When arriving in Greece I had many expectations because of my strong Greek background. While my mom and dad worked full time, my yiayia raised me and brought me to Greek school every day for years. My immigrant grandparents on both sides of my family have passed down tradition, culture, and other aspects of the Greek lifestyle that I wouldn't trade for the world. As years passed, my appreciation for the love of my grandparents stories that seemed as old as Socrates slowly started to diminish. After coming home from school this May, my grandparents were ecstatic to find out I was going to be spending a month of my summer in the place they called home and fell in love with each other. As the trip slowly started to creep up on me, I became more and more excited.
My dad was driving me to the airport in Chicago for my flight before meeting up with Jamie, Nathan, Bailey, and Megan in Boston, and my flight turned out to have a three hour delay. The start of an extremely long day was already incredibly sucky, but in the end we ended up in Athens while battling jetlag and extreme sleep deprivation. We spent a day in Athens, it was absolutely everything I expected and more. We walked the entire Acropolis and as any other first time visitor, we were amazed at how something so old had maintained its structure and beauty. After we explored the entire city, ate some gyros, enjoyed a refreshing glass of wine, we settled into our hostel for the evening. For me personally, this was my first experience staying in a hostel, and with the preconceived notion that they are dirty and trashy I was completely incorrect. This hostel was my first impression of Greece and I'm so glad it was.
From meeting travelers around the world from Canada to Australia, we met people who were in Greece for the same reasons as we were. Connecting with these people we had just met was such a valuable experience. Although the tourists were as interesting as us, the staff, especially the bartender made us feel at home. The entire culture of the Greeks to me is about being comfortable and making others comfortable when exposing them to your own world. Greece to me has been full of life in ways that America has never been for me. Greeks have pride in their country, but in a way that opens a welcoming door to those who aren't part of the community. Inclusivity is everything to the Greeks and I really wish America would hop on that boat of being so accepting to those who are simply just looking for human connection and interaction.
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