Athens

I spent all of yesterday trekking Athens with three Serbian girls. This is my third group of three friends (including my Graces, and the French architects), and I didn't realize that until one of them pointed it out. We needed each other anyway, everyone keeping everyone else awake because the train pulled into Athens at five in the morning. We pushed and pushed, stopping frequently to rest, talking everything from politics to music.

And plenty of times we would just stare in awe. The size of these Greek ruins is like the footprint of a giant. The Temple of Olympian Zeus is now nothing more than a handful of columns standing like sentries in the middle of a park, but they are massive; the temple must have had its own presence. But what it lacks now in completion, it makes up with age. These columns are the bones of a dead titan, from whom our cultures descended. Prometheus gave us fire: philosophy, democracy, and artistry. And now I pay homage.

Which is hard not to do when you turn a street corner and see the Parthenon looming over you like the eye of Sauron. Athens is a massive city, stuffed to the gills with apartment complexes and office buildings and all the other structures that keep a city alive. But in crawling around these streets, occasionally an alley or square will open up like a forest clearing, and the Parthenon -- from on high -- will call your name. And you have to look. Standing on its shoulder, Athens' off-white buildings look like coral in the distance, so many people that they spill onto the hillsides as if sloppily poured.

And in spite of the dominance of the Orthodox Church, it's refreshing to see a little good, old fashioned, unapologetic paganism. Christ is the redeemer, yes, but Dionysius threw some amazing parties, and his holy places are almost as common. (It should be noted that in his own mythos, Dionysius has died three times. The Greeks loved him so much they kept bringing him back to life... like Superman. Which is impressive, considering he was originally a mid-Eastern deity.) And I've shown my respect to him as well, telling a handful of favored stories and raising a glass in his honor, even as I stood at the same place Paul the Apostle once spoke.

But I love these places imperfectly, and like an adulterer I am not always thinking of Athena when I am with her. She is beautiful, yes, and fascinating. But she is not home.