After a remarkably easy ferryboat ride to Athens and a long trip via metro, bus and taxi, we arrived at Sandra’s friend, Anna’s house. Sandra met her on the Magic Bus from Athens to Paris 20 years ago and has stayed in touch. Like us, Anna is a bit of an outsider, taking on the mayor of Loutsa and the Athens airport administration regarding environmental concerns. She’s not only made a name for herself, but she also has won some important visibility for problems the airport is causing locally.
Loutsa is not an attractive town. There’s trash everywhere, and the local government appears to be more interested in raking in dough in exchange for giving up land or hosting, e.g., an enormous sewage treatment plant for neighboring towns. The airport’s had a tremendous impact in noise and aquifer pollution.
We also talked with Anna about the Albanian situation in Greece we’d been hearing about. Albanians appear to rank with most Greeks right up there with Vlachs and cats as the cause of all problems. It reminds me of the way Mexican immigrants are thought of by many in the US. This attitude, plus the apparenly insolent, uncaring and disrespectful attitude of many of the younger Greeks we’d either witnessed ourselves or heard about from others, worries us. When you add these in with the environmental problems, the smoking, and the gradual, insidious Anglicization of the culture, you’re not looking at a pretty future for this country. It really saddens me, since there is so much to love, too. And we have a met a few younger people, like Nasos and Katerina, who are welcome exceptions.
Sandra & I spent our few days there visiting and figuring out how to get to Ipiros. We were misdirected to the wrong bus station by several different people, so now we know how to go anywhere in Greece by bus. We also were recovering from the beach culture of the islands. Athens was pretty empty, but even so we were eager to leave.
