sitting and waiting...

I took a weeklong break from listening to music on my computer after arriving here. It wasn't an intentional break at all; I simply didn't have the time or thought to listen to it. This is quite unusual for me, a twice-cursed product of a family in which music is omnipresent and member of a generation which cannot abide silence so fills the natural voids with sound. This isn't to say that I didn't listen to music this week; I just didn't listen to my music. Plenty of Greek and Turkish music jarred my ears in taxis and restaurants. I'm surprised at how "ethnic" the music sounds as opposed to my expectations. I know that there are pop groups all over the world, but I was surprised by my Hispanic students and by the people here who cling tightly to the music of their culture.

We've been waiting since 8:30 this morning for IKEA to show up with ne'er a peep from them. The appliances were delivered by two burly Greek men who hauled in the fridge, washer, and stove without a dolly or back-belt. Impressive. I hooked up the washer successfully, and we're now the proud owners of clean clothes. We've set up a clothes line in the wash area, but I think we'll still need to buy a rack to put out on the porch. I haven't heard of anyone having a dryer here; I think clothes dry naturally.

The fridge is tiny, but it will hold enough. That's a notion which I've enjoyed experiencing here in regards to the size of cars, plates, glasses, washers, fridges, etc: It's enough. It's easy to hear the US be called the largest nation by nearly any measurement, but I think we tend to blow it off and think other places are just "skimping." No, we're big. Really big. Is everything in the New World so large in reaction to the tightness of Europe? A new space without limits had to be appealing to those first settlers. What will happen when we seriously turn our eyes to the stars?

The title of this blog is "sitting and waiting." To be clear, I'm sitting on the floor because WE HAVE NO FURNITURE! If we don't get it tonight, we have to pack back up and go back to the hotel until Monday. Not that I'm complaining about the hotel, but I was prepared to have my own space. Another American notion, perhaps?

I'm sitting on the living room floor of our apartment leeching WiFi. We're on the ground floor, one of the 2 downsides of this apartment, and there's only a slight breeze blowing through the windows. We're waiting impatiently for IKEA to possibly deliver our things today and for Kotsovolos to deliver our appliances. We're not sure if either will happen because we dont' have a phone.

Being surrounded by Greek hasn't been as difficult as I thought. The alphabet has been quite easy to learn (there are 3 miniscules I still don't remember), and English is indebted to Greek enough for me to pick out a few words through etymology. I really want to find a way to put some of the words on here to share, but I'm not sure how. Anyone?

Tomorrow a group of us are meeting at the Ambelokipi metro station to go to Piraeus and to Aegina (did I already say this?), Greek schedules willing. (I did already say this. I swear I have more to talk about!)

I'm quite proud of McCain for picking Palin as his VP candidate. If we're going to have a historic election, let's make it as historic as possible! Now both parties are encumbered by an old white guy.

This is, hopefully, our last night in the hotel. We returned from dropping out suitcases off at out respective houses and spent about an hour and a half in and around the pool. Then a group of us went to a nearby restaurant and ordered food from a woman with a 10 word English vocabulary which, supplemented with our 5 word Greek vocabulary, was just enough to result in a wonderful meal.

On Sunday we hope to go to the nearest island via the port at Piraeus. I promise pictures.

I'm afraid that the lapse in blogging is a sign of things to come. For the past 3 days we have left for school at 8:30 and arrived home at 11 at night. Fortunately we're also beginning the moving-in process today, and this morning we took a couple of suitcases and IKEA bags over to our apartment.

We love the apartment! It's exactly a 15-minute walk from the school past a grocery store, bakery, and butcher. The only thing we don't seem to have is hot water, but considering the blazing heat, I wouldn't use it anyway.

We've been so focused on arranging our lives that school preparations have been almost non-existent. We spend a few hours at school, but most of those are spent arranging trips to IKEA or to the appliance store.

Costs so far:

• 1072 € at IKEA for a table and 4 chairs, a futon (for you, dear reader), a bed, and miscellaneous brickabrack
• 200 Euro more at IKEA for other knickknacks
• 782 Euros at Kotsavolos for a fridge, washer, and stove

Blech.

Athens cooled down for about two days as a wind blew through on Wednesday and Thursday, but the air is still and unbelievably stifling today. It's also getting more crowded as people return from their August vacation. It's becoming a city once again, and it's hard to find any magic.

We have a house! From 4 until 7:30, we waited in a room hot as the foyer of hell to sign the contract. I love Greek culture and interaction. I have so many stories to tell from this evening that I scarcely know where to begin. So I won't.

We have a house! We walked through it, we have the keys, and all is well.

By the way, if you have Skype and are interesting in talking with us occasionally, let us know your skype name via email.

We have a house!

August 25th

Today is Monday, a day which for most of the US signals the return to monotonous existence for five more days followed by a two day respite which never seems to bring rest. For we formerly happy few who just arrived in “beautiful”—not seeing it—Athens, the weekend held no respite and Monday was a tale of terror. I will share with you, patient reader, the details of this most bizarre tale.

HOUSE STUFF

The house hunting on Saturday afternoon was torturous. The house hunting on Sunday was the stuff of Abu Ghraib. Stuffed like sardines into a bus with subpar A/C, we meandered throughout the city, climbed stairs at about 20 apartments, and bleared at rooms in houses which very quickly began to appear to be the same house. In fact, we’re not convinced that the realtor didn’t just drive us around the block several times to show us apartments in the same building over and over. On the bright side, the houses yesterday began to help us choose which ones we thought we might live in for the next two years based on proximity to shopping, the metro, or the school—no house fit all of them. However, it quickly became apparent that there were about four houses for which everyone would be willing to kill.

I don’t handle emotionality well. At all. As my friends and family—or former friends and estranged family—know, my heart only beats for Miah, sad stories about impoverished children giving away toys, stories about dogs who gave their lives for their masters, and occasionally a fine bourbon. Tears because someone was frank with you don’t garner any sympathy from me. I’m sure my mother would have some unfortunate anecdote about a time when I cried because someone said something honest to me, but she can start her own blog if she wants to tell it.

After we looked at the last house, it was apparent that the two houses which were our top choices were also the top choices of two other renters, a single woman and a couple. The location of our top choice was quite close to the school, and it had a beautiful garden—rare enough in dry Athens—with blossoms that reached up toward the patio overlooking them. We loved it. The next one was next to a bakery and grocery store about 20-30 minutes walking distance from the school, and it had the advantage of having a large kitchen and two bedrooms. Another possibility was a small one bedroom apartment that was quite nice but had a kitchen the size of a walk-in closet. It wasn’t really on my radar, but Miah liked it.

Since several us wanted the same apartments, we entered into a lively and frank—not hostile—discussion about how best to handle the situation. The need for a quick decision was generally recognized, but two people were quite adamant they needed till the next day to decide. Fortunately, the HR director was on the side of those who wanted to begin the process of elimination and choice much sooner, and soon it was decided we would have a sort of lottery drawing. One of the people who wanted more time sat on the bus and cried.

After an ice cream courtesy of ACS, we went into the playground which is at the park center of Aghias Paraskevis, a municipality south of Chalandri. There was an enormous Greek Orthodox church which electronically tolled the time as we sat there for the better part of an hour going through the list of houses and putting our names in for the drawing. I truly wish I could have had my camera so I could have taken pictures of this ultimately ludicrous and honest sight. In the middle of a playground, surrounded by swings and slides and sitting on a toy car, this group of adults proceeded to play a game of chance for our home for the next two years. It was a surreal moment, though surreal may not be the word to describe what was essentially a micro-moment of human existence, a moment when the curtain of maturity is pulled back and the childishness of all our endeavors is shockingly lit. I was so irate at the process that I went and sat with our bus driver, Demetri, who was watching the entire process with a bored smirk on his face, and we talked about Greece and language and cigarettes and all the things that were more important to us in that moment.

As chance would have it, we were not given first pick of either of our top choices, so we essentially resigned ourselves for the apartment with the small kitchen. We came back to the hotel—of course too late to swim on the rooftop pool—and sat around discussing our options. We finally dropped the topic, went up to the roof, and watched the sun wash the sky in orange and ruby and finally amber. It set so quickly behind the mountains it seemed to have dropped from the sky as if its supporting string had burnt up in its own flaring demise. It was a moment which made the humanity of the day seem silly, and it was wonderful.

After the sun went down, we went out with the new English teacher, a 30-something guy from Virginia whose Slovak wife is in staying at home until next summer so she can finish her degree before joining him. He led us to a taverna/restaurant a few blocks away, and we ordered gyros through a series of attempted phrases and pointing and miming. The gyros—not pronounced “heroes,” by the way—were utterly delicious and as unhealthy as could be. Splitting the bill was another series of phrases and circular gestures with the arms and finally an “efcharisto” and to bed. This was at about 11:00.

I woke up at 2:30 and stayed awake until about 5. I was sweating and couldn’t stop thinking about school and houses and Greek pronunciation and money and all the banality of the day. For a few minutes, I think I tried to focus all of those things into a single ball of thought which would transcend the individual and convince my brain that it was time to give and go to sleep, but it didn’t work. When I stumbled out of bed in the morning, I was resigned to fate. Of course, and I’m sure you’re thinking this already, how bad can a fate which puts a roof over your head in Athens be? A good point, and you’re a better person than me for thinking it. Get your own blog.

I met with the middle school principal this morning, and this is where this post really turns negative.

THE JOB

When I interviewed in February for the position at the school, I was interviewing for a high school English teacher. When the school director told me the job I would be doing, I was slightly disappointed when he said “Academy classes and maybe a middle school class of students who need only a little help with English.” When we received our packet of information in April, I was startled to find out my biography had me listed as both Academy and middle school ESL. When I found out this morning I was teaching a 7th grade English class, two middle school intensive ESL classes for kids with no English, and two ESL high school classes which have never been taught before, I was demolished.

My first words to Miah were, “Two years and I’m gone.” I have absolutely no experience or interest in teaching middle school. Kids at that age are as much a mystery to me as they are to themselves! The principal was extremely supportive when I tactfully reminded her of my training, certification, and experience, but I think she mistook the rictus of horror on my face for a smile and kept on telling me about the need for structure and caring and what have you in the middle school classroom.

Caring? Me? I’m the teacher who goes out of his way to make sure his students think he doesn’t care about them and should fear him! I’m a Machiavellian teacher! Middle school? I’m still freaking out about this, by the way, and it’s 16 hours later. It’s one in the morning, and I can’t sleep.

I also met the English department chair—the chair serves both middle and high school—who is extremely helpful in regards to the 7th grade language arts class but who can’t tell me squat about the ESL class. The ESL teacher—who everyone calls a guru and loves—won’t be here till next Tuesday, two days before school.

Freaking out.

Anyway, I have to move on. Must move on. The two high school classes sound interesting. If I can focus on the positive. Not in my nature…

Long story short about the rest of the apartment lottery, after much collaboration, we worked out what seems to be a mutually agreeable living situation for everyone except for one new employee who is a complete…. I must keep this family-friendly. Our apartment is the one by the bakery, and a great description will follow.

This afternoon, we…. I have no idea what we did. Oh, yeah, Miah and two other people and I went with Costas, our Remax agent, to look at some houses closer to town. He’s an awesome guy who’s been great in dealing with us and telling us things about Athens and apartments we need to know, and he’s sold me on the country. He even told us a great joke in his heavily accented and pause-heavy English:

An Australian walking in London stepped out into the street and was nearly hit by a car. The driver shouted out, “Did you come here to die?” The Australian waved and said, “No, I came here yesterday.”

This evening the entire group went down to the Plaka for dinner. We wandered through the narrow streets until we found a restaurant in view of the Acropolis but not the Parthenon. I had moussaka, an eggplant plate which was delicious. Our waiters were friendly, and two lucky people out there reading this might be receiving the complimentary postcards we received which show our table and the Acropolis. Might. But probably not.

Lit at night, the Acropolis is an intimidating reminder of the ghosts and thoughts which run through the veins of this city. It’s easy to focus on the traffic and increasingly apparent smog and stray dogs and cats—which put their paw on your lap while you’re eating moussaka and make you scream like a child and throw your hands in the air and wonder if it’s a rat staring at you hungrily—which plague the city. It’s also easy to forget that the pillar you pass quickly in the plaza is older than any structure in North or South America. So much of our daily life as Westerners and as Americans is rooted in this place: customs, names, words, philosophies, and countless more things I’m not smart enough to know.

I am now a person who has seen the Acropolis. Actually, I didn’t consider myself to have seen it until we walked a bit and were suddenly confronted by a sky full of Parthenon. For me, and I think this is a tourist thing, it represents the core of the Acropolis. I’m no longer the person I was this morning; I’m now “dwain who has seen the Acropolis.” It hasn’t changed my life in any significant manner, but it’s like seeing a portrait of the person for whom your parents named you.

At the same time, it’s just a building. Around it is the scruffy city which is the remnant of a great civilization. We romanticize the buildings, but we cannot deny that their power is gone.

A long day, and I want to sleep.

August 23rd

A recurrent theme today was “don’t think American in Greece.” It came up both in the school and in the search for a house, though in fairly different ways.

This morning began with our first foray to the European grocery store chain Carrefour with the intention of actually buying something. Now, this may sound a little silly, but when only a handful of the products or signs are even in the Roman alphabet, buying yogurt is suddenly an adventure. We wandered around the bottom floor of Carrefour for a few minutes taking in the sounds and smells. There’s something much more enticingly aromatic about European and South American markets than the antiseptic smell of US markets. There were pallets of ice with mirror-eyed fish of every hue staring at us as they waited their turn to be shoved belly down in the display. I didn’t have the faintest clue as to what kind of fish they were, but they looked delicious despite their sad looks.

The vegetables and fruits were interesting to touch and smell. I assume that most of Europe’s fruits come from Central America and Mexico, so the products have to be picked well before they’re ready, and my chalky apple supports my assumption. First, though, to buy two apples and two bananas. Like good tourists, we watched closely as a few people picked out fruit and took it to a man standing by some scales who weighed the bags and slapped a price sticker on them. After a few minutes of this, we wandered over with our two bags and said, “Kalimera,” or “good morning.” He replied and set the bags on the scales. Then he rattled off something in Greek and motioned toward the distance. We froze. After what seemed an eternity, I mumbled, “I don’t understand Greek, I’m sorry (not sure how to write it in Greek).” He smirked and waved his hand in the international “forget it” way.

When we made it upstairs to pay, I did something really stupid. Humiliating. The total came to 1.54 Euros, and I handed the lady 2.60. Why? Focusing so intently on not messing up one aspect of an experience has a way of messing up all other aspects of it.

ACS of Athens (American Community School of Athens) is outside of Athens proper in the highly regarded neighborhood of Halandri. We took a bus there and were greeted by the HR director, director, principals, and a couple other people whose titles got lost in the shuffle. It’s a very nice campus which I won’t begin to describe now (check it out at www.acs.gr) because there’s too much. It was a great morning for me because I found out what I’ll be teaching beginning in less than two weeks! I get to explore teaching middle school. For those of who know me well will appreciate the cosmically cruel irony of this.

I love the aura of the school and its people. US schools seem to be stifled by so many bureaucratic blankets which purportedly are for the benefit of students (NCLB, standardized testing, IEPs) but which ultimately turn teachers into secretaries. That doesn’t seem to be the case here, and I hope my first impression and the idealistic things they said to us today are more than simply platitudes meant to calm our fears. The "don't think American in Greece" came up not in the academic aspect or the school's culture as a whole but in the culture of dealing individually with students and especially with parents.

The afternoon was devoted to hunting for houses. We weren’t sure how this would be done, but there was little mystery or finesse to it: twelve of us piled into a stiflingly hot van with two Greek Remax agents, the HR director, and a bored driver. In all, we drove to fifteen different apartments and walked through them. I cannot begin to tell you how tedious this was. Worse than the tedium, though, were the financial “surprises” that kept coming up. Some of the highlights:

• In Athens, “unfurnished” also means no fridge or stove or washer or light fixtures.
• To rent an apartment, you are required to pay the first month’s rent
• And then another month’s rent as a deposit
• And then another month’s rent as additional deposit
• And then another month’s rent to the real estate agent
• To furnish a house is about 1000 Euros.
• Typical rent was 600 Euros.
• Total: 3400 Euros.
• We’re given a 2641 Euro relocation allowance.

When we got back from this incredibly depressing excursion which yielded only three apartments which anyone liked (and we need about 8), we decided to head down to the Plaka on the metro. The Plaka is the oldest part of the city which surrounds the Agora and the Acropolis. I think. I’m still figuring this out. We shared a lovely meal with some other people under the beautifully lit Agora, and we were intently watched by several cats who perched on the fence two feet from me. Disconcerting.

I was complimented by four different people on my Greek accent today, and one of them asked if I was familiar with Greek. I’ll take that as a good sign.

Kaleenekhta (good night).

First thoughts

We’ve arrived in Athens.

I feel as if I should be waxing poetic on the history and culture of the city and the ghosts of the founders of Western civilization who wander the streets still, but the city has been far too visceral for that. In a city which seems so old and full of meaning it transcends human construction and eventually comprehension, I’m amazed at how quickly the attention is drawn to the physical minutiae of the city. The heat is the first thing that hits you as you emerge from the airplane after 9 hours of cramped and restless sleeping. People always say, “At least it’s a dry heat,” but 97 degrees is hot regardless of the humidity! And the unromantic sound of traffic is omnipresent, even this morning at 1:38 when two motorcycles flew past our hotel. It may be the idealized womb of Western civilization, but it’s still a city marred by the same humanity that infests other cities.
So much happened yesterday, I’m going to bullet-point the highlights for sanity’s sake.

In New York, an old lady in a wheelchair spelled her name to a courtesy phone operator: “My name is Theressa, like ‘there’ and ‘ass’ backwards.”

Also in New York, we met up with a handful of the other new teachers and shared horror stories of the paperwork and fears of the upcoming years.

Our flight left NY an hour late, so we were stuck in our middle-aisle seats with nothing to do.

I watched the plane on the tv screen in the back of the seat in front of me inch painfully slowly up the coast of North America, across Newfoundland, and finally begin a monotonous journey across the digital blue Atlantic. Sometime during the night, we flew directly over Paris. I saw nothing.
Flying into Athens was reminiscent of flying into Cochabamba, Bolivia: dry with scattered trees peeking up through the smog. A fairly strong wind buffeted us as we were landing and didn’t stop until early this morning. Athens sprawls significantly, and all of the buildings follow the same aesthetic of whitewash turned a slight yellow under the beating sun and constant haze. In the distance the Mediterranean sits quietly, and the city of Athens stretches out from it like a wave that crashed onto shore and swept houses up the hillsides and back onto the plains. Cities are rarely beautiful, and if not for two ruin-topped hills rising above the city, it would be easy to dismiss Athens as a particularly hideous place. There’s something about those two hills, though, that redeems the ragged city that has filled in around them.

The hotel we’re in—the President Hotel—is not far from the city center, and it’s a tall building which commands a magnificent view of the city. On the 20th floor—the roof, actually—there’s a pool and a lovely lounge with three walls open to the air. Our room is ridiculously hot despite the air conditioner, so yesterday afternoon we went up to the roof and sat on the chaise lounges and let the strong wind cool us down. There’s not a natural cloud in the sky. Later that evening, we went back to the rooftop with a few of the new employees and shared our stories of the past and our reasons for being where we are today. We’re from all over the United States and near enough in age to feel like peers, a comforting group of people to have about. The city is beautiful at night. 

Miah and I accidentally took an hour and a half nap yesterday afternoon then forced ourselves awake and up so we could sleep soundly last night and better ease into the 7-hour time difference. When we got up, we went out to lunch with another girl to a place called Casba. We stood there looking hungry and lost until an employee who spoke English had pity on us and helped us get a delicious lunch. Miah and I then ventured onto the Metro and rode down to Syntagma Square and walked around the National Gardens for a while trying to get a feel for the city. I didn’t take my camera because I want to feel the city before I start to take pictures of it. Of course, because I didn’t have my camera we saw one of the funniest sights ever. An older man whose wits were questionable was walking up the steps of Syntagma Square wearing very short shorts and no underwear. I know because we saw more of him than necessary each time he raised his left leg to the next step.

It’s 9 in the morning, and our room is already stifling hot and I’m sweating. Cold showers will be frequent.

At 10:20 today, taxis will take us to the school and we will begin orientation. After lunch, we will house-hunt for 4 hours, then it’s a Saturday night in Athens. I’m excited.

We made it! 

It's really hot here...

oops

I'm sitting at the Lexington airport waiting to board our flight to Cincinatti (a city I can never spell correctly). I'm hungry, tired, and a complete mess, for some reason. On the bright side, Miah looks cute and I'm debonaire for the 17-hour journey to Greece. 

No post would be complete without a funny story: the bathrooms at the Lexington airport are on a sensor which turns on and off when you walk in or out. If you ever visit the airport on a morning when not many people are using the restroom, let me advise you to do your work quickly because the lights will not sense you in the stall and will leave you sitting in the dark wondering how long you'll have to sit there before you abandon dignity and start shouting for someone to step into the restroom. 

Our flight is boarding, so off I go!

efcharisto

We are determined not to be the people who go to a new country and rely solely on the English of the people we meet, expecting that their foreign language classes are more effective than our own schools'. Apparently Greek is a fairly difficult language to learn, so we chose the Pimsleur program to ease us into rudimentary Greek. On Monday we drove to Kentucky from Pennsylvania, the perfect opportunity to listen to the 30-minute lessons which are essentially little more than mindless repetition. In fact, it was so mindless that I became almost hypnotized and lost all ability to think.

As the deep-voiced man told me--in English--to repeat the Greek phrases, I would dutifully rattle off the nonsensical sounds and pat myself on the back for sounding exactly like him. By the middle of lesson 3, we had come to the point where we could ask a single man or woman how he/she is doing, if he/she understands English or Greek, and if he/she is Greek or American. I'm not entirely sure what to do if the person doesn't understand Greek or why in the world I would be asking them if they're American, but I did have to learn to say "thank you," or "efcharisto." Again, the deep-voiced man said, in perfect English, "Now, say 'thank you.'" Without hesitation and with great enthusiasm, I said, "Thank you" in perfect English

June 26th

Moving to Greece sounds like a wonderful thing. Images of white sands, topaz water, and evenings sipping coffee on narrow, shaded streets leap to mind. Of course, to get to those beaches, you have to sail a sea of paperwork.

What is an apostille? Before we get to that question, let's ask a more basic one: how do you say it?