Athens

I'm staying at a hostel where, a few days ago a bomb went off just outdoors.... safe places in Greece I know. Apparently they had some kind of political election of sorts and just before they found out who the new leader or whatever was, there were a bunch of political riots. And haha, one just so happened to be here near the Victoria metro station.

When I got off the metro, upon my first arrival in Athens, I had to walk a few blocks to our posh hotel. The hotel, being very elegant, was in a pretty shady neighbourhood, as things turn out. Now, I didn't even notice, not knowing what to expect from Greece. There were cars honking there horns, sirens going off everywhere, and people waving flags and yelling at the top of their lungs. But hey, being from Canada, I just assumed someone won some sporting event. Everyone was happy with the outcome, so the night I arrived, there were happy riots... Good! The few days before that, hadn't been so pleasant, so I've heard.

And so, now I'm at this hostel with Lauren and Ryan (whom I met onboard the Aquamarine), and they're happy with the hostel location, so as am I. Apparently the windows that were shattered during the bomb have now been repaired and life has gotten pretty much back to normal... But when I hear Lauren mention casually "so when the bomb went off, this and this is what was going on"... or when Ryan curses traffic saying "this street was at least closed off during the political rallies" it kinda gives you some perspective.

And throughout my travels so many people have asked me about Canadian politics. It always starts off fairly simple like "Canada has a Prime Minister right?" stuff that I could answer you know? But then they ask who he is and about how Quebec wants to seperate, and I can't seem to get it across to Europeans that Canadian politics, aren't a big deal. The riots are very doubtful in our country, and not a lot of people know who's leading it. And that's not necessarilly a bad thing. It just means that they're doing a decent job and we really don't need to think twice about it. And then a very shallow comment which I have a way of always adding in there "I mean, we should know who our Prime Minister is, but it's not really that big a deal... it's not like he's black or anything". Ouch, but I believe that to be true.