It was January 7th, 2024: our third full day in Athens.
We had spent the morning at Mars Hill and the Agora, and we were given the afternoon to explore on our own. My friends and I decided to do some shopping at an outdoor market. We had been warned several times about scams. DON’T TAKE THE “FREE” FLOWERS THAT CHILDREN AND OLD LADIES HAND OUT.
I was feeling very confident that I would not get scammed, as I had been approached by dozens of people with flowers and denied every one of them.
My friends and I stopped at a small shop. The shop worker asked if there was anything he could help us find. Then, we got talking about where we’re from and what we wanted to do with our lives. He told me about his dream of going to Las Vegas someday, among other things that I don’t remember now. I do remember that he was Greek and Russian, and he was the same age as me. When I finally left the store, I was feeling high on life. I love talking to strangers!
We were on our way back to the hotel when we got stopped by a man in the square. He told us his name (Franklin) asked if we were American (is it that obvious?!) and kept telling us how much he loved the USA. After a while, he said “hey we’re having a dance party tonight in the square… do you wanna join?!”
Uh, YEAH I love dancing!
Wow, everyone is so nice in Athens.
When we told him we would “think about it”, he became very enthusiastic. He started telling us how awesome we were, and put bracelets on our wrists. Once everyone had a bracelet, he started whispering, “you know, most people donate to help our cause”…
What cause? I thought this was a dance party🤔
My friends and I looked at each other in disbelief.
We just got scammed.
I tried telling him that we were not interested in donating to whatever their cause was, but he insisted that we give him some money. We tried giving him the bracelets back, but he wouldn’t take them. I thought about leaving, but what if he tried to say we stole from him?!
Whatever.
I grabbed a few euros out of my wallet and defeatedly handed it to him.
Although we were disappointed to have been successfully scammed on our third day in Athens, at least we all got matching bracelets. To this day, mine still lives in the front pocket of my backpack!
We finished off the day by eating dinner outside with live music at an elegant restaurant, saying “OPA!” way too many times and laughing about our crazy day.
That’s all for now!
Until next time,
Clara