One thing that was and remains really important to me this year is making the most out of opportunities. Opportunities to travel, opportunities to see friends, opportunities to have new adventures. It’s all too easy to take these chances for granted, or shy away from them out of fear, tiredness, or simply apathy. Do that too often and you get stuck. With my rapidly advancing age, I am increasingly acutely aware of just how short life is, and don’t want to let it slip by without a fight.
In that spirit, when my team at work decided that they would head to Athens for our annual meetup, it made sense to squeeze the lemon as much as possible by arriving early, and then departing late. Once the business portion was over, a few of us had booked an apartment to share, and act as the base for our own explorations.
After the intensity of the prior week, and all of the responsibility that lay on me personally, it was incredibly liberating to be able to just exist in a common space alongside other folks without any pressure or expectations. It will probably sound ridiculous to anybody who hasn’t experienced this before, but as remote workers, there is something really satisfying about the ability to just sit and get on with what you need to do together, but separately, in a comfortable silence. That is a rare occurrence, and one I savoured.
One added bonus of being in person of course was that if we did need to ask each other something, we could do so quickly and easily – a novelty for folks that are usually spread across a vast array of timezones. It almost made me wish that we could all be together in one big office… though I quickly snapped out of that ridiculous delusion.
The extra few days meant that I could sink back into being more of myself, at the kind of pace that I prefer. That meant a lot of wandering around, taking pictures, though I don’t feel like I really did the city justice this time around.
One thing that was particularly nice about the latter part of the trip was that we all just did our own thing, meeting up if and when our preferences aligned. There was no obligation to spend time together, and when we did, it was because we wanted to. That usually coalesced around eating, drinking, or meandering through neighbourhoods like Exarcheia, which are literally dripping in street art.
As somebody who has spent a lot of time in Athens, and feels a particular connection and affinity for the place, it was especially meaningful to be able to share something of what I love about it with friends, and also see things afresh through their eyes as they made their own discoveries.
As I’ve spoken about before, Athens is a place soaked with political expression. It literally adorns every surface that you can think of. The anti-authoritarian nature of the Greeks, coupled with their willingness to stand up and (literally) fight for what they believe in is incredibly inspiring to me, especially as somebody that comes from an island that increasingly allows totalitarian legislation to be passed without so much as the batting of an eyelid. Whether or not we agree with their particular positions is kind of irrelevant.
Graffiti aside, I lost track of the number of demonstrations or protests that we saw over the course of just a few weeks, and we were even present for the legalisation of same gender marriage. It’s worth saying that this is a monumental shift, given that Greece is the first Orthodox Christian country to do so – and even more unusual because it happened under a conservative Government. Unfortunately, I flew out on the day that the farmers drove their tractors to blockade central Athens, as that is something I would have loved to have witnessed.
As a consequence of having Greek family, I’ve been coming here since I was literally a baby, and I’ve always dreamed of being able to speak the language fluently. Over the years I have made various attempts, with differing levels of success. Back when I started, there was no YouTube (!!), and the resources available to pick up Modern Greek in English were few and far between. In advance of this trip, I decided to bite the bullet and hire a tutor online – something which has made a huge difference, even in just a few months. We met up one night and had drinks, which for me felt like an interesting collision of worlds. Work, friends, family, personal history. I know that some people go to great lengths to avoid that kind of inter-mingling, but not me.
I am really glad that I was able to take some extra time after the meetup, and to do so with people I feel so at-ease and comfortable with. I am aware that this isn’t always going to be practical or possible, but I’ve come to realise that the intensity of these types of work trips requires careful consideration and handling. They take so much out of me, that recognising that, and planning in the appropriate aftercare is just as important as the main event itself. Having a soft landing makes all the difference.
I really appreciated having people around me this week that felt effortless to spend time with, and I couldn’t help but stop and reflect on the nature of my friendships in adulthood. Somehow, without realising – though almost certainly as a direct result of my own tendancies to push people away – over the years these have become reduced to carefully planned and executed events, centred around lunch, dinner, or (more often) drinks. The carefree spontenaity, shared experience, and common exploration of youth unfortunately seems like something of a faded, distant memory. When was the last time we just allowed ourselves to exist with other people, without needing a particular reason? How can we recapture and reclaim some of that sense of authentic community that we might have found at teenage summer camps or in University halls as grown-ups with responsibilities and obligations? I’m not quite sure, but it’s something that I’ve suddenly woken up to – and want to pursue deliberately. Thinking about it, that is one of the reasons that going on tour with my band a few years back was so important. We just don’t allow the space for that type of shared experience in our lives any longer. I am going to have to find ways to claw that back.
As everybody set off on their separate voyages, I remained in Athens to soak up as much of the city as I could. I loaded up some film in my M6 and meandered about for one last time, before meeting my cousin and some old friends at night.
For the final few days, I made my way north of the city, to where my family live. Their countryside house is a magnet for a variety of cats and dogs of varying shapes and sizes.
There are always some interesting sights to see in Greece – and the more rural parts are no exception. This guy below was dragging some kind of tree along the road.
Ending the trip eating biftekia and drinking coffee by the sea was definitely the way to go.
Until next time.
