My First Time In Greece | Traveling Around the Mediterranean in 40 Days

Auto-captioned from the film, lightly cleaned. Elena's words, not edited prose.

foreign I've had this bucketless stream to circle the entire Mediterranean and more than just the French Riviera or dreamy Greek Islands but also really exploring North Africa in the Middle East so this summer I'm actually attempting to make this dream a reality and I'm bringing my sister Sage with me together we're gonna go to six countries and circle the Mediterranean in just 40 days to discover for ourselves intertwining cultures history and politics of the region our driving goal is to explore what it means to be a woman in each location we want to see these places through feminine lens and share the stories of local women along the way without these voices our understanding of places people and cultures would be incomplete thank you hello we made it second ish stop of this adventure we technically started in Madrid but I made it with my sister sage and Christine as well this videographer is helping us with this project I'm so excited to explore a bit of Athens see a little bit of the history and we're meeting up with the coolest gals on this trip so me and my sister wanted to kind of use the beauty of social media to meet women in each area and hear their stories and learn more about what it's like to live where they live how they're breaking different barriers culturally I've studied this region for so long I've been so intrigued as has my sister she studied it more recently in University she just graduated through degree in her National relations primarily with a focus on the Middle East but definitely a big emphasis just kind of on this Mediterranean area and we're kind of like combining our shared skill sets with like her and her more recent academic knowledge researching skills and then more of my creative skills so I was so excited I feel like the best way to start this video off is to do a little historical tours they're going to check out the Acropolis which is a dream come true for my little history loving brain so let's go check it out so this week we're in Athens Greece we're here because Athens is both the Cradle of Western Civilization as we know it as well as kind of a bridge between Europe and Middle Eastern cultures we're also here to meet Dania a 24 year old skater in Athens native Poynette on Instagram and she is so badass because she's a leader in the non-traditional Escape Community here in Athens and she's passionate about Reiki barriers for women the LGBT community and non-western people in the Skate World she's also part of free movement skateboarding a local initiative that seeks to empower the refugee and migrant youth living in Athens Through Skateboarding so in the next few days we're stoked to get a glimpse of the skate seen here in Athens as well of course check out some of the basic touristy stuff because we love our history so this morning we're going to start with the Acropolis because how could we skip out on that Maybe I could see what was broken thank you y'all I can't believe I'm seeing this with my own hearts I'm in shock My Little Greek mythology loving brain is so happy I'm sorry did you read Percy Jackson right now no but I still know I was a Percy Jackson fiend for like six years I can I know oh my gods I know all my heroes okay Rick Steve show us show us around as I've said before I'm fascinated by the cultural exchanges throughout the history of the Mediterranean region and Greece is really at the heart of that it's the home to some of the most foundational elements of Western politics philosophy arts and more think the Pythagorean theorem as well as Plato which you might remember from high school and as the American historian will Durant once said there's hardly anything secular in a culture that does not come from Greece so Greece was kind of later tossed into the Roman Empire and then the Byzantine Empire it fell to the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century which resulted in a massive exchange of religion language and culture in 1820 the Greeks revolted against the Ottomans and established an independent state so from that point until now Greece has been governed by a handful of republics and monarchies and in 1974 Greece finally reached a sable democracy for the first time in a very long time despite all these ups and downs Greece has been remarkably resilient in the last several years it's faced severe Financial crises and it's also been a major player in the reception of refugees into Europe between 2015 and 2016 alone over 1 million refugees arrived in Greece many of whom were fleeing the Syrian Civil War or other conflicts throughout the Middle East today migrants still make a big and important part of the modern Greek Nation that's crazy hey we made it we're out here at the Acropolis don't mind my little Mom's tank top moment Happening Here we got the party on behind us Parthenon Parthenon yeah shout out to Athena I would highly recommend downloading a podcast if you don't get a local guide kind of making that mistake the Acropolis I highly recommend checking out the little town of the city it's like a neighborhood within Athens we're actually sitting very close to here and we got dinner here on our very first night with lots of cute restaurants good Ambiance the whole deal highly recommend as we finished up our little date the Acropolis I actually got a DM from Denny about a skate night she was organizing that night for local skaters as well as new gals who wanted to learn how to skate and so although we weren't really supposed to meet her for the first time until the next day we decided of course to switch over plans last minute and head to downtown Athens to check it out so I grew up in Southern California and I am very very familiar with the Skate and Surf scene it's like my entire teenage experience and this night genuinely blew me away I'm very much so used to the environment being super male dominated and very judgmental towards beginners or Kooks as many say and I'm really never in my life seen a space like the one Denia helped create where people of all different ages ethnicities gendered identities sexualities and ability were able to skate together try new tricks and even fall without any judgment it can be really terrifying to learn something new like this as an adult so I was so inspired to see so many 20-something gals hopping on boards and giving it their best try it's communities like this that will break down those barriers that can often limit women and minorities and this was so cool to see when I went on I first came we literally said don't skate because we're gonna look so bad we're here learning about how this is an inclusive place for everyone to skate and I'm like God I wish I had some very cute subscribers who join yes from Ireland and the Netherlands so we're gonna go join them now we're joining you we're joining and we're heading down here what's the name of the place that's the nature loads of people from other places and other areas are coming here through the pubs to the restaurants to the bus to this area yeah okay I've been coming all right so what do we have here so this is Greek salad there's um cucumber pepper olives oh wow thank you so this is and you put a little bit of lemon on it all right so we have the zucchini balls here and then we have Souvlaki yeah like greasy spider so chicken or pork with Tzatziki and fries and salads I guess starting with colors what you said earlier I'd love to hear a little bit more about this neighborhood and kind of like where are we yeah we're in algeropolis that's where I was born it's kind of like the outskirts about this so it's South about things we're near the mountains not far from the sea which is a combination that I really like it's not a big town but it has loads of shops and bars and restaurants okay so I've always been a girl who was really into sports always always played football with the boys at school yeah and then I started skating when I finished school I always liked it but I've never really got into it and then when I finished school I was like cool I guess I have a gap year so I got a board and I started skating and I haven't stopped sales how is it like breaking into the Escape Community for you as of yeah in the beginning I was very intimidated I remember going to the skate park in noon which was 40 degrees outside super hot just because if I went in the evening it would be loads of people and me and your boys and I was a bit scared but then I started going to the skate park later and I met some people and actually it was like knows you know they're not they're not bad but it's definitely a thing though when you're a woman and you go go to the skate park and it's just mainly men yeah it's quite intimidating and scary and it takes a while to be able to do things like you want without thinking of oh they're gonna judge me oh they're gonna say that you know yeah I can't escape whatever and you shouldn't be thinking that so I'm part of free movement uh team which premium and skateboarding is basically an an organization who delivers skateboarding lessons to kids five years ago will and Ruby started free movement we had a big Refugee crisis here in Athens so they started going to the refugee camps those kids they didn't go to school they couldn't do anything that other kids could so they gave them something to look forward to and we do that because we kind of want to like promote mental and physical well-being to the kids but also social cohesion as well because of this kids from all different backgrounds from different countries from different areas so we try to bring everyone together through a skateboarding yes I'm trying to fix what is broken so after attempting to learn to skate a little bit ourselves and seeing Denny in action we all headed to a nearby park to join free movements youth Skate Session where Denny is an instructor each week so this organization was started back in 2016 working inside the refugee camps and now the teams of guys and gals set up skate parks around inner city Athens for immigrant and Refugee kids we met the whole team and then helped them set up their famous mobile skate park as kids of all different ages started flowing in the night was kicked off with a very cute group huddle where the kids set an intention for the day and warmed up together and then we were off and damn these kids can skate it was so cool to see it was so refreshing to see little girls skating and trying tricks and falling alongside the boys building so much confidence along the way and while The Wider challenges of the refugee crisis can be extremely daunting local programs like this can really make such an incredible impact on individual lives if you're interested in supporting free movement please check out the description box below and consider donating so we woke up feeling so inspired from the last few days of exploring and seeing the skate scene and while it was supposed to be a day just to stay inside and work I ended up scrolling through my DMs in the morning I saw a subscriber had reached out inviting us on her very last minute Beach day road trip with her best friend and even though I had a lot of work to do we decided we could not miss out on this opportunity to see more of Greece and to meet some local gals just like us so a few hours later we met Perry in arietta piled in their car and drove an hour along the coast to Cafe Beach tractors are not allowed on American road I was nervous at first I was like I don't know these girls like maybe it's going to be awkward and even though we were technically strangers we immediately felt like best friends they reminded me so much of my friends from home this is crazy oh my God basically baked and basked in the Sun for hours talking about everything from University studies to dating to tick tock Trends we've learned some more about the challenges of navigating the Greek economy and building a career as a young woman and at the end of the day it really felt just like talking with my dearest friends at home in New York City hey hey where are we baby yeah we didn't heard the end because we saw she was in Athens so we're shooting our shots yes we responded and now here we are they showed us true Greek hospitality and told us all about how their culture inspires them to really enjoy every simple moment to the fullest we finished off the night with a stop at the Temple of Poseidon which was yet another how did we get here moment I really feel like I'm leaving this beautiful place Having learned and grown so much in just a week for one the hospitality we were shown there inspires me to better welcome new people into my own life and make them feel totally at home our times with the skating Community made me want to boldly try something new even when I'm afraid of failing or looking dumb and it showed me how just it takes one or two kind and inclusive people to make a whole new world accessible to others our experience with free movement showed me the importance of practically including immigrants and other marginalized people groups to help build thriving diverse communities women in Athens especially those who are minorities are part of the lgbtq community still face many of challenges yet people like Denia are really helping shift norms and break the barriers of these male dominant environments like the skating or Sports scene as we head to our next destination I'm very curious to compare the experiences of women in Greece with the women in our next destination we're going east continuing our loop around the Mediterranean and we're off to Istanbul Turkey