It has been over a month since I arrived in Athens, and feel as though I know the rhythm of the city. Though I still stand out as a tourist I’m sure, I feel comfortable (and confident) that I can make it to a new place without getting lost. The food is delicious, and people are wonderful, with such fresh insights into topics it’s refreshing being around such people. The best part though? This history of the city! As a history and religion major I couldn’t have picked a better city in which history and the Orthodox religion make a very real presence. A few blocks from my apartment is the Byzantine-Christian Museum, where their complicated relationship is made easy to understand. I went there last Friday, and still cannot believe some of the artefacts I saw! It also reminded me, however, that something as interesting and beautiful as that can’t be found in Mexico or the U.S. Those are precious and unique pieces of art which are in bountiful quantities here, in Athens, where Byzantine/Christian identity is so important to people.
I often go to the touristic center of Athens, Syntagma Square, because it serves as a shopping district as well. More importantly my class on Monday discussed the independence of Greece from the Ottomans and the architectural buildings that were established to represent this new era, buildings and roads found on Syntagma Square! So now, where I look at some buildings, I remember these lectures and how they came to represent the new Greek identity. History is alive in this country, and though I’m sure Athenians walk around everyday not even glancing at these buildings, it makes me marvel how I wouldn’t even been in a nation called Greece, if this identity hadn’t been established. Though I love Rollins, how many people there could say they’ve lived near the building blocks of their national identity. How present my two majors are in this city makes me grateful for the opportunity to live here, if only for 4 months.
Though there were ups and downs in my first few weeks, and still are, I feel like I’ve entered the ‘honeymoon’ stage of my time in Athens, when everything is great and no one could make me believe I hadn’t done the right thing!