Greek and Turkish Delights

In honor of Christmas, the Ottoman Empire and the upcoming theatrical release of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe, (which is mostly upcoming to me because it has not been released in Greece yet) I feel that it would be appropriate to say a few words about Turkish Delight. I think most Americans really only think of Turkish Delight when they think about the Chronicles of Narnia. In fact, I would venture to say that most Americans don't actually have a clue what Turkish Delight actually is, but they are generally excited about it anyway, since they know it as the candy that lured Edmund Pevensie away from his family and into the cruel clutches of the White Witch. Any candy that causes a person to forsake their entire family for a second bite has got to taste pretty good, right?
Well, the author of this article (http://www.slate.com/id/2131903/nav/tap1/) really doesn't think so. Actually, whenever I see the stuff I think back to my middle school theatre days, when I played Susan in a local production of The Lion, etc, and the entire cast tried the stuff, only to declare it thoroughly unworthy of all that fuss. Personally, I do not have any particular malice toward Turkish Delight, but if a witch offered me a box of whatever kind of candy I wanted, that's not the first thing that would come to mind. I agree with the person who commented that, basically, it's just not chocolate.
In case you are not familiar with this particular confection, it's a sort of jelly-like substance, flavored with almond extract or rose water, and covered in powdery sugar. So really, it's sugar covered sugar, and it looks something like this photo here. I bought this stuff at the market, where, much to my amusement, it happened to be labeled "Greek Delight." I guess that's fair enough- the Turks conquered Greece for all of those years, and in exchange, the Greeks tried to conquer Turkish candy.
True, it's not really worth forsaking your siblings for, unless your siblings happen to be a real bunch of losers. But honestly, if I'm willing to suspend my belief long to enough to accept that a little boy walked through a closet into a magical land where the wildlife talks, I'm willing to accept that he also liked Turkish Delight better than chocolate.
Also, I think there's a uniquely gross feeling that one acquires from eating too much sugar, and that's sort of how I imagine Edmund feeling after eating all of the witch's candy; just saturated in sugar, but not quite full in any satisfying way. Chocolate can actually fill you up, but Turkish Delight just turns your bloodstream into syrup.

If you're not a fan of the Narnia books, perhaps because you can't overlook all of that Christian allegory, or because you find them a bit old fashioned, I've got another childhood literary reference for you. I grew up loving The Enchanted Forest chronicles, by Patricia Wrede. They were a lot funnier than the Narnia books, and a little more modern (The Princess knew sword fighting and decided to live with the dragons rather than marry the dope who was her betrothed.) The reason I mention these is as follows: in Book One, Dealing With Dragons, the king of the dragons is poisoned when someone slips deadly dragonsbane into his Turkish coffee. I believe one of the characters comments on the poisoning with statement along the lines of "It's easy to poison Turkish coffee. That stuff will take the roof off of your mouth."

Well, Turkish coffee exists in abundance here, but it has been renamed, you guessed it, Greek coffee. And no, it won't actually take the roof off of your mouth, but it is strong. So strong, in fact, that the coffee grounds are right there in your coffee cup, and when you finish, there is a little pile of coffee sludge at the bottom. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "cup of mud". Apparently, some people tell fortunes with coffee grounds in the same manner that others read tea leaves. (Like professor Trelawney in the Harry Potter books, which brings my number of children's literature references up to three for this post alone!) I know that's not a very appetizing way of describing it, but actually, it's good stuff. I like it. It's made in a pot called a μπρικι, or a Briki, a word that I know because 'Making Greek Coffee" was a recent lesson in my Greek class. It's then served in a tiny little cup, just about the size of an espresso cup. I don't have a picture right now, but next time I drink some Greek coffee, I'll be sure to bring my camera. And I'll watch out for potential assassins.

Speaking of food, Greece has gorgeous, delicious pomegranates. I have been gorging myself on them, trying to get my fill before they go out of season. They are so good, even though they stain my kitchen counter, sink, and hands a bright reddish color, which of course leads to my hands staining other things, like the handle to my refrigerator and my jeans. But pomegranates are worth it. Persephone ate six pomegranate seeds and had to stay in Hades for six months out of the year. If eating pomegranates requires you to stay in the place that grew them, I will be be in Greece forever and ever. As a matter of fact, it was several days after I started eating pomegranates when I was informed that I am not legally permitted to leave the Schengen states until I get my residence permit. Maybe it's some god or goddess, getting their revenge on me for something or other.

If I were a cat, I could have an EC Passport

And the latest news from Hellenic territory is....
I have a cat. She's damn cute. See?

I didn't intend to get a cat, but she wandered into the dorm one night, and all the kids loved her, and she is quite tiny and helpless, so I just didn't have the heart to send her back out into the cold. I would take her for a few days, I figured, or maybe a few weeks, and then let her outside again. Or maybe I would find a real home for her with someone at Anatolia. In any case, I bought some cat food, and some kitty litter and christened my friend Calypso, in honor of a) James Joyce, who wrote the best description of a cat that I have ever read in a book of Ulysses by the same name, and b) Calypso the nymph of the Odyssey, who was so seductive that she kept Odysseus on her island for nine years when he was supposed to be going home. It's an appropriate name, I decided, because she's a damn seductive cat, as evidenced by the fact that she is now living in my (previously much cleaner and quieter) apartment.

Then I emailed pictures of the cat to my sister, a lifelong animal lover, who announced that she was head over heels in love, and that I must find a way to bring my new roommate back to the States with me after my time in Greece is up. "I am doing research," she explained to me on the phone the other day. "Research on pet immigration laws. I contacted the Greek consulate about restrictions on moving cats from Greece to the US, and whether quarantine is required. They should email me back soon."
"Ah," I said, "Good. You should get a response from them sometime in, oh, June maybe..."
"But I just emailed them now" she explained again. "I already asked them."
"Right." It was the phone version of a nod-and-smile. I have had enough dealings with various Greek administrative offices to know that one must try to communicate at least two or three times before any questions are answered. Sometimes you have to try two or three times before you can even find a person who will admit that it is, in fact, their job to help you. And email is utterly useless; most Greeks seem to regard it as a newfangled curiosity that should never be used for actual communication, especially not if there is a cell phone available. My sister, I figured, would never, ever, not in a million years, get a response from anyone living within twenty blocks of the Greek consulate. She would have better luck discussing immigration with the actual cat.

Yesterday she emailed me. "I have been exchanging emails for a while with someone at the Greek consulate," she said. "They say that Calypso doesn't have to be quarantined. Can I bring her home?"

Just the other day I sat chatting over coffee with some study abroad students from Marymount Manhattan, bonding over our mutual love for Joe's Shanghai in Chinatown and stories about red tape at the New York Greek consulate. (I was definitely given three different versions of the student visa requirements). Two weeks ago, Brad and I went on a wild goose chase through Thessaloniki just to figure out how to pay our required tax fee - I mean, we each had one hundred and fifty Euros to fork over the government, and we couldn't even find anyone willing to take it. To top it all off, Residence permits take so long to be processed that they have almost invariably expired before they are issued, which means that I'm technically not supposed to travel outside the Schengen states for the next eight months to a year. I hear that Greek citizens need a visa if they travel to the US for a vacation, and apparently they can be tough to obtain.

However, my sister emails the consulate about a cat, and not only are they are suddenly communicative and helpful, (not just one email, but multiple emails) but the cat is allowed to go wherever she wants, red tape free. All she needs to travel, according to a friend who is bringing a cat home next week, is a health certificate and a "kitty passport" which costs ten Euros and identifies the bearer as a resident of the European Union. No kidding. What the hell is going on here? Is that why things take so long in Greece? Because people are devoting their time to cat passports?

That said, we have not determined that Calypso is actually coming to the US, we just know that it's legally a possibility. I'm not so sure that my current cats in New York would be thrilled to have a new friend. (And, as exactly thirty seven people have pointed out to me "they wouldn't be able to understand her! She probably meows in Greek! haha!") However, one thing is quite sure- this is one lucky cat. One week ago she was wandering through the cold of the Anatolia campus, and now she has food, clean water, warmth, an international fan club and no travel restrictions.

Let me say a few words about language.

In Greek, a 'P' sounds like an 'R', an 'X' sounds kind of like an 'H', a 'B' sounds like a 'V', a 'v' is a lowercase "N', an 'n' is a lowercase 'H' that makes an 'e' sound, a 'u' is a lowercase 'Y', 'w' and 'o' are two different kinds of like a lowercase 'O', a 'D' sound is a combination of the "N' sound (which sometimes looks like a 'v') and a 'T,' a 'B' sound is a combination of 'M' and the Greek 'P' (but remember, the English 'P' makes an 'R' sound) and 'J' does not exist and is replaced entirely with 'TZ'.

People say that once you've learned one foreign language, it becomes easier to learn others. People told me that taking Latin would prove useful one day, because it would help me to learn some of those other languages. Well, Latin is useful. Very useful- when I'm doing Sunday crossword puzzles, or on those frequent occasions when I need to ask Quintus if I can borrow his catapult. Unfortunately, Latin is not really so useful when it comes to learning Greek. I guess this should not surprise me; the Ancient Greeks and Romans were very different in many respects. But didn't the Romans sort of appropriate lots of Greek culture, you know, classical sculpture and all of that? Why couldn't they have appropriated more of the Greek language along the way? It would make my life easier.

But maybe they did...after all, Spanish is one of those romance languages that evolved from Latin somewhere along the line, and there are some similar words in Spanish and Greek. For example, in Spanish, "aqui" means "here." The Greek "ekei", which sounds exactly the same, means "there." Spanish has words like "que" and "y", which sound exactly like the Greek "kai" and "H" (that sounds like "eee", remember the spelling lesson I just gave you?). Unfortunately, in Spanish, "que" means "that" and "Y" means "and," while in Greek "kai" means "and" and "H" is a feminine article that I can never quite put in the right place even without the dusty remnants of high school Spanish appearing uninvited from the file cabinet in the back of my brain where they have been mouldering for the past five years.

Speaking of my luckluster Spanish skills, I certainly hope that I am never called upon to use them again, because they have become hopelessly muddled and hybridized as of late; I can't even get through a simple "uno, dos, tres" without experiencing the urge to throw in a δυο or a τρια. All my foreign languages just become one big blob, like paint spilled by El Greco. Or Paella with octopus. Or just one big blob.

And to top it all off, "Ναι", pronounced "Nay", which sounds like "no" in pretty much every European language including Louxembourgish (go ahead- look it up), means "yes" in Greek.

Dead Monks, Dead Frogs, "The Dead"

This weekend I decided to go along on a field trip to Meteora and Ioannina with some study abroad students. I admit that I was a little hesitant about this, since I usually prefer not to travel in a huge group of Americans. However, it all turned out really well. The whole thing was organized by two professors (one a Grinnell alum!) who knew their way around, which meant that I got lost a lot less than I usually do in new places, and I also got to see a lot more, since it's convenient to have a bus always waiting to shepherd you around.
Meteora is apparently the "second most important group of monasteries in Greece." I don't know why I put that phrase in quotes, since I'm not strictly quoting anything, but it is something that I've read in various places. The first most important group of monasteries in Greece is Mount Athos, where I am not allowed due to my lack of a y-chromosome. That's right- only men are allowed on Athos. In fact, female farm animals are not even allowed on Athos.
However, women are allowed to visit monasteries at Meteora, which is good, because at least one of the monasteries is actually a monastery for women. (I don't really know the difference between a monastery for women, a nunnery and a convent. I also don't know the difference between female monks and nuns. Maybe there is no difference.) All of the monasteries at Meteora are built way high up on big cliffs. The entire area is full of these huge rocks that are jutting out of the ground. Many of them are full of these strange looking holes. Apparently, the whole area was underwater many years ago, and somehow the water helped create all of this. I don't really understand it, but it is awesome. (Awesome in the real sense of the word, not in the "if you could pass the ketchup, that would be awesome" sense.) Here are some pictures, and they will show you exactly what I mean:






See? Awesome. We actually visited two of these monasteries (There used to be 21 of them, but now there are only six still in operation.) The first was the monastery of St. Stephan, and it's the aforementioned women's monastery. The church inside, of which I did not take pictures (I did not want to make any nuns mad at me) was painted in absolutely beautiful, vivid, detailed frescoes. Of course, some of them were pictures of people being thrown into hell and eaten by dragons, or demons coming to drag people away, or various holy people having various unpleasant experiences. However, they were some of the most beautiful paintings of hellish demons and painful death scenes that I have ever seen.

I should also mention the dress code. Visitors to the monastery are required to dress modestly; ie, no tanks tops, no shorts, and skirts below the knee for all women. Since most women tourists don't arrive in long skirts these days, the monastery provides them for everyone, so you get to walk around looking very fashionable, like this:


Here's something interesting about monastic life; it follows a completely different daily schedule than the usual one. The monks (regardless of gender) go to bed when the sun goes down, get up at 2am to pray for eight hours, eat their main meal of the day, work for eight hours, and then go to bed. It doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun to me, but I guess fun isn't really the point. I'll admit that I spent some time puzzling over the fact that I knew I had read something about monks getting up at 2am, and I couldn't for the life of me remember where. Finally, I realized it was this passage from "The Dead":

"He was astonished to hear that the monks never spoke, got up at two in the morning and slept in their coffins. He asked what they did it for...The coffin, said Mary Jane, is to remind them of their last end.”

Well, James Joyce was right about one thing; monks do get up at 2am. I'm pretty sure they speak, though, since they talked to us when we paid our admission fees. I don't know if they sleep in coffins; they didn't let me see their bedrooms. (Besides, there are a few differences between Irish Catholic monks and Greek orthodox monks). However, this picture, taken at the second monastery we visited, is definite proof that they try to be reminded of their "last end" on a daily basis. Look at this:

These are skulls of dead monks. Apparently, after three years of being buried, the dead monks are dug up, their bones cleaned with wine, and put on display to remind the current, living monks of their own mortality.
We also saw a sort of monk dining hall (is it called a refectory? I don't remember) filled with wooden tables and benches. Monk's food is very simple, but it is also rumored to be very good. However, all monks are required to eat in the short period of only ten or twenty minutes, while psalms are being read. This is to prevent them from enjoying their food too much, since food is an earthly pleasure, and should only be for the sustainment of life, not pleasure. To be perfectly honest, I have a hard time believing this. This is Greece, after all. It takes most Greeks several hours to finish a cup of coffee. The enjoyment of food is practically the national pasttime. How could any Greek, even an exceptionally pious one, give that up for ten minute meals? I guess it all comes down to the fact that I won't be joining a monastery anytime soon.

However, there are those people for whom monastic life is, apparently, not difficult enough. These people have apparently been known to take up residence in the holes in the mountain rocks, to live a life of solitude. There are even some holes with remnants of wall paintings in them, because the inhabitant decided to decorate their home. However, these people appear to be a dying, if not entirely dead, breed, possibly because, well, to me it looks like it would be very easy to roll out of those little holes in one's sleep. Take a look:


Anyway, after we left the monasteries and removed our skirts, we got back on the bus and headed to Ioannina. The road from Meterora to Ioannina snakes through the mountains on tiny little roads that go perilously close to steep drop-offs. It is positively gorgeous, though you do feel like you are going to die through most of the trip. I spent all four hours with my nose plastered to the window, watching the mountains go by, colored yellow and orange from the fall foliage. I would have taken pictures, but if you've ever tried to take pictures from a bus window, you know it's pretty much a pointless endeavor. You can choose the perfect shot, but by the time you actually click the shutter the bus has invariably just driven by some power lines or a huge tree, and you get a blurred picture of these obstacles, with some extra glare from the reflection of the flash on the window. It's just maddening.

We arrived in Ioannina after about four hours, which included a stop at a truck stop, where everyone was sitting at little tablecloth-covered tables drinking wine and eating platefuls of food. (I'm telling you, the Greeks are not ten minute meal people. You can't even buy canned soup in the supermarket. I can just image the horrified reaction that Kraft macaroni and cheese would elicit.)

Ioannina is a lovely little city on a big lake, which is unusual, since Greece doesn't have many lakes. The people of Ioannina take full advantage of their lake, however; they use it for frogs. Yup, frog legs are the specialty of Ioannina. About six of us decided to order a plate of them at dinner, probably mostly so that we could take pictures and put them on our blogs. Here's what frog legs look like:

And, in case you were wondering, they really do taste kind of like chicken. They look like frogs, but they taste like chicken. I think that next time I am craving something that tastes like chicken, I will choose something that does not look like frog. But hey, I guess that if you're really freaked out about bird flu, frog could be one alternative. Or maybe if you're a monk and don't want to enjoy your food, you could just order food that looks like frogs.

Here I must pause to drift off on a tangent about culture differences. Since arriving in this country, Brad and I have spent most of our time with Greeks and Americans who are already quite integrated into the Greek way of life. So it was somewhat amusing to find myself thrust back into a group of Americans who are more, well, American. Most notably, I find that meals suddenly became very different affairs. First off, though America college students are generally quite fond of alcohol, they choose to go drinking after dinner, and drink vodka, rum, or tequila in outrageously priced cockails. (I cannot bring myself to pay seven Euros for drink. I just can't do it.) However, when they sit down to a meal, they don't drink at all. This is completely opposite to the Greek way of life: Greeks will never sit down to a full meal without some form of alcohol; retsina, wine, ouzo, and tsipouro all tend to appear on the table at a taverna with the same regularity as salt and pepper. However, Greeks also tend to stop drinking before they become belligerent or start to vomit, possibly because legal alcohol doesn't have the same quality of novelty to someone who's been able to drink legally since birth. I can't help but feel that the US has kind of screwed up when it comes to dealing with alcohol issues.

The next morning we all took a trip to the castle inside Ioannina, where they have several museums and a beautiful view of the mountains.
A Turkish leader named Ali Pasha lived in Ioannina some several hundred years ago, and he is buried within the walls of the castle, in something that looks vaguely like an ornate bird cage. Apparently, his mistress was drowned in the lake sometime in the early nineteenth century. I'm going to have to do a little bit more research on that, since I'm once again not clear on the details.

And, finally, we stopped at a cave on the way back, where we were treated to a long tour and some beautiful views of stalactites and stalagmites. I'll let you see this for yourself, and now I'm going to go plan our Thanksgiving celebration.

The Communists are coming.

Damn. It's the first night in a long time that I'm not working, and I have a lot of errands to run, and I'd like to go to a movie, but I can't go downtown. Why? Because the Communists are protesting.
See, about thirty-some years ago, Greece stopped being a dictatorship and became a democracy, and it all happened on November 17th, when some students from the Polytechnic University had an uprising. Unforunately, that military dictatorship was backed by the US, because the Americans saw it as a safer alternative than Communism.
Nowadays, the 17th is a holiday in memory of the students who died in the uprisings. It's also a day when all of the Communists (and there are quite a few here, apparently) take the streets and protest, because they believe that this should be their day - that it should be a Communist holiday. I'm not so clear on the specifics, but from what I hear, they generally don't have warm feelings towards Americans on this day.
So I guess I'm staying in, though I'd really kind of like to go see what's happening downtown. Oh well. Maybe I'll sit here and yell at my Woody Guthrie poster instead. That would be a safer way of confronting the communists, though not quite as interesting.

Anyway, here are some pictures to give you some insight into the radical political scene in Greece:





This second one isn't really relevant, as it's Anarchist graffiti, not Communist graffiti. However, I thought it was sort of funny. I hear that the Anarchists often leave funny graffiti around town, but I unfortunately fail to understand it most of the time, as it is usually in Greek. My friend Will tells me that they sometimes scrawl the Greek word for "ballot box" on the trash cans.

Subbing 2: The Revenge

No, not really. Actually, it was a great day. I subbed two classes: the first was an extremely quiet and obedient seventh grade class. Once again, we talked about the first Thanksgiving, and I described maple syrup, although it was a short class period so I decided not to hand out samples this time around.
My second class was a group of ninth graders. The head of the English Department suggested that I play some games with them, or come up with some fun non-academic activities. I had several games in mind, including twenty questions, dictionary, etc. However, they all wanted to play a game they called "Name Animal Plant", which involves choosing a letter and coming up with words that start with that letter in a variety of categories. First was J, and I got a number of interesting replies, including "Jailbird" for the animal category, "Junk food" for the food category, and "Justin Timberlake" for pretty much every category.
Next was 'Q'. They had a hard time with this letter, because, well, it's a tough one. The two girls sitting in front of me spent several minutes struggling to find a country or city beginning with Q. They kept suggesting Cuba.
"How about Queens?" I said. They looked confused. "It's a part of New York," I explained.
"Are you from New York?" the girl asked.
"Yup," I answered. "I'm from New York."
At this, a general shriek of excitement emanated from the student body, and followed by a grinding screech as about twenty adolescent girls dragged their desks forward until they touched mine.
"Have you seen famous people?" they all demanded.
"A few," I said. I was tempted to tell them about the conversation I had with David Sedaris, since that is probably the most exciting famous person encounter that I've had, but I knew they were talking about movie stars. I told them a few stories about the summer I spent working at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. They went crazy when they heard that I had actually seen Natalie Portman and Meryl Streep, but I had to explain that I had just seen them, not actually talked to them.
"Have you met Brad Pitt?" one kid asked me.
"Nope," I said.
"Why not?" he demanded, as though he were under the impression that Brad Pitt just hangs out in Central Park shaking hands.
"Uh, " I said, "Uh..I'm not sure. He just doesn't really come around visiting, you know?"
"How about Nicole Kidman?"
"Nope," I said. "I've never met her."
"Have you been on TV?"
"Well, kind of." I explained about how I've been briefly on camera a few times, but I think they expected me to say that I had guest starred on
Friends or something.
"Have you met George Bush?"
"No, and I really don't want to."
"You don't like George Bush?"
"No, not at all!"
"Do you like the Chicago Bulls?"
"I really don't follow basketball..."
"Do you like Greece? Do you like Greek food? What's your favorite movie? Who is your favorite actress? Do you know my second cousin who lives in New York? Have you ever been to Hollywood?" The questions kept coming, and despite the fact that I was giving some really dull answers, they were all hanging on my every word. At the end of the class period, I had four girls ask for my email address so they could show me around Thessaloniki. It was quite adorable, and very strange. I'm back in high school, but I am definitely way more popular this time.

Inspected, Injected, Detected, Neglected, etc.

Wow, it's been a long time since I last updated. Well, there have been a number of things keeping me busy, most notably my quest to be legal in Greece.
Last week Brad and I found out that we are required to apply for residence permits before our three month student Visas expire. That gives us aout three weeks to finish a gigantic, massive ugly stack of paperwork. We've got to have proof of financial support, and proof of our citizenship in the US, and proof of insurance and proof that we are students, and proof that we are healthy, and then to top it all off, we've got to pay the government 150 Euros.
Most of these documents can be easily required by speaking to the right people at Anatolia, who then provide us with letters in Greek that hopefully say what they are supposed to say (this can be a little tricky; yesterday I managed to translate one of these letters and discovered that it did not, in fact, say the right thing.)
However, by far the most unpleasant part of the process thus far has been the trip to the hospital that Brad and I took yesterday.
We arrived at 8:40 for an 8:45 appointment. We waited in one waiting room until a nurse escorted us to another waiting room, and then, half an hour later, to a long line snaking out of an office door. Although we had no idea what we were actually waiting for, Brad and I got on line. About twenty minutes after that, we finally made our way into the office, where we discovered that the people in the office didn't speak English. We did manage to communicate our names and personal information, however, and we were sent to wait in yet another line down the hall. The people at the end of this line were all going into a little room and coming out of the little room with swabs of cotton pressed to their arms, so we assumed that we should be prepared to be poked by some sort of needle.
Sure enough, when it was my turn to enter the little room, the nurse started to prepare a needle while chatting to me in Greek. When she asked me a question, I explained δεω καταλαβαινω, or "I don't understand". She then proceeded to inform me in no uncertain terms that I should learn Greek, because the Greeks all learn some English and the Americans never learn Greek. I would have been upset with her for yelling at me, but the lecture definitely took my mind off of the needle that was entering my arm as she spoke, so I didn't let it bother me. Actually, I didn't even look at my arm through the entire procedure, which is kind of bad, since I now have no idea what they did to me in there, but is also kind of good, because I think it my have been unpleasant. The man after me fainted during his session with the lecturing woman, and he had to be taken away on a stretcher.
After Brad and I were done with our first needle encounter, we were to taken to yet another waiting room, where we sat until they called us in to be given TB tests. This time there was no doubt as to what exactly they were doing to me, partially because the nurse spoke English and explained it all, and partially because they finished the test by drawing big black circles around the spots where the tests had been administered, and then labelling them with the date and the name of the test. Brad and I were both sent on our way with sharpie writing all over our forearms, and instructions not to wash the area for the next few days. Personally, I wasn't thrilled about the fact that I was expected to spend the next few days with black writing all over me, and no advance notice; I mean, what if I was planning to attend a black tie event and needed to wear a strapless evening gown? What if I had had a hot date for that evening? What if I just didn't feel like looking like a dissection specimen for two days?
Luckily I never go to black tie events, my boyfriend is across the atlantic, and I don't really care all that much about the sharpie marks, although they are not overwhelming attractive, I must say. I'm more upset about the prospect of going back to the damn hospital tomorrow to have them check up on my TB spots again. I'm hoping there's no line, but I don't think I have much hope.
Meanwhile, one of the kids asked me about the writing on my arms today, and I explained the whole situation.
"Oh!" he said. "So you had to have shots?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Wow," he said. "I once had to have three shots in one day. It was really awful. But I told the doctor that I just wanted to get better."
"What was the matter?" I asked.
"Well," he explained, "All these blood vessels around my eyes kept breaking. I had all these little spots around my eyes."
"Oh no!"
"Yeah. Well, it was kind of my fault. It was because I was coughing really hard all the time." He mimicked some unpleasant sounding coughs for me. "But it was fake coughing. I was just coughing like that so I wouldn't have to go to school. Don't tell my mom, OK?"

Tanks or Sheep?

Well, Tuesday was St. Demetrius Day, and Friday was Oxi day (Oxi is pronounced "Ohi," and it's the Greek word for "No." The Greek word for "Yes" is pronounced "Ne," which can be confusing as hell.). Saint Demetrius, you see, is the patron saint of Thessaloniki, and so his day is a local holiday. Oxi day is a celebration of the day when Metaxas, the Greek dictator, said "Oxi" to the Italians who wanted to invade Greece.
As a result of these two consecutive holidays, the school is closed, the dorms are closed, and the kids went home. Brad and I wanted to go somewhere for a few days, but we waited a little too long to find a hotel- everything seemed to be booked. I guess holiday weekends are a hectic time to travel, even if it's not tourist season. I did have a memorable conversation with a hotel owner in Meteora, though, when I asked her "Do you have any rooms available yesterday?" It took me a little while to figure out why she was laughing. I need to review the different between "Yesterday" and "Tomorrow."
That's OK, though; we had fun without a long trip. On Friday we went to the Oxi day parade, which is kind of like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, except that the weather is not freezing cold, people don't show up three hours ahead of time to find places to sit (Greeks are infinitely more relaxed than New Yorkers. I find this simultaneously great and mystifying. ), and instead of big balloons in the shape of cartoon characters, there are tanks and people in traditional dress from all different regions of Greece. Okay, so it's nothing like the Thanksgiving Day parade, although it does have marching bands.
You know, when I studied abroad in England, I did a lot of travelling, and took a fair number of pictures of sheep. After I got home, I spent a lot of time wondering why on earth I had taken so many pictures of sheep. Well, I had a similar experience after I got home from the parade; I looked at my camera, and wondered why I had taken so many pictures of tanks. I don't particularly like tanks, and I certainly don't expect that I'll ever be sitting around the house one day and think "Wow, you know, right now I really feel like looking at pictures of tanks." I just don't ever do that. I'd be more likely to look at the sheep, which are at least attractive in a pastoral sort of white fluffy way, whereas tanks are just sort of menacing.
But I do have pictures of tanks; lots of different kinds of tanks. Maybe I'll even post some for you.
Anyway, after the parade, Brad and I went out to visit the grandparents of our friend Christos. They spend April-October in a house on the beach, and since it was about 90 degrees out (Lately Greek weather has been even weirder than Iowan weather; it was 45 last week) we went for a swim. The water was a little chilly, but still significantly warmer than the water in Maine. It felt pretty nice. I haven't been swimming in a while. After that, we went to a taverna by the beach and ate so much delicious food- shrimp and these little fish that are fried whole and fresh. The owner actually apologized to us because some of the seafood had been brought to him by the fisherman the evening before and not on the same day.
Afterwards, we sat around in the garden of the beachouse and talked. It was a lovely, relaxing way to spend an afternoon, especially one of the last very warm afternoons of the season. I contemplated taking pictures of flowers to balance out all of my pictures of tanks, but never got around to it. However, I was given a pomegranate, which was exciting. I've never had a pomegranate picked right off a tree before.
Yesterday was rainy and cold and I could not believe that it had been 90 degrees the day before. Brad and I decided to take a trip to Pella, which is an ancient city only a short bus ride away. Unfortunately, our bus ride was a little bit longer than we intended, and we somehow ended up an extra few miles down the road in Giannanitsa. Luckily, a friendly bus driver there picked us up, explained to us (In English) that he was headed to Pella, and stopped the bus and waited for us while we bought tickets from a periptera. Yes, you read that right; he stopped the bus, I got off, bought the tickets and got back on. I won't even bother to describe what would happen if I asked a New York City bus driver to stop the bus and wait while I bought a metrocard.
Anyway, we made it back to Pella, and saw the ruins of an ancient city there, which were quite interesting, and also saw some nice artifacts and mosaics inside the Pella museum. Pella, you see, used to be the head of the Macedonian kingdom before everyone decided to mysteriously leave in the first century BC.
Anyway, Happy Halloween to everyone in the US. Greece doesn't seem to celebrate Halloween nearly as much as the US does. I've practically forgotten about it. I'll have to come up with a costume. Maybe I'll be a high school student- everyone has been mistaking me for one lately, so it wouldn't be very hard to do.

Oh, and here's a tank:


And here's a crown that's much prettier than the tank:

Miss Emily, Bearer of Maple Syrup

Well, another portion of my job began this week; I substitute taught five classes for an English teacher that was out of town. That's right; five classes in three days, with no prior teaching experience. But it wasn't nearly as harrowing as I expected it to be.
Well, OK, subbing ninth-graders (third formers) during the last period class on Friday was somewhat harrowing, particularly during the last fifteen minutes of class. I was trying to come up with an activity that was more enjoyable than simple vocab exercises, but the only activity that he kids appeared to be interested in was shrieking, gossiping and causing increasing amounts of mayhem as the final bell of the day approached.
However, I also subbed three class periods for a group of seventh graders who were a whole lot of fun. On the first day we read "I Hear America Singing" by Walt Whitman. I was of course very excited to be teaching Whitman, even on a very basic level. We went through the poem very slowly, going over vocabularly words like "varied", "carols", "mason", "blithe", etc. I just wanted them to understand the poem in a very literal sense, but one girl made me extremely hapy by raising her hand and explaining in very good English that "It's not about real singing, it's about all of the sounds of America together combining into a sort of beautiful sound, and the poet thinks it's kind of like a song." Of course, being a seventh grader, she had to add "and I like the part about mothers and women singing, because I think girls sing better than boys." This lead to a heated debate about the comparable musical abilities of each gender, and at the end of class I let anyone who wanted to come up and sing for the class. We had two musical numbers: a boy who imitated an Opera singer, and a group of girls who sang something from the Phantom of the Opera, but substituted 'La La La' for all the words they did not know, which were most of the words.
On Friday we had a double period together, and the lesson was about the first Thanksgiving. I realized pretty quickly that Greek kids really don't know anything about Thanksgiving at all; I explained that "it's a holiday celebrating the pilgrims and how they made it through the first winter," and the kids all looked confused and asked "what's a pilgrim?"
As a matter of fact, the two class periods devoted to the Thanksgiving lesson were filled with questions that I found completely adorable. "Miss, what is Mass...a...Shoo...Setts?" "What is a Conn-Eck-Ti-Kut?" "What is Pumpkin?" I showed them all a map of New England and drew a picture of a Jack-O-Lantern on the board, and they seemed to recognize that.
They were a pretty sharp bunch of kids, as evidenced by their reaction to a picture of the Mayflower in their readers. "Look at this boat!" One of them said. "It's old. But look at the boat behind it.That's not right" I looked, and sure enough, in the picture, there appeared to be a speedboat behind the Mayflower. I laughed, and explained that it was probably a picture of the Mayflower's modern day replica, not the Mayflower itself.
My favorite questions, though, had to do with maple syrup. The lesson explained how Squanto and Samoset taught the pilgrims to tap maple trees for sap, a fact which was somewhat complicated to explain to kids that aren't really familiar with maple syrup. "They drilled holes in trees," I said, "and they took the sticky stuff out, that's the sap. And then they boiled it somehow, and it became a syrup, a little bit like honey."
This explanation was met with a lot of puzzled expressions. "Like Resin?" asked one girl. "I put resin on my violin, and it comes from a tree."
"Eww!" shrieked her neighbor, "But you don't eat the stuff on your violin."
"But you can make retsina with it!" one kid piped up.
"Exactly!" I said. "Retsina comes from trees, too."
However, one kid still was not satisfied. "Miss Emily?" he asked, "Who had the idea to make sap into syrup?"
"The Native Americans did." I said. "They taught the pilgrims how to do it."
"But how did the Native Americans get the idea?"
"I don't know. I guess they were experimenting, and they found it it tasted good."
He looked doubtful. "Someone just said 'OK, I will take this sticky stuff from a tree and boil it and eat it?"
I had to admit, the kid had a point.
"Well, " I finally managed, "Whose idea was it to take stuff from pine trees and make wine from it?"
That seemed to stump them. However, we didn't pursue the topic, because the bell rang for break, and I went back to my apartment and dug out the container of maple syrup that my sister sent me from Vermont a few weeks back. I also bought a few kuluri (sesame seed covered dough sticks) and cut them into pieces, and brought the whole mess back to the classroom, where I informed the kids that they could try some maple syrup when we finished the lesson. This caused a general wave of excitement to spread across the room, because of course, there's nothing that gets the attention of kids more than food, especially sugary food.
"Hey!" I shouted, trying to get their attention, "settle down, please!" there was no reponse. "Hey!" I tried again, louder. Still nothing.
"Alright!" I called, one last time, "You can try the maple syrup, but first you have to settle down. Endaxi?"
The kids shut up immediately and stared at me. I could see them all thinking the same thing: "She speaks Greek?" It's amazing the effect that one simple word like Endaxi ("all right") can have.
While we finished the last few paragraphs about Thanksgiving, I passed around the maple syrup bottle, which featured pictures of people taking sap from trees. After a few more minutes of reading, including a tough time wading through a 17th century quote from William Bradford ("Miss, what does "hath" mean? What is this "unto"?) I finally poured some maple syrup onto a plate and let them dip the pieces of kuluri in to sample it. It was an interesting combination. They seemed to like the maple syrup pretty well. Unfortunately, I had to rush to clean up the sticky disaster that was left behind from having twenty seventh graders rushing to have the first taste. As I said good bye, one of the kids asked "When will you teach us again? So we can have some more of this?"
I guess it's a universal rule; food will always win affection.

Where are the Americans?

For the past few months I haven't seen a whole lot of Americans. I mean, there are Americans at Anatolia of course (it is the "American College"), but there aren't too many of us walking around downtown.

However, I've finally figured out how to find Americans in Thessaloniki. The other day I was in Ladidaka, which is one of the city' historic areas, and famous for its restaurants. It was about 7pm, and I was just strolling along and taking in the atmosphere. Ladidaka is picturesque, with cobblestone streets and old buildings. It was also largely deserted so early in the evening.
However, as I walked past restaurants, I couldn't help but notice a trend. There were a few people sitting inside and eating dinner- and they were quite definitely all American. I'm not sure how I knew that they were American; maybe it was the fact that they didn't physically look Greek, maybe it was the fact that they weren't wearing trendy European clothes, maybe it was the fact that many of them were eating at the one steakhouse with a sign in English. However, they definitely looked like people I would expect to see on the other side of the Atlantic. Greeks just don't eat dinner at 7pm. Most restuarants don't open until 8pm, and if they are open early, people spend several hours sipping coffee or wine before they actually order food.

It was very funny. I don't think I've seen so many Americans in one place in a while.

OK, I've got to go. It's my turn to take the kids out. But before I go, here are some more nice pictures from Olympus.

Setting Free the Bears and More Food

In Grinnell, this past Saturday was 10/10, a massive, obnoxious, raucous annual party at which many people consume enough alcohol to render themselves either comatose or nauseous for the remainder of the weekend.
In Greece, they don't have 10/10, but that doesn't mean you can't overindulge in various pleasures. Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. However, instead of drinking horrendous cheap wine in the pursuit of oblivion, Brad, our new friend Christos and I managed to become blissfully oblivious through the liberal consumption of cheap good wine and some of the most spectacular food I have eaten in my entire life.
For example: Crisp fresh cucumbers and juicy tomatoes with creamy salty feta cheese. Red peppers in olive oil still warm from being roasted. Crunchy cabbage in vinegar. Pork sausage with mustard (yes, I actually ate pork). A spicy feta cheese dip called tirosalata. Creamy tzatziki. Incredibly fresh cooked greens with lemon and salt. Chicken gastra, (a special local dish cooked at a low temperature for a number of hours) with plums, so tender you barely even have to chew it. Light sponge cake soaked in honey. Chocolate biscuit cake topped with whipped cream. Oh, and for breakfast, tiropita (like spanikopita without the spanaki, ie, spinach) bread, fresh honey and jam from fruit that tasted like it was wonderful and fresh.
Oh yeah- and good wine, of course. I don't actually know anything about wine, so I can't give you some impressive description like "an earthy fruity red with nuances of fig, peach blossom and tree nut" or "full bodied white with scents of pine nut and wheatgrass." I can't actually really distinguish between zinfandel or merlot or rose. But it was wine, and it came out of a barrel, which was pretty cool. And it tasted good.
All of this hedonism took place in Nympheo, a tiny village quite close to the border. What border, you ask? The border of a country known to some as Macedonia, to some as FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) and to some as Scopia. I'm not going to get into the political implications of which name is the official one, but basically, you shouldn't say "Macedonia" to a Greek unless you want to start an argument. See, the northern part of Greece is also considered Macedonia, and there are some disputes over who has the right to consider themselves a citizen of Macedonia.
Anyway, Nympheo is high in the mountains and quite beautiful. It was abandoned sometime in the early twentieth century, but in the 1980s some people came along and decided to restore it, and it's all cobblestone streets and picturesque houses. I didn't take good enough pictures, but here's a glance at it, anyway:





The other really cool thing about Nympheo is that they have a bear sanctuary, started by a rich wine-maker to save former dancing bears from the abuse they experienced in captivity. The sanctuary, called Arcturus, has seven former dancing bears, some former zoo bears, and some bears orphaned in the wild. They are mostly European Brown Bears, but there's on American Black Bear from the Belgrade Zoo. I took some pictures of the bears, and they didn't turn out so well, but I am going to post one anyway. I'm afraid that if I don't, you are all going to think I've just been reading too many John Irving novels and dreamed up the entire thing. See, here's a bear:



Anyway, the people at Arcturus seem to be doing really great work. Apparently there are now laws in Greece against forcing bears to perform, and two more bear sanctuaries are opening in Eastern Europe soon.

The other major event of the weekend was the Greece-Denmark football game. (And here I am obviously referring to European football, aka soccer.) It determined who goes to the World Cup, and it was not a good moment for Greece. So there are a lot of depressed Greek football fans right now. I guess I didn't escape sports-related misery when I left the US. But at least the Yankees lost yesterday.

Olympus

I hurt all over. I can't go up or down steps without wincing. My leg muscles have gone from feeling great to feeling gelatinous to feeling like someone attacked them with a baseball bat. But I did climb Mount Olympus.
When it comes to field trips, I think Zeus hates me, because it rained at the beach last weekend, and it rained on Saturday, starting at about 3am, when I was awakened by a torrential rainstorm and had to run and close my windows. It died down in the morning as were boarding the buses for Olympus, but by the time we reached Prionia, it was pouring again, and my backpack was soaked before we even set foot on the trail. I was thanking every deity in the Pantheon that I had borrowed a windbreaker at the last minute; I had been planning to bring just a heavy sweatshirt, but Teresa, the assistant director of the dorms, came along just in time to talk some sense into me. (I did attend the information session, but it was largely in Greek, and although I did have translation for most of it, there may have been some parts I missed. I did understand lots of words like "shoes","very cold","shirts","flowers", etc. However, I only understand when people talk very, very slowly, so at a normal Greek pace, (ie, at the speed of light with no discernable pauses between words) I have hard time telling "Bring extra shirts and don't pick the flowers" from "Bring extra shirts and make sure they have floral patterns on them.")
Anyway, Prionia was the start of our trek. In case you are picturing some sort of town or village, I should explain that Prionia is Greek for "Parking Lot with Drinking Water, Mule Pen and Locked Bathrooms." Why were the bathrooms locked? I don't know. There were definitely quite a few people who wanted to use them. However, I am starting to learn that in Greece, you can never count on things being open when you would like them to be open, so I was not terribly surprised to find them closed.
So we started up the path, through the raininess and mud. It wasn't a tough hike at the beginning; one of our guides had told me to expect something akin to hiking in Maine, and in some ways it did remind me of Maine,(evergreen trees, etc) though it was a bit steeper than the hikes I've taken there. Here's a picture taken on the lower part of the mountain, between Prionia and the Refuge:


Apparently, it usually takes hikers between one and a half to four hours to get to the refuge in nice weather. In the rain, we all somehow made it in under three. When I say "we all", I'm referring to Brad and I, several Anatolia teachers and alums who were acting as guides and chaperones, and about sixty-five high school seniors. It wasn't pouring all the way up there, luckily, though it was definitely damp, and did get a bit chilly. We were below the tree line (the refuge is just about at the point where the trees stop) so we were somewhat protected from the weather, and there was the psychological advantage of knowing that something was there to catch you if you happened to topple off the path, not that anyone did. Actually, I have to say that I was just thrilled about the cold, at lest for a little while. Remember, I've spent the past month in the Greek sun, which is a little more intense than I'm used to, especially in September. My internal seasonal clock has spent the past few weeks shrieking "Why the hell is it so damn hot outside?" I definitely spent some time hiking through the 50 degree drizzle in a t-shirt, and it felt so wonderful. I was ecstatic. I think some of the Greeks might have thought I was completely crazy.

(Random Weather-and-Dampness-Related Digression: Speaking of cold and damp, I've noticed that Greeks react in horror whenever they see me walking around with wet hair. Since I've never actually used a hairdryer, I am used to American people admonishing me about my frozen hair in the winter. However, lately, whenever I wash my hair I'll have someone Greek ask "Aren't you afraid, walking around with wet hair?" My answer is usually a confused "Afraid of what? It's seventy-five degrees outside...")

Anyway, we reached the refuge at about a quarter to five. The refuge is a sort of hostel type place for hikers to stay on their way up the mountain. They have food, wine, lots of tea, coffee and hot chocolate, beds, snacks, drinking water and toilets. Of course, the toilets are Turkish-style; for those of you unfamiliar with that term "Turkish Toilet", it's basically a euphemism for "hole in the floor." However, a hole in the floor is way better than a hole in the woods if you ask me, so I was not complaining.

The Refuge was packed. There were even people sleeping in the dining room, because who wants to camp in the rain? We all ate lots of dinner, drank lots of tea and some wine, and went to bed at 1O pm. It was a cold night. I slept in sweatpants and a longsleeved shirt, with two blankets on top of me, and I was still a bit chilly. The novelty of the cold was definitely starting to wear off. We were told that the nighttime temperature was below zero degrees Celsius, which means it was somewhere in the twenties. (I am completely incapable of converting Celsius into Fahrenheit and vice versa. I spent an entire semester in London making inaccurate guesses about the weather and I will likely spend a year in Greece doing the same because I just cannot seem to get the conversion information through my utterly unmathematical brain.) Getting up in the dark at 6am is not easy in that sort of weather, but we did it. Its a good thing the lodge had coffee. I briefly wondered if my normal two cups of coffee was bad idea on this particular day; would it be worse to climb Olympus while caffeine deprived, or to climb Olympus while needing to pee? Caffeine deprivation won out in the end but luckily neither was a problem.

By the way, here is a picture of the view from the lodge:



We started climbing again at around 745 on Sunday morning. After an hour or so, we were well above the trees, and the farther we climbed, the more snow there was on the ground. It was foggy, and so there was not much of a view. It started to look something like this:





I confess that at this point, I was starting to get scared. The path was getting increasingly slippery, and I was afraid that coming down was going to be unpleasant, especially since I was not the only one wearing running shoes and not hiking boots. (They would have taken up half my suitcase!) The large amounts of fog (or should I say cloud) made it seem unlikely that we would see much at the top, and I was really enthusiastic about certain portions of the trail that seemed to go awfully close to huge menacing precipices. In fact, the first time I came close enough to see over the edge of the huge cliff we were on, I found myself shaking a bit, quite literally. Shaking is not a helpful climbing technique.

It occurred to me that perhaps Olympus was the home of immortal beings for a reason, namely the fact that has a way of claiming the lives of those who are not immortal. I decided that if I were a god, I would certainly make Olympus my home, and maybe equip it with a supernatural flying chariot system, public restrooms and an Indian restaurant. However, being mortal, I decided that avoiding an early death might be a good idea. Actually, our guide seemed to agree with me on this, and I found that heartening...until he explained that he was still recieving orders to go ahead through the snow. "Come on!" Our other guide tried to encourage me and the others who were scared. "Dont you want to be able to tell your grandchildren you saw Skolio?" I tried to explain that I wasnt going to have the opportunity to have grandchildren if I died within the next few hours, but nonetheless, we plunged ahead.

We reached Skala a few minutes later. Skala is Greek for "Ice encrusted sign pointing the way to Skolio" Here is Skala:



Skolio, our destination, is the second highest peak on on Olympus, only seven metres shorter than Mitykas, which is the mythical home of the Gods. It was a very short walk from Skala, and it was quite beautiful. It was at Skala that I decided that the climb had not been such a bad idea after all. We all got some rest, took lovely pictures, and marveled at the German hikers who were drinking beer on the mountaintop. It was still cold, foggy and snowy, but the view was pretty nice anyway. Here are some pictures. Im even in one of them, just so you all know that I am not just posting postcard images and making stuff up. I really did make it all the way up there, see:



I confess that I was still terrified of the trip back. However, once we got going, the clouds parted, the snow and ice melted, and the fog lifted. The view was absolutely unbelievable. I'll show you pictures, but I dont think they can do it justice. I felt kind of like I was inside an issue of National Geographic. Even the heights stopped bothering me. I tried to compare the Olympus precipice to a New York subway platform; in each case, one step over the edge could certainly cause death, but that just means you just damn well better not take that step over the edge.

Anyway, once the clouds lifted, the entire trip became more than worth it. It was even worth all of the pain that I'm in right now as I limp around the dorm. It is one of the most exciting things I've done in quite some time.

The trip back was easier in most ways, and a whole lot quicker. We stopped at the lodge for lunch, a little bit more wine, and some rest, then finished the last leg of the trip by 4:30pm or so. I think the bus ride home took about two hours, but it only felt like half an hour or son, because I was in a daze of exhaustion.

Anyway, here are some more pictures, and trust me, I've got lots more to show you...but right now I'm going to sit down and stretch for a little while longer.

Periptero and Paperbacks

I've spent the past few evenings wandering around aimlessly through downtown, which has been quite enjoyable. Last night I walked through the market area and contemplated buying various random items that I don't need. The highlight of the evening occurred when the owner of a Greek foods store / bakery gave me a free loaf of bread, a free kuluri (sesame covered dough stick thing) and a free spanikopita upon finding out that it's my first time in Greece. People are very friendly here.

Speaking of shopping, I want to respond to Stefanos in Chicago, who responded to an earlier post, saying that ponytail holders might be found in a periptero. (Thanks Stefanos!) For those of you who don't know what a periptero is, it's a sort of newsstand/convenience store/kiosk that can be found on pretty much every street corner and is pretty much always open, even on Sundays and late at night. The periptero sell everything from bus tickets to phone cards to cough drops to ice cream. In fact, almost every periptero has an entire ice cream cooler next to it, and refrigerator full of drinks. Here are some pictures:




The funny thing about the periptero is, although they are approximately every ten feet, I always seem to forget about them when I need something important. (Hence, I didn't think to shop there for ponytail holders) I think this is because I'm not used to having them. However, they're really useful.

I also found a bookstore yesterday. A bookstore with books in English, and some of them cost less than 10 Euro apiece. You can't possibly understand what a miracle this is; English language books are so very expensive here, and the selection usually consists of three different paperback editions of The Da Vinci Code, each costing 14 Euro, and several different editions of Harry Potter, each costing somewhere between 14 and 25 Euro. I cannot imagine that there is a person in Greece that has not yet read everything that Dan Brown and JK Rowling have written. But anyway, this new bookstore had more things. I was extremely exciting. I am going to have to stay away from it, though, or my paycheck will be gone in minutes. Hey, if anyone out there is thinking of sending me a care package, they might want to stick a few paperbacks in there. I'd be happy to send Greek objects in exchange...

Tomorrow at 11 am, I will leave for Mt. Olympus, which I am climbing. Technically, I am one of the chaperones for 75 high school students. I'm quite excited about this, but a little nervous as well, since the information session was entirely in Greek. I was able to pick up bits and pieces ("two shirts" was one phrase I understood, and shoes were discussed quite a bit.) and there was someone who translated most of what was said, but I'm afraid I still missed a few things...

Well, I'll be back Sunday night, so stay tuned for more updates.

Oh, Crap

So, I go to the laundry room today to pick up my clothes from the machine, and discover that a good portion of my white clothes, underwear, t-shirts, etc, are all now an icky grey-ish hue.

This is ironic.

Please, nobody tell the kids.

Well, I'm feeling better; my sore throat is gone and so is the runny nose that I've had for a few days. I've been treating these things with Greek chamomile tea and Greek honey, both of which are quite good. I bought the chamomile from the market downtown; there's a place that always has a massive amount of it, which you can view in the picture above. One Euro bought me about enough chamomile for a small nation, so if you come to visit me, I will gladly make you some chamomile tea. I am also now the proud owner of a tea strainer.
I know, I know, this is not very exciting stuff here, but bear with me, I've been sick, and tea strainers are hard to find in Greece. The Greeks are more into coffee than tea, and it's strong coffee at that. Actually, I'm more into coffee myself, and I already bought a Greek coffee pot thing.
Anyway, I took a very nice walk through the old town today, up to where the orginal city walls still stand. It was a lovely walk, and the streets there are all narrow and cobblestoned; it's like traveling from a modern city to a medieval one in just a few short steps. Well, they are also very steep steps, because the old town is way the hell up at the top of a hill. However, the view is quite spectacular up there - nicer, even, than the view from the White Tower. Look at these!



I am, by the way, planning to take pictures of the school and my apartment soon, so that you can all see where I live. My work here is going well, although I am starting to feel like "Laundry Attendant" might be a good alternate job title for me. Kids are constantly approaching me and requesting help with their laundry, which I am happy to provide, although I don't know what to tell them when they ask questions about whites and colors. I think I actually separated whites from colors maybe once in my entire college career, and I never ended up with pink sheets or underwear. So, I keep telling the kids not to bother separating things, and then they shoot me suspicious looks and ask if I've ever done laundry before. Yes, I tell them, lots of times, and the tiny little yellow trim on your towel is not going to dye everything in the washer yellow - nor is the pink towel going to leave pink spots on your black pants.
Unfortunately, Murphy's Law dictates that someday very soon an angry kid is going t show up at my door with yellow sheets and pink polka dotted pants and I am going to have to deal with it.

Anthropological Squabbling

OK, I've done a little more research on this whole cave thing, and I have determined the following.

Apparently, according to anthropologist Aris Poulianos (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aris_Poulianos) , who we did meet, the skeleton from the cave is an archanthropus, and this proves that humans have european ancestry going way back.

According to my Lonely Planet Guide, My Rough Guide, and various other internet sources, Pouliano's conclusion is "Controversial," and the skeleton appears to be some Neanderthal-type thing (or maybe homo heidelbergensis, whatever that is) that is much more recent.

According to Professor Simpson from the Grinnell English Department, not only did Poulianos stop allowing the skeleton be carbon dated, he (or someone from Petralona) actually snuck into Aristotle University in the middle of the night to get their skull back, because they didn't like hearing that it was a) more recent than the African species and b) actually a woman.

According to Emily Zdyrko, the caves are awesome. This viewpoint has not been disputed thus far.

The Oldest Man in the World

Yesterday I woke up for our planned field trip to the beach, only to find that the sky was cloudy and I had a sore throat. It wasn’t a promising start, and I was sort of hoping that the whole thing would be called off due to bad weather. But when I arrived at the front of the dorm at 10 am to find all the kids packed and ready to go, I figured I ought to join them, because a free trip to the beach doesn’t come along every day.
The beach itself was on Halkidiki, a three-pronged peninsula of beaches that’s only a short drive from Thessaloniki. It looks like a really nice place to go swimming. Since most of the beaches I’ve been to are pretty far North (and here I am specifically thinking of Sand Beach in Maine) I automatically brace myself for pain when I decide to immerse any part of my body in seawater. However, the Aegean is warm! In fact, even in cloudy late September, it’s lovely. I was all ready to jump in; however, I realized that I’d forgotten my bathing suit. In hindsight, I think it’s a really good thing I did forget it; I’ve been coughing and sneezing and drinking tea all day today, so jumping in the ocean yesterday would have been a bad idea. However, there were several kids who were also feeling crummy (ah, the hazards of dorm life) so we all played Frisbee while everyone else swam.
Before we went to the beach we made a stopover at Petralona Caves, where we saw the home of “the oldest man in the world.” Basically, it seems that a Greek anthropologist discovered the skeleton of some prehistoric human-like being that he claims is the “oldest man in the world.” According to a friend of mine, this “man” was sent to Aristotle University for carbon dating twice, and it was twice determined that he’s actually much more recent than some other skeletons from Africa. Upon hearing this, the anthropologist who found him promptly decided that nobody else was allowed to do carbon dating on his find. Actually, we may or may not have met said anthropologist; we definitely met an older man who gave us a lengthy speech on the caves, and instructed Brad to “write home to America and tell them that humans come from here in Greece and not Africa.” Brad then turned to me and remarked that it’s hard enough to convince a lot of Americans that we’re descended from primates in the first place. I guess he has a good point there; although I’m skeptical of the whole “oldest man in the world” thing, they do seem to believe in evolution here.
Anyway, the caves were just spectacular, with stalactites and stalagmites everywhere, ranging from monstrously huge to tiny; in fact, the ceiling of one room was covered in stalactites (or stalagmites, whichever is on the ceiling) so tiny that it looked kind of like the ceiling was growing hair. There were lots of eerie-looking nooks and crannies, winding passageways and gorgeous rock formations. It brought to mind several scenes from the Harry Potter books. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed, although my camera was burning a hole in my pocket. If any of my anthro major/prehistory enthusiast friends are reading this, I apologize for the vagueness of my information here. Unfortunately, the tour was in Greek, and although my Greek is improving, anthropological vocabulary is still not my strong point. (Although did you know that the word ‘anthropology’ comes from the Greek ‘anthropi’, for ‘people’?) I do plan to do some investigating of my own, though, probably in the form of typing “Petralona Caves” into google. I’m still not sure whether the skeleton found was 1 million years old or 500,000, whether he was a Neanderthal or something else, whether he was actually a he and not a she, etc. I’m also not sure if the man we met was the famous anthropologist or just some guy who happens to agree with him. Basically, I don’t know anything except that those caves were pretty fantastic.

Hey everyone! Very soon I am going to post an update about my recent trip to the beach and Petralona Caves. However, I don't have much time now, so I'm just going to go ahead and post some pictures- no, I don't have internet in my apartment yet, but I have figured out how to hook my computer up in the dorm playroom.

Above is one picture of the countryside of Halkidiki, and a picture of a fruit market in downtown Thessaloniki. I think Greece might have the most fantastic fruits and vegetables I have eaten. I am a particularly big fan of the grapes.

Below is one picture of the view from the White Tower (that Tall Thing I was telling you about) and one picture of Alexander of Macedon's palace, at Vergina. More pictures and updates are coming, including pictures of my apartment. However, first I have to fix my apartment so that it doesn't have lots of laundry strewn about, and I have to get the hell out of this playroom; there are about seventy five kids in here, screaming at the TV.

Wow, I'm long overdue for an update, because it's been an eventful few days. On Saturday, Brad and I had a long, somewhat convoluted bus trip to a public beach near Thessaloniki. It was a nice trip, and it involved some very pretty sights, but it also involved a lot of wandering and squinting at bus maps.
(It's funny- Greek people don't read on the bus. In fact, several people have told me that Greeks don't read much, period. I'm a little doubtful about the latter, since there are an awful lot of bookstores around here, but it is true that Greeks don't read on the bus, and I don't know why. )
Anyway, the trip to the beach was followed by a Sunday trip to Vergina, where Phillip of Macedon's tomb still stands, along with several other tombs of unidentified Macedonians. In case you're not familiar with Phillip (When I mentioned the trip to Joe over a distant phone connection he said "Phillip the Mastodon?") he's the father of Alexander the Great. Well, he was the father of Alexander the Great until he was murdered at his daughter's wedding. You can actually see the theatre where the murder happened; there are still two rows of stone seats intact.
Anyway, Phillip was buried with great pomp and circumstance, in a big giant tomb which was inside a tumulus, or a burial mound, that also contained several other tombs. The museum is right inside the tumulus, as a matter of fact, so in order to see all of the elaborate funerary adornments in the museum, you walk on a path straight into the middle of a burial mound.
I didn't actually see Phillip's bones, but I did see the box which held them- it was tiny. Phillip, apparently, was a very small man. The next time someone laughs at my height, I am going to tell them that as a matter of fact, I am taller than Phillip of Macedon.

I had Tuesday morning off this week, and I so I took a long walk through downtown, starting at the White Tower, which is Thessaloniki's Tall Thing With A View. As I've already explained to some of you, I think that pretty much every city has a Tall Thing With A View; in fact, most of them can also be described as Tall Things With Views, High Admission Prices and Long Lines. When I studied abroad in London I did some travelling, and I have a collection of pictures taken from the roofs of these various structures. Of course, the view is never nearly as impressive on film, and so I have a collection of photos of cities that might be London from St. Paul's, or might be Paris from the Eiffel Tower, or might be Edinburgh from Edinburgh Castle, or might be a random shot of Detroit that somehow found itself into the picture collection. However, I did take pictures of Thessaloniki from the top of the White Tower, so as soon as I get internet access in my apartment I'll post some of them.
I also went inside Agia Sophia for the first time yesterday, which is quite a beautiful church, named after the one in Istabul. Orthodox churches look very different than other churches- they are obviously much more eastern-looking and often filled with elaborate icons and carvings. I don't have any pictures of Agia Sophia because I wasn't sure if photography was allowed and I didn't want to seem like an obnoxious tourist. Actually, I'm not sure if I was supposed to be wearing a tank top either; I'm not quite sure how strict the dress code is in Orthodox Churches. Of course, Brad tells me that he saw a man in Agia Sofia wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, which makes me feel a little less guilty.
Inside Agia Sophia I entered a small side room and found myself standing in front of an elaborate gold coffin. I don't know who is buried inside it, though there was a small sign in Greek that I was too lazy to decipher. I'll have to do some research on that.

Nazis and My Hair, Again.

Today Brad and I were invited to lunch with some American study-abroad students going to ACT, which is the college level division of Anatolia, and the place we'll be taking Greek classes. After we ate we all went on a tour of Anatolia's on-campus bomb shelter, a remnant of the days during World War II when the entire campus was occupied by the German army. I guess the Germans were afraid of being bombed out by the Allies, and so they built this shelter, which you access by climbing down about twenty billion itty bitty crumbling steps in the almost pitch dark, while clutching a wobbly rope. It was something of an adventure. Since the bomb shelter itself was never used, it mostly consists of empty space, spiderwebs, and crumbling bricks, but it's pretty crazy to think of spending a night down there; it's an eerie place. It's also strange to think that this very campus was occupied by the Nazis not so very long ago.
In fact, while Brad and I were having dinner with one member of the English department, he told us that his home was the former German Officer's Club. All of this is a very interesting reminder that although Anatolia looks like a pretty, new, modern high school campus, it has a much more exciting history than one would guess.

Meanwhile, on a more mundane note, I need a haircut, or at least a trim, and I don't know what to do. I'll have to find a haircutter that speaks English, because I don't have enough faith in my Greek to instruct someone who is going to determine what I look like for the next few weeks or months. I am not entirely sure how to deal with this, and I'm wondering why my adjustment problems all seem to be hair-related.

I'm allowed in the boy's hall!

Well, I started today by waking up the kids at 7am. That's right- I woke up all 75 of them. Not only that, but this was after working until 11:30 the night before. Luckily, once they went to class, I was free to go back to bed. There are some perks to being out of school.

Of course, I sometimes have to convince people that I am, in fact, out of school. Two days ago, as I was headed through the boys dorm to my apartment, the cleaning woman stopped me, and being speaking insistent Greek with a shocked look on her face. "No," I explained. "I'm allowed in the boys hall. I'm a dorm advisor!" But she just shook her head as though to say "I've heard that one before." Luckily, a coworker caught her attention to ask a question, and I slipped away. I'm glad that I began my job as an authority by disobeying the cleaning lady. Good start.

Well, they're here. The kids are here. All seventy-some odd of them, mostly speaking Greek, but with plenty of English thrown in as well as some Bulgarian, Albanian, Danish and maybe more. There are so many languages going around that I sometimes sort of feel like I could start speaking Latin or Swahili, and nobody would notice the difference. Of course, I don't know any Swahili, and my Latin is so terrible nowadays that I only know enough for crossword puzzles, so that's no good.

It's interesting; people here just seem to assume that I speak Greek. Every time I walk into a shop or get on the bus or walk into a restaurant people will just start chattering away at me. It's a little bit intimidating but also encouraging, because it makes me feel like I don't stand out too much. On previous trips to Europe I've always felt very obviously American, but that's not quite as true this time. Maybe it's because Thessaloniki isn't as much of a tourist destination as Athens or Florence or London. I don't think there are nearly as many Americans around here.
Maybe that explains why that street vendor asked me if I'm Bulgarian...

I also had a funny conversation with a man at a street market today. I was looking around his store and he asked me a question in Greek that I didn't quite catch. "I'm sorry," I told him, in Greek. "I don't understand." (This is an extremely useful phrase; Dhen Catalaveno. Memorize it if you plan to come visit me. ) He nodded. A few moments later, he asked me yet another incomprehensible question. I was confused as hell and really starting to doubt my Greek skills.

Is my accent so awful that Greeks can't understand me? Am I so hopeless that I can't understand a single word of a simple question? I just stood there, probably looking completely wide-eyed and bewildered, until he asked me, in Greek "You are not from Italy?" I shook my head and he started speaking perfect English to me. But man, it's hard enough to keep track of one foreign language that I semi-speak, without having random other languages cropping up as well.

This weekend was nice and relaxing; I had some more great seafood and tried ouzo for the first time. Joe (that's my boyfriend for those of you who don't know him) has commented that my blog seems to be largely about food. I guess that's true, but I challenge any of you to visit Greece and come away not talking about food.

Actually, one of my favorite things to do in foreign countries is shop for groceries; it's a good way to figure out what people like to eat in that particular place, and grocery stores are not generally a place where tourists hang out. When I studied abroad in London, I spent a rather ridiculous amount of time at Sainsbury's, reading labels and saying things like "Look! They have Marmite next to the peanut butter!" and "Ooh, the sign says 'aubergine' instead of 'eggplant!" Here, grocery shopping is both unnecessary (because I can eat in the dining hall) and extra fun, because I often really have very little idea of what it is that I am buying. Will I get the detergent home and discover that it is actually fabric softener? Why does the yogurt have pictures of cows and sheep on it? Is that baking chocolate or eating chocolate? I still don't know. I do know, however, that Hellman's, a brand that I usually asociate with mayonaise, makes tzatziki sauce here. I find that very funny. Also, there's plenty of octopus on the shelf.

I'll stop talking about food now- and start talking about alcohol instead. Retsina is one of the traditional Greek wines, made from pine resin, and it's extremely cheap and pretty good. Apparently real wine snobs look down on it, but I am absolutely not a wine snob, and I've liked it so far. My guidebook goes on about the wonderful tradition of red wine in Greece and all of the health benefits that go along with it, but my guidebook neglects to explain that higher price tags and headaches also come with the health benefits. (I don't know why, but it only takes one glass of red wine with dinner to make me feel positively wretched the next morning.) In any case, retsina is classier than the cheap wine at the supermarket in Grinnell, which came in a variety of colors, including jolly-rancher green- and it costs about the same.

Actually, speaking of shopping, I went on a marathon shopping trip today, in search of ponytail holders. I consider ponytail holders to be a basic need, something that shouldn't be hard to find. After all, every country has people with long hair, right? Surely they occasionally need to tie it back?

Maybe not. I went into several pharmacies and inquired, using broken Greek and lots of crazy gestures involving my hair, (God knows how you say "ponytail holders" in Greek) but everyone shook their heads. I went to several supermarkets and finally, tucked away in the corner of the basement of one store, I turned up some sparkly scrunchies that look like they've been sitting on the shelf since the reign of Agamemnon. There were also some tiny little hair ties with Hello Kitty logos on them, but I've already been mistaken for a high school student enough; I don't think I want to create any more confusion about that. Anyway, the end of the story is, the ancient hair ties (of which there are two) cost three whole Euro. For the past few hours, I have been watching the hair of every Greek woman I encounter, to see how she has tied it back. Surely there must be a good source of hair ties somewhere!

Mushroom Martians and Plumbing

The unreliable nature of my plumbing seems to have been resolved, although I did have a rather amusing incident this morning, halfway through my shower. I had just finished soaping up my hair, and my head was pretty much covered in fluffy white suds- and when I tried to turn on the faucet and rinse them out, the water had disappeared. Of course, I panicked, thinking the water would be gone for hours and I would just have to parade around encased in suds. However, a few moments later the faucets came back to life and I rinsed off- very quickly.

I'm also able to take out books from several libraries on campus, which is a lifesaver, as English language books seem sort of hard to acquire here, and really, really expensive. I did find a bookstore selling English language books for only three Euros, but they all appeared to be at leats several decades old and had titles like The Attack Of The Mushroom Martians and The Erotic Adventures of Chrysanthemum Fitzgerald. It wasn't really what I was looking for.

I don't know how anyone could possibly get by for an entire year without a good source of books. I guess I could try reading in Greek, and it would be incentive for me to learn the language- maybe more incentive than I want. Maybe sometime I'll try checking out a Greek copy of something simple and familiar, like the first Harry Potter book. Or maybe I could try Good Night Moon. Yes, I think that would be more at my level.

Speaking of books, all of the stores here seem to stock large number of Stephen King novels in Greek. Apparently he has a following here, as does the Da Vinci code guy.

I am boring

Well, the Anatolia students still have not arrived, so it is just the dorm advisors and the Pinewood International Students, which is an interesting combination. If you walk through the dorm during the afternoon, you are sure to hear snatches of English, Greek, Bulgarian, and possibly bits of other languages as well. It must be particularly hard for the really young kids, who don't speak much English yet and have never been far from home before. It must be really hard to be away from home at such a young age; several of the younger students have been pretty homesick these past few days.
It's great to hear them pick up words and phrases though. Today, one young Bulgarian girl finished her homework and spent the remainder of the study period complaining "I'm boring, I'm boring." Someone tried to explain to her the difference between bored and boring, but I'm not sure if she got it.
I'm downtown now, in an internet cafe looking out over the ruins of the ancient agora. I just finished eating a chocolate crepe. All in all, life is good- and I have water again!

When people speak Greek around me, (particularly quickly) I generally hear something like:

"blah blah blah I have two blah blah blah I want Blah room blah blah blah hot water blah blah on Friday or Saturday blah blah ten o'clock."

In other words, I don't necessarily grasp the meaning of what they are saying, but I can get a feel for the general topic of conversation. It's hard to follow such fast conversations! But at least my vocab skills are coming back.

Things here are generally good, though sometimes frustrating, since the building that I live in is under construction at the moment, and the construction is in high gear, since school needs to open on Monday! Nobody in my building has internet access, and the hot water has been somewhat unreliable. In fact, yesterday, my water disappeared altogether, so I have not washed my hair in a rather long while. I'm trying to be patient, though, and the good news is that I DO finally have a phone! But if you've been emailing me, keep in mind that I've only been able to check my email once a day on weekdays, usually in the (Greek) morning, which means that if you send me a message from the States, I probably will not answer you until the next day. Well, unless you send me a message in the middle of the night, that is.

Anyway, I had my first shift with the kids yesterday, and it was good. It was also very relaxed, since only about 15% of the kids are here so far. However, it's good practice, I think.

In other news, I just reread Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris, which has turned out to be a good choice of reading material. Not only is David Sedaris Greek, but a large part of his book is about being American and living abroad. (In France, in his case.) It's very funny.

Talking to myself

I've discovered something; my Greek skills are somewhat competant when I am listening to other people have a simple conversation (and I really do mean simple) and they are wonderful when I am sitting alone in my apartment practicing chatting to myself. I mean, I am really eloquent when I am talking to the wall. However, when I am called upon to speak Greek to an actual Greek person, I freeze and forget how to say "Hello." I need to work on that.
That said, I did successfully ask a man in a kiosk for bus tickets the other day. I mean, I didn't just mumble the word for bus tickets, I actually said, in Greek "Do you have bus tickets" ("Ehete isiteria"?) I used a verb and everything!
Other than my nervousness about Greek, things are still going well. Brad and I had delicious fried zucchini in a restuarant the other night. My apartment is huge, just huge, and I need to find some way to fill up the space. Soon I will hang up my Woody Guthrie poster and maybe speak Greek to Woody. Or I could just talk to the kids, who are supposed to start arriving in the dorms this afternoon! Well, ten or eleven of them, anyway. Anatolia does not start classes until the 12th, but Pinewood, the international school, starts tomorrow. Actually, since most of the Pinewood kids are not Greek, maybe I should stick to English with them. Or maybe I should speak Greek, because they won't know if I screw up, right?
I've been downtown several times now, and I like Thessaloniki a lot, although I still have not quite found my way around. Brad and I did some wandering on Saturday before dinner; we were looking for a bookstore, which turned out to be closed, and then waiting for restaurants to be open. People don't eat until about 9 or 10 pm here, though if you walk past the cafes during the early evening you'll see hundreds of people just sitting around and drinking frappes, which are a kind of frothy milky instant coffee drink. Brad read somewhere that people order frappes mostly as an excuse to sit around and chat for a while, and that does seem to be the case.
Anyway, we did see about three weddings taking place; apparently Saturday evening is the time to get married around here. Speaking of marriage, Greece, and food, I know you're all thinking exactly the same thing: "Hey, remember that scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding..." I do, really! In fact, I'm thinking I might keep a tally of the number of times people have mentioned My Big Fat Greek Wedding to me, particularly the "You're vegetarian? That's OK, I'll make lamb," scene.