Mary Caroline Whims

Before I start this post, let me say that I learned about The Jesus Hangover by hearsay, and not from experience.

Katya is the one who told me about The Jesus Hangover. I met her in Thessaloniki, Greece. She’s twice my age with a close-cropped head of gray hair, which she likes to cover with a wide-brimmed straw hat to keep off the sun. When you talk to her, you’ll immediately notice her dry wit. She’s a polyglot who has studied twenty-seven languages and is conversant in nine. Seated at our tableful of college-aged girls from around the world, Katya mostly kept to herself, except for when she told the waitress her order—risotto, and a full carafe of rosé. 

I admire Katya’s independent spirit, perhaps because I see a little bit of myself in her, or a little bit of who I could become someday. When I had the unexpected opportunity to go to Paris and Thessaloniki this summer, I dove into it with all the enthusiasm I had, having never been out of the United States in my life.

My friend Eleni is a marvelous traveling companion who delights in old ecclesiastical buildings just as much as I do. As a result, our three days in Paris were marked by frequent stops at churches. I’ll always remember the moment when, exhausted from our first attempt to navigate the metro, we emerged from underground with our suitcases in hand to find ourselves in the heart of Paris, looking up at the towers of Notre-Dame. I think I screamed and did a little happy dance in the street. It’s an incredible thing to see a place you’ve read about your whole life, a place you’ve seen so many pictures of, suddenly spring to life right in front of you.

Sainte-Chapelle didn’t disappoint either. Our long wait in line was rewarded by the chapel’s purple stained glass windows, which make you feel like you’re standing inside of an amethyst. My favorite of all was the Sacré-Coeur Basilica. To reach the dome, you climb three hundred steps up a spiral stone staircase, which is enough to make anyone claustrophobic. Frequent signs say things like COURAGE! ONLY 160 MORE STEPS! but they really don’t help that much. Once at the top, though, you can stare out at all of Paris from a dizzying height and even glimpse that iconic A-shaped landmark, the Eiffel Tower. 

We attacked Parisian food with gusto. Our first night, I ordered escargot, which cost about as much as an appetizer at Applebee’s and tasted much better. If you soak anything in butter and herbs it will taste good; I tried not to think too hard about what I was eating. Our favorite meal was at La Closerie des Lilas, which was once a favorite haunt of Picasso, Wilde, Baudelaire, Sartre, and others. The restaurant’s entrance is hidden in a thicket of bushes and the marquee is barely visible from the street. I get the feeling that it’s a place intended for the people who have been going there for years, not for tourists like us who found it on Google. Nevertheless, the wait staff endured our broken French and brought out the best filet mignon I have ever had. 

Whereas in Paris Christianity seems like a relic—an old piece of art for tourists to look at—in Greece religion is woven into the fabric of everyday life. Priests in black robes mingled with fashionably-dressed shoppers in Thessaloniki’s Aristotelius Square. In the street across from my hostel, a shop sold metal items for use in churches: glittering crosses, ornate censers, and so on. I passed numerous places were icons were sold. On a tour of the city, we were able to go inside the Rotunda, which was originally a Roman place of worship until it was transformed into a Christian church. Some people claim that it’s the oldest Christian church in the world.

My favorite part of the trip to Greece was our time at Perea Beach, about half an hour’s boat ride from Thessaloniki. Seagulls wheeled in the sky above us as tourists pitched pieces of bread for them to catch. When you come from a state of fresh-water lakes, you don’t think about what salt water tastes like until there’s real brine on your lips. I floated on my back for a long time, staring up into the brilliant sky. We bought sandwiches, buried our toes in the sand, and collected the dark purple shells on the beach. On the boat on the way back, I got into a lively conversation with two elderly women from Thessaloniki. They told me, in a mix of Greek, English, and decidedly non-standard sign language, exactly what they thought of Donald Trump and Joe Biden. 

In the street market the next day, I bought candy, dates, and a bottle of olive oil with herbs in it. It had been easier in Paris to blend in with travelers from around the world; in Thessaloniki, which is less of a tourist destination, I felt very conscious of being from America. That’s not to say that anyone was unkind—they were wonderful, and I found myself saying efharisto (thank you) all the time. One time, a lady in a sweet shop gave me slices of candied orange covered in dark chocolate for free; another time, a waiter treated our whole table to ice cream (he was impressed with Eleni’s grasp of Greek). To be a stranger in a foreign country was a very new feeling to me. It’s humbling to have less control, to struggle to express yourself, and to rely on the generosity of strangers. I also found it freeing. When someone who speaks a different language is kind to you, it gives you hope that it is in fact possible to be a real citizen of the world. It helps you learn to trust yourself. It renews your faith in others. 

If anyone is a real citizen of the world, it’s Katya. She’s traveled to dozens of countries and has plenty of stories to share. The one I remember best is The Jesus Hangover, a.k.a. when she got drunk in Amsterdam, fell asleep, and didn’t wake up until three days later. I don’t necessarily wish to replicate Katya’s experience, but I love the fact that she’s lived enough life to have stories to tell. Maybe it would be good to live in such a way that your hypothetical biography is worth reading. That’s a principle that’s guiding me in my mid-twenties, as my remote work gives me more flexibility than I’ve ever had before. That’s what I had in my mind my last night in Thessaloniki, when I went out with half a dozen people I’d just met to a hidden bar at the top of an apartment building. If I close my eyes, I can still hear the strains of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and watch the disco ball send blinding flecks of light in every direction. Mary Oliver said it best. I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.