| October 13, 1997 | The Scatman in Greece's Modern Ruins |
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The first time I heard "Skee-Bop-Bop-Ba-Da-Ba" by the Scatman, I was lying practically naked in a shabby hotel room in Athens. It was 3:30 AM local time. Our bodies weren't acclimated yet. Mindy and I had been sleeping with our clothes off because Greece was sweltering. It was late July and the temperature had topped 100 degrees. Our tenth-floor room featured a small window that wouldn't open (whether it was forced shut from accumulated grime or well-positioned glue, we didn't know), a large dead cockroach (we named him Hephestus and he became our mascot), and a small TV which received five channels (two in English). The ancient fan (there wasn't an air conditioner) was positioned on a short table in a corner of the room. Its blades blew stagnant air across our low pallets. We had arrived in Athens at 5 PM, and after lugging our overstuffed packs through the airport and surviving the treacherous cab ride to our hotel, decided sleep was more important than dinner. Just a nap, we told ourselves, and then we'll venture out to explore the nightlife. It was still too hot to move. We peeled off the clothes we had been wearing since Boston, and collapsed in our bras and underwear on the beds. "I wish I could take my skin off and just lie around in my bones," Mindy had grumbled. I didn't answer. I thought of the cracked buildings and crumbling facades I had seen out the grimy glass of the cab window. Everything looked dirty; it was as if the entire city had been thoroughly coated with a dull beige layer of paint. Or maybe it was sprinkled with the dust of disintegrating skeletons. You may notice that I have morbid tendencies. When we had explained to the cab driver that we had come to Athens for a vacation, he advised in broken English that if we were visiting Greece for a summer holiday we would not want to stay in the city. As per our premeditated plan, we neglected to add that we only intended to stay in Athens two nights before moving on to Turkey. The additional information would have taken too much energy to communicate and would have angered him unnecessarily. I sprawled uncomfortably across my lumpy bed and worried. Would I be able to manage carrying my backpack? Would we be able to get information from anyone (neither of us spoke a word of Greek)? And how would we ever get to Turkey? I wondered whether the trip would be successful. Somehow, my anxieties subsided as I shifted on the lumpy the mattress beneath the gaudy gilded mirror (a price tag in Greek drachma was still stuck on the frame). And then we slept for hours. Mindy woke up first and turned on the TV. The meager options for late-night viewing kept the dial positioned on channel 18, MTV Europe. While most of the videos played by the trendy British VJs were well-known American artists such as Nine Inch Nails or Nirvana, an occasional wild-card was thrown into the mix, reminding us that we were far away from home. When The Scatman came on with his cheesy video, we knew we needed to get out of our stifling tomb. We dressed and headed downstairs. The hotel bar was closing down, from what we could tell. No one could (or would) speak English, so we ventured onto the street without any direction. After walking for a few blocks we found out that the large divided street housed nothing but Italian car dealerships with well-lit glass showrooms that only emphasized the nighttime desolation. One of us wondered aloud how it was that the ancient Greeks had managed to build and maintain aquaducts while the modern Greeks hadn't managed to build and staff 24-hour convenience stores. There were very few cars on the road and sometimes the drivers slowed down to look at us. We attracted attention as "foreigners" without doing anything silly or wearing anything tacky in that way American tourists inevitably do. We realized slowly that we were the only women out walking the street. After receiving catcalls from two men on a motorcycle, we gave up and returned to our hotelroom. Back in the room we broke into our supply of "emergency food" and nibbled Nutri Grain breakfast bars followed by swallows of warm bottled water. Then, in an attempt to entertain ourselves we made togas out of our dingy bed sheets and paraded around the room. posted by Jess Barron @ 8:20 PM 
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