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.