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.