Greece Travelogue, Installment #1

Residence Georgio, Athens, Greece

June 10, 2007

It doesn’t matter how long it took, or how difficult the trip, or what went missing (Callum’s luggage) because we finally made it. Neel and I stood in the lobby of the hotel feeling like junior high kids at a new school. We knew no one, and Neel had been warned before we left that this could be a grumpy group. Callum picked up on our own shyness and was clingy and whiny. I felt clingy and whiny too. We boarded busses and dropped shy smiles at everyone around us. Callum is the only child. Dinner, the sign in the hotel lobby said, was to be at the Atticos restaurant. What a surprise then when the bus pulled up at the base of Dionissou Areopayitou (Grand Promenade) and a handsome Greek man stood up and said “I am Cosomo and I will be your guide for the night (we never saw him again). We will depart the bus and walk perhaps 25 minutes past the Acropolis to the restaurant.”

It seems to be a cliché to say that you’re in the shadow of the Acropolis…perhaps because it looms so high above the city. Even if you walk the streets of Athens knowing that it's perched on your shoulder, you can turn up a side street and still gasp in surprise as it rises about you. And believe me there was nothing shadowy about this awesome and venerable temple that night. Instead we were cast in the glow of the Parthenon. The setting sun bathes it in the color of a newly ripe peach. Not as fleeting as ripe-peach season, but just as sweet. We all know how sentimental I can be, but my tears surprised even me. It’s been seventeen years and I was so very happy to be here again.

As we walked, musicians tune up and dogs lie lazily beside their chatting owners. Mothers have gathered here with their children for a last romp over low walls and benches before dinner.

What a place for a playgroup! It's time for the evening volta (stroll), and the cobbled road below the Parthenon is bustling with the relaxed ease of a Saturday night. It translates to any language, any city.

After turning through an olive grove and up a side street, we climbed four flights of winding stone stairs to come to the rooftop restaurant. It is such a yucky, awkard feeling, to be so tired and know not one single person. Again uncertain, we looked around to find a table with three seats left. I felt like lunch time in the cafeteria of my junior high school. Like I would walk up to group after group asking to sit, only to be told that "no, these seats are saved." One of my goals for the year was to be more brave, and that was tested here as I forged ahead to ask if we can join what looks to be an already connected group. But it's not junior high, and they welcomed us, shifting a little to allow us access at the table. Some wine and food (especially wine!) and all will be well.

First the mezedes (small plates) appear. Olive tapenade and bread (Callum’s in heaven!), dolmades, spanikopita, a chopped salad rich with sweet yellow peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and tangy greens. And introduction to Greek dining, done very, very well. Finally the entrée, a dish of tender stewed beef in a tangy-sweet tomato sauce over orzo. After a day of airplane food, I couldn't get enough of it. The wine keept coming, even with dessert...not baklava, but sweet, sliced watermelon and honeydew.

Dinner eases along and I realize that I’ve been in this place before. I’m an old hand in the role of "spouse at scientific meeting". I am accustomed to these people, used to their geeky sweetness where sentences ranging from, “It binds to the A chain at CQ1...” to “and they said they were going to open a ‘Strom Thurmond Wellness Center of all things…’” shift around me. It’s a cosmopolitan group, featuring labs from Germany, Montreal, Holland, Australia, and even more exotic places like Kansas City. Scientific meetings are conducted in English, so this is actually a very safe way to see Europe. Surrounded by people who speak all your language (sort of, what the hell is 'the A chain at CQ1'??), who come from many parts of the world, yet, like you, find this place different, exciting and new.

As night fell around us, I really started to relax (had nothing to do with all the wine...and the jet lag, I'm sure!). We were over the first of our hurdles (getting here, and then getting here by navagiting the Athens Airport, taxis and hotel and, hardest of all, meeting people.) and Greece stretched before me. I said at the beginning of my post that it had been seventeen years, and even though I knew it, that night, under the glow of the Parthenon, I really knew it. All this time, I had been waiting to get back.

If my soul is Greek, then I must be home.