An Athenian Diary

33

Noah in Athens

Monday, December 22, as we were driving back from the Argolid with Ellen and John and the kids, Edie pointed to some dark clouds moving in toward Athens and asked, "I wonder what that portends." The next day we got the answer -- Athens in flood.

It started out gently enough. Some off and on showers this morning. I ventured out Christmas shopping; home by 1.30, I was hardly damp in my camping raincoat. I hadn't even taken an umbrella.

Edie and Ellen left to cash some checks (in search of the American Express office); John and I stayed home with the kids, reading and doing some housework.  Emma went out to play and came back wet but happy. Then I went into the kitchen for something or other and heard an incredible racket outside -- I peered out the window to see a flood pouring down Aristodemous street. It was like winter rains in the Sonoran desert -- sudden, insane downpour, roaring down the street. I pulled on my boots and raincoat and rushed outside to take some photos. The water in the street was so high and rushing with such strength that it simply overtopped my boots and flooded my feet.

This kind of rain doesn't happen every year. It really was a flood on our street. The next day continued dreary and wet, though not nearly as soaking; you could go out for a walk, or visit a museum (as did Edie and the rest).

Probably the weather cut into Christmas shopping (which in any case isn't quite as intense here as in the US; for one thing, stores close at 5 pm on Christmas eve -- imagine that). Why such floods when it rains hard? Edie reminded me that there's almost no green space to speak of up the hill from us, just concrete layered over the marble of the mountain, from curb to curb.

But the rain's needed. It's been a dry fall -- the time usually that Greece gets much of its precipitation, on which the farmers depend to germinate the wheat crop. So no doubt they were happy with this really soaking rain. As for the rest of us -- well, my boots are still drying out in the bathroom, and I had to wash the clothes I was wearing.

December 24, 2003

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