Sakis, The Plaka, Athinai, Athens - 1965

...listening to Gay Meyers and her sad songs, and to a huge black dude
Thelonius Monk-ing his way across Europe slapping a big upright bass (I know, I know, Monk played piano, but this guy looked like Thelonius Monk and was certainly cut from the same be-bop cloth) in the dim-red lit, step-down-into cafe in the heart of Athens, The Plaka, a few steps removed from The Acropolis and as such Saki's was an international attraction, many languages every nite...lots of beautiful people - men, women, other.

Cinzano Vermouth all the rage - left you in a daze too after a night of swilling it and Tuborg, eating souvlaki, black bread, olive oil and feta with
tomatoes, much laughter and staggering funnily into the warren of alleys
called streets until there it was: Eekosee threea Othos Panos, 23 PanStreet
dba Our First Home, a tiny room with a broken window (but looking out on the
mountain across town down which one night streamed thousands of pilgrims with
torches held aloft, looking for all the world like undulating lava with feet)
with a mattress on the cold floor, but home is where your heart is and it was
in that room then and is in that room now.