Discover your own backyard: New Orleans

Discover your own backyard 

As if you haven’t realized yet, the pandemic is a mixed blessing. One of the consequences of a wanderluster not being allowed to travel to where she really would want, Patagonia and Nepal, is that she is forced to explore her own back yard. This could only have happened thanks to the pandemic. Yes, I cussed and hollered when the six month Far East itinerary I had saved and planned for got derailed, but I changed course and started exploring these great United States. The pandemic helped to change my outlook on travel as well not just my itinerary.

You see, when the world is so wide and exciting, far-off destinations beckon you so that you are oblivious to the places right under your feet.   I have talked with many a seasoned traveler who poo poos wasting money and time to travel to places in the US. Of course it’s more exotic to plan trips to Bora Bora than Biloxi. But when you get off your snob soapbox and turn your attention to exploring your own back yard, you might find delightful surprises. Boy, do we have one big back yard to explore. 

I have always had a hoodoo hunch that I would be attracted to New Orleans. My draw started with the New Orleans chicory flavored coffee I get from OK Cafe in my neighborhood. My second draw came from the chats I had with the owner himself who got married in the French Quarter in the summer.  My third draw was the ridiculously addictive drawl of John Forgerty on “Born on the Bayou,” a song that I kept putting on repeat while painting in my studio. My last and final draw what cinched my decisión to take a short vacay to NoLA was the hot and crusty crawfish I ate smothered in a broth of Cajun seasoning served in a plastic bag without utensils or plates just gloves on a disposal tablecloth and a huge bib with drawers to catch the drippings. 

My trip to New Orleans has been the highlight of my year, yes, even more enjoyable than my trip to Sifnos and Serifos this year. 

New Orleans gyrates with jazz, merry-making, a kaleidoscope of history both good and bad. It’s exotic mix of cultures—African, French, English, Native, and Cajun—make it a wonder for the eyes, the ears and the tastebuds!

Surprisingly, there is a rich Greek American history in this part of the world that I will reveal—blog post by blog post.  Here’s a reel of some of my shots to pique your chops.

 

Thoughts on Passing a Cemetery

There is something about a cemetery —solemnity, stillness, that evokes contemplation.

Every morning I pass by at least three cemeteries: St. Michael’s, Cypress Hills, and Mount Carmel.

This one morning I actually parked the car and took a stroll through Cypress Hills.  My walk flooded me with thoughts and feelings about life, about death.

Cypress Hills Cemetery was established during the Civil War when the government had to create an organized system to deal with the hundreds of thousands of slain war dead.  The section I walked through holds the remains of military veterans who served in the two world wars, Korea. Rows of rows of uniform block white stones.  So sooo many, young men, old men, with a spattering of headstones belonging to their wives even dead infants.

I surveyed and read the inscriptions on each individual headstone as carefully as I would look into a living face. I tried to pick up clues about who they were, how old when they died, which war and which department they had served.  Some navy , some infantry, some air force, some with a star of David inscribed at the top others with a cross in a circle.  I studied each last name: Ferrara, O’Shannon, Lim, for clues as to ancestry and ethnicity.  These were silent strangers.  The mystery of never knowing each person’s story made me think how we are each divided in our own unknowing.    Each one had a unique story and life. But you could not know the details from just skimming over the headstone, by looking absentmindedly into the eyes of a passerby.

We are as similar and ordinary in death as we are in life.  I remembered the rows of baby beds when my first daughter was born.  Each birth is unique and ordinary at the same time.  Just like the headstones in a cemetery.  Each life lived under different circumstances, yet ending side by side in the same outline.  We are not so different so unique as we think we are. We will all lie down next to one another in the end.

And then another thought—these were all soldiers, all men.  I forget how many men gave their lives to serve in wars that may or may not have served them. And I had to think that war is an exclusively male domain. Men engage in war and women in birth.   Things haven’t changed that much from the time of the caves.

It was chilling to walk through the rows on a chilly December morning.  But the pause in the cemetery serves as a fitting reminder of the inevitable, a momento mori.  It is a wonderful way to start the day sort of like when teachers use backward design to develop teaching units with the end in mind.  Looking at graves makes you stop taking your day for granted. It all stops here, in the ground.  “The ground we step on and kick at,” my yiayia used to say, “will be our blanket, will cover us all.”

I can’t help but think that I spend more time planning my weekends and outfits than I do mapping out the course of my life.  If you haven’t thought about your death, how can you think about your life?  As Christians we are implored to see life through the shadow of death. Like the Calavera Catrina, we can busy ourselves with ruffling up our bodies and embellishing our flesh, but underneath lies the skeleton.  We are all walking skeletons until we can walk no more.

Only by walking through the cemetery in the morning do you remember to put things in perspective—the bills, the petty squabbles, the snubs.  How is it that you want to live your life really?  The passing through the cemetery every morning helps me center my day.  That is the gift the dead bestow on the living: the reminder that we have to cherish each moment and make it beautiful even when it’s not.

Finding NEMO Donor for Baby Elias

Imagine the luck: you are born with a rare blood disorder that puts you at #22 of all registered cases in the US, that’s about 0.00000007.  Your chances of getting elected as president to the US twice over are higher. In fact, the chances that your entire family will be struck by lightning are higher.  Those are the stakes behind Baby Elias, a 9-month-old Greek-American boy from Ann Arbor, Michigan. He was born with a super rare autoimmune disorder, Nuclear factor-kappa B Essential Modulator, called NEMO for short.  His story as told by his mother Evelyn Argrokastritis reveals how an apparent family curse can become the catalyst for awareness of blood diseases and a race to get Greek names on the bone marrow donor registry program.

 

The Backstory

When Baby Elias was born, his mother noticed that he had turned bright red a few hours after birth. The rash started from the crown of his head then advanced in stages down his neck and torso. The nurses dismissed it as allergies to the baby outfit or blanket or other environmental irritants. But mom Evelyn’s intuition told her otherwise.  She would take the infant from one doctor to another pleading, “Something is wrong with my baby.”  The doctors dismissed his condition as allergic to the baby formula or to the environment.  This is not uncommon because NEMO is so rare very few doctors can actually even diagnose it properly.  Evelyn already had another child, sister Eleni, now two, who had had a normal development.  Knowing the difference between the two children made Baby Elias’ case even harder for her.    “I stayed in the hospital for 2 and a half months straight in an 8X12 room,” Evelyn reports. “It was the most trying time of my life.”

“I got sick and tired of them telling me it was the formula, to change his formula,” she relates fighting back tears.  At two months, at October 20^th she took Elias to the emergency room of their local hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan.   After a battery of X-rays, ultrasounds and other diagnostics, he was transferred to the oncology unit where he was kept for two and a half weeks during which time his parents were not able to see or touch him.  “They wouldn’t let me feed my child, they would keep him on TP nutrition. He was getting worse and no one would listen to me. I was crying every day, ‘you are going to kill him.’ Until October 31^st, when something gave me the courage to get him out.” He was transferred to a larger children’s hospital an hour away.  He was so weak at that point because he had not been keeping anything down and had lost blood. They found a fungus was growing in his lungs, keeping him from breathing. It was only until he was 4 months old that he was able to sit up thanks to the proper antibiotic they had administered.  At this hospital he was finally given the proper diagnosis: NEMO. It so happened that one of the four doctors that had seen these kinds of cases in the world worked at that particular hospital and was able to treat him properly enough to allow him to return home.

“Fate brought me to that hospital,brought me to that doctor, brought me to that moment, the whole world aligned,” Evelyn recounts.

Baby Elias is stable at home but lives in a germ-free environment.  He cannot contract any bacterial infection. Even yiayia and pappou have to wait 72 hours after going out in public before visiting him just to be sure they have not been exposed to others who might transmit microbes that might get him sick. The slightest viral or bacterial infection is enough to lose him. Luckily, Evelyn can rely on the Greek village,  “my wonderful husband, in-laws, aunts and uncles, my mother who moved out of California and returned home to be with us—they are all on stand-by, bringing food and support round the clock.”

The Cracking the Curse of Dead Boys in the Family Line

NEMO is a sex-linked disorder, which means it is carried on chromosome 27 on the X chromosome.  Because women carry two X chromosomes, they are carriers but because it is a recessive trait rarely exhibit symptoms.  Boys, on the other hand, because they only carry one X chromosome succumb to the disease almost exclusively.  According to primaryimmune.org, a genetic education site, NEMO “can involve many different parts of the body and often manifests in different ways in different individuals. The most common symptoms are skin disease and susceptibility to certain bacterial infections that can be severe and affect virtually any part of the body.

The NEMO syndrome was originally described as an association between ectodermal dysplasia (ED) and susceptibility to infections. Patients with ED have thickened skin, conical teeth, absence of sweat glands, and thin, sparse hair. In addition to the dry, flaky skin of ectodermal dysplasia, patients with NEMO deficiency have a range of infections with pus-inducing (pyogenic) organisms (Pneumococcus and Staph) being the most common. Infections may be found virtually anywhere in the body, including the lungs, skin, central nervous system, liver, abdomen, urinary tract, bones and gastrointestinal tract. Almost all cases of NEMO occur in boys.”

Part of the mystery of NEMO lies in the fact that it has gone undetected and undiagnosed in the past because of lack of genetic testing. People believed a young boy died due to infection or high fever.  Deaths could not be pinned to it as it was undiagnosed.  (The only other recent case reported in the news involved two siblings in Wales in 2009).   There had been stories of many boys dying young in Evelyn’s family. Her own brother died young. Her aunt’s first son died before age 7. When she laid out the family tree, in total seven boys had died from her mother’s side alone.  It felt like a curse.

Many in the village they were from outside of Igoumenitsa claimed it was the “evil eye” two busybody old ladies had given the child.  It was hard to get her relatives to talk about death, even more so the death of a small child.  The mystery would have stayed in the grave if it were not for the accurate diagnosis Baby Elias’ condition brought to light.

Armed with knowledge, Evelyn and her family have undergone major genetic testing.  It turns out she is a carrier, her mother is a carrier, her grandmother and her great grandmother are carriers, even her little daughter is a carrier.

 “I had to crack my family tree in order to find the correct diagnosis,” Evelyn narrates.

The need for education is the one mission driving Evelyn. Had Evelyn known that she could have kept Elia’s umbilical cord that harbored the precious blood with the stem cells that would have cured his illness today, his name would not have made headlines; his case would have been a story that never needed to be told.  Unfortunately, it takes the worst to discover the truth.  This is why Evelyn urges all moms and women of child bearing age to donate their cord blood or else keep it in case their own child needs a transplant in the future.

 

Bone Marrow Drive

The family has been reaching out to the greater Greek American community in the Northeast, Midwest and in Greece, in the hope of finding that single donor that will provide a perfect match an 8 out of 8 match as it is called for Baby Elias.

Jordan Segal, the key contact for New England and tri-state region of DKMS, the host company organizing the donor drive for Baby Elias, became a donor long before working for the company itself. He registered to become a donor while still in college in 2011 when his friend and fraternity brother ran a donor drive on campus.  To his surprise, less than a year later he was found to be a near match for a recipient in his 50s.  Even though he never met the man, he said, “It was the best thing I had done in my life because that man is still alive today because of what I did.”  After his experience with the bone marrow donor program, he switched majors from something abstract and academic to something more people oriented.  Eventually he was hired by DKMS as a project manager.  Coincidentally, his sister’s boyfriend, also named Jordan, was saved by a transplant donor.

NEED FOR EDUCATION

Segal states that the biggest challenge for getting the registry up-to-date is education.  “People don’t really think about until someone close to them is directly affected,” he explains. “But it should operate like organ donation except that you can donate while still living.” Unlike an organ donation that waits for death in order to become available, both stem cells and bone marrow are living tissues that can be replaced by the body; stem cells take a couple of days to replace while bone marrow a couple of months, according to Segal.

Another misconception that Segal brings up, especially in the Greek community, is that a spinal tap is needed for bone marrow transplant.  That is not the case. There are two major ways for donating bone marrow. Close to 75% of most donations come from what’s known as “peripheral stem cell blood donation.” The same blood-forming cells that are found in bone marrow are also found in the circulating (peripheral) blood. In this case, blood is removed through a needle in one arm and passed through a machine that will collect only the blood-forming cells. The remaining blood is returned through a needle in the other arm.  The other 25% of the time bone marrow donation involves drilling into the pelvic bone to extract marrow.  Segal describes it as a “pelvic poke” that might hurt as much as if you were to fall and suffer from a bruise.  According to the National Marrow Donor Program website, “Bone marrow donation is a surgical, usually outpatient procedure that requires anesthesia during which doctors use a needle to withdraw liquid marrow from the back of the pelvic bone.

DKMS is the German company that runs the bone marrow registry. While the US has other donor registries, the National Marrow Donor Program being the largest, DKMS is the only one that is global operating in Germany, Chile, UK, US and Poland.  Because it runs its own labs, it keeps costs low. There is no charge to register.  Registration involves signing a waiver and taking a sample swab of cheek tissue; three quick swabs off both cheeks using the three long Q-tip sticks and you are done. The best likelihood for success involves donors within 18-44 years of age, but DKMS accepts donors up to age 55, the only one to do so.

“Out of the 14,000 people who will need a bone marrow transplant in the United States,” Segal noted, “only 7,000 will find donors.  So there is less than a 50% chance that a donor be found.”

This is why Segal stresses the importance of getting on the registry, “You are literally giving someone a second chance of life.”

The best part of his job he claims is setting up meeting between donors and recipients.

Evelyn Argrokastritis remains hopeful that a miracle meeting will take place for her son.  “I have grown in my faith through all this,” she says. “Every time I changed his diaper and saw blood and I thought I would lose him, I’d log onto the Orthodox Moms Facebook page to ask for prayers. You cannot underestimate the power of prayer. The prayers got him through so far.”

In the meantime, the quest for finding that NEMO donor for Baby Elias continues.  To register as a bone marrow donor, look out for more organized drives on the way by subscribing to our social media.

For more info, check out:

DKMS

Facebook Page for Baby Elias

Bethematch.org National Marrow Donor Program

The donor drive for Baby Elias occurred at the Stathakion Center on Sunday, April 28^th, with sister initiatives in Michigan and Chicago.  More drives are on the way. Follow @greekamericangirl on social media for updates.

NY State approves law proposed by Aravella Simotas that…

This is what happens when you place a Greek-American girl like Aravella Simotas in power:  justice is allowed a chance.  The bill she introduced into the New York State legislature passed and is now the law of the land.   Here’s the news report:

The 2018-2019 State budget finalized in the early morning hours of April 1^st contained Assemblymember Aravella Simotas’ legislation ensuring sexual assault survivors greater opportunity to seek justice by preventing the premature destruction of sexual assault evidence kits, commonly referred to as rape kits. Under the new law, the rape kits must be preserved for 20 years.

Assemblymember Aravella Simotas said, “Preserving untested rape kits preserves a victim’s right to move forward with a prosecution of the perpetrator. No sexual assault survivor should ever be told that a prosecution is not possible because a rape kit was disposed of prematurely.”

Currently if a victim chooses not to make an immediate police report, the hospital that collects the rape kit is only required to retain the evidence for 30 days before it can be discarded. This is often not enough time for a traumatized victim to make a decision about moving forward with a criminal complaint. The legislation requires that such rape kits be retained for at least 20 years at a centralized, secure storage facility.

The new law will also:

• Ensure that sexual assault survivors are not billed for the sexual assault forensic exam. Even if a survivor has private insurance, she or he can choose to have the New York State Office of Victim Services reimburse the hospital where the exam was conducted.
• Create a tracking system so sexual assault survivors are notified where their kits are stored and when the 20-year storage period is about to expire.

“Compassion must always be paramount in the law enforcement response to sexual assault victims.  Preserving rape kits is the right thing to do and it will help lock up dangerous criminals,” Assemblymember Simotas said.

Greek Crisis Changing Food Habits: Disappearing Fish, Fishermen and…

 

The worsening economic crisis is hitting the Greek table in a big way. Fish, a staple, is disappearing and making way for cheaper meat alternatives. Fish has become a luxury item so much so that a kilo of grouper goes for 40 Euros. I have interviewed sources that state it is expensive for a family to survive on a kilo of fish alone. They prefer to stretch the Euro and buy a kilo of pork shoulder that will last them for lunch and dinner.

The Greek crisis is also changing the picture of the iconic Greek fisherman. The traditional Greek fisherman is in reality disappearing. In the last five years the local fish populations have plummeted making supplemental fishing impossible. Generations of fishermen have turned to starting souvlaki tavernas on islands such as Schinousa. Local fish industries that relied on independent family-based fishermen have eroded.

The crisis has changed the way consumers even shop at the traditional open air street markets, the alike; instead of heading out early to get the freshest produce available, penny-pinching housewives wait till 2 pm, an hour before closing time to extort a lesser price in produce from the produce sellers.

The availability of American-style food establishments that glorify hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs have exploded. This has spiked obesity rates in children as calculated by a recent report.  In fact, Greek children top the list for the most overweight in the world in 2010 or nearer data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, topping even the rates for children in the US.

 

The typical icons of the Greek table, fish, fresh vegetables, and lean healthy families are being replaced by hamburgers, inferior quality produce and obese children, thanks to the Greek crisis.

Thanksgiving on Paros

This is the story of how an American spent Thanksgiving on Paros and was pleasantly surprised to find she was not the only one.  In fact, Paros, due to its long American presence makes a better locale to celebrate this all-American holiday than even Athens.

The story begins with a big challenge: finding a turkey weeks before Christmas time when Greeks are accustomed to making turkey, and not just any turkey, but a big turkey like the kind we have in the States.

My local neighborhood butcher, Babbi, called a few places but he said, “Me sichoreis, there are no full turkeys I can get for you.  You will not get them fresh, you might get them frozen.  And if you do, you won’t get a whole turkey. You might get parts–breasts most probably.”   The wholesalers start granting orders starting from December.  Greeks associate stuffed turkey with Christmas time.

So I had to do research and widen the net to snatch a bird.  The internet resulted in two places: one an organic producer in Evia that grew his own poultry and another butcher in Chalandri. They both said they would get back to me.  I stressed the fact that I needed a turkey, close to 7 kilos, by the latest November 22nd.   The one place quoted me a price of 12 euros per kilo, but the organic producers called me with a price of 16.90 euros per kilo!  For a turkey around 7 kilos, approximately 15 pounds Stateside, that’s like paying over $100 for a bird.   I’d rather have filet mignon for Thanksgiving. It would wind up being cheaper.

In the end, while visiting friends in Psychiko, I noticed an International Meat Market run by a Greek Canadian.  There was an awesome display of a native American Indian on the outside along with a menagerie of ducks, buffalo, hens and sheep.  The inside of the butcher’s shop could double as an exhibit window from the Museum of Natural History.  When I asked if they could order me a turkey, they told me, “We can have it for you next week.”  How much?  Roughly 5 euros per kilo. That was reasonable. I had found my bird!

Next would be how to cook it.  My elderly relatives on Paros would not have the energy or the oven space to cook a turkey for four hours. To make the situation easier, I decided I would cook the turkey in my apartment in Athens and then take it with me on the ferry for the four hours through the Aegean to Paros.  So that’s what I did.  Cycladic cuisine is expert in creating stuffing for the birds.  The award-winning recipe for stuffing I had grown up with, which I thought had come from the pages of a Martha Steward catalogue, turned out to be from my yiayia from the island.  The sweetness of orange rind mixes with the golden raisins and chestnuts on a bed of parsley with some other fragrant spices lathering each long grain of rice into a heavenly brew.  It took the whole morning to stuff and roast.  The final challenge was to secure it for the journey across the sea.   I had to wrap it around a whole roll of wax paper another of aluminium foil, two heat-resistant bags, carefully cushion it with a baby blanket, and gently place it its giant turkey platter, the only one we use for the occasion,  in the travel sac voyage with rolling wheels to make sure it survived the journey. Like carrying an infant in a baby carriage, I had to make sure the sac voyage did not suffer too much shocks through the sidewalks, down the marble steps to the metro stations, and the cobblestones of Pireaus port.

When I disembarked in Paros port, I had the impression I was going to be the only American hauling a stuffed Thanksgiving.  I was so wrong.  On a short trip up the mountains to Thapsana to visit the female convent of the Theotokos the Myrrovlitisa, I chanced upon an older gentleman.  He was walking through the mountainside foraging or else because the access for the road was blocked.  We stopped and offered him a ride.  While we started chit chatting and I noticed an accent.  “Where are you from?” I asked nonchalantly noticing an accent.  “Apo Ameriki,” he said.  I turned around to the back seat. “What is the chance of that–two Americans in one car on a remote Cycladic island on Thanskgiving Day!” I shouted.  “No,” he said.  “There are more.”  “I will invite you to Thanksgiving dinner at my relative’s house,” I continued. “No need, we are having Thanksgiving dinner for 30 students at 4 pm later today.”

It turned out the man we had picked up from the mountainside was no other than Barry Tagrin, writer and artist, and current  director of the Hellenic International Studies in the Arts, HISA, for short.

His school hosts on average 20-30 students from the US in dorm-style facilities for a year of studio art courses in Paros.  Barry Tagrin has lived on Paros island since the 1980s.  He remembers it when there were only a few houses around the port and barely a paved road. “What’s the draw for a young art student to Paros?”I asked him.

“Our school offers their own accommodation, art studio  and mentored teachers,” he explains.  “We have more experimental classes. The idea is that someone come here to be an artist on an island in their own independent way  so our students have bit more ambition, more freedom and responsibility for themselves.” The students go on five trips to neighboring islands, Mykonos, Delos, Croatia and at one time Turkey.

To my dismay, it turned out that the American presence on Paros was not limited to Barry’s school.  The Aegean School of the Arts is a second institution. This school, in operation from the 1966, began as an independent summer arts program by founder Brett Taylor.   Its motto quotes Plato, “TO MARVEL IS THE BEGINNING OF KNOWLEDGE…AND WHEN WE CEASE TO MARVEL WE ARE IN DANGER OF CEASING TO KNOW.”

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the school. Next weekend, December 4th, the students will stage their exhibit, displaying their entire year’s effort.

Ironically, a stroll through the alleys of Paroikia, the capital of Paros, gives the impression that more Americans live in the town than natives.  That’s because both art schools host close to 50 students even through the winter, making the small town their campus.

Along the marble balustrade overlooking the port stretch in front of the chapel of Saint Constantinos, three American students were lounging in the late afternoon sun, intense enough to force you to take off your winter jacket.  Olivia Leer, 19, is studying photography at the Aegean School of Arts for a year before heading off to George Washington University next fall.  “I wanted to use [my gap year] as an opportunity to travel and to explore areas I am interested in exploring in university,” she explained.  Many universities actually encourage students to take a gap year before starting college, she cites, in order to alleviate burn out. Unlike students from her parents’ generation who took a gap year after college before entering the work force, many young millennials like Olivia choose to take a gap year before investing time and income in a 4-year college.

She and her companion Kira Sze,18, from San Francisco learned about the Aegean Center through a Massachusettes-based company that specializes in tailoring gap year experiences for students. Sze took the year at the Aegean Center as a time out with the approval of her parents.

Her companion, Ananya Tultli from Mumbai, India, learned about the Center through her elder sister who attended the program five years ago and stayed not one but three years.

“Paros has a specific happy vibe,” she explained behind cool shades, lounging on her friend’s back, the azure Aegean spread like a moving landscape in front of her. “I can’t explain it. It’s low-key in a happy way and very creative. It is so family-oriented, which is what I am used to back home,” she explains.  “Everyone knows everybody, they say ‘hi’ to you in the morning. You make friends with the souvlaki guy and in the supermarket they go out of their way to help you giving you recipes.”  She also mentions that the teachers in the Aegean Center are “amazing” exaggerating the word.

There is a saying that if you lift a stone, you will find a Greek, a Chinese, and a Latino.  I think the same can be said for an American, especially if that stone is a votsalaki on the Cycladic isle of Paros.

 

To read more about the art schools on Paros:

Aegean Center for Fine Arts:  www.aegeancenter.com

Hellenic International Studies in the Arts  http://www.hisa-studyabroad.com/

 

Coffee Culture in Athens

Walking just one block on my way to catch a taxi, I have witnessed the full gamut of the coffee cult available to the coffee fiend in Athens.  I see two women carrying those handy cardboard cases to haul four plastic domed containers  full of frappe.  A little bit further, an old retiree dangles a koboloi on a table set outside the curb and complains, “kale re Panayiott to eferes to cafe?” (Hey, Panayiotti did you bring my coffee?)   On her cell phone outside the fourno, aromatic wiuth the cinnamon sugar cookies and country bread, a blonde dyed skinny chick yells, “Is the coffee ready so I can come over?”

A few steps down a shop keeper peeps her head into a neighbor’s boutiques door, “to kafe sou,” she hand delivers the cold brew more than half which clings in froth.   Pedestrians test the density of foam as they poke thin plastic straws into the mixture.

Stores will be closed all over Athens; even in the height of August holiday, you will be hard pressed to find a pharmacy open , no grocery shop, no clothing stores, no barbers, but without a doubt, a cafe will be in operation.  Even in the most tucked away village alley or ghetto, the coffee shop, the kafenio, is a sure thing open even into the wee hours of the night.

Athens has a complex ecosystem of coffee culture. Here is a break down:

The Old Man’s Traditional Kafenio

This is the traditional kafenio.  Sparsely decorated except for dusty photos of islands and a picture of Jesus, jammed with circular tables, the kafenio is an all-male establishment.  It is usually comprised of pensioners and middle-aged folk who need a place to socialize outside the domain of the nikokira or the mistress of the house, their wives.  Although there is no law stating a woman cannot sit down and ask for a Greek coffee, no one dares because it is socially off limits.  I went into one just to test the waters and did not receive any backlash in sneers or nasty comments probably because I passed as a xeni, a foreigner who did not know any better.  The kafenio functions more as an older gentleman’s social club but serves round the clock coffee because what else is there to do than play cards, swing the koboloi and talk politics.  Ok maybe watch a game of Olympiakos vs Panathenaikos, the sousouroudes. You normally can get only the traditional Greek coffee baked in a briqui or else a frappe.

Coffee Boutiques
Like our corner Starbucks chains, Athens is crowded with what I term coffee boutique chains. Establishments such as Coffee Island,
These are probably the best places to grab an espresso, fredo cappuccino, moccachino because they build their business exclusively on coffee. They rarely sell anything but. Here you can taste the fineness of difference between Ethiopian and Arabica brew. Some even search the dark jungles of Africa to concoct their own blends.

Neighborhood caffeinating spots

Centered around the square of any neighborhood can be found the neighborhood watering holes where locals gather to swap news, read a paper, or just sip life slowly.  These are the coffee spots that natives make part of their daily routine, before work or after. They might provide a cheese pie or toast on the go but the core of their business is coffee. Some like the bakery chain Veneti make great coffee for the street.

Express coffee counters

This tier in the Greek coffee culture ecosystem is comprised of the quickie, grab a sandwich and a coffee on the go downtown shops.  Chains such as Everest, Gregories quick bites, are ubiquitous not only in Athens but all over Greece. You can sit for a coffee break in the heat of the afternoon to escape the hustle and bustle of street life at these establishments or when the caffeine gas tank in your head gets critically low.

Coffee Night Bars

Just like the Irish go out to the pubs to pass the night away, the Greeks have coffee bars that are for going out in the evening.  Unlike the day coffee counters that were created for daylight, the coffee bars can be posh and quite chi chi, good enough to make you put your high heels to go out for coffee.  Sometimes these night coffee bars double as lounges where music and DJS flaunt their stuff. If you want to get an idea of the scale of this night coffee culture just venture out to Kolonaki Square at midnight and you will see coffee sipped in style by the glitterati of Athenian high society.

I especially recommend Paliatsos in the central square of Penteli mountain although technically it touts itself as a wine bar, as it serves your coffee in microsized copper coffee pots that distill the taste powerfully.  Kolonaki Square, Heroes Square in Psiri and even Fokeinos Negri in Exarcheia as well as Kifissia Square are coffee bar meccas.

The truth be told, the drug of choice for Greeks is caffeine. To get the fix, it is possible to walk into any establishment and order something.  McDonald’s and Goodys both offer Greek coffee as well as frappe. And in a real crunch you could walk into a taverna and just sit at a checkered table and order a metrio, a medium sweet, without any food no questions asked. Unlike the US that has a few solid chains of coffee establishments, DDs and the ubiquitous Starbucks, Athens’ coffee culture is a rich ecosystem that will keep your brain pistons lubricated around the clock.