So we're back in the midwest. While it's good to be home, I'm already missing Greece...the sea, the sun, the mountains, the fabulous food and frappes served to us by charming waiters.
I'm not sure I've ever traveled somewhere with so few American tourists. It was quite jarring to wait for our flight from Athens to New York, surrounded by Americans, after being immersed in another culture for a week. We are a loud and obnoxious people, aren't we? I mean, don't get me wrong, Greeks are loud too. And wordy! Every Greek conversation we witnessed seemed to be three times as long as it needed to be for pure exchange of information. Irene would ask someone the way to somewhere, and there would be five minutes of rapid-fire Greek (I could pick out a word here and there...he said "tomorrow"! she said "five"!). Then she'd turn to Neena and me and say, simply, it's this way. We were losing something in the translation.
But thank goodness for ReRe. It was wonderful to see Greece with her as our spokesperson. We weren't treated like tourists, for the most part, and we were able to do and see so many things that wouldn't have been possible without a bonafide Greek leading the way. I'm sure it was exhausting for her to have us asking her questions every two seconds...what's that? what did she say? where are we? But she's a patient soul and knows so much about the history of what we were seeing (with the possible exception of the location of Knossos). Thanks for showing us your home, Irene!
No comments:
Post a Comment