You say you say "tomayto"; I say you say "tomahto"

Another funny anecdote:

My dad, upon returning from Crete:  "One of the things I remember most about them is how much they love olive oil.  They would sop up every last bit of it with bread after the salad was gone."

Our relatives talking about his visit:  "One of the things we remember most about your dad is how much he loves olive oil.  He would sop up every last bit of it with bread after the salad was gone!"

Some phonological observations

Perhaps only interesting to a linguist, but I've noticed that Greek makes no phonemic distinction between \nd\ and \d\; or between \ng\ and \g\.  This means a Greek usually can't hear the difference, say, between "Woody Allen" and "Woondy Allen" ("Woody" is spelled Γούντι in Greek).  On the other hand, they *do* make a phonemic distinction between \k\ and \χ\, and between \g\ and \γ\.  I can usually hear the difference, but can only produce the \χ\ and \γ\ sounds with difficulty.  As Spock would say: fascinating.

Learning Greek must be tiring!

...I take a two hour nap most days, in addition to my usual 8 hours at night.  

A common Greek greeting

A common greeting in Greece is: Που είναι παπούτσια σου; Βρέχει!  (In Greeklish: Pou ineh papoutsia sou?  Vrehy!)

Now, before you bust this out at your local Greek festival, I should warn you:  It does not mean "How are you doing?  Good to see you!" but "Where are your shoes?  It's raining!"

*sigh*  I suppose I should really try wearing shoes.  My sandal-wearing ranks right up there with pocket protectors and taped-together glasses.  But they are so dang comfy!

Meze

One of my favourite ways of eating here on Crete is to have Meze, which I think we would call appetizers in the States.  Small individual plates are brought out, and everyone helps himself to the dishes as they are set on the table.  From what I can tell, this is the most common way of eating the evening meal, or vradino.  I like this for a couple of reasons: first it feels more communal and friendly, and second, you can control your portion size.

Friday evening I got to go out for meze with Manolis and two other friends who are close to the family: Iannis and Kostas.  The name of the spot was Argentina Ψαροταβερνα ("psaro" = fish, so "fish tavern"), and I still don't know what it has to do with Argentina, but the food was outstanding.  Here we are heading in:

Argentina Ψαροταβερνα

After we sat down and the water and bread were brought out, the menus were taken away after a brief discussion, and the owner came to the table.  Apparently we were in for a treat: Manolis is friends with the owner (whose name is also Manolis) and rather than ordering from the menu Manolis and  Manolis were going to choose for us the best dishes.

dolmathes

fish salad?

The first two dishes to come to the table were the dolmathes, which are easy enough to find in America, but were especially nice here (although of course Για-γιά's dolmathes are better ;-) ) and a legume salad with little bits of fish.  I don't recall the name but it was very nice.




Then came the kalimari and the xtopodi (the word octopus has lost its initial o in modern Greek), fried and grilled, respectively.  I had had xtopodi before and it is a particular favourite of mine.

After this came a pasta dish with a variety of bivalves that I didn't recognise, but all very tasty.  Finally they brought out grilled kalimari, which is called soukia if I recall correctly, and was out of this world.

pasta with various bivalves

Soukia?

Finally came the tsikoudia (aka raki elsewhere in Greece), which no restaurant meal would be complete without.  I have come to love this practice--it makes the bill easier to swallow, among other things--and some time back I was complaining to another student that I didn't know how I was going to adjust to no tsikoudia after dinner when I get back to the States.  I will close this blog entry with her reply:

There was life before tsikoudia, and there will be life after tsikoudia.

From the left: Manolis, Kostas, Iannis, and Iasonas

Tin Tin!

A slightly disturbing family photograph

This picture was given to me by Manolis Sigioltzakis, who is in Perivolia for a few days, visiting from Athens.  It's from the German archives.

This is Grandpa Nick's brother Iannis and his son Manolis Katsanevakis just before the Nazis shot them along with about 35 others in the town square (a ten minute walk from the Sigioltzakis house, where I'm staying).

They have planted one tree in this plaza for each person that was shot; I jog past the spot every day.  There many spots like this all over Crete--and all over Europe, I imagine.  Another example is the peaceful plaza by Lexis, where I relax with my morning coffee every day before class.  Here there is a huge tree from which many Christians were hung during the Turkish occupation.

Living in the Pacific Northwest, we don't have these daily reminders of human violence, and it is easy to forget.

A couple of brief cultural observations

OK, I'm still up to my eyeballs in Greek, so I'm gonna keep this short:

I'm fascinated by the various cultural differences.  There are tons of them (I'm still getting used to a backward tilt of the head and/or a raise of the eyebrows meaning "no"), but since my time is limited, here are two:

1) They have never heard of 3x5 cards here.  It's a bit difficult finding blank cardstock at all, but they do have it.  On the other hand, if you're interested in erasers they have them in spades.  One store I went to must have had at least 20 different kinds to choose from, including pen erasers and the latest in German eraser technology.  In case you're wondering, the best brand is Staedtler rasoplast; I'll be happy to post a pic if you ask nicely.  But I still need to post pix of my last major outing which was ... erm ... two weeks ago?

2) No one has toasters here, but they do eat something called «τοστ» (pronounced exactly the same way).  In Seattle, what they call τοστ in Greece would be called a ham & cheese panini, and no Greek kitchen would be complete without a panini press.  So there you have it.

And now back to the Greek (ελληνικά)!

Why there have not been (m)any blog posts lately:

Α picture is worth a thousand words; more if they are Greek words:

Ο χίλια ελληνικόσ λέξις