I know I’m Greek now because it’s 10pm & I’ve just got home & started dinner! The Greeks are ‘late’ people. They stay out very late & they eat late. I think they must have an afternoon siesta though, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to sustain the pace! I know I can’t!!
And so to today…long yoga session to begin the morning & then I walked to one of the many local cafe’s for a Greek coffee & cake, breakfast of champions. It’s lucky I’m walking so much because I seem to be eating an unusually large amount of sweet food ☺️ I’m normally a savoury person but everywhere I look there is sweet stuff & my tummy is tolerating sweet, so sweet it is!
It was a little chilly this morning but very pleasant sitting outside in the square. I did some language homework whilst there & listened to the conversations around me. I recognise a few words but couldn’t be accused of eavesdropping 😆 From there I thought I would go & explore the cemetery & the park above the Panathenaic Stadium on the way.
Pangrati is a beautiful neighbourhood with some very luxe looking houses & some not so luxe. Interspersed between the tall blocks of buildings are green spaces, usually inhabited by cats. There are literally hundreds of cats everywhere you go. They are street cats but obviously very loved by some residents who feed them & provide cardboard box housing options.
I found my way to the First Cemetery of Athens, opened in 1837 & still in use today. It’s absolutely massive, filled with pines & cypress trees, three churches & thousands of tombs. There are many famous people buried in this cemetery but it’s the everyday people interred here that I’m drawn to. The trend seems to be to display a photo of the deceased on top of the grave stone. I looked at lots of photos, some look serious, some look sad, some are young & some are very old, a couple have lazy eyes & one woman looked like she would have been a lot of fun.
All the graves, tombs & decorative sculptures are made from white marble & it gives the place a rather regal feel. There are some enormous tombs which are really tall & imposing but a lot of the graves are old slabs which have become overgrown & unreadable. I mused that once all of the people buried here were loved & important to someone & yet now all those who loved their dead have also all slipped from this mortal coil & all that is left is an overgrown patch of ground & an unreadable stone. Life is so fleeting.
As I was leaving, after wandering aimlessly for almost two hours & seeing a fraction of the whole, I came across a building full of tin boxes containing ashes. They were stacked to the roof & adorned with fake flowers & blinking fake candles. I guess if you can’t afford a grave or if you haven’t pre ordered one you might end up in this room?
As I left the cemetery I experienced a moment that every woman should have the chance to enjoy at least once in their lives. An elderly gentleman walked towards me as I was passing him & gave me a single long stemmed red rose. He had a lovely open face & a warm smile which sparkled in his eyes. As he handed it to me he said in broken English that I was a very beautiful girl. What could I do but accept it with a smile?
After all the walking I was ready for my siesta so I spent a couple of hours resting & doing more Greek homework before I headed out again for a late Greek class. I rushed through the park just as it was closing & ran into a protest/gathering/rally of some sort in Syntagma Square. There are always police there but it looked like there were a few more tonight. The crowd were all chanting & letting off air horns just as I passed. I’ll do a bit of research & try to find out what it was all about.
Class was really hard again but I’m determined to improve my language skills whilst I’m here so made a vow to myself that I would go everyday. There was only me & one other student, who is way more advanced than me & we learned about the past tense of nouns of one type. It’s become clear that most who have English as a second language understand the rules of it much better than me! I just take it for granted & it has made me lazy about language, this means Greek is a real challenge because it’s almost as if I’m having to learn the rules about English before I can understand what rules I need to apply to Greek 🤯
After class I caught the Metro home with my new class friend & she walked me back to a familiar area near my apartment before we said goodbye. I wouldn’t have had a bloody clue how to do the Metro thing & it was a great opportunity to try it with someone helping.
It was absolutely packed on the train & the streets are alive with folks eating, drinking, walking & generally being social. It struck me whilst I was drinking my coffee this morning that perhaps one of the reasons there are so many people out & about all the time is because they live in such small apartments? They don’t have big balconies & it is lovely sitting outside in a green space with friends, shooting the breeze, smoking & drinking coffee. Apart from the smoking I am on board with this way of being & whilst I’m here I intend to embrace it as fully as possible 🩵