Pakicetus

i once lived in athens for 3 months building software for a greek client

some impressions...
🧵 

greek people are a little brusque but generally friendly and chill. there's so much tourism that everyone is pretty open to outsiders

the women in the coffee shop opposite work got to know us and had banter, nice vibe

but some issues:

terrible economy. the young people are so despondent. i met so many wistful people whose friends have jumped ship to europe. they stay because they love greece and can't bear to leave

they have a kind of nostalgic ennui, like they hope for better days and try to stay positive

we visited a trikala (city near meteora) and it had a buzzing youthful vibe. we soon realised it was because everyone under 30 was unemployed 😅

in athens the police are super weird and scary. there's a lot of far right golden dawn representation. they have these big police buses parked on the street and just hang out like a gang in tactical gear - like they have a gasmask strapped to them. very odd 

greece had a university sanctuary law where the police can't enter universities, so they inevitably became hotbeds of political dissent. there are streets with commemoration plaques to students killed by police, they like to tell you about it

hate to say it but the work culture was kinda bad. lots of restaurants had very slow service and mixed quality. its like there isn't a desire to improve things. lots of small problems that could be fixed if anyone wanted to. it was sometimes frustrating. broken windows theory

we did a road trip that was awesome. meteora may just be my favourite place i've visited 

other amazing spots: mystras - incredible views (much better than nearby sparta) and monemvasia, a walled off old town on an island: 

overall it was a really great unique opportunity. working in software consulting before the pandemic was kinda cool for weird travel opportunities. never again, it's all remote since covid

i visited turkey afterwards and it was awesome too but don't tell them, they'll get mad

Update - part 2
https://x.com/PakicetusAdapts/status/1733862639674011737