18 Days in August, an Olympic Blog

After coming to the city expecting it to be filled wih Olympics cheer and being shocked at its nearly ghost-town like appearance, the last few days have seen a partial reversal. As more and more Athenians are returning from their summer holidays (although there is still a significant number of people missing) and more tourists are popping up everywhere, the city is starting to feel more like it should be. In addition, there are still big queues throughout the whole day to buy tickets, the city centre is starting to see some real traffic and throngs of people are camping out in Syntagma Square at 3 in the morning taking it all in. This is more like it, and with track and field starting soon things are certainly looking up. Just don't expect all stadiums to be filled up - Athenians alone are not going to fill venues for 10am badminton games or pay 200 euros for a gymnastics ticket (try taking a family of four to the venue on an average salary of 11,000 euros a year) and there just aren't enough tourists to go around.