Sojourn in Greece

Vouliagmeni's Saturday market seems to be a discount price market rather than a farmer's market. I spent 1.2 € on the week's supply of vegetables. (I'm not at the apartment for dinner much.) They have fruit, fish, eggs, and local honey.

Now to get my fruit, milk, bread and head home. Thence perhaps to the beach.

Well just to prove that life can be mundane wherever you are....another 3 days of nothing to write about. Except an excellent Greek lunch with intellectual conversation today, but I forgot to bring my camera to record the goodies (soft slices of octopus, boiled tiny squash, Greek salad, fried cheese, beef & chips, fresh bread). My Greek companion confesses however that he longs for bagels.

My classes this year are, shall we say "highly social", which is a problem for a teacher with hearing difficulties -- but as a result they dived into last night's roleplay with demonstrative engagement, and the turmoil was fun to watch. A formal event was happening in the bigger lecture room so many groups went outside to practice negotiating.

Sorry everyone. The schedule of the last two days has been: stare at computer screen in the apartment. Walk downhill 10 minutes to ALBA. Stare at computer screens till 7pm. Walk home, pick up a few items at the store, prepare dinner, waste time, fall asleep.

School starts this week, and we had several children in the offices visiting their fathers. One curly-haired 3-year old was clutching a huge yellow balloon, having just finished her very first day of private school. The 5-year-old sister already speaks some English--till recently they lived in London. The other day, an 8 month old (child of two professors here) was being passed around. I couldn't get near him. I can hear from my office when a child walks through the doors. Adults come out to the lobby and start talking in kid-voices or cooing to the babies. One of the things I like about Greece is that kids are out and about everywhere and other adults interact easily with them. To his father's amusement, this boy left his Dad's office to visit other staff, and then went down to hang out in the building's cafe for a while.

T and I went into Athens for a wiltingly hot afternoon wandering the fleamarkets in Monastiraki. Stuff! piles and mounds of it in the dazzling sun. T picked through the debris with a practiced eye and had fun bargaining. I waited till we ducked into a print and rare book shop -- shade!-- and found this page from an 1890 French book depicting the female chorus in Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata for 15 euros. It's this size but crisper than my camera captures.

Does anyone know what this stacked ceramic whachamawhosit is on the right?

T. found the silver prayer amulets among the tin ones and took 3 home.

We had a few side adventures searching for a ceramics museum (next to the old Athens synagogue) that turned out to be closed; finding another that had splendid ceramics but was closing in 10 minutes. T spotted a British woman's wallet that a thief had stripped and tossed over a wall and we dragged the local cop over to retrieve it. More police investigating poor (Romani?) vendors on a nearby street in the old red light district--crumbling buildings and pathetic wares spread on the sidewalks, just a few blocks from the trendy tourist areas.

Before meeting T, I ducked into the tiny old chapel appropriately dedicated to St. Barbara, to sit in prayer for Barbara and her daughter. The chapel's chairs were filled -- with tourists pausing for a moment, and with women waiting for the priest to hear their troubles and offer blessing. It was oddly like a Quaker meeting (including the lack of airconditioning) with everyone silently facing the lit window in the sanctuary, sitting, waiting together and separately in sacred silence ...

I spent the ENTIRE Saturday -- morning till 11:30pm -- at the computer, albeit in 3 different locations. And still 4 immediate tasks unfinished. One of the things I used to like about travel was that you left all those projects at home, literally, because you couldn't take them with you. Now they shadow you wherever you go. Today, Sunday, I will atone for the day holed up in my cave with a trip to the center of Athens.

Yesterday evening brought the terrible news that my new housemate's lovely 23 year old daughter has been missing in NYC since Friday of Labor Day weekend. She visited Lansdowne the weekend before to help her Mom settle into the house, and I was touched by the warm, easy intimacy of their relationship. Such anguish, one cannot begin to fathom.