Oh, I'm Just Pretending to be American- It's My Costume

So yesterday I walked out of my apartment and through the school campus, and ran into three cowboys, several space aliens, a bunch of witches, and a hula dancer. It appeared to be Halloween four months late. I was a little surprised, I guess, but it did seem to make sense; I think every culture needs to have at least one holiday that is an excuse for dressing up and acting ridiculous, and clearly the Greeks just prefer to have theirs in February, not October.
As it turns out, it's Carnival. You probably all knew that already, as it seems to be Mardi Gras in the States. To be honest, I am little bit confused as to why it is Carnival here. Isn't the Greek calendar different? Isn't Mardi Gras/Carnival supposed to be 40 days before Easter? So why isn't the Greek Carnival 40 days before Greek Easter? But doesn't Mardi Gras usually take place on a Tuesday? So why is Greek Carnival on a Thursday? Maybe they aren't the same after all. I am so confused. However, it doesn't really matter. What really matters is, last night was part of an age-old tradition of celebrating wildly before a period of austerity, abstemiousness, abstinence, and abstention. Except that, of course, I have no intention of actually absteming from anything whatsoever. Except maybe chicken.

Anyway, I headed downtown to see what all the fuss was about, and discovered a massive celebration taking place in Aristotelous Square. There were men dressed as women and women dressed as men, and people of both genders with ridiculous afros. There were geishas and more cowboys, and any number of other unusual sorts dressed in any number of outfits, running aorund and yelling and acting crazy. Everyone was weird. It was just like being back in New York. It was delightful. There was also a wide variety of tasty-looking junk food, including the donuts pictured above.


Above is a picture of me at a cafe near the Hagia Sophia. This guy offered me retsina and souvlaki, and his friend took our picture. His friend was dressed like a Roman soldier, with one of those helmets that look vaguely like brooms. Unforunately, as I was not prepared for this particular holiday, I am just dressed up like a tourist.
Below is one of many, many little girls in long, pouffy, sparkly, princess dresses. This is exactly the sort of thing I would have loved to wear when I was five, proving that some things transcend cultural boundaries.

Now, take a good look at the picture below. You may be wondering "What is that?" Well, take a good long look. Notice the partially-hidden broomstick. Yes, indeed, that is thirty-five-year-old, six foot Harry Potter, smoking a cigarette with Yasser Arafat.

I love Carnival.

Athena, the Goddess of Old Buildings and New Subway Trains

When I first learned that I would be spending a year in Greece, I had a number of conversations with Greeks, Greek-Americans and well-traveled people of all sorts that went something like this:

Emily: Yes, I'll be in Greece for a year.
Person: Where?
Emily: Thessaloniki.
Person: Ooooh. That's good. You'll like it SO much more than Athens.

Complaints about Greece's capital all seem to follow a similar pattern: it's crowded, it's polluted, it's noisy, unpleasant, dirty, etc, etc. After four days there, I have concluded that people say these things either because a) They are from Thessaloniki and are totally biased, b)They have not been to Athens recently or c) I am just completely immune to dirt, pollution, crowds, etc. Maybe it's a combination of all three. Athens is lovely. Really, I liked it very much.

We arrived there on Thursday morning at the crack of dawn, on the night train. I should mention that the night train to Athens takes about six hours, so it doesn't exactly give you enough time for a real night's sleep. However, unlike on the train to Istanbul you don't have to wake up at four am to go through customs, and there were no prostitutes next door, so maybe it's not so bad after all. (By the way, when I say 'we', I mean me, a Greek friend of mine, his Polish girlfriend, and her Spanish and Bulgarian classmates. We were a very international group.)

Our first order of business was to drop things off at our hostel, and to get breakfast from a nearby cafe. Over coffee, we chatted, and I discovered that all of the Spaniards were both utterly fascinated by my American accent, and utterly confused by it. They kept asking me to talk, and then repeating my statements back at me, attempting to imitate my inflections. It was rather amusing. Unfortunately, I did not have much luck understanding them, either, as my Spanish is rusty and more North/Central American than European. When one of my new friends informed me that she is from "Balenthia", it took me a few moments to figure out that she was talking about Valencia. Plus, whenever I dig around in my brain for Spanish vocabulary, Greek appears.

After breakfast, we headed to Syntagma, a central square that houses the Greek Parliament as well as several Greek Parliament guards wearing very strange outfits that include pom-poms on their feet. I am told that these pom poms were designed to hide knives during warfare. I suppose they would hide knives well enough, but they are still not exactly inconspicuous. Here is a photograph of the Changing of the Guard in Syntagma. It was not as elaborate at the similar ceremony at Buckingham Palace, but there were several thousand fewer people in attendance, a fact which made it much more enojyable. (I have been to the Buckingham Palace Changing of the Guard two or three times, and I have always spent the duration of the ceremony squeezed against several hundred American tourists, usually with someone very tall in front of me. Thus, I have managed to catch some of the peripheral action, but I've never actually witnessed the ceremony in full.)
Following the Changing of the Guard, we wandered through the central park of Athens. I don't remember the exact name for it; the National Gardens? I don't know. Anyway, it was mostly closed, as an Israeli official was visiting, and security was tight. I admit that I had a private moment of satisfaction when we were informed of this and one of my co-travellers said "The Israeli President? What's his name? Arafat?" "Aha!" I thought, "Americans are not the only ones who are out of touch with world affairs!"

Anyway, here is a picture of the Greek National Guard ushering in the Israeli President. (All right, I'll confess: I don't know if it was the President or some other official, and I don't know the name of whoever it was. I do know it wasn't Arafat, though.) The whole thing took place on a red carpet that was rolled up afterwards. I watched it get rolled back up, and noted with amusement that "Made in the USA" was printed on the underside.

We walked through the park to the Panathenian stadium, an ancient Olympic stadium that was renovated for use in the first modern games as well as the most recent Athens games. It's a beautful stadium, and I was sad to learn that these days, it's mostly just for show. Nobody actually goes running in there. I think this is a pity, as I would love to run around inside the Panathenian Stadium.

It was while I was standing outside the stadium that I first turned around and glimpsed the Acropolis rising above the city. Now, my trusty Lonely Planet guide lists "the first magical view of the Acropolis" as one of the best things about Athens, so it may have been the power of suggestion that caused me to be so thoroughly impressed. But I don't think so. I think it really is just mind-boggling. When you are standing on a modern city street with cars whizzing past and people walking past chatting on their cell phones, you hardly expect to look up and see ancient crumbling ruins that represent the birth of western civilization just sitting there above you. At least, I don't expect that. But they're there. It's breathtaking.

After some more coffee, chocolate croissants and a walk through the cultural museum, we headed for the Acropolis, a trek which involved some map examination as well as some steep climbing up the hill to the Parthenon. It was a stunning trip though; I felt like I was walking back in history as I climbed the hill, and I suppose that in a sense, I was. Finally standing in front of Parthenon, with those massive columns in front of me and the entire city of Athens at my feet was a pretty incredible moment. Unfortunately, it was also fleeting, as the museum was closing (it was 2:30pm) and there were a large number of grouchy women with whistles chasing people around and informing them that it was time to get out. The people, of course, were all trying to take one last picture, or maybe two, or three, or seven. The women were not pleased by this, and continued yelling and gesturing towards the exit. I would have hated these women, but they vaguely reminded me of myself at 11:15 pm, when it is long past the time for the younger students to go to bed and they insist "No, no, I need five more minutes!" So I had some sympathy for them and we decided to save our in-depth trip to the Parthenon for another day.

At that point, sleep deprivation had caught up with all of us, and we made our way back to the hostel for showers and a long nap. In the evening, we woke up and headed to a taverna known for its raki. Raki is kind of like tsipouro, which is kind of like homemade ouzo. This raki, however, was not anise flavored. It was strong, though, and served in little shotglasses, which surprised me. In the movies, Greek people drink ouzo and similar beverages in shotglasses, and toast by shouting "Opa!" before they down the shots in one gulp. In real life, I have never seen a single Greek take a shot of ouzo and "Opa!" is what you shout when someone trips over something, kind of like "Ooops!" or "Watch out!" Well, nobody shouted "Opa"here either, and the Greeks sipped their raki instead of taking it in shots, despite the tiny size of their glasses. The Spanish students, however, insisted upon taking "chipitas" (apparently, this is the Spanish word for shot) and were very confused when the Greeks told them they weren't supposed to drink it that way.

Of course, we did eat as well as drink, and the food was quite excellent. My Greek friend and one of his Athenian friends ordered some sort of meat pie with cheese inside that they insisted was "man's food." Upon further investigation, I learned that "Greek women don't like this dish," and I was welcome to try it if I wanted to, but, being a woman, I would probably hate it. Obviously, at that moment, I decided that I absolutely had to try it, whatever it was, and I was going to say I liked it, whether I actually did or not. As it turns out, it was quite good, and nicely spicy. My friends shrugged at my reaction and said "Oh, maybe American women like [name of mysterious dish]." I don't really understand when I became "American women" in general, why Greek women wouldn't like a perfectly tasty dish, or even what the perfectly tasty dish was, exactly. It appeared to be something akin to ham with feta, phyllo, and spices. If anyone cares to enlighten me on this matter, please do so.

The next morning was spent in search of a new hotel in Plaka, as a large part of our group was leaving. We found a nice place with a lovely view of the Acropolis for quite a good price. February is really an affordable time to be in Athens, I suppose. Friday afternoon was spent wandering through the Public Gardens (now open to the public), drinking coffee near Syntagma, and getting lost in various areas of the city. We also saw the Temple of Olympian Zeus, or rather, the remains of it, which are quite memorable. There are several massive columns still standing, and some piles of other bits and pieces below. I have been informed that this temple was damaged during the second world war, when it was bombed by the Nazis. Hitler was apparently very angry at the officers who had caused this destruction, and later had them executed. I'm told by a friend that this is because he so greatly admired the Greeks and considered them the creators of Aryan culture. This whole story is very interesting, but could be exaggerated or mixed up, so don't take my word for it. (I try to be careful about where, exactly, I get my history.)

Now, let me say a few words about the Athens Metro. It's a brand new system, based on the London Underground, and indeed, it's almost the same, right down to the style of the maps
on the walls, and the escalators connecting platforms. However, being a lot newer than the tube, it's also a lot faster. I could hardly believe how quickly you can zip around, especially since the trains seem to come every three minutes. Oh, and it's clean. I can't believe it. I've never seen a clean subway system in my life. And they play music in the background. Best of all, there's a little electronic sign on each platform to let you know when the next train will arrive. They have these in London, and I always thought they were just about the best things ever. However, the really amazing thing about the Athens metro is that it is full of displays of ancient artifacts that were discovered as the system was being built. Above is a picture of some ancient pottery that used to be were the platforms are now. As I left for the train station early Sunday morning (and believe me, it was early, because almost every train was sold out) I stood, caffeine-deprived, on the clean platform of the Acropolis station, with a temple frieze in front of me and the Harry Potter theme playing softly in the background. It was a surreal moment.
However, it does get a little crowded now and then, I guess. Honestly, I think my bus (the number 58) in Thessaloniki gets more crowded on a regular basis than any other form of public transportation that I have ever used in my entire life, including the Athenian metro, the New York subway at rush hour, the various tube lines that I used in my study-abroad days in London, etc, etc. The number of people I have seen jammed into that little thing is like clowns in the circus. I've waited for the bus for forty minutes before, because three or four bus drivers in a row wouldn't even open their doors to let more people on. Ugh.
And that's the end of my little Bus 58 rant. The point is, Athens may be more crowded than Thessaloniki in general, but that doesn't mean that Thessaloniki doesn't have crowds. Actually, I was amused by my friends' reactions to Athens in general; one of them kept breathing in and making faces, insisting "ugh, this atmosphere is terrible." I told him that I honestly didn't have any idea what he was talking about. I think my lungs need dirt to survive. He was also unhappy with the moderate crowds we saw on the Athenian metro. He's from Thessaloniki, but clearly he is not familiar with the number 58 bus.
Enough with the dirt and the crowds. Here are some lovely pictures of the National Gardens. You'll see that they have turtles, fish (a whole petting zoo, in fact) and, of course, men playing backgammon.


And, here are some nice shots of the Panathenian stadium at night, as they were turning on the lights, and by day. I like it better at night.





Our evening trip to the stadium was followed by dinner at a nice taverna in Plaka. Plaka is the area surrounding the Acropolis, and it's lovely, with winding little streets and lots of nice tavernas. It's also the tourist center of Athens, however, and I swear I haven't seen so many Americans in one place since August. Here's a picture of a Plaka street by night.
(Speaking ofeating in Athens, I have been informed by my friends and thier friends that when Athenians want gyros, they order souvlaki. Is this true? I find this totally confusing.)
We went to bed early on Friday and woke at 8:30 on Sunday to breakfast in the roof cafe of our hotel, where we drank coffee and looked at the Acropolis. This was a nice way to wake up. Afterwards, we headed back to the Acropolis to finish exploring it. (MyGreek friend appeared enthusiastic about this, but I have to wonder if, somewhere deep inside, he was groaning "Oh dear God, not the damn Acropolis again." I wonder this because I have had many visitors in New York, and although I do enjoy playing tour guide, I have also had moments of "Oh dear God, not the damn Empire State Building again.")
The Acropolis was, once again, really impressive. I believe that sometime in October or September I wrote a long update about Tall Things, and how every city seems to have some sort of Tall Thing which tourists pay a lot of money to go up. Until now, I had thought that St. Paul's Cathedral was the best Tall Thing I had ever experienced, but now the Acropolis has thoroughly defeated it. After all, it's pretty much the birthplace of Western Civilization and all that. It's hard to top. I keep thinking back to eighth grade history, when we had to identify the word "Acropolis" and explain all of the various buildings inside it, and look at the sketches recreating what the statue of Athena may have looked like. (There is no statue of Athena nowadays, but apparently historians think that there once was, and it stood inside the Parthenon.)

The Acropolis also has a museum, of couse, which houses a large number of statues and artifacts that were found in the vicinity. It does not, however, house the Elgin marbles. The Elgin marbles, despite sounding like something that my cat would like the bat around the floor, are actually beautiful marble carvings from the Parthenon that were appropriated by Lord Elgin in the 19th Century, and brought to the British Museum, where they have remained ever since. A lot of people are not very happy about this, and I can understand why. It does seem that they ought to remain in their orginal home.
However, the Acropolis museum has no lack of beautiful artwork. I was particularly fond of these feet, which are very realistic. They look like, well, real feet. I was also quite taken with this cat, who lives in the most famous archeological site in the history of the world, and probably doesn't give a damn about anything except what food she can scrounge up from between the marble slabs. (I know I am obsessive about cats. Well, I'm just trying to give you another perspective on things. I could post about seventy separate pictures of the Parthenon here. But the thing is, you've all seen pictures of the Parthenon before. You've seen professional pictures of the Parthenon. You don't need my blurry versions with tourists wandering around in front of it, do you?)
After the Acropolis, we saw the new Byzantine museum, which is quite lovely, and took a brief stroll through the war museum before it closed at 2pm. We also took a large number of pictures of each other standing in front of fighter jets in front of the war museum. I don't have these pictures at the moment, as they were not taken with my camera, so I can't post them for you. That's OK with me. Quite frankly, I have very little use for a picture of myself next to a fighter jet, but maybe someday it will come in handy.
At that point, we headed for the train station to buy our tickets home and discovered that every single train was sold out, with the exception of the awful, crack of dawn 6:50am train, and the 11:44pm night train. As I had work to do on Monday, I opted for the wretched crack-of-dawn option, which was thankfully faster than the afternoon one, but also almost three times as expensive. Next time, remind me to make a reservation.
We finished the evening with a drink at a bar in Kolonaki, which is apparently the trendy place to have a drink. I can't tell you all that much about the area, except that the one place we went was quite nice, and seemed to be playing music specially selected for me. (I swear, the radio DJ was using my iPod for music selections). I chatted with my Greek friend and his friends, who quoted various Friends episodes at length, and nodded thoughtfully when I ordered vodka and cranberry juice. ("That's what they drink in New York, huh? Do you watch Sex and the City?") Sometimes I think Greeks could give me a lesson in American culture. On the other hand, they were anxious for me to explain an American stand-up comedy DVD they had just watched, and I tried my best to explain who Al Sharpton is.

And here my Athenian adventure comes to a close. Ultimately, I had a lovely weekend and I liked the city very much. However, I will say that I'm glad to be spending a year in Thessaloniki instead of Athens. The crowds and pollution may not bother me (makes me feel right at home, actually), but here in Thess I'm a little more removed from the tourists and the other Americans, and a little bit more immersed in Greek life.

Home-Sick

Today is gorgeous. I mean, it is just a spectacular, sunny, warm-but-not-hot, blue skies sort of spring day. I am just completely ecstatic about the weather. It's the sort of day that makes me want to go for a run or walk or bike ride through Central Park and see the flowers and the green trees and the people lying on the grass.
Only problem is, Central Park is probably completely dead and grey at the moment. From what I hear, it's freezing in New York. Grinnell, IA was 9 below zero, according to the weather report. I have received a first hand account confirming that yesterday was approximately the coldest day Chicago has seen since the advent of the automobile. I guess I would not be so happy if I were in the states today.
I think perhaps this sudden desire to be in New York was brought on by my quite enjoyable trip to Athens, which reminded me of how much I love big obnoxious crowded cities, particularly in the Spring. More about that later, as there is much to tell. I confess I am utterly confused by the disdain for Athens that so many people seem to have. Maybe it's different if you live there.

Rules of Courtship

One of the students I work with in the dorm is a fifteen year old girl. She has offered me some interesting tidbits of wisdom, which I will now share with you;

-"You should wear more make-up. You would look really pretty if you wore more make-up. And why don't you pluck your eyebrows? You should dye your hair red, because if you don't do it now, when will you do it? When you are a grandmother?"
I responded to all of this with "well, I'll think about it." She sighed and said "Don't think about it. Just do it."

- "Are you going to get married soon? Why not? At home, girls get married when they are fifteen, and they start families."
She has told me this four times so far. I don't know how I'm supposed to react. Maybe I should feel horrified that I'm a twenty-two year old Old Maid. Maybe I should ask her why she isn't married. In any case, I'm not starting any families. Seventy-four adolescents and a cat is already more than enough.

-"Do your parents know you have a boyfriend? They DO? In my country, parents never know about boyfriends, because they hate boyfriends. Parents only like husbands."
Huh. Interesting. How do they feel about fiancees, then?

-"At home, the worst thing that can happen to a girl is breaking up with her boyfriend. If you break up, people say you are a bad girl. At home, we say that women are like electricians. One mistake, and your life is over."
Well. I guess I am glad that I do not live in her part of the world. Actually, I confess that I really don't get the electrician analogy. Would anyone like to (heehee) enlighten me?

-"Don't step on the black caterpillars, because they are messengers from Satan, and if you kill them, Satan will come after you."
This might be my favorite bit of advice. It definitely wins the Most Bizarre award, although it is in competition with a piece of advice I once received from a Russian student (not a dorm resident). He said "don't sit on the cold stone steps, because you will get syphilis, and if you have a penis it will turn black and fall off." If this were actually true, I suspect there would be a lot of syphilitic people out there.

And with that, I'm off to Athens for a few days!

We Are Happy To Serve You

On Sunday I went to a cafe/bar downtown. I ordered a coffee and sat there with my Sunday paper (in Greek, but I got a free DVD), a novel, and a notebook in which to jot down observations for some essays I have been working on. I had my cell phone with me, tucked deep inside my bag and set on 'vibrate', because, deep down, despite their necessary function, I really hate cell phones. My coffee came with cookies. I ate the cookies.
There were about five other tables in the place, each occupied by multiple people. Each of these people had a cup of coffee. Each of these people had a cigarette. Each of these people had a cell phone in front of them. They were all talking, mostly to one another, but some of them were talking on their cell phones as well. Their coffee came with cookies. None of them ate their cookies.
This is my life in Greece.

To give you some idea of what I look for in a successful cafe/bar, here are descriptions of my two favorite places to get in a drink in the states. The first was once featured in a Woody Allen movie that I never saw. The latter was once featured in a five minute student film entitled "the Overture of Evil." It's about a guy who gets attacked by dementor-like evil spirits while the 1812 Overture plays in the background.
First, the best place to get coffee in New York is called the Hungarian Pastry Shop. It is cozy and charming and they never play wretched eardrum-popping pop music (my biggest cafe complaint in Greece.) It is right around the corner from my house, and they have a giant rack of delicious pastries, as well as the best croissants known to man. Throughout nursery school, I would go to the Hungarian most afternoons for 25 cent cookies, of which there are a wide array. If you go there on a typical afternoon, you will find a lot of people sitting alone with their newspapers or books or term papers or unfinished novels or whatever. This is partially because a lot of them are Columbia University students, but also partially because I am not the only one in New York who occasionally goes to cafes alone. I read Ulysses there once, and felt very smart until I noticed that the guy next to me was reading some medical paper that had words in the title that were long enough to be sentences. (There's a hospital across the street.) I also started drinking lattes there, which eventually led to me drinking coffee, which led to me developing a serious habit.
My favorite alcohol establishment in the states is technically known as "The Down Under Pub", but as this is in Grinnell, Iowa, there is really no name or modifying adjective required. There is only one Pub. The Pub is the sort of place where everyone would go to drink as much as possible, but they don't want to drink too much, because then they might need to use the bathroom, and the pub bathroom is real sketchy. Nonetheless, every single senior on the Grinnell campus frequents the Pub on Wednesday nights. Even if you don't drink, you go to the Pub and eat the free popcorn. I suppose you could say the free, slightly stale popcorn is kind of like the free nuts and/or cookies that Greek bars give out. I suppose you could also say that the smoke-filled carcinogenic air of the Pub is somewhat similar to the smoke filled air of bars in Greece. You could say that; but you would be wrong. The Pub is way worse. Every Grinnellian has designated "Pub clothes" that cannot be worn in everyday life, as one whiff will cause emphysema in all individuals within smelling range. It is truly foul. I miss the Pub.

Beverage consumption is big in Greece., though I haven't quite found a Hungarian or Pub equivalent. There are, however, cafes on every other corner. Sometimes there are multiple cafes on one corner. It's worth noting that in Greece, cafes usually serve coffee and alcoholic drinks, which is why it's called a cafe/bar. In the states, you often have to choose between a place for coffee and a place for alcohol. Here, you can down multiple legal addictive stimulants within the confines of a single establishment. You can do this all day long, and nobody will suggest that you leave. You can even do this until it is officially the next day, with the sun coming up and everything. I appreciate this, as the Hungarian closes at the ungodly early hour of 11:30, and even Pub nights end at 2.
Unfortunately, you do pay to sit there. A friend of mine once told me "everything is cheaper in Greece. Everything except cars and coffee." This appears to be true; on one memorable occasion, Joe and I paid a total of four Euros for our dinner of souvlaki, and subsequently paid eight for a hot chocolate and an herbal tea. I guess it makes sense. If people don't leave for hours, and there's no take-away business, prices are higher., particularly if you're sitting by the ocean. New York coffee to go costs about ninety cents, but the atmosphere tends to be a little less relaxing.
But here's the ironic thing about coffee to go in NYC. The quintessential to-go coffee cup is covered in ancient Greek-style designs. It is blue and white, with pictures of decorative amphorae and "We are happy to serve you" written in Greek-influenced letters. For Christmas, my parents actually sent me a "We are happy to serve you" mug, perfectly authentic right down to the crease on the side. It is, however, ceramic instead of paper. I think that it is perhaps the most appropriate piece of kitchenware that I have ever owned.
Anyway, I think I was talking about drink prices. Pub well drinks cost one dollar, if you can believe that. However, they are often concocted out of something called "Hawkeye Vodka", which I personally suspect is actually leftover cleaning fluid from the soy plants of Iowa. But there's really no way to be sure.
You do get something for your money in Greece; water and cookies (for coffee) or nuts (for alcohol) come with pretty much every beverage. But here's the funny thing; I swear, Greeks never eat their cookies. I look over at the other tables, and everyone is chatting, and there is always a plate of uneaten cookies just sitting there. I sometimes wonder if there are actually only a few plates of ancient stale cookies in each cafe that get handed out in turn to every customer, and then handed out the next customer when the first guy sends them back untouched.
I used to ignore the cookies too, out of a desire to conform, until one day, when the rebel in me bit into a round sugary one and discovered that there was chocolate inside. It was not your ordinary, run of the mill cookie from a package. It was chocolate. I left wondering if maybe nobody had told the Greeks that the cookies have chocolate inside, and if I should spread the good news. However, further investigation revealed that not all free cookies have chocolate inside, just some. Now I have the constant desire to take one bite of every cookie until I find the chocolate ones. I also take the nut dishes and pick out the almonds, cashews, and pistachios. The cafe owners in Greece really like me lot.
It is also worth noting that Greek cafes have the best hot chocolate in the known universe. They have actual hot chocolate menus, that list everything from banana hot chocolate to Aztec hot chocolate to hot chocolate with m and ms inside. No matter which one you choose, it tastes pretty unbelievably good, kind of like a melted chocolate bar in a cup. It makes Swiss Miss look like chalky water. It is worth five euro anyday. At least, any day that I have five euro to spare.
Now I've got to end on a frustrated note. My beloved french press coffee maker broke yesterday, forcing me to drag my feverish self (yeah, I'm sick) all the way downtown, in the snow, to find a new one. However, there were no french presses to be found. I searched all the little kitchenware shops near the Modiano market, I searched the upscale home furnishing shop, I searched Marks and Spencer's...I found nothing. Well, nothing except one thirty-three Euro french press at a fancy gourmet coffee place, followed by similar ones for 38, 42 and 115, respectively. I am hardly impoverished, but thirty-three Euros is a major purchase for me. I could buy thirty-three kilos of spinach for that amount of money. I could get my hair cut three times. I could take a trip somewhere interesting. Someone, please help me., I'm in dire, caffeine-addicted straits. Where can I find an affordable french press? And why aren't there any available? Is it because so many Greeks drink instant coffee? I just can't bring myself to drink instant. The Greeks have excellent taste and high standards in so many culinary matters, but their penchant for instant coffee is a sad exception.

Another One of Those Cat Updates, Plus A Random, Totally-Unrelated-To-Greece Digression

So Brad, my coworker here in Greece, has created a podcast about his experiences. His most recent episode is an interview with me, all about my cat. (Some of you are shaking your heads and muttering things about my cat obsession right now. But the podcast was Brad's idea, I swear). It's really exciting. I'm on itunes! So is my cat! You can download it here:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/soundvoice

Also, while we are on the subject of things named 'Calypso', I'm going to reprint here the excellent first line of the book by that name, which happens to be part of Ulysses:

"Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls."

The reason I mention it is, well, the American Book Review published a list of the 100 best first lines in literature, (http://www.litline.org/ABR/100bestfirstlines.html) which got me thinking. The following are some of my favorite first lines. Congratulations to anyone who can identify them:

"This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it. "

"The summer my father bought the bear, none of us was born - we weren't even conceived: not Frank, the oldest; not Fanny, the loudest; not me, the next; and not the youngest of us, Lilly and Egg. "

"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974."

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

Of course, this is all very problematic, as I am separated from my book collection in New York, and separated from the library, as it is Sunday, so there are definitely many more excellent first lines that I would include if I had the chance to dig them up. Plus, it's very difficult to separate the quality of the first line from the quality of the book itself. There are a lot of really great books that have so-so first lines.

For example, take this one:

"On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge."

Well, OK, if you have so much as glanced at the title page of this particular novel, you know that murder and psychological intrigue and all sorts of exciting things are on the way. But if, for example, the young man crossed K. Bridge for a gallon of milk and cat food, and then went home to watch the Super Bowl, that particular sentence would never had made anyone's list of top first lines. At least, it wouldn't make my list. I don't care much for stories about milk purchasing and football.

And then there's this classic line, which is effective, memorable, thought provoking, and in my opinion, utterly untrue;

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

As for last lines, well, I'd like to see a top 100 list of those. It seems to be truth universally acknowledged that this is the best of all time, and I might just agree:

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

But I also really like this one:

"It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both."

A Tribute To Spanakopita

I usually eat in the dining hall, where they have a never-ending supply of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbage, plus oil, vinegar, bread, feta, and of course, meat. However, I sometimes reach the breaking point, where I just can't stand to see one more plate of the same stuff. So I branch out. A lot of times, branching out means pites.
Pites are not what they sound like to American ears. When I hear "pita", I think of the pocketed bread that you serve with hummus. In Greek, however, "pita" means "pie", as in a pie made of filo dough, stuffed with various things. The most popular ones are Tiropita, (cheese pie), and Spanikopita (spinach pie).
I had never heard of tiropita before I came to Greece, but I had definitely heard of spanikopita, in several contexts. First, there are a number of Greek and middle eastern places that serve it in New York. Second, the Grinnell Dining Hall used to serve it, and if you called the menu hotline, you could hear the dining hall lady announce, in her very American twang, that dinner was Spanako-PI-ta. It's really pronounced with the accent on the "KO", as spanaKOpita. This is a demonstration of the most important rule for English speakers learning Greek, which is as follows: Whenever you see a new word, read it aloud to yourself, paying close attention to the place where you, as an English speaker, naturally place the accent. Then put the accent somewhere else, because you are definitely wrong.
Anyway, spanakopita, in my opinion, is a useful food. You can eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner, and it has vegetables (spinach), carbohydrates (dough), and sometimes protein (if you get the kind with cheese). Also, it usually has plenty of oil. In other words, it's a complete meal. Close enough, anyway. And it's readily available everywhere, from the Anatolia canteen to every other shop in the downtown area.
Of course, there are a number of places that sell Bougatsa, which is another Filo dough based pie food, also filled with spinach, cheese, creme and/or other assorted substances with varying degrees of nutritional value. A Greek friend tells me that pitas and bougatsa are very different. I personally cannot detect a major difference, but I'm going to take his word for it, since I have been known to fuss at length about the minor differences between New York pizza parlors, Indian Restaurants, or bagel stores. (Patsy's in East Harlem, the Jackson Diner in Jackson Heights and Absolut Bagels on 107th and Broadway beat everything else hands down, and that's all there is to it.)