First, an update on activities. Then, my thoughts and commentary on this bizarare new culture that never ceases to amaze me.

Monday was a rather uneventful day, save my sociology class, which is quickly growing on me and has prompted me to think much deeper about the place and people around me (more on that later).  Tuesday, however, was a day to remember. That morning my friend Carrie and I decided to hunt out the Tuesday morning Laiki (open-air market) that was supposed to be even better than Friday’s.  We found it, and was it amazing! It took up two streets and crossed in the middle.  One street had fruits, vegetables, flowers, breads, fish, meat… and the other was full of clothes, jewelry, household supplies, shoes.  It was amazing. I now know where I’m going to do all of my clothes shopping.  Granted the clothes aren’t the best, I am assuming, but what do you expect for a 3 euro shirt?  I had my first Greek language quiz later that day, and then last night, the Eftihidou apartment (meaning, the apartment of five people living on Eftihidou street) threw a dinner party.  My friend Ryan had cooked a whole octopus and my friend Jesse made a balsalmic vinagrette salad.  We had bread, steamed vegetables, an entire tub of feta cheese, and cheap red wine, and nine of us dined like Greek dieties (sort of…).  I couldn’t eat the suckers… they kept sticking to my plate and were making me ill.  But I ate the tentacle meat.  With a little olive oil and garlic, I tell you, it wasn’t that bad.  You just couldn’t think about what you were eating and it was okay.  Everyone started drinking, so Ryan, Mari, Cory and I all migrated to their balcony… which had an amazing unobstructed view of the Parthenon.  Mari and I expressed our seething jealousy at having such a view, and then we talked and joked and laughed late into the night.  So much for classes.

Wednesday again, was somewhat uneventful… my literature class has been canceled this week, so I really only have had sociology on Monday and Wednesday.  But again, it was an interesting discussion.  Yesterday, one of our program directors, Joanna, introduced me to her friend Nikitas, who is a Greek journalist at one of the biggest Greek newspapers here in Athens.  I had been trying to get a quasi-internship at the English-speaking Athens News, but I received an email two days ago from that newspaper explaining that their publisher was dropping them and the paper was going under!  Naturally, the Center is extremely anxious about this as the Athens News is not only the biggest English-speaking newspaper in Greece, but it is the only community-focused paper out there, meaning that it is the only one that posts volunteer positions in its pages.  In any case, Nikitas told me to contact him with questions about anything and maybe wants to set up a tour of his newspaper.  I should probably explain here: we have this semester-long project called the “Greek Key” project. It is self-designed, and we have to present our findings and research at the end of the semester. I chose to do something on journalism or media, so that’s what all this is about.  Last night, our librarian Petros downloaded Michael Moore’s new movie, “Slacker Uprising,” and showed it for free last night to anyone who was interested.  It was great. Hilarious. These past couple of days, I have been getting back into the swing of American politics. It helps because there’s a small clique of the guys who keep up to date on everything, so talking with them has kept me informed and in the loop.  And now my roommates expect me to have a U.S. economy and politics update whenever I see them in the evening, so that’s motivation, too.

Okay. Now onto some deeper thoughts rolling around in my head. And keep in mind that these are all generalizations… stereotypes.  I don’t think all of this holds true for all of Greece, but they are certainly things popping out to me.

Transportation
It amazes me how many cars are on the road here and how they all manage to squeeze down the most narrow of streets.  Heck, cars drive on pedestrian walkways. You’ll be walking down a pedestrian street in Plaka (the touristy neighborhood under the Acropolis) and all of a sudden a moped or a car will come charging through. Road rules do not apply. I have seen maybe two or three police cars on the road since being here.  People will park every which way any way that they can. I have seen cars parked on sidewalks, parked in the opposite direction of the one-way street’s direction, double-parked next to other cars so that sometimes you have three layers of parked cars on the side of the street. How do they get out? I know not.  According to my sociology professor, Greeks use cars most out of all Europeans. Greeks like to drive. “Why walk if you can drive,” is the unofficial motto, apparently.  One of my pals wanted to hike up in this mountain nearby us and when he asked a Greek how to get to the hiking trails, the Greek replied, “Why would you want to hike up the mountain?  There are roads.”

Parking jobs in Greece

Social Interactions
Even though Greeks are very group-oriented and consider their social time with friends a necessary part of everyday life, they are also very individualistic.  Greeks will share their lives with people, but they also struggle to keep their family and household affairs a secret.  Greeks can apparently try to outdo each other in hospitality and apparently remain skeptical of their neighbors and their neighbors’ wishes to outdo one another.  I asked my professor in confusion how Greeks, who cultivate such deep, meaningful social relationships can really develop something profound like that if they are constantly worried about their friends backstabbing them or gossiping about them to someone else (this culture has a strange preoccupation with gossiping).  My professor explained to me that that’s all part of the game… the intricate, convoluted social game that Greeks play.  I would liken it to when you’re attracted to someone and the two of you flirt back and forth and almost spar like in a fencing match.  Imagine doing that all the time with EVERYONE around you.  That’s the Greek way of life, it seems.

Tradition Versus Modernity
This is a phenomenon that I actually knew a bit about before coming here since I wrote my little study-abroad research paper on this very issue.  But when we began reading about the role of the Church in Greek life, it became even more apparent.  Greece is a country stuck at the crossroads, between East and West, between old and new.  It tries so hard to remember its past, yet at the same time it is trying to move into the modernized world and become more Westernized. There is a theory that two “culture camps” exist in Greece, those who favor tradition and those who favor Westernization. But in reality, any Greek on any given day can favor tradition over modernity or modernity over tradition depending on the issue.  The Church is also another interesting thing. To be Greek Orthodox means to be “Greek.”  You don’t have to necessarily be pious to consider yourself Orthodox, either.  It’s just a part of Greek identity.  When Greece was trying to build itself up as a modern nation-state after its War of Independence in the mid-1800s, the Church was used as a rallying point to define “Greekness” since it was the Greek Orthodox Church that survived through all of the Ottoman Turkish occupation.  Nowadays, there are some people who are moving away from the Church as an all-powerful force, and the Church is crying, “But we are Greece! We are your identity”  But really, the Greek Orthodox Church didn’t exist back in ancient Greece… how can it truly be considered the all-defining aspect of what it means to be Greek?

I recognize that my paragraphs and sentences are all convoluted (guess I’m writing Greek-style), but it’s really hard to straighten all this out in my head.  This is going to sound bizarre, but I see a lot of similarities between Greek and Irish cultures.  Now granted, I only took one semester of Irish drama, so I don’t claim to be an expert on Irish history and culture, but really, the similarities I see are actually quite shocking.  It makes sense to me now why my Greek literature professor had us watch a movie about Irish immigrants to America to relate to what we were reading in class.

I write Odyssey-length posts, I apologize. The last thing I will say is, I think I’m changing… I don’t know to what degree, though. It’s hard since I’m surrounded by a bunch of people who haven’t really known me, so it’s not like I can use them as a gauge for how different I seem.  I’m really not that different, I guess. I’m still me. But I have more confidence… I feel really out of control all of the time, and I’m learning to be okay with that.  I feel sometimes like I’m being torn in two, but I’m trying to make peace with that, too.  Does this make sense? This doesn’t make sense.  In a creative writing exercise, I’m sure I could get this all out and have it make some sense, but trying to put it on a public tablet that everyone is going to read makes it more difficult. I feel different. But not really. And man, I’m turning 20 in eight days.

The weather is bizarre today. It’s dark and cloudy and raining, but it’s 75 degrees outside. It looks like Mordor.

This place has magic in the air. I’ll leave it at that.