@ YeGoblynQueenne Although I am in the US, my Greek heritage dragged me back to Athens every summer. For me it was a magical place where I spoke another language, drank funny tasting Tamtam instead of coke, traveled in blue colored busses crammed with people, women with unshaven armpits, the smell of bodies and tobacco, the taste of bougatsa the morning and souvlaki in the evening, the interminable afternoon nap that I could not bear, the lukewarm transparent sea lapping at sandy beaches. In New Smyrna, I stayed with my grandparents and learned to live with other people in the same building. It made living in a dorm later at university less strange. But the most memorable thing about the apartment buildings was that every one was different, unique - like people. At home I lived in a suburb - thousands of copies of the same houses that came in 1 of 4 styles. I was an anonymous child in both places but the home in Greece was less lonely. And there I could walk everywhere but here my mother would have to drive me. That part of discovering the 'world' was more real for me in Greece - being in the town , walking to the market, stopping in the town's central plaza for an orange juice while sitting under a tree. The 'data' I gathered felt more impactful - the closest I felt to that was later in high school when I went to NYC for an event or in college when I went to events in Boston. Today, I think we as Americans would benefit by compulsory time abroad in high school and college. If our government required and paid for all high school students and college students to go abroad for some time at 'world school' , it would cure us of the xenophobia that we see in our leader today who plucks at those anxieties in us, like picking at a wound. For me, Greece was a blessing.
Thanks for this, your account is moving. Despite my moaning about it, Athens can be a magical place and I spent some of my best years there- not just because I've spent most of my life there (I also lived in Corfu for a long time) (which is just a whole 'nother kind of magickal). I guess, one needs to see Athens with fresh eyes, not the eyes of someone who grew up in Athens, to appreciate it best, as something new.
And just to set the record straight- there are many "geitonies" (neighbourhoods) in Athens, places with parks and cafes and communal spaces right next to peoples' homes, like the article says it and as you hint at it. And when it's hot and everyone is outside, mingling, you do get this feeling of people living their lives all together. Finally, most of the "proasteia" (the suburbs, although Athens is now one big conurbation and there's no real demarcation) have always taken care to maintain as much greenery as possible, exactly to offset the grey concrete. That makes it a little better.
And like I say in my original comment, the summer evenings are magic. The temperature falls a little to just bearable levels of warm and the smooth light makes everything seem sweeter, nicer, calmer, prettier - familiar, to me anyway. Athens is, after all, the only place in the world I can truly call "home".
