Greece: The morning after the night before

By Diana Magnay, CNN

November 5, 2011 -- Updated 2052 GMT (0452 HKT)

Generational divide in Greece

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• People were out and about in Athens in great numbers, exercising spending power
• The night before, their prime minister scraped by in a confidence vote in parliament
• "We need to show the Europeans that we support the euro," says a fisherman
• "I wouldn't mind going into bankruptcy; the country's lost anyway," says a taxi driver

Athens, Greece (CNN) -- If the rest of Europe is appalled by the high-stakes political poker played by Greece's politicians, your average Greek can't countenance it anymore.

It is the morning after the prime minister's confidence vote scraped through the parliament. A small group of thirtysomething Greek professionals sit in a cafe and talk about everything other than the nation's fiscal and political crisis.

"Each day we discuss what happened the night before. We can't take it anymore -- it's enough." says 34-year-old Sophia Tsekoura.

But this is a moment in Greek history where you have to make a concerted effort to forget. And everyone has a view if a journalist inquires.

"All of us are very disappointed, not about the result of the vote but about the way it was handled," says Tsekoura's friend Anna Virvidaki. "Unfortunately, the alternatives aren't great, either, so I'm not sure Papandreou going is the right thing."

On this Saturday, Athens' main shopping streets are packed. It seems plenty are still keen to exercise their spending power. And it's clear there's still plenty of it about.

The luxury yachts haven't left the marinas. A couple sipping beers on one prime maritime specimen don't appreciate the questioning: "We come down here to get away from it, get some peace and sunlight so we don't have to hear about it all the time," one says.

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A father-and-son duo fishing nearby are more open to chat.

"We need agreement between the politicians because we need to stay in the euro," says the father, Achilles Rinas. "We need to show the Europeans that we support the euro because we really believe in it and it's our only way out of the crisis."

That's a view the majority share, but there's increasing chatter about what a return to the drachma might mean.

"It may well happen now," says Alex Papakostas, a 50-year-old firefighter pilot who also owns a couple of small businesses in Greece. "The options we have are either a hard way to go or a catastrophic way. The next 10 to 15 years will be very hard for Greece regardless of which currency it has, but I believe the euro will give us a better future."

When there are no demonstrations, sun, busy traffic and bustling commerce are good at concealing the scale of the crisis. The main indications are in what people have stopped doing.

Taxi driver Irene Tsikimi says business has shrunk, but the conversations she has with her clients all follow similar lines: "They say there are no politicians they can believe in. They don't know who to vote for. It feels like it's a dead end. I wouldn't mind going into bankruptcy; the country's lost anyway."

The real Greek tragedy plays out behind closed doors, in the home of the pensioners who can't afford to fill their fridge, the public sector parents struggling to pay the bills, or the 820,000 unemployed scouring the Internet for jobs.

Most people have enough to survive but not to live the life they'd hoped for. This is not yet about a nation of people on the bread line, but about a people whose dreams and future have been taken away from them.