Greek Pastry & Clouds Dreams do come true, specifically, ones about packing up a backpack and taking a trip around the world. But they are not without missed trains, nights in hostels with leaky roofs, and overcast days that make you want to hide in a hole. What is it about today’s twelve thousand tons of grey haze hovering overhead that makes me realize quite clearly: I don’t know a soul in Athens – or more largely, in Greece? Really haven’t cared about that fact till this exact second. Whatever. You could be lounging in the clouds and you’d soon discover they have bedbugs. You can’t stare into this haze anymore than you can stare into the sun. It’s a blinding blanket over a blue you can’t see. Makes you keep your head down. It’s supposed to stick around for days, per the forecast. Though of course, nobody is owed anything, it’s hard not to feel owed a little sunshine if you’ve made it as far away as Greece. Anyway. It’s times like these you gotta do a couple pastries, man. A mug of joe. That’s the big plan for the day. Athens bakeries have two cases, one for the narrow bricks of layer cake with angular white and brown chocolate triangles and lace-like icing patterns that you can find anywhere in Europe or the USA. The other case is for traditional Greek recipes, which are really worth going for. Geological layers of crunchy filo dough and raw honey. Jade chunky bits of crushed pistachios. Twisted cookies with golden glazed exteriors that release an aroma of baked butter when you snap them in half. Folded cookies with a filling of chopped ruby cherries and sticky sweet walnut paste. Fried donut balls to dip in honey and chocolate sauce. This is not a sit down place, but I do hide from the beginnings of rain in the awning of the shop. Cardboard box of pastries with a golden foil interior. They might as well serve them in tiny treasure chests. It’s nice here. The espresso machine grinds coffee beans louder than my thoughts. The roar of the convection oven and the bustling of nice people pulling fresh treats from the heat. The coming and going of regulars. Jagged, crispy filo dough flakes apart on my tongue. Wildflower honey melts away. Crushing pistachios with molars. Nothing else tastes like pistachio, that’s a one of a kind flavor. Speaking of flavor, have I even had real pastry before now? Or was it all various wax moldings of whipped canola oil and dyed corn syrup? Someone should investigate. Closing my eyes to the sun glare diffusing through the frankly sad and ugly sky. What am I doing here? What is at the end of this trek? Breathe in and out. Rose water. This one had an aftertaste of rosewater. Gently, though. A notch above imagination. As close to a magic spell as it gets. A sip of the coffee. Rich espresso and buzzy caffeine rocket right to the brain. Makes you stand up straighter and blink. I’ll take a ferry to some island. They’re ghost towns this time of year, but what difference does that make? There’s nobody to hang out with here, either. Funny thing, though. No matter what you do, or where you go, at some point, you sweep up the crumbs and think. Now what? Get my book Odd Jobs & After Hours in audio, hardcover, or paperback by clicking here. It’s about drifting down the east coast of the USA chasing one sketchy, so-called opportunity after another.
Mistaken Identity Spotlights shine on flowing carved robes, a plumed helmet, a sharp spear, and somber features. A statue of Athena stands on top of a tall, narrow column. The groves of the park muffle the idling engines and occasional honking from street traffic. It’s a cold night. The park has overgrown lawns, dry fountains, and caution tape around smaller statues that look forgotten. Litter blows against gates. Tags jingle. Barking. A large dog, white with light brown spots bounds in great arcs over the grass. Pins and needles in my right knee, where a black lab once took a little chomp. Of course, I do like dogs, but my knee does tingle at times when one charges me out of nowhere. The dog stops short. Its ears and tail droop. It tilts its head and pants at me. “Sorry,” says the woman who owns him. “He thought you were my brother.” Flattering, flattering. But how does she know who the dog thought I was? My Greek is hardly even beginner level. My Dog is even worse. Still, it’s the kind of thing that makes you feel at home. Get my book Odd Jobs & After Hours in audio, hardcover, or paperback by clicking here. It’s about drifting down the east coast of the USA chasing one sketchy, so-called opportunity after another.
No Photography Droning notes – a trance-like melody – played by an instrument I can’t see, and don’t know the name of. Cobblestone paths run in rings around the gates of the ancient ruins of the Acropolis in Athens. Short trees with scaly bark, and trunks shaped like the letter S sit among hills of patchy grass and craggy tan rocks. The wind brings the scent of flowers, and the food from restaurants below. The music has caught the ears of an old woman wearing a floral headscarf sitting on a stone curb. She closes her eyes and nods her head left and right in the slow time of the music. Where is that sound coming from? It’s not a recording, it has the imperfections of live playing. What is that instrument called? It’s not an oud, balalaika, or mandolin, it’s something else. I climb a stone wall and hold the bars of the black gate on top of it and look around. The hilltop becomes visible. White pillars, long triangular roofs with carved white stone figures lounging in their corners. That bass line and intoxicating melody float through the sound of cooing pigeons gathered in large numbers under a pine tree. One green parrot has found a place among them, but he flaps suddenly and flies up into a tree. There’s the musician. He’s set up with a small amplifier in a nook of these winding pathways. I can see the top of a head of long curly hair. He has a prominent nose, and a pitch-black goatee. Ripples of notes run upwards as the song builds momentum. I let go of the gate bars, and hop of the wall. When I take out my phone to film him, he nods towards a sign in his instrument case. No photography. Fair enough. He has gathered about six people, and I become the seventh, listening to singing in a language I don’t understand, and the trance-like droning of his playing. Is there anything I could steal for my own guitar playing? The way he sounds like two players instead of one, the way the sound spellbinds strangers so quickly, so easily. There’s no sign saying who he is, no indication his work is available anywhere in the world but right here, right now, so I listen a good while, obey the posted sign, throw 5 Euro in his case, and then continue to wander the hillsides surrounding the Acropolis. Have I heard something special? Did I fall for a tourist trap? I realize I enjoyed the music enough not to care. On the opposite side of the hill, a painter is selling his work on a blanket. He has a No Photography sign as well. His work his mostly elegant suggestions of ancient Greek statues drawn in a single curving black line, with one pattern or color added for contrast and pop. He has done landscapes of the white Cycladic cities, blue domes, and flowered canopy gardens of Mykonos and Santorini as well. He is talented. He wears a brown Greek sailor’s cap that has clearly scene every season and all kinds of weather. His leather jacket and jeans are battered as well. People lounge in the sun on another stone wall. I find a shaded place under a park tree and sit down. Next to me, a woman in a long blue linen top with rolled sleeves, gold bracelets, blocky sunglasses, and pointed boots is writing in a journal with a worn-out gold-ish cover. Get my book Odd Jobs & After Hours in audio, hardcover, or paperback by clicking here. It’s about drifting down the east coast of the USA chasing one sketchy, so-called opportunity after another. I ask if she’s a writer, and she tells me not really, just enjoys capturing thoughts and feelings. Her name is Iris. She smiles with large, even teeth yellowed by wine, coffee, and cigarettes. Any tips for places to go in Athens, I ask. She tells me I’m already doing fine just by hanging out around here. I tell her of all the places I have been lucky enough to see in the past few months (UK, Germany, Morocco, and Spain) so far, Greece has been my favorite. Why? Why? All over the world, locals have curiosity about what makes their place special. It’s hard to explain. It’s a combination of the pace, the food, the climate, the people. The scenery, the history. The atmosphere. Spain must be nice, she says. No love in Spain? She asks hopefully. I grin, and tell her I was working on a farm most of the time. Explored the cities for sure, but had few opportunities to break the ice comfortably with people. She shrugs. Perhaps she was hoping for a better story than that. How can I blame her? Maybe I was, too. She’s older than I am, maybe by ten years. I find myself wondering what place Spain occupies in her imagination. How far away or exotic it is to a Greek local in general. It’s not a question I can really put into words in that moment, but perhaps all over the world, we’re sitting around longing to trade places with each other. But that’s not entirely true. Germans have told me they are no fan of the USA, and have no plans to visit. An Italian told me the jig is up and we are overrated. The woman is named Iris. She is delighted to thumb through a copy of Odd Jobs & After Hours and describes the story of the plot as very American. A roadtrip chasing work. She fans through the pages and asks what the scent on the book is. It reminds her of a rare perfume ingredient from France. I assure her I have no idea. That battered copy of my first book has been all over Europe, in the hands of so many people, but I truly can’t come up with any plausible explanation for its fragrance. She’s quite stuck on the idea though. More interested in how the book smells then anything written on its pages. Maybe there’s a lesson for me and my efforts as an author there. She snaps a photo of the book and promises to Google it later, after her shift at work, for which she is a tad late. She leaves with a smile, and a ‘nice chatting with you.’ I decide the view and atmosphere is as good as any, and daydream on that rock wall while people stroll past the valley with the Theater of Dionysius, and the hilltops crowned by ancient white temples and statues, constructing memories of how that music sounded, or how those paintings looked.