Mar
9
2010

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Greek Economic Crisis

by Tyler

Signs of the economic crisis occurring Greece are easy to find in Athens. We frequently pass police in full riot gear, we've seen several protests during our short time here, and taxes have risen (on some goods, to astronomical levels!). I won't attempt to explain the nature of the political situation; the video below provides a pretty good picture of the current state of affairs.

In addition to the evidence of protesting, strikes and tax hikes, the city is covered in political graffiti. We're told that Greece has always taken a somewhat lax approach to dealing with civil unrest, and that seems to be true. We've witnessed people with spray-cans tagging walls in broad daylight on more than one occasion!

Fuck the Police (heart!) Athens Political Graffiti Tom's Political Donation Box Bodymine In Solidarity with the Immigrants

On our second day here, we witnessed a taxi drivers strike. Unfortunately, neither of us speaks enough Greek to understand what exactly was going on. We didn't have much luck asking around, but we did get a few photos and took some (unintelligible to us) audio.

Athens Taxi Strike Balcony Speakers Athens Taxi Strike

There is a general strike on March 11th. The entire city will be shut down and there will be many demonstrations. We'll be there taking photos. It is a pretty remarkable time to be in Athens!

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3 comments

I'm curious about the new camera versus the old -- would you guys please post the same picture taken with each camera and tell us about the difference? I could look it up online but I'd rather hear it from your perspective.

Be careful during the protests.
Posted by Clélie on March 10th, 2010 at 2:43 PM
what an exciting time and place to be!
i love 'tom is on strike forever'. i wish that was my sign!
Posted by LMHR on March 10th, 2010 at 7:14 PM
Clélie--

Check out our next journal entry, it explains things a little bit.

For what it is worth, we weren't unhappy with the photos our D60 took at all.
Posted by Tyler on March 11th, 2010 at 3:27 PM