weirdly, i am more impressed by athens’ apartment buildings than by its ancient ruins

I’m in Greece at the moment, first in Thessaloniki and then in Athens staying at the parents’ place of my Rotary scholarship supervisor from the US.

He’s been giving me a walking and culinary tour of the country. I have to agree with him that the food is magnificent—it seems impossible to me the amount of deliciousness people wring out of eggplants here—but the walking tour inspires a lot of critical comments from him about Greece.

My own impression is that Greece is pretty much just like Macedonia, except denser and richer, so the things that would surprise most Americans don’t really surprise me after a year of exposure. Lack of pedestrian, much less wheelchair access, cars parked on sidewalks, dangerous nonchalance about traffic rules, loud conversations—they’re all so normal for me now that I keep finding myself somewhat puzzled that my host is pointing them out. I’ve even grown to like these usually negative qualities for adding “Balkan flavor.”

But I’m not stuck eating Balkan flavor every day, for years. It makes sense for it to seriously irritate my host. I can leave the Balkans at any time. He had to work extremely hard for the chance to resettle in the US. I take a certain pleasure in the grittiness and slipshod, somewhat dangerous freneticism of the Balkans because it is so different from my home and the novelty colors my whole experience. I can turn an inconvenience into an adventure.

Sometimes though, inconveniences are just inconveniences. I think I understand, or I at least have an inkling, why my host wanted to get away.

For me though, Greece hasn’t surprised me yet except in its size. From atop the Acropolis, I was not expecting Athens to extend in all directions to the horizon the way it does. Actually, the city reminds me a lot of Los Angeles in topography and size, sometimes even in architecture. Los Angeles streets are far wider and more orderly, though.

I think Athens is what LA would be if all of its traffic was routed into narrow, single-lane alleys that twisted and turned like a thousand worms’ boreholes through the core of the city. A lot more people walk, because like hell if you’ll be getting anywhere by car.

If you know me, you know a comparison to LA means that a city is not endearing itself to me under most circumstances. I think LA spoils the West Coast. But I kind of like Athens.

Maybe Balkan flavor for me is enough to disguise a rotting taste for others.