Athens Weather and News Roundup
Just a few remarks about the weather, disfunctional computer kiosks, the effect of the Athens 2004 Olympics on the city, and the smells of small streets in the Athens suburbs...
The weather is going up and down here lately. A few weeks ago it was rather cold, I was switching from bermudas to long jeans. Then it got hot again, the last few days had us sweating with 30 degrees Celsius even at night. This morning some raindrops fell, it has cooled down a bit, but I'm still comfortable with the bermudas. weather in September in Athens can be much steadier, just a softer version of summer.
Diomedes Spinellis (Author of "Code Reading") has a picture of a disfunctional info kiosk on his weblog. I must admit that I've never seen any one of these computer kiosks in working order. But this may be because I was away from Athens during the Athens 2004 Olympics.
Because that was the time when everything worked in Athens. If you can read German, on a site called "Europolitan" there is a feature "Athens the city of contrasts", which is just so much bullshit. It sings the old song of Athens being this dirty city, but with the great background of the ancient Greeks. Right, but never heard of Byzantium and the eastern part of the Greek soul. Also they mention how the Olympics did not take over the city. Right, it was just the event that touched this city more than maybe anything in post WWII times (maybe except for the arrival of reinforced concrete).
As for the smelly part: There are three verbs for "smelling" in use in Greek. "Βρωμάω" - to stink, "μυρίζω" - to smell, "μοσχοβολώ" - to smell good, to have a good smell. Yesterday evening I was walking on a small sidestreet in Μοσχάτο (Moschato, a south eastern suburb). The small olive and orange trees were smelling very good. If there would be cameras for smells, I would have posted a smelling picture. This morning after the few drops of rain, there was an earthy, rainy note about the warm tree smell. I enjoyed it a lot. Μοσχοβολούσε - it had that good smell.