Tram

So, it was not so warm and sunny yesterday as the day before.

The temperature fell below 20C and the sky was covered with light clouds, but I went to the beach anyway. These conditions didn't suit sunbathing, but sitting at the beach and walking around was great, too. Of course there were much less people, and only a few of them were sunbathing/swimming.

Then, around 5PM as the day before, conditions changed dramatically, the sun hid behind the clouds completely and the wind which was blowing the whole day turned into a real storm. I caught a tram and went to SNFCC again, but this time it was closed completely, everything was covered with barricade tape, even descending to the dried out canal or coming close to the building was impossible. So I don't know if the free bus is still running, but most probably not, as the building is closed completely and I couldn't reach the bus stop.

So I had to catch another tram, ride to the terminal stop and change to metro.

The metro was completely empty by the way, I had to wait a train at Panepistimio metro station for ten minutes, and there were literally four or five people waiting for it at the platform.

And yeah, about the fucking tram. Since today the section SEF-Batis will be closed (due to maintenance work, as it is said), and only line №5 running from Kasomouli to Voula will be operating.

They claim it is only for two months, but who knows?

The Athens tram network was open a few weeks before the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, and its lines form a turned upside down letter "T" (which serves as its symbol), with its stem ending at Syntagma, its left arm at SEF and its right arm at Voula, and subsequently with three routes, Syntagma-SEF, Syntagma-Voula and SEF-Voula.

There were a lot of talks about expanding the left arm to Piraeus, they even built the lines and a few months ago there were test runs (with empty trams).

But instead of expanding the network they closed the stem line from Syntagma to Kasomouli in October 2018, so people can not travel from the central square to the beach any more (and giving them this opportunity was the whole point of introducing the Athens tram right before the Olympic Games), and now they are closing the left arm completely. Which means than instead of going straight to Faliro and changing to tram at the terminal tram stop, to go to the beach now I will have to change at fucking Omonoia, then go to fucking Neos Kosmos and change once again, this time to tram, and as it is not even a terminal stop, there will surely be less unoccupied seats, and after that, instead of a pleasant ride along the coastline, I'll have to ride through disgusting modern Athens, with its traffic, lights etc.

Fucking, fucking shit. Before that the ride to the beach took me about 40 minutes, now it will surely take an hour at least. Fucking unbelieveable.

As for the coronavirus news, there is not much to say, again. People are surely getting more anxious, nervous and even aggressive, it is pretty visible. They are starting to lose their mind it seems. Complete strangers start a conversation with each other saying "So do you know how many infected are there right now?" or "Have you heard that the fourth one died today?" or "A week ago you could buy a mask for one cent, now it is one Euro". A little bit funny, yeah.

One more guy died, yeah, but it is nothing compared to what is going on in Italy.

Supermarkets will limit the number of customers inside, only 1 customer per 10 square meters will be allowed. The number of hygienic goods a single person will be allowed to purchase will also be rationed. Hospitals will hire a few thousand additional doctors and nurses. Churches will be closed, it seems.

And other bullshit.

The only thing that really bugs me is that they started discussing the total closure of public transport network. This will be a complete bullshit and I hope it won't happen.

And it seems like all the shops which sell neither food nor drugs are already closed or will be closed in the nearest future. I haven't checked it out yet, but something like this, which is also sad.

Also I came across a graph showing the percentage of coronavirus related deaths in different age groups in Italy, and it seems those under 50 years old are not affected at all.

So what was the point of all this bullcrap, couldn't they just put all the old farts under home arrest for a month or so, in they are the only vulnerable group?

Was is really necessary to ruin the global economy and sow the panic?

I can't believe how stupid, disgusting and evil are those running the states right now.

The end of the world chronicles

The weather today was awful, the temperature was something like 10C, the hurricane continues and it was mostly cloudy.

I decided to take a walk around the central Athens to see what's going on.

So, all cafes and restaurants are now closed, although some continue to operate, but only as delivery/take away.

So whole streets and neighbourhoods are completely empty, like Adrian's street, Ψυρρή etc. Some cafes are covered with barricade tape, which you can see today as often as masks or gloves.

Supermarkets only let in a certain number of customers simultaneously, so people are waiting in lines outside.

Some other stores practice the same shit, like "not more than two customers at a time".

Certain stores are already closed, some until the 28th of March, some until the 30th, while others "until further notice".

But many continue operating, especially at Athinas and Ermou streets, you can hardly find there any closed stores, although it seems those opened lack any customers.

Street performers, musicians, artists etc dissapeared.

But beggars, tramps, drug addicts, other representatives of society's scum... Ugh. These motherfuckers surely experince hard times right now. A few weeks ago they did nothing, and kind people were generous enough to throw a few coins in their plastic cups from time to time, or at least they could resort to searching food in trash cans. But now there are not many people walking through the streets of Athens, and those few who are, surely will not rush to stinking caughing pieces of shit who roam around whole day long, collecting all possible infections. As for the trash cans, I guess now people won't waste much food, when they have to wait in line to get into supermarket. So these pieces of shit seem really desperate now, and are begging more aggressively and actively. Fuck them all, hope they all die of coronavirus.

And I guess pickpockets also have hard times, since they need crowds to do their "job", but right now Athens experience real deficite of crowds, and especially on transport, where you get at least two unoccupied seats for each passenger. And these passengers try to keep maximum possible distance between themselves.

The behaviour of the passengers has also changed visibly, by the way. It seems nobody wants to pay for public transport - even before coronavirus you could hardly run into transport controller (I met them about three times during all my life here, always on central stations, namely Syntagma and Omonoia), but now, I guess, you have zero chances of meeting them - who would want to risk their health or even life on such a job? So nobody pays for tickets, naturally. Why would they, really. They are proud Greeks, not fucking Germans.

Also I've seen a brawl nearly broke out in the trolley I've been riding, a white guy stated that a nigger told him "fuck you" and wanted to punch him in the face, but I had to get off right at that moment, so I don't know how all this shit ended.

But yeah, people are becoming more aggressive and nervous, it's a fact.

But all in all it was a great experince, this walk around Athens, I only wish there were less clouds.

Sometimes you want to take a photo, but the place you want to take it in is full of people, and in Athens there are many places which are always full of people.

And today I could see all these places completely empty. Well, not really completely empty, there were some people here and there, but Adrian's street with all the restaurants closed, and Ψυρρή without crowds of people, and Syntagma with just three-four tourists... Wow. Just wow. This is a completely different experince, you don't see such things often. Well, in fact, I've never seen these places in such conditions before, at least during daytime, when the sun is shining with its full brightness.

Fucking wow.

And all this shit will continue till the end of March. Or till the end of April. Or till the end of May. Nobody knows right now, the highest officials are talking about "a few difficult months we'll have to live through".

There will be no nuclear blasts, or cluster bombs, and not a single enemy soldier will step on our soil, but the economy will continue to crumble, and we will have many more black Mondays (today we had the third one in a row), and nobody will be able to help, and any type of protest will be futile.

Wow, wow, wow. Some people thought it's great to experince crisises or turning points of human history or even the end of the world on their own skin. Well, let's say now they will certainly have this great opportunity. And they will have something to tell their kids. If they will have them, of course.