This shot is from a corner of Omonoia Square in Athens, Greece. Omonoia is a mixed bag of architecture, people, and atmosphere. A visually interesting place during the daytime but if the rumors are true, not very nice at night where I’ve read the square and surrounding streets are riddled with some of the capital’s most sketchy folks.

Feeling a bit bipolar in Athens. Once you’ve ticked off all the easy stuff – like the ancient attractions, the ridiculously good food, the spontaneous openness and generosity of locals, and the fact that the city gets around 300 days of sunshine a year – Athens isn’t exactly an easy city to befriend.

It feels like Athens plays in the same league as Mumbai or Bangkok: brutally large, endlessly dirty, and unbelievably chaotic. The paradox is that it’s precisely all that stuff that makes me feel such a strong pull toward Athens. There’s always stuff to look at, document, admire, or lament, something to feel inspired by or to despise.

But is it really so strange that I’m drawn to the chaos, the grime, the cragginess? Maybe not.

Oddly enough, Athens feels much bigger than it actually is. Even bigger than many other major cities I’ve visited. With “just” 3.1 million residents, Athens ranks only eighth among Europe’s capitals. Its population is actually a third of London’s and barely half of Berlin’s or Madrid’s. This is partly due to Athens’ lack of skyscrapers and partly because the city has slowly but surely sprawled out over more than 3,000 years.

At least half of the buildings we see here are either in really bad shape or in need of some serious upkeep. I’m constantly reminded of Havana, Sofia, and Tbilisi – wonderfully beautiful capitals that are slowly deteriorating without authorities caring or being able to stop it.

The Greeks we’ve spoken to about Athens’ decaying state mostly just shake their heads and shrug. They explain the problems as being caused by deeply rooted nepotism, which operates relatively openly, and corruption and bribery scandals that follow one after another. Regular people try to make ends meet and balance life’s challenges between moments of hopelessness and cautious optimism, like when a new charismatic politician appears on the scene. Probably as they’ve been doing for thousands of years.

The Greeks love to talk about politics. Complaining about the country’s problems is almost as popular as playing backgammon. Just like in many other countries nowadays, people here are trying to find scapegoats to explain all the misfortunes and why life is so tough. We’ve heard about several scapegoats here: the Roma mafia, undocumented Pakistanis, Afghans who’ve been smuggled in to the country, and wealthy foreigners who buy up property, renovate it, and then make big money renting out IKEA-furnished apartments on Airbnb. We’re currently staying in one of those apartments. The owner is from Iran, and I haven’t yet found anything in the flat that wasn’t designed in Älmhult, Sweden.

This Friday, Greece will come to a standstill. Various unions will go on a nationwide strike to protest the train disaster of February 28, 2023. That was when a freight train and a passenger train collided head-on between the cities of Tempi and Evangelismos, killing 57 people. It was by far the country’s worst train disaster, and according to the strikers, the crash would never have happened if the Government had modernized the long-neglected railway safety system.

The Athens metro is among the most modern and well-maintained systems I’ve ever used. It’s clean, well-kept and the trains run on time. The metro was financed through loans from the European Investment Bank and supplied by French firm Alstom and German company Siemens.

Portion sizes at ordinary restaurants here are almost American-sized. You never leave the table without feeling properly full. At some places, you get a small bottle of raki before dinner and sometimes a little dessert after.

Most Athenians we chat with are super friendly. They’re curious about where we’re from, how long we’re staying, and what we think of the city. We love the country, the people, the food, the culture, and the climate, so some get a little overwhelmed by our enthusiasm. Surprisingly many have some kind of connection to Sweden, and almost everyone knows who Kojak was.

During winter, Athens suffers from chronic temperature inversion, where cold air settles over the city like a lid, trapping the exhaust fumes from the intense traffic. I haven’t seen many electric cars here. Most people drive diesel, and you can feel it in both your nose and lungs. I’ve already gone through a whole container of Ventolin.

The other day, we walked from Syntagma Square in the heart of the city all the way to the sea – a total of 25,000 steps. The road there wasn’t particularly inspiring, but it gave us a glimpse of a few of Athens’ suburbs. Not exactly uplifting, but it was humbling.

There’s a tiny Shell gas station a couple of blocks from our apartment. It’s probably the smallest Shell station I’ve ever seen. The man working there mostly sits inside his little office smoking. It can’t be more than 4 meters to the nearest gas or diesel pump. The other day we saw a grill with smoldering coal placed on the gas station’s lot. Amazing.

Walking along the sidewalk at a leisurely pace is no guarantee that you won’t get hit by a motorcycle here. Fortunately, we’re used to it from walks in among other Asian cities, Ho Chi Minh. You need to stay alert and definitely not drink too much raki or ouzo if you have a long walk home.