Riding the wind in disguise

I finally got round to doing something interesting today! I took part in the Athens Masked AlleyCat Race. I had heard of the AlleyCat Races and had always wanted to gear my self up to taking part in one.

Let me explain. These races are fun competitions/actions organised by a group of activist cyclists called λοκαλ (local), with the premise that its a fun way to reclaim our public space, by actually using it rather than just passing through in hermetically sealed cars. If you read greek, you can check out their site.
So what exactly is an alleycat race? It's a cycle race through Athens without a set itinerary. Starting off from the starting point you are given the location of the first check-point. Once there, you are told the location of the second check-point, and so forth. So you end up going in circles and zig-zags through the city never knowing where you'll end up, every one choosing their own route from one check-point to the next.
Only this alleycat race (my maiden one, but hopefully not my last!) had a twist. It's the second Sunday of the Apokries (Mardigras), so it was a masked race! Being my usual procrastinating self, I left it till last minute to decide what to dress up as. I ended up making myself a pair of wings late last night and this morning before the race. I almost missed the race because of the damn wings! They ended up a bodged job because I was in such a hurry.
Word of advice - when cycling in fancy dress avoid wings! They catch the wind and slow you down, they make it difficult to look over your shoulder at the cars behind you, they don't let you easily fit through narrow spaces. I originally made the wings to fall outwards like real ones. They looked great, but were hardly practical, so I had to stitch them up to sit behind my back. On the final leg of the race the stitching came undone and I found myself flapping down the street, wings stretched wide!

For those who want to know exactly how much of Athens I cycled through today, here are the check-points:

Start point: Zappeio Megaro
--> Omonoia Square
--> Syntagma Square
--> Hilton Hotel
--> Katechaki Metro Station (on top of the Calatrava Footbridge!)
--> Kolumbitirio (the swimming pool opposite the Kallimarmaro Stadium)
--> Syggroy-Fix
--> the workers housing on the Filoppapou ring road
Finish point: Gazi on the pedestrian street opposite Technopolis.

I didn't properly count but I think it took me about an hour and a half.

World Press Photo of the Year 2008

I was looking at the World Press Photo of the Year Winners last night. Truly amazing photos! If anyone is as interrested in photography as I am, they should really check them out!

The more things change, the more they stay the same

It's been awhile. What have I been up to?
First I was depressed,
then I got robbed,
then I was traveling,
then I got sick.

Now I'm back and kind of better.

It's easy to see that the only fun thing I did was traveling. First I went to Paris for a week and then to Thessaloniki for 4 days.
Things Paris and Thessaloniki have in common:
a. I studied in both cities,
b. I have a close friend living in each city,
c. They are damp, cold and dreary places in the winter, hot and humid in the summer, but wonderful all other times,
d. They are both far more beautiful than Athens.

In Paris I stayed at my good friend Amin's place. We had two years of catching up to do! I met his cute new boyfriend and said hi to his nice ex's - that boy sure has good taste! Apart from catching up with people, I meandered around the city. Actually I did a fairly good impersonation of an emo (or is that a goth?); I visited graveyards (I had never bothered to visit Pere Lachaise before) and a walked by myself in the hail and rain without an umbrella (not my fault the weather was foul and my umbrella was stolen!). Paris is lovely, yet depressing if you're single. I tried to cheer myself up with shopping (which only half-worked since I didn't have enough money) and taking photos (which was hard, because I was using a borrowed camera.)

As soon as I returned to Greece, I was off again to Thessaloniki, with my sister and my friend Voula this time. Thessaloniki was almost just as I left it. The only difference is that they're finally begun work on the long promised metro line, and the center city looks like one big construction site. (In other words what Athens looked like the years before the Olympics.) In Thessaloniki I took my friends for walks in the cold and we did a lot of eating. Thessaloniki is famed for it's food! I realised, yet again, that I know Thessaloniki like the back of my hand - far far better than I know my hometown of Athens.

And upon returning home, I realise that like most Athenians, I share a strange love-hate relationship with my city. It's easy to love her when I'm away, and very very easy to hate her when I'm home.

A week later

I finally ventured into the center of Athens yesterday evening. This whole week I have been feeling horribly old and out of the loop. Things had been happening, the center was ablaze and yet I went to work and returned home and did nothing. It made me feel not only old, but also alienated and vaguely guilty. If I really wanted to, I know people I could call that I'm sure would be in the current, they probably spent the majority of the week barricaded in the polytechnic. But somehow work just sucks you dry, and once you're back home in the evening you are little but a worn out husk of the person you used to be.

When I was twenty I would be rearing to join them, but now I'm feeling too jaded and let-down and pessimistic. I did once try to change things. We were organised and energetic. We were civilised and ready to talk. We had reasonable and feasible demands. We were right, I still believe strongly that we were right. Yet we were ignored and nothing came of all out efforts. I can't help but fear that these youths are doomed to failure. The government will probably fall. But so what? There doesn't exist a single political party that is not just as bad and corrupt. And what's more, we are part of the EU. The rioters and demonstrators are not only fighting against the inertia of the Greek government, but also that of all the EU governments.

Do I mean they shouldn't fight? That they should just lay down and take everything the state dishes them? Of course not. They should riot, they should break things. They should try. But also they should know that they will most probably fail. We have to try and change things, otherwise we might as well be dead. However we are seemingly doomed to failure. If you sit down and thing of it, even the French Revolution was a failure in the end.

As I was saying I went to the center yesterday. I went to the peaceful sit-in demonstration in Syntagma square. I sat with friends from seven in the evening till ten at night. It was quiet and uneventful and we eventually left because we got too cold sitting on the cold concrete. I later learned that the police finally broke up the peaceful protest at three in the morning by throwing tear gas.



After we passed by Exarcheia - the epicenter of the riots. Things were gearing up for hard night - it was exactly a week since the shooting. We saw fires and riot police everywhere. We quickly left because the place was smothered under a cloud of teargas.

City Under Siege

Fortunately I was wrong, it wasn't the National Library they burnt, but the Law School Library. Of course that is almost as bad....

Five days later and Athens is still at war. Today they even closed down two of the central underground stations. The train doesn't stop, but just goes through non-stop. It's scary to think of. Obviously buses have long since stopped going to the centre.

Things have completely got out of hand.

The state of things in Greece and the present government often makes me so mad I want to bomb the Parliament or something similar, so I can sympathise with the rioters to a point. Sometimes you are so damn angry you have to break something. However there is a line and it has been crossed. I'm ok with breaking banks and burning police stations. I can even deal with a couple of broken shop windows and destroyed cars. But when you start burning public libraries, blocks of flats with people in (!!), fire-trucks and national health offices you have definitely crossed over into gratuitous, senseless and indefensible destruction.
But I'm not so much angry with the rioters as disappointed and frustrated. My real anger is reserved for the government and the police. The police are busy drowning the centre of the city under gallons of tear gas, beating up kids from the protest marches organised by schools and pulling guns during the funeral procession of the dead boy. Worse than that I suspect the fact that they are condoning the fact our very own neo-nazis (the Golden Dawn) have taken to the streets amongst the general mayhem to attack anarchists and immigrants.
As for the government and the politicians in general, they are too busy playing their power games to give a damn about what is actually happening. All they care about is whether the current government will fall or not and whether the opposition party will be able to take advantage of the situation and seize the power. If any of the rioters and reading this blog, can I make a request? Could you please attack the Parliament while it's in session (otherwise there'd be no point)?
Maybe I shouldn't be too greedy, one of my requests has already been granted. Thankfully they burnt the hideous Christmas Tree that has been defacing Syntagma Square for the past couple of years. (Thank you rioters!)

There once were buildings

I just learnt that the National Library is on fire. I think I'm going to lie down and cry...

There are no words

I have so much to say that I'm choked by the words.