Athens and its Myth and History: Our Experience and Story Series 1

Memories in Athens ( October 10-14, 2012)

Since I was a kid, I always try not to write bad memories on my diary because I want to forget them. As John Irving says your memory is a monster; you forget, but it doesn't. I just tried to hide it. One way to deal with bad memories is to talk about it and acknowledge it that it happens and move on. So, I am going to include here on my journal that this may serve as a lesson for me and for everyone. Of course my trip to Athens is both a remarkable experience and a lesson to learn.

After an hour flight on a small plane with twin propellers of Olympic air, we landed Athens. Feeling so excited, that finally, I arrived in my dream place- the place which the most-people-talk-a-about. Finding our accommodation was not easy for us. We got lost and we just headed to the wrong street. We only realized this when a Greek lady told us that we were walking along the Venizelou Street and not the main road, which would suppose to take us to Omonia Station. Heading back was becoming much easier for us than going up especially when we didn’t know where to go.

Since Athens has the largest population, you would notice the houses, all in white and blue motif in high sky-rise building were very closed to one another. We could see so much people walking along the streets. It was becoming much harder for us dragging our 40 kilos of baggage. My arm felt so numb and to make us walked faster, my husband had to carry my backpack. I felt sorry for him.

Finally, we came to this Pergamos Hotel and Aristotolis hotel to accommodate us for four nights. So far, I find Athens cheaper than the other cities like Venice. Here we paid 20 euro for a hotel room both have WiFi connection and free breakfast. These are the cheapest accommodations we got. These are much better than was in a campsite for 10 euro each.  After we had a good rest, we started roving back to the Syntagma Square. This place was very lively at night. A lot of people were at the bars and cafés. While us, we were just doing window-shopping with the possible souvenirs to buy. We didn’t much to do with our first day, just to be familiarized the place and I bought my charmed bracelet. I don’t know if this really works, but just praying not to rain. It didn’t rain.

On the next day, feeling recharged and so excited, I scanned my e-mail and received a message from the tour guide that our tour would start at 10am. No time to bath and we hurriedly went to the Flea market in the Monasteraki Square. I couldn’t imagine I could walk that fast finding the place for the first time. Still catching our breath as we came down from Athinas from the direction of Omonia, we noticed that the place was so crowded with shoppers and people passing in and out from the train station along the Pondroussou street. Having the Acropolis in sight, we knew we were heading the right direction.

This must be the must-people-hang-around-place specially when they just want to listen to music and eat affordable kebab restaurants and souvenir shops and clothes and accessories market, which they named it, “ Flea Market”. This is an amazing collections of shops and not exactly a flea market, where you can exchange products. This is only just tourist-shops for buying and selling. We were still panting from walking so fast, we thought we’re going to be late, but we came on time 5 minutes before 10am, so we joined with the other tourists waiting under the sign “ FLEA MARKET”. Not bad. We made it to come on schedule.

Not all memories are good. There are times, when for us doing such action are okay, but not okay for other people. Like what happen to me one night when our plan to visit a free museum in Municipal Gallery of the City of Athens did not realize, I felt so disappointed because we didn’t know the location and we had only limited time. Unenthusiastically, we stopped in Eleftherias street and decided to go back to Thissio, which located in the Southwest of Monasteriki. I could see a lot of bars and great numbers of cafes, with beautiful view of Acropolis. We decided to have a walk and we noticed there was a night market selling souvenirs along the streets. Of course, my husband and I loved to document the event by making videos and pictures. However, when we were doing this, they really didn’t like it. The vendor approached me angrily and asked me what was I doing. Tibi had to grab me and told me just to ignore them and never fight back. We Just continued walking and I trembled. I felt like someone was pouring a bucket of ice on my head. I asked myself,” What have I done wrong?” But anyway… that’s part of cultural shocking experience.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed the music along the pave way. Everything felt better when I’ve seen the Capoera and the Puppet Theatre performed there to entertain tourists. Those were lovely and entertaining. If you like the show, you can just give tips. Despite of what happened, I still loved the paved area in the shadow of Acropolis in Thissio.

Memories may be good or bad, are there to give us lessons, more understanding on other people's perspective and something that we want to remember to make us feel good and when we remember them, they make us laugh.Those memories that I valued the most, I never see them fading.( Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go)