Since we have been walking some of the same routes every day, going down to the market to look at things, and heading to go get food around the same parts of the city today I decided to focus my attention on color in my pictures.
This phone booth right here is one of the things that stood out most to me today when I was on my quest for color. First of all because of the brightness of it and strangely how no one was on the phone. Most of the time when we have been walking around in the streets of Greece I have seen people on the phones in the Greek version of the phone booth. For me, when I see public phones like this it reminds me of the time before cell phones which obviously wasn't the long ago. All of us on this trip have had to go back to that time before cell phones since none of our phones work abroad. It has definitely taken some time to get used to and we have had to amend some of our ways of communicating and the way that we walk as a group.
We have had to get used to setting a time and meeting place each night for the following day and also have had to keep a close watch on our group as a whole as we are traveling as a group of 20 a lot of the time. It's easy to get lost in the winding roads of Athens especially when many of the tall marble buildings and cobblestone streets look remarkably similar. I know a few of us have experience that already even in our first week here. We started a Facebook group early on in the trip so that we could all communicate during the day and once we had split up to our different apartments.
There are other things in Athens that I didn't expect such as McDonalds and big advertisements for Coca Cola. I know that fast food is worldwide when it comes to places like McDonalds but the way that it is presented in a different light when abroad is interesting to me. There are also smaller places that are considered Greek fast food like Evergreen which is a coffee shop type of place that also has sandwiches and salads and such.
I particularly enjoy seeing the similarities and differences in American products such as Coca Cola and McDonalds and also the way it has been modified here. My wisdom that I would pass on to others is mainly that every day you need to enjoy something a little different and to look for things that stand out to you and mean something to you instead of always appreciating and taking pictures of things that you are told are pretty or impressive. I've learned that it's important to remember that your life is what you make it and that just because someone tells you, oh okay, this is supposed to be what you find interesting and to take a picture of that, that isn't necessarily something that will have great meaning to you later on in your life. This may be a round-about way of going about things but this little mini challenge for me today to focus on color really made me think about what I actually find important and interesting and how that may be different from what other people think. What makes us so special as humans and thinking creatures is that we can understand our similarities and appreciate our differences in culture and in life.
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