Saturday, 21 December 2019

Greek Oddity


          Because we’re staying in Athens for a month, I thought it a good idea to decipher the Greek alphabet and to master at least a few phrases, if only to show willing. But, even after a few days here, I remain tongue-tied, fearing that if I say so much as kalimera, I will be overwhelmed by an unintelligible response and the exchange will fizzle out. So, I keep shtum. Speaking Greek seems futile, anyway, as the locals can sense a foreign presence from a hundred paces and are quicker to slip into English than I am to muster my meagre vocabulary.
          We left the dis-United Kingdom two days after the election of a new government and the die was cast for Brexit. So, now that battle is lost, I am showing early symptoms of a Remainer-coming-to-terms-with-the-inevitable. Whilst I am still convinced that the EU makes sense as a powerful bloc for the purpose of global trade agreements (withstanding the bullying tactics of USA and China), I have begun to ponder the validity of oft-quoted negative aspects of the EU. I observe the Athenians smoking in cafes, riding around without helmets and seatbelts and I reflect on the futility of Europe-wide rules that some member-nations regard as optional. Then there are all those stories of corruption and waste to which I gave so little credence, not to mention the expensive layers of bureaucracy, the finest expression of which is the regular, unnecessary migration between Brussels and Strasbourg of council members and their entourages. Last, but not least – and the reason I am here – is the case for vive les differences.
          To make the most of this experience, we have rented someone’s apartment via Airbnb. We chose a neighbourhood away from Tourist Central, where we hope to get a fix of living somewhere different from our home. This is a recurring behaviour that stems from a desire to avoid getting stuck in habitudes that can lead us into intolerant mindsets: in other words, not getting too mired in comfortable complacency.
Our landlady met us at the door and remarked how little luggage we had, which, as it turned out, was just as well. Her apartment is as charming and homely as it appears in the online photos but there is a snag: it is so homely that there is no room for visitors and their gear. Although she had let the place to us, she had not troubled to move her toothbrushes from the bathroom shelf, nor her vast collection of cosmetics, shampoos and medication from the cabinets. She had cleared two feet of hanger space in the wardrobe for our use, but every drawer elsewhere overflows with stuff too personal to bear scrutiny. In the lounge, there are so many ornaments and knick-knacks that useable surface is hard to come by. On the walls is a photograph collection that tells her family history. She has enough stuff to set up a small bric-a-brac shop.  Considering that all she knows of us comes from a skimpy profile on Facebook, she is remarkably trusting of us not to ransack her personal life.
          When she left us, we cleared out the fridge so that we could jam a bottle of wine into it and photographed the lounge before rearranging her things so that we could spread out – both actions being symptomatic of our need to superimpose our familiar routines on our new environment, counterproductive to the purpose of our being here as it may be.
          Tomorrow, I shall try at the baker’s to order bread without pointing at it, though it occurs to me that Greeks don’t really want outsiders poking their noses into their language: we tourists have intruded so much into their lives already, it may be the last bastion of dignified privacy they have.

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