Regarding Greece’s colossal deficit-based financial crisis, and the way it has now led to
extremely controversial and debatable austerity measures, as well as serious commentators
suggesting that the country should actually secede from the Eurozone, there’s one important
question that no one seems to have asked: does that mean that their booze WILL be
expensive or WON’T be expensive?
Hard one to call, isn’t it?
In the name of serious research, I travelled to Athens! No, I’m just yanking your chain; I went
there to get really drunk.
But also to visit the genuine non-touristy bars and talk to people about what’s been happening in their country; I’m not one of those losers that flies
across Europe and just goes to the Hard Rock Cafe to buy a souvenir glass. I wanted to see how much bitterness there actually is amongst the
The biggest protest I happened upon occurred even before a single beer had passed my lips. Emerging from the Metro outside the parliament building, I stumbled into a
truly massive rally of taxi drivers. Who were on strike about ... whatever the hell it is that people on strike are always moaning
about. Something to do with money, I expect.
So, to reiterate, it was a taxi drivers’ strike.
WHICH ARRIVED TWENTY MINUTES LATER THAN THEY’D SAID IT WOULD!!!
No, but seriously, folks...
Later, safely installed at a bar / restaurant called Elli and furnished with a glass of Mythos (Greece’s
most popular beer, for all the beer-related trivia fans) by the unsmiling Basil Fawlty of a waiter, I came across a second organised protest.
Actually, let’s talk about the beer first.
As lagers go, Mythos is all fine and good, but the really cool thing that loads of bars in Greece do is serve the litre measure in a MAHOOSIVE
glass shaped like a boot! A proper, huge glass boot. It’s one of those things that, on first sight, is faintly cool, but after you’ve clanged back
two or three of them in a row it graduates to being the funniest thing ever!
(And, for what it’s worth, in answer to my original question, booze in Athens is basically the sort of prices you’d expect to pay in central
London (or, to put it another way, too fucking dear!).)
Ok, so the other protest I was going to tell you about was a little less orthodox than the first. As I sat at
my table on the pavement in front of Elli, a sizeable throng of disgruntled-looking individuals arrived as a
horde and parked themselves right next to me. They then started disgruntling en masse, as disgruntled
hordes have a habit of doing, performing various chants and shouting slogans.
Now, the sort of weird thing is, and I don’t know how funny this comes across if you aren’t there, but as a non-Greek speaker, it just
looked like they were complaining about me. Fair go, I know I’m not to everyone’s taste, but a full-on organised demonstration as soon as I’d arrived in the city seemed a little extreme. I spent a minute or so singularly consumed with interest in the menu.
When I eventually plucked up the courage to approach the guy in charge and ask him what the problem was (without sounding like I was shining him on – I was, after all, laughably outnumbered) he told me in broken English that they were a waiters’ union and one of their members – who worked at Elli – was owed €10,000 in unpaid wages by the boss. €10,000!!! How the fuck do you let yourself get to a state of being owed that much by your employer?! In fact, I pretty much asked the guy that very question.
In quite a telling answer, he said that you were better off in modern-day Greece surviving on tips than you were in most other jobs in
the country. I asked him if there was anywhere he’d recommend I go so I was supporting more moral employers. He said “Yes ...
go home.” And I should clarify here: that wasn’t him saying ‘bugger off back to your own country’ after the style of my Dad. That was
him making the heartfelt point that Greece is not exactly overburdened with moral employers. (Like the Murdoch press ... RIGHT
Ok, I should probably say something about Athens in the vague pretence of being a normal travel writer.
The Parthenon on the Acropolis! That’s what you want to hear about isn’t it?
For what it’s worth, it really is a cool location to visit – this two and a half thousand year old Doric temple (the largest in the world) that has
sadly been systematically ransacked, first by Christians and then by Muslims, in a manner that would have Richard Dawkins crying out
‘See?! I told you all religion was twat!’
Then, in 1687, it was hit by a Venetian cannonball. This probably wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world, if
it weren’t for the tiny, tiny point that the occupying Turks were using it as a place to store gunpowder by this stage.
So the temple consequently had a fuck-off massive hole blown in one side. Maybe the previous sentiment should be
updated to: ‘All people are twat!’
By the way, if you’re ever in Athens, a great way to take in the Acropolis is to start in the Plaka district (while you’re there, laugh at all those
unadventurous dickheads going to the Hard Rock Cafe) and take the very-hard-to-pronounce Dionysiou Areopagitou pedestrianised walkway
which leads all around the foot of the hill, turning into the equally-hard-to-pronounce Apostolou Pavlou before dropping you in a district the
name of which, if I typed it, would look like my keyboard had just vomited.
Once there, you can stop for a bevy at the city’s oldest coffee shop, TO XANI TOY OѲΩNA, a place I’m mainly proud of
because I managed to find those symbols using Microsoft Word. In fact, while we’re on the subject of throwing about
mathematical symbols and calling it an alphabet, Greece’s second most popular beer seems to be AΛΦA, and I was
disproportionately pleased with myself when I worked out this said ‘Alpha’.
Ok, I admit it; it was ME going into the Hard Rock Cafe and buying the souvenir glass! And you know what? I don’t give a flying
fuck what anyone thinks! Bring it on! In fact, now picture me leaving the Hard Rock Cafe, grabbing my balls and flipping the
middle finger...
Maybe I’m getting a little over-defensive about this?
