Like thousands of other Greek Australians this year, I too, went for a holiday to Greece. However, this was my first trip there in 33 years. Until 1990, I travelled to Greece regularly with a backpack and a stop in Asia.
I’d only book accommodation or transport after I left, always arranging it as I arrived in any town or island as there was always someone at a port or bus station looking for tourists to rent out their rooms
or house. I went with my wife this time, and our adult children joined us for several weeks. My sons told me months before we left that I had to book every detail of the holiday in advance.
When I told them it wasn’t necessary as I’d book it once we were in Greece, they notified me that those “hippy” days were gone and everything had to be pre-booked because of the vast number of tourists.
Another thing that was not the same as any previous trips was the death of close relatives. All my parents’ siblings were no longer alive in Greece as in 1990; my loved aunties and uncles whom I’d visit, spend hours talking with and stay with were only a memory, their children now considered old, a few of them being their 80s.
Although I’m a second-generation Australian-born, I still feel sentimental when arriving in Greece.
But it was when passing through customs at Athens airport and presenting my Aussie passport to the officer that I felt even more Greek when he looked at my passport and asked, “Είσαι Ελληνοαυστραλός δεύτερης γενιάς;” which translates as “Are you a second generation Greek Australian?”
When I said yes, he answered back, “Καλώς ήρθατε στη πατρiδα σας” “Welcome to your country.” My eyes got a bit watery.
As I walked outside the airport and smelt that Athenian air and heard the cacophony of cars and people talking loudly, gesturing with their hands and, of course, the ubiquitous ‘malaka,’ I knew I was back in Greece as though nothing had changed in the 33 years. I wrong.
We booked into our hotel room and decided to walk outside towards the Acropolis and take in the ancient ruins surrounding us. I was shocked at the sight of homeless people sleeping along the footpath on both sides of the road.
I’d never witnessed this before on any of my previous trips. I remember I used to boast to people in Australia that Greece, unlike Australia, didn’t have homeless people because they got looked after by family.
Homelessness locals told me it was even worse a few years ago.
The following day, we walked along the Monastiraki flea market’s narrow lane before the shops opened – syringes strewn on the ground, and drug taking was a problem.
During my four-month stay, mainly in Greece and some time spent in Turkey, I asked people I met how they had coped with the economy over the recent years. The number who told me they were happy with it could count on one hand. The economy for the majority has not rebounded and improved; the cost of living has increased, including rents on top of grocery items. Living on between 750 and 850 euros a month took a lot of work.
For those who worked on the islands during the tourist season, it was doubly challenging, as they either had no income coming in or had to try and get one of the few part-time jobs that existed during the off-season in some other industry, earning far less. I met parents with one or two children now living and working permanently outside Greece because there was no future for them in their country of birth. One taxi driver was in tears and angry as he told me his two eldest children had secured jobs in England. He feared his only remaining child, his daughter, about to start university, would also leave when she finished her degree.
I found that olive oil has become almost a luxury item when ordering a salad and or vegetable dish such as vlita (foraged greens); at restaurants, there would hardly be any olive oil on the plates, and I had to keep asking the waiter at most places for oil. They’d bring some and trickle it over, or they’d bring a tiny sealed bottle of oil for three euros because of an olive oil shortage crisis. At the beginning of the year, it was about four euros a litre. Now it’s reached about 11 euros, which is more expensive than in Australia.
Greece’s other problem is over-tourism in Santorini, Mykonos and a few other islands. This desire for everyone to want to go to these locations as though they are the only places worth visiting in Greece, withmany wanting ‘to party’ and get a deep suntan. I was surprised some tourists didn’t bother visiting Greece’s cultural-historical sites. The Acropolis? Epidaurus? Delphi? No, I haven’t visited, but I have seen the Acropolis at the flea market. Has Greece become sun, beaches and partying? I hardly heard Greek music at cafes and bars, which preferred bland Western music.
As for the Greek language, I was amazed at how much English has seeped into Greek television news and chat shows such as “Kano Break”, “event”, and “Oversize”, which again, on far too many occasions, used Western music to break up their segments.
Will I quickly return to Greece? Of course, because there is no other country, I feel so relaxed with the people, culture, history, music and philotimo of my relatives and friends but everyone I met.
I hope they and the country survive and escape their economic nightmare so they can feel secure for themselves and their children.
