Spencer's Semester Abroad: My Big Fat Greek Weekend (Athens Jan 19th-Jan 22nd)

Background

As part of our program, Chris and I were sent to Greece as part of our European Study Tour to conduct interviews with government officials, professors, journalists, etc. about the Greek economy. After compiling enough information, we would return and then represent Greece in a mock European Union meeting in Brussels the following week. With the current economic climate, we couldn’t have picked a more interesting time to visit Greece. Here is the breakdown of our weekend trip to Greece.

January 19th

Do you like mustaches? What about unibrows? If so, then Athens is for you! Seriously though, everywhere I seemed to notice them on the men. I couldn’t find John Stamos anywhere, but the Greek women were actually extremely pretty with dark olive oil skin.

Upon landing in the Athens airport and having literally no idea where to go or what to do, Chris and I approached the airport information desk and found out how to get to our hotel. I read our itinerary and approached the woman at the information desk, pointing to the map and trying to pronounce our hotel. I don’t really know what I was thinking, but I said, “Excuse me, but can you show me where the Hotel Ballsack is?” upon which Chris started laughing, but the lady had no idea what was so funny. Neither did I, until I realized that the hotel was pronounced, “Hotel Balasca”. Whoops.

After taking the metro, we got out at Larissa Station and walked to our hotel. Right away, it became apparent just how run down Athens has become. There was graffiti all over, and the cars seemed like they were out of a Back to the Future movie. When we finally found our hotel, we waited for the elevator to our room. When we opened the door to the lift (notice how I said we opened it, it didn’t open by itself) I almost burst into laughter. The elevator was literally big enough for 1.5 people. It was so small Chris and I barely fit with our carry on luggage. We rode up to our floor and went into our room.

Let me preface the pictures below by saying I never thought I would stay in such a bad hotel room in my life. I think I might have been happier trading with one of the many homeless people we saw sleeping on the street. The room smelled terrible. When we got our key (even though there were two of us, only one metal key, not a swipe card), we had to place the key in a slot to turn on the lights in the room. There were two beds covered in something that resembled sheets, but I still don’t believe they were. The TV had a small lock on it making sure no one would steel it, I’m not sure why because I would pay someone to take it off my hands. The bathroom was literally hilarious and disgusting at the same time. The toilet was old school. The shower spout was about waste high with a hand held sprayer. The funny thing was there was no wall mount for the sprayer, so in order to take a shower; you could only use one hand with the other holding the hand held. Its funny, the shower was also so small that the nasty curtain would cling to your body when you tried to wash your lower half. My last complaint about the room was that my pillow literally smelled like someone was smoking into it.

Okay, now to the actual city. The first night Chris and I walked through Syntagma Square, which is where the Greek Parliament is, along with the major department stores and shopping area in Greece. The strip was actually pretty cool with tons of people walking through the closed off street. We went exploring, got some food at a restaurant, and waked around more. We walked past the Greek Parliament building and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to the Panathenaic Stadium (which was the original stadium for the Modern Olympic games in 1896). We then stumbled upon the Temple of Olympian Zeus. After awhile we were so tired from our 5am wake up that we went back to the hotel. That night, we mapped out where we had to be for our interviews the next day, did our research on the Greek economy and European Union, and finally prepared our questions and interviews before going to bed.

January 20^th

The next morning, we took the train to the Holargos stop where we met our first interviewee. His name was Nick Malkoutzis, the Deputy Editor of the Kathimerini English Edition, which is Greece’s only all-English newspaper. Nick turned out to be the nicest guy I could have imagined. He was actually born in the UK and studied at the London School of Economics. We were prepared for a Greek who knew how to speak some English, and what we got was an extremely well educated English Greek that turned out to be a great asset. Our interview was extremely insightful and very interesting to hear about the turmoil from the Greek perspective.

After an hour or so, Chris and I hurried to our next appointment with Professor George Alogoskoufis. Professor Alogoskoufis teaches economies at the Athens University of Economics and Business, but he was also the former Minister for Economy and Finance of Greece. This interview was somewhat intimidating for the two of us. As we looked around his office, he had pictures with Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and various other world leaders. This guy was the real deal. But after talking with him, it became apparent that he was largely ignoring many aspects of the debt crisis in which Nick had highlighted for us earlier. It was extremely interesting to compare the two sides. We got done with this meeting a little quicker than expected and had a few hours to kill before our last interview.

Instead of sitting around at the hotel, Chris and I decided to check out some of the famous historical sights Athens has to offer. We took the metro to the Acropolis. The Acropolis is essentially a small mountain that has numerous ancient ruins throughout its slope and at its summit. Chris and I hiked up the mountain in our dress clothes and walked around the various historical sites. This site was simply spectacular. There was so much history and even the ruins were cooler than I could have imagined. The very top of the hill not only provided famous ruins like the Parthenon, Erechtheion, Theater of Dionysos, and then an amazing 360-degree view of all of Athens, as well as the mountains and coastline that surrounded it.

After spending awhile touring the historical sites, we walked down the Acropolis and were in search of food and walked through Plaka. Plaka is the neighborhood surrounding the Acropolis, which is full of winding roads with open markets, excellent restaurants, and a variety of historical sites. We passed the Roman Agora on the way to where we ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant. Here, I had Greek Gyros, which were pretty good. After lunch, we walked down the hill and towards the metro, where we walked through the Athens Flea market.

Finally, we had our last interview with a Sofia Dimelis, a Professor of Econometrics at the Athens University of Economics and Business. The Athens University of Economics and Business campus looked nice from the outside, but having walked through it, it looked like a graffitied up inner city high school. I couldn’t help but think of how much of an advantage I have over the Greek students there. That being said, Professor Dimelis’ insights were a perfect summary of our two former interviews and a great way to round out the day. We returned to our hotel for a nap, and then went out later that night to get dinner and explore even more.

That night, we went to a restaurant in one of the neighborhoods at the foot of the Acropolis, where I tried Saganaki, Veal and a Greek Salad. We then walked back to Syntagma Square and got some Fro-Yo. Overall, a pretty good meal. It’s funny, the restaurants in Greece were open until midnight, and most people don’t eat dinner until past 9pm.

January 21^st

We really wanted to see the Olympic Stadiums and village where the 2004 Athens Olympics were held. We took the Metro to the outskirts of the city, and went to the Olympic site. In my opinion, this was one of the biggest disappointments of our trip. At first glance, the stadiums looked impressive. However, each one was empty and extremely run down. The major stadium was used by one of Greece’s professional soccer teams, and the indoor swimming pool was being used for a youth swim meet. Besides that, the Greeks didn’t utilize any of the sites and it seemed like the biggest waste of space. I was surprised that it could even have hosted such an event like the Olympics.

Later that day, Chris and I went to Piraeus, which is a port city on the Greek coast. When we got there, most of the restaurants and shops were closed. We did manage to find a small restaurant that looked pretty good. I had another round of Chicken Gyros, which ended up being fantastic. After walking around a little more, we went back to our hotel. That night, I continued my streak of trying a McDonalds in every country we visited. This time, I tried the Greek McDonald’s in Syntagma Square, we walked around a little more, but we basically covered everything the city had to offer.

January 22^nd

We didn’t do anything special today. We slept in, and went to the airport for our flight back to London. Overall, it was a very interesting trip with a ton of historical things. My summary: Athens is the remnants of a once great city. It’s simply run down and in need of major renovation. But I loved Athens, it was extremely easy to navigate, but like Berlin, I think we stayed one