Γεια σου!

I leave for the airport in T-13 hours.

I can't really believe that, but it's true.

After I leave Athens, I may never come back here, almost certainly never to live here again.

That's also true, and equally unbelievable to me.

I've lived here for three and a half months. I've spent one-eighth of my academic time in college here. Athens may not be home the way that Haverford or Bothell are, but it's still made itself a huge part of my life.

I'll miss it.

There are things that I won't miss, like the pollution and the traffic and the strikes and protests.

But on the whole, I'll miss Athens.

I spent this afternoon on the Acropolis and the surrounding sites like the Areopagus and the Pnyx. Looking out from the top of those hills, I realized that I recognize and can name most of the major buildings that I saw. And not only can I name them, I know about them and have stories about them. In a way, I know Athens better than I know either Philadelphia or Seattle, because I've been here on my own.

I'm almost all packed to go to the airport. I just have to throw in the last incidentals. Packing to go home is never as hard as packing to go away, because at the end of the day I know that I should end up with a bare room.

It's the goodbyes that make going home hard.

There are people here whose friendship I value. And I will probably never see them again after I leave. We can promise to keep in touch, but I know myself; I know that I'm terrible at keeping in touch with people. We'll probably fall out of touch, and that's the way it goes. It makes me sad.

My last night in Athens, and I'm sad tonight.

Tomorrow night I'll be in Seattle (barring any unforeseen circumstances), and I'll be happy to be home.

The Greek flag still flies on the Acropolis.

I went out yesterday afternoon to Syntagma and Omonia to see what the damage was. Even after nearly a week to clean up and replace windows, you could still tell that something had happened. There were windows still broken and stores, especially banks, boarded up. The saddest was a department store on Ermou that had been completely burned out. I don't even know what the store was, but it used to have the prettiest lobby, with marble and tile and a big chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It's just a burnt-out shell now, and you can see the ruins of the chandelier still hanging from the ceiling.

But most of the damage has been cleaned up. The city looks almost normal now. Even with the damage that I saw, it was nothing like what I know the city looked like earlier this past week. Shops are open. The buskers are back on Ermou. The Monastiraki flea market is as busy as ever.

And all throughout this disturbance, the Greek flag still flies over the Acropolis. There may be turmoil, there may be disturbance, but even throughout all of the riots, all of the vandalism, Athens is still here. Greece is still here.

There's a reason why the symbol of Greece is an olive tree. They're well-nigh impossible to destroy. No matter how much you try to cut it down, to remove it, to destroy it, the olive tree always grows back.

Athens has been around for over three thousand years. One week of rioting isn't going to kill it. Even a week after this disturbance, the worst rioting since the junta fell, Athens is coming back, and even now is somewhat back to normal.

I won't pretend that this last week was an easy one, or that it had no effect on me or the city. A fifteen-year-old boy is dead. There was damage, a lot of it, over fifty million euro by one estimate. They burned down the Christmas tree in Syntagma Square. I had classes canceled on account of the disturbance. I didn't go anyplace but school and my apartment, and nearly went stir-crazy as a result.

But Athens is still here. Like the olive tree, it's impossible to destroy, no matter how much violence is directed at it.

I don't pretend to understand what happened this past week. I don't pretend to understand Athens, or the Greek people, or anything else. All I can offer is my observations.

I've lived here for the past three and a half months.

I leave here on Saturday.

It's weird to think that I may never come back again.

Things in Athens that make me happy:

one: Articulated buses have signs on the back saying "MAKROY OXOMA" (long vehicle), with an outline of a dachshund.

two: Seeing monastics on the street in their black cassocks and hats.

three: The fountains along Vas. Konstantinou, especially at night when they're all lit up.

four: Looking out the third floor window of the academic center at night, looking across Vas. Konstantinou with all of the cars flashing by with their headlights, and across to the Acropolis with the Parthenon all lit up.

five: The buskers on Ermou Street. Last night there was one who was playing wine glasses filled with different amounts of water.

six: Koulouria sellers.

seven: Hearing the bells from the various churches, and the drumming that the monastery does every night at nine o'clock.

eight: The pond in the National Gardens with all the turtles in it.

nine: The grocery store plays techno over the Muzak.

ten: Street names, as long as I already know where I need to go. They're all name-names, not number-names, which makes it difficult to find a new street, but lovely to read the street names as I'm walking along. They're all in the genitive, which means that technically all the streets are "Street of [whatever]," and most of them are named after writers, historical figures, and in at least one case, a god (Ermou, the main shopping street behind Syntagma, is named after Hermes. It took me a bit to figure that one out without the breathings).