My first full day in Greece turned out to be an incredibly adventurous day, starting with visiting one of the Greek flea markets in the morning. The flea market in Greece was held in a Masaraki square, a small district in Athens. The cobblestone streets were tiny; perhaps no more than 6-7 people could stand shoulder to shoulder in between the walls. The walls of the buildings surrounding us were made of a tan brick material; the buildings all looked very, very old. We walked through the market in single file as best we could, we all had been warned about gypsies pick pocketing us in crowded places, perhaps so much that our gypsy radar had made us a little too paranoid. Vendors had their wares everywhere, there were the obviously touristy shops, where the attendants spoke English and they sold soccer jerseys, shot glasses, and other souvenirs, but as you ventured further in the attendants looked more and more foreign and instead sold second-hand tools, household supplies and other goods. The price of all these good was fortunately fairly cheap.
Later that evening we attended a traditional Greek dinner and performance at a Taverna in the Platka district. My first impression of Greek food was good, as there was nothing I ate that night I disagreed with. The performance however, was rather interesting. Paul my roommate and musician-buddy for the trip and I noticed that the music would rotate between some very odd time signatures, 9/8 and 5/4 made a frequent appearance, with 7/8 and 4/4 performing less often. This time signature made a lot of sense with the dancing, as it was very asymmetrical and didn’t repeat itself very often. Watching the dancers footsteps it was hard to make out any sort of distinct pattern in their dancing.
However, Miles stole the show when volunteers were asked to step on stage. Miles had taken advantage of the unlimited wine they offered us that night and was feeling pretty swell when he stepped up onstage with the Professor’s husbands. Miles was not daunted in the slightest by this, and proceeded to get down with a confidence and style I don’t think I’ve ever seen. There was even a point in the dancing where the professor’s husbands obviously turned to Miles and were looking at him for cues in the dancing.
Once the dinner was over and the wine had given all of us a pleasant buzz we asked Sonia, our wonderful travel manager if some of us could stay in Platka and go out instead of boarding the bus back to the Hotel. She agreed to this, helped give us information on how to get a cab back home and sent us on our way.
We walked into the first club we saw, perhaps not the best idea. The club upon entering was completely empty except for two Russian girls sitting in the corner and one Greek guy at the bar. At first this seemed like a losing situation, but it turned out to be one of our best nights in Greece. It may have been the wine, or it may have been our complete excitement with our first day in a new country but all of us started dancing in that nearly empty club. I don’t know how, but we all danced for hours and had a great time getting to know each other. We kept dancing and drinking until maybe two or so in the morning and then we all started catching cabs to head back to the hotel.
But the adventure doesn’t end there, it begins again with my Cab driver, the crazy Greek man who couldn’t have been much older than I, whole spoke little English and appeared to be on drugs while driving us home. I stepped in the cab with three other girls and immediately felt our driver slam the gas. I knew people in other countries drove more aggressively than in the US, but I was not prepared for what came next. Our driver pulled out onto Syntagma Avenue, the main street that runs through Athens and simultaneously rolled down the windows and slammed the gas. “Wooooooooooooowheeeeeeeeeee!” he yelled as loud as he could, his voice harsh from what I guessed were too many cigarettes. I couldn’t hear anything except the wind roaring by my face until the driver reached for the stereo and cranked his Greek techno music as loud as the tiny little car speakers could handle. We blasted down the street, accelerating to what seemed like 70 miles per hour, well over the speed limit. He brought his fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle right before jumping on the brakes to stop at what seemed not for the red light, but to prevent us from slamming into the taxi in front of us. At the light he maneuvered the car centimeters at a time, trying to edge himself as close as he could to the front of the line, and when the light turned green it was it started all over again. My eyes glanced towards the other passengers; their look of confusion paralleled that of mine.
We arrived at our hotel again that night sometime after 2am, all of us well aware that our first day of classes was the next morning at 9am. This night however, set the tone perfectly for the rest of the trip.