Reality Check
Like many other days here in Athens, I'm sitting in my room, a can of Amstel beer in hand, watching a live stream feed of the FIFA World Cup match. At half-time, the broadcaster cuts to a brief newsflash: the G20 Summit, politics, ... and a bombing at the Ministry of Public Order.
A "gift" packaged, apparently addressed to the Minister, is detonated on the seventh floor of the ministry, just down the hall from the Minister's office, taking the life of a senior aide of his and father of two. (My sincere condolences go out to the wife and children of this poor soul.) Shocked, I immediately looked up the address of the Ministry: lo and behold, it's located just 4 kilometres down the road from my residence.
Do I panic? Do I call my boss? Or home? In the end, I reasoned with myself: this is part of the reality of Greece, I figured. The travel warnings I'd read prior to departing to Greece spoke of pockets of radical ultra-leftist activists and occasional bomb plots (although never with casualties and no group has as of yet claimed responsibility for this attack). This is the rather unfortunate materialization of one of the dimensions of risk of life in Greece--a part of the deal I signed up for.
Nonetheless, as much as the past few weeks of learning, amusement, and experiences have come to help me define Greece, this too, is a face of the very same country. No place is perfect and this realization is perhaps the driving force of the phenomenon many call 'culture shock'. Rest assured, though, that while my place of residence may be close to Parliament, a majority of the embassies, and some Greek ministries, it is located in a safe residential area.
This news changes me. Off the bat, I admit that I can now lend much more support to the Greek authorities for the prevalence and deployment of openly armed (we're talking automatic rifles) soldiers and police around major political and government institutions and grounds. It also helps me come to terms with the two conflicting images of Greece:
a. the rich landscape, culture, history, and lifestyle that make Greece the dream vacation of many a person
b. the politically divided, economically troubled, and social unrest-prone Greece you read about in the news
Culture shock or not, this event served as a reality check, pushing away the glory of vacation and the FIFA World Cup in favour of a more objective analysis of the world around me here in Athens.
I suppose this concludes my thoughts on the subject--at least for now. For more information about the incident, here's a link to the BBC article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10409192.stm
A "gift" packaged, apparently addressed to the Minister, is detonated on the seventh floor of the ministry, just down the hall from the Minister's office, taking the life of a senior aide of his and father of two. (My sincere condolences go out to the wife and children of this poor soul.) Shocked, I immediately looked up the address of the Ministry: lo and behold, it's located just 4 kilometres down the road from my residence.
Do I panic? Do I call my boss? Or home? In the end, I reasoned with myself: this is part of the reality of Greece, I figured. The travel warnings I'd read prior to departing to Greece spoke of pockets of radical ultra-leftist activists and occasional bomb plots (although never with casualties and no group has as of yet claimed responsibility for this attack). This is the rather unfortunate materialization of one of the dimensions of risk of life in Greece--a part of the deal I signed up for.
Nonetheless, as much as the past few weeks of learning, amusement, and experiences have come to help me define Greece, this too, is a face of the very same country. No place is perfect and this realization is perhaps the driving force of the phenomenon many call 'culture shock'. Rest assured, though, that while my place of residence may be close to Parliament, a majority of the embassies, and some Greek ministries, it is located in a safe residential area.
This news changes me. Off the bat, I admit that I can now lend much more support to the Greek authorities for the prevalence and deployment of openly armed (we're talking automatic rifles) soldiers and police around major political and government institutions and grounds. It also helps me come to terms with the two conflicting images of Greece:
a. the rich landscape, culture, history, and lifestyle that make Greece the dream vacation of many a person
b. the politically divided, economically troubled, and social unrest-prone Greece you read about in the news
Culture shock or not, this event served as a reality check, pushing away the glory of vacation and the FIFA World Cup in favour of a more objective analysis of the world around me here in Athens.
I suppose this concludes my thoughts on the subject--at least for now. For more information about the incident, here's a link to the BBC article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/europe/10409192.stm
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