In certain popular global destinations, it’s easy to forget people can be tourists in their own country. The idea that Americans explore the vast and beautiful offerings of our own hinterland only makes sense. As Michael the 16 year-old waiter on Patmos said this summer, “If I were American, I would spend my whole life seeing new things in America. Why would I need to travel to any other country?!”
Yet Michael's earnings along with at least half the population of his island's comes from people who decide the world outside their countries is worth seeing.
Coming to Greece off-season helps make clearer that Greeks do indeed have a healthy domestic tourism industry. People from the countryside and islands come to Athens for the holidays – maybe to see family or just to see the Acropolis and Temple of Zeus like everyone else. And certainly to shop.
The very nice Greek lady who sat next to me on my flight from London to Athens told me how each summer she and her family try a different Greek island for vacation. With so many amazing and special islands, they make sure to see something new with every vacation. My roughly 53 year-old Athens-based "single serving friend" (to borrow from Fight Club) has not only never been to Patmos, but had no idea how one would even go about getting there. That said, she spent almost a decade living in London and at one point in her youth had a boyfriend in Los Angeles and wanted to live in San Francisco. Unsurprisingly, she teaches English literature at an American school in Athens.
After an all-too-short sleep, Michelle and I got up at a reasonable hour this morning and got out into the world if for no other reason than to begin acclimating to the time. The weather is shockingly like home – sunny but brisk with leaves still falling off some trees with fully-ripened citrus on others. In summer, everyone assumed correctly we were foreigners and addressed us in English. In winter, everyone addresses us in Greek. Even at the base of the Acropolis in one of the most touristy areas of the city where throngs of visitors from around the world fill the hot, sweaty streets in July and August, the cafe waitress brought me a Greek menu and only when she glanced at my computer screen stopped to ask me if I needed an English one.
While there are certainly wisps of foreign tourists, Athenians own Athens this time of year and in that way, the city is much more interesting. In December, Athens is a residential city of real people whose lives and habits are clear to the passerby. For better and worse, there's authenticity which feels scarcely imaginable during the busy season.
I'm not sure Athens is any more lovely or charming per se, but it is more accessible and comfortable. And in a sense, honest.
Personally, I have no agenda for our day in Athens which is really just necessary to catch the evening ferry. Michelle wanted to go up the Acropolis which she didn't get a chance to do in July and has a couple of shopping needs around town – which is fine by me. It gives me time to write and perhaps scout a bakery from which to grab some good eats to take on the ferry.
Maybe it's the jet lag or the half-hearted hot chocolate the cafe served, but I'm feeling ambivalent at best about Athens. I just want to get home to Patmos.
It gives me the mental space to wonder how my other "single serving friend" from yesterday fared. In the boarding line for the Los Angeles to London flight I met a nice guy who works for the State Department's security services heading back to the US Embassy in Beirut. While my questions concerned things life safety, chaos and instability, his mind was more preoccupied with the three Costco briskets he had packed in a soft-cooler in his bags and whether he would successfully be able to smuggle them into Lebanon so he and other residents of the embassy compound could use their smoker. Apparently a $60 brisket at Costco would cost about $210 in a Lebanese market – inflation is so bad.
While I might be more worried for my safety in Beirut, my friend's feeling was the embassy provides good secure transportation for him – he would provide meat for it. He also literally brings home the bacon – he had a five-pack of that too.
My friend is a nice 49-year-old Mormon guy from Phoenix whose youngest son gets married this summer and is the last of his children to be married off. He grew up on military bases, became an Air Marshall after 9-11 and eventually joined the State Department with assignments protecting the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, the US Embassy in Cape Verde (off the coast of Senegal for anyone looking), the US Embassy in Australia and now the US Embassy in Lebanon. We continued our conversation in the United lounge at Heathrow where I was treated to some very interesting stories including one about Michelle Obama visiting Cape Verde and trying to find an ambulance to meet Secret Service protocols.
Besides helping me understand why the Saudi Ambassador and Ashton Kutcher would be friends, my brisket-smoking friend reminded me about one of the best parts of travel: encountering all the many kinds of people many things you might not otherwise even know existed. Sometimes I look around and see lots of people doing relatively the same thing – and it feel boring. Then in line for a flight or on a remote beach I meet someone doing something I never thought about before – who has found a different way to make a living, or an interesting way to navigate life. And I feel refreshed and comforted by the fact – even if it seems hard or inobvious – we can always deconstruct life and find new options. Life is not as finite and written as it often appears. It's always brisket-time somewhere.
