This week I was away in Greece for some family member's work, and this blog will document my takeaways and reflections on Greece in the lenses of my travel and its situation in the world.
Greece has always been a relatively poor country compared to its fellow EU members, and its financial crisis in 2014 and COVID have only hurt its struggling population. Going there felt like I was staying in the wrong neighborhood, yet that's just how the entire city of Athens was: there was graffiti on every wall and building, some of the worst street designs ever, and plenty of dilapidated building more emblematic I thought of downtown Phnom Penh than what the city of Athena, the Greek god of knowledge, would be like. But the city was not exactly in poverty, it was just clear that the government had chosen very carefully were they wanted to use their resources. The most popular tourist destination in Athens, the Acropolis, with the famous Parthenon in the center was very well kept, and was close to tens of shopping streets as well as the city center, with metro lines all around that had all been recently implemented. Because of how much history there is in Athens, I assume the government has really had to pick and choose what monuments they want to properly preserve, as other famous destinations like the Academy were much closer to piles of rubble than the gymnasia that birthed western philosophy. Surprisingly due to how wide the city was, I was able to go most of the trip without taking a taxi by walking and taking the metro and I think I got a proper feel for the atmosphere of the city. As a big foodie, meals were always at the top of my mind, and considering I got a Greek salad at almost every restaurant along with my entree, despite my hate (or now previous hate as I forced myself to eat them) of tomatoes, the food in Athens was very good, and definitely a highlight of the trip, especially my favorite dish orzo and lamb. Like the food, the people I interacted with in Athens were all very warm and open. A common theme Athenians wanted to talk about was politics: taxi drivers, tour guides, and even biologists all were very avid about discussing Greek and American politics.
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Yesterday, Gavin Newsom officially lifted the indoors mask mandate in California for most situations, marking probably the largest checkpoint in defeating COVID here. Just a few weeks before the CDC updated its recommendations that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks inside and outside, and many states updated their regulations in suit, considering the massively successful effort to vaccinate America in the past few months. With things returning back to the way they were before the pandemic and all of the cautions around it, California and America in general is shifting its focus, politically and media wise away from COVID. Though it's still majorly affecting other countries like India, which now is experiencing a new mutation of the virus called the Delta variant, the end of the quarantine is seemingly marking the end of the virus here: whether that is a safe approach will be determined in the future, but for now in the eyes of the public and the politicians, COVID is a thing of the past. Every restaurant I've been to in the past month has been full, nobody is social distancing when I walk on the street, and I'm also not being cautious after my second vaccination three or four weeks ago. Even my grandparents nursing home allowed me to be maskless, after more than a year of allowing zero visits. At this pivot away from the virus that America is taking, I think this blog will start to cover newer and less popular (more interesting) global issues, as the virus has been so ingrained in our lives over the past year that all of its stigmas and connotations have been talked about to death, and at the least I am tired of hearing the words coronavirus, masks, and everything else associated with this plague. That isn't to say I or the rest of America should push away the virus, as it has had such a massive impact and could easily come back in the future, as it's constantly mutating. Just like other modern phenomena, no one really knows what the effects of having had COVID will do to people, so a lot of people might have to grapple with its long term health effects, like irreversible lung damage, which could seriously impact its survivors in the future. Like how millions of smokers smoked before the research that cigarettes could be very harmful, and yet many people still smoke, people who were less cautious and more blaise who caught COVID might have more to deal with in the future than they accounted for. The lessons of the pandemic are still culminating, millions of people are still in lockdown, billions are unvaccinated, and millions more denied it ever happened, the world has a lot of healing to do and America specifically needs to realize that independence isn't always for the greater good, as individuality has both hurt the needs of millions of people and has been hurt by the chasms COVID caused for so many families and communities. June 15 is here: Everything changing in California's grand reopening Apple Store opening in Downtown LA
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May 2022
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