Athens

Let me tell you a little bit about Athens. I only spent two days there, but it certainly made an impression.

I don't know if you have been to Naples, but Naples is a confluence of noise and chaos and big hair and slutty clothes and dirt. It is like Rome on crack, and Rome can be overwhelming in and of itself.

Athens is like Naples on the craziest high of her life (Yes, I believe Naples is a woman - a loud, big haired, big hearted, voluptuous woman, in the throes of wicked PMS).

Athens is loud, and so very dirty, and so very chaotic. If you are prone to seizures and particularly wanted to partake of one, I would suggest standing on a street corner around say, the Plaka.

Something particularly interesting I noticed, was that while, say, the Romans take a profound delight in preserving their buildings and their cobble stoned streets, the Athenians seem to abandon a building rather than restore it; they simply build up something new instead.

Walking through Athens, I continuously noticed beautifully decrepit majestic old buildings, most certainly on their last legs, boarded up and abandoned; right next to them would be a monstrosity of a grey concrete building, serving neither beauty or history, its only purpose being a bland utility.

Athens struck me as such an odd mixture and hodgepodge of too many disparate elements. It was slightly discombobulating.

This was right below the balcony of my hotel room - it displays quite nicely what I mean:

Essentially, there is no real unity about anything - perhaps that is just what happens when a city gets old enough. But that can not be the only explanation, because I have seen other cities preserve a continuity that Athens really seems to lack.

However, I don't mean to complain, merely to observe. Because, there are some spectacular things: it offers sights like the view from my hotel room window (yes, that is the Acropolis lit up at night):

And then, of course, there are statues so beautiful, that you have to take a picture, not caring that an irate museum guard is heading in your direction and yelling at you in a flood of Greek accompanied by a flurry of hand motions.

I would say he is worth possible eviction from the Acropolis Museum, wouldn't you?

The picture does not quite catch his cheekbones in their full glory, but I assure you, they are there, and they are magnificent.