Indy-Andy Moves to Greece!
April 2019
Okay, so Indy-Andy moved to Greece a while ago now, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by the numerous pictures on Facebook and Instagram… but she’s been busy seeing Greece! Sooooorry… And she’s going to stop referring to herself in the third person, because this is starting to sound pretentious and annoying.
Anyway… surprise! I live in Athens now! Well, sort of – my apartment and stay have an expiration date, but I’d still call it “living.”
I came to Greece for the first time in 2007 when I was 20 years old. My grandma, who had never left the country, helped me pay for the trip. It was also the first time I’d ever left the country and the first time I'd ever gotten on a plane. It was a lot of “firsts” in one go. I remember exactly how I felt when the plane landed. I remember looking out the window from the plane and seeing the mountains beyond the tarmac. I was so happy that I cried. I had always dreamed of visiting Greece, but thought it would be when I was retired (from my previously planned life as a high school math teacher, by the way), as a sort of reward for pursuing a practical goal and a practical life. I never imagined I would see the Parthenon before I graduated from college or watch the sunset on Santorini before I got my first real job. What small town Wisconsin kid does?
In that first trip, I remember walking through the Plaka, the touristy neighborhood in Athens that lays in the shadow of the Acropolis, and seeing a young blonde woman in her mid-20’s leaning up against the doorframe of a shop. Clearly, she worked there. She was having a conversation with someone I assume was American, who asked her where she was from. “I’m from Ohio,” she responded, shocking the person she was talking to, who obviously didn’t expect her to be anything but European, and shocking me as well. How did she do it? How did this young woman from Ohio have the courage to try her hand at a life in a foreign country? I saw myself in her and I wanted to be like her. At that very moment I vowed to follow in her footsteps one day – I vowed that I too would live abroad someday, but not in a study abroad kind of a way – living and working on my own. If she could do it, so could I.
I never forgot about that woman from Ohio in the shop in the Plaka. I admired her for having the courage to do something different.
Her courage (and goading from my best friend) led me to move to Rome before starting graduate school. After months and months of planning we both finally picked up our lives and got on air planes. We did it. I met my goal… but I still thought about that woman in Athens and what her life in Greece might have been like. I knew I wasn’t done living abroad. I knew that Rome would not be enough. So, I did the thing that many American archaeology graduate students do, applied to spend a year in Athens working on my dissertation. I had been planning on doing this ever since I started grad school, but it always seemed eons away, just as any other trip you plan does. Finally, after a rough year of studying my brains out and losing one of the most important people in my life, it was time to go to Athens. I packed up my life (in multiple LARGE suitcases), packed up my apartment (man, I have a lot of clothes!), and got on those planes again. This time, to live here for a year, not just for a three-week study abroad program, like the first time. I thought of that woman from Ohio often on the plane ride here.
And you know what? It’s been great! Not shocking, I know – how could it not be great?! I love my tiny (but CHEAP) apartment (with amazing landlords who treat me like their own daughter), whose large balcony looks out onto the Pagrati neighborhood and Lykabettos hill (or as my cousins have now coined “Lick-happy-toes” – if you say it fast it sounds the same and helps you remember how to pronounce it!) and Hymettos mountain on the other side. There’s no better reminder that you’re living in a foreign country than to wake up every morning and look at mountains looming over you, made purple by the early morning light… that and the constant moped commotion, smell of gyros, and random yelling in Greek on the ground, six floors below (or directly below one lovely Sunday, when the grandparents who live below me hosted a very LOUD birthday party for their grandchild).
In addition to basking in my hammock and people watching from my glorious balcony, visiting the neighborhood farmers’ market (laiki) regularly, and spending a lot of time in libraries, I’ve traveled all over Greece, have had wonderful interactions with the Greeks, and made many new nerd friends. I’ve also traveled to Egypt, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and Italy (of course, I can’t stay away). More on all these adventures later. One of the things that I enjoy most about Athens is wandering around the city and catching glimpses of the Acropolis through buildings (that and the Greeks’ reaction when I say something intelligible in Greek). It’s starting to feel normal, which I both love and hate – I love that I’m feeling at home in this city, but hate that I’m starting to take such things for granted. I try to remind myself of its special-ness and of how I looked at the Acropolis when I first arrived here in 2007, and how different I thought my life would be before then.
Almost a year ago, I lost my grandma. She was a very important person in my life and one that I now wish I had made more time for. She’s the first person that I’ve lost that I’ve been truly close to. My grandma taught me a lot about what I wanted out of life, even if unintentionally so. This year is as much for her as it is for me. She would sometimes mention that when she was my age she had multiple children already and I could tell that she envied my freedom to travel and how much of the world that I had already seen. I always promised myself that someday I’d take her with me on my travels, but unfortunately that day never came. I think of her often as I sit on my balcony here and even more often when I traveled around Greece with my cousin, the other “smarty pants granddaughter,” as Grandma would have said. I know it would have made her very happy to know that Miki and I were traveling the world together, giggling like idiots on Greek islands and literally sprinting gleefully in the rain and wind to catch sunsets (we’re insane).
In addition to happy thoughts of my grandma, my cousins also reminded me that I need to be doing a better job of recording my adventures, so I’ve vowed to do that from now on. I’ve got another five months left, so let’s see what kinds of crazy (mis-)adventures I can get myself into! (No more muggings, please please please!) More on previous adventures soon to come. As always, thanks for reading and for everyone who helped support my dream of living my big fat Greek life in Athens. Ευχαριστω παρα πολύ! (Thank you very much!)
