Viva el barrio

The reality is slowly dawning on me. I was going to tell you that every other shop in Athens is a mechanic or some type of automotive dealer, that no one over 35 speaks english, dogs freely roam the street and the city is dirty, trashy and stinky. And while this is generally true, it is nowhere more true than in my neighborhood, which I have now come to realize is The Barrio. I discovered this harsh reality last night when I was wandering around looking for the Syntagma neighborhood I had read about in the guide book. I have been trying to find this place for the last 3 days because I felt it held my salvation from insanity. On the way to the museum yesterday I stopped at an "Athens, May I Help You" booth, which I have found to generally be helpful in the past few days. The two women at this booth however, did not speak english very well. Here's the general exchange-
kk: Do you speak English?
Non English Greek: Yes, what do you want?
kk: What neighborhood is this?
NEG: This is Plaka
kk: Where is Syntagma?
NEG: who?
kk: Syntagma-seen-tahg-ma
NEG: No, this is Plaka
kk: Where is Syntagma?
NEG: This street is Patissios
kk: Yes, I know but how do I get to Syntagma?
NEG: ahhh, museo. Yes, the museum is right here.
kk: ok, thanks, you've been very helpful

I went to the National Archeological Museum which is staffed by high school students carrying their purses admonishing visitors not to touch the glass or take photos and otherwise talking on their cell phones. This is who you want protecting your national treasures that are 2000 years old. I saw one guard but he was outside. Smoking. Anyways, I passed through there rather quickly as it was not as airconditioned as I would have hoped. Don't they have to keep those artifacts a little cooler than 85 degrees?

After the museum, I found a map that showed where the Syntagma district was and I set out to get there. After a few misses on the wrong trains, I finally found it. And I was right. It IS my salvation and I DO live in the barrio. It was a bittersweet discovery. Stores with bright lights selling real clothes made out of natural fabrics, shoe stores as far as the eye can see, restaurants where you can sit down, COFFEE SHOPS, internet cafes, everything you could ever want and a view of the Parthenon lit up at night. I wonder if there's any hotel rooms in the neighborhood. Even the buses in this area are properly air conditioned. In the barrio, the buses are air conditioned one of two ways-open windows, or the climate control method. The climate control method works like this: When you get on the bus all the windows are closed and there is a little bit of a cool lingering air so you know the AC works, even though it's not on. The bus starts moving, still no AC. There are sensors in the bus and once they sense that the collective core temperature of all the riders is around 800 degrees, the AC comes in. And full blast. And just when you're saying "now, THAT'S what I'm talking about", the AC shuts off. This cycle repeats itself about 10-15 times over a 30 minute bus ride, never really cooling you off, just preventing you from passing out completely. In the Syntagma district, they actually leave the AC on the entire time. It's a novel idea. But the poor working folk in the barrio are used to sweating.

I immediately started shopping when I got to Syntagma and I went in to this little artist's shop and started up a conversation with the owner-who actually spoke english. When he asked where I was staying, I told him, Kamatero and he scrunched up his nose like he just smelled something stinky. I knew then I lived in the hood. He tried to be polite and say he didn't know exactly where it was, which may be true since most sane people wouldn't venture into that area, unless they needed their car repaired, I guess.

I found a restaurant, sat down, had water brought to me, a menu in english and greek and ordered up all kinds of things from the overpriced, quasi-Italian list. They even had a long dessert list which had Tirimasu, chocolate cake, Baklava and some other greek things I had never heard of. I asked the waiter (not exactly a friendly chap) what the Giononni was. He said it was like Baklava. Oh, ok, that's helpful. Then I asked what the Ravoni was. He said "it's like Baklava, sweet". I didn't even bother to ask about the other 3 which I'm sure were also like Baklava. I just ordered chocolate tart and a greek coffee. The chocolate tart was great. Greek coffee is apparently espresso blended with crushed cigarette butts. It's grainy. I'm sure it's hard to complete get rid of the tobacco leaves. My spoon hit some chunky things and I was sure when I took it out of the coffee I would find whole butts, added just like you might add mint to tea. But nothing came up on the spoon, so I guess they just brew the coffee with the cigarette butts so you just get the flavor but not that pesky nicotine. The Syntagma stays open until 12 or 1 am, which is just my style and I found a 24 hour internet cafe where no smoking is allowed. So, I'm moving my operations over here, except for the sleeping part.