Just a Sunday

Breakfast was yoghurt with nectarines, crushed pistachios and honey (and of course, plenty of coffee). I usually try to do some greek homework while having breakfast, but since I've already completed the assignments that my tutor gave me for the week, I decided to try something different. I made a list of random nouns, verbs, adjectives, personal pronouns and possesives, cut the list up into individual pieces, and drew one blindly from each category, with the intention of making 5 sentences out of each batch. Didn't really work so well. For starters, I have not yet learned the proper past or future tenses, so the sentences were bound to be very awkward in only the present tense. And you can't really combine the personal pronoun for "we" with the possesive for "yours" without making a very complex, run-on sentence, which is far beyond my grasp. So I gave up after two sentences, neither of which I'm sure is correct anyway:

Η ομορφια νοικοκυρα ανεβαινει τη σκαλα. (The pretty housewife went up the staircase.)
Eςεισ θελετε να βρω ενα καταλογο; (Do you want to see a menu?)

I haven't figured out yet how to put the accent marks above the emphasized letters, so it is technically incorrect anyway. This is more than just a technicality, though - Greek contains several words that are spelled exactly the same but have completely different meanings, and where the accent is placed is the only way of differentiating them.

After the painful attempt at scholastic creativity, I did a load of laundry which had to be hung inside because the sky was rather moody today and I thought that it might rain. The fan blowing on them helped somewhat, but it's now 1o hours later and they're still not all dry.




I had planned to do one of my indoor workouts with the bag o' cat litter, etc. but decided that I needed to get out of the house, so instead I went for a walk along the western edge of the Rodhopuo peninsula, which isn't too far from my village. As I passed by the Porto Allegre restaurant in Nopigia, I picked up a walking companion. This is Αγγελικοσ, which means "angelic", and who I mentioned in a previous post when Yannis and I came to Porto Allegre for a few beers. She belongs to the restaurant owners, and is just as sweet as her name would imply.

We ran into very few people along the way. A few fishermen, and a group of about 10 men sitting up on some rocks, drinking and bull-shitting, apparently. Who knows, maybe they were talking about some very serious matters, but it sure looked like they were just bull-shitting to me. I did come across this lovely mattress cemetery, and decided that had I been born a mattress, this is where I would have wanted to be put out to pasture once I had passed my prime.

On my way back I passed Porto Allegre again, and fully expected the dog to leave me at that point, but she seemed to be enjoying the walk very much and she continued to follow me. In an apparent attempt to buck the stigma attached to her name, she harassed every goat that we came across. Many of them fled, but this one here was ready for a fight and alternated between lowering it's head as if about to charge, and stamping the ground angrily with his right front hoof. Αγγελικοσ eventually realized that she was out-sized and left him alone. After that she just went after any cats she came across, and delighted in tormenting the neighborhood dogs as we passed them, who were all chained and could only bark impotently at her.

Is this a pomegranate? It looks like one to me, but it's been so long since I've had one I'm not sure.







So, the damn dog followed me all the way home, which is about 4 miles from her home. I had no idea if this was normal for her, and worried that she might not be able to find her way back to the restaurant, so I intended to put her in the car and drive her back. Except that she wanted nothing to do with the car. I tried luring her in with sausage, I tried picking her up, all to no avail. After about 15 minutes I finally gave up, wished her good luck, went inside and left her to further torment my local neighborhood dogs. I will probably drive by the restaurant sometime in the next few days, just to reassure myself that she made it home.

It is spooky-quiet around here tonight. My Greek neighbors who are always home and always very vocal seem to have gone out for the evening; their house is completely dark. My landlord, who has been occupying the house behind me, is away on a business trip to Italy. No sound from my neighbor Helen's house, either - although she is usually very quiet anyway. Only the distant barking of dogs, the faint sound of wind-chimes and the breeze rustling the leaves of the trees.