Thursday 6.3: Minoan Sandals

Sometimes, people get disgruntled with their jobs, their lives, their situations. They wish to enact change, but they don't have the influence, or political connections, or enough power to really make something happen by themselves. So they enmass together, rise up, and stick it to the man. At least, that's what the transportation workers of Athens do every 1-2 weeks. The bus workers, metro workers, and ferrymen all simple take a day off and strike, subsequently sending the city into a no-public-transportation zone. This is great for the taxi drivers but not so good for people like me who don't want to take the taxis, and basically rely on the subway system to get around in the heat of summer.

Second day off found me sleeping in for most of the day and deciding to go on a quest to find the elusive sandal-maker that I just hadn't been able to locate the last Sunday. It turns out I was looking in the wrong place. Though getting to Monastiraki took longer than usual by foot, walking down Ermou St. was actually quite a nice stroll, as the stores on the street provided shade and the occasional breeze provided a welcome interlude to the stagnant heat. Seeing some familiar US shops (Sephora, H&M, etc.) was a little bit of a woah-international-reach flutter, but what really got me was the rapid change from sorta fancy shoe places to ghetto in one fell swoop. It was like one of those scenes in the movie where the protagonist is riding in a cab surrounded by greenery and sunshine and happiness, then gets out of the cab; you see the cab drive away and the dude is left facing a haunted house or something. It kinda felt like that, when I crossed the street and found myself amongst garbage and overflowing cats.

BUT finally, I reached:

From Matt Barrett's Athens Survival Guide, "Stavros Melissinos was born in 1929 and is well known in Athens and around the world as the poet-sandelmaker of Greece. His books of poetry, plays and essays have been translated into English, French, German and Italian and his best known work The Rubaiyat is on the curriculum of a number of American universities. He has been the subject of documentaries on the BBC and three American networks and his works are in the Harvard and Oxford libraries. He has also translated the works of many literary greats into Greek. His play Chastitity Belt was banned in Greece for political reasons, which makes him quite proud."

The shop is lined from floor to ceiling with sandals and art, and each customer is fitted with a pair of sandals of his or her choice. Because the sandals are fitted to your foot and made with good leather they are incredibly comfortable. After debating for a loooong time, I decided to get these sandals, made by Pandelis Melissinos, Stavros Melissinos's son and a gifted artist and playwright of his own...right. Although I am known for being quite small in stature, the fact of the matter is that my feet are pretty wide for their size, and thus, finding shoes that fit me well can be an ordeal. I find strappy sandals in particular, hard to navigate, and so, although these seem to be glorified flip flops (which they may be), I like them. :)

So, although I did not get to meet the famed Poet-Sandal Maker, I did visit his shop and thus got to cross off #10 on the list.

10. Visit the shop of Stavros Melissinos, the Poet-Sandal Maker

All in all, the day consisted of a nice walk, a McDonald's milkshake, and a pair of awesome sandals.