Riots in Athens

Hello, friends, family, and sundry.

You may have heard or read about the events that have been going on in Athens, Thessaloniki, and other cities of Greece in the past few days. For those of you who haven't (I understand that news coverage of Greece is a bit on the spotty side- the items on Boston.com's World news page involved wikipedia and Bianca Jagger, but didn't mention this) a quick update: yesterday, the police killed a teenager (the circumstances seem a bit murky), and on account of this, there has been some pretty violent rioting, mostly involving students and other young people, both here in Athens and elsewhere in Greece. Yesterday evening it was bad, and while this morning was quiet (I was out and about with no issues, though I was avoiding Exarhia) it got nasty and there were some incidents with firebombs and teargas. If you want to read more, I would suggest the BBC coverage of the story- you can find it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7770086.stm or the coverage I found on boston.com: http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/12/07/riots_sweep_greece_after_police_shoot_boy_dead_1228646414/

It's definitely not a good situation. As you have heard me say before, demonstrations are pretty common here in Athens- riots like this aren't, and from what I can tell, this is the worse rioting that has happened in years. People have been injured, property destroyed, etc., and it doesn't look like it's going to stop soon.

However, you should know that we are aware of the problem and so far, no one I know has been hurt. The rioting isn't going on throughout the city- the area where I live, Kolonaki, has been quiet all weekend and generally isn't a hot spot of rioting. Neither is Pangrati, the area where I go to school. Assuming that we exercise reasonable amounts of caution (which, sadly, probably means avoiding the National Museum) I think that we should be fine. Please don't be worried about me and my friends, because we are fine. My worries are more for the people who have been affected by this violence.