Greece Is the Word

So we landed in Greece a few hours ago, and I have a few photos to post. None of the photos have us in them because I didn't think we would look so good after an 11-hour flight and an hour wandering around Athens with our luggage while looking for our hotel. In any event, now all is well, and we are in our hotel room and have finally been able to take showers.

We rode the metro into Athens from the airport. The metro was not hard to figure out and made things easy. I know I am from the U.S.

and therefore I'm supposed to hate public transportation, but it's pretty awesome.

If you are keeping up with the news at all, you know there have been some riots in Greece. Greece owes a lot of money to the point where their credit rating has been cut. That makes the cost of borrowing more expensive. A country in this situation normally would devalue its currency which would cause commodity

prices to rise, which is not so bad for the people in the country who produce commodities. Also it helps out exporters since your goods are now cheaper thanks to your devalued currency.

Greece cannot do this because they do not have their own currency but instead they are on the Euro. The rest of Europe does not want to devalue their currency, and so Greece is stuck. The rest of Europe could bail them out but does not want to because Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Italy are right behind Greece as far as debt goes, and the European Union does not want to start a precedent. Then you have a situation with no moral hazard and then everyone gets bailed out - which would be stupid, and the U.S. would never do anything like that ...

So Europe is bailing out Greece but with harsh terms requiring the Greek government to curb spending severely. This new austerity on the part of the government does not make the citizens of Greece very happy. Especially hard hit are government pensioners who live on a fixed income and could have their pensions cut. So the people riot.

Yesterday they were all on strike. All public transportation and the airport were shutdown. What is weird about a strike in Greece is that it is announced at least 24 hours ahead of time and lasts for only a set period of time. They are just trying to make a point. So yesterday was pretty crazy in Athens, but today everything seems to be normal. I did see a few riot police when we arrived at the center of town. You can see one in the picture above. I got this photo first. He turned toward me and I acted like I was taking a picture of something else, but he was not fooled and told me politely not to take a picture of him. Live and learn.

Our hotel is near the center of town. On the left you can see the street our hotel is on. The sign with the letters AVA is our hotel, and at the end of the street is Hadrian's Gate. Hadrian was a Roman Emperor from 117-138. He sort of styled himself as a philosopher (I think both Stoic and Epicurean, which is weird) and spent a lot of time traveling around and not conquering other people, which was not the norm for Roman emperors. As a hellenophile, he we went to Athens and started a substantial building program. The gate, built in 131 AD, separated the old city from Hadrian's new projects. On one side it says, "This is Athens, the former city of Theseus"; on the other it says, "This is the city of Hadrian and not Theseus"

Here is a better picture of Hadrian's Gate. We have seen some evidence of the riots yesterday - mostly in the form of burned cars. I will probably post those pictures later. Our mothers are going to read this blog so I do not want to freak them out quite yet. Other than the few riot police and burned cars there is no indication that anything happened. Everyone is very friendly, and it's a bustling big city. The weather is outstanding - 75 with an occasional breeze.