Athens is like one big flea market wherever you go.
Ten minutes after climbing down from the breathtaking heights of the Acropolis, where you realise the postcards of the Parthenon don’t come within cooee of doing justice to a magnificent building that’s more than 2,000 years old, it’s shop after shop selling T-Shirts.
There’s also hundreds of shops selling “eyes’’ which are supposed to ward off evil and bad karma, icon shops and one or two restaurants…
No wonder we got lost after half an hour of dipping in and out of side streets full of these shops.
But I noticed what the T-Shirts say because it seems to reflect a little how the natives feel about their country generally and the financial crisis it was plunged in earlier this year.
The T-shirts tell me there is a lot of resilience in this crazy country, as well as a healthy dose of optimism.
For example, while we’re waiting for the NBN to save us in Australia, the internet connection here in our hotel in Athens is 10 times faster than I am used to back home.
Sure, when you engage them, the locals will sound downbeat but in their actions they are positive, and the T-Shirts reflect that.
And that’s why this edition of Top 5 takes a bash at some of the T-shirts you’re likely to see over and over again in the flea markets of Athens:
Number 1: TO DO IS TO BE – Socrates.
TO BE IS TO DO – Plato.
DO BE DO BE DO – Sinatra.
Number 2: Keep Calm and Enjoy Greece.
Number 3: It’s All Greek to Me.
Number 4: Ouzo: Connecting People.
Number 5: Molon lave, ancient Greek for “I dare you to come and take what’s mine’’ (loosely translated). It was said by Leonidas of 300 Spartans fame to the Persian army generals. Modern Greece is saying something similar to the rich countries of northern Europe, it seems to me.
