NL 21, 1 of June of 2022, Athens // The beginning of the end, Steppe FM
Athens (Alexis)
At the beginning, I planned to stay 3-4 days in Athens just the time to get a parcel and to visit the city quickly. But I missed it, I stayed there for almost 3 weeks!
The first days:
It's not easy to find a place to stay in the city for free and with a dog... I found my host at the last moment, thanks to social networks! Proko is a Greek guy in his thirties, he normally lives in Thessaloniki but his company sent him to Athens for six months and paid him a huge flat because he also has a dog. I have my own room, Jehol has a friend, we're unfortunately in a district very far from the centre but where there are plenty of parks to take them out. And then, Proko finishes work at 5pm, and with him, his French girlfriend and the two dogs, we go every evening for a walk in the numerous hills scattered in the heart of Athens. When we reach the top, we enjoy a cold beer while admiring the view over the city. In short, I feel like I'm on holiday! Especially, after the sunset, Proko invites us in bars of the city centre thanks to the restaurant tickets of his company which work in bars because we are in Greece!
Improbable meeting :
One afternoon, I decide to take the metro with Jé, to visit the famous Exarchia district, which we will talk about later. After a couple of hours wandering through the streets and the many squares, I get into a bar where I am supposed to meet Nat, a Canadian, friend of my sister's friend. I meet him in this bar, self-managed and whose profits go to an association supporting the autonomous region of Rojava, where he introduces me to his friend Sacha. Three hours later, after a few beers, a good part of which is offered, Nat proposes me to accompany him to the restaurant without telling me anything. I find myself a few minutes later in a typical restaurant with live traditional music meeting his girlfriend and Nat's beautiful family! It's a good thing Sacha is still there, because I don't really know what I'm doing here. Still, with the beer and wine flowing at our table and the parents stopping eating to go dancing, we quickly feel at ease! At the end of the dinner, which was excellent, the parents even insisted on collecting all the leftovers and giving them to Jehol who was waiting outside the restaurant door. It is past midnight when the father, having finished playing with Je, thinks it is time to go home. So I find myself alone with Sacha, and an unexpected event... there is no more metro! My current home is 3 hours away, fortunately Sacha offers me to sleep at his place as long as our dogs get along well... He adopted, only a month ago, a stray dog who is not neutered and is aggressive with the other dogs. Well, I trust Jehol not to have to walk all night. And so begins Jehol's first mission as a dog psy!
Jehol, Dog pyschologue:
This new function had already started with Kuro, Proko's dog, who normally only gets along with females. We decided to have them meet on neutral ground, at least outside the house. After about thirty seconds, Jé had lost interest in Kuro, who was barking at him. As a result, Kuro had to be gentle to get Jé's attention, who anyway preferred his sticks to the company of any other dog!
With Sacha's dog, Junior, it was hardly more complicated. Junior ran at him barking, Jé didn't move and kept chewing on his stick. Then when Junior stopped, Jehol went to say hello to him... Quite easy then. He then accepted him completely Jé and we were able to go back to the flat to drink a last beer with Sacha who was stunned to see his dog playing like never before with Jehol.
His new job as a shrink, continued throughout the whole of the Athens Stay. In the big park where I went every day, there are dozens of dogs, most of them very cool and free and a few on a short leash, held firmly by their human. And it's always to these ones that Jehol decides to go and say hello. Each time, the human is afraid of what his dog is going to do (yelling at me every other time), before realising that he almost instantly starts wagging his tail and licking his muzzle (or other body parts that dogs are particularly fond of...).
It's a pity that, for dogs, psychology sessions are free. A few euros more than the five allocated daily would not have been out of place in a capital city!
Exarcheia :
The next day Proko tells me that he has to return to Thessaloniki in the afternoon of the following day. I contact Sacha, asking him to put me up for two or three nights. I feel like I've only glimpsed Athens so far. So I'm going to live for a few days right next to Exarcheia, a neighbourhood that holds many ideals for me.
It is a popular neighbourhood in the heart of the city. In the square of Exarcheia, in December 2008, in the context of the austerity of the Greek crisis, riots began following the death of a 15-year-old teenager, Aléxandros Grigorópoulos, shot by a police officer in a street in the neighbourhood. At the end of the riots, the neighbourhood was transformed into a place of self-management to fight social misery.
It has thus become a resolutely different neighbourhood. The police are not welcome, and it is a safe haven for people who are bullied or persecuted, including migrants and LGBT people. There are many citizen or association initiatives so that anyone can eat (with free canteens in exchange for a helping hand), learn or take courses, participate in cultural events... Many buildings that were once deserted have been converted into social centres, solidarity shelters or other facilities. For example, the former Ministry of Labour has been transformed into a reception centre for refugees arriving on Greek soil.
In short, it's a very interesting place and while I only intended to stay there for two or three nights, I ended up staying for a fortnight. It must be said that Sacha, my two weeks roommate, and the many inspiring encounters are not for nothing! And it is almost reluctantly that I finally left, three days ago.
Here I am again, cycling in the Greek heat. We reach 35°C in the middle of the day, so the holidays are over! There is very little wind and it is so hot that I try to keep Jehol wet all the time.
I still have 150 km to go before reaching the port of Patras where I will board a ferry to arrive in Bari, the capital of Puglia, about 100 km from my next project combining agriculture and humanitarian work.
The beginning of the end (Aymeric)
After having enjoyed Romania to the fullest, I continued my journey. I then found myself in Hungary, a little behind my travel schedule. I have to accelerate my pace. Also now the weather is nice, which allows me, despite the absence of a tent, to sleep under the first tree on the side of the road when the night falls.
My trip is switching to sport mode, and I'm now taking advantage of the fact that I'm alone to be able to do a bit more violence. I'm heading for Budapest, and I'm cycling from 9 to 12 hours a day, covering daily distances of 90 to 130 km. A feat for my poor bike that creaks from use and under the weight of the equipment. In my new rhythm I bomb from morning to night with short breaks, then I find a tree or an abandoned house for my vigils and stretching. Only, when I arrive in a city, I look for a roof to be able to take days of rest while being able to visit or to make some nice activities. I like this way of travelling because it allows me to fully enjoy the sport aspect of the trip when I travel and the meeting aspect when I stop.
My first stop, the city of Budapest! Those who know me know that this is a city that saw me grow up, from my 1 to my 3 years old. I therefore have a very limited memory of this European capital. I will be hosted in the house of a Protestant pastor, with his wife and their three children in a nice house in the residential suburbs. A special feature is a large church directly in their gardens. The family offers me to help harvest honey from their beehives. I gladly accept and the next day I will spend some time as an assistant beekeeper, an experience that reinforces my desire to own bees in the future!
After a small mass in the church of my host I left to discover the city, I remembered the bridges and I knew that the banks of the Danube were well arranged. I would have liked to see the house in which I had lived but unfortunately my parents warned me that it had been razed to the ground and replaced by a large residential block. Time can be cruel to the memory. Also, I would have liked to spend more time in Budapest, unfortunately all plans for accommodation fell through and my bike is broken. I decide to go to the Decathlon, pay for new equipment and continue on my way.
I then arrive in Austrian territory. Unlike in Romania, I don't find any more abandoned houses on the side of the road for clandestine parties. Instead I find refuge in hunters' huts. They are just wide enough to lie down diagonally and absolutely perfect to watch the sunsets and sunrises, as well as the wildlife!
I finally arrive in Wien, again a city that I grew up in. But this one was from the age of 10 to 14, and my memories are much better established. The first big change for me is that the city has shrunk. My perspective on distance has changed. It will take me four pedal strokes to retrace the route from the French high school to my old house, whereas in my memories I felt like I was living very far away! I now realise that I only knew a fraction of this capital. I do my little nostalgia tour, after my flat I pass in front of my old friend's house where I had run away because I was alone at home and I was afraid. I'll pass by the legendary sweet shop where Theophile and I had made a killing, filling our school bags with candy under the owner's nose. My skate park, my favourite kebab shop transformed into an estate agency (crime! blasphemy!), I'll pass in front of my buddy Tim's flat, HQ of our first jazz rock band (Timothé is a professional musician in London now!!). The icing on the cake is that I'll go back to the Lycée Francais de Vienne to see my pawns again, who looked after us like little fathers, always there with the same enthusiasm for the 700 kids of the collège lycée...
I'll be spending four days in this fabulous city, staying with my great college buddy, Anna, who now works there as a nurse. We'll spend days walking around and evenings catching up with old acquaintances I thought had disappeared! So it won't exactly be a day of rest, but it was worth every minute!
That's it! I end my episode here. Since then I took a bus to Munich and I'm heading to Lausanne! And so I'm heading for France, because I found an internship for this summer, in Brest, I'll tell you more about it in the next NL.
PS: June 1st will be my 28th birthday, I plan to do a big stage during the day. I'll be on my bike but don't hesitate to call me! I'm planning to end my day at a stranger's place, who would be happy to invite his friends so we can all celebrate together!
Commentaires