These people just hosted the Olympics, didn't they?

According to every erudite scholar educated in the Western tradition, the city in which I have passed the last two weeks gave birth to our civilisation. Though these days Athens looks more like an afterbirth.

However, that's not to say I dislike Athens. In fact, I like filth, sleaze and louche. When travelling, I love ambulating in cities which carry a higher-than-recommended degree of personal risk. Well, at least I enjoy a titillating frisson of fear every now and then. If the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade squeal about security in a particular region, then that's probably where I'd like to be. But I'm no adventure traveller, don't get me wrong. I'm just attracted to people who look as though they might cause trouble and places where I might get hurt. I have no quarel with that type of backpacker who aches to tell of his perilous 52 hour journey from Uttar Pradesh into the Tibet strapped to the back of a mongoose. I'm happy to arrive by plane and just enjoying hanging out with the undesirables.

I am a voyeur. I love to watch. For someone more or less stuck in the city for nigh on two weeks, there are worse places I could've been. Athens has provided the cheapest, non-stop supply of human parade. Hours passed sitting in squares, half-heartedly browising a novel but feasting upon the plethora of souls. Athens seems overflowing with defective beings.

To be fair, I suspect that during the last two weeks I have displayed signs that make other move away from me. That far away unattached looked in my eyes that seems to trouble others. I might be weirding people out too just like those leering men in the street facing the hotel.

So central Athens is a kaleidoscpoe of the down-and-out. Omonia Square, undoubtedly a former shopping district of some worth, has swapped consumer for bench-sitter. And it's crammed with men, most immigrants clearly struggling to make a new life in Greece.

The Pakistanis and Afghans are distinguished by dress - I don't think the shalwar kameez has much been worn in these parts since Ottoman times. According to the locals, Bulgarians are here for drugs and prostitution (Man, it's like the whole ex-Communist rabble are labelled the same the whole world over). My source of local information tells me that the immigrants are legal, and generally harmless - except of course the Arabs who naturally are the arse-end of the world's genetic make-up. (Why is it that Arabs induce scorn, almost without exception?) West African are also numerous, and unique among the immigrants as both males and females walk the streets.

Anyway, there are few Greeks in central Athens. Just a mass of immigrants, drug addicts, down-and-outs and piles of fairly unsightly buildings. These people could do with a few more trained architects.

The staff of the Acropolis has been on strike since my arrival and riots have broken out sporadically across not just Athens, but all major cities in the country over the past week. Smashed windows, burned out buildings and vehicles and the proliferation of graffitti will be my most vivid memories of Athens.

I have a feeling it might be more pleasant on the islands.

Athens has been a good place to wander and think. Questions have arisen and my little brain has been surprisingly up to the task of finding answers. It's good to know that approaching forty I'm no closer to achieving material success, and yet I feel a smug satisfaction at how lucky I've been up until now. Being refused entry into Turkey had never been a hypothetical situation, it was a fait accompli that Istanbul was my home. Appropriate mental adjustments have been made.

Only sixteen days out of Turkey, my brain has wandered far from my neighbourhood of Cihangir, mainly to the vast spaces of South America that I'm yet to explore. In the meantime, I look forward to being among friends again in Sydney. And I'll finally get that meat pie I craved several months ago on another post.