Sour Oranges Aren’t For Eating
By my last day in Athens I am tired and a bit cold. But I am okay. My cheeks and ears are red, a result of the sudden jump in temperature after coming into the heated hostel from the cold and miserably rainy outside.
The first two days in Greece’s capital were sunny and clear. The air was clean and crisp as I got off the plane. That the air felt so clean was not always the case, I was later told. The sour orange trees that line the streets of Athens were planted thirty years ago to purify the air of what was, at that point, the most polluted city in Europe. Today they do their job well. However to unsuspecting, urban-scavenging, free-fruit-loving tourists, their illusive appearance as regular orange trees makes the idea of pulling a fruit off a tree and eating it quite enticing. But, as I found out the hard way, the fruit are not very palatable and are not usually eaten raw. As a tour guide later told me, “If you could eat them then Greeks would not have left them on the tree.”
Touching down just before nine in the morning after a day and a half of travel, my first day consisted mostly of me sleepwalking across the city. Did I pass by some important, historically significant artefacts? Sure. Was I aware of this at the time? Not a chance. I walked around the city numerous times. I faced a problem. I either sat down in which case I would fall asleep and be a target for pickpockets, even more than in my already dazed state, or I kept walking, furthering the exhaustion and increasing the likelihood that I would fall asleep while standing up. I opted for the latter. I eventually was able to check in to my hostel and rested for a few hours.
I began the next morning with a free tour of the city, a concept I had some familiarity with. I enjoyed discovering the history of the places I had stumbled through the day before. The hill I had taken some selfies on, that was where the apostle Paul had preached Christianity to the people of Athens; the ruins I meandered past whilst avoiding getting my wallet stolen, that was the agora where Socrates had meandered also, challenging citizens about how they defined things like courage or justice. Despite my excitement and historical enthusiasm, my guide was not able to answer any of my hard-hitting questions. Such as:
- Why was My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 so much worse than the first one?
- Why did the ancient Athenians not complete any of the buildings they started? Was it just laziness?
- Where in Athens did John Travolta film his scenes in Grease? Also, why is there a spelling mistake in the title of Grease?
In the succeeding days, I enjoyed giant beans cooked simply in the oven with tomato, fried saganaki, countless gyros and a plate of a dozen or so grilled sardines with lemon. I enjoyed sitting in the restaurant opposite where I was staying and listening to groups of wrinkled men argue over ouzo and plates of fried fish. All this while a general strike was held on Thursday with workers protesting in Syntagma square, where I had walked through in the days prior. Despite the police sirens and crackly sound of exploding petrol bombs reverberating through the city, it remained calm as I sat on Philopappos Hill. I sat, watching the storm clouds gather behind the Acropolis and bring in a cold, rainy day.
