Still Famous

Friday July 13, 2012

A week from yesterday, I became famous. No seriously, I kid you not.

Story Time: So, about a week ago (well...I guess it would be two weeks ago, now...I'm a little behind...) Mrs. Dr. announced that Athens TV expressed interest in the daily/weekly/whenever you feel like it travel blogs. We were instructed to send in the OK for Dr. Kaplan to release our blogs to the news company, and said newsies would choose the VIP's to be interviewed on national television. Thus, last Friday morning Corey, Brianna, Rebecca, Chase, Jimmy, and I arose bright and early to make our TV debut.

After being briefed by Lady Kaplan, we set off for Starbucks to offer our observations concerning the Greek economic crisis. We were interviewed in pairs, so while Rebecca and Chase were taking their turn the PR of ACG sat down and talked with us for a bit. His story was actually pretty inspiring, starting out as a physics major and making his way to public relations merely by networking and knowing the right people. I also found it extremely courteous of him to print out our individual blogs and bring them to the interview. He actually picked out his favorites and showed them to us, which was very kind.

Each interview was conducted in a different setting, and the reporter was all about making it look as natural and corny as possible. They set the scene for each of us, asking us about the little things we've noticed about the Greek attitude toward their current situation. For instance, more often than not restaurants offer some sort of free desert after a delicious meal, and our friend Stratos has given us a complementary little trinket every time we've visited his parents' shop. It's interesting because rather than focusing on saving money, people seem to be placing hospitality in a higher regard. The tavernas and coffee shops are all full at night as well, so obviously the financial issue isn't as important as maintaining a certain lifestyle.

What struck me the most was that a national news company saw fit to interview ignorant American students about something that's plagued Greece for decades. We know next to nothing about this situation, and to be perfectly honest, a lot of the conclusions that we've made could very well be disproved in other parts of Athens. I have a strong hunch, though, that it was more about projecting the safety of the city rather than listening to our opinion on the economic crisis. Still, I have no problem admitting that the euro vs. drachma battle has not affected our trip in the slightest. There've been no strikes or demonstrations, and the only power outage we experienced was planned by the power company.

Back home, we get a very biased version of what's going on over here. Syntagma, the square that houses the Parliament building, is believed to be full of riots and protestors; however, we've yet to see a demonstration take place, even after the elections. I think the news group took such interest in our cause because they wanted a good story that would reveal the truth about what's going on over here, or at least put Athens in a better light.

That doesn't take away from the experience, though, by any means. It was still really freaking awesome that they managed to get something intelligent-sounding out of my word vomit. Also, Hannah told us that a woman in the Plaka recognized our study abroad group from the news when she [the woman] asked her [Hannah] where she was from. (Stupid pronouns...) This'll definitely be a story for the books, the day we got to discuss politics on national television in Greece. And they lived happily ever after, The End. This is Maddie, signing off!