A pile of uncollected garbage a couple of blocks from the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, due to a strike in progress while I was there, which widened yesterday.
There was already a garbage workers’ strike, a brief museum workers’ strike and a Metro shutdown while I was still in Athens. Luckily, my Continental flight took off at 11 a.m. yesterday, as scheduled, but other attendees at the Athens conference, who were booked on afternoon flights, had to scramble to reschedule (with the help of the ever resourceful Eleftheria Maggana, who took care of all our travel arrangements).
Yesterday, the strike became widespread, encompassing hotel workers, among many others, and causing power blackouts (including the traffic lights). There was some rioting—all occasioned by proposed pension changes, which the strikers say will hurt their benefits. Renee Maltezou of Reuters has the story
My stay was delightful and culture-filled, but I’m glad to have gotten back home in time to have missed the turmoil. My biggest complaint about Athens is the seeming lack of a full-time classical music station on the radio!
But did Glenn Lowry get out okay? It turns out that the Museum of Modern Art’s director was in Greece at the same time I was (but not for the same conference). If I only knew, I could have caught his lecture on “Making the Modern: A Disruptive Theory of the Museum of Modern Art.”
“Disruptive.” How apt!