Week in Review

Hey! I know it’s been a while since my last post, but things have been pretty calm here. If you don’t mind, I’m just going to share a mish-mash of vignette-type stories from the past week. They’re not really in order or even that exciting, but it just will give you an idea about what I’ve been up to.

For the past week, I’ve been taking the second session of classes. I’m continuing with Greek but not getting credit for it (just for my own knowledge), so Maria is my teacher. I really miss having classes with Daniel! For a little bit I think he thought I had some kind of problem with him, even though he was wonderful and took us to his family house and was just an amazing teacher, but I made sure that he knew it was not my doing and that I really miss having class with him. Class with Maria is very different; again, because I’m not getting credit for it, it’s more like tutoring combined with self-teaching. Class is only a half hour/forty minutes, but she assigns me lessons and workbook pages and an essay a day to do on my own, then I come in the next day with any questions and she assigns me more work. It’s a LOT of work, though—it takes me hours each day! She tried to get me to read a newspaper and write about it but that was too difficult; there were just too many words I didn’t have in my vocabulary. Instead, I bought a children’s book of fairytales and have been writing reports on Cinderella and the Bad Wolf and the Seven Sheep. I actually really enjoy it, sad to say, but everyone has to start somewhere!

The bookstore where I bought the fairytales was actually really cool, I want to go back. All the books were in Greek and it was very disorganized but it felt really homey, with books stacked haphazardly on all surfaces and on shelves stretching to the high ceilings, and they were all beautiful. Stylistically you wouldn’t find something like that very often in the states, but it was actually bustling with people the whole time I was there.

I’m also taking my Greek mythology class with Spiros, Daniel’s son. It is so much fun; it’s like listening to stories every day for two hours. He’s so passionate about it and knows so much, and can communicate that knowledge in a really interesting way. I know a lot of the myths already, or have heard of them, but he puts a really interesting and at times poetic perspective to it. We also have been looking at how myths relate to the political climate of Athens around the 5th century BC and the political purposes to which it was put, etc. It’s all just really fascinating and I could listen to him for hours!

The new kids have been here a week. There are only eight of us total this time, and two of them we never see. I’m just having a harder time connecting to these kids and miss the last group, but I’m really grateful Nick is still here. We do EVERYTHING together and think in exactly the same way—without him I would probably spend a lot of time alone, but luckily I have him here! We go all over the city together, and everyone we talk to either thinks we’re brother and sister or dating. We can just chill together working on different things or be completely chatty for hours. He’s just really easy to be around and so much fun on top of it, we have a great time!

For the past week we have been going to Despina’s but she hasn’t been there; the place was closed. The first day we just thought maybe we were there at a weird time, the second thought something was fishy, and for the rest of the week we were actually pretty worried. This may sound weird, but if she had gone on vacation or something we felt she would have told us about it, because we go there all the time and she knew we still had a few weeks left. At this point we just wanted to make sure she was OK. When we went there today her door was open, but all the chairs were up on the table. We poked our heads in and saw her and said hello, and as turns out she has been in the hospital for the past week! She looked really pale and seemed tired, and won’t be opening the restaurant for another week, but she’s going to be OK. She told me what happened in Greek but didn’t know the name in English, but I wrote it down and will ask Maria about it tomorrow. She told us she was sorry she couldn’t cook for us and we very quickly made sure she knew we just wanted to make sure she was OK. She got a little teary and hugged us and I have to say I got a little teary too. She is such a sweet woman and has been so good to us, I’m just glad she’s going to be OK. I really want to bring her a get-well card and maybe a little gift just so she knows we’re thinking about her.

We really have been doing a great job in general of connecting with Greek people here. I think if there was a theme to this trip, that would be it; I’m just making friends with lots of Greeks that I encounter because I try so hard to talk to them in Greek. Sunday Nick and I were shopping in Old Town for gifts for people back home and we stopped in one jewelry store. Nick was talking to the owner for a little while and she had really good prices anyway compared to others (and we have been all over for weeks so we know), but she said she couldn’t possibly lower the price for two bracelets and a pair of earrings anymore. Then I asked her a question in Greek and she was surprised and exited, and began asking me about my family, what I was doing in Rhodes, etc. After that, she gave Nick the earrings for free. I was looking at a particular pendant and when I asked the price she said that the one I was looking at was cheap metal, I didn’t want that, and pointed me towards an almost identical one for which she gave me the same price, and sold me a couple of cheap bracelets at a price much lower than the one she sold to a tourist couple before me. I bought a silver bracelet that was tagged 49 euro for 20. Which just goes to show you how much these places mark up items for tourists, but just speaking a little Greek meant she took care of us. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, she saw some tea that Nick had bought and told us that it wasn’t real Greek stuff as marketed but was imported from other countries to sell to tourists. If we came back the next day, she said, she would bring us the same stuff from her garden that she ties and dries in the sun and then has for tea at breakfast every morning. She said all this in Greek, and I understood! So, we came back today, and not only did she have a bag of the tea herbs, but bags of rosemary, bay leaves, and mint for us, more than we know what to do with. All because we spoke a little Greek. It really is amazing. Greeks are many things, but Greeks look out for other Greeks—when they find out you have Greek blood and speak the language, or at least try, they treat you amazingly.

Another woman was great to us because we spoke Greek. Our friends had left us a jar of small change that totaled 6.34 (and an American penny) and we took it with us to the liqueur store. We talked to the owner in Greek for a while and felt like jerks when it came time to pay and we whipped out the change in a bottle. We asked her if it was OK to pay in the change. “I want this. Of course! I need this!” she said with a laugh. “How much is it?” We told her the amount, and without even counting just dumped it in the cash drawer, and even though the total was closer to twenty just took ten from us for the rest, laughing and joking with us the whole time. Greeks are good to other Greeks; we wouldn’t lie about the money because we wouldn’t do that to our fellow Hellenes.

Not everyone is so great as the people we take the time to talk to. We went to one restaurant as a group of six that gave us a basket with six rolls and when it came time to pay the check said 9.60 for bread. One of us asked about it (in English); most places in Europe charge a few euros for bread if you eat it, but that was ridiculous. He pointed to a point on the menu that said “Bread: 1.60” and said “Per person. It’s fair, lady.” I was so upset! That was just scumbag trickery trying to nab tourists, you could have bought loaves and loaves for that much! But, we had already eaten it and didn’t want to make a scene so we had to pay it. It’s important to remember that not everyone has your best interests at heart.

One day, heading back from the beach, Nick and I were looking to cross a busy street. A pair of tourists on an ATV (it’s always tourists on the ATVs, because they want to rent something but are too nervous to rent a scooter, and they piss real drivers off because they go so slow but use the roads) stopped at a crosswalk to let us pass. Which was strange enough, that they not only know what a crosswalk was but stopped to let us go. Spiros said that he thought crosswalks were just street decorations until he lived in London for five years…Then, when we were waiting in the middle to cross the rest of the way, someone else stopped for us! Twice in one day? This time it was a Greek girl on a scooter. She stopped with plenty of space and time for the car behind her to stop too, but instead he kept the same speed and drove on by her, honking. “Eh, malaka!” she called after him with a lazy wave of her hand and turned around to motion for the next car to stop, and then waved us forward. So, two people stopping within ten seconds to let us cross at a crosswalk was strange enough in Greece. Then, upon reaching the other side, we saw the guy who had passed the girl on the scooter had stopped his car ahead of the intersection, gotten out, and ran at the girl waving his hands and shouting as she drove by! She had enough space to get around him and was fine, but what the hell was he thinking?! She could have crashed trying to avoid him and seriously hurt herself, or even crashed into him and hurt both of them—yes, it’s a Vespa, but that would still hurt, you crazy man! All because someone was actually being a courteous driver towards pedestrians. I swear, road rules in Greece equate pedestrians with squirrels; you hope you don’t hit them as they scamper across the road but don’t really change your driving at all, and just kind of do a “yep, the made it” check in the rearview as they drive away.

What else has happened? Not too much of interest. I’ve just been doing a lot of homework this past week, working for Maria, spending some time outside at the beach or walking around town. I went out a night or two and had a lot of fun bar-hopping with two of the new kids in Old Town; I’d never really explored the nightlife there much but it had much more personality than Bar Street in New Town. Even so, Greeks don’t dance! Which doesn’t mean I didn’t, it just means I got some funny looks from people just standing around holding drinks. Still, I prefer having a few drinks with Nick and a group before dinner over going out late-night to clubs and bar—especially on weekdays, I have class early and it’s just not worth it for me, plus it’s much cheaper to split a cheap bottle of Rhodean wine than to pay for drinks out.

Anywho, that’s all I can really think of to write about this week. It’s been slow, but I’m definitely enjoying myself. I’ll try to be better about keeping you informed this upcoming week! This is our last week in Rhodes Town, and then (I think because it’s season and the hotel needs our rooms for people who can pay full price) we actually spend our last week on the island not in Rhodes Town but Soroni, a little village about half an hour from here. The pace of life will be much different, but I’m actually excited to escape the tourists and give village life a try. After that week is the ten-day study tour of the mainland and then I’m heading back home. It seems like a lot but I know it will fly by so fast—before you know it I’ll be home!