A homeland of sorts

I am exploring Greece this week. Staying in the heart of Athens before and after running the "Athens Classic Marathon". This marathon celebrates the 2500th Anniversary of the Battle of Marathon and the famous run of Phillipedes (among many names he is known by). The Athenians were victorious in battle and Phillipedes was chosen to bring the happy message to Athens, 26 miles away. He ran the 26 miles from Marathonas to Athens after participating in the battle to gasp out "Rejoice we are victorious!" then collapse and die. Marathoners often joke, "Why didn't Phillipedes die at mile 20?"

Our marathon route tomorrow will celebrate that event, the birth of the Marathon and the birth of democracy. The route will follow the route of the original 1896 Modern Olympic games and even finish in the Olympic Stadium used in 1896. This same route and stadium were used in 2004 for the 2004 summer Olympics as well. Fortunately we are supposed to have better weather than they did!

But, that's not what I'm blogging about, I'll tell you about that after the race. What I'm blogging about is the strange feeling of being in Greece. My brothers, sisters and I are all part Greek through our maternal grandfather, last name Demos, shortened from Demotropolis (which I'm told means he is a Demos from the south, that's what the "tropolis" part means). We are also German from both our mother and father's sides and Russian on our father's side. Aaaannnnyyyyway...

We, my brothers, sisters and I, share some strong physical characteristics... light brown straight hair (dark ash blonde is the hairdresser term), "big nose" according to my husband, defined cheek bones and a very noticeable chin. You put us together and you know we are related. We also don't look very typical American.. but we don't look like anything else in particular either. That's what I thought anyway, until we got here. Here I see people with those same characteristics all over the place. Everywhere. The Greeks here even told me I look Greek. So much so I walk down the street and smile and nod to someone and they start talking to me in a stream of Greek and all I can do is smile and apologize and say, sorry, I'm American, I don't speak Greek.

The first night here I saw a 1.2 x scale twin of my old boyfriend (who was also 1 generation removed Greek). A guy with the same hair, same nose, same chin, same weird style of wearing his facial hair.. only .2 times bigger than my boyfriend. He even smoked, though he holds his cigarette differently. Actually a LOT of people smoke here. Not a great thing for a bunch of marathoners

Wandering around the Acropolis, the Temple of Zeus the Olympian, the port of Pireas, I get this sense of this is my "homeland" if I ever had one. At least it is the land of my Grandfather and his forefathers. Do I like Athens? not really. I don't like the modern city of Athens much.. it is crowded and built up like a typical developing country city. It stinks of cigarette smoke and has more graffiti than I expected. But I love the ruins and the port and the sense of the truly ancient you get here. I feel young and small wandering around Portsmouth with building that are over 200 years old. Here, there are ruins over 2500 years old. The new subway built for the Olympic games unearthed cities and buildings from 500BC. They actually kept the ruins in place so you can see them as you travel in the subways. This entire history of the United States is a mere blip on the scales of time that you experience in this place.

On one hand I'm glad to know where my ancestors come from.. from having experienced both Greece and Germany on this trip to some extent. It is nice to have some sort of connection to a place where you are "from". At the same time, I'm not from either of these places. I'm from California. That's my home. My daughter doesn't look so Greek as I do and she's another step removed from our ancestors here. She's from California too. I don't get the feeling I thought I would here, I don't really know what I thought I would feel. I can tell you one thing though, watching the sunset over the Acropolis and watching the Parthenon being lit against the night is an awe inspiring experience... and to know that some part of me comes directly from this ancient land. That is pretty amazing too.

Hopefully some spirit of my ancestors will carry my part Greek body through the very Greek Marathon with a minimum of pain and a maximum of enjoyment.