Night on the town is like a trip back in time

By Oleksander Bilyk

There are quite a few people that come from very small colleges in Midwestern and western states that make Ithaca seem like one of the most exciting places to party in the U.S. of A. You can identify these people at the parties because they always seem to be the ones who get drunk the quickest, by which I mean 10 to 10:30 p.m. I’ve been told by some, “no one ever drinks weekend nights back home, they just catch up on studying: I love Greece!”

The nice thing about Athens though, in my opinion, is that when the American-hosted party you’re attending starts to drag, say, around 10:45 p.m, you can always leave quietly and go for an amazing walk in this historic city. I decided to head toward the Acropolis, which technically isn’t open after 7 p.m., but the streets of Plaka below the craggy cliffs of the Acropolis are at their prime at this time.

One of the many stray dogs that wander around the city decided to follow me, and I suddenly found myself very popular with the opposite sex. I rewarded the dog for the job well done with some souvlaki, then headed back to the north-central part of town, hoping that the party had gotten more exciting. It had.

Since I had slipped away without telling too many people, I decided to slip back in the same way. And so, completely sober-minded, I climbed four stories of scaffolding that was set up for some repair work — for obvious reasons, I made sure to stay still when the cars drove past. My friends and I laughed about the scaffold-climbing, about the importance of mixing things up every so often and about the fact that we weren’t supposed to be on the balcony at all because of the city-wide quiet hours. (I guess that’s why I noticed so many angry Greeks shouting incomprehensibly into the warm night, oblivious to the fact that it takes a lot to shut up drunk Americans).

Slowly though, people started to grow tired or angry or depressed, blacked out and began to leave. None of us were tired, but by 1:30 the hosts were talking about getting to their beds, and some Greeks who had come to the party were talking about getting to their clubs. As a good American, I thought I would do the former and dutifully set off with the rest. But then I thought, “I’m not tired at all, it’s still early, and there’s no reason why I have to join my rapidly passing-out friends in confining myself to bed.”

So I got a taxi with the Greeks and headed off to the magical, neon-lit land of Gazi, home to strips of bars that are only broken up by the strips of clubs. Because nothing closes here until the last customer leaves (8, 9 a.m. anyone?), we had a full night ahead. Since punk was what my companions wanted, we ended up in a grungy former warehouse where the walls were lined with posters for Black Sabbath and AC/DC. The people predictably wore tight black t-shirts and torn-up jeans, and I suddenly felt transported back in time — after some beers and tequila, it was awesome.
Is Greece behind the times? Perhaps, but with people from all over Europe enjoying the fact that they’re young and can stay up until 7 a.m. and wake up at noon and still feel great — I know that wasn’t just me — it was an amazing time. We walked out into the cool evening, I mean morning, air of Gazi’s still-crowded main party square at 6 a.m., grabbed a cab and headed back to Kolonaki, where I walked up the stairs of my quiet apartment, walked into my quiet room, found my roommate long-since asleep, and quietly took my place underneath my tranquil covers, ready to wake up by 11 or 12 for a quiet Sunday brunch.

Source: http://cornellsun.com/node/39120