My Summer as an Olympic Volunteer: Part II

About Greece

The moment I stepped out of the new Elefterios Venizelos airport in Athens one thing began to sink in: Greeks are a seriously beautiful people! From changing trains at a Metro station or just lounging at a sidewalk café in Kifissia you would be seriously hard-pressed not to catch a large-eyed, dark-haired beauty with a porcelain complexion walking by. So now I know which country other than Russia (and of course not forgetting Malaysia) has an unfairly large population of chicks! Immediately then I called Mike, another Malaysian friend of mine in Germany and bragged. To our amazement (and his own) the following week he joined Puvan and me in Athens!

Greece is a country which in many ways is very similar to Malaysia. Maybe that was why I loved it so much while I was there. The people speak English, are typically warm and friendly (I just had to look lost on the streets and people would come to my aid), laidback (Greek time is worse than Malaysian time) and entertain some very late hours. Despite this they do not rise too late in the mornings, but like the other peoples native to the Mediterranean region, they siesta in the afternoons (businesses close temporarily too). Then in the evening they wake up again reenergized to party and work till wee hours of the morning. So just imagine having a traffic jam in Athens at 1 something a.m., or bumping into crowds of people who were only beginning to come out for dinner at 10 p.m. The recent Greek heroics at the Portugal Euro 2004 had also given them a new favourite topic of conversation – football! Victory in Portugal had visibly given the Greeks a renewed feeling of national pride that carried through to the Olympics. Whenever I was at a loss at what to say to a Greek I just needed to fall back on 2 words that always drew a smiling response: efcharisto which means thank you and Charisteas, the Greek Euro 2004 top scorer.

Greek food too was very good but has less variety than Malaysian food. I found the Giros (crunchy, fatty small slices of grilled pork or chicken served with yoghurt, tomatoes and salad in an oily, salty pita bread) in Monastiraki the best around. It totally beats kebabs (the Turkish counterpart) which I have been so bored of eating in Germany. Also worth mentioning is Mousaka, which is a pie of minced meat, cheese and aubergine served in a clay pot. Their local aniseed liquor Ouzo (pronounced oo-zo) has a lovely, old smell. It is transparent pure but turns into a cloudy white once you drop an ice cube into it.