Oh The Joy of Frozen Food

I was in no mood to cook tonight, and had to go to the supermarket to get some hair conditioner anyway, so I delved into the frozen food section for the first time since arriving here. Definitely not the most palatable meal ever... spanakopita slightly well-done and dried out, because there's no temperature gauge on my gas oven...but fast and easy and washed down with a glass of Agiortikio. Good enough for now.

While typing this I just heard a loud knock at my door, and there was a woman who looked a bit like the Roma gypsies I've seen in other European nations, standing there. She was trying to sell me a lighter set because her child had a head injury. At least that's what I gleaned from the little Greek I can understand. I told her "no, sorry" in Greek, and she went away looking really pissed off. Hopefully she didn't put a hex on me, nor has plans to send her kid with the head injury back after dark to vandalize my house. My neighbor Helene had her bicycle stolen from in front of her house a few weeks ago. She mentioned that there had been an increase in "immigrants" lately, indicating that it was most likely not one of the local Cretan population who had done it. Everything I've heard and read would make me tend to agree. However, I'm reticent to cast aspersions on people just because they "don't come from here", and the whole subject makes me somewhat uncomfortable. I will say that I'm somewhat dismayed by the automatic "guilty" feeling that I experienced at not buying stuff from her that I don't need at triple the going price. Gotta work on that, because having read Altas Shrugged has given me a whole new outlook on charity.

This is just an aside. Yesterday evening when Yannis and I were returning from dinner we ran into this street gathering, which centered around a church on the roadside. They have this sort of thing all the time here, and it makes for some interesting traffic patterns. It took us about 10 minutes to go about 25 meters, and I'm proud to say that I didn't take out any pedestrians, shop stalls or side-view mirrors.