The eternal battle: ancient history or modern culture

We finished off our day in Athens with an initiation to my new favorite food: Greek yogurt and honey, offered to us free of charge by our Athens restaurant.

We were so appreciative that they then brought us a couple of glasses of ouzo, which I was less enthusiastic about but I did try to drink. Ron, true to form, knocked his entire glass back with such gusto that we were then treated to free cake:

Now we’re in the good hands of George, from Private Greece Tours. There’s nothing like dropping ourselves down into the comfort of a Mercedes van for 5 days after having spent a day walking Athens, searching our way on my 2G-speed GPS. At one point, in an effort to save a little time covering the .9 mile walk from our hotel to a museum, we cut through a park that turned out to be blocked by the Presidential Palace and lots of guards at our desired place of exit, forcing us to turn back and repeat the trek. It never fails – by the time I get to a museum, I am too tired to care what’s inside.

Now, we are expertly dropped off and picked up from sites and so I can concentrate my efforts on trying to track what George and Ron are talking about in the van. I’ve got the basics for you but don’t call me out if dates are wrong as I don’t care, as always. We stopped at the Corinth Canal, which I believe to be from the 19th century, maybe. But certainly not earlier, I wouldn’t think. It’s just wide enough for exactly one ship.

George fills us in on the historical importance of each site as we approach and I forget the information as soon as it’s provided to me. I make my typical and continual efforts to move the conversation to social and popular culture data and George complies for a bit but then throws himself back to the B.C/A.D eras. I’m aware that the minimum wage in Greece is 500 Euros per month, down from 700 Euros. The decrease was required by the European Union as part of the Austerity Measures after the “Crisis”. George calls it the Crisis each and every time and finally, risking revelation of my ignorance, I had to ask what the impetus for the crisis was and, it turns out, WE WERE! Our 2008 recession. Probably all of you already knew that, but just in case…

But back to George and Ancient Greece. Here’s Ancient Corinth, from 700 BC:

After we toured the site for awhile, Ron let me go into a grocery store and look around at the stuff on the shelves. I was able to buy a cool-looking jar of peanut butter and some rice cakes but Ron was sitting outside staring at me, all body language indicating it was time to move on and so we headed out to another old site, which is going to be Mycenae in just a minute, so be patient. But first…I got George to pull over onto the side of the road to pop into a crazy-looking “Antique Store”. It was three field size buildings of random stuff for sale by a guy named Stelios, who used the generous definition of antique – any item he was trying to sell, including this:

Ron found his dream purchase there but left empty handed but don’t give up hope – he’s shopping with purpose and determination as we travel around. I almost wanted him to buy it just to see what the Homeowner’s Association would think if we propped that outside his front door and it would have been fun to figure out the shipping charge on that thing. Stelios was really willing to deal too – he said he would ship it to us and we could pay for it later!

Ok, and here’s Mycenae, the most powerful kingdom in Greece from 1600 to 1200 BC. Well, crap, I forgot to take a picture at Mycenae but here’s the distant mountain picture I took as I sat on an (ancient) rock and looked around.

Back in the car, exhausted from tracking history, George offered to take us to an off-the-beaten-track town called Tolo. We made a brief stop there for lunch and I got this amazing eggplant and this amazing view:

Ron, who didn’t want to stop for lunch at all, needed another history infusion at this point and so George routed us to Epidaurus to see the theatre, which I remembered to take a picture of. Built in about 330 BC and holds about 12,000. There are plays here in the summer.

I utilized the driving time in the van to probe further into the economic realities of life in Greece. George says that of the 1700 dollars paid for our tour, about 2/3 of it will disappear in taxes. The tax money funds all sorts of things but we focused on medical care. George says that you can get free care in Greece and that, in an emergency, that’s the way to go. Heart attack? You’re in immediately. But the mundane? Well, you’ll wait months to have your teeth cleaned or to have a routine check up. So there’s a private care system as well. I haven’t had time to get prices yet but we’ve got 5 hours in the car tomorrow so I hope for some progress. George did reveal that, to get the best care, public or private, you need to “give the envelope”, which is a deeply-engrained bribery system.

We’re here in the lovely town of Nafplio for the night and then we’re off to Delphi in the morning and then to some modern history stops that I’ve added on to the tour.