Aug. 15, 2008

4:15 a.m.

Sea-Tac airport

The moon was setting when I left my apartment for the airport. It was yellow and gauzy, wrapped in dark clouds. The city looked like one of those pop-up postcards, cut sharply against a muted sky.

Seattle was as sleepy as I was. The few places operating seemed almost embarrassed to be up so early, like children trying so hard to be quiet in the wee hours of Christmas morning.

I checked and rechecked my passport and wallet as if they would disappear on me. Panic seized me for a moment. I am going somewhere far away for a long time. Then I patted my bag down once again.

Aug. 16, 2008

10 p.m.

The Norwegian Institute of Athens Guesthouse

The air is hot and still, and the city is buzzing. Voices bounce off the buildings around me. A motor scooter’s engine pops below. I am in Athens.

For someplace that, in my mind, had seemed so exotic, it is welcoming and cozy in the dark and solitude of the night. I am sitting on our rooftop terrace, writing by the lone operating flood lamp. My pen’s shadow stretches across the page.

The moon looks like it was hole punched from the sky. There’s a portion missing though, a fuzzy oval. It’s a lunar eclipse.

When I first arrived, the city didn’t feel as welcoming as it does now. It’s rough around the edges, urban and baked hard in the Mediterranean sun. The Greek language is completely foreign, and so are we. This gaggle of girls — and only two guys — sticks out, with our confident strut and bold laughter. We also travel in a pack, blocking grocery store aisles in our befuddlement and bobbing in a protective circle in the warm, green sea, circling the wagons against a group of persistent, hairy men.

I had expected Athens to be more overtly gritty, and for the dangers to be less subtle and cunning. Sarah got her wallet stolen today during the tram ride. Someone desperate or lazy — or both — lifted it during the 40-minute crush of sweaty bodies. The pickpocket made off with her Euros and dollars, credit cards and ID. To make things worse, her luggage is stuck at Heathrow Airport in London and has yet to arrive.

During the tram ride there had been an argument between an older woman and a dark-skinned man. It was in Greek, but the anger was as obvious as if it had been in English. After it simmered down, another man started to speak. In mellow tones reminiscent of a California surfer dude, but with a heavy Greek accent, he said, “Don’t worry, be happy.”

The car laughed. It was a poignant reminder.

Aug. 17, 2008

2 a.m.

Guesthouse in Athens, Greece

Tonight we dined in the glow of the lit Acropolis. A musician with dark, sad eyes serenaded us in Greek for hours, his voice getting rougher with use as the dishes kept coming.

An elegant woman with wispy grey hair danced, stepping purposefully with her arms outstretched and fingers clicking. She sang along softly. Kneeling before her was a young man, who clapped in time with her steps.

I received a lesson on Greece and its burgeoning civil society while sipping a cold, sweet frappe through a straw in Syntagma Square.

A swift-footed stray dog followed us from the café in the square to the restaurant. He ran up and down the group, nearly taking off a passerby’s arm. The man had slinked too close to us and was obviously a threat, in the dog’s eyes, that warranted a bark and a nip. The pooch was protecting his pack of well-dressed girls and guys in skirts and slacks, rustling to dinner.

The full moon hung between the evanescent pillars of the Temple of Zeus Panhellenios, completed in 131 A.D. The Parthenon glowed from within nearby, golden in the close, moist night air.

These words are absurdly simple reflections of the experience; just a scaffolding that can’t possibly hold the whole beautiful truth. I am blessedly overwhelmed.

Sept. 1, 2008

1:55 p.m.

Island of Hydra, café

I am watching, as I often do, small events of humanity.

A blonde woman in a short dress and big sunglasses steps unsteadily from a fishing boat and two leathery seamen point her toward some destination. She weaves away and the men look after her, leering, but in an amused, and not altogether unpleasant way.

I sip my Freddo cappuccino. It is cold and sweet, staying on my tongue long after I swallow. That is the mark of a quality Freddo cappuccino, I think. It came in a tall glass, with the foam sitting thickly on top, as it should, and the coffee is the color of burnt sugar. I stir it and take another sip.

I am sitting, looking out to disembarking boats and up to the red-tiled, whitewashed buildings. Flags whip about in the fresh breeze. It is so different than Athens, with its stuffiness and sewage smells. I worked my way inland this morning, exploring the part of Hydra that lives away from the tourist hustle and bustle.

There was an old woman yelling at someone in a shop. She hobbled toward her bags and I, trying to be polite, got out of her way and called out “yassous” to her.

Her angry façade dropped and she clutched my shoulder, talking to me in rapid Greek. All I could do was smile and say, over and over, “Americana, Americana.”

Her shoulder was so thin between my fingers and my thumb I could grasp the bone. So, there we were, shoulder to shoulder, our arms intertwined in the middle of a cobblestone street.

We made quite a pair, a smiling American girl and a stooped, sun-hewn, old Greek woman, chattering to one another in different languages. Finally I squeezed her shoulder and pronounced a final “yassous” (the formal version of “yassou”, which means hello and goodbye, kind of like “aloha”). I dragged my fingers along the thin cloth of her dress and away, back down the street.

I was lost in remembering. Now my glass has watermarks on it, little white stripes of burst milk bubbles, showing how far the foam has deflated.

Sept. 20, 2008

8:10 p.m.

Athens, Greece

Athens cries. The rain fills the gutters and strips the dirt from the streets. I am crying too. It is my last day in Greece. Tomorrow I leave and go back home, to Seattle, to school and to work, to my friends and family too. It is bittersweet. Greece has been that for me. Bittersweet, like those sour gummy candies that I love so much — tart and sugary all at the same time.

There is the pollution and the noise and the insanity of Athens that make me want to crawl away, back to America, and the honking and yelling, and then the papers and presentations and grades of the study abroad program.

Then there is the old woman, a painter in Plaka, who gently put up my hood and patted my head before I ducked from her tiny shop back into the rainy street. And a man, who was walking down an alley on a cool morning, playing the accordian. He smiled and waved at me. I waved back. And once again, I was in love.

Reach features editor Erinn Unger at features@dailyuw.com.