Party in Pangrati

Goodbye, Cruel World

2006-05-30T12:32:00.000+03:00

If the gods of the Delta Buddypass are kind to me tomorrow (honestly, if anyone out there jinxes this for me, I will find you and hurt you), Eph and I will be on our way back to the States, thereby ending the party in Pangrati. Sniff. Long, drawn out goodbyes make me extremely anxious and sad, so let us simply end as we began, with a long, drawn-out story that basically amounts to nothing:

As Eph and I were sitting at lunch yesterday, Evil (But Not Really) Phil mentioned that he had bought a goat bell down in the Plaka. I kid you not, ten minutes later, Eph and I were on our way down to the store in question, both of us with the single, all-consuming thought, "Oh my God, we definitely need to get goat bells before we leave!" I think it's time for us to go home, don't you? More goatbell, guys. More goatbell.

Anyway, goat bells in hand, we decided to stop by for one last visit to our favorite merchants' shop--this guy, Apostolis, has a little store with all the religious icons and hanging glass lamps you could ever want or need. Going in there, you pretty much know that it's going to be a minimum of half an hour before you emerge back onto the sidewalk, but it's time well spent. Eph, Apostolis and I got to talking about the sorry state of the modern Western world, and Apostolis said that, one time, he had been hit by a guy driving a Mercedes. The driver got out, and before even glancing at Apostolis, he checked to make sure his fender was ok. Only after ensuring that all was well with the car did he ask our friend how he was, and Apostoli said, "Oh, I'm fine. The man with the Mercedes is a good man." Somewhat shamed, the driver asked Apostolis what he did, etc. etc., and he drove away. A week later, the Mercedes guy cameby Apostolis' shop and dropped a serious wad of cash on hand-painted icons, lamps and whatnot. For the pure pleasure of messing with this guy's head, Apostolis was like, "Oh, for every customer who spends over 400 euros, we have a free gift." Which, to the driver's horror, turned out to be a traditional Greek funeral shroud that just happened to be laying around in the back room. The details are a little fuzzy at this point, but I believe Apostolis insisted that the guy try it on, which put a little too fine a point on things for him, and he rushed out, never to be seen again.

Apostolis is also the same person who, during the 2004 Athens Olympics, made up a fake flag for the also-fake nation of Souvlakistan (population: 65,000, major export: souvlaki), which a German guy then purchased for 55 euros (original asking price was 65, but Apostolis cut the German dude a deal). Well done, my friend, well done.

To stem the tide of your tears, please let me reassure you that my blogging days are far from over. I'm going to be heading back to the working world (shut up), so I'll obviously need something to while away the hours at the office. To wit, please go to The Newtonator, my new, less-regionally based blog with musings on life in Toronto and elsewhere. Also, exciting news on Suki's front: she, too, will be continuing her increasingly-edgy narrative on the soon-to-be-famous First We Take Toronto.

Yeia sas!

My Chair-y Amour

2006-05-28T14:31:00.000+03:00

I owe the "Party in Pangrati" audience (of like 4 people) an apology. I thought I had long ago posted about the ugliest chairs in the world, but no, I was skimming through my archives and there's nothing. So, as my penultimate blog post from Athens, I present to you the chairs that used--used!--to grace our living room:

Real beauts, aren't they? Too bad they were mercilessly snatched from us in the dark of a Friday night.

I bet you're wondering how we acquired these Art Deco(?) masterpieces to begin with. Well, it all goes back to Mr. Phaidon, the guy who is not our landlord but who brokered the high-stakes deal between Eph and I and our loco landlady, Evgenia. She thought that, since the apartment was, in fact, listed as being "furnished," she would provide somplace for us to sit in the living room. So, after we had signed the lease and all that, Mr. Phaidon came over with these two treasures that Evgenia had apparently paid him for. I don't know how to describe the look on my face when he plunked them down in the middle of the living room, other than to use the words, "abject horror." Seriously, look at the things. They're terrible. Here's a detail shot of the mother-of-pearl inlay that, at this point, is hanging on by a very thin thread:

Awesome. Even better is the fact that, according to Phaidon, these babies cost 400 euros. Money well spent, guys, money well spent.

Scroll ahead nine months. One fine spring day, Eph answers a call from Evgenia. She tells him, "If Mr. Phaidon comes over, do not let him in the apartment. Don't even talk to him. Lock the balcony doors!" Now, was there an explanation of why Mr. Phaidon had suddenly turned evil? No. Just, "Lock the balcony doors," which is absurd in its own right because Phaidon is a little chubby and the mere thought of him hauling himself up and over our first floor balcony railing is a little coo-coo. But, we noted her warning duly and made a solemn vow not to let him in.

A few days later, however, everyone's worse nightmare came true, because as I was making breakfast one morning, I heard, "Hello! Helloooooooo!" coming from out in the street. Sure enough, there stood Mr. Phaidon, trying to look friendly. "Can I come and talk to you?" he asked. "No," I told him. "Evgenia said not to let you in." Immediately, he was pretty miffed, and said, "She is not right in the head! She is crazy! I do not even have a truck to take the chairs!!" I was about to respond, but he shushed me, said, "Wait a minute," and started dialing a number on his cellphone. Clearly, he was speaking to Evgenia, and they argued for a good five minutes while I waited for him. Without a word, he drove away.

Another week passed, and as we were on our Methana trip with Evil Phil, we received several urgent messages from both Phaidon and Evgenia. I called Evgenia, and she said only, "Give to Mr. Phaidon the chairs." Baffled, I then talked to Phaidon, who insisted on coming to get them the very next evening.

So, assisted by a totally random Asian guy, Phaidon came at the convenient hour of 10:00 on a Friday night to get the chairs. "Evgenia," said Phaidon, "She is crazy. I not have problem with her. I fight with her sister. But now we all have perfect relationship." He then leaned in and gave us a conspiritorial smile, saying, "They are both a little crazy." And with that, he left us. Laughing on the outside, crying on the inside, we settled on to the horrifically uncomfortable couch which would be the only place to sit for the next month.

We have subsequently learned two key things: Evgenia is, in fact, crazy, and she and her sister are totally broke. After a little time in the hospital with, her words, "psychological problems," Evgenia is now out and "feeling better." Which is obviously good, since she is a sweet woman. Nuts, but sweet. We went to visit her yesterday at the apartment she now lives in, and clearly she and her sister are living hand to mouth. Her sister finally decided to ask Phaidon for the 400 euros back from the chairs, and he then demanded that the chairs be returned.

In closing, let me remind you of the origin of the controversy:

I am so ready to go back to the States.

So Dark the Con of Tinsel Town

2006-05-22T14:13:00.000+03:00

We saw The Da Vinci Code last night, a film which is most aptly summed up by the Neil Young song, "Piece of Crap" (Piece! Of! Crap!). Granted, any movie would have a hard time overcoming the 45-minute delay in actually rolling the film, but let's just say that I hope Ron Howard doesn't read this blog, because feelings might get hurt.

I know, I know, with lines like, "I need to get to a library...fast!" and my personal favorite, "Godspeed," (whispered with smoldering intensity and absolutely no irony by the fantastically miscast Tom Hanks sporting a really wack jerry curl), you would think this movie is foolproof. But, the producers shockingly turned a bad book into an equally bad film. Oh, and take my review of the book with a grain of salt, because I could only choke my way through the first three chapters before coming to the conclusion that I would rather just eat glass. Thankfully, "prose" like that doesn't come around too often.

Also, I realize that, among other religious groups, the Roman Catholic Church is all in a tizzy, fearing that the fictional revelations of the film will result in a major hit to church membership, but that's only because there weren't any advance screenings. Trust me, Benedict, you got nothing to worry about: once people see this steaming pile of horse manure that is being passed off as movie magic, your troubles will be long gone.

Should you disregard all of the above and go to see the movie anyway, please note that at the end, Tom Hanks is staying at the Ritz in Paris. I can personally vouch for the fact that professors, especially those in the humanities, don't stay at nice hotels. Trade "the Ritz" for "Rooms for Rent George," and you'd be approaching a little something I like to call "reality."

On a side note, why have I not been drawing over pictures in Photoshop more often???

Mulva

2006-05-20T18:45:00.000+03:00

I'll just get this out in the open: now that we are leaving Athens in T minus 11 days, I'm pretty much done with Greece. I haven't quite reverted to speaking only in English, preceeding every phrase with "Dude," nor am I walking around pumping one fist and chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" but I've mentally checked out of all things Hellenic and am looking forward to heading to the States and then on to Toronto. And no, I don't have a job yet, so lay off.

Anywho, the good news is that we got (subsidized) faculty housing from the University of Toronto. Woo hoo! To you green, green Yankees, that means we will live in a place we would not normally be able to swing or would have to sacrifice our first-born for. Spadina Avenue will be our new locale. And, if you're wondering how to pronouce that, yes, yes it does rhyme with a particular female body part (Mulva?). A Canadian friend of ours said that, when in doubt, most things Canadian rhyme with "vagina." We have a lot to get used to.

Some important links you'll want to familiarize yourself with (particularly you, Suki):

Craig's List for Toronto This has a lot of info, but thankfully we won't be needing the apartment classifieds, for which there are about 7 billion listings.

Now Toronto Indie newspaper, a la The Village Voice, or the Triangle Independent. It has all the requisite dining/entertainment listings for the young and hot. Eph and I are loosely counting ourselves among that peer group. Save your comments, I have deleting power anyway.

Toronto Dogs More info than you'll ever need about operating a canine in Toronto

Toronto subway map This is for the downtown only (yeah, that's right, we'll live "downtown!"). We don't mess with the 'burbs anymore. Yarmouth, Maine, Durham, North Carolina, I scoff at you.

The Big Carrot Natural Food Store Seriously, these things are important. I make my own mueslix, so just go stuff your sorries in a sack if you think that's weird.

Alright, let's not kid ourselves here:

Ikea

Home Depot

Bad news, no Target in Canada (yet!), so we'll have to go with Wal Mart for cheap plastic things from the Far East. As Stephen Colbert so rightly noted, "China, your great nation makes our Happy Meals possible."

I have to go take a shower.

Hoochie Mama, Hoochie Mama!

2006-05-16T13:01:00.000+03:00

It has come to our attention that Suki, the once-loyal Poochiferous Chompy-Chomps, has become a bit of a canine hoochie mama. And by that, I mean that she'll hit on anyone with a dinghy. And we mean anyone (kidding, Lulu and Gigi!). Kathy notified us that she goes willingly onto any seaworthy craft with an outboard, all in the hopes of getting more walks on shore. Since I heard the news, one particular song has been coursing through my jealousy-ridden mind, so I think I'll express it in a public forum (complete with photo montage). Also, let this be a lesson to all those in and around Manjack Island: she may look cute, but she will treat your emotions like a plastic Happy Meal toy.

Runaround Suki

Here's my story, its sad but true
It's about a pooch that I once knew
She took my love then ran around
With every single cruiser in town

I should have known it from the very start
This dog will leave me with a broken heart
Now listen up, don’t become a groupie
Keep away from Runaround Suki

I miss her paws and her tongue hanging out
Those long whiskers and her wet black snout
So if you don't want eyes wet and droopy
Keep away from-a Runaround Suki

Ah, she likes to motor around
She'll love you but she'll put you down
She pretends to be so clingy
But Suki goes out in other dinghies

Here's the moral and the story from the girl who knows
I fell in love and my love still grows
Ask any fool, even Lulu and Gigi
Keep away from-a Runaround Suki

She likes to motor around
She'll love you but she'll put you down
She pretends to be so clingy
But Suki goes out in other dinghies

Here's the moral and the story from the girl who knows
I fell in love and my love still grows
Ask any fool, even Lulu and Gigi
Keep away from-a Runaround Suki

That's a wrap, folks. The single will be out June 1.

And Let's Not Forget the Fistpumps...

2006-05-15T16:47:00.000+03:00

...for Ephy! Duke's Commencement was also yesterday (which we realized at approximately 1800 hours yesterday, better late than never), so Ephraim is also on the list of graduates for this year. You may begin calling him Herr Doctor Professor Lytle...nnnnow. Well done, babe. I'm proud of you. Your $100 check's in the mail.

Ahh, Duke's finest.

Congratulations, Joe!

2006-05-15T16:29:00.000+03:00

Just look at the happy graduate...St. John's Class of 2006. We wish we could have been there, Joe.

You know, they grow up so fast--it seems like only yesterday I was sneaking into his room to lift up his eyelids up while he napped. And wasn't it just a few weeks ago that I was hiding "Joe," his doll? Where does the time go?

Oh, look: here's Bob, who has donned the red sash which symbolizes the fact that he has been putting kids through college since the year 1992. Just one more, Dad, just one more...and, hey, maybe Tom'll go to a state school.

Eph Is the Champion, My Friends, and He'll Keep On Fighting 'Til the End, Eph Is the Champion, Eph Is the Champion...

2006-05-10T12:18:00.000+03:00

Last night, Eph and I were walking home from a terrible, terrible dinner of the Hellenic rendition of "Asian food" (note to self: stick to souvlaki from now on), when we noticed that the public payphone near our apartment building was free. This is a rare thing at 9:30 p.m., so Eph decided he'd take the opportunity to call his friend, Chris. Here's how the conversation went (the phone times the duration of calls, so the minute marks are approximate):

00.00.00-08.30.00: Normal phone conversation.

08.30.00-08.45.00: Greek woman arrives and interrupts Eph to ask how long it's going to take him to get the hell off the phone. This sounds outrageous, but is actually standard practice.

08.45.00-08.50.00: Eph tells the woman it's going to be awhile. Heh.

08.50.00-10.00.00: Woman goes on screaming rampage; Eph ignores her.

12.00.00-15.00.00: Woman begins to bang on plastic covering of public telephone in an effort to drive Eph away. He continues to act like she is not there.

15.00.00-18.30.00: Woman's arm is sore, so she takes a breather and maintains a hostile stance behind Eph, hoping that the death-rays from her look of pure hatred will bore holes into his back. No such luck.

18.30.00: Woman walks away.

18.35.00: Phone conversation ends, Eph hangs up.

In closing, I'll point out that there is another payphone two blocks away, and at no point did the woman ever mention that it was any sort of emergency. Also, if you haven't gotten a phone call from me in awhile, now you know why. So, let's all do some fist pumps in honor of Eph's superb handling of the situation. Bravo! or as the Greeks say, Bravo!

Photo note: Yeah, that's a real Greek payphone. All hail Google Images.

I'm On a Posting High, Just Roll With Me

2006-05-06T13:43:00.000+03:00

This is a 10-Euro bottle of saline solution for my contact lenses that I bought at the neighborhood pharmacy (the only place to get contact supplies). With the current Euro-USD exchange rate, that comes out to a price tag of $12.73. Now, I don't know about you, but I can find no discernable difference between this bottle and the identical one I got in the States for $3.99. Apparently, the inclusion of Spanish, French and Italian text on the label jacks the price up by nine bucks. Do the Greeks know how much this stuff costs everywhere else in the world?

Cavetastic! or, The Mani Finale

2006-05-06T13:29:00.000+03:00

On one particular day of exploring the Southern Argolid, Eph and I saw no fewer than three genuinely awesome caves. The one at left is the "big" Diros Cave, which you can see from the road.

This, however, is the "little" Diros Cave, which is actually just a huge sinkhole in the middle of a citrus orchard, and there is no trace of it at all unless you go down the steps featured below and basically come out inside of it.

In spite of how it looks, Eph was on no illegal substances at any time during the trip. Although, again, he did pee in the cave. Next to a church that had been built into the wall. Straight. To. Hell.

These are the Franchthi Caves, which have been excavated to reveal 20,000 years of human history inside. They are now brilliantly lit at night in order to gratify the rich dude who lives on the private island a few hundred meters away. It's so great that humans recognize what's truly important.

That's a wrap, folks! The Mani posts can be laid to rest. A grateful blogger thanks you; please tip your waitress.

The Dog and Pony Show

2006-05-06T13:28:00.000+03:00

OK, now we're on to the fun part of the Mani trip, that special time where I make snarky comments about everything. Yes, yes, some of that has already taken place, but I've got a lot of material here, and you people are going to hear about it. Also, I already took the trouble of uploading all the pictures into draft posts (yeah, that's right, Staci!), so let's all kill some time and indulge me, eh?

Everyone is familiar with the fact that semi-feral dogs basically roam free throughout Greece, but we encountered some of the kinder, gentler pooches in Gerolimenas. The dad of the family is pictured here:

Suki, do you know what he's doing? He's chasing a cat. That's what real dogs do.

I mean, for the love of Pete, is this really how you want to conduct yourself? Sleeping while wearing a hat? And you want to be my latex salesman.

The rest of the Gerolimenas dog family is pictured here, lying in a bag of mulch they obviously tore open. Strangely enough, no one in the town really liked these guys.

This "dog and pony show" (got to credit that line to Eph, unfortunately) was one of the weirdest and yet funniest scenes I think I've ever happened upon: a yellow lab and a miniature Shetland pony chilling in the same pen. We came down from single rock that comprises the ancient site of Assina, and these two were playing and fighting together like old friends. Greece is one crazy joint.

And, in point of fact, here's a goat eating an olive tree.

Lasting Memory of Mycenea

2006-05-06T13:25:00.000+03:00

I'll admit it, my lasting impression of Mycenea will always be fondly linked to the man pictured at left. He tried valiantly to use the women's bathroom, despite the cleaning woman who heroically threw herself in his path and physically barred him from entering. She then ranted at him for a few moments, gesturing wildly at the picture on the door of a little girl peeing. I think he got it after that. Best part: I heard him speaking in Greek to his plaid-clad wife, which means he's not an idiot foreign tourist, he's just an idiot.

These Mani Posts Will End Sometime, I Promise

2006-05-06T13:23:00.000+03:00

Allrighty, I'm back totally belatedly with more thrilling accounts from our trip down to the wild, wild southwest part of Greece. I know you've been yearning for the scinitillating return...

The final part of our crazy road trip took us to the Argolid, pictured at left. We went all over the place in our little Hyundai Accent, and I think it was my favorite part of the whole trip. Eph suspects that's because there was a lot more access to shopping in this area (as opposed to the total commercial wasteland that is the Mani), but I purchased nothing while we were there. Take that.

This is beautiful Nafplion. We stayed at a hotel called the Kapodistrias, named after probably the most famous Greek Independence fighter, who was then imprisoned for treason during the ensuing civil war. Easy come, easy go, I guess. Nafplion is about 100 million times more civilized than any other place we went on the trip. As you can see, it's, well, a city. I've come to realize I need close access to something approaching a metropolis in order to feel at peace with the world, so I guess it's good that Eph did NOT get a job in, say, Tallahassee. If you live in Tallahassee, my apologies. (You know, for the fact that you have to reside there.)

But I digress. Nafplio is dominated by a Venetian castle that sits above the main town, and there are reportedly 999 steps leading up to the main gate.

The sound effect for this picture goes a little something like this: "Four hundred gasp and ten, four hundred gasp and eleven, four hundred hehhhhhhhhhhhh..."

But, as you can see, the view is worth it.

Can you tell what Eph is doing in this photo? He does this at every site we visit.

This is the ancient theater at Epidaurus, where according to Eph, only tragedies were performed. So, in ye olde ancient times, if you were shlepping out to Epidaurus for the play, you already knew it was going to end badly. Endings perpetually ruined, it's an interesting concept. Josie, you may want to think about this as an option if you're ever producing anything?

This is the Lion's Gate at the ancient acropolis of Mycenea. The ruins have been turned into a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which simply means that about 1,000 tour buses full of obnoxious pre-teens must be clogging up the cramped parking lot at all times. UNESCO's really got things figured out.

After we left Mycenea, we drove back to Athens in a brown haze of sand kicked up by a sand storm that had blown over from Africa. Then we got caught in some horrific afternoon traffic and had to drive all the way across town to return the rental car. I think you had to be there to appreciate it.

Character Assassination: Phil

2006-05-01T12:20:00.000+03:00

On this, day 3 of Albanian Cold Virus 2006, the third day of painful congestion, phlegm that you wouldn't believe, and sneezes that post a 6.9 on the Richter scale, I have decided to name the person who has wronged me and mine so badly. Read on:

This is our "friend," Phil. Oh sure, he looks like a nice, normal guy, but right there in that picture he is devising the ultimate plan to make Eph and me ill with the very same virus he and his wife, Alison, caught somewhere in the wilds of Albania. Oh sure, he played it cool, acting like Sanitary Larry, asking if I had hand sanitizer, but don't be fooled by his elaborate ruse. This man is a menace; I think he purposefully sneezed on my car door handle (he aimed it!). Ol' Phil doesn't sound so nice and normal now, does he?

It all started when we rented this horrifically uncomfortable car to go on a day trip to the Southern Argolid. At the rental place, Phil first asked for a SmartCar 4x4, a clear sign that he wanted to kill us all, but settled for the Nissan Micra at left. For the record, this is the most uncomfortable car in the world, and let me assure you that the Newtons have had some clunkers in their day. The 1978 Toyota Celica with rust eating away at the floor? A dream machine compared to this piece of total crap. Let's move on.

Our day consisted mostly of this...

...and this. Eph, still somewhat delusional after the very stressful last few months, was convinced that there were the remains of a tuna fishery somewhere near Mount Methana. Given the fact that the sterling scholarship known as the Blue Guide listed the site oh-so-assuredly as "ancient(?) tuna fisheries" and never gave a precise location for them, I offered repeatedly that, perhaps, we were on yet another Ancient Acropolis of Zarax-like wild goose chase. Phil, supposedly a fellow scholar of Eph's, did nothing to dissuade Eph from the raving-mad notion that these fisheries actually existed but, in fact, took advantage of Eph's weakened mental state and encouraged him to keep looking.

"Eeeeph, Eeeeph, the tuna fisheries are out there. Just one more inlet, one more, man. We're almost out of gas, but don't sweat it. Here, I licked this brownie, but why don't you eat it?" Eph, sensing the diabolical pull of evil, tries to resist, but Phil continues, "Don't listen to Anne-Marie. She sounds perfectly reasonable, and in fact has been right on all previous occasions, but what does she know? She studied English. That's practically like getting a GED." Eph, stunned into silence, shakes his head, but Phil hisses, "Let's climb up that random hill to look at a crappy stone tower. It may have been built in 1950, but who cares, man? Who cares? Here, have a sip of my Albanian virus-laden water, it's so good..."

This is actually just a cool picture of volcanic rock up on Mount Methana. But let's not forget that we're still flaming Phil.

Just look at how sick I am.

I'm narrowing my eyes at you, Phil.

Narrowing. My. Eyes.

We're Sick

2006-04-30T16:49:00.000+03:00

This is how I feel.

And this is how Eph feels.

And yes, we haven't seen you in awhile, so we wanted to break it to you gently, through circa 1970's pen-and-ink-drawings, that I now have a gerry curl and Eph has male pattern baldness.

We'd like to thank our friends, Phil and Alison, for giving us a terrible, terrible virus. Well done, you two, well done.

New Nephew, Woo Hoo!

2006-04-18T18:25:00.000+03:00

Welcome to the world, Joseph Cade Rubin! Cade, as he will be called (great name, by the way), was born yesterday, April 17th, weighing in at a healthy 9 lbs. 3 oz. Melissa, high fives on that one...we send all our love from Athens and we can't wait to meet our new little buddy in about a month. And, if I may be honest, among other things, I'm pretty excited that Party in Pangrati has expanded its readership. We need all the young, impressionable minds we can get.

On that note, here's hoping that sweet little Joseph Cade grows up to be a little more normal than ol' Joseph Mark here. We've all got our fingers crossed for you.

Eph Doing Classics

2006-04-16T14:20:00.000+03:00

I've decided to take a quick break in the mind-numbingly dry (trust me, I'm as bored as you are) narrative of the historical and archaeological highlights of our trip to show you how Eph conducts his important work as a Classicist. At left is a perfect example of what I have come to call "Eph doing Classics!" (exclamation point is mandatory, as is a quick "jazz hands" move). Rejected terms for this were "Nerding It Up, Classics-style" and "Driving Around All Day Looking for a Site May Just Be a Few Rocks or Might Not Exist At All." This is probably obvious, but I have been accused of not being hardy enough to be a Classicist. But back to Eph, let's get a close-up of him reading an inscription:

Do not try this unsupervised at home or anything. You have to work up to intensity like that, folks.

If you are, in fact, an aspiring Classicist, you will also need to bone up physically. Here, Eph demonstrates his hard-won physical prowess by throwing rocks at a buoy. Now again, this is not something you can just go out and do on your first day as a Classicist. Eph reports that he honed this particular skill during his year of rigorous course work as a Regular Member of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. He will never be forgotten in the hallowed halls of that famed institution.

There is not enough academic funding in the world to cultivate this kind of brilliance. Note how he has positioned himself in full view of the Death Oracle in the cave behind him, as if drawing on its ancient power to propel the rocks closer to the buoy. Our research indicates that the Oracle may still have been at its condo in Florida, however, since Eph never really came close to hitting anything but the water.

Here, Eph inspects a grate covering a hole at Ancient Corinth. Safety first, people.

Equipment is also very important to Eph's ground-breaking work, and as you can see, we sprang big for the ecomony sized rental car. We had the option of the mini size, which costs less and is, in fact, a riding lawn mower, but no, only the best for us.

Proper eye-wear is also crucial. As you can see, these are authentic Ray Ban sunglasses that Eph purchased from a man who roams the Port of Pireas with a black trash bag full of his wares. The asking price? 20 euros. Final cost? 5 euros. Do not trifle with a Classicist.

I can't stress the importance of nutrition enough. Eph very strictly adheres to the USDA food pyramid.

This is also a tutorial on the proper placement of pistacio shells.

Next to nutrition, adequate sleep is crucial for staying at the top of one's mental and physical abilities. Here, Eph shows that, when a Classicist is tired, he must rest wherever he finds himself. This requires a discipline and pluck that not every person can expect to achieve.

This is Eph high-fiving the statue honoring fishermen lost at sea. Proper reverance and respect for historical objects is of utmost importance and is not to be taken lightly.

Finally, a Classicist can never be afraid to have his photo taken with modern signs that vaguely relate in an obscure and rather tenuous way to his dissertation. Eph's masterpiece deals with the fishing economy of the ancient Aegean, and here, he places himself proudly next to a sign for the town of Tuna.

Peloponnese Mania: The Mani

2006-04-16T13:36:00.000+03:00

OK, next on our little bloggerific jaunt through the Peloponnese is the Mani, which is the middle of the three peninsulas that make up the Peloponnese Peninsula. In other words, the Mani is the "middle finger" of the Peloponnese, and truth be told, its inhabitants embody that "seriously, leave me alone" attitude. Case in point, as we were driving from Monemvasia all the way over to Gerolimenas, we went through Githio, thinking, "Yeah, this is a big town, let's get gyros for lunch and then be on our way." Silly, silly Americans. Surrounded by about 4,000 bustling fish tavernas, we wandered around for the better part of an hour trying to find a gyro joint. Anyone who has been to Greece knows that these places are dime a dozen--you can't say you're in a "town" unless it's got a gyro place. But no, Githio was strangely devoid of such establishments. We actually got as far as going into a restaurant that looked promising (meat on grill--always a good sign), ordered and received sodas from the rather odd dude at the counter, and made a clear request for souvlaki (close enough to a gyro). I went to use bathroom, and when I came back, Eph was sitting outside, sans fatty pork and pita, and the guy was holding the door open, obviously waiting for me to leave. I gave him a rather quizzical look, and he locked the door behind me. Eph was like, "Yeah, I guess he's closed now. I paid for the sodas, though." Wait, what? We're still scratching our heads over this one. First of all, where did the meat that we saw cooking go? There were a couple other people in the restaurant who left shortly before we did--did they take it? Secondly, why in God's name did he take our order and then not give us food? Finally, why didn't he give us the sodas, since clearly, we had been totally screwed over. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? We sped away in our rented Hyundai Accent (four-door!), vowing never to return and to spread the word that Githio, ahem, sucks.

This is a shot of Gerolimenas which, as you can tell, is one huge metropolis. It's really a very pretty little fishing village, with a few hotels and tavernas and a cafe right on the water. Eph and I were two of, oh, let's say, two visitors in the whole town, and as you can imagine we had no trouble getting a room. Or a table and the empty, empty tavernas. Actually, there were some British women roaming about, but we never saw them out at night. I'm sure in the summer the place is happening, but early April is still decidely the off-season.

Eph and I took a walk along the coastline one evening before dinner, and happened upon these old windmills. Pretty cool, eh?

For some reason, I am intensely proud of this picture. Glad I got that off my chest. There is no adequate way to describe how barren the region is. We drove through village after village, each containing a few houses, sometimes a gas station, and rarely a grocery store or taverna. The Mani is known for its honey, though, and we did see a few signs tacked up on trees advertising one guy or another's home grown honey. We lacked the fortitude to knock on anyone's door though. I wussed out and bought some at a grocery store in, Kardamili, one of the bigger towns.

We spent one day driving all over the tip of the peninsula, looking at ancient sites like this Temple of Posidon on the ultra-barren Cape Tainaros (the southernmost part of Greece, by the way). Scintillating. Not pictured is the that donkey brayed unbelievably loudly the entire time we were there.

This cave, which is right below the Temple of Posidon pictured above, contained a Death Oracle in ancient times. Now, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Yeah, that's right--when I get my metal band together, I think "Death Oracle" is at the top of the short list for names. I can't believe it's not already taken, but who am I to look a gift donkey in the mouth? Thanks to Kathy, I already have the xylophone (Toronto neighbors, here I come!), so anyone who's interested, you know where to post comments...

I totally forget the name of this site, but it near Vathia, a little ways south of Gerolimenas. Stay tuned for more pictures (think "Eph in Classics action!"), but this is what's left of a very pretty basilica. It basically stands in some cow farmer's pasture now.

Gratuitous scenery shot from a medival fort in Kardamili. I've spared you so far, so deal with it.

Peloponnese Mania: Corinth and Laconia

2006-04-14T15:30:00.000+03:00

Before I get into the inevitable snide commentary, and trust me, there's an abundant supply of that, I thought I might show pictures of the legitimate (a term I use loosely) archeological sites that we saw in and around the Pelopponese. For those of you who have no idea where the Pelopponese penninsula is located (i.e. all of you, don't lie), here's a handy map I stole off of Google Images:

God Bless the Internet

This is a picture of the ancient acropolis of Corinth, which is ever-so-helpfully not shown on the map above. (What am I supposed to do, spoon feed you and tuck you into bed?) We stopped there the first day we had our rental car, and then continued down to Monemvasia. Spring has arrived in Greece, so everything is very green, which is unusual for Greece, and the wildflowers are out in full force. Corinth is located on an extremely thin strip of land between the Saronic and Corinthian (obviously a huge strategic post, hence its long history), but now it's pretty industrial. And, therefore, kind of gross.

At left, a view of Mount Taygetus from the ancient city of Corinth. Nice smog, huh? Most of it comes from dirty, dirty Athens.

After Corinth, we drove down to Laconia, into the prettier and wayyyyy more remote part of our trip. Monemvasia sits on one big rock jutting out of the sea, and the city itself perches right on the eastern hillside. It's a Byzantine town, and if you're super-nerdy, feel free to click here for historical background and more photos. It's actually one of my favorite places I've visited in Greece thus far--it's surrounded by mountains that go right to the sea, and the old town is really cool with narrow streets and Byzantine-era houses that are converted into hotels.

The view from our hotel window.

Above the main town, there's a Frankish castle and this church, Agia Something or Other. I don't remember the real name. Sorry.

Ancient Acropolis of Epidavros. One of two ancient sites we daytripped to from Monemvasia, this one was definitely cooler. There were tons of pottery sherds at the base of the site (evident because some dude had just plowed a field for planting). Eph and I looked for the Next Big Thing in Classics. No luck. We did, however, see the inscription below, which is ancient history. HAH. Get it?

You can see and, of course, read this piece of humanity's history, right? There was a fence. Eph jumped it. Then he realized the fence had a door for free and easy access, but by then I was already walking away with the camera. Time and tide wait for no Classicist.

I mentioned above that there were superlative values given to the sites we visited around Monemvasia, and here you can see why. This is the ancient acropolis of Zarax, which I have offically renamed Crapax. There it is--wait--no--yeah--nope!, there's nothing there. According to the Blue Guide (guidebook for archaeologists), the "ruins of Zarax dominate the modern town." Ok, there are so many reasons why the previous sentence is totally and completely false. 1) WHAT RUINS OF ZARAX?! We stumbled around over rubble walls and through huge patches of stinging nettle to find this place, and...came up short. 2) How can ruins "dominate" if you can't find them? 3) I would hardly call the loose assemblage of abandoned buildings and ramshackle houses a "town," let alone a "modern town."

All right, I'm done with this leg. The Mani is next, folks. I know you wait with baited breath.

Bahama Mama

2006-04-11T18:19:00.000+03:00

Allrighty, I'm going to ease myself back into the blog posts by recapping our little jaunt down to the Bahamas.

This pretty much captures the gist of our vacation. I didn't get a shot of us eating, but we did a fair amount of that, too. Like, a lot. Oh, and we snorkeled, fished, sailed, read books, weathered a pretty dang big blow and did lots of other fun stuff. Thanks, Kathy and Boberino!

Yep. Eat your heart out.

What's a tropical vacation without a goodly amount of palm fronds scattered here and there? Fronds, what a great word; c'mon say it with me, fronds. It's one of those unique words where Americans and Brits can all get on board and pronounce it together. Fronds. That's great.

Eph, Suki and I spent a day on a beautiful, undeveloped beach on Manjack Island, which is in the Abacoes. Suki quickly found her own dog cabana to get out of the midday sun. Unfortunately, it was the cabana boy's day off, so no dice on the Milkbone smoothie. Better luck next time, Poochimus.

At left is a nice picture of me and my pooch, sailing the Caribbean Sea. Look, no hands! As you can see, Suki has adopted the motto, "Safety First," and is taking all precautions by wearing her life vest. I, for one, am really tan.

Now, I am not one to judge, but I think someone should let Bob and Kathy know that their ship isn't looking so seaworthy, if you know what I mean. I know they're not in their 20s anymore, but they're not that old that they can't keep the boat up. Check it out, the mast has been ripped off, the lines have all rotted, we won't even talk about the teak, and there is a huge gash on the starboard side...

...and check out this patching job. Yeah, that's a gaping hole. I know what you're thinking, and yes, I was scared for my life to even set foot on deck. Seriously, why don't you take a little better care of your boat, guys!

Ok, I'm just kidding about the boat. It's actually a Turkish vessel, and I took those pictures in Gethio, a little harbor town in Greece. If I had taken a picture of the real, beautifully-kept Zancada, I would post it, but I am a slacker in the picture department. April Fools!

Blog Paralysis

2006-04-11T13:28:00.000+03:00

I apologize to, cough, all my readers for not posting since last month, but we roadtripped down to the southern Peloponnese (yeah, like any of you actually know where that is) for a week. I took hundreds of pictures, but now I have blog paralysis since the photos have to be organized, edited, uploaded, commented upon and the like. (Please, your pity is appreciated but unnecessary; I will prevail.) A herculean effort is being made to get everything up in due course. For real. You should see all the draft posts I have.

In other words: sit tight and I'll update the dang page! I you have any problems with that, you can stuff your sorries in a sack.

No Such Thing as "Idiot Proof"

2006-03-28T16:07:00.000+03:00

This is a SmartCar.

The reason for this total piece of crap's existance is that you can do exactly what's shown in this picture: park it anywhere. And trust me, Athenians take the term "anywhere" to it's upper limits. That aside, I just want to stress that the only reason you would take your life into your hands getting behind the wheel of one of these death-traps would be the parking. Otherwise, you're relegated to cruising around in a steel-pancake-waiting-to-happen with room enough for one other sub-5' person and maybe your wallet.

Let's roll back to this past Sunday. Eph and I were walking down our street, and we came upon a man directing the driver of a SmartCar into a parallel parking spot. Parallel! Not perpendicular, not perpendicular! The space was big enough for a full-sized car (we'll pretend a Fiat Punto is full-sized, 'kay?), but somehow, this person had gotten herself into a real pickle and had to have this other guy bail her out with some useless hand gestures and increasingly-irritated barked commands.

Post Script: I just got back from the gym, where one woman was sitting and reading a magazine with her legs crossed on one of the excercise bikes. She was wearing loafers. Do you think she gets home and wonders why she's not getting in shape?

Happy Birthday, Matt!

2006-03-20T14:23:00.000+02:00

Guess whose 32nd birthday it is? (You should be able to figure this one out.) I send the best of wishes down to Bahia, Brazil to my old, old brother Matt, recently named one of the Top Ten Party in Pangrati Readers by a noted internet source.

Happy birthday, Matt--I hope it's the best one yet.

The March Sweeps

2006-03-19T13:50:00.000+02:00

I am back in Athens, and in honor of my triumphant return and terrible jet lag, all of the Greek TV channels have decided to roll out some real stinkers on their late-night movie roster. I can't fall asleep before 4:00 or 5:00 a.m., so I stay up and watch TV until I'm tired, and then I can't haul myself out of bed before noon. It's like being a college freshman without all the perks (i.e. dorm cleaning service, meal service, class 3 times a week, my parents bankrolling the whole operation, etc.). Anyway, here's my review of the illustrious examples of American cinema that have been on over the past few days:

Martin Scorcese's "Gangs of New York"
This one would be more aptly titled "Gangs of Gee I'd Like That Three and a Half Hours of My Life Back." I would love to see the look on Scorcese's face when he is told that the Greek TV channel only had to pay the equivalent of $25 for the rights to show this "blockbuster" nationally. Daniel Day Lewis was good, Leonardo DiCaprio was so-so at best, and Cameron Diaz was wholly unconvicing as both redhead, as an Irish woman and, let's not mince words, as an actress. Did the latter two have accent coaches, or did they just watch "Far and Away" a couple times for instruction? Scorcese himself makes an oh-so-modest-and-not-at-all-prosaic appearance as a rich New Yorker (whoa! whoa! don't stretch yourself too much there, Marty!), which pretty much sealed this film's fate as a total, total waste of time.

"Rock Star," featuring Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Anniston
In deference to the classic rockumentary "This Is Spinal Tap," I'm going to give this one a two-word review: "Sh*t Star."

"All the Pretty Horses"
Um, did the people who made this movie ever read Cormac McCarthy's book? No really, did they? Seriously guys, I'm asking a question here.

"Highlander"
This was actually the first R-rated movie I ever had the pleasure and priviledge to see, and the good news is that R-rated movies could only be better after that. I don't really remember it being so terrible (in fact, my older brothers and my dad deemed it "awesome"), but, my God, was this some 15-year-old boy's after-school project or something? The sad thing is that I mentioned that I saw it to a guy at the American School, and he was like, "Oh, that's an awesome movie." I think I just widened my eyes in response at the time, but that doesn't prevent me from making snarky comments now. And while I would argue that the bulk of Queen's "music" catalog should be obliterated forever from human memory, their "work" on the soundtrack reached incredible, mind-blowing new lows. The fact that there is a "Highlander 2" truly hurts my sensibilities.

I have watched other flicks, but I think I've blocked them out for fear of further damage to my fragile psyche. When I get my act together, I just might post pictures of my vacation in the Bahamas, which, let me tell you, was sweet.

WHAT?!

2006-02-25T15:38:00.000+02:00

I'm back in the motherland, which is pretty great. My native language spoken? Check. NPR on at all times? Check. Sweet, beautiful, electric, 10-cup coffee makers? Che--AHHHHH!

I make no bones about the fact that I am truly, truly lucky to have my in-laws. Kathy and Bob are amazing, and not just because they have given our dog a life that I, personally, am jealous of. They are extremely generous, kind people, they are/will be wonderful grandparents, they have always been very welcoming to me and I still can't believe my good fortune at being part of their family.

That very sincerely said, is this a joke?

The Toastmaster CoffeeBreak. CoffeeBreak? What do I need a break from? I don't work!

Yeah, I got into Eph's parents' house in Georgia from the 18+ hour trip from Greece, and other than a shower, the thing I looked forward to most was that first cup of sweet, sweet liquid relief from the ultra-powered coffee maker that usually sits on their counter. What I found was this:

Note that the 8-oz. water bottle is, in fact, taller than the machine itself. I fully realize that some managerial decisions need to be made during the approximately 50 weeks per year that I am not at the Lytle house, but whoever thought getting rid of the real coffee maker is just plain wrong. My only hope is that somehow, some way, it's on the boat in the Bahamas (where we're heading in a few days--see you guys soon!), but I'm not holding my breath. My quiet but increasingly terrible fear is that Boberino is trying to force me into some sort of Faustian bargain: "We'll give you the coffee maker, we keep the dog." Not cool, guys, not cool. Don't think for one minute that your attempts to weaken me through caffeine deprivation are going to work.

Oh, and by the way, bad news about that carton of strawberry ice cream in the freezer. We owe you one.

Taking a Vacation from My Vacation

2006-02-23T12:46:00.000+02:00

Yes, that's right. The stress and strain of continually trying to find something that tops the Status Double has finally gotten to me, so I'm heading to the Bahamas for a couple weeks of rest and relaxation. Therefore, posts may be few and far between (I know you care, I know you do), since I will have to fight Kathy for blogging time on the boat. However, keep an eye out for some mind-expanding, terribly innovative cross blogging from Suki and myself. It could get wild, people, wild!

Enough Already!

2006-02-21T13:09:00.000+02:00

For the love of Pete, would those of you whose blogs I read (you know who you are) please start posting again?!? I realize that all of you are "busy" with "work" or "sailing" and "caring for our dog," but is that really an excuse not to keep me entertained? C'mon, guys. Shape up.

Another One Bites the Dust

2006-02-21T13:00:00.000+02:00

Sadly, I was at a movie last night and did not get to watch the final ice dancing events, but The New York Times was kind enough to dredge up a couple more shots of the falls from Sunday night. Ahh, the splitscreen. Well done, New York Times. On the left, another great action shot of Italian ice dancers biting it bigtime, and on the right we have some perfectly articulated body language. Any guesses whose fault that little spill was? She may be a perfectly nice person, I would imagine that the look on her face is one you want to avoid at all costs. The fact that he's all but prostrate before her lends credence to my theory.

2006-02-20T15:30:00.000+02:00

You know something is funny when you're just sitting alone on your couch, laughing until you're curled up in fetal position with tears rolling down your cheeks. To that end, let me point you towards the picture at left: ahahahahhhhhahhh!

I had the tremendous fortune of catching some of the ice dancing competition last night, and boy, I hope you saw some of it, too. When people fall in figure skating (which is somewhat closer to an actual "sport"), it's like watching a pile-up at the Indy 500--your interest is definitely piqued, but you're also a little worried about head-cracking. However, that is not so in ice dancing, my friends, not so! I saw three falls that were absolutely priceless insofar as a) no one was going to get hurt and b) it was just so funny. The key element in all of them was the fact that, as one person fell, he/she dragged his/her partner down, as well. As you can imagine, the train-wreck spiraled downward from there until both people were sprawled on the ice, clawing at one another to get back to their feet, oftentimes pulling the other person down multiple times in order to get back to the routine. The picture above captures perfectly the mixed expression of consternation, total rage, and utter, utter humiliation. Honestly, that guy is in what can only be called "the prone position." The other fantastic part was that, as you can see, most of the women were wearing showgirl outfits while the gents were exposing their man-cleavage with the most baffling style of shirt I have ever seen, and all the while in the background, the snappy Latin-beat music pumped on. I am a huge ice dancing fan now.

I Am A Universal Lady

2006-02-18T18:58:00.000+02:00

In other good news, I joined a gym this week with the unforgettable name of "Universal Ladies." And let me tell you, these gals are something. There are a few unwritten rules of which I was totally unaware when I signed up, the foremost being that never, at any time, are you actually supposed to break a sweat. This is key, since most Greek women roll in wearing a full face of makeup and appliqued sweatsuits and then spend 30 minutes walking at a leisurely pace on the treadmill. Why they pay 50 Euros per month for this I do not understand. There is a small but strong contingent of Americans who work out there, and you can easily identify them by their heavy breathing, shorts and total disregard for Rule #1.

Actually getting signed up proved to be fairly difficult, since the girl at the front desk wanted to be certain that I was abreast of the full range of the gym's resources, and yet she felt that her English was not up to the task. I showed up at 9:00 a.m. in my gym clothes, but at her request, I went back home to wait for the other girl who works the front desk to come in at 11:30. She had not arrived by the time I returned at 12:00, and the first girl wanted me to come back again, but at that point I was just like, "Oh my God, just put me down for a month and I'll figure the rest out later. I'm wearing running shoes, for the love of God!" Through good ol' pushiness, I circumvented the typical Greek method of operation (i.e. go somewhere, accomplish nothing, return later, maybe accomplish something, wait awhile, curse under your breath, etc.), and I was soon running and gasping for air on the treadmill in a rather unseemly fashion.

The most puzzling event of the excursion occured in the locker room. After I worked out, I went down to scope out the sauna, showers, TANNING BED (yep!), and whatnot, and I used the bathroom. Another girl was washing her hands at the sink next to me as I was washing up myself, and she turned on the hand dryer first. She then proceeded to use the hand dryer for a good five minutes. I was standing there, clean hands dripping, not wanting to wipe them on my sweaty pants, and she just dried, dried, dried away. She was impervious to my conspicuous flicking of water beads into the sink and heavy sighs. At that point, I was as close as I've ever come to saying, "OK, now you're just doing it to piss me off," but I held back.

What Are You Talking Aboot?

2006-02-18T18:41:00.000+02:00

Yeah, that's right, "aboot." I'm getting myself psyched up for our impending conversion to Canadianism, since the Ephster went right out and got himself a job. Woo hoo! He'll be spreading his knowledge and wisdom to the youths at the University of Toronto, while I will be combing the greater-Toronto area for the Canadian equivalent of a Status Double. Oh, and apparently I'm going to have to be employed, too. Nonetheless, pretty good, eh?

The map at left is for those of you who are unfamiliar with the geography of Canada (trust me, we've all been there).

And this is a nice scenic shot of the city. Snow? What snow?

All Hail the Poochiferous Chiferchops

2006-02-14T18:56:00.000+02:00

Happy Fake Birthday to the Poochimus Maximus! We believe that Suki was born somewhere in the vicinity of February, 2003, so we decided that Valentine's Day was as good as any to shower our dog with lavish gifts. Sukester, your knockoff Prada bag and Gucci sunglasses are in the mail--did you think I would forget?

Oh yeah, Happy Valentine's Day to all you humans out there. Ladies, on this day, let us acknowledge what's truly important: ensuring that your bouquet is bigger and flashier than your coworkers'.

That Wacky Tobacky

2006-02-12T18:34:00.000+02:00

Well, I've decided to continue with my occasional series regarding the Winter Olympics, mainly because there's not a whole lot going on right now, and other than recapping the play-by-play of my Greek homework, I got nothing else. Also, they really kicked it up a notch today by showing men's snowboarding. Judging by the minutes-long silences of the Greek commentator, I'm guessing she doesn't know a whole lot about the sport, but then John Tesh doesn't know anything about gymnastics and they always give him a microphone. This woman pretty much read the weather conditions and course profile every few minutes and let the athletes (athletes?) speak for themselves.

And that brings me to my main point: WHOA. I grew up in Maine when snowboarding was just burgeoning as a really popular sport, and I knew a few kids who took it seriously, but they were nowhere near as wickity-wack as these guys on the U.S. Olympic Team. (By the way, we're back to American domination of the Olympics, at least in what they've covered so far. Phew! That was a close one!)

To begin, I must admit that I am puzzled by the acoutrements of snowboarding. Jacket, snowpants, helmets, goggles, those I get, but the iPod seems to be required as well. And it's not just a get-psyched-up-and-focus kind of iPod, it's a jack-up-the-volume-and-compete kind of deal. Forgive me for saying, but isn't the Olympics kind of important? I mean, I love my iPod with a feeling lasting and true, but I'm not quite sure I would roll into, say, a big job interview with my headphones on and the Beastie Boys blaring. However, in all fairness, it didn't look like any of these guys had been to a job interview, so maybe the coaches haven't clued them in.

My favorite one was the guy who came in dead last but still did several fist-pumps and showed off his snowboard for the cameras. If the snowboard thing was just to satisfy his sponsors, well then that's just good ol' American commercialism, but it is a rare thing to see someone score 9 out of a possible 50 points and still maintain such bravado. You make our country proud, buddy. His compatriot on both the team and in the final rankings, who totally kicked some aerial ass with a whopping score of 24, also did a fair amount of mugging for the folks back at home and actually kissed the camera, leaving a Chapstick-y lip mark on the lens. The only description I have for that starts with "c" and ends with "lassy." Needless to say, these two guys clearly weren't listening to the right tunes while they totally embarrassed themselves on global television. That or the huge doob they smoked together right before the event didn't have the desired effect.

Let the ice dancing begin!

2006-02-11T19:51:00.000+02:00

Let's just get this out of the way: contrary to what we see in the States, all the good athletes are not American! Who knew?!

Naturally, I am referring to the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Greek TV channel ET1 on its stellar coverage of...the biathalon. Now, I realize the IOC crew should take all the credit for kicking the Games off with such a scintillating, premier sport like the combo of skiing and shooting, but a hearty "bravo!" goes out to ET1 for airing the event in its full and unabridged entirety. I think the only other congratulations to be made should go to me for actually watching, but it was a choice between the biathalon or an episode of (wince) "Seventh Heaven." And, c'mon folks, I think we all know that that's not really a "choice" at all.

However, while we're on the subject of the biathalon, let me call to your mind the great Jerry Seinfeld's summation of the sport: "Why don't they just combine swimming and strangling a guy?"

The good news, however, is that since my Greek is still in the sub-pidgin stage, my senses are blissfully unassailed by the likes of a Hellenic version of Bob Costas (who, by the way, as his name infers, is of Greek descent). I don't know if such an equivalent even exists, but if he does, I wouldn't be the one to know. Whatever little "feelings pieces" they throw up there to kill time are lost on me, so excuse me while I head off to watch men's figure skating.

I Couldn't Help Myself

2006-02-10T19:14:00.000+02:00

Josie, maybe you can learn the sign language to this one, too? Please? You'll be my heeeerooooo...

"Wind Beneath My Wings"

Ohhhh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh.
It must have been cold there in my shadow,
to never have sunlight on your face.
You were content to let me shine, that's your way.
You always walked a step behind.

So I was the one with all the glory,
while you were the one with all the strength.
A beautiful face without a name for so long.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain.

Did you ever know that you're my hero,
and everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
but I've got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you.

Did you ever know that you're my hero?
You're everything I wish I could be.
I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings.

Did I ever tell you you're my hero?
You're everything, everything I wish I could be.
Oh, and I, I could fly higher than an eagle,
for you are the wind beneath my wings,
'cause you are the wind beneath my wings.

Oh, the wind beneath my wings.
You, you, you, you are the wind beneath my wings.
Fly, fly, fly away. You let me fly so high.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.
Oh, you, you, you, the wind beneath my wings.

Fly, fly, fly high against the sky,
so high I almost touch the sky.
Thank you, thank you,
thank God for you, the wind beneath my wings.

Fly, fly, fly high against the sky, everyone!

Did You Ever Know...?

2006-02-10T19:02:00.000+02:00

Beaches was on last night. I won't lie, I cried like it was the first time I'd seen it. Lay off.

Good story though--the first time I did see Beaches was in the Newton family kitchen when I was a kid. My parents, brilliant tacticians that they were, decided that not only would we only own one 9" black and white television, but it would be placed in the middle of the kitchen where no one could possibly be comfortable watching TV sitting in a hard wooden chair for more than 3 minutes. However, on the rare occasions that Bob and Carol would actually let us watch something (usually something they wanted to watch--I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, guys!), we were caught in the agonizing dilemma of being like, "Ahh, forget it! I'm having back spasms!" and "Ooh, television...the kids at school will think I know stuff." So, I suffered through the shooting pains and endless commercial breaks to watch Beaches that fateful night, accompanined by my mom, I think a couple of my brothers, and oh yes, my dad, Bob. And let me tell you, there was not a dry eye in the house at the end of that one, but being the I'm-not-crying!-Who's-crying? kind of family, we all denied it to the hilt.

Last little thing: it is sooooooooooo funny to email your friends with a message that contains nothing but the full and unabridged lyrics to "Wind Beneath My Wings." Honestly, it never stops being funny. Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All," works swimmingly as well. I'm giving these ideas away for free, people!

2006-02-10T18:41:00.000+02:00

I don't know why I'm airing this dirtly laundry for the entire Party in Pangrati community (6 people is a community, right?), but I'm in the computer lab and this just happened:

I was minding my own business, typing away at an email, when the person sitting next to me got up from her computer, conspicuously looked at my hand (which, yes, has red ink on it! sue me), and then she walked out of the lab. Seconds later, she returned and asks me, "Do you really feel comfortable wearing your engagement ring?"

Now, I'm certain that she was aware (as are y'all, for that matter) that Eph was until only recently a grad student. Now, I don't mean to be crude, but my expectations on engagement rings were exceeded exponentially when he presented one of the "Lytle rocks" which had belonged to his Great Aunt Ermine. By all accounts, she was a very sweet lady and I am grateful and honored to wear her ring. And, for the record, it's not like you can strap your skates on and go for a spin but the ring is, well, you know, nice.

I was sort of stunned for a minute, and then I asked, "What do you mean? Am I worried someone's going to rip it off my hand?" And she said, "Of course. Most people don't bring their engagement rings for fear they're going to be stolen. I left mine at home."

A little back story: I met this girl for the first time at the American School's annual garden party last fall. She immediately told me that, when looking at newlyweds like Eph and myself, she, and I quote, "Wanted to push me off a cliff." As with this evening, I sort of stammered a "W-why????" and it turns out that her husband had originally planned to come to Greece with her, but had gotten promoted at work and decided to bail at the last minute. I think we're all agreed that an "Ouch!" is in order, but am I the one who convinced him to stay?

So anyway, I reiterated to her that, uh, NO, I don't think anyone is going to steal the ring from my hand, especially where I live and hang out in Athens. I also questioned the point of having a ring if one isn't going to wear it, and that sort of stopped her for a few seconds. She then divulged that he-who-bailed, her husband, would be coming to visit in a few days and she would be demanding that he bring her ring.

Ouzo, anyone?

Peaceful, Easy Feeling...Not - OR - I Have Hundreds of Dollars...Not

2006-02-02T16:11:00.000+02:00

My Wachovia debit card was declined at the supermarket yesterday, a problem that I naturally attested to the generally incomprehensible incompetence of most Greek systems. However, I checked my bank account online this morning, and about a week ago someone decided to help himself to $400 in unauthorized purchases.

Obviously, I started to freak out and immediately called probably the most unhelpful person employed by the Wachovia Corporation, which, I'm telling you, is saying a lot. Granted, this woman was at work at 6:00 a.m. EST, but her 'tude was like that of a 13-year-old at Grandma's 85th birthday party. I told her, "You know, I live in Greece, I don't buy things over the internet." And she was like, "We don't know that! We don't know that! You could be ordering stuff night and day!" Of course, the bank froze my account because the very same purchases looked suspicious, but Detective Meany wasn't so sure I wasn't trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes.

After wasting 10 minutes of international toll call time, she gave me the number of the Fraud Department and sent me on my merry way. Of course, they work standard business hours, so I sat around and freaked out for another two hours waiting for 8 a.m. EST to roll around.

The call did not start well, namely because the Fraud Department's hold music is an acoustic guitar version of whatever song the Eagles sing that goes, "I've got a peaceful, easy feeling/And I know you won't let me down..." Yeah, as you're imagining ripping someone's face off, being told to feel "peaceful and easy" and being assured that Wachovia won't "let [you] down" is a recipe for utter insanity. Wachovia, we see through your quiet, contemplative music! Shut up!

Things actually improved after that, because the girl who helped me was very nice and actually apologized for putting me on hold since I was calling internationally. For those of you who are about to rush to your checkbooks to send me a replacement $400, fear not: they'll refund my money by the end of this business day and figure out the fraud part later. You know, had the first woman I spoke with given me that little tidbit of information, I would have felt a lot better, but clearly she was not cuddled enough as a child or something.

So, now I just have to worry about the fact that somehow, someone got ahold of my card and went on a shopping spree. And to that person, I suggest that you go here and burn, burn for all eternity:

Yep, right down there on the bottom. That's grreat...

Showin' the Greeks How It's Done

2006-02-01T18:45:00.000+02:00

A swell couple of incidents today:

I was downtown at the Central Market looking for dried mushrooms today, and I found some that looked pretty decent at a dry goods store. The surrounding barrels of porcinis, shitakes, etc. were all priced in the range of 11 to 15 Euros per kilo, but there was one that was marked 395. I naturally assumed that the price tag was simply missing a decimal point, and requested a quarter-kilo of them. However, the minute the employee came over to scoop them into a bag for me, she started to laugh. It then became quite clear that what they say about assuming things is true. I did not purchase the aforementioned quarter-kilo.

Then, as I was walking to the American School a few minutes ago, I had my umbrella out. There is this one kiosk that really irriates me because it's right in the middle of the sidewalk, which just can't be up to code, even for Greek standards. However, I charged past it, umbrella held high, once again assuming that there was enough room between the kiosk and the apartment building wall for me to get through, but no. The umbrella wedged itself in between the two structures, and in the process, the spokes of the umbrella caught the hair on the top of my head. Of course there were two Snidey McSnidleton girls walking toward me, and of course my hair was standing on end. I had to wiggle out, sans several clumps of hair and any shred of dignity.

Tomorrow is a new day, tomorrow is a new day...

Think About This One for Awhile

2006-02-01T11:57:00.000+02:00

There is something profoundly disturbing about a kebab joint located directly next door to a pet store.

You Like Me, You Really Like Me!

2006-01-31T13:42:00.000+02:00

I have a friend who's Uzbekistani. I just thought that warranted a post on this here blog. Her name is Anastasia and she's in my Greek class. She bought me a cappucino today, which made me feel like a total heel since she had just gotten through explaining how terrible the Uzbekistani economy is. I sincerely hope I managed to convey "I'll get it next time" adequately in my mangled but well-intentioned Greek.

I never really considered this kind of thing before, but she actually has to explain where her country is located, which most people don't really have to do. I leave you with that.

I'm Breathing Into a Bag, I'm Breathing Into a Bag

2006-01-30T18:43:00.000+02:00

Eph is currently interviewing for a teaching position in Canada, a wholly nerve-wracking endeavor that involves several interminable tete-a-tetes with each member of the Classics faculty, some truly painful meal-time discussions, with a few good ol' public speaking opportunities thrown in. Awesome. If you're not hyperventillating just hearing about this, then you can go stuff your sorries in a sack for all I care. However, in order to get through all of this together, let's visualize some positive outcomes:

This is how Eph will look and comport himself after surviving the next two days. We can't quite guarantee the presence of little Nathaniel, however.

Here, Emma demonstrates how we will heartily congratulate Eph come Tuesday evening.

Finally, Brooke and Katerina shall lead us all in the Dance of Joy (insert the ever-horrific "Celebrate" song here).

And no, no I did not import pictures from our wedding and put them up here. Sheesh.

2006-01-25T18:51:00.000+02:00

Yep.

In case you thought I was exaggerating about Athenians being generally hysterical about the less than 1" accumulation of snow, please note that both mother and child in this picture are wearing snowpants. Come on.

Maybe You Read This and Maybe You Don't Wake Up

2006-01-24T13:19:00.000+02:00

I don't even know where to begin.

First of all, let's just say that it's snowing in Athens, the Mediterranean city of whitewashed houses and sun-dappled roofs. All those with small children and/or delicate sensitivities may want to avert their eyes from the following statement: this is total bullsh*t. It is kind of funny because all the Athenians are walking around as though they've just landed in Siberia. It's sort of like North Carolina, where we used to live--when it snows in Durham, the Department of Transportation runs out of salt within an hour. The funniest thing is that people get in their cars and then immediately lose control and end up in a ditch. And I lauuuuughed...

Secondly, Ephwasinthehospitalbutnowhe'sOK! (I put that all together there so you wouldn't be too overcome with worry.) I won't give all the gory details, but he basically had terrible, terrible burning in his esophagus (that's "esophagus" in Greek), and he had to stay at this fairly swank private hospital for three days. While in this fairly swank hospital, he spent probably a total of 30 minutes with the gargantuan team of doctors that came to treat him, but they sure did run a lot of tests! It's definitely a physical problem that was probably instigated/augmented by the significant stress he's feeling over two upcoming job interviews. We also got a fairly swank bill, which, let me tell you, is awesome. (Note to self: while they seem good at the time of purchase, high insurance deductibles are NOT all they're cracked up to be.)

There were some highlights of the experience, though:

First, I am the effing MASTER of the #550 bus. I rode it 8 times in 48 hours while Eph was in the hospital, and then I had to go and come back again yesterday to pay the bill. Clearly, my expertise and general bus savviness show, since like 400,000 people asked me which stops were where, does this go to the 1896 Olympic Stadium, etc. etc., and I can honestly say that I did have most of the answers. I don't know why people always ask me things, though, because I really don't look Greek at all. Whatever.

Another great hit was when Eph, distressed at the thought of not being able to sleep once he left the hospital (he hasn't slept more than 4-5 hours a night in weeks), asked two doctors who were in his room to discharge him for a sleeping pill prescription. They looked at him like he was crazy, and the doctor in charge was like, "You're a young man! We only give those to old people who are going to die soon!" In response to that happy thought, Eph was like, "Well, I have job interviews coming up. I really need to be able to sleep." The younger, apprentic-y doctor grabbed the bedrails at the foot of Eph's bed, thrust his face aggressively toward Eph, and said, "Maybe you take them, and then maybe you don't wake up." There was an awkward silence as Eph and I looked at eachother like, "Umm, what?" Clearly, the Greeks don't hold with medication for anxiety or stuff like that. Right-e-o. The doctors parted with the following advice: "Take a bath and relax." Thanks, thanks a lot. I'm glad we paid $3300 for such sage medical advice.

Actually, it was funny because most of the doctors Eph saw had studied and practiced in the States and were clearly very well qualified. However, we could totally tell that they thought that we thought they were backwoods hacks, because they were all very insistent about listing their credentials. The first thing anyone said was, "I studied at Georgetown," or "I did my residency at Harvard," and we were just like, "Yeah, fantastic. Can he have some drugs?"

So This is Christmas

2006-01-14T12:12:00.000+02:00

I think we're all familiar with the poncho Martha Stewart wore when she was released from prison; see left, where Suki models the canine version--seriously! there's a pattern!--with considerable aplomb. However, as you'll notice, Suki is also sporting the "Martha Stewart Coming Home Legwarmers," which did not get as much press as the legendary poncho. Many thanks to Kathy/Vannah for her help in displaying these important highlights in fashion history.

Worn out from the demands of the adoring public, Suki takes a much-needed rest.

Seriously, modeling is hard.

(If you must know, yes, I did spend a fair amount of time knitting both the poncho and the legwarmers, but while waiting for countless hours in the Portland, Maine airport. That makes it ok. And by the way, there is nothing wrong with dressing up your dog.)

My New Best Friend

2006-01-10T13:05:00.000+02:00

Yet again, I had some trouble getting on a flight back to Athens, but that's all behind me now and I'm back in the land of baklava and knockoff Gucci sunglasses. More importantly, I'm now best friends with famous, famous people. To wit: take yourself to the Atlanta airport, where they have a little tram-thingy that takes you around to the various terminals. I am on the crowded train, not making eye contact with anyone as I am wont to do in busy places and large cities, when I realize that I am looking at probably the most ridiculous pants ever created. They are huge, baggy kelly green Polo pants, generously emblazoned with the embroidered Polo logo, and I think to myself, "Who does this guy think he is? The lost member of Outkast?" With a snide look, I glance up to see who would make such a pathetic attempt to be cool, and by the beard of Zeus, it is Andre Benjamin, a.k.a. Andre 3000, a.k.a. the frontman of Outkast. I know exactly what you're thinking--"Anne-Marie, you've never had cable, you just thought he looked like Andre 3000." But noooo, he had his boarding pass in his hand and I was literally face-to-face with him, so I could clearly read that it said 'Andre Benjamin' (not Andre 300--go figure!) and he was going to L.A. So, as you can see, I am now famous. Please see my agent for further comment.

Guess who got an iPod?!

2005-12-31T16:19:00.000+02:00

I'm sorry, were you saying something? I was too busy listening to my new iPod. I kid you not that it hasn't left my side since I got it, although I generally keep it hidden from Eph's nieces and nephews for fear of an iPod tragedy. High fives to Eph for such a sweet, sweet Christmas gift! This sort of ups the ante for his birthday in July. Better start planning now.

2005-12-19T15:45:00.000+02:00

Ask me what I see in this inkblot. Go ahead, ask me. All right, I'll tell you: this is a fairly elaborate scene of me at the Delta counter of the Athens airport. The ticket agent has announced that they will not be allowing any more standby passengers onto today's flight to New York, I have lept over the shoulder-high (on me) desk in a single, enraged bound, and I am flinging computers, baggage, luggage tags and yes, even the ticket agent's Delta-issue blue blazer onto the floor. The luggage conveyer belt has been ripped to shreds. The contents of the gate agent's 4-pack of Mentos have been scattered across the desk, some of the pieces jammed into various nooks and crannies. Under my foot, I am crushing the walkie-talkie they have been incessantly using regardless of its eardrum-piercing static. Passersby have gathered in a crowd, mothers shielding their childrens' eyes, and Eph stands helplessly by, unable to contain me. Security personnel are on the periphery, waiting for the signal to converge, but I seize a wheeled office chair and hold it over my head, threatening to let it fly if anyone comes closer. Unaware of the presence of the gate manager, who is behind me having returned from a smoking break out back behind the dumpster, I demand to be given a seat on the very next flight. Alas, the Delta manager tackles me. I am then trussed like a Christmas goose with their "Caution: Fragile" tape and carted away, handcuffed to a stretcher.

In the unlikely event that you don't understand the above, let me clarify: Eph and I were supposed to go home to the States today for a two-week Christmas visit, but we were unable to go standby. We will try again tomorrow, because I am desperate to be home for what's really important, namely my birthday, which is on Thursday. (Email me and I'll send you the address where you can mail me my presents.) Wish us luck.

Lord of the Dorks

2005-12-18T17:56:00.000+02:00

We have had some pretty sweet movies come on TV this week, including Lord of the Dorks I mean, Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Best line, which my brother Tom does perfectly, complete with the delivery over the shoulder: "Do they Gandalf? Do they?" What's Eating Gilbert Grape? was also on, so it's pretty much been a banner week.

Speaking of which (and also in reference to the title), on Tuesday, Eph delivered a practice talk for a paper he's giving at a conference in January. He was one of four people presenting, and I know I'm partial, but he DOMINATED . The entire event was fraught with technical difficulties, and by that I mean "operator error" and/or "general incompetence"--the theater/lecture hall at the American School is about a year old, but clearly no one has mastered or even looked at the audio-visual elements yet. Only one guy (the school director, no less--that's why they pay him the big bucks!) was even able to dim the lights, so projecting Powerpoint was obviously way beyond anyone's grasp. The guys who were supposedly in charge finally brought over a free-standing projector, and finally each person got up to present. After three mind-numbingly boring lectures on, let's face it, God knows what, Eph got up on the stage with his Mac and realized that, unlike his PC-loving predecessors, they did not have the right cable to project his Powerpoint. So, he was left with no choice but to run over to a completely different, non-adjacent building to try to find the right cable while the entire audience of ~70 or so people waited for him. I almost passed out at this point, I was so nervous for him. Ten minutes later, he made a triumphant return with the cable in hand but was so out of breath and sweaty that he had to take his sweater off. Of course, this move totally messed up his collar and shirt-tails, but he launched into his talk with his shirt completely untucked and one side of his collar sticking straight up. Sweating profusely and breathing heavily, he then delivered a truly amazing paper about tuna fishing in the Hellenistic Aegean. I was so proud at the end that I had to restrain myself from standing up and slow-clapping, but we did celebrate by going out for sushi afterwards. High fives all around!

Who Am I to Blow Against the Wind?

2005-12-18T17:26:00.000+02:00

Let me begin this little epistle with the following disclaimer: I am not, not the kind of person who usually sings in public. It takes a special (read: annoying) human being to walk down the street, belting her heart out, and honestly, I avoid it at pretty much all costs.

That said, as we were getting ready to leave our apartment about half an hour ago, Eph said jokingly that I was "all right in a sort of a limited way for an off-night," so naturally, we launched into a rousing, circular rendition of Paul Simon's "I Know What I Know." (Go ahead, start humming it, you know you want to. I can only remember the first two verses, but the third one has escaped me.) Singing loudly in nowhere near the same key, Eph and I gathered up our wallets, jackets, etc. and went down to the front door of our building.

We were just reaching the climactic "Who am I to blow against the wind?/Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo..." part of the chorus when I felt some resistance as I pushed on the door handle. I shoved harder and the door swung open to reveal one of our Greek neighbors, keys in hand, staring at us with a look at once pitying and sort of annoyed. Of course, in my mind I was thinking, "Abort! Abort! Stop singing!" but we were really into the song at that point, and you can't just halt that sort of thing on the spot. So, I think I said, "Yeia sas," but then immediately went back to the song. Yeah, that's right. There's no good way to recover from that kind of total vulnerability, so my little brain just said, "Play it cool! Act casual! I guess just keep on going!" We kind of mumbled the rest of the lines as she passed us, growing progressively quieter until she had gone into the building. However, I believe that Eph was still singing as he held the door for her.

And we laaaaaaughed...

2005-12-09T13:42:00.000+02:00

Not that this has anything to do with anything, but the other day I caught an episode about Manuel Noriega on "Biography," which they sometimes show on Greek TV (the voiceover is in Greek, and the interviews are usually in English--standard documentary format). Anyway, this one guy who worked for the CIA in Panama said that the General had a formal "receiving area" in his official residence where he met with visiting dignitaries and VIPs. He would stand at the top of a ~15-step flight of stairs and people would walk up to shake his hand. However, the penultimate step was slightly lower than all the other stairs, so each person meeting Noriega for the first time would, inevitably, stumble, and in the CIA dude's case, fall flat on his face before being presented to Noriega. Horrific human rights abuses aside, that's pretty funny.

Greek Architecture 101: Structures of December 2005 AD

2005-12-07T14:03:00.000+02:00

Last week after Josie and I had pretty much exhausted all of Athens' tourist sights both ancient and modern, there was obviously nothing left for us to do but make gingerbread houses. However, we arrived at the same idea separately (seriously!): edible structures that gave the nod to our historical surroundings. And so, we present to you a Byzantine church (courtesy of yours truly) and, the grand masterpiece, a gingerbread recreation of the Parthenon (Josie's fine, fine handiwork).

The Byzantine church was heavily influenced by Josie's and my trip to the Benaki Museum where we discovered that Ottoman art is freaking fantastic. I have always liked Islamic-influenced design and whatnot, but the Turkish furniture, jewelry and room decors in the Benaki are unreal, and I am now really, really into it. Byzantine architechture in Greece has some of the more watered-down qualities from Asia Minor that I dig, hence the church.

Now, Josie went where no one has gone before and made a bunch of columns and supports for an elaborately constructed temple. More importantly, please take note of the Elgin Marbles, newly returned from the British Museum in London! Josie is now a hero with the Greeks, who are, we have found, really pissed about those marbles being taken.

Sadly, since Josie's departure from Athens, the Persians have ransacked the temple (and here, by "Persians" I mean "humidity in our apartment"). Also, cough, some of the unembellished Elgin Marbles seem to have made their way back to London via my mouth. (Sorry, Josie.)

Here's an aerial view of the destruction. Absolutely horrific. (Forgive the blurry photo, the helicopter was bouncing all over the place.)

For those of you wondering about our building materials, the walls and columns are obviously gingerbread, and the cement is royal icing. Now, we sort of ate our first bag of gumdrops that were going to serve as the candy decorations, so we were left with no choice but to construct embellishments from marzipan (which, by the way, is also very, very tasty). There is a real dearth of food coloring in the greater Athens metropolitan area, so we tinted our marzipan with turmeric, cayenne, dried herbs and, naturally, toothpaste. Here's what we learned from the whole process:

1) You can achieve anything with marzipan, some spices, and a dream.
2) Marzipan colored with cayenne is spicy. Eye-burning, in fact.
3) We are not cut out to be architects.

Dog Day Afternoon

2005-12-01T13:51:00.000+02:00

You've probably realized a pattern by now: I like dogs, all right? Until recently, I was never really an ardent animal lover, but I think that could be traced back to my childhood. The only pets we had growing up were Violet and Hazel, two rabbits. Violet was only nice one day in her life, and that, believe it or not, was the very day she crossed the dark river. (Anyone catching these Watership Down references? I'm laying them on pretty thick...). At the time, I believed my mom's "Oh, she knew she was leaving and she wanted to let you know how much she loved you before she died," logic, but now I'm pretty sure she was too sick and weak to resist the advances of four small children. Hazel, on the other hand, was much, much nicer, but after a couple of years she just got really fat sitting in her cage. Excitement in her life was relegated to the times when she would chew through the wires of my dad's shop machinery (worked like a charm!) and the numerous times that she ran underneath our barn and, you guessed it, my dad had to crawl under after her. Hazel met an unfortunate end one hot summer day when heatstroke (or, just the loss of will to live) struck her down. RIP, Violet and Hazel.

However, now that the Poochimus Maximus (Suki, the dog with the blog) has joined me, I have a much deeper appreciation for the canine race. Which is why last Friday was so funny:

Josie, Staci and I were walking up to Lykavitos Hill here in Athens, and we rounded a corner to come upon this dog. Sitting on this car. We don't know how, we don't know why. There were several people taking his picture and he was like, "What? What's going on?"

Then, we got up on top of Lykavitos, and this dog wanted to make sure we felt welcome. And boy, you can see how welcome I feel. In the interest of giving credit where credit is due, he knew how to shake and obeyed the command in English, not Greek. It's a very tourist-friendly country I live in.

After we descended from the hill, we went to the grocery store for some tyrokafteri (whipped feta with hot peppers, the name is literally "burning cheese"), and this noble pooch decided to follow us home for about half a mile (uphill, no less!) for a snack.

It's like that scene from "Resevoir Dogs," right? Only with a real dog! Yeah? Yeah? N-no? No. Okay.

My mom and moms around the world will be glad to know that this dog was not allowed in my apartment, though he made a valient effort to sort of casually slip through the door with us. I did, however, throw him a piece of bread off the balcony, but as you can see, he doesn't eat wheat. These Greek dogs are pick-y pick-y.

And...scene.

First We Take the Acropolis, Then We Take Berlin

2005-12-01T13:19:00.000+02:00

Just what you've all been waiting for...the requisite Parthenon photo. Voila! (And no, I did not get this off Google Images, thanks.)

My very good friends, bridesmaids and former college roommates came to visit me for Thanksgiving, and we had a grand old time. Loyal "Party in Pangrati" readers will already know Josie, the hot strawberry blonde, but the stunning brunette (seriously, look at that hair!) is Staci, a.k.a. Staca, a.k.a. the mastermind behind another blog favorite, Once Again, Fortune Has Humped My Leg. In this photo, they are trying to locate the "on" button for Staci's camera--kidding! They are really not going to like me for posting this picture. Heh.

Speaking of stunning folk, we met some young men doing what could only be called "modeling" atop the Acropolis. This is a post-shoot photo (note the leaning, legs crossed...very couture), but they were really going to town. You can see that the guy being photographed is actually putting clothes back on, ovbviously indicating that he had been instructed to remove garments in order to achieve that carefree summer look. (By the by, it was about 39 degrees Fahrenheit and windy as all get out up there.) We actually came upon them in a semi-secluded location later, and while I was excitedly pawing through my purse for my camera to capture their moment for myself, I dropped my entire bag into a 3-foot-deep crevice bewteen two blocks of Acropolis marble. Josie fished the purse and its contents out for me (Josie, you have done me yet another solid--I owe you, bigtime), and we took that as a sign that God really, really frowns upon mockery through digital images. Point taken, Yaweh, point taken.

Staci did, however, have a completely serious and constructive suggestion for a pose. Like Tyra, she can look pretty darn fierce.

Ahoy!

2005-11-26T17:12:00.000+02:00

I think we all know who's piloting this boat.

Obviously, if Suki is going to pursue this whole sailing thing, she's going to need some eye protection. It's not fair for Boberino to be the only one with sweet shades, is it? Enter Doggles. Sadly, they don't have the mirrored aviator style (yet!), but you can get prescription lenses for an extra $50. According to the website, just ask your pet opthalmologist for a prescription. I'm going to get right on that after we consult our pet dermatologist about her uneven skin tone.

Who's going in on these with me for her Christmas present?

Come to Me, Fifi!

2005-11-18T12:15:00.000+02:00

I am sitting in the computer lab, waiting for Josephine to arrive from the airport. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Power claps!

Tripped Up

2005-11-18T11:48:00.000+02:00

I realize that I am a huge dork, but one of the American things I miss most is NPR. I used to listen to it pretty much every waking hour that I wasn't at work (and yes, I was a member of my local NPR affiliate, so get off my back!), and there's really nothing that compares here in Athens. Apparently, Greek stations are not allowed/required/able to secure frequencies for themselves, so the BBC station here is competing with some other station for the same frequency, and all you can hear is some guy speaking with a British accent mixed with snippets of traditional Greek music and the occasional piercing shriek of static. As my friend Emma would say, "It's a hot mess."

So, imagine my joy and power-clapping when a friend of ours, Phil, mentioned that he had about 7 years' worth of This American Life on his IPod (somewhat illegally, but never you mind that. TAL, you should really take better care to encrypt your programs, though). Eph downloaded all of it onto his 'Pod, so we now have at least a little bit of NerdPR here in Athens.

Of course, listening to the IPod on headphones gets a little old, especially if there are two of you. So, I went to the Apple Store to buy what I later learned to be called an ITrip, which will broadcast your audio onto any radio frequency you want, so you can listen in the car, at home on your stereo, etc. I walked into the store, and no one seemed to be at the front desk. I made the international call for service (i.e. coughed conspicuously a few times) and a salesman literally popped up from behind the counter, his hands and some of his face covered in oil or ink or something. "Wow," I thought to myself, "These Apple people are really trying to be innovative in everything. Pop-up salespeople, it's amazing!"

I explained in a sad, sad mixture of English and Greek what I was looking for, and the salesman was like, "Oh yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about, but I need to wash my hands." And I said, "By all means," and he disappeared for a good 5-10 minutes. I'm guessing that "washing one's hands" is actually Applespeak for "smoking a cigarette out back behind the dumpster." However, he returned, took another 10-15 minutes to find the key to the little cupboard where they keep everything and pulled out the ITrip. "Perfect, transaction complete," I thought to myself, but as I stood waiting for him to bring out a boxed version, he gave me a curious look and was like, "Do you need anything else?" "Umm, no, I'll just take that," I said. And he responded, shaking his head as if at a silly child, "Oh, no no no, we don't sell these here. You have to order it off our website. Good luck with that, and good day." Riiiiiight.

Let me get this straight: Apple spends the money to rent out a store on a fairly big street in Athens, but you can't buy anything there? Are these people familiar with retail?

What?

2005-11-11T18:24:00.000+02:00

Today has been an extremely revelatory one. First and foremost, don't ever let anyone tell you that buying stuff (um, you know, for yourself) doesn't make you feel good. Let's just admit that and get on with it...

Let it be said that clothes shopping in Greece is somewhat different than in other countries, primarily because the employees in many of the shops couldn't care less if you bought anything or not. They're not moneygrubbing on behalf of their respective companies, so really, you are just an inconvenience and they'll thank you not to bother them. And please don't touch that rack because those skirts have just been reorganized. Same with that one over there. And that one. Please don't touch anything. Just get out. This attitude was hard for me to understand and deal with at first, but I have reached the point where I couldn't care less that they couldn't care less, and now we all get along just fine. If I actually purchase something, it's an added bonus for everyone.

And, much to Eph's chagrin (and that of our bank account), I just realized that the street BEHIND Ermou, the big shopping avenue in Athens, is the place to go. I was stupidly assuming that everyone was paying full designer price for their (awful) Ugg boots and goggle-like sunglasses, but of course that is not the case. Knockoffs, Anne-Marie, knockoffs! And there is quite the bounty of knockoffs on this as-yet-undetermined street, but if you come visit, I'll take you there and you can buy fake Ugg boots galore. I'll pass, but you can do whatever you want.

So, onto further revelations, best expressed in bullets:

1) Phil Collins is on a farewell tour. THANK YOU, O LORD! Better late than never.

2) Given the above comment, this will probably sound incongruous, but "She's Like the Wind" came on today and I was NOT a) displeased to hear it and b) able to avoid singing along. This surprises me as much as it surprises you. Singing, dancing, (air quotes) "acting"...that Patrick Swayze has it all.

3) I like accessories that are trimmed in fur (preferably faux). Deal with it. The fluffy ermoulu (I think that's what it's called?) is my favorite, and the more unnatural the color, the better. Again, deal with it.

4) My left foot is smaller than my right foot, something I should have realized BEFORE I bought a pair of shoes using only my left foot as a basis for judgement. Oh well, I'm hoping righty will stretch out.

5) Those tiered peasant skirts look HORRENDOUS on me. Look away, I'm hideous.

6) There is a "team" (can you call it that? does one person go in front to break the wind resistance or something?) of racewalkers who practice in the National Gardens. I can't adequately explain how funny racewalking is to me, other than to ask you to conjure up in your little mind the vision of that ridiculous hip motion that they make. Also, I've said this before and I'll say it again, why would you want to spend so much time and energy NOT running? Just run! It's so much easier for everyone involved! There was one particular guy "working out" today in a tank top, short shorts, knee-high tube socks, and what I can only assume to be race walking shoes. Awesome. I would have taken pictures, but you know, they were all going too fast.

This weekend, we are having people over for dinner and then going to a post-Halloween costume party at the American School. The extra-lame theme is, get this, "Prometheus Bound," in other words, "come as a mythological character." Now, when accountants get together for Halloween, is their theme "Math Geeks?" I should hope not, and that's why I think the whole Classicists-dressing-up-as-mythylogical-characters thing is totally prosaic. So, in order to flout the theme (and not have to wear a real costume), Eph and I and two of our friends are going as WMD, younger but well-loved mythical characters from current events. I made nametags that say "Hello! My Name Is: Nucular," and the like. I think this might be further evidence of my bad sportsmanship, but at least I won't be wearing a toga.

I do NOT have T.B.

2005-11-10T18:24:00.000+02:00

Woo hoo! I'm officially cleared! Now if I could just get that dang avian bird flu cleared up, life would be good...kidding, kidding, although we are getting some rather disturbing reports of Greek farmers dumping entire flocks of poultry by the side of the road for "undisclosed" reasons. Riiiiight.

To clarify on the T.B. thing, to apply for a Greek residence permit, everyone has to have a chest x-ray and a T.B. test. All of these regulations have been enacted within the past month, once again proving Eph's and my impeccable timing. So again, we dive right in to the wild, wild world of Greek bureaucracy, and boy, it didn't disappoint.

The good news is that the American School has a guy who is specifically in charge of dealing with all the visas/residence permits/jumping through hoops/red tape stuff, and we met him at the eye-poppingly early (for me) time of 8:00 a.m. at one of Athens' private hospitals. He brought tyropites (pastries for you gringos) and, I assume, used them to bribe various hospital staff to get us through faster. Eph and I waited in a hallway for two or three minutes before Eph is called into one of the rooms. He goes in, comes out, and I imagine that they were taking his blood pressure or something. My name is called, I walk into the room, and there on the desk in front of the medic is a rather large needle that I can only assume will be stabbed into one of my appendages. And I was right.

I have a weird reacting to needles--they don't stress me out in the conventional, "oh God it's going to hurt," sense, but seeing them go into my skin makes me totally queasy (my knees are getting soft just thinking about it, no joke). I actually fainted when I got the PPD prick test before I went to college. I remember looking at my arm where the little bubble was forming, and then all of a sudden my arm was getting very close to my face, and then the nurse was like, "Whoa! I've never seen one go down on that!"

Ok, so I survived the Greek needle without much incident (it involved turning my head, Exorcist-like, away from the syringe), although afterwards Pangelis, the American School dude, was like, "You're all right? You're all right?" The coup-de-grace was that, once we got the shot, the medic circled the place where the shot was in totally washable magic marker (think Mr. Sketch, people) and told us, "NO WATER! NO WATER!" Meaning, of course, that we were not to wash that particular spot on our arms for two days. Onto the chest X-ray.

Yeah, so I didn't know you had to take ALL of your clothes off (it's an X-RAY! What the hell else is it doing if not looking through your clothes?). So I kept removing layers and the X-ray technician, who spoke no English, kept being like, "Yeah, no, you gotta take that off, too," until I was, ahem, you know. At any rate, my lungs are as pristine as the driven snow, and we were told to return in two days for the T.B. follow up.

News flash: NOT washing a specific three-inch circle of one's arm can prove to be difficult. Especially in Eph's case. The first time he took a shower, I tied a bag around his arm and all went swimmingly (hah! get it?). However, when I needed to take a shower, Eph was already at school. So, in fine, heroin-addict form, I wrapped the bag around my arm and tightened it with my teeth. Needless to say, it felt a little weird, but the blue circle survived the shower.

Sadly, the next night, Eph jumped into the shower with reckless abandon and proceeded to seemingly exfoliate his entire body before remembering that we weren't supposed to do that. Obviously, we didn't want to incur the wrath of Pangelis or the hospital staff, so we were left with one and one choice alone: draw another circle. Of course, we don't have any magic frickin' markers, but I did have a blue Vision Elite pen, so I drew on Eph's arm with that. The new circle, naturally, was nowhere near the color of the circle on my arm, so we then spent a good 25 minutes trying to age and fade it with a Q-tip and a combination of water, soap and nail pollish remover. Finally, it was judged close enough for government work, but the real test was about to come.

Let's just say we needn't have worried. We arrived at the hospital at 7:45 a.m., the waiting room was already full, and of course, the doctor was taking a leisurely breakfast, so he didn't roll in until 8:40. By then, the waiting room was packed with people of all nationalities, holding out their forearms to show the security people that they had received the T.B. shot and were waiting to be cleared. Pangelis brought out the more agressive side of his repetoire and simply barged up to the head of the line and made sure that we were the first people to see the doctor when she finally arrived. The "clearing process" was essentially her looking at our arms for about .0025 seconds and then vigorously stamping some official form that Pangelis snatched out of our hands before we could mess them up.

I realize that this has been a long and drawn-out account for a not very interesting episode, but it's not all fun and games, folks. If it helps any, we had three dogs follow us home the other night at ~12:00 a.m., and they all tried to come inside our apartment building with us. They were unsuccessful, but we did throw them some token pieces of cheese off our balcony. I felt like Evita.

Copen' with the Hagen

2005-11-08T14:01:00.000+02:00

All right! Josie and I have successfully ticked Copenhagen off our list of places to conquer, I mean, see. We had a great time cavorting with the Danes, but as I was looking through the pictures I took, I realized that the bulk of our most "interesting" moments were not caught on film. Of course, I will do my best to elaborate...

First of all, let's just say that our hostel, Sleep in Heaven, should be sued for billions of dollars for false advertising. In fact, the picture at left is of me and Hans Christian Andersen sticking our noses up at the thought of the place. As Copenhagen is rumored to be extremely expensive, we (okay, I) thought we'd save a few shekels by not getting a private hotel room; in retrospect, that may not have been the best idea. Josie and I will both admit that we're not always the hardest of partiers--we like to be safely home at a reasonable (i.e. early) hour, so naturally, we were back at the hostel by 9:00. And, seriously, when it gets dark at 3:00 in the afternoon, 9:00 feels a lot later than it really is. And Josie had jet lag. Whatever. So, we hit the sack in our 9-person dorm room and had about four or five hours of decent sleep.

To set the stage for what happened next, let me introduce you to the cast of characters inhabiting our room: first, there was a guy we called "Frenchie" for obvious reasons, who, for weird (and seemingly illegal) tax purposes, was in Copenhagen to buy a car to bring back to France. He was nice enough but a little sleazy. Below him in the two lower bunks, there were two Swedish girls who were fine (they offered us some pita bread with shrimp paste, so I'm letting them off easy). In the next bunk, there were three other Swedish girls who you will meet in-depth later. Josie and I occupied the top two beds in the third bunk, with some guy of unidentified nationality below us.

Anywho, we went to sleep and were rudely awakened a few hours later when the totally inebriated Swedish threesome returned. One girl was laughing hysterically and kept running in and out of the room. The least drunk of the three was trying to calm her down and keep her quite, but the third girl was oh-so-helpful by talking AT FULL VOICE while Josie, the unidentified-nationality dude and I tried to sleep. Finally, I let out a full-blown "SHH!" which worked for awhile until Frenchie returned with a girl in tow. At this point, both Josie and I had the same though: "Oh no, he isn't..." And thankfully, he didn't. She tried to get into his bed, which was a bold move on her part since he was on the top of three bunks, but he kicked her out. All of this business was conducted, once again, at full voice, but obviously I was interested to know how it turned out so I wasn't as mad as before. Everyone settled into their beds, and we thought, "OK, now we'll get some sleep."

Of course they snored. All of them. It started with the collective Darth Vader breathing, but then each person branched out into his or her own individual solo until we had a veritable smorgesbord of snores. One person held steady with the "HHHHHHHHHH, OHHHHHHH" breathing, while another person broke into a full-throttle, motorbike-engine song that prompted Josie to say from her bunk, "I call that one "The Saw." (And we laaaaaaughed...) And, for a brief but horrific moment, one girl's high-pitched heavy breathing threatened to morph into the raptor-like shriek reminiscent of Jurassic Park, and I was thisclose to crying. However, I did marvel at the virtuosity of all in the room--honestly, I don't know that I will ever encounter such talent again. It wasn't even like you could just get used to it--everyone kept changing their tune, tone and volume with such astonishing variety that all I could do was listen in awe. At some point, I must have fallen asleep, because again, I awoke to the Swedish girls yelling to one another across our 15'x15' room. Then, a truck pulled up right next to the unshaded window, and realizing that I was eye-level with the driver about three feet away, Josie and I got up.

Not to be deterred by Not Sleeping in Heaven, Josie and I got going fairly early to visit the Danish National Museum (which is a couple of blocks from Tivoli Gardens pictured there on the left, I told you my pictures were lacking). The Museum had all the normal stuff (added bonus: an extremely revisionist exhibit about their collaboration with the Nazis), but was really remarkable was breakfast. Thinking we'd go light with bread and jam and a cup of coffee each, our bill came to 126 Danish Kroner, which roughly equals an astonishing $24. For the math-challenged, that's $12 each for one cup of coffee and one roll. Ok, I admit, I used two little packets of jam, but come on! To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, do they know what things cost EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD?

Needing to touch base with sanity, we went to check email at the Internet cafe in the train station. Sadly, sanity was in short supply that day. As Josie was attempting to purchase a phone card online, we both became aware of a very annoying beeping that was coming from the computer next to hers. Thinking the guy was playing some sort of game, we both glanced over and realized that, no, he was on the log-in page for Internet access (i.e. not actually using the computer) and the beeping sound was that of him fake-typing on the keyboard. I looked at him, incredulous, and he looked over at me with the cheeriest of smiles. Josie, who at that moment was about to type in her credit card info to buy the phone card, then decided that doing so would not be prudent, given the questionable nature of our friendly neighbor. We went to go get a cup of coffee and then, as anyone would, returned to see if we could take a picture of The Typist. He is pictured behind Josie at left; the photo really doesn't do him justice.

Speaking of photos not doing justice, it may not be immediately obvious, but this seagull is trying to hail a cab. Those Danish birds are something!

To head off the obvious question, yes, we did see the statue of the Little Mermaid. From afar. We walked all around the Citadel near the harbor, and at some point we were both like, "Yeah, I really couldn't care less about going to see it," so we saw it from 200 yards away and passed by without further inspection. That's the kind of tourist I am. However, while in the vicinity I did snap a nice picture of this red cannon.

I REALLY wish I had had the cajones to bust out my camera when we went to Christianashaven, the anarchist's colony, but the weenie in me prevailed and I heeded all the signs saying "No Photos." Copenhagen is made up of several little islands, so we crossed one of the numerous bridges to get to the neighborhood. Of course, we had no idea what we were looking for, but being clever girls, we followed the weirdest-looking people we saw (and they were pretty dang weird) and came right upon the place quite easily. As we assumed, the buildings were in shambles, the remainder of a huge bonfire sat smoldering in the middle of the main "square," and the not-so-faint odor of cannabis hung in the air. Best of all, scores (literally) of riot police arrived when we did, so we had the added bonus of garnering suspicion not only from Christianashaven's inhabitants but also from the police, who, as Josie pointed out, may have thought we were looking to buy. It all got a little too surreal when we were alternately walking through crowds of bohemians and police with bullet-proof shields, so we didn't linger. Totally worth it, though.

As I did not buy/read a guidebook before showing up in Denmark, it was news to me when Josie said that the castle in which Hamlet takes place is only a 40-minute train ride from Copenhagen. Right-e-o! We took a day trip up to Helsingor (Elsinor for you English-speakers) and visited Kronberg castle.

It had the usual exhibits: Royal Apartments, a chapel, gift shop (duh), etc., but what made it special was the ultra-freaky casements underneath, which housed slaves and prisoners once upon a time. The flash on my camera makes it seem like it wasn't very dark and creepy, but it was. Josie's smiling, but she's quaking on the inside.

And look, it's the giant, Holgar! Rahhhhhh!

Nice moat.

Staci, this one's for you. We were promised a, quote, "breathtaking" train ride up to Helsingor by another Don't Sleep in Heaven inhabitant, but as Josie is demonstrating, the view wasn't all that great. (Josie, I swear to God I will take this down soon...just let me get a few blog comments from Staci. Please? Yeah? Yeah? No? Ok.)

Finally, as I was leaving for the airport at 7:00 on Sunday morning, I was struck with a sudden quandary over whether or not to hail the bus. In Greece, you have to stick your hand out or the driver is liable to pass right by you (with a smug look on his face, no less). So, to be on the safe side, I put my arm out when the bus approached. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to do. As I was paying the bus fare, the driver said, "That cab driver thought you were hailing him." I said, "Excuse me?" "The cab back there," the driver gestured behind the bus, "He thought you were hailing him." And he stared at me, waiting for my reply, and I have to admit, I was stumped. I had the feeling he asking me to go back and say to the cab driver, "No, I was just trying to get on the bus," but my internal response to that was, "Uhh, he's a cab driver, I think he'll get over it. It's 7:00 a.m. and I have other things to worry about."

It's all in the minutiae, folks.

Going to Copenhagen

2005-10-31T15:41:00.000+02:00

Yeeha! I am going to Copenhagen on Thursday to meet up with my friend, Josie, who has just quit her dead-end job. Congrats, Fifi! A shoutout also goes out to my brother, Matt, who also quit his dead-end job (at least for now) to go move to Brazil. Nice work! I don't like to brag, but I think I've started a revolution...of slacking off! The world will soon be in the toilet, thanks to me. Next thing you know, the U.S. economy will tank, the gap between rich and poor will continue to widen at an exponential rate, major disasters will batter our homeland, and we'll be entrenched in some war from which we have no ability to extricate ourselves. Wait a minute...

But, enough of that, on to more important things: my upcoming vacation. Josie and I will be staying in high hostel style at Sleep in Heaven in the Cope. You'll note on their website that they take their budgetness with a fine sense of humor, which I certainly appreciate. Also, you can click on the moving sheep and get your "sheep score." I don't know what that is, but it sounds cool. I think mine was a 9. Heh, beat that.

Other than planning where we'll stay, I'm at a loss for what we'll actually be doing. I've hear, however, that you can rent bikes and ride around, so that is definitely an option. Apparently, Copenhagen is a beautiful city, so I'm sure we won't be at a loss for things to do. Also, there's some sort of city-within-the-city where a certain group of bohemian-types have gone to withdraw from society, and I am totally up for seeing that. Sounds like it's right up my alley.

FYI, flights to Copenhagen, where it gets dark at 2:30 in the afternoon, are quite cheap this time of year. Go figure!

We're Aliiiiiiiiiive!

2005-10-30T18:17:00.000+02:00

Have you ever been in five airports during one trip? I don't recommend it. However, Eph and I are finally back in Athens after a couple weeks in the States. And, even better, we're legal! I was afraid to post this before in the event that the Greek authorities would Google me and find this out (I now realize that would be extremely unlikely), but we were totally in Athens without the proper visas, hence the return to the USA. Um, for future reference, immigration folks round the world are really not kidding about having the appropriate documentation. I'm giving you people pearls here.

But back to our travels: Eph and I made it out of Portland to Boston with little incident other than a two-hour delay, but the flight from Boston to JFK that we were hoping to get on was full and would take no standbys. Not a problem, we thought, we'll just get on the next flight to LaGuardia and take the shuttle over to JFK. Once again, Delta did us a huge solid and would not let us transfer out tickets at the gate--we had to go back out to ticketing, get new tickets issued, clear security, then go to the gate. We did that and, of course, did not make it in time for the flight we were trying to board. Not a problem, we thought again, the next flight is in an hour and we'll be cutting it close but we should make it. However, as we were sitting there at the gate, I noticed that my name was not on the trusty television screen that lists all the standbys. I went to the desk, politely told the woman that I was not on the list, she looked at the printout they had given me at the ticketing desk, gave me an exasperated look and said, "You're all set." "But--" I began to say, and she cut me off with an really annoyed "You're all set!" Okeydoke. I went back to my seat, sat there freaking out because I knew something had to be wrong, and indeed, when they called the standbys to board the plane, my name was not among those who had boarding cards. I looked the gate agent in the eye and said, "I believe we discussed this." She did not respond. I made it onto the flight.

Of course, we left Boston late and got into LaGuardia at 3:00, which left us a meager 30 minutes to get to JFK through Friday afternoon traffic in Queens. Thankfully, we picked the cab with the craaaaaziest driver in all Christendom, and we made it to JFK in 20 minutes. Driving in the breakdown lane was only one of the elements in this guy's repetoire, but I had nothing but admiration for the man. Eph actually put his seatbelt on, which I haven't done since a friend of mine (Staci) saw me doing the very same thing and laughed at me for being such a hick.

At any rate, we got to the JFK terminal in relatively good shape, got out of the cab, went around to the back to get our bags, and the trunk door wouldn't open. Sensing the urgency of the situation and being the go-getter that I am, I grabbed what I thought was the trunk door and lifted with all my might, tearing away a large piece of plastic "chrome" from the rear of the cab. Just then, Eph hit the door as the driver had instructed, the door flew up, and I attempted to jam the "chrome" inside, thinking I would grab my bag and run like hell. The driver was a little too quick for me, appearing at my shoulder just as I was trying to bury the evidence. Thankfully, he laughed and said in a French accent, "You break it, they fix it," so we went inside airport #4 without having to pay for the damages or suffering broken knees.

I am convinced that the single most character-defining thing is how one waits in a line. (If you're a budger, let's take this outside.) As we were waiting, yet again, at a Delta ticketing counter, two women came up behind us and immediately started trying to edge their way in front of us. However, having lived in Greece where "lines" are really nebulous clusters of people jostling to be first, I have perfected the art of placing my elbows in the correct position. Now, please don't assume that I actually poke anyone, I just keep a very low center of gravity (with "soft knees," as my former ballroom dancing instructor, Sergei Slusky from Archangel, Russia would say) and have my elbows protruding in such a way that I can spring to the left or right as necessary to block any cutters. These ladies were crafty, though--after realizing that they were dealing with a pro, they attempted to worm their way in front by preying upon our sympathies. "We were waiting in the Business Class line for half an hour," one of them said piteously. "That man over there told us we had to wait in that line, but then we were told to come here. Do you understand?" "Oh yeah," we said, looking at one another with silent but iron-firm resolve. "That really stinks." The curly-headed one then went back to the simple but direct method of trying to barge in front of us when the ticket agent called out, "Next!" and at that moment I realized my choices were these: 1) actually get into a fistfight with a woman who had several inches and probably 30 pounds on me or 2) leave Eph to deal with them while I went into the security line. Number two it was, the first time I've willingly decided in favor of the security line.

At that point, we had been moving non-stop since early in the morning, so I was glad to wait at the fourth and final airport gate. There was plenty of room for standbys on the plane, so all I had to worry about was whether or not I would get a seat in Business Class. This occupied a good 45 minutes, and Delta and the gods were kind. Eph and I occupied seats 6A and 6B, in the last row of Business Class, and all was right with the world for the next 10 hours. Such is the way of the Buddypass--when things go well, you love it, and when things go wrong, you curse it and wonder why in God's name you didn't just buy a regular dang ticket.

Our arrival home to Artotinis Street was marked only by one more incident: as we were waiting for the bus to our neighborhood, we noticed a stray dog sleeping out on the grass behind the bus stop. He woke seconds before the bus arrived and rose to charge and furiously bark at passing cars. Seconds later, when the bus opened its doors, the dog cut a bunch of people in line (normally, I wouldn't condone that behavior, but this time it was funny), and hopped up onto the bus like any other passenger. Everyone else was mad that he didn't validate his ticket, and they kicked him right back off. I would have let him on--I would have liked to see where he was going.

Delta, you are dead to me

2005-10-16T17:56:00.000+03:00

So, I'm in Rome. The party has moved from Pangrati to a new location near the Termini train station, which if you haven't been here, has to be the crappiest place in all of Italy, as far as I'm concerned. I am just so psyched.

First and foremost, Delta, you are dead to me. Oh sure, you lure people in with the Buddypass, you seat us in first class like we're worthwhile human beings, you wine us and dine us when things are good, but just wait until those flights fill up and you dog us like yesterday's garbage. I thought we had something, Delta. Eph and I made not one, not two but FOUR attempts to leave from Athens on standby, but we were coldly, coldly rejected each time. Even better, I decided to come to fair Roma in the hopes that my chances would be better here, since they have four flights going to the US each day, but I have never been anyplace as horrificly disorganized as Fiumicino Airport. Here's a little piece I've written, which is basically the play-by-play of what happened this morning:

At Counter 410, FCO Airport in Rome. The line is long and arduous, but I wait patiently and without complaint, knowing that the fate of my return to my homeland hangs in the balance.
Anne-Marie (above the din of hundreds of passengers): Hello, I am on the standby list going to JFK.
Delta Gate Agent 1: All right, let's see here...no, you're not on the list. You're not on the list.
Anne-Marie: Really? I waited yesterday while the ticketing agent in Athens put me on the Rome list.
Gate Agent 1: No, you need to go over to the ticketing counter.
(I walk over to the ticketing counter)
Anne-Marie: Hello, I need to be listed as a standby for the flight to JFK.
Gate Agent 2: Ok.
***TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER (seriously, he added up a column of numbers FOUR TIMES while talking to someone else on the phone)***
Gate Agent 2: Ok, here you go, but I don't know if there's room on the flight for you.
Anne-Marie: Ok, I'll try. Thank you. (Walks back to the check-in counter, now devoid of ticketed passengers and silent, but for the prattle of several gate agents milling about.) Hello, (speaking to Gate Agent 1 and no one else) Hello, I'm now on the standby list--is there any room on the flight?
Gate Agent 3 (out of NOWHERE): Hah! (Moves closer to my face--I can now feel her stale breath on my face) Hah! Standby! Hah!
Anne-Marie (still speaking to Gate Agent 1 and Gate Agent 1 ALONE): Ummm...?
Gate Agent 1: The flight is closed and it's full, anyway. (Turns away and refuses to acknowledge my presence)
SCENE

Please keep in mind that the people in Athens at least had the decency to pity us for coming back day after day, but the Roman Delta staff are a whole new breed of animal. I look forward to further abuse tomorrow. And probably the next day.

I realize that you probably don't feel bad for me, since I am stuck in a pretty cool place, but I really, really, really want to stop hauling my flippin' rolling bag around. And for the past week, Eph and I have spent literally 20 hours waiting in line at the airport, which, honestly, will drive you mad, mad I say!

Staci, the Pantheon sends its best. Wink wink.

Hazelnut Spread Revolution

2005-10-06T11:35:00.000+03:00

I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but we've all been lied to for as long as I can remember: Nutella is NOT the only hazelnut spread out there, and it is NOT the best one by any means. Without further ado, I present to you NuCrema. Oh, sure, NuCrema doesn't come in a fancy glass jar, but that's because Nutella hides behind its upmarket packaging to win friends and influence its uncles. Inside NuCrema's unassuming plastic tub is one of the best damn sandwich spreads you'll ever come across, and that, my friends, can never be sullied by the voracious appetite of Western consumerism.

P.S. NuCrema is also about $.15 cheaper. Which, you know, is why I tried it in the first place.

Megaladonmaniac

2005-10-06T11:01:00.000+03:00

A couple of weeks ago, I came home from my Greek class and did what every other normal 25-year-old does in such a situation: made myself an after-school snack and sat down to watch kids' TV. However, instead of the usual Sponge Bob or Rugrats dubbed over in Greek, one channel was showing a nature program about the ocean. Sweet. I caught it about mid-way through, and it was fascinating: the host, some British dude named Nigel, was sailing around on a boat called "The Ancient Mariner" and kept getting in the water with all these sea creatures that I'd never seen before. Sharks, whales, sea turtles, fish--they all looked somewhat familiar but were just a lot bigger than anything we ever studied in marine biology. The photography seemed a little weird (and, I can be honest now, fake), but I try not to get caught up in details that. And just as I was thinking to myself, "Wow, there are so many animals I don't even know about," the camera flashed to the fossil of a jawbone from a megaladon (HUGE prehistoric shark), and I began to catch on. "It's all computer generated," a little voice said in the back of my mind, "And you're an idiot." And, sure enough, Nigel went on to say something like, "You'll never see jaws like this in the 21st century," and then jumped in the (fake) water with a (fake) shark that was twice the size of a great white. Riiiiight.

They're now showing this program, called Sea Monsters New Zealand, every morning, and it's just about the only thing in the world that will get me out of bed before, cough, 9:30 (I stay up very late!). It's a BBC production, and for a TV show, the animation is actually pretty sophisticated. However, I have serious doubts about the advisibility of showing this kind of program to children, because I am not ashamed to say it scares the living bejeezus out of me.

Seriously, can you believe these pictures aren't real? Shut up.

That's my ride

2005-10-04T15:03:00.000+03:00

As I was looking through my photo albums on Ofoto (I know! it's Kodak Gallery now, but I just can't let it go!) to get a picture of Tom for the post below, I found this gem of my other brother, Joe. Check out his wheels--if he could just get it to pass inspection, that 1983 Tercel hatchback would be a chick magnet.

Rat-tailed Jimmy

2005-10-04T14:16:00.000+03:00

Now that my Greek class is over and I have plenty of time for wandering the streets of Athens, I decided to take a little stroll down Academias, one of the major avenues that, surprisingly enough, runs by the University here in the city. And not only did I find organic (organic! in Greece!) black beans (black beans! in Greece!), but I also ran across a hotspot entitled Dr. Feelgood--awesome. Why have I not heard of this joint before? And why have I not become a regular? And do the good people of Athens really know who/what Dr. Feelgood is supposed to be? Perhaps they do, not that I'm not judging...

For those unfamiliar with the Motley Crue cannon (forgive the umlaut omission--no can do on Blogspot), I'll give you the lyrics:

DR. FEELGOOD by Motley Crue

Rat tailed Jimmy is a second hand hood
He deals out in Hollywood
Got a '65 Chevy primered flames
Traded for some powdered goods
Jigsaw Jimmy he's runnin' a gang
But I hear he's doin' O.K.
Got a cozy little job sells the Mexican mob
Packages of candycaine

(Chorus)
He's the one they call Dr. Feelgood
He's the one that makes ya feel alright
He's the one they call Dr. Feelgood

Cops on the corner always ignore
Somebody's getting paid
Jimmy's got it wired, Law's for hire
Got it make in the shade
Got a little hideaway, does business all day
But at night he'll always be found
Selling sugar to the sweet
People on the street
Call this Jimmy's town

(Chorus)
He's gonna be your Frankenstein

I've got one thing you'll understand
He's not what you'd call a glamorous man
Got one thing that's easily understood
He's the one they call Dr. Feelgood

He'll tell you he's the king
Of these Barrio streets
Moving up to Shangri La
Came by his wealth as a matter of luck
Says he never broke no law
Two time loser running out of juice
Time to move out quick
Heard a rumour going round
Jimmy's going down
This time it's gonna stick

(Chorus)
He's gonna be your Frankenstein

Let him soothe your soul, just take his hand
Some people call him an evil man
Let him introduce himself real good
He's the only one they call "Feelgood"

Having actually read the lyrics above (I got them off the Internet! I do not know that song by heart!), let me now pronounce that a terrible song. Seriously, "Let him introduce himself reall good?" Really? In all honesty, I would be hardpressed to come up with the names of any other Crue songs, but my 17-year-old brother, Tom, is a huge fan. He went to one of their concerts in Portland, Maine last year with his friend and his friend's dad (heh). Apparently, a good time was had by all, but I emphatically state for the record how glad I am to be finished with high school.

This is Tom. He plays a sweet version of "La Cucaracha."

Long-Awaited Naxos Recap

2005-10-02T13:28:00.000+03:00

Alrighty, having gone back to the dark ages (or, you know, like two years ago), I actually burned my Naxos pictures onto a CD in order to be able to post them on this here blog. Pathetic, but true. At any rate, you can now see on the left the dominant reason for me quitting my job and moving to Greece. And have I regretted it at all? Oh, heck no...

As I mentioned before, Naxos is in the Cyclades, located sort of between Paros and Santorini. We stayed in a hotel that cost us a cool 20 Euro per night, which ain't bad at all considering we had a sweet view from the roof. At left is the sunset view of Xora, the main port town. You can't tell from the photo, but the Germans and the Dutch go to Naxos in droves, and boy, those folks really like to get naked on the beach. Yeagh. And this brings us to a time-old question from the ancient Greek philophers: why is it that the people you would least like to see without clothes are always the first ones to take it all off?

Tall man in a narrow street, tall man in a narrow street (sing to the tune of "Fat Guy In A Little Coat" from Tommyboy). The old part of Xora is a typically labarythine arrangement of narrow streets and houses. At the top of the hill above the harbor, there is an old Venetian castle/surrounding city and it was very cool to walk around in at night. Right now I'm boring even myself as I read this. Onto the better part of the story...

You're saying to yourself, "Wow, that's another beautiful Greek beach," and you're right. This is the view of Apollonas, a tiny little town on the rocky northern coast of Naxos. It's only about 40km from Xora, but it takes a puke-inducing 2+ hour bus ride to get to on narrow, twisty, steep mountain roads. But that's not the good part. Eph and I were walking on that very pretty beach, when suddenly I saw a man squatting somewhat near but by no means in a stand of trees. I said to myself, "Self, it looks like that man is about to--oh God, oh sweet God! Eph, Eeeeeph!" And there, on the beach, as two Americans looked on in abject horror, the man proceeded to relieve himself in plain-as-day view. I won't go into further detail, but let's just say that what he was doing starts with "p" and ends with "ooping." The horror, the horror!

As you've probably figured out, Naxos is a relatively big island compared to others in the Aegean. There's a rocky coastline with some decent-sized mountains inland, and many, many, many kouroi (marble statues of young men) scattered around in the hills. Naxos had a bunch of ancient marble quarries, and these guys can be found all over. Having visited every last one of them on our 15-mile day-hike, I think it's safe to say that if you've seen one, you've really, really seen them all. (I trotted that last line out in the presence of several classicists on Friday night, and from the looks on their faces, you'd think they'd just witnessed some guy pooping on a beach or something. I did not get the laugh I was going for.) Maybe I would appreciate these statues more if someone could tell me what the hell they were for.

On that note, if anyone is curious about what is actually involved with being a classicist or even just an academian, refer to the picture at left. The backpack is optional.

Gee, that's a nice photo of a wind-blown, weather-beaten tree, isn't it? Now try to imagine taking that picture while being harrassed by two 14-year-old Greek hoodlums. Awesome. While on our 15-mile jaunt (are you getting the 15-mile part yet?), Eph and I rounded a bend on the side of a mountain, and there two boys were, sitting on a fence, calling out profanities to the cars that went by every so often. Now, having grown up in a small town myself, I completely understand why that's fun, but when we came by, they actually got off the fence and started following us. At that point in time, I hadn't taken any Greek, but I knew what they were saying was directed at me and it was not flattering in any way. They were also gracious enough to trot out some swears in English for our benefit. After a solid 10 or 15 minutes of total verbal abuse, they actually started throwing things at us, and Eph whipped around and said "Ti einai to provlima? Eh?" (The final "Eh?" is crucial for emphasis in Greek, and you have to use your hands to gesture as well.) The kids, who would be the American equivalent of "greasers", went totally silent and then the one with longer, punkier hair said (in Greek) "Oh s&*t, you understood us!" And, after a few more hurled projectiles, that was the end of that. In true 14-year-old fashion, even the taunting of tourists lost its allure, and they went off in search of something to light on fire.

To end on a high note, this is a sweet picture of us before we started playing cribbage on the roof of our hotel.

And this is me after I kicked Eph's bootay. Hah! Hahhhhhhh!

And this is why Eph no longer has camera priviledges.

High Fives and Soureialismos

2005-09-30T18:33:00.000+03:00

With regard to my Greek test this afternoon, let's just say that all the power claps were not in vain. I kicked some level 1 modern Greek bootay, and no, there were no points given for writing one's name correctly. I'd also like to send warmest gratitude to Staci and Josie for their encouraging slow-clapping Stateside. Ladies, I salute you.

Note: If you think you're unfamiliar with slow-clapping, you're not: it's in every movie in which the protagonist has a triumphant final performance or makes some sort of courageous speech or something of that ilk. The main character finishes whatever it is he's doing, there's a moment of silence, and then someone in the crowd stands up and begins to clap, slowly, assuredly, until everyone has joined in and cheering ensues. By the way, this is also something to do sarcastically at work, preferably with other people watching.
Interestingly, the word "soureialismos" (you can figure it out) came up in class today, and that is exactly what I was thinking of as I walked to the school (www.athenscentre.gr). I was standing at a crosswalk, waiting to jaywalk at the appropriate time, and a dog came up next to me. He had a collar but wasn't on a leash. There was no owner in sight, but clearly, Mr. Dog, too, was planning to cross the street and no, he wasn't going to wait for the light, either. He and I both kept edging out into the very busy street, and we were looking up and down at the traffic at the same time, and he acted so utterly human that it was more like I was following him than he was following me. I'm probably not explaining it accurately, but it was just really strange. A bunch of people around kept looking at him anxiously to make sure he wasn't going to run out and get kilt, but it was so clear that he knew exactly what he was doing and was in some sort of hurry to get where he was going. If he had been wearing a watch, he would have been glancing at it. I think he may work at the post office or something.

Finally, as I was coming here, I passed a non-Greek man who looked at me with what could only be described as beady eyes. Ugh.

I am going to DOMINATE this test

2005-09-29T17:52:00.000+03:00

First and foremost, if you want to read a hi-larious blog, you have to go to www.leghumped.blogspot.com. I mean, dang, Staci is flippin funny and she recounts the story of our 10K "run" last year in painfully ('cause I was laughing so hard) accurate detail. She is a blogging genius.

Eph and his friend, Zeph (they're quite the duo with those names), have left to go to the Peloppones for a couple of days, and I am about to go study for my modern Greek final. I'm a little nervous, seeing that it's--wait, no, noooo, it's not graded and no one will ever see the results. All tests should be like this. So, yeah, whatever--anyone up for going out tonight? Kidding, of course. FYI, I studied and HIGHLIGHTED the North Carolina Driving Manual in order to obtain a license in that state. I got a 100 (picture me looking at my lap and wearing the requisite smug smile). At any rate, wish me luck, although I won't need it because I am going to DOMINATE (flashback to a guy we knew in college). Power claps all around!

How much longer till Decision 2008?

2005-09-26T18:56:00.000+03:00

I realize that this commentary is a little late in coming, but did the American media seize upon the press-conference footage of George W adamantly insisting that he and his friends weren't going to "get in the way" of any clean-up operations from Hurricane Rita? 'Cause here in Greece, they showed it about 6 million times, and I can tell you that nothing instills confidence in one's leader more than his repeated assertions that he will not be getting in anyone's way. Keep it up, George.

Zero, nothing, I can't do it--that's my "level" (Seinfeld reference)

2005-09-26T18:26:00.000+03:00

I realize that there has been a severe drought in the way of actual news from Athens, so I'll try to recap our little life for the past few weeks. Aside from jackhammering mania, things have been pretty quiet:

I am pretty much engrossed in my Greek class, which is challenging but going well. In the first level, they cover the basics and only present the grammar for the present tense. Obviously, that puts a pretty stiff cap on conversations, but it's not like I'm able to converse (or, this is for you, Staci, "conversate") in Greek anyway. If you were to name the level at which I currently reside, "Pidgin Greek" would be the category I'm in. I can write decently with what I've learned, but speaking is a whole different story. And honestly, there's nothing more gratifying than evoking a pained expression from each Greek person I speak to, really. The good news is that I can order coffee with no problems whatsoever. You have to start somewhere, right?

Eph is at the library all the time, and I have confirmed reports that when he says he's "working on [his] dis" he is actually working on his dissertation. Last year, that would have translated to "reading blogs and checking baseball scores," but we're all a little older and wiser nowadays.

I found, bought and tried a Status Triple and was totally disappointed. There was nothing to indicate its tripleness--it just had vanilla icecream encased in a thicker than normal chocolate coating. Please, Status, give me something I can use.

Finally, Eph had a friend visiting this week, so we went back to Sounio on Saturday. Yes, I have pictures, and no, I cannot post them because this gotdang computer won't let me. We jumped off the rocks and swam again, and it's unbelievable how nice the water is, even in late September. I mean, it kicks Maine's behind by at least 10 degrees. Also, quick clarification: by "we" I mean "Eph and Zeph" jumped off the rocks. I feel that I have conquered that challenge and need never do it again. Ever. (The Elvis leg returned the minute I got down to the little ledge, and I just said the hell with it.)

Poson Kairo?

2005-09-26T18:10:00.000+03:00

I am grumpy today, mainly because some guy was jackhammering the sidewalk about 10 feet from our apartment this morning and I woke up wayyyyy before I wanted to. He started at approximately 7:00 a.m., and by the time I left for my Greek class at 12:30, he was still at it. They're putting in some sort of retail establishment on the garden level of the building across from us, so naturally the entire sidewalk of the storefront needs to be split to pieces early on a Monday morning. I'm not so savvy in the way of the jackhammer, but I can't imagine that this guy would win any jackhammering speed contests, seeing that it took him more than five hours to only partially decimate about 3 square feet of sidewalk. The only thing that made it bearable was that at noon, a guy slammed his sliding door open, appeared on his balcony clad only in his boxers, and started yelling, "YIATI? POSON KAIRO? POSON KAIRO?" (translation: "WHY? FOR HOW LONG? FOR HOW LONG?") in a mildly hysterical tone. Keep in mind that Greece won the European basketball championship last night, so Boxers was probably celebrating until the wee hours. Jackhammer argued with him for a couple of minutes, realized that the discussion was going nowhere, and then simply resumed jackhammering to drown Boxers out, an obviously effective tactic. Boxers went back inside and I went back to watching a scintillating television show dedicated soley to fried breads around the world.

Yes, I am unemployed.

Party in Pangrati welcomes Joe!

2005-09-14T18:50:00.000+03:00

My brother, Joe, has joined the loyal Party In Pangrati readership--hello, Joe! FYI, he was also referred to as "Jody" in early life. Hah. However, I'm not sure I have a leg to stand on here since She Who Confers All Nicknames, my mom, called me Anne-Maraw for about 14 seconds before I lost it (probably in some public place) and demanded that she cease and desist from all such activities. But I digress...Joe, it's good to have you, and thanks for calling me today. You're my favorite brother who lives in Queens.

So much material, so little time

2005-09-06T23:09:00.000+03:00

I have been inundated with bloggable postings, so I'm putting the Naxos recap on hold for the following ruminations on my life and surroundings:

First of all, what good is having a blog unless you publicly flame people on the Internet? With that, let me just say that the band/artist/don't know/don't care, Sufjan Stevens, is terrible and please do not buy any of this entity's records, t-shirts or any other paraphanalia. I beg of you, do not encourage this person/people. Terrible. A friend of ours sent us a very sweet care package that included one of his/their CDs, and by God, it sounded like it belonged on the Lawrence Welk Show. I mean, these folks would be the ones dressed up like a Mariachi band or something, but they're trying to be an Indie-rock band that also brings a prominent and horrific male falsetto into the forefront of their songs. Terrible. If you like Sufjan Stevens, you need to seriously reconsider not only your taste in music but your purpose on this earth.

I started my modern Greek language class yesterday, and the uncontrollable shaking of the leg returned (along with some serious sweating) as soon as it was my turn to speak. I was sure the Swedish girl next to me would be like, "Dude, are you ok? No seriously, dude." (According to my brother, Matt, there is a scientific term for the leg shake, "Elvis leg," or leggio Elvisatum if you want the official term. Go forth and use it with reckless abandon.) I have actually made some friends, or perhaps just "chums" at this point, but all seem to be decent folk. I have taken no pictures, not wanting to freak them out. Yet. The one minor ripple is the Danish girl who asked for homework within the first 45 minutes. Umm, on what planet is that cool? Worse still, she wanted said homework to be that we watch Greek soap operas. Yeah, no thanks. Mercifully, the teacher declined. Otherwise, I'm learning some Greek talk, which does wonders for my self esteem, especially at the grocery store. The sweating has abated somewhat, but it still reappears when the teacher calls on me and I'm frozen like a deer in headlights.

Finally, I have come to the conclusion that God clearly did not put Eph and me together on this Earth in order to engage against one another in any sort of competitive activity, given the fact that we are, in fact, the two worst sports in the history of mankind. We have an ongoing cribbage game going that turns our apartment into a breeding ground of total and complete unsportsmanlike conduct. As any member of his family can attest, Eph is a braggart, plain and simple. Not only is he an unbearable winner (jeering, pointing too close to the face, all that), but he'll claim that a 30-point loss to me is, and I quote, "a moral victory." In my own right, I take smugness to unprecedented new heights by mixing one part self-congratulation with two parts schadenfreude. And I sulk when I lose, I sulk big time. However, just imagine what would happen if we combined our powers for (our own) good? So help me, I am going to search out some competitive arena that we can jointly enter, dominate and bring its sportsmanship threshold to new lows. Let the obnoxious high-fiving begin. Yessssssssss! (insert an aggressive fist-pump here).

Back and Better Than Ever

2005-09-04T17:43:00.000+03:00

Eph and I had a sweet trip to the isle of Naxos, and I have decided to recap our adventures and exploits in several different posts as one long one would be really, really boring to read. And, to spare the play-by-play details, I plan to only give the highlights (as I see them of course). Seeing as this computer will not allow me to upload pictures from my camera, I will save my stories for a later date, but I leave you with this tidbit: in the interest of science, I decided to sample the Status Double's rivals, the Magic and Boss Doubles. On Friday, Eph and I went for what turned out to be a 15 mile hike (I'm not lying, I'll show it to you on a map), and at about mile 9 we passed a JetOil station and decided that we couldn't go on without ice cream. Though ubiquitous in Athens, the Status-brand products are apparently quite sparse on Naxos, so as I say, in the interest of science (and because it was the only brand those JetOil hoodlums carry), I decided to see if the Magic Double could compare in any way to the Status. Short answer: no. First of all, the Magic Double does not come in a box but in a flimsy plastic bag, therefore exposing itself to countless possibilities of damage, melting, all sorts of danger. Secondly, I didn't have my scale with me, but I am quite certain that the Magic Double was smaller than its Status counterpart. Finally, the caramel layer was way too runny--the Status' caramel is firm, creamy yet pliant, whereas the Magic people clearly feel that any old drippy caramel will do. Not so, my friends, not so at all.

Soundtrack: "Jump" by the Pointer Sisters (you know you know it!)

2005-08-29T17:17:00.000+03:00

Eph and I took a little day trip yesterday to Sounion, which is the site of the Temple of Poseidon there on the left. (Disclaimer: I didn't take that photo because the computer I originally loaded my gotdang pictures onto just went into the electronic version of the fetal position and I had to switch to a different machine.) It was such a beautiful day, and we got there in mid-afternoon, so the light was very cool and it was clear enough to see for quite a ways. The temple is at the top of a decent-sized hill overlooking the ocean and a bunch of islands, and it was awesome.

Better still, we hiked down to the base of the hill where it meets the water. Before going on this little excursion, Eph had mentioned that we could jump off the rocks into the sea and swim and frolic in the water. Now, in my mind, "jump off the rocks" entailed "wading off rocks" or maybe "sliding off the rocks on one's rear end into the water." But Eph actually meant "jump one and a half stories off the rocks into the depths below," which, even when we were climbing down to the water, never occured to me. So, we got to a ledge that was roughly 15 (okay, maybe less) feet above the ocean and Eph started changing into his bathing suit.

Small timeout: has anyone ever known me to be a jumper off of things? Think, give it a minute...nope, not at all. In recent years, the fear of heights has actually replaced the mortal terror of insects as my number one phobia. Game on.

Eph put on his bathing suit while I was standing there, clinging to the rocks, being like, "Dude, there's no way, I'm totally freaked out, I'm not doing it." And, or course, he's all like, "Come on, it's not even that high, you can do it, stop thinking about it and do it." And then he jumped. And jumped again. And then again. Erstwhile, sincerely wanting to jump (and, frankly, needing to pee), I changed into my bathing suit and began the cycle of crawling to the ledge, going into a complete panic attack that would include uncontrollable shaking of the legs, retreating to a more secure place, and then listening to Eph try to coax me into jumping. I don't know about you, but when I'm in windy places that are high up, gravity seems to disappear in my mind. When the wind gusts, I am certain that it's going to knock me over the edge. By our calculations, the waffling/freaking out went on for half an hour (note the time to actual drop distance ratio of two minutes:2 feet, I pride myself on that) until I did some power claps and uttered Staci's never-fail, courage-inducing mantra to both the cursed rocks and water, "You are my sworn enemy," and jumped. As Eph promised, the water was unbelievably warm, and there were fishes swimming below my feet, and all was right with the world. Ahhh. I even considered jumping again and went so far as to walk out on the ledge, but then I totally panicked again and Eph was tired of treading water waiting for me, anyway. So we went back up to the temple and drank beers at the little cafe. There's only so much you can ask of one person in a day.

We are off to Naxos, the kinder, gentler cousin of Mykonos, Santorini and Paros in the Cyclades, tomorrow morning and I hope to have some good photos and reports upon our return. Until then, godspeed.

A Walking Tour

2005-08-26T10:38:00.000+03:00

Because I have finally learned to simply leave my camera in my bag so I'll have it with me all the time, I now have pictures of my neighborhood and other places that I go. I'm aware that the picture on the left is kind of terrible, but that's one of the two grocery stores I frequent. The check-out lady lost it on me about the non-weighing of produce at this very place, but we've since put our differences aside and have returned to civility. She doesn't slam my change down on the counter anymore. Except when other people piss her off. And when the bottle recycling machine breaks down, but then she just yells for one of the guys to come and fix it.

To get to Syntagma, the city center, I pass the Olympic Stadium from the 1896 Games, which is pretty cool. It was built on the site of an ancient stadium, but I have a question: was marble really the best choice for seats? I mean, would you want to sit on it for several hours at a time? I realize aesthetics were the primary concern, but they didn't even have those cushioned seat back thingys you bring to football games in 1896 (or maybe they did, I don't know). There are always tourists out front taking pictures, and I sucked it up yesterday and busted out my own camera. The plaza out front is pretty much the Greek equivalent of Death Valley with the blazing sun beating down all the time.

Fortunately, right across from the Stadium is where I cut through the National Gardens, which are very shady and cool even on the hottest days. Yesterday I passed a man relieving himself in the bushes, maybe about three feet, or in Euro terms, "one meter," off the path. This is also prime locale for the enjoyment of the Status Double. Mmm mmm mmm.

Finally, this is where I get my 'roids. The location is very convenient, and I'm huge now.

Status Symbol

2005-08-26T10:17:00.000+03:00

As we all know, one of the great joys of traveling abroad is exploring the foods of various countries. And here, what I mean by "food" translates to "junk food." Italy has gelato, Ireland has the supreme fried Mars bar (now popular at the North Carolina State Fair), and I now present to you Greece's finest, available at most kiosks: the Status Double.
Oh sure, from the outside, it looks just like any other ice cream bar, but listen: it's good-quality, super-creamy vanilla ice cream dipped in chocolate, then dipped in caramel, then dipped in chocolate again. Honestly, the first one I ate took my breath away. I'm trying to keep purchases of the Status Double to a bi-weekly schedule, but sometimes I break down and have them more often. I generally eat one while I'm walking home from the city center--not only do the simultaneous walking and eating ice cream cancel one another out calorie-wise, but I also feel that there is no better way to ingratiate myself with Athenians than to cruise the city with chocolate smeared on my face. It's a win-win.

Please don't confuse the Status Double with its rival counterparts, the Boss and/or Magic Doubles, as I have not tried the latter two and therefore cannot vouch for their goodness. Their names alone don't even come close to comparing to the cool, classy "Status" monniker. I'm almost afraid to write it, but I've also seen advertisements of a mythical Status Triple, but I have never encountered one face to face. A Triple would just be tempting fate.

Status Double, if loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Jeopardy category: Potpourri

2005-08-21T12:51:00.000+03:00

A few miscellaneous items to report, the first one being that Suki, our dog, now has her own blog--"The High Seas (and other) Adventures of Suki". It's the first link listed on the left, and it is published by noted canine biographer, Kathleen Aho Lytle. The pictures and narrative are amazing...way to go Kathy! It's already far surpassed DearAbby.com and BananaRepublic.com in my web surfing lineup.

Secondly, I know you're saying to yourself, "Gee, those links on the left are new." They are new, because I edited the HTML on my own. Understand that, for me, "I edited the HTML" is akin to saying "I rerouted the FTP server over to ISP this weekend." Or maybe not--I have no idea what that last sentence even means. But you get the point: I'm a genius.

Finally, we had a guest test-drive our apartment for visits this weekend, and it passed with flying colors. Come one, come all! You can have the whole front living/dining room to yourself (complete with A/C and a balcony), and Eph will sign a contract saying he won't hog the bathroom. We'll even throw Smokey in the washing machine for you. However, the first person who shows up is going to have to bring a queen-sized Aerobed (or the generic Walmart equivalent). We'll pay you back, we promise. And, seriously, it's for your own good. The couch isn't comfortable at all.

Athens, 911

2005-08-18T17:45:00.000+03:00

For non-criminal reasons that I won't go into here, Eph and I have to submit our fingerprints to the FBI in order to obtain a Greek residence permit. This all would have been much easier to do in the States, where we pass as native English speakers, but we heartily prefer to do things the difficult way. So, what better method of really getting to know Greek culture than to spend hours at the largest police station in Athens in a long, drawn-out attempt to have our fingerprints taken?

Note: we did try to make our own prints using a black inkpad, but as you can probably imagine, the quality didn't live up to the standards I am familiar with from Law and Order. I did have the finger rolling technique down pat, though. See, all those TBS marathons in college paid off. Go Blue Devils.

We went to the American embassy first, hoping they would take our prints and be done with it. While they would not do so, the up-side was that a) we got in without waiting for hours on the sidewalks like other people and b) they had actually heard of the FBI fingerprint request. We waited for only about 15 minutes, and I was lucky enough to read the After School Special-esque brochure on evils of drug posession in foreign countries. (FYI, Turkey and other countries have recently (recently!) instituted the death penalty for certain drug offenders. Yikes.) We left with official American-Embassy-stamped letters in Greek that outlined our request for fingerprints, and we were told to head to the 13th floor of the central police station and they would help us. Elated with the fact that there seemed to be a procedure in place for this kind of thing, we went straight to the police station.

The security people (were they cops? I don't know--definitely low on the butt-kicking totem pole, if they were) were totally baffled by us, but we got past them and rode a terrifyingly old elevator to the 13th floor. We entered room 1310, the fingerprint office, and told the man in there what we were looking for. He, of course, had never heard of anyone coming to the police for fingerprints, and was totally mystified by the letter we had for him. Nice work, Embassy. I salute you.

We explained the situation to him, and then he consulted with a couple of people who looked like they should be in high school. We may have been the first people who had ever requested to have our fingerprints taken, which made us instantly suspicious in their eyes. The invocation of the word "FBI" didn't help us, either. There was a lot of looking at the fingerprint forms that we had brought and glancing over at us with narrowed eyes. I don't think there could have been two more bumbling, jackass idiots sitting before them, but as far as they knew, we were Bonnie and Clyde. At long last, they agreed take our prints, but they wanted to enter us into their system in the process, and we had to come back the next day with passport photos. I wanted to suggest that maybe they could just take mugshots of us and be done with it, but at the time, it seemed better for me to keep my mouth shut.

Passport photos in hand, we returned the next morning, and everyone was pretty friendly. Now, I AM NOT JUDGING, but the head dude was wearing the same striped red polo shirt. Just an observation. Also, they either have a Tuesday-Wednesday casual dress code, or there are very lax standards at the Athens police station. Might be a nice place to work. Good benefits, and I bet you can do flex time, at least in the summer...

We presented our passport photos, filled out some forms, and they led us down to the actual fingerprinting room. Standing outside in a putrid, narrow hallway, there were a bunch of arrestees hanging out, waiting to be printed. In handcuffs. Needless to say, they were really psyched when we were told to just cut the line. I felt good. We stood around for a few minutes and watched one guy print people while another guy entered something into the largest ledger I have ever seen. I would like to note that there was not a computer in sight, which leaves me to believe that either all their info is kept manually in books, or they have someone enter the data later. Great system.

My turn came, Eph's turn came, we washed our hands with what we later realized to be laundry detergent, and then we were sent back up to the 13th floor to wait for 3 million years while they made sure our prints didn't match any they already had in the "system." All I could think of was some guy wearing a golf shirt and Pumas, flipping through ledger after ginormous ledger, being like, "Oh, is that a match? Is it? Look at that whorl..."

After the passage of geological eon, we were cleared to go (thank GOD, because it seems like there may be substantial room for error with their methods), and the fingerprint forms are now on their way to some bureacrat's desk in West Virginia. I have now learned the correct procedure of fingerprinting (printmaking ink+braiser+fingers), and I am considering a career in Greek law enforcement, but only if I get that casual dress gig.

Casa de Lytle

2005-08-15T16:06:00.000+03:00

All right! I finally have pictures of the apartment up--it took a complete mental breakdown and a weekend of recovery, including Saturday at a sweet, sweet Greek beach, but now I'm back on track. All of the computers in the lab I'm using are fully saturated with viruses (and yes, I email all my friends from these very same machines). The one I was using on Friday actually went into safe mode as I was trying to upload images, and it was all I could do to keep from jamming an icepick in my ear and ending the misery. That said, voila:

Here are the living room and kitchen--note the nice marble floors, male model, working TV (with no remote, mind you), and the not so nice brown and orange tile in the kitchen. I mean, come on, it's one thing for someone to say, "Yes, this is my design masterpiece, it's an enduring, classic motif in ugly, ugly colors," but it's a very different thing altogether for someone else to go out and purchase it. And then install it. You might be thinking to yourself, "Well, if that's as bad as it gets, what's she complaining about?" And to that, I respond with the images below:

Ahh, our bathroom. Windowless and done up in varying shades of brown and, yes, that's right, yellow. To top it all off, there's a taupe shower curtain with sylvan scenes depicted in, you guessed it, brown. Sweet. Also, I bet you're asking, "Why did they put the little trash can right next to the toilet?" Well folks, that's because your toilet paper goes in there. Think about that for a second. Mmm hmm, used toilet paper. I mention this only as a warning to those who plan to visit (Staci, I'm looking at you, here). And it's not just our house, it's all of Greece. They don't give you that little tidbit of useful information when you're buying your plane ticket, do they?

However, being the ray of sunshine as I am, there is the glass-half-full side:

Yes! A Smokey the Bear hand towel (?) that now serves as our bathmat. It was buried way in the back of the linen closet; I bet Evgenia didn't even want us to find it. Check it out, his helmet says "Smokey" right on it, in case you didn't recognize his cheerful, responsible expression and the obvious adoration of his fellow woodland creatures. He's a regular St. Francis. You know, with a shovel, jeans from the "huskey" section, and fur. I left the picture full-size so you can revel in all of Smokey's glory.

Also, I know what you're thinking: they don't have a bedroom. They're sleeping on that couch. Wrong! I just deleted the bedroom picture by mistake, and not wanting to disrupt the delicate, delicate serenity of the computer I'm on, I dare not try to re-upload.

Let me get you another copy of that memo

2005-08-15T14:35:00.000+03:00

Yeah, so this fine Monday morning, I woke up at an astonishingly early 8:00ish and prepared myself to go downtown to the Central Market in search of countless exotic spices, fish, olives, meats, you name it. My coffee drunk and my bathrobe stowed, Eph and I strolled down the street together, I got on the Metro, he continued on to the American School, and, when I arrived at the designated stop, I got off. Easy enough. I was on my merry way and there was nothing that was going to stop me from discovering untold wonders and treasures, except that everyth--wait, no, yeah--everything was closed. Cafes, clothing stores, the post office, yeah, everything. Dry hot wind, tumbleweed, whole lotta jack squat going on. Apparently, I did not receive the memo that August 15 is some sort of Greek holiday with which I am not familiar. Right-e-o.

As I walked home in the pleasant 100 degree heat, it became abundantly clear that I missed some pretty obvious signs, the primary one being that when we left at 10:30, nothing in our normally busy neighborhood was open. Even the kiosk owned by the guy who ogles girls all day was locked up tight--I guess somewhere in the back of my mind I said "Who's going to stare at womens' breasts today?" but I dismissed it thinking, "Well, maybe he gets going a little later on Monday mornings. The Greeks get it: sometimes you just have to roll in late." But no, today is a day where no one rolls in at all. That's information I could have used sooner. I'm getting a Greek calendar, and I swear I'm going to flip the pages to the appropriate month each time.

Thank God a few kiosks were open, however, as I could not have made the 35-minute walk home without a lemon Fanta. If you're not familiar with kiosks, here's the dilly: though they merely look like carts with tourist stuff hanging off at all angles, they are actually more like tiny 7-Elevens, minus the 3-year-old hotdogs rotating under heat lamps on those slanted conveyer belts. They're all good for a cold drink, but the really outstanding ones have ice cream coolers chained to them and maybe some Greek porn magazines at direct eye level to boot. No Slurpees, though you can get those at Everest (ubiquitous fast food pastry chain). This city is not without its creature comforts.

Check yoself before you wreck yoself

2005-08-12T18:57:00.000+03:00

The only new thing I have to report is that I added two pictures below. I have plenty of other pictures, but for reasons I won't go into, I am too damn frustrated to go into it here. I hate computers and all who have anything to do with them. Deal with it, Matt.

My Schedule

2005-08-11T17:58:00.000+03:00

Suki, international poster child for the World Siesta campaign, shows just how important it is to get a good afternoon's sleep.

If you can actually call it at "schedule," here's what my days generally look like:
1) Get up at the crack of 9:30 or 10:00
2) Put on bathrobe
3) Make pot* #1 of coffee in my french press (*Note that a "pot" here consists of maybe two shotglasses full of coffee. The french press is tiny, and definitely can't handle Eph's and my demand, but we're too cheap to buy a bigger one. That may change in the near future.)
4) Drink pot #1 of coffee while sitting in bathrobe on dreadfully uncomfortable couch
5) Make and drink pot #2 of coffee
6) 11:00ish--go on some sort of outing, generally involving the purchasing of household items that are woefully absent
from our "furnished" apartment (i.e. cutting boards, measuring cups, etc.)
7) 3:00-5:00--siesta. Ahhh. If I may, let me go into my campaign stump for the worldwide institution of the siesta. Have you ever been upset having taken a nap? Do you ever look back on a day and say, "Man, I really wish I hadn't had two hours of fantastic sleep during the hottest hours of the day." No, and that in a nutshell is why each country in the world should observe a two, two and a half hour quiet time every afternoon. I mean, come on, the Greeks founded modern civilization (along with the help of some of their friends in Mesopotamia, but whatever), and I think they really have something along the lines of the Pythagorean Theorem with the siesta. Who's with me?
8) 5:00-whenever, some sort of afternoon outing that usually involves the Internet and postings on this very site.
9) 8:00ish, dinner preparation. We had some badass pizza with figs, prosciutto and feta last night. Mmm, boy.
10) 10:00-whenver I can't stand it anymore, watch terrible American movies that went straight to video. Each time, I think, "wow, that's the last one I watch," but it never is. These fine pieces of American cinema (resembling a 13-year-old's middle school project) are generally on channel 7, which seems to be an NBC affiliate of some sort? It has the peacock logo...Josie? Thoughts here? Alternatively, we watch soccer or the appallingly bad Greek music videos that are on every other station. They also have a lot of QVC-esque channels. There is a lot of shit for sale in the world.
11) 12:00 or 1:00, hit the sack. It's quite a life.

Have you ever seen a dog wearing a life preserver?

2005-08-10T13:29:00.000+03:00

The saddest thing about leaving the U.S. for a year is that we couldn't bring our dog, Suki (a.k.a the Sukester, Sukironimous, Sukironimous Bosch, the Poochimus Maximus, Poochles, Pooch Poch, Poochiferous, Poochildous, Chompers C. McChompee, Chompers, Chomperino, Chippy Chomps, Useless Dog). However, she doesn't really care that we're gone, because she is on a protracted cruise vacation with Eph's parents, who have her on their sailboat. Kathy, Eph's mom (hey, Kathy!) has been great about sending pictures, so check it out: it's a dog wearing a life preserver! Hah!

If you're interested in learning more about Suki or if you'd like to network with her dog friends, she has her own website on Dogster at http://www.dogster.com/pet_page.php?i=15295&PHPSESSID=5cff2717d2fae23d90ecf2d4c8c42532. The photos are oldies but goodies.

What is Pangrati, anyway?

2005-08-10T13:12:00.000+03:00

Artotinas Street, where everyone comes to yell

For the sake of clarification, Pangrati is the neighborhood where we live in Athens. It's in the southeastern section of the city, about a 30 minute walk from Syntagma, the center of town. Pangrati itself is fairly residential, but in terms of nightlife, it's kind of like the Village, whereas Kolonaki (the chi-chi part of town on Lykavitos Hill) is the Upper East Side. The Plaka is Times Square. Of course, these are all loose analogies...

The best thing, so far, about Pangrati is that we have an amazing street market two blocks from our apartment. It's like having the best farmer's market at your doorstep. When I get batteries for my damn camera, I'll post pictures, because it really is awesome and dirt cheap for great produce. The also have people selling fish and, of all things, underwear, but it's mostly fruits and vegetables. Mmm, cherries. I ate like 2 pounds of them this morning.

Our apartment is on Artotinas Street, which is fairly undistinguished other than the fact that it is the LOUDEST STREET IN THE WORLD. Seriously, the yelling. Do we always need to yell? And for the love of God, does the TV have to be on the highest volume setting possible? And could the one person on the planet who actually likes Phil Collins get some headphones? I guess the noise of everything is augmented by the fact that we essentially have an entire wall of sliding glass doors open at most times, but I swear that some of our neighbors use megaphones to speak to one another. I, on the other hand, am a model citizen, perfect in my every way and habit.

We're in Pangrati (but the party has yet to begin)

2005-08-07T11:14:00.000+03:00

We're alive! Eph and I made it over to Greece without incident--no small feat when you're traveling on a Delta buddypass. As per usual, we didn't know if we'd be getting on the plane until like 5 seconds before takeoff, but we got sweet, adjoining seats in first class, no less. Rock it. I drank a glass of wine, ate the meal they touted as "gourmet," put the uber-cheap nylon socks on and was fully-reclined and drooling like a champ (I'm a drooler, that's all there is to it) in no time. That 9h45m felt like nothing. Going back to coach on future flights is going to hurt; that's the double-edged sword of first class.

We landed on Monday, and by Tuesday night, we had signed a lease on an apartment. Phaidon, our apartment-finder-dude, is very cool. The only hitch with the whole operation is that the landlady had left a decade's worth of bad clothes, worse shoes, curios, and general crap in the apartment, and she's in Crete indefinitely. So, we had to clean out all her stuff from the closets and whatnot, and we put it all in one huge, stinking pile in the living room. The plan was for Phaidon to come by with his brother to collect all of Evgenia's belongings, and presumably, the brother was going to store all of it at his place (Eph and I suspect that Phaidon and Evgenia are related, otherwise he'd never be willing to do all this for 400 measly Euros). Phaidon and his brother show up, the brother takes one look at the massive pile of worthless crap in the middle of the living room, and (in Greek) is like "There's no way I'm taking this back to my apartment." He didn't even come all the way into the apartment, he just stood in the doorway and shaking his head. Phaidon kept insisting that (a la Spinal Tap) if they simply folded the clothes, they would fit into the brother's VW Golf, but the older, wiser brother was like, "Hell, no." So, Phaidon and his brother leave to go find another relative who will take some of the stuff, and they returned at 8:00 with a dude who drove a tiny sports car. At this point, all three men are so fed up with the whole business, they start loading breakable, ceramic and glass figurines and dishes into black trashbags. Having finally hauled out items including phonebooks dating from 1997 and more Christmas shit than anyone could ever hang up, they headed for the door, leaving one of Evgenia's prized Cretin ceramic cups behind. Eph goes, "Don't you want to take this?" and Phaidon looks over his shoulder and says, "Fuck it." We're going to have dinner with him at some point soon.

There was also a quarter-inch of cooking grease coating every surface in the apartment, which we had to clean off with dish soap. Now that we actually know what color the walls originally were, life is good. Next item on the list is to cover the hideous couch with something respectable.

Finally, a travel tip for those who plan to buy produce at a Greek grocery store: for the love of God, weigh your damn onions on the scale in the produce department! People, just do it!Otherwise, the checkout ladies and everyone else in line behind you get maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. (My question is this: why was there only one lane open???)