In Which I Acquaint Myself With Pottery, Commerce, and Tasteless Objects of Every Description

This picture from Athens amuses me greatly. I have no explanation for it, except that tourism crosses all borders and cultural boundaries.
Anyway, I departed from Monemvasia on the 2:15 bus to Athens, which arrived at 2:35. I was the only one on the entire bus, and I settled down for a long ride, as my five days of travel had landed me almost at the tip of of the Peloponnese itself. For those of you unfamilar with Greek geography, I had basically spent five days working my way south, until I was almost as far south as it is possible to get without landing on an island. Athens was five hours north. I had decided to return there for a day before heading back to Thessaloniki; I wanted to a chance to see some of the things I had missed during my previous trip.
I had only been riding the bus for half an hour or so when they announced that I had to get off and get onto an adjacent bus in an unknown town somewhere. I did so. An hour later, they announced that once again, I needed to disembark, and get on bus number three. This brought my total bus tally for my trip up to the lucky number thirteen, where it finally ceased. When I had climbed onto my final bus for the day, I relaxed and congratulated myself on not forgetting or losing anything important throughout my entire Peloponnesian adventure. Half an hour later I realized my Lonely Planet book had disappeared. I cursed myself, realizing it must have been left on northbound bus number two, and I lacked many of the phone numbers and little itty bits of paper that I had written important things on and shoved between the pages. However, it was hardly a complete tragedy. After all, Lonely Planet just came out with a new edition, and rightfully so; my old book kept saying things like "The Athens transportation system is due to change in 2004, rendering all information here invalid." Of course, most things due to change in 2004 (such as the eradication of the Kifisou bus station) have not occurred, as this is Greece. But I did spend some time wondering. Well, the book served me well enough that I shouldn't complain; ancient sites hardly move around much.
Anyway, I arrived in Athens safe and sound, planted myself in the youth hostel in Plaka, and grabbed dinner at the first place I found, as I was exhausted. I must say, I do appreciate the existence of youth hostels when they are available, and I rather miss them in Greece. This nation is significantly cheaper than other parts of Europe that I have travelled through, but staying alone in hotels did raise the prices slightly. In Athens, I shared a room with three English majors from a small college in Iowa (I swear, I am not making this up) and spent very little money on accomodation.
The next morning I was off to the archeological museum, where I saw all of the gold from Mycenae, a fitting way to end my trip. I also saw a whole lot of sculptures, including a rather famous bronze one of Zeus that I remember seeing pictures of in high school art history class, and some beautiful pottery. I must say, I was particularly taken with the pottery. I have seen Greek pottery before, but not in such vast quantities or in such an appropriate context. I particularly like the black and red designs, which seem to come largely from the Athens/Attiki area. The figures are all beautifully painted, and very human; they are depicted doing anything from dancing to doing laundry to getting married.

Here's a vase painted with a picture of Sappho, a fragment of a pot covered with dancing nymphs, and a scene with two lovers that comes from a beautiful plate.
I wanted to purchase some postcards of pictures from the pottery; my camera hadn't quite done justice to some of the images, even when I crouched down closely and tried not to let my hand waver. However, I was quite disappointed to learn that the gift shop did not sell much of that sort of thing. In fact, the gift shop itself was something of an experience. I stumbled into it by mistake, thinking I had entered another gallery, when I realized that I was looking upon an exact replica, albeit slightly smaller, of the aforementioned Bronze Zeus. I wondered why they would keep a copy if the original was right upstairs; but then I noticed the price tag. As it turns out, you can buy your very own life size bronze Zeus for only four thousand Euro.
Four thousand Euro. I haven't made that much money since my arrival in Greece. That's enough Euro coins to fill my bathtub. I could take in the entire cat population of Pylea for that sum, not that I need any more felines in my life. I could not quite fathom why anyone would want their own life-size bronze Zeus. However, I was soon to discover that Athens contains a myriad of purchasing opportunities, many of which are similarly baffling prospects.
My next stop, you see, was the market, a vast area full of twisting and turning streets, where numerous merchants sell anything from antiques to lamb intestines to pistachios. There are some worthwhile things to buy there, of course, and I did purchase a skirt for myself and a hanging lamp for my sister, but I did not find any postcards with desirable pottery images on them. I did find postcards with cats on them and postcards with pornographic pottery images on them. I guess that tells me something about humanity, but it's nothing I didn't know already.
I soon moved on to another market, this one more ancient in nature. The agora, located in the foothills of the acropolis, was closed during my last trip to Athens, but it was open this time. I wandered about and examined the ancient columns still standing, and tried to imagine in some of the vendors that I had seen that morning, advertising their animal innards and dried fruit with vehemence. It's much quieter than the modern market nowadays, but you can see plenty of real Greek cats, rather than looking at them on postcards. Graphic sexual paintings were NOT available, however, so if that's what you're looking for, stick to the souvenir shops.
Speaking of souvenir shops, that's what I spent much of my afternoon doing; perusing souvenir shops in Plaka. This was mostly due to time constraints and exhuastion, which prevented me from straying too far from my hostel before I caught my flight north. I did not actually want to purchase very much at these stores, as I am not endowed with vast resources of disposable cash, and growing up in New York has made me skeptical of souvenir shops. (Come on, that twenty-dollar statuette of King Kong on the Empire State building is not really going to improve your life, is it? It's definitely not going to improve your image in the eyes of New Yorkers.) However, I entertained myself by playing a fun little game entitled "Find the Tackiest Object". In the running for the prize were T-shirts that showed Socrates drinking hemlock (because killing free thinkers is something to be proud of!), ouzo bottles shaped like various mythological figures (because Aphrodite liked anise), ouzo bottles shaped like various naked mythological figures (because Americans like anise better when it is topless), and massive imitation statues of all shapes and sizes (because that is going to look really classy in your living room, especially next to that bronze Zeus.)
Just to give you a taste of the various tasteful objects I could bring home with me, here are some pictures, consisting of two dazzling light fixtures, the previously depicted, mysteriously out-of place-garment, and an ironically appropriate accessory for the smoker in your life.



My parents are not overjoyed about the idea of my cat coming home with me, but I bet they would be even less enthusiastic if the cat came along with an electric topless nymph.
I did make one purchase in Athens; olive oil. I bought some very nice Cretan olive oil, which I placed in my bag and promptly forgot about. An hour later, I headed to the airport, where I boarded an extraordinarily cheap Aegean Air flight to Thessaloniki, and forgetfuly checked the bag with the olive oil in the bottom. I arrived at the baggage claim to find that my bag and many of the contents were irreparably saturated, or perhaps marinated would be a better way of saying it. Glass bottles don't do well in luggage compartments. Remind me of that next time. I'm still scrubbing the olive oil out of my bag and even off the floor of my apartment, where the bag first landed on my arrival home.

Up Next: Easter, The Inner Organs of Beast and Fowl, Baklava Ice Cream, and The City That Never Sleeps, not even at three o'clock in the afternoon.