A Look Back at Athens
This May marks one year since I embarked on a bucket list adventure to Greece. I didn’t share it on my blog last year, so I thought this May I could share my writings and pictures from that trip. Just a little reminder, that I actually went. 🙂
This is a little descriptive piece I wrote while sitting in the streets below the Acropolis on May 25, 2023.
The Streets of the Acropolis
It started raining and that scattered the people pretty quickly. They ran for umbrellas, rooftop overhangs, low hanging tree branches, anything to shield them from the coming rain. But it didn’t last long, and soon the crowds gathered back in the streets, every sort of tourist imaginable. Most with bags filled with souvenirs to take home. Some dressed immaculately, as if returning home from the temple of Zeus when it was still thriving in ancient civilization. And of course, those tourist who obviously stick out from a crowd looking about wondering where to go, adjusting their “hidden” money wallets obvious to all the onlookers. But that is anywhere whether it be Greece, New York City, or even Yellowstone park where tourist go up to pet the bison, the wild bison. It is hard to distinguish which people here in Athens are the locals, however, as many seem to walk hurriedly down the street dodging those around them yet still clutching backpacks and fanny packs. Perhaps it is a way to blend in to the crowds around them. I am an obvious tourist with bags of merchandise on each arm, treasures I think I need. But I shouldn’t be spending money I don’t have on things that won’t matter three years down the road. Still, I tell myself, it is the experience and so money does not matter. But what will this experience truly mean once I’m gone? Will I remember the sprawling city of Athens, busy, dirty, loud! Will I remember the unique blue of the Aegean sea, as I sailed along its waters in the caldera of the volcano of Santorini? Will I treasure the stolen moment of the man with the green eyes who passed my way in Oia? Only time will tell. It is usually the people that you meet on these trips who stay with you the longest.