The Rambling Rose
About Me
Recent Posts
- Could This Be It?
- La vejez
- Comparing Wings with Hermes
- The Last Visitor Takes Off
- Los tíos bailando en el País Vasco
Menu
Calendar
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | |||||
Friends
Links
Entry 1 of 72
Last Page | Next Page
5/24/2008
-
Comparing Wings with Hermes
|
The next morning I woke up and pushed upen the metro doors just as it was opening at 6:05 and headed, yet again, to Barajas Airport. I got to go to Athens. Greece. Where democracy began and where the gods hung out. There is evidence of civilization in Athens that dates back to 4000 BC. And I had the opportunity to add my footsteps to those who had gone before. Me. I went. To Greece. To Athens! Thanks Nonny! In Nashville we have the replica of the Parthenon and I have been to Athens, Georgia but seeing the original, true blue city. Hermes and Athena chatted over drinks of milk and honey on top of Mount Olympus while Jean, Markus and I gulped down the famous frappes while overlooking the crowded city with hints of Aprhodite's perfume lingering in the air. I didn't particularly enjoy Greek Mythology when I was in Mrs. Herron's 7th grade Lit class but all of the stories, and images from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, came flooding back. We dropped my bag off at the apartment that they rented with Markus' nephew, his wife and two precious niños, Colin and Timon. They were my Swiss-German teachers for the weekend... I can now kind of saw "little bird" and "accident" which I sometimes prounounce incorrectly and it is then understood as "diarreah". I'm working on it. The next morning, Jean and I got up early to beat the tourists to the Acropolis; I am never a tourist, somehow, in my mind. When we got there we tried to use the tickets from the day before but were shot down because, although the system looked random to an outsider, they knew. They always knew when I was trying to bend the rules and they let me know with their shrill, annoying whistles. Even though I am not a student I have a student ID card from the University of Castilla-La Mancha and with it I got to see all of the sites for free. I had tried at first with my International Student ID, which supposedly is accepted globaly but isn't, but because it says WKU they shot me down; the States aren't recognized as having value in Europe. So, EU credentials in hand I entered into the land of the gods, the monuments are crumbling but magnificent. It seems that they are trying to restore and maintain the artifacts but the sign with information about the restoration project shows the beginning date, 1983, and there is no evidence of progress. Just a freaky, untrustworthy metal basket that moves up and down one of the cliffs and passes for a handicap elevator. I would rather crawl than use that rickety contraption. It was worth it to get up early; it was almost empty and incredibly silent. The effect was calming as a nice breeze blew between the columns and the morning sun lit up the limbless statues. We would take turns posing with the statues but always careful to try and stay out of restricted zones; it was harder than it sounds. There many piles everywhere of random rocks that also have the tops of columns or some fragment that has text engraved on it so it is sometimes hard to distinguish what is rubble and what is sacred. There are guards, spies, set up around all over the place and if you overstep your boundaries as a guest in their land they blow their whistles and wave their hands and make it embarrassingly obvious to everyone that you were trying to destroy something that has been around for centuries, outside, by posing for a photo with it. These are ancient pieces of art, yes, but if they are outside in a city as polluted as Athens I find it hard to believe that my elbow on the base of the armless, headless soldier statue is going to do any harm. But I obliged for the most part because I would like to go back one day. We met up with the family and bought some Greecian sandals and continued around the city. Every sign, to me, was intriguing. Markus let me play with his Greece travel book and I tried to use that and my Greek from college... i.e. Kappa Delta, Lambda Chi Alpha, Chi Omega, Sigma Alpha Epsilon... to read what they said. Most everything has English translations from when the Olympics were held in 2004 but even with Arabic letters the pronunciation is next to impossible. I did appreciate, though, when I tried to say "hello": γεία σο... geia sou, sounds kind of like the Spanish pronunciation of Jesus or "thank you": ε...χαριστώ eycharisto and they responded with a smile and a string of babbled words that I didn't ever quite catch. I didn't speak, and don't honestly plan on learning Greek... although it would pretty awesome to have that on my resume... but we were received a lot more warmly with the random words that we choked on than I am sometimes in Spain. Irony? Predjudice? Different. Jean, Markus and I went to poke around a skateboard competition, art exibition and tattoo fair one afternoon and I was tempted to get another one. There was a fee to get into the building so that changed my mind and we got a frappe to sip while admiring the creativity that people used to decorate their skateboards. It made me nostalgic for the grunge style for about 3.7 seconds and I wanted them to put on Nirvana as background music. We ate, one evening, at a restaurant where they don't use plates. Paper is placed on the table when you sit down and then the food you order is wrapped in another piece of paper and plopped in front of you; it only made it that much more delicious. Olive trees seemed just as abundant in Athens as they are in my region of Spain yet the Greeks seem to utilize a bit of self control when it comes to drowning their food in olive oil. The food, vegetables and fruits to be more specific, were delicious and fresh and everywhere. I ate a Greek salad at every meal and couldn't get my fill of eggplants or hummus. Or baklavah. It counts as healthy because the honey was organically produced by the gods and they were only the size of an iPod mini. When we had to all part ways in the airport, and it was my turn to be the one who left the others behind, the fact had a country of omelettes and jamon to go back to didn't help. A quick goodbye to avoid crying and I managed to hold the tears back until I turned the corner and got yelled at by a Grecian security guardess for trying to help translate what she was saying in English to a Spanish family. Adios Atenas. ώρα καλή κλεινόν άστ.... Goodbye Athens. xox cr |
Post A Comment! :: Send to a Friend! |
Share and enjoy
