Saturday. Evening. Athens.

Despite the raw cold that has hovered over the city for almost a week, it’s finally starting to warm up. This afternoon, the sun broke through for a while – just enough for me to stash away my hat.

Whenever I stay in a place for a longer period, I start by slowly expanding my walking radius until I get a feel for the area. It’s taken a little longer in Athens because the city is so wonderfully winding and labyrinthine.

I love getting lost here. The moment I feel confident about my location, I deliberately head in the opposite direction and let chance take over. It almost always leads to something exciting and inspiring. The idea of missing out on something is just an illusion. I’m more drawn to discovering a comfortable everyday rhythm than ticking off sights from a guidebook.

I never feel more alive than when I stumble upon something unexpected. I find it hard to simply be in the moment – I have to keep moving, tracking, exploring. Feeding my curiosity with new experiences.

Cities where you have to keep an eye on the pavement to avoid cracks, holes, and dog poop tend to have a lot of soul. Athens is no exception.

I think that a certain degree of decay is a good sign, and Athens’ 3,400-year-old history is visible everywhere. Excavations, small and large, pop up on many streets.

This cosmopolitan megacity exists in a state of chaos where decay and modernity coexist as neighbors. Though, to be honest, there’s far more decay than new stuff.

The position of city planner in Athens has probably been vacant for centuries.

Many beautiful yet utterly crumbling stone houses are in various stages of renovation. A bartender lamented that Athens is quickly turning into another Airbnb city. Rents are increasing so much that it’s becoming hard for locals to afford housing. Young Greeks can no longer afford to leave home.

The patina of Athens reminds me of other Southern European cities we’ve lived in over the years – Palma, Málaga, Lisbon. But really, it was Athens that set the template for most of them.

I’m surprised at how easy it is to reach different neighborhoods in central Athens – Plaka, Syntagma, Kolonaki, Psiri, and Exarchia. The city is big, but if, like us, you enjoy walking for hours, it’s entirely possible to explore on foot.

It’s humbling to stroll through the same streets where Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle once walked – the old men who came up with the whole idea of democracy.

Though I imagine those ancient Greeks are rolling in their graves right now, as the new U.S. president and his sycophantic entourage blatantly ignore and undermine their country’s constitutional democratic principles. It’s the behavior of someone drunk on power. He acts as if he were a king – but in the end, he’s just a clown.

There’s something special about cities built on hills. They may not be the easiest to navigate, but if people went through the trouble of building a city on uneven terrain, the place must have been interesting enough to be worth it.

An olive tasting in Monastiraki costs €4 / $4.30 / 45 SEK, and you get to try around twenty different kinds. Apparently, there are over a hundred varieties in total.

Yesterday, I discovered that a double Maker’s Mark bourbon and a large Nymph beer cost 113 SEK / €10 / $10.90 at our local bar. One of the bar’s co-owners has a daughter who will be interning at the Greek embassy in Stockholm this spring.

When I mentioned that I live in Malmö, she treated me to a shot of cha-cha and another beer. It turned into a slightly more festive after-work drink than I had originally planned.

A loaf of Greek sourdough bread costs 11 SEK / €1 / $1.05, and 25–30 large, meaty Chalkidiki olives go for 25 SEK / €2.20 / $2.40.

The sturdy Albanian woman who works at the neighborhood deli has started recognizing me. Every single one of her recommendations has been spot on. Her sister lives in Södertälje.

Athens is not short on stray cats. They rule the streets, and the little lapdogs are terrified of them.