MY Athens

During these few months here I had the chance to experience and get to know the city a bit closer. When you travel, you usually go for the highlights of a certain place, but once you live somewhere, you have a lot of time to explore. I did run to see Acropolis the second day, also the third day when I just arrived  (standing in the city center in all its glory, so who can blame me), but I didn't enter, because there were tons of tourists and the last thing I wanted to do was squeeze in heat and have only people on my pics instead of magnificent Acropolis.


I believe cities have personalities, because they are reflections of the people living in them and vice versa. But the real deal is dealing with people's attitude, habits and culture. 

Let me serve you a cute insight of MY Athens and Greeks: 
  • Time is not essential, Greeks live for the moment, cause you know, there is always tomorrow. 
  • Everything is better with feta! (seems like a meal is not a meal without it). Also lemon, olive oil and oregano go with everything. If you don't like it, you starve. 
  • Traffic lights are made to be ignored, just make sure if there are no police around (kinda used to it from Chengdu, traffic rules don't apply much).
  • Greeks are loud and proud. (makes sense, Greece is a cradle of civilization after all!)
  • People almost never tell you: "I don't know" when asking for directions. (experienced that in many other countries though.) Not that I mind getting lost, finding new cool things, but I did quite some unnecessary turns around Athens.
  • One of the pretty cool things here is paying with cash. You get a discount! It goes for anything really.
  • Mystery of opening hours on different days (Shops are generally open: Monday & Wednesday: 9 am-3 pm; Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 9 am-2 pm and 5.30 pm-9 pm; Saturdays: 9 am-3 pm; almost all shops are closed on Sundays.) 
  • Late outings, late dinners. (Greek afternoon means 5 p.m. FYI)
  • Party animals. (Eat, drink and party like you mean it!)
  • Souvlaki / Gyros shops and bakeries everywhere. Heavenly.
  • Always time for coffee = time for friends.
  • Seems like they have relatives all over the world. Auntie here, uncle there or at least a cousin somewhere.
And last but not least: Cats, cats and more cats. 


You will be followed by, stared at, Puss in Boots eyed and meowed at. 

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