What were the highlights of my once in a lifetime Greek holiday?
– A private tour of the Acropolis and the Acropolis museum by the beautiful and erudite Eva.
– Running the 400m at the original Olympic Stadium
– Walking one and a half hours in the sun to see the Mycenean Acropolis
– Seeing Athens and its ruins such as Hadrian’s library
– Seeing the Portara at Naxos and bouldering on the breakwater there with an Australian couple
– Athens National Park
– Visiting the Archaeology museum in Parikia and learning about Archilochus
– The glorious sunsets and natural beauty
– Being amazed by the churches and their art
– Browsing the shops and the markets such as the Old Towns and Monsteraki market.
– The food! Standout dishes include the moussaka, the seafood platter, the mixed grill and desserts such as limoncella, Greek yoghurt with nuts and honey and the sublime banana split I had in Naxos
And aside from that, so many beautiful moments. The sour cherry juice, the ice creams, bouldering in so many locations, the idyllic taxi drives, even the hot showers! Visit my blog if you want to experience the things with me.
My body knew it was time for the dream to end. I woke up super early in the morning even though the clocks had gone back. I managed to do language learning in Spanish, German, French, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu through short stories and newspapers. I use this site called (Language) in Levels which broaches news stories for the European languages. I also read some psychology summaries.
This was my last breakfast at the Margarita hotel so I again had waffles with scoops of chocolate ice cream. Tipped the nice lady that had served me every morning and then wandered outside to look at the beautiful white and blue church and at the seascape before the taxi came to collect me.
Again, I enoyed the idyllic drive through the rural countryside although this time I was feeling a bit nauseous, only mildly so. Inside the airport, there was an American obsessed with the prices of things and when I sat down, he was talking about shooting. Apparently, he couldn’t afford to play bridge at six dollars a month. Got up for some old folk to sit down, so didn’t hear the end of the conversation. Instead, I started reading ‘Blue’ magazine which is a really super interesting magazine. And it has parallel text between Greek and English so I kept a copy for study back at home.
The plan was Olympic airlines and I actually got a window seat for once so I was happily snapping away in the clouds and looking down at the islands. It was an amazing experience just by itself.
When I got to Athens airport, I went straight to the museums and exhibitions. Athens International Airport features an Exhibition of Archaeological Findings which displays around 172 local artifacts unearthed during the construction of the airport, spanning from the Neolithic and Early Helladic to the Post-Byzantine periods in the Mesogaia region. There was also the Eleftherios Venizelos Multimedia Exhibition and lastly, ‘The Acropolis Museum’ – A Classic Destination exhibition. The latter is a specially designed preview space offering travelers a glimpse of classical Greek heritage before or after visiting Athens.
The archaeology exhibition was a great look into everyday life around the airport in the old days and the Acropolis museum exhibit was a great reminder of my wonderful private tour of the site with Eva. The Eleftherios Venizelos Multimedia Exhibition I found inspiring at first, but then I started contrasting this nationalist with Gandhi. I am an anarchist. I hate the state. The state has been trying to kill me and exclude me from before I was born. They tried to sterilise my mother so I would not even be in the world. I could not support the nationalist sentiment behind the adulation of the man. True, he had created 30, 000 schools. But what did they teach? They taught nationalism. I had watched the school kids marching with the flag when I went to Parikia. That is what those schools are like. And Gandhi? Gandhi supported the autonomy and the independence of the village, not the state. There was a big difference.
Lunch in Burger King. Strangely, the burgers were not as good as the ones in the UK. The other ingredients were fresh though. I had a double Whopper meal as I had a long flight ahead of me. Wandered around the shops afterwards, which included buying another Harry Potter in Greek from W H Smith’s and looking over the goods in Victoria’s Secrets. There was a cool store called ‘Angels’ or something selling scarves but they were super expensive.
The flight home was quite nondescript except for the last twenty minutes when the lights went out and we were all wondering what happened.
Racist incident at Stanstead airport just as soon as I got back into England, showing what the country is like to us. When I called up my girlfriend, the group of four elderly people behind me started mocking my call. I turned around and told them to stop being so rude. The leader of the racists – they always travel in packs – started mouthing off. But it was funny that when I said to my girlfriend that I had a bunch of twats behind me and had to sign off, and they realised that I could hear everything they said now and had just sworn at them and told them off in front of everyone and would do it again, that the courage of their racism petered out, revealing them to be the cowards that they were. Of course, the bystanders offered no assistance. But this is my destiny. I am a warrior. I am fighting in a spiritual war. Destiny has favoured her son by giving him a war. It is my duty and privilege to protect the people and The Mother.
London. Always the same. Guy on the Stanstead express pushing his bag into my face as I was sitting down, completely clueless and inconsiderate. He got told off by his wife when I gave him a look and she noticed. Heated argument outside the station in my area as I was coming out. The bus? Nowhere apparent. Nine minutes away. So I walked home in the cold. This was what I was coming back to.
But in London, there is my family. And there are my friends. At home, my mother had cooked me a chicken and rice curry. I spent the evening unpacking, grooming myself, getting ready for work in the morning, contacting my girlfriend and friends. Not enough time to write this last diary entry for the holiday and sleep, what with the hour going back, at what would have roughly been 2 pm Greek time.
The holiday of a lifetime? Accomplished.
