Greek summers
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible gentrified Greek summer. When everybody comes to Greece for the summer, where do Greeks go? Most go to work. As the main islands — i.e. islands with names you must have heard of — turn into theme parks for tourists, someone has to be there to check the tickets. Sofia Exarchou, in her film Animal, tells the bleak story of a Greek seasonal worker in an all-inclusive hotel. We have White Lotus at home.
Others go « off the beaten track ». They pick remote islands —i.e. islands with names you have never heard of — only to realise that the track has been well-trodden by those who actually live there. Makis Malafekas, in his book Mesakti(French translation: Un autre été grec) and Panos Kidonis, in his recent book Vacations in Gavdos (in Greek, Διακοπές στην Γαύδο), write about the alternative Athenian crowd who object to gentrification, only to gentrify any island more than ten hours away from the port of Piraeus.