Due to how tired we were the night
before, neither Bobby nor myself could be bothered to go down to the
hotel lobby for wi-fi to check on the weather forecast. Earlier in
the week, everything all looked the same: partly cloudy, mid-50s.
Well, that changed, and not for the better. Today was to be our big
outdoor sightseeing and holiday concert day, and it was so cold that
it was snowing! A far cry from 50°. I had two sweatshirts with me,
and left a third one and my thinnest had/gloves/scarf set back in the
hotel. Had I known it would be that cold, I'd have brought them.
Not that it would have done much good, because even people in real
winter jackets (I didn't even bring mine to Greece) were shivering.
Regardless, the lot of us hiked up the
mountain to the Acropolis where the Parthenon and some other ruins
were. It was really pretty, but also really windy and even colder
than down below. There were a significant number of stray cats that
inhabited these ruins, which were also really friendly and let people
pet them. Many parts of the Acropolis were roped off for
restoration, but the ones that weren't were all really slippery
marble and therefore very difficult to get purchase on. This meant
that doing any meaningful parkour (in the hopes of keeping warm) was
out of the question for safety reasons (I was ready to ignore my bad
shoulder to gain some body heat), though we did manage to get a
couple of shots of small stuff in on the things we were allowed to
touch. On our way out, we spied hot chocolate for sale at the gift
shop, and even though the price was a little ridiculous, it was worth
every euro. Even just holding it to keep my hands warm while waiting
for the bus was just lovely. Beyond that, it actually tasted
delicious. It was the perfect creamy consistency, not bitter,
watery, or too sweet.
From there, we went to Syntagma Square,
which is the center of the city where Greek Parliament meets and
where there's a fountain and a giant Christmas tree and a lot of
people always moving. We did a sound check on the stage we were
going to be using, and then had about 20 minutes to get warm before
our performance. It was just about enough time to run across the
street to the mobbed Greek McDonald's for fries and hot chocolate and
to use the bathroom before heading back. The hot chocolate wasn't as
good as the Parthenon hot chocolate, but it was still better than
you'd expect at a McDonald's back home.
One thing should be noted: it's rude
in Greece to just go into a place to use its bathroom, even a fast
food place. Unlike America, where half the purpose of a McDonald's
is that there are public restrooms. In theirs, it was on a separate
floor, and had a keypad to get in. On the bottom of your receipt
there was a 4-digit code that changed daily which would let you in
the bathroom, and a button on the inside wall you had to press to get
back out again. Once you got in, there was a boy side and a girl
side, but the doors to each restroom were propped open, so everyone's
just waiting in this tiny hallway and you can see into both rooms. I
mean, there are stalls, so you just see the sinks, but still, a bit
weird. The stalls in all the bathrooms I've been in here have very
high walls and in some cases there isn't even a gap between them, so
it's more like a little room than the half-walled stalls we have back
home with the awkward gaps between the doors and panels that people
can watch you through. Most of the toilets are more square or
circular rather than oval shaped like ours, and many also have two
different flush buttons, usually on the wall above the toilet, not
actually attached to it, or else on the top of it rather than the
side. I know that in toilets like these, one button is for #1 and
uses less water, and the other button is for #2 and uses enough to
make sure it all flushes, but in many instances, it wasn't clear
which button was which, because they weren't labeled, so, yeah, the
whole public bathroom experience in this country takes some getting
used to.
The performance in the square was a lot
less formal than yesterday's at the big, fancy theater. It was also
just us and one other choir doing our own stuff, rather than the
stuff together with the guest conductor (though he did show up to
watch, which he didn't have to, so that was nice). We sang a few of
our own songs and then mostly Christmas carols, and the other choir
had a similar repertoire. They did a very similar version of one of
the same carols that we sang before them (womp womp), but nobody in
the audience seemed to care. The Greeks did know a fair number of
our Christmas songs in English, and later in our free time,
English-language Christmas music could be heard throughout the
shopping district. Many of the people who worked in restaurants or
other public-service places were pretty decently fluent in English,
unlike some places I've been to, so the language barrier here hasn't
been that noticeable. Until you look at all the signs, and
everything is in Greek. Bobby had commented on how it was weird to
be in a place where he was illiterate because even the alphabet was
different, and I told him, “Well, that's how I felt in Japan, so
the feeling itself isn't that new to me, but yeah, it is
strange-feeling compared to America.” And he says, genuinely, “Oh, I'm SO sorry. I never realized that before.”
After our performance, we were on our
own for lunch and had about an hour and a half to do whatever. This
time, the part of town was a lot more busy and full of shops, but
they were all selling things like $400 pairs of shoes, so nothing
tourists like us would be interested in. Bobby and I walked off on
our own and found an outdoor place called Angie's Way, so we kind of
had to go there. The food was so good (chicken with mushroom sauce
and potatoes for me, gyro for Bobby) that we had to take it home.
Even though the place had those gas-powered outdoor heater things, we
were still really cold, so we shared our third cup of hot chocolate
for the day. It was almost as good at the Parthenon hot chocolate.
Their process must be different or they must have a secret ingredient
to make it all taste so good here.
At this point, we were supposed to have
gone on a bus tour of a few city sights, but everyone was so cold and
tired that we had some time at the hotel before a miniature version
of the tour. We only got out once, briefly, at the first Olympic
stadium in modern times. They told us about a few other famous
buildings that we've actually driven by before just on the way to our
hotel, but it wasn't really photo-friendly because the sun had almost
set by then and we were moving. After the long day, though, nobody
seemed to mind. I hope that we get some free time during daylight
when it's not snowing out to go by there again and actually have the
presence of mind to appreciate them. Being freezing and still sick
was not really putting me in a mood to appreciate the culture and
architecture of foreign lands.
The restaurant they took us to was nice
and in a decent area that I hope we get to go back to in our free
time later in the week. We're walking through these cobblestone
streets with cute little store-fronts that will all be closed on our
way back from dinner, and all I'm thinking is, “Couldn't they have
dropped us here, in Plaka, two days ago for our free time?”
We walk into the restaurant and there
are two men on a little stage with string instruments (one is a
guitar, the other is some Greek stringed instrument similar to a
banjo or ukelele in sound but triangular shaped in the body). Every
table is empty. I'm thinking, “Great, the whole place to
ourselves! It's like they learned from the last trip when people got
loud celebrating new year's eve and pissed off the whole restaurant.”
We're all seated, but there are four tables that are sitting empty.
This is not a good sign. Whatever, on with the night. The band is a
traditional Greek music ensemble and they were doing both singing and
instrumental pieces. They were really talented and I liked the
music. Later, when they were selling their CDs, I got one, and not
just because I felt bad about how our comrades were acting.
The waiters were all really lively and
funny, and when a few of the more upbeat songs came on and a couple
of the usual suspects in choir got up and started dancing, they
started dancing with them and showing them some Greek steps. It was
all pretty funny, at least to begin with, but I knew exactly where
this was going. Our meal was about a million courses. First there
was bread, then this yogurt-cucumber sauce/mash thing which was
amazing (touziki? I can't remember the name). Then sausages, our
main course, and tangerines for dessert. You could choose chicken or
steak for your main course, and Bobby found out the hard way that
“steak” to them means “pork”. He said it was really good
anyway, as was my chicken, so it all worked out. All the courses
except for the main one were communally served and we put our own
portions on individual plates. It's interesting how many places do
that with food regularly.
One of the usual suspects went up and
asked one of the band members if he knew a certain song, and then
sang it while he played it, and everyone was singing along and it was
all well and good, because we were still alone at that point and
still having fun. It really should have stopped there, but if you
give these guys an inch, they'll take a mile, and I'm not sure why
the chaperones on the trip didn't stop these kind of antics, because
anyone could see they were absolutely going to get out of hand, and
they did. It was after this first song when a Japanese tour group
came in to occupy the other empty tables, and we began betting on how
long it would take for our group to drive them away. We were
relatively quiet at first because food had just been served to us and
everyone was eating, but it didn't take long for the same people to
go up and bother the musicians again. Seriously, this is so
disrespectful. They are being paid to entertain and enlighten us
with their culture. I didn't come to Greece to listen to a bunch of
drunk/over-tired/hyperactive college kids act like assholes and earn
the reputation that Americans have when they go abroad. On top of
that, we all had just experienced in our outdoor concert several
noises happening right around us that we had to sing over and were
disruptive...a random dude proselytizing, somebody with their own
P.A. across the street singing their own Christmas songs with a cup
out in front for money, phones going off...why would we want to
subject our fellow performers to the same level of one-upsmanship and
disregard for their craft? I wanted to go up and apologize to the
musicians on behalf of the group, but it's not really my place,
because I'm just a passenger on this crazy train, and the conductors
were letting it become a train-wreck. I think there were four more
interruptions for “guest performances” before it all stopped
(some of them none-too-good, either) because it was time for us to
go. But not before the Japanese group all left in a hurry as soon as
their dinner was finished, and a group of regular Greek customers
came in, sat down, and left without ordering because they saw how
crazy it was.
Now, I'm far from a stick-in-the-mud,
and I understand that bringing in the new year in another country is
cause to celebrate, but there are appropriate expressions of joy and
inappropriate ones. When you start annoying people, or there are
people outside of your group that could possibly be annoyed in the
first place, it's maybe time to stop. It's like going to a party
where you don't know everyone there but you only tell inside
jokes...most of which aren't even that funny. Nobody's going to
think it's cute but you. Even just the dancing would have been fine,
despite the fact that there wasn't really space for it between the
tables, because that isn't detracting from another's performance or
enjoyment of the evening, and Greeks love to get up and dance. If we
had the room to ourselves and it was just noise carrying over to
regular diners, it may have been almost acceptable, but we were
sharing a space with other people and anybody with eyes could see
that we were annoying them. I really try to avoid doing this myself
when I go out places, and I appreciate when those I'm with call me
out on my shenanigans. It's not like these people were unaware of
social norms either; at least two of them were on the previous trip
when things got out of hand and were reprimanded for their behavior,
and everyone was given a speech about respectfully representing
themselves, the university, and America at all times while traveling. What's worse, is that when they're not acting like complete assholes, they're genuinely fun to hang out with, so I'm doubly disappointed because I can't just write them off as bad people.
The whole thing put a damper on what
otherwise was an incredibly enjoyable evening after a long, cold,
hard day. The dinner at the restaurant was not meant to actually
ring in the new year, so people were brought back to the hotel and
left to their own devices sometime around 9. Bobby was so tired he
fell right asleep. I listened to the music blasting down from the
rooftop bar of the hotel and the fireworks, but I was too tired to
put on shoes and join them. I stayed up until midnight writing and
coloring just so I could wake Bobby up and wish him “Kalihronya”
(Happy New Year in Greek) and go to sleep myself.
