Category: Week 1

It was five in the morning and outside the black receptacle that is SMUT, one of Athens’ premier techno clubs,  the party was moving outside. There were still five hours left in the program for the night’s lineup, but streaming out of the venue, with handheld fans and smudged eyeliner, a mass of ravers were forgoing the bass to congregate on the road, splaying on the sidewalks and leaned up against the tyres of parked cars with water bottles in hands, deep in debrief.

Arriving in Athens last week, one of the first things that struck me was how the city comes alive at night. During the day, the cloying heat makes going out impossible, or, at the least, an uncomfortable exercise in jumping from shadow to shadow to avoid the harsh summer sun. But, during the night, as temperatures become cooler, the landscape – from the benches in Syntagma Square to the side streets of Exarchia – transforms into a space of connection for nocturnal Athenians. “A big home,” is how Anastasiia Mitrohina, a SMUT patron who moved to the city two months ago described the outdoor culture to me, “especially when it’s hot.”

For Athenians, the outdoors has long represented a natural plane of connection. According to Panos Dragonas, a professor of architecture based out of the University of Patras,  the phrase of the Greek intellectual Pericles Giannopoulos – ‘life in Greece is outdoors’ – has long been a guiding vision for Greek residential architecture, made evident through the terraces and green spaces ubiquitous in and around most apartment buildings. As someone who grew up in Ireland, socialising outdoors is an unfamiliar concept. In Dublin, where summer nights rarely reach above 15 degrees Celsius and are typically accompanied by a smattering of rain, the outdoors are largely inaccessible. Social life is pushed indoors, into pubs where buying a drink is the price of entry, and limited seating means people are often turned away. In that sense, the city feels like it’s behind a paywall: unlike in Athens, access to being part of the community often comes at a literal price.

Back at SMUT, it was seven in the morning. The sun had risen and all around, ravers were picking themselves up off the sidewalk and rushing into their cabs. The wait for my own Uber gave me ample time to reflect on the nightlife of Athens I had experienced thus far – from midnight runs to the local periptero to late-night dinners at restaurants in our own neighbourhood of Pangrati. Sitting on the sidewalk, I felt certain of two things: I’d sleep through the heat when I got home, and this summer, the night would be there for us always, extending an open invitation.

Stasinou 13, Pangrati

by Vivien Wong

It’s the perfect setup for a bad joke: “Three American college students and fifteen-odd expats walk into a bar…” Except the bartender is a Greek bookseller, and the bar—a full liquor shelf in a room half-closet, half-cavern—is concealed behind a set of sliding bookcases. 

This was the last meeting of the English-language book club at Lexikopoleio, the locally owned international bookstore in Pangrati, Athens. Diamantis Diamantidis, the events coordinator and bartender for the evening, told me that members have been petitioning him to extend meetings one more month, into July. 

Aside from the three of us, I count an American sociology professor, an Argentine actor, a digital nomad—Dutch—among the faces at the table. They’ve got a level of dedication that Diamantidis hasn’t seen in the bookstore’s Greek- and French-language book clubs. It has something to do with the transience of their time together, he believes. “These people came five years ago, or three years ago,” Diamantidis explained. “They’re going to go in two years. It’s not very fixed. But they’ve been loyal because they know that this is an anchor for them.” 

There’s a general divide between book club attendees who prefer to analyze the themes and content of a book, and those for whom the reading primarily serves as a jumping-off point for divulgences about their own lives. But what if the attendees’ lives really are the subject of the book? 

Wednesday’s discussion centered around Italian author Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection, translated into English by Sophie Hughes. The novel chronicles a relationship between two expats—digital “creatives”—living in Berlin in the 2010s.

A certain self-consciousness about the impact of expat professionals on the physical and economic landscape of Athens intermittently resurfaced at the table. “What’s the difference between an expat and a refugee?” a dark-haired woman, herself a digital nomad from Amsterdam, asked. Then she answered: “Someone who comes here voluntarily with money and someone who doesn’t.”

An American professor described herself as one of the “vampires” who  profited from coming to Athens when rent and real estate were relatively cheap. “I can have a really nice life that’s very difficult to have for the same amount of money in New York City,” she continued. “It makes me wonder what happens when Athens, all of a sudden, starts to become expensive and inaccessible?” 

“Ask the Athenians!” the Greek man across the table from her interjected, laughing. Attempts to describe the problem of gentrification carried a different tense for different readers at the table: future tense for the American professor, past tense for Greeks priced out of gentrified neighborhoods like Pangrati.

The physical architecture of the city makes these tense concrete. The part of Pangrati which surrounds Lexikopoleio was once called Vatrachonisi—meaning “frog island”—a nod to amphibians native to the bed of the Ilissos River. Urban expansion of Athens, dating back to the 1950s, has all but covered the ancient river. On the corner of Proskopon Square, the Athens café chain Petite Fleur, which features vinyls hanging from the ceiling and stools upholstered with black-and-white prints of Roy Haynes and Billie Holiday, rounds off one travel blog’s description of the Vatrachonisi area as “more like Paris than Athens.” 

Meanwhile, two blocks from Lexikopoleio, the side of an apartment has been spray-painted, in large green letters, “REFUGEES WELCOME / TOURISTS GO HOME.” Someone’s tried to white out the graffiti by scratching lines into the beige coat of the building.

The attendees discussed the helplessness of the expat couple in Perfection at length. Why didn’t they ever learn German? A debate ensued: perhaps technology was to blame, perhaps the characters’ parochialism.

“They didn’t seem to be able to do things differently, did they?” one woman said. A joke about their own inability to speak Greek drew laughter from around the table.  ♦

“Mathaíneis elliniká?” asked my taxi driver, a man named Apostolos who looked to be in his late 40s. I looked up from my Lonely Planet Greek Phrasebook to meet his question with a clueless stare, racking my brain for the right hand gestures to communicate I have no idea what you just said. Then his phone interjected. “Are you learning Greek?” chirped the automated voice from the front of the car. Apostolos had pulled up a translation app as he was driving. Thanks to new technology, not even the language barrier can stand between a Greek taxi driver and a conversation partner. I had barely managed to stutter out a “yes…uh, ne,” before he spoke more rapid-fire Greek and his phone filled me in: “what words do you know?”

My limited vocabulary flashed through my head. There were the basics: yes, no, thank you, goodbye. The rest of my Greek vocabulary, however, was a grab bag of some less basic words: metanástis (migrant), tsakiste (crush), fasístes (fascists), eleuthería (freedom), and, of course, Palaistíni (Palestine). These words were nowhere to be found in the Lonely Planet Greek Phrasebook; instead, they stood out to me in bold, graffitied letters from the walls of seemingly every building that I walked by. In my first few days in Athens, I had taken in hundreds of graffitied slogans, first in English then in Greek–like flash cards. 

Now, thanks to Athenian graffiti, I may not know how to ask what day of the week it is, but I can at least say “crush the fascists.” I opted to stick to the basics in my conversation with Apostolos.

The phrase “the writing’s on the walls” refers to the biblical story of Daniel Chapter 5. When the Babylonian King Belshazzar held a banquet using cups stolen from a temple, a disembodied hand suddenly appeared and wrote on the walls of the room in a script that only the prophet Daniel could read. The “writing on the walls” was a message from God, proclaiming that the king had been, in the words of the Bible “weighed on the scales and found wanting.” That night, King Belshazzar was slain in his sleep. 

In Athens, the literal writing on the walls also portends future calamities, although perhaps less explicitly. Among the most common English phrases were “AIRBNB FUCK OFF,” “TOURISTS GO HOME,” and “SOLIDARITY WITH MIGRANTS.” Each of these slogans speaks to an existential threat that Greece is currently facing. 

“Probably the hottest political issue is how to deal with the housing crisis, because salaries in Greece are very low.” said Alexis Papahelas, the Executive Editor of Kathimerini, the largest Greek news outlet. “After the pandemic, we had way more tourists and way more investment in real estate […] this created a whole different situation for Athenians.” 

The fact that more than half of the graffiti was in English instead of Greek also foretells a future threat to Greek culture. Apostolos was delighted when I confirmed I was learning Greek. “It’s a difficult language, but it’s the ultimate language,” he told me. But if Greeks want to be understood, it seems they have to translate their words to English, both in their graffiti and in their taxi cabs. As tourists, expats, and migrants continue to flow into Greece in increasing numbers, I wonder how the Greek language, one of the oldest in the world, will survive another hundred years.

By Valerio Castellini

EX!T. Revolution from Within. Photographed by Julia Tulke. 2018, Exarcheia, Athens, Greece.

In the heat of midday, I am a loner ambling in the streets of Athens. A stray cat crosses the street from time to time, and a gust of wind while I’m turning a corner takes me back to reality from my pensive state. But as I look around to fathom where my aimless rumbling has brought me, I start noticing how every wall is covered in something—layers of graffiti, torn posters, political slogans half scratched out and rewritten. I must have arrived in Exarcheia. 

This neighborhood, long known as the beating heart of Greece’s radical left, feels both alive and hemmed in by the rest of Athens. To understand its present, I spoke with two people shaped by it in very different ways.

One was José Ernesto, a 35-year-old Cuban artist on sabbatical. I found him sitting at a café table, sipping a beer. Every few minutes he paused to greet someone walking by. “Exarcheia is a town inside the city,” he told me. “People don’t like tourists. Everybody knows each other. It’s a tight community.” But it’s not, he said, the political stronghold it once was. “Antifa has become a fashion,” he added. As someone who grew up in a Communist country, he finds local leftist ideals too romanticized: “With communism, you are going to live worse.”

He worries that the new metro station under construction will turn Exarcheia into another Plaka—the clean, curated, and stripped of edge area at the foot of the Acropolis that has long lost its authenticity to serve the superficial needs of the herds of tourists flowing in daily. He sees graffiti as a vital language here, but one that doesn’t speak to outsiders. “It resonates inside the community,” he said, “but doesn’t really reach externals in a significant way.”

And beyond Exarcheia, his concern grows deeper: “Power corrupts people,” he said. “The government is detached. It doesn’t work to actually change things.” Prime Minister Mitsotakis and his centre-right government have not regained trust after the scandals that have hit them, particularly the 2022 ‘Predatorgate’ and the 2023 Tempi train crash. 

To José, people are leaving because staying and fighting feels futile.

That same disillusionment surfaced again when I met EX!T, a street artist who prefers to only be known through his stage name. We met in a quiet café, where he stirred his freddo espresso slowly before speaking. He started tagging at the age of 13, however the EX!T project only started later, in 2013. Just as the refugee crisis was about to begin, eventually peaking in 2015 with the arrival to Greece of over 800,000 migrants and refugees. A deep burden on an already-strained Greece, that faced many difficulties in managing such influx. 

The name EX!T itself reflects a tension between flight and belonging. “I feel like a migrant,” he said. “I never felt I belonged anywhere. My art is about that feeling.”

For him, graffiti isn’t protest in the traditional sense. It’s more personal. “Sometimes, I don’t even know what the message is until months later. It’s my therapy.” He described a moment that stayed with him: while painting some wood on fire on a side street, a migrant man stopped to watch. They exchanged no words—only gestures. The man pointed to his chest, miming a stabbing motion, his eyes full of tears. The image went beyond language. “That moment hit me deeply,” EX!T said. “No words were needed.”

Like José, he fears Exarcheia will lose what makes it matter. “Right now, there’s a balance here,” he said. “But if it becomes mainstream, that will break.”

EX!T also shared a broader frustration with Greece’s political direction: while society may be more open and empathetic than before, “the government feels like the best we could possibly have—because there is no alternative,” he told me. Elections come and go, but little seems to change. Corruption scandals make headlines, but accountability rarely follows. People are tired, but not angry in the streets, just worn down. That gap, he said, is where apathy grows.

As I walked back toward the noise of central Athens, the slogans faded from the walls. But their message stayed with me. Greece is full of voices. The real question is whether anyone is still willing to hear them.

by Annalisa Jenkins

Diamantis Diamantidis says he works at “a crossroads.”

Lexikopoleio, the bookstore where he serves as events coordinator, sells books in Greek, English and French, and attracts visitors from all over. Our first week in Athens, Vivien, Noah and I walked into Lexikopoleio hoping to buy a notebook and were surprised to hear boisterous English from the corner. It was Wednesday—we had stumbled upon the English book club.

Clocking us as English-speakers, Diamantidis waved us over to join, unrelenting even as we explained that none of us had heard of the book. We listened for 45 minutes as they discussed Perfection, a novella by Italian author Vincenzo Latronico that follows a couple of digital nomads as they make a life in Berlin.

It was a fitting choice. The group—Greek locals and expats from the US, Ireland, Argentina and the Netherlands—discussed what it meant to live and work abroad. We couldn’t help glancing at each other as they criticized the couple for their role in Berlin’s gentrification and for not learning German. Very few had themselves learned Greek (and neither had we).

Since just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Diamantidis—who grew up in Pangrati—has noticed expats flocking to the neighborhood. The Greek government is working to attract wealthy foreigners as the Greek birth rate drops. With Greece’s aging population, “even with zero unemployment, only 45 percent of the population [could] earn money and pay taxes and social security contributions,” Greek journalist John Psaropoulos wrote in a February article for his substack Hellenica.

Greece has implemented a number of programs to bring in foreigners, including tax incentives for retirees who pledge to invest large sums and a “Digital Nomad Visa.” The Digital Nomad Visa allows remote workers to stay in Greece for up to a year, with the possibility of annual renewal. It is “ideal if you’re not ready for a long-term commitment but want to explore Greek culture and lifestyle,” an article on the government “workfromgreece.gr” website says.

The front page of the same government website, reading like an ad, asks blatantly, “How can we tempt you?”

(photo credit: workfromgreece.gr)

These incentives for short-term residents come as Greece faces a housing crisis. According to a 2024 OECD report, from  2017-2024, housing costs rose by 69%. Greeks spend more on housing—an average of 35% of their income—than anywhere else in Europe, the Greek Analyst wrote in a recent substack article. 

This increase is due, in part, “to the increasing share of non-resident buyers in the Greek real estate market,” the OECD report said. More than 70% of AirBnB listings in central Athens are owned by hosts with two or more listings—people are making a business of buying up homes and renting them out at high prices to tourists and short-term residents, the Greek Analyst said.

The “Airbnbification of Athens” can become “a socio-economic nightmare for people priced out of their old neighborhoods,” the Greek Analyst wrote. 

At the book club, when an American asked the group what would happen when they (the expats) were priced out of Athens with the next round of transplants—as had happened to the characters in Berlin—a Greek member of the group laughed sardonically and responded, “ask the Athenians.”

Exploring this pull for Western implants felt particularly dissonant as we spent class time learning about the ultra-right wing Greek Migration Ministry’s quest to shut Greece’s borders to migrants.

Around Pangrati, graffiti decries this dichotomy.

(photo credit: Vivien Wong)

(photo credit: Noah Labelle)

Like Lexikopoleio, Greece itself is a crossroads situated between the East, whose Ottoman influence it tries to forget and whose migrants it rejects, and the West into which it has integrated. 

But Diamantidis is proud of the international community that he has helped to cultivate. Lexikopoleio is a place that “travels you—through the books” and “with the conversations,” he said, sitting in a small nook surrounded by shelves.

By Megan Cameron

Nestled in the heart of the famous Plaka neighborhood sits Cine Paris, one of the oldest open-air cinemas in Athens. Each night, a glowing neon sign advertises the cinema’s name to the bustling Kidathineon Street. Three sets of wooden double doors sit below the sign, open wide to welcome tourists and locals alike with the promise of breathtaking views of the Acropolis, refuge from summer crowds, and, according to one ranking of the city’s best cinemas, distinct “nostalgic charm.”

When I first entered the cinema, its modern feel shocked me. I had come hoping to experience some nostalgia for myself, but the theater’s entryway was refreshingly pristine, constructed of spotless white floors, ceilings, and walls. I was greeted by a blast of artificially cooled air–a rarity in Greece, I have learned–and bright white lights, which both pleasantly surprised me and slightly disoriented me. Momentarily unsettled by the room’s faint sterile quality, and confused about where to go next, I was rescued by a friendly employee named Dimitris Panagiotis Zabouras.

Zabouras, a 22-year old university student, works at Cine Paris as a self-described generalist. During his shifts, which typically begin at 7:00pm and end around midnight, he is often responsible for completing a plethora of tasks. These include manning the cash register, directing customers to their seats, keeping the screening space tidy, and more. 

He told me he began working at the historic business earlier this year at the start of its summer season. So far, he has most enjoyed connecting with his co-workers “in such an excellent environment” that reflects Greece’s “deep cultural love for film” and “social gathering.” To illustrate how these meaningful relationships have manifested, Zabouras shared an endearing photo with me, which features a wall at the cinema that he and his co-workers have adorned with Polaroids.

Based on my brief time spent in Greece so far, I similarly feel that few other cultural or historical institutions I have come across reflect the country’s complex quest for identity over the past 50 years as perfectly as open-air cinemas. Unlike ancient temples or monuments, which stand as frozen representations of specific periods in Greece’s history, many iconic cinemas, once powerful symbols of community and fixtures of daily life in Athens, have been forced to adapt to stay afloat.

The initiation of these phases of adaptation have typically aligned with particularly tumultuous points in the broader trajectory of Greece as a whole. Starting in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, major technological advancements, political turmoil, economic crises, and demographic changes have made it extremely difficult for these cinemas to maintain their traditional, small, family-owned business model. 

To avoid shutting down like other cinemas in the area, Cine Paris recently began operating under the guidance of Cinobo, a popular Greek streaming platform and film distributor. The building itself was also acquired by the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation, which provided extensive renovation assistance during the cinema’s four-year closure period that ended in May of last year.

With these cinemas continuing to evolve, slowly disinfecting themselves from the stains of time and moving further from their historic roots, what will Athens be left with? Where will locals go to relive some of their favorite childhood memories? And what about the tourists, who may be losing out on one of their coveted chances to experience a taste of Greek authenticity? 

As one of these tourists, I personally did not get this taste from Cine Paris. I have therefore made it my mission to better understand why exactly that is, and what Greek authenticity even means over the next few weeks.

How hard can it be?

By Mara DuBois

The combination of the Athens summer heat and his determination to convey his thoughts despite our language barrier had John Gjeleveshi (JELL-eh-veshi) dabbing sweat from his forehead with a napkin he had retrieved from behind the counter at Stadium Cafe. 

Pangrati is the best neighborhood in Athens, and different from others in the city, he told me. “Maybe it’s the people,” he said. 

Gjeleveshi was born in Athens and has lived in the city’s neighborhood of Pangrati for 28 years. He works at Stadium Cafe, the coffee shop I quickly determined would fulfill my coffee fixation during my five-week stay in the neighborhood. After just a few visits to the shop, Gjeleveshi asked my name and introduced himself, immediately making me feel welcome in an unfamiliar city. Judging by the thank-you cards taped to the glass pastry case housing Greek treats, I wasn’t the only customer he had won over. 

With its grounded, local atmosphere, the popular cafe’s spot on Eratosthenous Street sharply contrasts the tourist-filled bustle of nearby Plaka or Monastiraki–neighborhoods characterized by their close proximity to the Acropolis. 

A 2025 article by Dimitris Rigopoulos “Archelaou: One street, many outlooks,” in eKathimerini, the English edition of Greece’s most prominent newspaper, detailed the evolving demographics of Pangrati. Following the economic crisis in 2009, the neighborhood experienced an influx of students and professionals in creative industries, drawn in by more affordable rents. 

In contrast to Plaka’s typical summer vacationers sporting woven straw hats and matching linen sets in an attempt to conform to European fashion standards, Pangrati has a distinctly artsy, hip, quality exuded by its creative and young population. Graffiti-lined walls throughout the neighborhood are indicative of the area’s strong political awareness, frequently exhibiting the messages “Free Palestine” or “Fight Fascism,” in a form of artistic expression. 

As a primarily residential area, much of the conversation that echoes out of the neighborhood’s many lively cafes, bars, and restaurants is noticeably Greek. These spaces, populated by stylish young adults and older men smoking beneath orange trees, are easily intimidating to an outsider. I feared my lack of language skills and an unshakeable American presence would make me stand out in this setting. Yet, my initial worries were quickly assuaged after interactions with locals like Gjeleveshi.

While speaking with me, Gjeleveshi frequently paused to check Google Translate, intent on answering my questions as clearly as possible. He modestly undersold his English skills, which far surpassed my non-existent Greek. Upon the conclusion of our 20-minute conversation, Gjeleveshi mentioned that he had anticipated the interview would take many hours. Having just completed a full work day, his willingness to meet with me despite this assumption and our language barrier was a testament to the character of locals in the neighborhood.

As I got up to leave, Gjeleveshi fist-bumped me and said on my next visit, he would speak to me in Greek. He would help me learn basic phrases while I helped him refine his English. Gjeleveshi embodies what he characterized as Pangrati’s defining quality: its people. 

As an outsider new to Athens, I was surprised by how quickly I grew to prefer Pangrati’s creative and diverse essence to the postcard-worthy steps of Plaka. The rich culture found throughout Pangrati is created by the neighborhood’s people, making them the defining characteristic of this unique area.

Isabella Dail

No matter what street corner you’re stationed on, you’re likely to see graffiti in the Pangrati region of Athens. Some of it’s in English, some Greek. Some of it’s political, some isn’t. All of it–along with the vibrant street murals, bustling cafés, and thriving student population–suggests that Pangrati houses a vivacious artistic, political, and intellectual scene.

As a van carried me from the academic hub to my apartment, I was immediately struck by a sense of community. As the driver rounded a particularly tight corner, he reached out the window to shut the side-view mirror, which gave him the mere centimeters needed to complete the turn without denting a parked car. The quaint roads embodied the intimacy of Pangrati that I have come to love. I’ve seen individuals of all ages donning trendy sunglasses and tote bags bump into one another and say a quick hello. From what I’ve seen, there’s a real sense of connection in Pangrati, and I’ve been able to speak to locals and other students with equal ease.

I was also struck by a sense of juxtaposition. The quiet interactions between older locals co-exists with a flourishing community of young people, including up and coming artists. Sofia Psiridoti recently founded her concept art studio Bok Choy, which focuses on politically and personally motivated art, in Pangrati. When I arrived at her studio, she greeted me in vintage clothes with a pickle jar in hand. As we spoke, she attempted to open her snack with the assistance of a lighter that she held to the rim.

“I want some slow living inside the city, and maybe this part of Athens agrees with my political beliefs, has a lot of art and also has more human connections,” she said.

Her studio’s curation embodies the nuance of the Pangrati that I’ve seen. Kitschy pop art pieces sit beside serious political statements. Sexual innuendos mix with heartbreaking personal stories on the studio’s walls. Eat your vegetables, said one painting, eggplants covering the rest of the canvas. A tarp with poetic messages describing Psiridoti’s recent heartbreak hung nearby.  

Her layered messages mimicked the complexity of voices I’ve encountered while traversing the region’s hilly streets. A comedy bar faces an Orthodox church. “NO BORDERS NO NATIONS” sprawls across a facade in an eye-catching hot pink paint. A formal art institution like the Basil and Elise Goulandris foundation and Bok Choy call the same area home.

Along with the rest of the arts scene in Pangrati, the evolution of Psiridoti’s own work dovetails with shifts in national politics.

“I cannot live my life normally and make art while every day I see people dying. So the problem now is that I cannot make art. I’m just trying to do the pop stuff that the shop sells,” she said about the conflict in Gaza.

From my observations, Pangrati bridges differences, whether that be in age, nationality, or aesthetic style. Yet, suggested by various pockets of graffiti, the region united on one topic: political views. Some of the graffiti, especially messages on the conflict in Gaza, also point to larger national issues.

In 2023, John Psarapoulous wrote that the Greek government’s support for Israel could “rankle” the public, who favor neutrality. While graffiti in Pangrati is far more prominent than other regions of Athens I’ve visited, our temporary home shows signs it aligns itself with Palestine, despite the government backing Israel.

During my first week in Pangrati, I’ve come to both look past and deeply into the graffiti that immediately struck my attention upon arrival. Pangrati, above everything else, is a community, one that holds locals, international students, art, food, nightlife, religion, and politics together. At its heart, I’ve come to appreciate Pangrati as a region that carves its own identity while still engaging in the national conversation.

by Maggie Stewart

Flying into Greece, I peered out my window, groggy from my melatonin and Dramamine cocktail, and attempted to orient myself using the vast hills that expanded into the cloudy skyline as my anchor. But it was not the topography that captured me; it was how manicured many of them appeared. The footprints of humanity came into clearer view as the plane began to approach the tarmac, surrounded by solar panels that absorbed Greece’s abundant sun and bounced it back into my eyes. After shuffling from room to room in the airport, I made it into the car and onto the highway. The hills I had seen from my window rolled down into flatter land surrounding the highway, but unlike New Jersey highways, this land felt far more cultivated, biodiverse, even purposeful, with every tree or bush placed neatly in an even line, as if standing for roll call. 

While Greece is naturally ecologically abundant, which can help lower temperatures, provide shade, and improve planetary wellbeing, it comes with a downside, especially as the climate grows more volatile. An OECD environmental policy paper highlights these issues, particularly in Greece, which is prone to wildfires, due to its vast forests, which take up over 50 percent of the land, and hot climate, which wreaks havoc on the lives of people, animals, and plants in the surrounding areas. The report states, “Wildfires have had lasting negative impacts” on the people nearby, being linked to an increase in cardiovascular and respiratory-related deaths. However, when speaking with the locals in Athens, they do not seem to have a great sense of climate awareness or urgency.

I attempted to discuss the issue with a few locals, including a man working at a kiosk in Athens. As I approached the little outpost on the corner of a busy road, I felt the sweltering heat from the sun above and the concrete below my feet. I asked him about the heat in Athens and his experience working outside, linking the overall issue to climate change. Even in the intense heat, he, like others on the street, had cited a lack of knowledge as a reason for not engaging in further conversation with me. This sentiment was further corroborated by talks with reporters at Ekathimerni, who stated that climate change was not top of mind for the public, even while being a major issue they face. As an outsider, however, the state of the environment was alarming. I noticed that the greenery was surrounded by dry brush, and the sun illuminated areas that looked as though they were craving a cool glass of water. It felt reminiscent of visiting California in the 2010s during their drought; things were alive but fragile, like a matchbox waiting to be ignited. 

Further into the drive, the vast highway quickly dissolved into the narrower streets of Athens. Trees turned into buildings and bushes into cars. Instead of flowers dotting the area, it was graffiti. When walking around Athens, the intense heat seared into my skin, and with little tree cover, it was difficult to find shade during explorations of the city. Even in the morning, the heat felt inescapable. After walking up hills of concrete, I felt like I was evaporating. Cracked lips, sun-baked skin, even the back of the throat felt dry. Even inside, I must use the AC and water only when needed. As cautioned by the sign in my apartment, these things are “a scarce commodity.”

Many things about Athens struck me, not necessarily as new, but simply more pronounced. While heat waves and resource scarcity occur in the US, they feel short-lived or avoidable with the right economic standing, but in a small place like Athens, no one is immune. You can’t simply use more water because you’re willing to pay extra; water will eventually run out. You can’t just blast the AC till the heat wave is over; it’s always sweltering in the summer, and AC units are not built to handle the strain. Athens and America share common threads to varying degrees; things such as heat, political divisions, and adapting infrastructure are all unavoidable markers of our rapidly changing world.

A dispatch by Noah LaBelle

There’s a portrait of the Sacred Heart, only it’s Snoop Dogg bearing the halo. He’s cherubically lit by a ceiling fixture and framed by clouds—puffy cumulus above, puffed cannabis below. A blunt smolders delicately between his two-fingered benediction. On the mantle beneath, a sign reads #MAYTHEBOOZEBEWITHYOU, nestled next to pothos vines that have far outgrown their pots. 

Welcome to Ziggy Cocktail Bar, Pangrati, Athens, just across from Saint Spyridon’s yellow façade. Population: thirty-odd Anglophones of varying nationality, fluency, and sobriety. All here for what’s billed as “Hear No Evil Comedy Show,” a Thursday night staple.

“Personal philosophy, go!” Pam Benjamin, an Athens-based, California-raised D.J., calls out, pointing the mic, identical to the one tattooed down her right arm, toward the open-air bar tables. 

“Never fly Turkish Airlines,” one woman offers. Benjamin repeats it, fortissimo, to claps.

“Turkish Airlines is incredibly racist,” Benjamin adds. “When you choose your language, Greek is not represented! Every other language, but no Greek.” Someone, presumably not Greek, suggests learning Turkish.

“Greek airlines don’t have screens, it’s crazy,” she continues. Much heartier laughter. “We’re lucky the planes can fly, bro!”

Amateurs wait for their slot, glancing at pre-planned bits scrawled in journals. They’re the only ones with pen and paper in sight. Them, and your correspondent.

“Are you stealing jokes, mate?” asks a bar-goer with a pink fanny pack and a cigarette.

“No, I’m a journalist,” I say, too quickly.

He pauses, then snickers. “That’s even worse.”

I can’t parse out from his accent if he’s a local—the fanny pack, I figure, suggests not—but he’d already shuffled to a back table and grabbed a beer before I could ask.

Next up: George Moulos, a trim Australian in a burgundy polo, seven years in Athens behind him. (A search reveals he’s cracked the Guinness World Record for fastest traverse on foot of mainland Greece, from north to south. Comedy’s next.) He thumbs an A7 notebook, whose inane daintiness in his hands almost makes up for his first three jokes, all duds. 

“Ah, ok,” he says, scanning the page. “Greek or gay. You tell me if this is Greek, or this is gay.” Beat. “Greek dudes who have manicured eyebrows, like, fully waxed eyebrows.”

“Greeeekkkk,” a few slur. “European!” insists one woman, loudly, twice. Consensus reached.

“Greek dudes who are on the back of their friend’s scooter, and they’re holding them like this”—Moulos puckers his lips, knees bent, hips forward, arms laced around a phantom torso. More cackling than clarity, but it’s not leaning Greek. 

Fanny packs, or, as the Aussie self-corrects, bum bags? Decidedly Greek. (I glance back at the anti-journalist.) Carrying little bottles of olive oil everywhere? Also Greek. “So, apparently I’m not gay,” Moulos deduces. 

Benjamin tells everyone to grab more drinks. The music turns back up. Ten minute intermission.

Mo, from Manchester, recognizes me. Earlier, Benjamin had clocked me on the outskirts—thanks, notebook—while trying to fill the front barstool. I declined. With prodding, she gleaned I was a Seattleite who didn’t drink coffee. (“Stereotypes aren’t real, you guys!”)

“This might be, like, an insider view,” Mo starts. “I don’t know if Americans know this. So: the Schengen Area.”

He can’t give specifics—his parents told him not to—but outlines a general path: a land crossing from Iraq into Greece, a flight to France, a hop across the Channel. He was born two years after they arrived.

“I love geography, all things countries and cultures,” he says, a month into two years of pilot training in Athens. “When I heard that my parents lived in Greece and all these countries, I was like, ‘Damn, I missed out on that trip.’”

We’d have kept talking, but Benjamin’s back at the mic, now sizzling, riffing on an A.I.-generated song that’s been stuck in her head all week. “Have you heard about Pam,” she unleashes, “in love with a twenty-six-year-old Greek man?” The crowd howls, briefly. ♦