Parliament by noon, nightclub by midnight (EMJI II)

More Greece highlights:

-Most nights I was in Greece, we either had formal program dinners or I wound up going out to dinner with Rachel, Michelle, Theo and Theo's wife Aliki. This was lovely, and I think I got to eat in some of the nicest restaurants in Athens. However, I knew that all the students on the program were hanging out, etc, so it was nice to have a few nights off. On one of these nights, I went out to a Greek taverna with Konstadina, a Greek native and intern in the NATO office, a journalist from Romania named Antonia, and Konstadina's friends. The taverna had a roof and some walls, but the windows were just open air so the wind and sounds from the street could flow through. We drank warm honey wine out of these tiny thimble-like glasses and ate mezzes. Konstadina, who is one of the warmest people I've ever met, was a paragon of hospitality and basically hand fed me the choicest ones. I hope she visits me in the U.S. one day.
We wanted to meet up with the rest of the students at a club nearby, but had a hard time finding the place. Konstadina and Antonia were in the throes of parallel boy drama (I need more drama) and we dissected their situations as we walked around. I was surprised by the universality--I'm too proud to call him because I don't want him to know I like him that much. It was a really warm night, and I enjoyed seeing all the Athenians in their going-out finery. I have major European style envy. I felt less lonely than I'd felt in weeks.
Finally, we found the club and discovered that our friends had taken over the second floor. I'm becoming convinced there's an inverse relationship between the ease of life in a country and the ability of its citizens to dance. Some of these kids were fun just to watch (but they were so encouraging that I got dragged into the dancing anyway). At Swarthmore, I consider someone a good dancer if they stick to the rhythm consistently. These dancers had an electric creativity, rendering eclectic, almost awkward moves magnetic.

-We had several formal program dinners. One was at the US Embassy, which was much less stiff and more interesting than I'd expected. The acting ambassador was surprisingly candid-- especially about independence for Kosovo-- for a diplomat faced with a pack of young journalists. During the Q and A, I decided to ask him about how he handled tensions between his personal beliefs and his professional obligations. He admitted there was a tension, but that things are rarely black and white and there are more channels for dissent in the state department than there were five years ago. I think we were both implicitly referring to the resignation of John Brady Kiesling. When I was a freshman in college, I interviewed Swat alum John Kiesling, who left the State Department in 2003 because he was unwilling to continue to try to sell the Iraq war in Greece. I was barely eighteen at the time, it was my first big interview, and I had a huge admire-crush.

-Another night, we had dinner at the Greek Officer's Club, where we were served by Greek soldiers in uniform. I have a friend or two who would have gotten a huge kick out of that. I accidentally ate caviar (I thought it was a coarse olive paste and put a huge lump on a cracker-- ooops) and liked it. The embassies of all the students in attendance were invited to the dinner, and I sat at a table with a Turkish diplomat who had previously served in the US and New Delhi (we discovered he was on facebook!) and a Greek head of Amnesty.
They had a long discussion about the extent to which Turkey's human rights record is an excuse for not letting it into the EU. They also inverted the normal discussion in an interesting way. Maybe it's easier for European leaders to emphasize the unpopularity of allowing in a majority-Muslim country than to criticize Turkey for its human rights record. It allows both governments a convenient out: The EU can say, "we'd let you in, but our people aren't enlightened enough. Let's keep trading." Turkey can say "It's an all Christian club." This is potentially less embarrassing for both countries than direct tension over civil liberties in Turkey. It's a more out-there interpretation, but I think it's interesting. It reminds me of the multiple level trade negotiation models from International Politics that Robert Putnam developed.

-Most of our events and speakers were in English, but the two sessions in Greek were my favorite. In part, they were cool because we all got headphones to wear that had simultaneous translation. What really made the sessions was that the journalists asked really hard questions.
The first of these sessions was on the Greek fires. A governor from a province affected by the fires was on the panel, and I was impressed by the ways they had moved to rapidly aid and compensate the victims. A very young Greek media-lawyer (you can have a law degree in Greece when you're 23!) really grilled him, and asked him why the military hadn't intervened sooner. His answer was that the military was mainly made of nineteen and twenty year old boys who weren't trained to fight fires. She pointed out that fires, although usually less severe, were almost an annual occurrence, and asked why the soldiers weren't trained to respond. He couldn't answer.

-The next day, we had a session with five members of the new parliament, including the parliament's president and representatives of all five major parties. A Macedonian journalist asked a deliberately provocative question about Macedonia, and the far-right parliamentary shot him down for being disrespectful and not saying FYROM. We were worried we were going to get thrown out of Parliament for a minute or two. A Greek-German woman asked about immigration policy, and the Israeli journalist asked why there was so little anti-smoking legislation in Greece (Aliki calls it the world's last true democracy and blows smoke circles whenever this comes up). I asked the representative from the center-left party why they had suffered a larger defeat than expected and what their strategy as the major opposition party was. (The poor woman. Theo told me later that she was dismayed "the Americans" knew her party had done so badly. And she was my favorite!)It was a much faster paced, firey session that I had expected and there was very little empty speech. Conclusion: it's more fun to meet important people with journalists than with wanna-be important people.

-On the last night after the "graduation ceremony," we all had a party in one of the hotel rooms, spilling out onto the balcony and across the bed. The sink and the bathtub were full of ice as a cooler for the drinks, but then we realized we didn't have cups. Some people suggested we borrow some from the unlocked hotel bar, but everyone wound up going back to their rooms to get a few.

-After EMJI ended, Rachel and I stayed on a few more days in Greece and Theo got wrapped up in a whole lot of last minute Atlantic Treaty Association election tension. There's nothing like election tension. At one point, they asked me to make a score sheet to count off the expected votes (of countries, no less!) and I felt a little like I was in high school, trying to figure out if I had enough votes to run for something or other.