About55

Even though many Greek-Americans like myself come to Greece more frequently than the average tourist, our memories become clouded in between trips, making the comforts of daily life in the U.S. something we rarely think about.

Contrasts and curiosities are everywhere as my husband and I arrive after a long series of flights from California. The German-designed Athens airport, completed a few years before the country proudly hosted the 2004 Olympic Games, boasts expanses of marble and gleaming metal — a testament to how the Greeks so magnificently demonstrated their worthiness in handling such a huge event while steeped in the pride of their Olympic origins. In years past, our plane would come to a halt on the tarmac amid a sea of other parked planes at an old, but humble airport. There, we would board buses that took us to the terminal in the distance. To the average American, chaos ruled as we stepped off the vehicles. Self-important men herded us into de facto lines only to wave us through seemingly “official” procedures to the excited faces of our relatives waiting outside customs.

Fast forwarding in time, we are amazed at the cosmopolitan nature of the new facility, complete with fancy bars, high-end designer shops and indoor cafes. My cousin, waiting on the other side of security, whisks us off to his new apartment in an Athens suburb. A huge departure from the types of (Spartan) accommodations I have seen in years past, his kitchen boasts a gleaming stainless steel array of miniature appliances, while the rest of the modern abode regales us with a generous outdoor balcony topped by a motor-controlled awning that lazily shades a generously sized patio. I begin to contrast it to my cousin’s grandfather’s house of the ’60s, where the kitchen contained nothing but a sink, an ancient refrigerator and a small table, forcing my aunt to take her pans of food to a local store where she paid to use an oven. Then I remembered how my father took note of this and promptly located the Greek version of Sears and Roebuck. To great fanfare, a new range was delivered and placed in a corner of the kitchen as my brothers and I watched, thinking how our father was no doubt now referred to as a “rich” American.

Read the rest of this entry →