It is really different here. Here are some of the things I have noticed so far.
1. Lots of animals running around. We have five cats that live around my apartment. They don't seem to belong to anyone, but they live in the garden and everyone who lives there feeds them and pets them on the way out the door. In my case, it's actually been really cool- a lot of the people in my building congregate outside in the early evening to feed the cats, and I've met a bunch of my neighbors that way. In the rest of the city, you see a lot of half-tame dogs and cats. This buddy I met while I was walking in Pangrati, and I'm pretty sure he was very used to people, since he definitely wanted a belly rub. It is pretty strange to see them, and a bit scary- a dog darted into a busy street, and I thought he was a goner. (He wasn't. The cars all swerved.) Thankfully, Athens does not have a rabies problem, and they do seem mostly pretty well fed and cared for.
2. The traffic. People say that Boston drivers are scary and that Boston pedestrians are really pushy. You do not know what scary or pushy is until you have seen Athenians. Seriously. They drive really fast, they pay no attention to traffic lights, they turn in places that are probably illegal, they park on sidewalks. My walk to school should probably be a twenty minute walk or so, but it has been taking me half an hour, since I don't have a death wish and actually wait for walk lights. Especially scary- the millions of people on motorbikes. We are forbidden to ride, rent, drive, or think particularly hard about the motorbikes, on pain of expulsion from CYA. This is probably a good thing.
3. The mixture of really old and really new. From what I've seen so far, buildings in Athens are one of four ages. They're really old- you know, from Antiquity- churches from the Byzantine period, museums and government buildings from the late 19th or early 20th century, or modern. There is very little to indicate that Athens was populated for centuries between the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the late 1800s. It's very different from Massachusetts, where nothing is very old but there are buildings from the last four hundred years, or other European cities, where there are a lot of buildings from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. As the president of the program pointed out, in Greece, there was no Renaissance. That was during the period of Ottoman occupation.
4. Social Unrest and a Visible Armed Police Force: There are a ton of demonstrations here. When we went a few streets to far one time and ended up near the Parliament building, we almost ended up as part of one. They protest many things all the time, from pension problems and low pay to the war in Iraq. Most protests start over by Parliament and end up in front of the American Embassy, regardless of what the protest is actually about. Going along with this is the armed police force. There are a lot more police officers here than in the US- walking to school today I think I counted about 20, if your discount all the people in ceremonial uniform- and unlike in the US, they are clearly armed. Some of them have smallish guns in holsters, but there are just as many who are standing around, holding larger gun items. It's a bit unnerving, though I know I am doing nothing wrong.
5. The fact that this is a very religious country. You see a lot of beautiful Orthodox Churches here- at some point, there will probably be a post consisting entirely of pictures of Orthodox churches. I pass by at least three on the way back to my apartment- one of my friends, who lives a five minute walk away, walks past another two. Greek people cross themselves when they walk by churches, which I find interesting. There also are more nuns and monks around than you would see in the US. (This picture, by the way, is of Lykavittos, the hill behind my apartment. Contrary to popular belief, Lykavittos, not Athens, is the highest point in the city, and apparently affords a beautiful view. If it isn't too hot this weekend, some friends and I are going to climb it.)
I'm so glad that I'm here, and I'm pretty sure that this trip is definitely going to go under the category of "life-changing experiences." I hope that everyone is doing well.
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