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hawkwing_lbA breakfast of plain yoghurt and sweet strawberries, the yoghurt all but solid. Afterwards some work on this conference paper, but at 1300, hungry and frustrate, I set off for Plaka.
There's nothing terribly exciting about the metro to Monastiraki, but the souvlaki place on the street opposite the station still seems to be doing good business. The one problem is I always forget its name, but you can get souvlaki kebab there - two kebabs in one pita for 3.30 euro, and a solid helping of tomato and red onion. (I always ask for the tzatziki to be left off.) The kebabs were salty but tasty; the tomato juicy, and I wound up with tomato juice dripping on my white t-shirt before I polished off the remains and sauntered into the agora.
The upper level of the reconstructed South Stoa was open, with an exhibit on the changing face of the agora in antiquity. This is the first time I've been up to the upper level of the Stoa, and the view over the agora is rather astounding. It makes you think what it must have been like, when more than one stoa stood; when the Odeon of Agrippa loomed in the centre and altars and shops and temples and offices all around.
From the Stoa I wandered up towards the Hephaisteion, sat on a bench in the shade on the shoulder of the rise, above the Tholos. This is what I wrote in my notebook, wanting to keep hold of the moment:
Shortly thereafter, my train of thought was interrupted by the blowing of whistles as the site guards closed up for 1500. (I succeeded in startling one of them, a nice boy, by responding to his inquiries in my dreadful Greek.)
Stopped off for yoghurt on the way back to the metro. There is a delicious yoghurt place on Adrianou. Frozen yoghurt! In many flavours, and with many toppings - and they charge by weight, not by topping. Strawberries and redcurrants and figs and grapes and glacé cherries and strawberries in syrup and raspberries in syrup and orange bits and OTHER FRUIT I DON'T EVEN KNOW. And all kinds of chocolate and cereal toppings, and honey and caramel and a sort of light syrup? And melted chocolate of several different sorts. The flavours of yoghurt this time were plain, vanilla, banana and hazelnut. (Last summer they had mango and strawberry and - I think - lime.)
And the woman remembered me from last year, and gave me a discount. Which was aces, and if I'd thought she was going to do that, I'd have filled my little yoghurt tub more full.
Delicious.
Now, though, I suppose I should try to do more work.
There's nothing terribly exciting about the metro to Monastiraki, but the souvlaki place on the street opposite the station still seems to be doing good business. The one problem is I always forget its name, but you can get souvlaki kebab there - two kebabs in one pita for 3.30 euro, and a solid helping of tomato and red onion. (I always ask for the tzatziki to be left off.) The kebabs were salty but tasty; the tomato juicy, and I wound up with tomato juice dripping on my white t-shirt before I polished off the remains and sauntered into the agora.
The upper level of the reconstructed South Stoa was open, with an exhibit on the changing face of the agora in antiquity. This is the first time I've been up to the upper level of the Stoa, and the view over the agora is rather astounding. It makes you think what it must have been like, when more than one stoa stood; when the Odeon of Agrippa loomed in the centre and altars and shops and temples and offices all around.
From the Stoa I wandered up towards the Hephaisteion, sat on a bench in the shade on the shoulder of the rise, above the Tholos. This is what I wrote in my notebook, wanting to keep hold of the moment:
The agora smells like burnt caramel, almost: some sweet combination of pine, laurel, olive, dust. The acropolis and the hill of the Areopagus before me, circled round with still-green pines - and off to the left, further distant, the slopes of the mountains. It's not a perfect peace. But by Zeus - yes indeed by Zeus - it's glorious.
It is not yet truly summer. The heat has not yet stifled movement. Birds warble in the greenery, sleepy pigeons fluff their feathers on a corner of the South Stoa, yellow and white butterflies flutter past. The drone of cicadas is missing - although I don't find I miss it.
Every time I come here, I see something new, among the archaeological clutter. Or rather, have the time to appreciate something old, until now unnoticed. This time it was the "Civic Offices" in front of the Middle Stoa, and the small boundary stone adjacent, I am the boundary of the agora; ΗΟΡΟΣ εἶμι τῆς ἀγορᾶς. And on the slope of the hill whereon sits the Hephaisteion, the "Geometric Cemetery" and the building marked "Strategeion(?)" whose purpose is disputed. The geometric cemetery is blink-and-you-miss-it stuff: stony holes in stony ground, grown about with grasses. And yet here we touch 2,800 years of history preserved in the earth - sheltered only a little from the passing feet of sun-pinked complaining American tourists. (Overheard: "I donwanna do this anymore," which is not the style of whine one expects from an adult woman.)
Shortly thereafter, my train of thought was interrupted by the blowing of whistles as the site guards closed up for 1500. (I succeeded in startling one of them, a nice boy, by responding to his inquiries in my dreadful Greek.)
Stopped off for yoghurt on the way back to the metro. There is a delicious yoghurt place on Adrianou. Frozen yoghurt! In many flavours, and with many toppings - and they charge by weight, not by topping. Strawberries and redcurrants and figs and grapes and glacé cherries and strawberries in syrup and raspberries in syrup and orange bits and OTHER FRUIT I DON'T EVEN KNOW. And all kinds of chocolate and cereal toppings, and honey and caramel and a sort of light syrup? And melted chocolate of several different sorts. The flavours of yoghurt this time were plain, vanilla, banana and hazelnut. (Last summer they had mango and strawberry and - I think - lime.)
And the woman remembered me from last year, and gave me a discount. Which was aces, and if I'd thought she was going to do that, I'd have filled my little yoghurt tub more full.
Delicious.
Now, though, I suppose I should try to do more work.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-29 04:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-29 04:57 pm (UTC)I'd offer to send you some frozen yoghurt, but aren't you in the home of gelato right now?
no subject
Date: 2013-05-29 05:11 pm (UTC)And yes, I am still in the land of gelato. It was more the BEING IN ATHENS part I was jealous of. I was in Rome last weekend, which was fabulous, but I am always a Hellenist first, and I have not yet made it to Greece.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-29 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-01 04:54 am (UTC)Poem, please.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-01 06:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-02 07:48 am (UTC)I can be patient.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-02 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-10 10:33 pm (UTC)"Deme of the Sparrow" (http://hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com/562757.html)