The Best American Travel Writing 2014 by Paul Theroux Page A

portrayed as a “good Greek,” a man who wanted to combat corruption, who did not compare Angela Merkel to Hitler, who did not blame everything on capitalism, and who had no desire to defend in veiled terms the country’s nepotism and status quo. In those articles one detected an unmistakable relief at the fact that a good Greek had been found.
    I would spend Christmas in Thessaloniki—the light in the darkened world of the crisis.
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    I. Kostas
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    About a 15-minute walk uphill from the sea—Thessaloniki has an upper city and a lower city—is the RentRooms Thessaloniki youth hostel. In the cafeteria there I meet with Kostas Terzopoulos. He has a little beard and kindly, not-quite-shy eyes. Kostas is wearing a gray sweater that looks like it’s been washed too often. I’ve been told that he organizes the Totally Naked Bike Ride in Thessaloniki. Why wear clothes in a climate like this? Clothes, too, are something on which one can economize.
    We both order tea. “To start with, it’s an ecological thing,” Kostas says. “I’m a member of the Green Ecological Party. It’s a small party. In the last elections we just made our quorum—we ended up with 2.93 percent. And in the second round of the elections we only made 0.88 percent. People had no more confidence in us then. It’s a pleasant party. We have a representative in the European Parliament, and there’s also someone on the municipal council in Thessaloniki; he’s been misbehaving lately, though, so we’re trying to drum him out of the party.” Kostas talks to me as though I’m his friend, or at least as though I’m rapidly becoming his friend.
    â€œI’m unemployed these days, but it all started back when I still had a job. I did the IT for a radio station, and I was a part-time DJ. At school, all the cool guys had scooters, and later on—like lots of Greeks—my car was one of the most important things in my life. I did all the things you’re not supposed to do: I parked wherever I found a spot. My car meant everything to me. Like a lot of Greeks, I had the idea that I didn’t have to do anything and that the government had to do everything for me. The change in my mentality started when I became a nudist.”
    â€œHow did that go?” I ask.
    â€œI was always very shy, especially in the bodily sense. But a few years ago I was with a few friends at a lovely, quiet beach. One of them said: ‘Let’s go skinny-dipping.’ I hesitated, but I finally took off my clothes, too, even though I didn’t really enjoy that yet. A few weeks later I actually started as a practicing nudist. At first only at home, where I walked around naked as much as possible, but later also outdoors, in natural surroundings. I didn’t do any nudism in an urban setting, not yet.
    â€œThen, I guess that was in 2007, a colleague said to me: ‘Why don’t you ever come to work on a bike? It would make it a lot easier to find a parking spot.’ I bought my first bike, an Ideal Megisto, something between a mountain bike and a regular bicycle. At first, biking was an experiment, like nudism.
    â€œI haven’t eaten all day; would you mind if I ordered a sandwich?”
    â€œGo right ahead,” I say.
    â€œI wanted to combine my two great passions,” Kostas tells me, “nudism and cycling. That’s how I stumbled on the Totally Naked Bike Ride. I called some friends and I got a lot of help. People liked the idea. Thessaloniki’s first Totally Naked Bike Ride was held on June 27, 2008. There were about a hundred participants; ten of them were women. The police said they were going to arrest us, and they actually did arrest a couple of participants who were totally naked, but we kept protesting until they let them go. Not everyone, by the way, has to be totally naked. Some of the participants wear strings, others wear body paint. Each