The landlady was sweeping her patio as I went by heading out early so I told her the following— all in Greek!
I share this little story not to prove what a (I was going to use another couple of words in here, but this is a family show) clever user of languages I am, but the exact opposite: to show that a bare minimum of local words can communicate a lot.
(This was all, by the way, without notes: I didn’t get out the safety net of the cheat-sheet in my photo vest or even the G-E/E-G dictionary.)
Good Morning.
I’ll be checking out about 10:00 AM.
First, I’m going to do some shooting at Aghios Triados, then I have to go to Matala to hit the ATM to get some cash to pay you.
I trust that is fine with you.
Was it this grammatically perfect?
Of course not!
Did she get the message?
Well, I’m pretty sure she did.
Here’s the much more literal translation:
Good Morning.
Goodbye 10:00 AM.
One – photos Aghios Triados.
Two, Matala-- Euros.
OK?
See—it’s not that tough. Anyone reading these stories could bomb around here linguistically just as I bomb around on the roads.
It’s no big deal. . . . .
Lock It and Lose It
As I unlocked the car to leave after going back to pay the room rent, the little lock plug slid inside the door and fell to the bottom between the door panels.
Not very convenient--- I looked at the map and there were four Hertz offices on the island--- none near where I was or where I was headed.
Then I leaned through some clever sleuthing, mostly involving reading roadside mileage indicators) that the place I got the car 5 days ago was only 35 miles away and it was the closest.
And it was getting pretty hot by then, too hot to be outside looking at Minoan ruins (when I went by Festos [where I was shooting last evening] on my way out of town, there were 8 tour busses and about 80 or more cars in the lot).
So I figured it’s only an hour or so away, I’ll bomb up there, get it fixed, and come back in time to hit Gortys when it’s cooler.
Long detour on the way north across the island, some real guff from the Hertz guy, although this same problem had happened to many other rental cars) some short snipe hunts on the way back (on a different road, of course—I’d already been on the first one) and so I’ll see Gortys in the AM—as I planned, when it’s cooler.
Striking Out Twice in the Same At-Bat
I went by this little museum I wanted to see in Arhanes, as it was 4:00 and pretty hot again (north part of the island, still) but it closes at 2:30 and was also closed all day today Tuesday), so I’m glad I didn’t waste more than about 20 minutes looking for it.
Use Up All Your Olive Oil— Fast
Driving north and then back south across the center of Crete really brought home what a high percentage of arable land here is in olive trees, so you need to do your part to consume all you can: stir fries, salads, marinating, just slather it on whatever you want to taste better—
And you need to be really diligent about this, because there are whole container ships heading your way with more . . . . .
Language Skills II
Your turn
Here’s a sign I shot along the road mostly for fun but to point out a little cultural language twist that’s amusing.
This is an advertising sign out in front of a road-side diner, and it’s advertising three items:
The diagonal word spells out “Souvlaki,” which is shish-kabob, I think, either on a plate or in a pita. I’ve only been eating out of markets, so am not up to speed on menu items.
The top word is easy—they also have “Coffee.”
The second word is where the fun is— it says, “Toast,” but what they mean is not just heated bread but a toasted cheese sandwich or a burger—“tost” can also mean a sandwich on a bun rather than on bread or in a pita.
This was also the case in the Balkans last year—it took some getting used to when you saw “tost” on a menu or reader board like this.
More Shrines
This is another of the roadside shrines, the ones that cost about a grand to start with, without the column.
This one was more typical than the other one I shot to indicate what you get for almost $1,000, and went over next to it to give a full report on it, and the top of the cross on the main, central dome, is about 6’2” above the base.
Christos! It’s him again.
This is the second version of how you can drive 15 miles only going to a place that’s 3 Km from the main road.
This version explains how you can drive by the same sign 9 times in less than a day.
Act I, Scene I
Elena: Christos! It’s him again.
Christos: You mean the crazy American who took a picture of our café sign?
Elena: Yes.
Christos: So how many times does this make he’s driven by our place?
Elena: Nine.
Christos: Naaah—Can’t be.
Elena: Christos, it’s nine. I kept track.
Epilogue: Elena is correct, but I’d like the chance to defend myself.
You drive by the first time just heading down the road, when you see the sign you think might make a little chapter of a report.
You drive back, shoot the sign, but there’s no room to turn around right there, so you have to go a little further west to turn around.
You drive past it going east again— that’s # 3.
Then that night, after you write up your report, you head into the nearest town with an internet café (the one just west of the café with the sign), try to answer some e-mails, and go back to where you are staying. That makes 5.
The next AM, since you are out of clean clothes, you bundle everything up, take it back to the internet café town (as it also has a laundry), cajole the woman to do your stuff in one day rather than three, and head out (east again) to the big local Minoan and Roman ruins. (Everybody get 7?)
And then, of course, after shooting the sites, you certainly have to go get your laundry— and that’s how you pass the café sign nine times in about 24 hours.
Act I, Scene II
Elena: Christos: Why does he keep driving past our place?
Christos: I think he likes it here.
Elena: I don’t think so, Christos. If he liked it here,
he’d just stay here.
Gortys
The big Roman city here, and the reason I hung around, was Gortys, a huge complex with an acropolis, temples and theaters, lots and lots of walls, and etc.
Then the Christians lost some early martyrs here (the town I stayed in last night was Aiyga Dehka [the holy ten], named for some early and over-eager [in my mind] adherents), about a hundred years or so before Constantine allowed the religion to be practiced openly.
Following Rome’s fall, and the emergence of the Byzantines (the early form of what we now call Eastern Orthodoxy) ore down all the Roman (now, of course, heathen) temples and put churches in their place—and sometimes just tweaked the building some, much as the Muslims tweaked the churches to make them mosques where they captured territory.
So I started at the temple complex, moved up to the acropolis, then found the walls and temple sites among the olive trees.
For me, one of the more interesting things I discovered here was shards of terra-cotta--- unglazed, but fired, clay— by the tens of thousands.
I shot some pictures just to show you how much there was lying about, and to reassure you, it’s all still lying about.
This may be too many pictures of terra-cotta shards for your taste, but I wanted to clearly make the point that there are tons of this stuff just lying around on the ground over here.
In the olive grove near Gortys, the farmers plowed the ground shallowly just to keep the weeds down, and there were thousands of terra-cotta shards all over the field.
Here’s one with my hat included to show you the scale
I also added to my little trove of goat hair and fleece— which I found where the local goats (who live just below the acropolis) would take naps among the trees and shrubs when they were turned loose up there.
I got about enough to make a pretty hard-packed hardball today, so now have about three wadded-up XL Tee-shirts worth.
I can just imagine going through the G-E/E-G dictionary like mad with some Greek Customs Officer at the airport. . . .
“Well. I thought the goat hair was a better souvenir than an ashtray shaped like the island of Crete.”
Maybe I should get another gym bag and just mail the damn stuff home. . . . .
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