old schools is rewarding for me. For the first time I can imagine the students here in three dimensions: some skiving off from a lecture to drink wine, some enthralled, some with a crush on their teacher. Here, the intellectual history of our world is not a sterile thing, it lives and breathes and gets bored and excited just as we do.
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After the recent outpouring of frustration in the form of rioting in Athens and Thessaloniki, people have often asked me if I felt anything 'in the wind' when I visited these cities. Well, it was in Thessaloniki that I first smelled tear gas, learnt that university campii are off-limits to police. There was also a lot in the papers about the dynastic greek government, which I was too busy getting my tourist fix to pay much attention too.
The dissatisfaction I witnessed was less with the 'system' and police, and more with the fact that all young men are forced to do military service. To be recognised as a pacifist is difficult, and even if you are, you have to do two years instead of the usual one. The common ways to get out of this unpleasant commitment then, is either the Helleresque method of the 'I5' : a release on the grounds of mental instability, or to try to remain at university indefinitely.
I think this might have something to do with the recent riots.
Ewan! My god man you're still going hard out bro, just reading your stuff after months of not doing so gives me a burning itchiness in my feet and waves of longing in my heart to get back to the old continent! Ah man I love Europe! :D
big luv from aotearoa bruv!
Haha, Te donne la envie (or something like that) Europe is a million crazy adventures to be sure, but don't lose sight of the Aotearoa magic. Walking alone on a beach, the amazing live dub scene, being trusted by strangers, and the aroha of friends and family. I miss it so.
Maybe we should just switch bodies for a while? Like in an eighties movie. you could wash the dishes in the alps and ski and I can do computery stuff and play pool in people's garages in Christchurch. Keen?
Well to be sure, the beaches and the bush are magic.. Got out of the city last weekend to some little-known hot springs on the side of a river, dug em out with shovels and sat and drank cider at the foot of a mountain with all signs of civilisation gone! Magic indeed.. And of course the Sangha here is well wicked.
However, I don't trust nor feel trusted by strangers here in Christchurch, not even a little bit, in fact I feel so on-edge in town at nighttime that I haven't actually gone out to a bar or pub for 2 or 3 months.
In fact, I'm going to rant:
;D
To be honest, our nation feels divided, and I'd say the majority of our young people would secretly (and not-so-secretly) prefer to destroy each other than show each other love. Hell, I've seen girls smashing each other over in the main streets, multiple times. I feel it's nobody's fault, but it's terribly saddening - I feel 1000 times safer wandering the dark streets of Amsterdam on a rainy Wednesday night than I do here on a summer's Saturday evening.
Somebody please tell me it's just Christchurch! But don't tell me it's just me, it ain't... Enjoy yourself out there bro!
Mete!
It's. Just. Christchurch. Get out of the ghetto my friend! ;)
No really, I sympathise. Christchurch city centre at night is one of the most tense places one can visit. The outskirts of Christchurch is also the only place I can remember being threatened for hitch-hiking.
So what's up? Blame the Nor'wester? The class-divisions in Canterbury leaving a brutal legacy? I dunno.
Actually, now that I reflect, with my 'trust' idea, I was thinking mainly of 'leave your keys in the car on the main street' Takaka, rather than Christchurch or the Hutt. I've also had wonderful experiences hitching all over Europe (the epitome of trust), and I rely on it here in the Alps. What I was contrasting in my mind was your average european city with an extraordinary part of NZ!
viva la agua caliente!
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