Northern Greece

I just spent a week in Northern Greece- Thessalonica and Delphi, mostly. It was a solid trip, I suppose. There's only so much historical lecture I can listen to before I get bored of it, but all in all it was a good city to visit. Much more modern-feeling than Athens, in that the streets have a regular pattern and actually make sense.

I got sick last weekend for the first time in over a year, which was not so good. Being the badass that I am though, I kicked the sickness in the face and was all better after two days.

Parents visited. That was solid. We went to all the sites in Athens and I got lots of good food.

In two weeks I'll be in Rome.

 Lastly, I have my first sunburn, so my blog title is no longer a lie.

The Peloponnese, Athens, and Istanbul

I'm really bad at keeping up on blog entries, but it's my blog so too bad for you.

In mid February I went to the Peloponnese on a class trip. We were gone for about 5 days, and saw a variety of sites such as Sparta, Mystras and Mycenae. All in all, it was a pretty interesting trip that involved looking at a bunch of rocks while freezing in the annoyingly cold weather. Pictures are on Facebook if you want to look at them.

In the meantime, the weather has stayed irritatingly cold. You imagine Greece to be warm and sunny all the time, and supposively it is most of the time. Unfortunately, we're in one of those winters that happens only a few times in a Greek person's lifetime. Fortunately, that's still warmer than the mildest winter back home.

I went to see the Parthenon. It's pretty impressive. Much bigger than you would imagine. Definitely worth seeing.

A few friends and I visited a local brewery in Athens. That was a relief: I had missed the good beer from back home. Over here they really only make pale lagers which are not good. Greek people think they're great, but they've never have anything else, as imports are really expensive. Due to that, I was happy to actually have something tasty with some body.

Yesterday I got back from a weekend trip to Istanbul. That city is my favorite place in the world so far. The sights are amazing. The Hagia Sophia is one of the biggest churches in the world and was one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. The Blue Mosque, built across the street to one up the Christians was almost as awesome. I got to visit an ancient Ottoman palace and see the arm of John the Baptist, the Rod of Moses (surprisingly non-snakey) and the sword of The Prophet (pbuh).

Going out at night was fun too. The first night we went to a pub off the main shopping street and got to see a Turkish fellow play us Sweet Home Alabama on guitar while his partner accompanied with a jazz flute. Definitely a great moment. The next night we went to a karaoke bar and of all my requests, the one they chose was Lady Gaga's Bad Romance. That's a fun one to sing.

Now I'm back in Athens. It's been a rough day- I woke up and the first thing I heard about was that my buddy Brandon died yesterday. Rest in Peace buddy. All in all, it's been a good month and a good trip so far!!

Riots and Tear Gas

To spare myself the trouble, I'll post what I submitted as an Argus feature.

When I decided to study abroad in Athens, my intentions were met with skepticism due to the financial crisis currently ravaging Greece. My response was always that I would be out of harm’s way, that I would be fine. I continued feeling that way for my first few weeks here; until I was tear gassed by riot police.

As you may know, Greece is on the verge of bankruptcy. As a result, the Greek Parliament was forced to take a vote Sunday on whether to pass austerity measures and receive an international bailout. It’s a large decision that will impact Greece for years to come, so public interest was high and passionate, with more than a hundred thousand protesters out in the streets.

I was observing and photographing the “peaceful” demonstrations when Molotov cocktails started to fly, the crowd began to advance toward parliament, and the riot police decided to fight back.

It’s a funny feeling, seeing what looks like smoke going out over a crowd and realizing simultaneously that not only is that tear gas, but that you are in a mob and can’t get away. Luckily, we were not hit hard by the gas and it was quickly neutralized by Greeks who come prepared for these riots.

As the day continued, the riots only got worse. After retreating to our apartment fifteen minutes away from the riots, we started to follow the stories online. Live feeds revealed stores and buildings on fire, streets torn up and open conflict between police and more than six thousand hooded anarchists.

Greece as we know it today is the product of a post-WWII civil war. The losers, the anarchists, are still a strong political presence in the country, and often take normally peaceful protests in a violent direction, as evidenced by the sort of destruction that happened Sunday.

We don’t seem to have this sort of riot in the United States. Maybe there are some demonstrations on Wall Street or in Washington, but for the most part we are unviolent and many of us are even apathetic. However, I think that that is because the economic crisis in the US is relatively mild compared to that in Greece.

Essentially, by saying no, Greece would default, go bankrupt, and send ripples throughout the world economy. In much the same way the United States was forced to raise its debt ceiling, Greece had little choice other than to say yes.

However, despite the necessity of the bailout to ensure the government’s survival, the restrictions that it requires will fall upon the backs of the Greek people. In order to receive the 130 billion euro bailout (~$176 billion), Greece was forced to lower its minimum wage by twenty percent and cut 3.3 billion euros ($4.35 billion) from jobs, wages and pensions this year alone.

As you can imagine, that sort of cut is not one that is well received by anyone, much less the people of an already poor country. In the Athenian way, the people flooded the streets in order to protest the bill- some peacefully, some not-so-peacefully.

Walking along the streets in the aftermath of the riot made me realize just how glad I am to be from America. Greece is nice to visit, but the problems that are ravaging its economy and its people will last for a long time. I know that right now I am still safe, but in the future, when things are only projected to get worse, I do not know if that feeling of safety will last.

The City

A few days ago the program sent us on a scavenger hunt around the city. We went to several different neighborhoods and saw some cool stuff.

We started out by going through the National Gardens, which are pretty pretty, and I imagine will be spectacular when Spring rolls around. We also went to Syntagma Square, where the big riots and protests happen.

Monasteraki, the neighborhood right behind it, was my favorite. There is an enormous flea market where you can buy pretty much anything. I hear on Sundays it's packed, so I'm going to take the balloons out there next time it's warm.

Plaka, the old neighborhood just below the plateau of the Acropolis, was really interesting. The streets wind in all sorts of unexpected ways, and there are lots of places you feel haven't been walked in months. It is one of the older parts of the city so there is very little order or structure to it and the buildings are interesting to look at.

I finally got a camera! I'm linking everyone to this via facebook though, so I'm going to spare myself the trouble of putting them up here, just check them out on there.

Scott and I went and got gyros for the first time, and now I'm addicted. They're about 2 euros (less than $3) and are about as big as a $3 burger, so it's a lot of food. It's much tastier than McDonalds though, especially when we live in a city not dominated by chains. I'm glad they're healthier than burgers, otherwise I'd be really fat when I got back.

Speaking of not being fat, I forgot Greece is full of mountains and there are hills EVERYWHERE in Athens. I have to go up 40 or 50 steps just to get from school to my apartment, and that's only a 3 minute walk. I'm going to be crashing beer cans between my thighs by the time I get back.

Tonight I am having friends over for some wine and then we are going out to the PIRATE BAR across the street from my apartment. It's a pirate themed bar, which is pretty badass in my opinion.

Oh, I started school. I forgot that this was called study abroad. I did some Greek homework and readings for my religion classes... Not too bad so far. Greek is hard but it'll be nice to be able to use Greek when ordering food and such.

Making friends is an interesting experience.

I haven't really been on my own for a couple years. Coming into college was an interesting experience in terms of meeting people, but we all lived together so it was inevitable that we would get to know each other. In Greece, we all live in different apartment buildings so we are slowly getting to know each other, and today I made some good new friends and finally got to the point where I felt like I knew some people.

I plan on getting a camera tomorrow or Saturday so that will be good.

Bars are fun.

THE END

Chasing the Sunrise

I don’t like planes.

Scott and I got on our plane in Chicago at 12:30 PM CT, and after some transfers and layovers arrived in Athens at 5 AM CT, which was 1 PM local time. One cool part about it though was when we left North America, seeing the last bits of the lights then seeing them again when we reached Ireland. I had never even seen Europe before. Also, London is seriously impressive at night; we circled it a few times before landing a few minutes before dawn.

We have an apartment with three other guys, two doubles and a single. I’m in a double with another Daniel from Scotland, whose accent is just as amazing as you would hope.

I got to buy my first beer. That was a lot of fun. At the grocery store here you can get them in 4 packs, but also in singles: you don’t save much money by buying the packs, so variety is nice. They’re also bigger. Half-liters, so about 17 oz.

It’s currently 6 AM Athens time. I powered though, staying up for 30 straight hours so I could get on a semiregular sleep schedule, and I woke up feeling rested at 5:30 AM so I suppose I succeeded.

In three hours I have to go hear about our Greek phones for the third time and about safety and all of that. Hopefully it will be more interesting than it seems, because I’m ready to just walk out and do things.

There will be pictures in time, I forgot my camera cord/charger and will grab a new one soon enough.