topotales

Some thoughts I had last night at TGI Fridays in Athens, Greece.  (Yes, I am slightly ashamed of myself.)  I’ll update on my awesome day today once I have pictures uploaded!

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Sitting in a TGI Friday’s in Athens, Greece.  This is not as strange as McDonalds in Mumbai (Bombay), but I am still finding it fairly surreal.  And annoying.  That people think this stuff is great.  That they … That they  I take it all back.  I think I’m jealous.  That other countries and cultures can take the worst of US consumerism and treat it properly like what it is, not warp it out of proportion.  Here, it remains as an interesting bit of AmeriKana - a treat.  I suppose there was a day when it wa like this in the US, but it is long gone.  Now we have to have the biggest and the most before we’re (n)ever satisfied.  Quantity over quality.  An ass-backwards approach.  Two major differences (TGI Greekies):  1.  Everyone smoking everywhere  (theme?)  2.  Soccerballs where there would be baseballs.

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Like other places I love in the Mediterranean, people here seem to enjoy being out and about, talking in a loud, smokey bar, making merry without being on a schedule - letting the night take them where it may.  Or is is it that I cannot see more subtle signals between parties?

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Dad would be pleased to see Newcastle Brown and Sam Adams in the bar fridge.

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The women here feel happier, more sure of themselves, stronger emotionally than women I’ve seen elsewhere.  They feel warm but balanced.  Not insecure enough to need gaudy baubles like the French or Italians, but not cold and unfriendly like the Northerners nor fake like the Americans.

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Female volleyball players have the best asses ever.  Or is it the shorts?  Doesn’t matter, I like volleyball.  And why don’t they show women’s volleyball more often, anyway?

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Strange to think of Greek Orthodoxy, traditional religious life, old women in black nylon.  Then remember that this is the country that had had gay rights BC.

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I keep remembering two things: 1. The stories my violinist friend told me about “Her Greek”, most of which revolved around his small penis being convenient for buttsex.  2.  My Big Fat Greek Wedding… “What do you mean, you don’t eat no MEAT!? …  … It’s okay, I make you lamb”.

YahSU, EfcareeSTO!  BEFORE YOU READ THIS POST you should press play on the embedded video - there isn’t anything to watch there, it’s just a soundtrack for the post. 

I’ve been in Athens on business for the last couple of days.  Shuttling between the hotel and the office, I haven’t really seen enough of Greece to make any detailed observations yet.  But it feels like a wonderful country.  

It is always an emotional relief for me to be back in the Mediterranean - people are brown (I simply feel more at home surrounded by brown people), warm, friendly and helpful.  There is a frail, floating wisp of sea-air sniffable in this city, just every now and then - enough to tempt you into taking your socks off, but not enough to drug you into lassitude.  When I stepped out of the taxi at my hotel, after chatting all the way here with the driver, he carried my bags right up to the reception desk.  Then he took my hand in both of his huge hands and said “I am Theopolous.  I welcome you to Greece and hope you enjoy each moment of your stay very much”.  And he was one hundred percent sincere.  There is plenty of noise in the street.  Everybody is smoking everywhere (except me, sigh).  The sun is shining.  

 Now the work portion of my trip is over, and I will have all day tomorrow to explore the city.  I can’t NOT see the Acropolis, and Plaka seems to be the other must-do.  Normally I’d save the touristy tidbits for after I’ve made a bunch of friends, but I’m short on time. 

 I miss my love, but there’s something inside of my soul that quietly (ok, sometimes not so quietly) pines and waits for times like this- when I am alone in an unknown place, the outsider - to come alive.  It swells and dervishes in the joy I experience simply being and observing everything in a new place, my energy standing at full attention, busy searching out and finding the subtle nuances in behavior that I love so much to analyse.  

So, I have been running this beautiful Fleet Foxes song, Mykonos, through my head over and over in anticipation of tomorrow- I can’t wait to walk all across this city holding the hands of ghosts and trying not to smoke! 

 A note about the Fleet Foxes: this one of a few bands that writes lyrics and music for the soul.  If you like Mykonos, you should definitely listen to this song too.