Hello again from Athens! Long time no blog. Honestly, the days have been flying by here — I didn’t realize it had been a week since my last post until just a few hours ago. But I’ll do my best to make up for it now. It has been a very busy week: because most of my interviews happened to be scheduled for the end of my time here, I’ve been able to take full advantage of the many (MANY) tourist attractions Athens has to offer while doing my best to make observations that will aid my research.
The (slightly sad) cactuses on the Lycabettus hillside.
The first observation is that it is hot. Duh. Almost everyone I told about this trip warned me about how hot Greece is in July, and to be fair, I have been checking the weather near-religiously in all my destinations for weeks. But while I knew it would rarely dip below 95 degrees while I was in Athens, I was not prepared for what such heat would feel like for days on end, nor how it would seem to put a trance on the city itself. It’s so hot that the candle sitting on my balcony melted completely after only two hours in the sunlight. Even the night is so hot that I can leave soaking wet clothes outside at midnight and they’ll be dry before I wake up. It’s also dry, so dry that the cactuses, such as these ones on the sides of Lycabettus Hill, have shriveled with thirst. The wind is almost hotter than the air itself. In Sydney, I was averaging almost 20,000 steps a day, but that goal has proved completely untenable here; walking only a couple blocks in the late afternoon leaves me craving a nap.
I don’t say all this to be overdramatic, but rather to emphasize how perfect the conditions are for wildfire. Locals have told me that this dry heat is emblematic of the weather they have had all year. And, as one of my interviewees pointed out, heat like this builds. The longer residents (particularly those without consistent shelter, the elderly, or otherwise at-risk people) must endure such high temperatures, the more likely it is to induce a health crisis. Likewise, the drier and hotter a spring season is, the more likely it is to bring wildfires in the summer. Athens has seen hotter days in July but my interviewees tell me that this sustained heat is not normal. One scientist used it as proof of a changing climate: it’s getting hotter and “you can feel it.” Uncoincidentally, there are currently several wildfires raging across Greece, including one close enough to Athens that I received an emergency alert on my phone about it. While this will undoubtedly prove valuable to my research, and the opportunity to visit a site post-fire would otherwise be very rare, I have a hard time getting excited about something that comes at the cost of so many people’s well-being.
Street art in Exarcheia, a neighborhood known for its counter-culture history.
Another very obvious observation about Athens is the street art. Murals and posters cover every inch of available wall space, and then some, on nearly all the buildings under two stories tall. Honestly, it makes me wish I could read Greek, as the Google Translate image capture feature does not do very well with graffiti print. But the stuff that I can read is nearly all anti-establishment messaging: ANTIFA, ACAB, the anarchist A, etc. For me, it is a reminder that Greece has a very specific political and economic history that starkly contrasts the tourist traps (and the national narrative they try to paint). It’s not all blue-domed churches and columned structures; to visit Athens without remembering its recent economic turmoil or the role it served in the refugee crisis is to not understand the city at all. I asked several of my interviewees if the leftist street art is reflective of the contemporary political climate, and they all disagreed, although ironically displayed disapproval towards the Greek government themselves. No matter its ideological origins, mistrust of government (and, relevantly, of their ability to protect their constituents from harm) seems to be a through line. I’m hoping to learn more about this history this weekend, both to soothe my own curiosity and contextualize my research about disaster management.
On a more fun note, here are some tourist highlights of this week:
- Of course, I had to visit the Acropolis at least once. I was told to get there as early in the morning as I could to avoid the crowds and heat, but the sheer amount of people there was overwhelming even at 8:30 a.m. The highlight of the day was definitely the excavation site underneath the Acropolis Museum, which is down the hill and tucked away from the swarms of tourists. They had all sorts of artifacts — hairpins, beads, frying pans — that offered an intimate look into everyday life in ancient Greece. Very cool!
The Erechtheion, my favorite building at the Acropolis.
- On Tuesday, I took a day trip to Agistri, one of the closest (and cheapest) islands to get to from Athens. I rented an electric bike and winded my way through hilly countryside, small coastal towns, and pebble beaches. I swam in water so blue it looked like a ceramic glaze and ate fish that tasted like it had jumped out of the water and onto the plate. Best 15 euros I’ve ever spent.
The dock at Mariza, Agistri — perfect for jumping off of!
- One of the highlights of this stop has been climbing up the many hills in Athens. I will never get over how quiet a city seems from so high up, no matter how busy it is on the ground. While hiking up Philopappos Hill offered unreal views of the Aegean Sea, I preferred Lycabettus Hill, a steeper hike that afforded a much greater panoramic reward. I went in the early evening to escape the heat and found that the late sunlight glistened off the cityscape as if it were the ocean. I thought I’d seen the last of Cicada Summer when I left Chicago, but I was sorely mistaken: their humming overpowers the sounds of engines and car horns, especially towards the top of the hill. It was stunningly!
The view from the top of Lycabettus Hill
I’ll have some more updates before I leave for Porto next week, but until then, enjoy these pictures!
