Living in the present

Ah...to be a toddler again, or at least speak like one. Okay, toddler might be an overstatement as some Greek toddlers probably make more complex sentences than I do. But I'll give myself some credit. For having arrived only knowing one Greek word, spanakopita (spinach pie), my Greek has multiplied 300-fold. My first few words included katsuvidi (screw driver), figari (moon) and periptero (kiosk). All of these words came from having to meet basic needs (don't ask about "moon"). Not too long after these primitive utterances I was saying "hello", "thank you" and "please". Then came such elaborate sentences as "How are you?" and "I'm fine" (come on now, 3-year-olds don't say that!). By month three I felt ecstatic that I could read signs (although I didn't understand what they meant). Finally the esoteric world of sororieties and franternities seemed intelligible to me. KKK - kappa kappa kappa!

And now I'm living in the present. I study Greek. I eat spanakopita. I teach English. I go to the store. I waste my time.

For all the future and past talk I do in English (What am I going to do with my life? I should have gone to a Spanish-speaking country) I have found that this simplified language has made life simpler and less anxiety-ridden without the regrets about the past and preoccupations with the future that more elaborate grammatical structures entail.

I have truly embraced the concept of living in the moment through my limited Greek grammar and lexicon.

A complex day involves asking such advanced questions as "Can I have three apples? "Do you like spanakopita?" and "What time is it?"

Declarations such as "You are hilarious", "It doesn't matter!" and "I don't understand" are making me into a more dynamic person.

Everyday I am humbled - if not humiliated - when I hear little kids running their mouths in Greek, but I can proudly say that I speak more Greek than any 6-month old Greek baby.

I give myself a pat on the back.

Mom...Dad...I joined a gang

My Greek life and and physical endurance have improved dramatically over the past month all thanks to the gang that I recently joined. I didn't come to Greece with the expectation of becoming a gang member, but I can now relate to the sense of solidarity that gangs provide.

No, I didn't join the Greek mafia and I don't have any tatoos (yet), but I do have one piece of gang regalia to identify myself with the rest...a bicycle!

Every Friday night, after an exhausting week of teaching, I go downtown, get on my bike and follow a group of some 60 - 100 other cyclists pedaling around Athens. During Carnival we all dressed up, biked around (led by a cyclist hauling a loud-speaker blasting the Gypsy Kings) and stopped to dance and do a 30-person conga line at a metro stop. Another week we took our bikes into the metro (where they are banned) to protest and demand that bicycles be allowed inside. Last week we traversed the entire city for 5 hours; we rode alongside transsexual prostitutes in cars on a trashy commercial strip, stopped for delicious crepes and biked out to the seashore - at which point my legs gave up and I had take the tram back home.

Aside from the social and physical advantages of joining this bike gang, there have also been economic - I don't have to spend a dime (or a euro) to see the whole city! Athens is an entirely new place on a bicycle.

To top it all off, the police are in cahoots with our gang. Every Friday they act as escorts, blocking traffic and making sure we are safe from motor-terrorists. Now all I need is a tatoo...