Athens 2012

I made my first visit to Athens in August 2012. It hadn’t been the greatest of years – I had come through a long treatment regime for cancer, but though succesful, I was exhausted. My reeturn to work was not going well and my relationship with a very wonderful but commitment-shy Australian girl had unravelled. Late on a Friday afternoon, after the latest mini-disaster at work, I narrowly avoided throwing my laptop out the window by resorting to Lastminute.com. In truth, I had been thinking of visiting Athens for a while – not just because of its unique heritage, but also because of its pretty unique present. What better place to go walkabout and remind myself of the wider context of life before making some life-changing decisions? So, Athens it was.

Three days later, I stepped onto the night-time bus into central Athens, a journey that I wrote up as “Athens Arrival” for my friends on Facebook, and thus the idea for this blog site began to take shape.

A couple of days later, I climbed the acropolis hill to visit the Parthenon, but wrote nothing about it (though it is hauntingly beautiful). Instead, I wrote up my encounter with a courteous and honourable waiter at the Cafe on Mitropoloos.

The following day, I met George, the Greek civil servant, who gave me a rare insight into the plight of the ordinary Greek people. I am not saying everything he says is right, but his story is a compelling warning of how badly wrong elected politicians can go when there’s big money involved.

And finally, I was going to add some further reflections and sories that I didn’t write up at the time, thus learning an important lesson in bogging – do it now!