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Don't
Stop Till You Get Enough
The crowds milling outside bouzoukia (live Greek music venues)
and skyladika (a kind of down-market bouzoukia) like Vareladiko,
Romeo, and Asteria are a different breed. The ladies totter
along in a cloud of lace and hair spray, their beefy escorts
squashed into shiny suits and open-neck shirts. Although I
haven't booked a table, I manage to sweet-talk the inflatable
doorman at the curiously named Neraida, Gorgones kai Manges
(A Fairy, Mermaids and Dudes) into letting me in. The stage
is a sea of gyrating bodies. The crooner weaves between his
appreciative fans, whipping them into a lovesick frenzy. Flower
girls in tight white suits wiggle between the tables. There
isn't a spare seat in the house. A pair of buxom women in
deep decollates clamber onto a table full of whisky glasses
and sculpted fruit to shake their stuff. Everyone is having
a grand old time.
After about an hour of enthusiastic carnation flinging and
clapping, my arms are tired and my ears are ringing. It's
4.30 a.m. - still time for one last stop on the night-train
before I keel over. I cannot miss out on + Soda, the hottest
house club in town, conveniently located beside a funfair.
The bouncers are ultra cool and ultra condescending. Inside,
bedraggled fashion victims are sprawled across the white vinyl
sofas, but dozens of ecstatic ravers are still carving strange
shapes in the air on the cavernous dance floor. Two bony girls
in leopard-print bikinis flail their limbs atop a pair of
podiums. The DJ looks like the captain of the Starship Enterprise
as he works the wheels of steel behind a metallic control
panel framed by giant space bubbles.
One more vodka tonic and I'm back on track, dancing for all
I am worth. At 6.30 a.m., I'm having so much fun the bouncers
practically have to beg me to leave.
Morning Has Broken
Outside, in the pinkish dawn, the sea shimmers invitingly.
I contemplate a sobering skinny dip, but thankfully come to
my senses. The traffic has eased up, but it's busy even now.
I pull over at the first cantina, an all-night hot-dog stand
especially designed for jaded clubbers like me. But as soon
as I smell the sausages, I come over queasy. A bowl of patsas
(tripe soup!) at the bloodshot Athens Meat Market is an even
less appealing breakfast option. Instead, I stop at one of
the 24-hour kiosks in Ommonia Square, pick up three litres
of water, a couple of sesame koulouria, the Sunday papers,
and call it another Athenian night.
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