Melodrama

In Greece, when you ask someone how they are, they'll usually reply "kala" (good), or  "poli kala" (very good), or "etsi kai etsi" (so and so). If they aren't doing so good, they'll tell you "Eimai halia," which roughly translates to "I'm f*cking terrible." People have been describing the weather as "halia" too, because lately there's been some rain and the sky is grey. (The temperature is still in the high sixties.)

Greeks like to exaggerate.

A few days ago, in the little grocery store near my apartment, I witnessed what would've resembled a stickup if the word for "umbrella" in Greek didn't sound exactly as it does in English.

While I was standing at the checkout counter, a tall Greek man dressed in black walked into the store and began yelling in Greek. My cashier immediately put down the cherry tomatoes I was purchasing, walked around to the front of the store, and began speaking with the tall man in a calm voice, as if trying to settle him down. Soon I recognized, "Brella," and realized what was going on, but as the look on the cashier's face began to match the tall man's look of grave concern, I wondered if I was missing something. The cashier's voice escalated. Both mens' gesticulating hands moved like orchestra conductors', and I wondered if someone would throw a punch. The short, fat woman who weighed the fruits and vegetables rushed over to the two men and began yelling as well, as if to break up the fight. The tall man pointed in my direction. "Seriously?" I thought, "How am I involved in this?" The three of them walked towards me, and I got ready to run. Screw the cherry tomatoes. But they ignored me - the man wanted to look behind the checkout counter to see if his umbrella was there. A line began to form behind me. Another employee, a Greek man in his sixties, rushed up from the back of the store, flailing his arms and yelling "Brella." I began taking deep breaths, wanting to just pay and get the hell out.

I'm not sure if that man ever found his umbrella. But I doubt it mattered to him half as much as the operatic display in the store would have any observer believe - that's just the Greek way of expressing things. Like Italian, the Greek language transforms even the most mundane subject matter into what sounds to a foreigner like the recent birth of triplets or someone getting hit by a bus. It's all very escalated.

Speaking of drama, part of my job is to help out with "forensics." No, I'm not lifting any fingerprints or fishing for blood samples. "Forensics" is what the Greeks call the very popular, very competitive debate and public speaking club in high schools. The word forensics comes from "forens," which means belonging to the public/forum - so it actually makes sense why the word has taken on two so very separate meanings. Soon I will begin coaching a few students in oral interpretation (where they sit on a stool and read a piece of literature aloud) and duet acting. I'm looking forward to it. :)  Also speaking of drama, teaching is all about acting and stage presence. I like teaching a lot more than I thought I would. Being in front of a class was scary at first, but now I just find it fun. Hooray!

I didn't have school yesterday or today, and won't have it tomorrow either. Yest

erday was the "name day" for "Dimitris" - name days are sort of like Birthdays, here. According to Greek Orthodox tradition, every day of the year is dedicated to a Christian saint or martyr. Because Dimitris is considered the protector of the area where the school is, we got the day off. Usually for name days, kids bring sweets to school for their friends and their friends tell them "hronia polla," meaning many years - a wish for good health and prosperity. 

I'm not sure why we get a day off today. We seem to get a whole bunch of random days off between now and Christmas. Tomorrow (October 28th) is "Oxi Day," a national holiday. It is remembered for General Ioannis Metaxas' strong reply of "OXI" (no) to Mussolini's request to allow Italian troops into Greece at the beginning of WWII.

House in Halandri I like

Park where I ran today

So, three days off. I'm trying to maximize my travelling, and had originally planned to go to Thessaloniki (second largest city in Greece, in the North) with some of the other teaching fellows. But for a number of reasons I decided to stay put.

Lizzie is in Paris until Sunday, so I've had the apartment to myself now for two days. As a teacher, you're talking to people and at people all day, and alone time is rare. Right now I'm feeling a bit like Emily Dickinson and I'm actually really enjoying it. I haven't spoken to anyone (face to face) today except my landlord, for all of five seconds, when he knocked on my door to give me some mail. (Allie, I got your package!)  I finished a book today, cleaned my room, spent no euros, went for a run, began some paintings, wrote a song, and have had time to write this blog. Although I wish I could've gone somewhere and used the break, I think this was a necessary "break" for myself. Not that my job is stressing me out, but it feels so good to finish off all the "to-dos" on my list. I know its autumn, but being alone is like spring cleaning for the soul. And we all need that every season.

Pythia Says:

Last weekend, feeling lost at sea, I took a trip to Delphi to consult the oracle. Delphi is both a town and an archeological site, set in the mountains and bordered by the ocean. It's a three hour bus ride northwest of Athens.

The word "Delphi" derives from the same roots as the word "delphys," meaning womb. In ancient Greece, this site was considered the center of the earth, where the earth's "navel" (omphalos) was situated. The greek words for brother, sister, and cousin also include "delphi" - (Adelphos, Adelphi, and Xadelphos/phi).

If you've heard of Delphi, it's probably been in relation to the oracle. (That's all I'd heard about it, at least). But everything at the site, oracle included, stems from the God Apollo.

Apollo was God of light and sun and a whole slew of other things, too - I'm a little baffled as to how one God got to reign over both "medicine," for example, and "the sun." Couldn't they have divvied up responsibilities a little better?

Anyways. Originally, the site was named "Pytho," because this horrible dragon (Python) lived there and protected the Earth's precious belly button. Apollo arrived by sea in the shape of a dolphin, carrying Cretan priests on his back, and slayed the Python. The site was then dedicated to the worship of Apollo, and the oracle delivered prophecies she received from the sun god.



Mythology/etymology overload. Sorry.

Why would I need to consult the oracle?
I guess I've been feeling pretty up and down.
Ups:
At my core (navel), I'm really happy to be here. I'm very proud of myself for having come. It was a big risk to take, and because things have turned out remarkably well, I feel encouraged to take more big risks in life (not like trying heroin for kicks, I mean intelligent, worthwhile risks, like perhaps living in a foreign country again). Coming here has given me a huge confidence boost - I carry a feeling or pride in my decision with me throughout the day. So rah rah!

I've begun taking voice lessons and private Greek lessons, which has been pretty cool, yet also a huge drain on my already low income.

I don't miss Brown nearly as much as I thought I would. Being busy certainly helps. I quite like not having school work hanging over my head at all times. This is a pleasant surprise, because I thought I'd be wishing I was back at Brown all the time. I think this job is just about the best "transition" job anyone could ask for.

The "slow pace of life" in Greece has led me to feel pretty relaxed, overall.  I'm sleeping very well.

Downs:
I won't get into it in too much detail right now, because it merits its own post, but there are some maddening aspects of Greek life. Things are just so freakin inefficient. The "slow pace of life" is definitely a double edged sword. Sometimes at school I feel like I'm going to scream. A lot of time gets wasted.
To give you an example of how the "relaxed lifestyle" permeates every aspect of Greek culture, consider  this: one of the very first verbs they teach you (after to be and to want) is the verb "perimenos" - to wait.

Hanging out with the same nine other Americans is getting frustrating, too. I like them, but the purpose of my being here is to experience Greek culture, and that can be difficult when I hang out with the same English speakers 24/7. Making Greek friends has proven rather difficult - sure, there are some older Greek men who seem pretty keen to hang out, but I'd love to meet someone sub-30. Someone who actually just wants to hang out. Period.

So I went to ask the oracle for advice. Unfortunately, she's no longer in business. Actually, I went to Delphi with four other female teaching fellows to get out of the Athenian smog and away from the boys in the group, who have been real assholes of late.

In some strange "grasping for similarities" way, Delphi reminded me a bit of Mount Desert Island, in Maine. I suppose it's just because both have mountains and sea. Odd things in Greece remind me of home - the smallest similarities are amplified, because overall the spaces are so different.

If I had come here in 393 AD, when the last recorded prophecy was given, here's what would have happened. A young girl (probably in her early teens) who had assumed the title "Pythia"(High Priestess of the Temple of Apollo) would sit inside the temple and place her hands on the "navel," a chasm in the rock from which trance inducing vapours emerged. These got her pretty high, and she began to speak gibberish. Priests would then take her words and reshape them into incredibly enigmatic prophecies, which invariably came true because they were so vague. The young girl usually wouldn't live for very long, because the gasses she inhaled were rather poisonous.

I learned all of this from an English speaking tour guide who was touring a group of elderly Californians around the site. They were happy to let us join in the group. One woman kept asking us about the Greek men.

Still making lots of feline friends.

Language, Part 1

During my first month in Greece, lack of understanding (of Greek) led me to zone out all the time. My brain just started ignoring everything, assuming it wouldn't know what it meant. I'd find myself in outerspace even when speaking with English speakers, like my roommate, Lizzie. Greek class has finally begun, and I'm feeling a little more in tune. I latch onto key words here and there and pat myself for understanding them.

Greek class: Seven of us meet twice a week for an hour and a half with Angeliki, a spunky, beautiful Greek woman in her thirties. I adore her. She brings a very relaxed and fun vibe to the class, while pushing us enough so that we're progressing.

Before class began, I was feeling a little apathetic about learning Greek. Why? Because after this year, I will probably never hear, let alone need to speak Greek again. So it's easy to feel like putting effort into learning Greek is a waste of time. However, the language class has re-sparked my interest. Now that I have a teeny tiny grasp of the language, I want to learn more and more.

On day 1 (we've had four classes thus far) Angeliki zoomed through the alphabet and began writing in Greek immediately.  "Woah lady, slow down" was my initial reaction, and I felt quite frustrated. But this has forced me to learn the alphabet, and now I feel like I've almost got it down. I don't know exactly what goes on in the brain when humans learn new alphabets, but I'd love to find out. It's gotta be good for you. It's exciting to walk around and look at signs and decipher what the words on them sound like. What they mean, well, that's a whole other story.

What they mean is fascinating. Roots of English words are everywhere you look, so it's exciting to study the language from an etymological perspective, even if I won't converse in it much post 2011. There's something extremely satisfying about making connections between English words and their Greek roots: For example, the word for children in Greek is pedi. Like pediatrician!

Other fun connecty words:

Catharsis -to purge

Schizo - to split

Anthras - man 

Xenothoxio-  hotel- place where foreigners (xeno) stay

I could keep going, but English derives around 50,000 words in its lexicon from Greek, and I don't want to get carried away..

I've been listening to "Language Addicts: Greek" (from itunes) while I walk to work (when I'm not crossing at busy intersections and worrying about how not to get killed). I've learned a lot of basic adjectives and nouns this way, although they're kinda random. (Oseedaxeeooho. The pensioner, male.)

Greek has 34 centuries of written records. It may not be popular, but it has some serious staying power. It came much before our Latin alphabet, which came from IT. I must remember, when I get frustrated that the Greek letter for the r sound (ro) looks like what we call P, that this is how it was first. This fact also makes the Greek alphabet quite interesting - it's about a third the same letters we use for the same sounds, a third letters we use for totally different sounds, and a third totally different letters, (and for some totally different sounds, such as "gh" sound or "x" sound - h.) And they dont have a letter for b sound. Or j. James is pronounced Tzames.

Not knowing the language is a pretty serious handicap, even when almost everyone can speak English. I can't begin to imagine how frustrating it must be to only speak a language that isn't commonly known. Not knowing depletes your confidence and you just can't do the things you normally would. Shopping becomes this strange tango of hoping people will not approach you and speak and psyching yourself up to go ask for what you need. I've begun to rely on "Ummmmm," which Greeks don't use as a staller. Instead they say, "eennnhhh" or "ahhh" to fill the space between words.

I've been in touch with a private tutor and am going to try and set up a lesson for this coming week.
Should be fluent soon.

Views

The weather has begun to cool here in Athens. The sky is grey. Today I wore pants to work for the first time, and I'm no longer arriving to school drenched in my own sweat. But the temperature drop also means I need to take advantage of the Great Greek Outdoors while the weather allows it.

This past weekend, half of the teaching fellows went to Vienna. The five of us who remained in Greece didn't go out either night, and therefore didn't spend all of SaturDAY and SunDAY sleeping off hangovers. I had two full days of outdoor adventure, and probably the best weekend I've had here yet. 

We planned to meet up in Syntagma (the city center) at 10:30 am on Saturday morning. 

Lizzie (my roomie) and I had recently discovered a bus that we believed somehow led to the metro station. At 9:45 am we hopped on the bus. At around 10:20, we were way up in the mountains.

When we finally admitted to ourselves that this bus was not headed towards the metro stop and got off, we were met with air much fresher than the air in Halandri. The view from up there was pretty spectacular (hence title of post) - we could see all the way past Athens to the ocean. It was refreshing to be among so many more trees and so much less traffic. No grass, though - "Green Space" around Athens is really "Brown Space"- the ground is all dry soil, and nature has a more desert-like feel. I think this area we stumbled upon is called Nea Pentelis, and I'm really looking forward to exploring it further. Next time I'll bring a camera.

After walking around for a bit, Lizzie and I got back on the bus in the opposite direction, and asked the driver if it would bring us to the metro. "Vivaeos," he told us. (Of course.)

Greeks have a unique way of monitoring payment for public transport. When you get on a bus, you don't drop any change in any glass container, or give the driver your ticket. You don't line up to put your Charlie card through a machine and have it spat back out at you. No doors open to let you through and then close, violently, to stop the next person from squeezing in behind you. You just get on.

Very very occasionally, a ticket officer will come onto your bus and ask to see your ticket or pass.

Up until this weekend, I was thinking Greece could solve all its economic problems if they would just adopt a regular method of charging people each time they boarded a bus or train. It seemed like the government must be losing so much money due to all those people who slip through the cracks. People like Lizzie and me, who on October 2nd were still carrying our September month passes.

But then the ticket officer, with his snazzy little fanny pack, boarded our bus. This was literally the first time I've seen a ticket officer in all of my time here. And he charged us sixty Euros a pop.

Lesson learned.

FML.

When we finally made it into Syntagma around 1:30 pm, (we've gone Greek and stopped bothering with punctuality), we set out to climb Mont Lycabettus, the highest point in Athens (about 900 ft tall). Lycabettus means "the one that is walked by wolves" - folklore suggests that at one point wolves inhabited the hill. (Check it, Shakira!) There's also a story about how Athena dropped the mountain when she was flying over the landscape to add it to the Acropolis, but that's for another time.

The climb is quite steep, so you get to the top pretty quickly. Giant, prickly, aloe-like plants line the path up the hill, and make you feel like you're in Jurassic Park. After less than twenty minutes, we had reached the summit and could see the white of Athens spread out below us in every direction. I like how Athens is surrounded on three sides by mountains and on one side by sea. It makes me believe I can easily orient myself, because there are clear limits. I'm still having some issues with which way is North, but from this height, it all seems to make sense. Up there you can see the Acropolis, the ocean, Parliament, etc. People say Athens is a small city. The view from above makes me beg to differ. Shame on me, I didn't bring my camera.

The next day we arose bright and early (again!) to go to Aegina, an island just a forty minute ferry-ride away. I'll tell you I swam and ate a lot of pistachio ice cream, and that I'm still amazed by the colour of the water here. Otherwise, I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Oh, and I saw a boat from Weekapaug:

It's a small world, after all.