Bali to Bangkok to Athens

Well, I am now at a little coffee bar on the side of the road in Athens, a city I really love. I’m the only woman here, surrounded by men in pairs, sitting at the high tables, smoking, a coffee in front of them they rarely take a sip of and chatting or looking at their phones, a disproportionate amount of them more stereotypically attractive than the average cross section of humankind. This sort of idle sitting for hours outside, especially groups of men, and smoking seems to be a hallmark of this place. The last time I was here was winter (December to March) and it was obviously cold. There was less sitting outside of course, and I feel now that I am here when it’s warmer, I’m getting to see closer to the full effect of Greek culture.

Flashback to last week in Bangkok, Thailand (I spent nine days there after Bali) and I felt great relief at leaving. The Thai people are lovely, so friendly and sweet, especially just outside of city center. And the traditional Thai food is amazing of course. But Bangkok, the city itself, was difficult for me. The energy felt heavy and it didn’t feel like there was a lot of light there. Logically, perhaps I could point to the traffic, the pollution and smog sun cover in the sky, and also that it is a place for sex tourism, an industry with much darkness. In general, I felt a sense of frenetic desperation that weighed on me. I took an amazing bike tour through local neighborhoods outside the city center, took a Thai cooking class, toured five temple sites, and wandered through different neighborhoods and tried many different Thai dishes, all of which was wonderful, but I struggled. When I wasn’t doing one of those activities, I was holed up in my tiny studio apartment, ordering copious amounts of food and various super sweet addictive beverages like thai iced tea, dark chocolate iced matcha, or strawberry milk, and also gorging on terrible, processed snacks and alcohol from the nearby 7-11.

I felt like I was drowning. It was getting to be a situation where, as a confidant of mine had said to me about Malaysia when I felt “stuck” there, that it seemed we might have to get an emergency team to come in and do a rescue to help pull me out of there, an emergency extraction. I could feel myself slipping into this energetic muck more and more. In Bali, even if I was eating a bit more in the evening, I was exercising almost daily and keeping track of calories to try and develop a balance and awareness and intentionality to my eating. Well, this unraveled on the second day in Bangkok and was getting worse. I stopped tracking the calories, then a few days later, I started adding some alcohol into the mix, and after that came the sugar (candy, drinks, etc.) I only managed to go to a spin class once and do a quick routine at the gym a few days after that. I haven’t exercised since.

Thankfully, I received some information that reminded me of my time in Greece, and then, one day when I was walking back into the apartment, I heard the word “Greece” and knew it was a message to consider heading there. For the first time, I felt a little excited, which wasn’t the case with all my research of Gdansk and Lyon. There seemed to be roadblocks when I attempted to book a trip there, but with Athens, it seemed pretty smooth. Even when I briefly considered heading to Thessaloniki instead, the roadblocks flew back up. So, I booked the flight to Athens and started looking forward to escaping whatever fog I was in, since I had experienced the energy here before and knew generally what to expect.

Well, it’s noon here at this coffee bar and the amount of men has increased. They seem to have come perhaps on a break from work – not sure – and they are munching on various phyllo-based snacks, smoking, and chatting enthusiastically.

Arriving here though, it was a little bit of a rough landing. I felt relieved to be here and relieved that the energy felt the same as before, but the food here is absolutely phenomenal. So, my first few days were like a crash landing from Bangkok with a continuation of overeating and drinking, only different food of course – souvlaki with gouda cheese spread, greek salad, four-cheese pinsa, mythos beer, white wine, baba (the most amazing dessert I’ve tasted, though it’s excellence is dependent on the baker), baklava, hummus and tortillas, fries – along with some processed chips and oreos and such. I didn’t feel like the energy of this place was dark and drowning me, but instead I just felt stuck and like I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I’ve felt a bit of ups and downs to this energy, and hopefully that means it’s leaving me or I can heal myself and get back to balance. Over the last two years, I have gained at least 25 pounds from this whole process I’ve been going through, and I desire to get on a path to release the weight. On my birthday (the day after I arrived) and today, I definitely feel like I can breathe better and less drawn to relief through food and drink. I am praying and using all I have in me to come out of this uncontrollable pull to overeat causing myself greater harm than relief.

Well, the groups of men have increased even further, along with one other lone woman, and two teens. One difficulty I have with Athens is that people smoke here like crazy. It’s sickening for those of us sensitive to it. Admittedly though the positives here outweigh that big negative.