Grown-ups?

Today I only had class from 2-4, so I spent a large part of the day exploring my new neighborhood. It has much more of a city feel to it than my old one. The area to the left of the front door is mostly small, quiet streets laid out in a grid, with grocery stores, meat shops, fruit and vegetable stands, residencies, empty storefronts, and the occasional dilapidated taverna or café. It’s not really somewhere I would feel comfortable walking alone at night, but during the day there should be no problem.

To the right is a major street, Vassilissis Olgas, and a few streets behind is another major road, 25 Martiou (25th of March). Both of these would have everything I would need at night. And of course, a few street down from V. Olgas is the water.

I walked around a lot and did a bit of shopping. I got some things I need for the apartment—a trash can, a broom, a baking pan, frying pan, bowl, sponges, etc—from one store, and because I tried to use some Greek, the proprietor threw in some free spoons. Random, but nice. I guess I look like someone who eats a lot more soup and ice cream than….I don’t know, foods that need forks. Besides that, all I got was a hairdryer and groceries, but it actually took a long time. Everything I buy I have to carry myself back to the apartment and up two flights of stairs, so I couldn’t really stock up on anything in one grocery. I had to resist the urge to grab extra ____ because a) I don’t have enough storage for it, and b) I probably couldn’t eat it fast enough, but it felt weird since I’ve grown up in a house of six people where you always stock up extra, and it’s still gone in a day. Also, I went to separate shops for different things; one place for fruits and vegetables, another for dry goods, another for my tzatziki. Luckily all this stuff is pretty close by so it didn’t matter I made multiple trips.

It feels so weird having to cook for myself and do all my own shopping; I don’t know what to do! I have the most random assortment of things in my cabinets and mini-fridge because I don’t really know what I’ll need to make a decent meal. I can’t eat out all the time, but I still want to be able to make things that are edible. I have all kinds of pasta, chips, tzatziki, bread, strawberries, garlic, mushrooms, scallions, frozen pizza, ice cream….I feel like if you looked in this fridge you’d say “Yep, that’s Rachel” but wouldn’t be able to make very much out of it. I am proud of myself, however, for inventing a new snack—rice cakes with nutella and sliced strawberries. Sounds healthy, right? And nutella is something that I hate at home but love here—I think it’s made differently. There are little crepperies all over and you can get them with meat and lettuce, etc, but you can also get them with nutella and fruit, and it’s so good!

I’m completely out of my depth in my Greek language class, but I’m actually really enjoying it. It’s hard but way better than having to relearn the alphabet for two weeks, and more useful as well. Today we learned all kinds of food words, and how to order from a bakery, a supermarket, a fishery, a μανάβικο (the fruit/veggie only stores). I of course forgot most of it the second I left the class, but I’m making flashcards and memorizing and working hard to learn.

I successfully rode the public bus today, but on the way there had a scary experience with the bus police. Some girls from the school have already been fined for not having a ticket, so of course we had one. The police jumped on at the school’s stop and at first wouldn’t let us off until we showed our ticket, and then when my friend was looking for hers in her bag pulled us off the bus and were all ready to write her a fine until she finally produced it. They were really pushy and rude and when they saw we both had tickets they just said, “sorry” and walked away. I’m not really sure what happened, but whatever it was it wasn’t right—they didn’t check anyone else’s tickets, and a lady on the bus was telling them to open the doors, they weren’t supposed to not let us off. It looks like they were just trying to make a quick buck off the foreign students who don’t speak Greek and probably didn’t use the bus system correctly and so would be easier to fine. Unfortunately for them, I am a Greek bus-riding pro…