Unrest

I just went out to the post office at Syntagma Square, only two blocks from our apartment, to mail a few things. Where, to my great surprise, I encountered a riot, or a protest, or some kind of civil unrest involving lots of policemen in riot gear, loud chanting, and what looked like tear gas in the air.


As you may know, in December 2008 Greece was in the headlines for a week of severe rioting and civil unrest, triggered by the fatal shooting of a teenage boy by police. Things calmed down before Christmas, and since we've been here we've seen some signs of the violence that was recently here, but it still seemed like a distant occurrence. Every once in a while I might encounter the cracked and smashed large glass display windows of a store, usually foreign (Zara, the clothing store, seems to be a frequent target), done overnight by gangs of youth equipped with sledgehammers. And then there was the day it finally dawned on me that the reason a group of police was always hanging out in one of the main buildings surrounding Syntagma was not because there was a police station, but because they were guarding over the reconstruction of a burned out goverment office there.

In any case, the post office seemed to be safe territory, right on the cusp of the action. I could easily see inside and business seemed to be going on as usual, and people were going in and out with ease, as it was still quite a distance from any rioters or police. So, I bought my stamps, mailed my letters and retreated back to have a look from the safety of Nikis Street. (Don't worry mom and dad, I promise I did not at any time put myself in danger. There were people with kids going inside the post office. Anyways, I am a scaredy-cat and would never have gone if it looked dangerous!)

Here's a little map I made to give you an idea of the layout:




As you can see from the area designated "weirdly normal safe zone", only a few blocks people kept on going about their regular business. I had to pop into the store and buy a few things for dinner on my way back, and on our cross street, Apollonos, things were basically operating as usual, I bumped into a young man buying produce at the market and he smiled and apologized as if everything was normal, and his peers weren't chanting and staring down police just a few blocks away.


Sure, people were definitely standing in the street, watching and whispering to each other, but for the most part everything seemed very oddly calm.


I haven't seen anything in the news yet to determine exactly what is going on, but I think Tim and I will most certainly stay in tonight; we've been feeling a little under the weather anyway...