PART I

by The Travel Griot

Half of all the citizens of the nation of Greece live in the city of Athens, which was recently rocked by an 5.4 level earthquake, just ten days after a deadly quake rocked nearby Turkey, killing approximately 14,000 people there.

Athens was luckier, due no doubt to more stringent building codes, and the death toll so far seems to be around forty persons.

I was privileged to travel to the ancient city in February and March of 1997 during our self-declared Two Years of Travel, where Angel and I spent a month in the Mediterranean exploring Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt.

We'd already explored American areas such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks, which will be subjects of Chronicles of the Travel Griot.

In these next couple of "Chronicles of the Travel Griot" articles we will take you on a tour of Greece, staring with Athens. Athens, after its classical period ended about 1500 years ago was just a site of ruins until the late 1800s.

Then another wave of Greco-Roman fever swept Europe and America, which lusted after all things Grecian and Roman. Urns, pottery shards, even statues with no arms, they wanted anything to have to do with the people and the era.

The modern era of Athens then began, and hasn't stopped since. The city is huge at 15 million persons, crowded, noisy, and is beyond a metropolis, its a full-fledged megalopolis, a modern city-state like New York City, Chicago or Cairo.

I loved it!

The area where the original ruins at the foot of the Acropolis is called the Plaka, a working-class area of the city with inexpensive food and lodging. since we were in the Mediterranean for a month we were well acquainted with such places!

The shops and restaurants nearby the Plaka are a delight for bargain hunters and lollygagers. Since we were on vacation, we did that a lot!

Since traffic is so congested, mopeds are a substantial mode of travel, so the pedestrian had better be wary! It was nice just sitting in Syntagma Square, in the heart of the city near the Presidential Palace and the Greek Parliament buildings.

A bottle of Santorini Boutari wine (semi sec) some bread, honey butter and you have a picnic, plucking oranges from the trees nearby which along with lemons, grow wild around the Mediterranean much like apples do back in the States.

We went through Athens much, using it as our base as we criss-crossed the central city as we back-tracked to Italy, then came back through Athens on the way to sailing ancient trade routes to Israel, Jordan, and Egypt.

Next week: More on Athens as we arrive, settle in and immediately start exploring the ancient sites and the modern attractions.

[A] ATHENS IS HUGE, AS SEEN IN THIS PHOTO TAKEN DURING THE TWO YEARS OF TRAVEL of Kevin J. Walker, the Travel Griot, and Angel. The photo was taken from atop the ancient Acropolis looking down upon the sprawling city. The recent earthquake that struck the city hit the northern suburbs of the megalopolis, one of the world's largest cities. This view looks north towards that area. At the bottom of the frame is the Plaka, the ancient marketplace area at the foot of the Acropolis, which is fenced off as historians and preservationists do their work inside. [Photo: Kevin J. Walker]

[B] ATHENS, AS SEEN FROM INSIDE THE CITY AS THE TRAVEL GRIOT and Angel get settled in their hotel room in the heart of the crowded city. It is a rare apartment or hotel room that doesn't have a balcony, which is like a basic right in the Mediterranean. Walker and Angel spent a month in the region. Seen in the background is the famous Acropolis, the ancient seat of government and whose architecture was copied from the Northeast Africans ("Egyptians") at whose world-famous universities they studied, as chronicled in the Greek's own words. [Photo: Kevin J. Walker

[C] SAILING PAST ATHENS FOR ALMOST AN HOUR, and the sprawling city is still seen in the background as the Travel Griot stands by the railing of the Mediterranean ferryboat taking them to the placid islands of Ios, Thera, Naxos and Rhodes after the hustle and bustle of crowded Athens. What looks like rocks on the shoreline are actually buildings upon buildings of the congested city.

By convention, structures near the shore or on hillsides are white, to better contrast against the cobalt blue of the sky and the aquamarine colour of the water. The gigantic ferryboats, which can park six semis in one of their holds, are like the Greyhound buses of the Mediterranean sea as they ply between the islands that make up half of Greece.

kevin j. walker milwaukee, wis. usa 53201

e-mail: walkernet@gmail.com

website: "The Word NetPaper" http://wordnetpaper.tripod.com

sept 16 thurs. 1999 filename: athens adventure II

[B] ATHENS, GREECE IS A LAND OF BARGAINS, AS ANGELA strolls through the Plaka shopping area by the Acropolis near the city's center. The Women of downtown Athens are very fashion conscious, and very well aware of their appearance, and appeal. Their reputation for sexiness is not wholly undeserved. [Photo by Kevin J. Walker]

# # #

Hello, Milwaukee!

That’s "Hello, Milwaukee!," in Greek. I think.

Or I just asked for room service, or insulted someone’s mother again.

It’s been awhile since I had to use my Greek to get around, which really isn’t all that hard to learn. But when you’re trying to catch a train or get something to eat, you pick up these things pretty fast!

Last issue we talked a bit about the city-state of Athens, as we launch the Adventures of the Travel Griot in the Mediterranean. During what became Two Years of Travel, Angel and I in a month’s time there in 1997 hit several nations in the eastern Med.

We experienced Italy, Greece, Israel, the West Bank region of Jordan under Israel’s illegal occupation of that gentle nation; the island nation of Cyprus, and the antiquities of Kemet/Egypt.

We learned how to ride camels around Pyramids on the Gizeh plain outside Cairo; plan our own ferryboat trips; count money in foreign denominations like the Greek Drachma and the Italian Lira; and most importantly, how to haggle for the best price on everything from bananas to hotel rooms in world capitals.

It is true, especially in the Mediterranean: you don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate!

It is no myth about why the Mediterranean coastal region is considered a paradise: the weather is gorgeous, even when it’s not perfect and the waters aren’t bathtub warm; the region is politically stable, for the most part (we’ll get to Cyprus later).

The people are warm and personable, when they aren’t trying to cheat you out of your money. (By the way, when in Egypt, never hand over a LB 20.00 note and expect change back for a 15.00 purchase. Don’t say you weren’t warned!)

We landed in Athens after a 14 hour flight across the Atlantic. This was six months after the TWA Flight 800 blew up over the water, and I must confess I clinched up when I found myself thinking of what it must have felt like to be on that doomed plane. Those poor people, cart-wheeling over and over thousands of feet up in the air when their jet broke apart…

The Greek airline names their aircraft after the gods and goddesses you studied in high school such as Hermes, Aphrodite, Apollo, et cetera. We rode the Athena back to America, and discovered anew something we found out our first day: nonsmokers rights are a joke here. The Greeks smoke in the airplanes, their offices, everywhere. It’s like Tennessee or North Carolina times ten, and I’m not sure if Greece even grows tobacco..

We stayed in some places that were one star minuses! They would have been shut down here by inspectors in the states, that's after the owner was dragged outside, and thrashed.

Our first hotel in the heart of the city was... well it was a bit of a dump. But at the very favourable exchange rate of US $ to the Greek Drachma it was a $23.00 a day dump, which considerably improved its charm in our eyes!

We found out about it at the airport, where lurking hotel consolidators meet you and give you a range of options. This has only just gotten to America but it’s a matter of course overseas, including Hawaii where we got some really great deals.

I’m talking $50 a day rates for nice places that have the misfortune to be one block away from the beach. Big deal --for that price I can walk to Waikiki, grinning all the way and thank you very much! And we did, using the money to party hearty for two weeks in our Pacific Rim El Niño Getaway trip the February before last.

Anyway, Angel and I were checking out the place, noting the shower, the television --this was mandatory with her. I studied the transportation systems, and she cataloged the TV shows in 8 foreign nations.

It is a rare apartment or hotel room that doesn't have it’s own balcony, which is like a basic right in the Mediterranean. When you looked out and down the street you could see the Parthenon atop the Acropolis in the near-distance. The full moon shining down on the ancient ruins is a sight that will never leave me.

We paid the guy and started to settle in our first foreign room on vacation, unpacking our single backpacks from which we were to live out of for a month.

Then Angel said "Hey! Where’s the toilet?!?"

"What do you mean," I said.

"It must be right there… no. Look behind the shower, then," I said my voice trailing off as I realized something the travel books warned us about. Lots of these old buildings in older countries were constructed when indoor plumbing was just a distant dream.

We found out the toilets were down the hall. That $23 a day rate was losing some of it’s luster!

But it’s just a hotel room meant for crashing and we weren’t going to be spending a lot of time there anyway, there was too much to see. We had to make the cash last a month’s time, and you find yourself getting used to a lot of things when you travel to other countries. And if we wanted clean and appointed, we could’a stayed in America for that. After all this is traveling, not tourism. There is a difference.

Our balcony looked down on a street where revelers walked back from the party zone to the north. They woke us up singing on the streets below, full of potent Retsina wine and syrupy Ouzo. After we did some Parthenon gazing and restaurant-hopping the next day, we headed up there ourselves, to the five pointed intersection where the youth gathered to take in the area’s bars and just hang out.

There are little shops open all hours of the night, and it reminded me of Atlanta’s Underground with the mish-mash of people, ages, and merchants. The traffic jams also reminded me of New Years Eve and Freak Nik in that city, with it's bumper to bumper traffic, car horns, and tipsy people passing from car to car.

Some people don’t like crowds. Me, I’m just the opposite, I love ‘em. It means there’s something going on.

Athens at 15 million people is terrifically crowded, with half of the nation’s population packed into it. The rest of the country's population is on the mainland and Peleponesian Peninsula (basically the old Sparta city-state); and the innumerable islands, large and small that dot their seas.

When I travel, I like to drink deeply of a place. This is why I like to walk through it, such as when we went on a walking tour of Athens one fine sunny afternoon. The crowded markets are just northwest of downtown with their hanging meats of headless chickens and innumerable lambs, with merchants thrusting their raw cuts of meat at you assuring you that theirs was the very best, lean and juicy!

Near the Plaka, an old area consisting of classical ruins that have been fenced off while archeologists do their thing, there are curbside merchants hawking everything, T-shirts, handbags, cameras, fruit, and ferryboat tickets to other far-off places which we made use of when we left Athens. The first of three times. But that's another article.

Restaurants in the area with outside seating are all around, and within easy walking space of our little restroom-less studio. We sat and ate our first meal in Greece, taking in the sun, air, smells, and people as the sun grew and reddened, sinking on our horizon as it was headed to you. It was then we allowed ourselves to relax from the 10 hour long plane flight, and the bustle to find a place and get settled. We were on vacation!

The nest day, we ran into some homies, sort of. Some Detroiters were up on the ancient redoubt and seat of government of the Acropolis, and they’d been in the area for some time. They schooled us on aspects of the Greek language.

Acropolis means "High City;" (Acros = high, Polis = city). In fact you’ll find out you already know lots of Greek, especially if you were in the sciences, as I once was, where Latin and less Greek were used a lot.

Our female impromptu tutor told us "One of the most important phrases you’ll learn is ‘thelo me beera.’ That means 'Gimme a beer'," she said. I wholeheartedly agreed. We’re from Milwaukee and we oughtta know! This is a very important phrase, and we used it a lot!

She continued our lessons as I scribbled away:

good morning" is "kala-MEH-rah"

"Goodnight" is "kalee-neek-tah." (This is like the Latin "Nocte" or the German "Nacht", you'll notice).

"water" is "nero"

"home" is "spetee"

"thank you" is ef farrestal (ef-HAA-orstall) It's hard to say, but use this a lot. I think it came from something Turkish, like a lot of Greek stuff is. More on that in another installment of the "Chronicles of the Travel Griot").

"You're welcome" is "parrah colo"

"yes" is nai.

This last one would cause some confusion if you forget.

You'll know what being a retard is like as you struggle to make yourself understood. This is one of only many reasons why in order to be a well-rounded person you must travel.

Staying at home is like an adult who stays with his mama his whole life, you’re missing out on life. Get out, and travel!

NEXT: Leaving Athens, and enjoying it's central Syntagma Square .

kevin j. walker milwaukee, wis. usa 53201

e-mail: walkernet@gmail.com

website: "The Word NetPaper" http://wordnetpaper.tripod.com

sept 23 thurs. 1999 filename: athens adventure III

Athens is a vivacious, bustling city, and in the heart of it is Syntagma Square. Near the Greek Parliament and a large wooded park, it’s a favourite gathering spot for noontime workers and tourists alike because it’s within walking distance of the Acropolis and the Parthenon.

Even though we’d just gotten over 14 hours of flight and were feeling the nighttime back in the Midwest, we were energized quick when we saw the high natural stone walls of the Acropolis dominating the downtown area.

It was a picture I’d seen many times in books, pamphlets and magazines, and there it was before me, to see with my own eyes!

Since Syntagma Square was a major transportation hub near our hotel --the one without a bathroom in it that I wrote about last issue, we were through there a lot. Since we were on vacation during our month-long Mediterranean Trek, we made it a point to stop and sample the square’s charms.

There were orange trees whose fruit grew like apples do here. With a few mighty leaps I ended up with a couple of hand-fulls, and we had our breakfast fruit!

A bottle of wine, some bread with the sweet thick jellies and delicious honey butter that is a staple in Greece and Egypt and we had ourselves a picnic. Angela took out the knockoff Swiss Army knife we’d bought whose most important tool was its wine corkscrew, and we got our eat on!

Passers-by who rushed to get back to work downtown stared at the "crazy English couple" (interestingly, nobody overseas ever mistook us for Americans; Black American travelers seem to not get past Jamaica or the Bahamas enough for other lands to see what they look like. Pity.)

Being the Travel Griot is the right profession for me. I love new and different things, and adventure. There are many who do not, and they are what escorted tours are for. Angela and I would have none of it. For our "Month in the Med" we had our maps, guidebooks, and personal knowledge to draw from. Anyone could do it, but many people wouldn’t want to deal with the hassle. We went halfway around the world in an arc from Jordan in the East to Hawaii in the --East?

I also want to tell you, Jet Lag is real. I could feel the time back in Milwaukee. We were nine hours ahead in the eastern Mediterranean, and I could feel it. Conversely, when we returned to the Midwest I could feel it being lunchtime in Syntagma Square although it was 9:00 pm!

We were wide awake in the middle of the night and sleepy at noon, which our bodies were telling us was nighttime. Although we didn’t sleep all that much when we were there. That’s what home was for! People in the Med know how to have a good time.

Athens is a land of bargains, as Angela quickly found out. There were leather purses and handbags that took her breath away, soon followed by her money!. We had agreed that we weren’t going to haul around a lot of stuff. "Remember, we’re going to be overseas for a whole month." That promise didn’t last long! Next time I plan to take an empty bag along that will come back stuffed with stuff.

We strolled through the Plaka shopping area by the Acropolis near the city's center, which is sort of like the East side of Milwaukee near UWM, or St. Louis’ University City. People-watching is one of the attractions anywhere, and we were in a country where everything and everyone was new to us.

The women of downtown Athens are very fashion conscious, and very well aware of their appearance, and their appeal to men. Their reputation for sexiness is not undeserved.

The mixture of races has been stirred into a very pleasant package, and plain women are hard to come by in that land. (We will revisit this topic of race-mixture and beauty during the articles on Israel-Egyptian leg of the trip, to be sure!)

When American women were still self-consciously wearing big, floppy T-shirts to hide their rear ends while wearing leotards, Greek women flaunted their fine fannies with flair, they wanted men to see their nice bottoms.

Little wonder when Greek women like actress Greta Scacchi ("Presumed Innocent" and "Shattered") or conservative activist and pundit Arriana Huffington come here they are automatically stamped as sexy. It’s just habit and tradition.

Getting around Athens is easy, or about as easy as getting around a city almost six times the size of Los Angeles! There is a modern subway system that was just being finished when we were there because of the Olympic Games that will be returning in a few years.

When we left the country on our way to Italy we blessed the European foresight to use the WWII Marshall Plan money to rebuild and maintain their train lines. Greece also has an extensive system of fast electric and diesel trains linking their half of the country that is mainland based, and a system of colossal ferries linking the rest of the island-based population to each other like gigantic Greyhound buses.

One of the options we used was "Airplane Seating" sections of a gigantic ferryboat on the Aegean sea. We wondered why we seemed to have one of the few cabins. Where was everybody else?

Airplane seating is simply buying an upright seat for the day or three it takes to go between islands or countries.

This option many prefer because it's much more affordable than the cabins. What do you do when you get sleepy? Then do what many of us did --nap out on the floor in between the seats so you won't get stepped on. Smart boatriders know to get the seats in which give you more floor sleeping room. After a couple of trips we knew enough to get those prized seats, too!

This is how you make your budgets stretch when you're traveling --as opposed to "sightseeing" or being a tourist-- overseas for a month. It's definitely not for everyone! But that’s why I’m the Travel Griot. I do the hard work so you won’t have to.

NEXT: Leaving Athens for Patra on the Adriatic coast by train.

For more travel adventures and tips, access the Travel Griot's website at <http://travelgriot.tripod.com>; or "BEENTHERE" at "The Word NetPaper" at http://travelgriot.tripod.com.

kevin j. walker milwaukee, wis. usa 53201

website: " The Word NetPaper" http://wordnetpaper.tripod.com

oct 1ro fri. 1999 filename: athens IV