Streets of Athens: Unrest and Street Art

Since I was a bit nervous about visiting Greece with all of its troubles lately, I wanted to write a quick post giving my impression after being there for awhile, and to post some of the huge amount of street art and graffiti around the city. The only place I really sensed any trouble at all was in Athens. In Santorini and the places we visited on my tour there was a sense that there were less tourists than normal, but it's also still off-season somewhat, so it could be a mix of both factors.
In Athens things were a lot different. The lower amount of tourists was obvious. I ate at a restaurant Monday to watch the France-England soccer match, and in the 90 or so minutes I was there (7:00-8:30 or so) there was only one other person. There was also a very heavy police presence, especially in some areas. My hostel was on one of the major shopping streets, and there were often 20+ police along the street, grouped in 2-5 at intersections. Some looked similar to the ones I'm used to from Canada, but others had SMGs, riot shields and cannisters of tear gas clipped to their vests. I only came across one small peaceful protest while I was there, but there was a subtle feeling of unrest.
Honestly though, I think it's still a beautiful trip destination. I never had the feeling that I was going to get stranded there or get caught up in violence or have my money suddenly become useless. I don't know what the future holds for them, and the situation is still likely to change, but I found all the people friendly and the prices were the best I've found in Europe so far.

Now some of the art! When I was in Rome I was interested in how much of the best art seemed to be stencilists, and Athens is completely different. The stencils I saw were small generic ones, and mostly not terribly interesting. As I mentioned before there is graffiti everywhere, and a lot of the art is pretty simple, crude stuff - but there are also a lot of good freehand painters around. I didn't see any art by people I know so far, but the styles were very distinct and you could easily pick out which pieces were done by the same person. In Istanbul I've already seen some things by one of the guys I also saw in Athens (as well as a very cool Space Invader tile when I was on the shuttle bus that I'll have to try to find again). There was also a lot of darker art in Athens, which I guess is a reflection of the political troubles.