Sophomore Year Is Greek to Me

by Meredith Zeitlin

  “I guess they can’t just go back to the old system, huh?”

  “Well, that’s what some of the riots were about, but no, they can’t. Because the world knows about the debt now. It’s too late. On top of all those things, there are claims of massive political corruption. There are a lot of facets to the problem. And it’s a pity. Greece was—is, as you’ll see, if you ever leave our street—a beautiful place, with so much culture and so much love of that culture . . . and now many people just think of it as a place where everyone screwed up.”

  “That should be the name of your book.”

  “Very helpful, Ace. Thanks. Now get out so I can do some work, willya?”

  My father wants me to call my cousin Yiota—aka the one who started this mess—and ask her to take me on a tour of the city. I’m tempted, since I’m bored and maybe a tiny bit interested in my new surroundings, as a good journalist always should be.

  The longer I sit in the apartment reading my friends’ status updates, realizing that Skyping with them all day and pretending to still be home is practically impossible with the seven-hour time difference, the more my resolve to avoid the Marousopoulous weakens.

  I guess it can’t hurt to ask her how to use the subway. Or say a few key words in Greek, such as “Sorry, I don’t speak Greek” or “Do you speak English?” or “How do I get to New York from here?”

  On the eighth day, I cave. I reopen Yiota’s exuberant response to my e-mail and look at her long, strange phone number. She seems pretty cool in the e-mail, and very excited about meeting me. How bad could it be, really? It’s just for an afternoon . . .

  13

  I’m standing nervously by the steps at the Monastiraki train station a couple days later, wondering if I’ve made a huge mistake. I scan the faces of people milling around, trying to see if one of them maybe looks a little like me. Then, just as I’m considering ducking back onto a train to go home, I feel a tap on my shoulder.

  Yiota is tall and broad-shouldered, with perfectly clear olive skin, black eyes, and thick black hair that flows down to her waist. She looks kind of like Princess Jasmine from Aladdin, actually.

  “I knew it was you right away, Zona!” she says breathlessly, pulling me to her and kissing me on both cheeks. Her voice is deeper than I expected, and she speaks English in a way that is both melodic and clipped, drawing her vowels out and cutting her consonants short. And once she starts talking . . . she doesn’t stop. Not even for breath, it seems.

  “It was so long before your father wrote back to me, and then so long again before he said you would be coming here to Greece, and I didn’t know if I would get to meet you any time!” she gushes, linking her arm through mine and steering me down a cobbled side street.

  Monastiraki turns out to be more than just a major train station. It’s a huge area with a giant flea market full of tourists. Yiota points out everything as we pass by: tables topped with rows of Doc Martens and studded boots with six-inch platform heels, all kinds of clothes and pictures and creepy toys and leather jackets. There’s one store selling nothing but dream catchers and crystals.

  “Don’t go to there for that stuff, Zona,” she instructs, interrupting her own story about first contacting my dad. “They raise the prices too much, trust me. Come on, come on, eksadélfi—we’re almost there now!”

  Her energy is contagious; I scurry after her, trying to take in my surroundings at the same time.

  Many of the walls outlining the maze of alleys and side streets are covered with colorful murals or just random pictures, and some merchants incorporate them into their shops.

  “This one I like very much—is artistic, yes?” Yiota comments as we zip by. It’s a graffitied wall with different light fixtures hanging all over it. I can’t tell if the fixtures themselves are for sale or not—we’re moving too quickly for me to ask—but it looks awesome.

  One of the coolest things about walking around Athens is how there are modern buildings interspersed with these incredibly old—and in some places totally falling down—buildings. Like, on one corner there’s an office building with a view of the Parthenon right behind it. On another there’s an apartment house standing next to a thousand-year-old column that looks like it’s about to fall over. An ancient wall might have a painting of anime-style women on it. The contrast is unlike anything I’ve ever seen; sure, New York has some old buildings, but nothing like these. I start snapping away with my phone at everything; I know Hil will love these pictures.

  Finally, when I’m certain I’ll never find my way back to the train station again, Yiota stops in front of a crumbly-walled building with two iron tables and a bunch of scattered chairs out front. “Ah, finally we are here!” she exclaims, tossing her purse onto one of the chairs and herself into another. “Sit, Zona, sit. This one, it is my favorite place in this neighborhood. No one knows about it—is a secret place, yes?”

  I sit down, looking at the dusty ground and bunches of vines (grapes?) clinging to the wall, trying to figure out what could possibly make this café so special. But I can feel my mouth twisting into a big grin; honestly, it wouldn’t matter if our final destination had been a big pile of garbage. Yiota’s so excited that I can’t help having fun, too. And she’s still talking, talking, her voice rich and joyous, telling me how she can’t wait to show me everything in Athens.

  If this is what having a cousin is like, I think, maybe this Greece thing won’t be so bad.

  Maybe.

  By the time we’ve had two cups of coffee and a delicious honey and nut pastry called baklava, I feel like I’ve known Yiota forever. I’m comfortable enough to tell her I was surprised by her super sunny attitude—I guess I thought people in Athens would be kind of miserable, since there are so many problems.

  “I don’t want to make light of our situation in Greece,” she explains. “It is serious, and it is scary. So many people lost their jobs, or will lose their jobs . . . politicians are stealing and no one can do anything, the debt, homeless people . . . But this is the thing of Greek people: we try to be optimistic. We can’t let the bad luck stop us from living. You know what I mean?”

  I’m not really sure if I do, but I’m definitely interested in her perspective, and I know Dad will be, too. I wonder if everyone in Athens shares it.

  As we walked through the flea market on the way to the café, I saw some people sitting on the sidewalk holding signs (presumably asking for money or food) and empty stores with broken windows. It’s weird—maybe if I were from a small town, those things would be shocking. But being from New York, it just doesn’t seem that extreme. Honestly, if I didn’t know anything was going on with the economy, I might not have guessed it.

  I can’t decide if that’s good or bad. Maybe it’s neither. Or both.

  Yiota goes on, telling me that the stray dogs we see everywhere were abandoned by their owners, which is why most of them have collars and tags. This news makes me want to cry. How can people just leave their dogs on the streets?!

  “Before the Olympics in 2004 there were people sent to round them up and fix them, you know, like”—she makes a gesture like scissors cutting, and I laugh—“then they put them back to the streets. They all get fed and are happy, so don’t feel too bad, okay?” Yiota says when she sees how upset I’m getting. I don’t know if I really believe her, though it is kind of cute to see dogs looking both ways and crossing the streets together in the middle of a bustling city. But still, it hurts my heart to think about so many pets who’ve lost their families, and I want to believe the owners had no other choice.

  To distract me from the plight of Greece’s pet population, Yiota insists on teaching me some Greek words. The sounds are so different from English, and I need her to write them out phonetically (in Greek-lish, as she calls it) before I can say them correctly.

  “I’ll start with the basic things that you need to know most, okay? So: kalimera is �
��good morning.’ Kalispera is ‘good evening.’ Kalinikta is ‘good night.’ Kalo mesimeri is ‘Good afternoon.’ Now you say it back,” she instructs.

  “Why isn’t ‘good afternoon’ kali-something like the other ones?”

  Yiota looks stumped. “Because . . . it just isn’t!” she finally says, laughing. “Now repeat them back, Zona!”

  Once I’ve got those straight (the trick is to remember M for “mera/morning” and N for “nikta/night”), Yiota moves on. “Efcharisto is ‘thank you,’” she says. “Now you can say that when you order a coffee next time, yes?”

  I repeat the word back to her a couple times—the ch is tricky to get right; it’s pronounced sort of like a K, but with more phlegm. Like the ch in challah.

  “Very good!” Yiota crows excitedly. “Next is nay, which means ‘yes,’ and ochi, which means ‘no.’ Ochi has the same sound like efcharisto. Get it?”

  “Nay means ‘yes’? That’s totally confusing!” I exclaim. And here I’d been feeling so good about my progress.

  Yiota laughs again. “Remember, Zona, Greek existed long before English. So maybe it is English that is more confusing?”

  Well. I suppose she has a point there.

  Luckily the next word she teaches me is signomi, which means ‘sorry.’ I have a feeling I’ll be using that one more than any other.

  I’m excited to finally be able to speak a little Greek instead of just looking like a dumb American who can’t be bothered to learn the language.

  After we pay the bill, Yiota leads me back through the market and we come out at a side street buzzing with cars. Since I’ve basically perfected the art of jaywalking over the last decade, I don’t hesitate to step right into the street instead of waiting for the light. After all, there’s no way anything could be a bigger pedestrian threat than NYC cab drivers and tourists on rental bikes.

  Turns out NYC has nothing on Athens. Yiota yanks me back by my coat just before six different cars almost flatten me simultaneously.

  “Never assume that a car will stop to let you cross the street! They don’t stop, cars here, sometimes not even for lights!” she gasps. “We are crazy drivers,” she adds with pride when we’ve both gotten our breath back.

  She’s not kidding. Greek drivers seem to be on their own race courses. It’s like the main goal is not to get where they’re going, but to find someone to curse at or run over on the way. I’m glad I’ll be taking the train and not attempting to drive or ride alongside these maniacs.

  Transit System Completely Nuts, Operates On “Honor System”

  Intrepid world traveler and hard-boiled reporter Zona Lowell was stunned today when she discovered the total inadequacy of the ticketing system for the Athens subway.

  “Wait a second,” Lowell was heard remarking to her cousin Yiota Marousopoulou, who has gone along with this charade for years. “You’re telling me you’re supposed to buy a ticket and scan it through those machines [here Lowell indicated the three parking meter–shaped machines in the middle of the station] and then . . . that’s it? Seriously? There’s no barrier? Nothing to stop you from just walking through without scanning anything at all? Why would anyone ever buy a ticket?”

  “Well, when you scan your ticket it’s stamped with a time, and then you can use it for ninety minutes,” Marousopoulou explained, unfazed. “Because . . . well, you have to scan it. Sometimes there’s a man who asks—”

  “‘Sometimes there’s a man’? Couldn’t you just say you were American and didn’t know? This is the silliest system I have ever heard of, honestly,” Lowell scoffed. “A country in need of money might want to make sure people are paying to use the transit system,” she continued, opining bravely. “I’m using the tickets I already have for the rest of my stay here, and that’s a fact.”

  Whether or not Ms. Lowell will end up personally being the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back of the Greek economy and/or end up in jail remains to be seen.

  Filed, 4:33 p.m., Athens.

  By the time Yiota heads home to do some schoolwork, I adore her completely. I can’t believe I was afraid to meet her—it feels incredible to be related to someone so pretty, so cool, so generous of spirit. It makes me wonder if everyone in our family is just like her, or if that’s too much to hope for.

  • • •

  After our first meeting, Yiota and I spend the whole next week exploring Athens. The first few days she takes me to see all the obvious places that Let’s Go to Greece! told me to check out, both of us pretending to be tourists just for the fun of it. We trek up to the famous Acropolis, which is actually the name of the site where the Parthenon is—acropolis means “highest city.” The Parthenon is the monument everyone recognizes from postcards: an enormous white marble temple with massive columns that was built to honor the goddess Athena, for whom the city is named. (Full disclosure: I never even thought of that, despite having done an entire unit on Greek mythology in sixth grade. Fail.)

  We tour the Old Palace in Syntagma Square, which is the biggest building I’ve ever seen and houses the current parliament. Past Museum Mile we check out Ermou Street, where all the fancy shops are. Every woman we see is dressed to the nines, and I feel very shabby in my UGGs and gray puffy jacket. We walk through Omonoia, the center of Athens, and visit the National Library and the college square on Panepistimiou Street. Students and teachers are picketing (separately) outside one of the buildings, and nearby there’s a whole slew of policemen with very intense-looking rifles. I get pretty freaked out at first, but Yiota just laughs and tells me demonstrations are just what Greek people do.

  “Look over there, at these police right here,” she whispers in my ear. Lo and behold, the cops are all on their phones, texting. Interesting.

  “What do the signs say?” I ask her, pointing to the protesters.

  “Ah, well—the teachers, they want more money, of course. And the students don’t want to have to pay for the books. They used to be free, you know.” She sighs, sounding frustrated. “My college was closed for two weeks during exams last year,” she continues. “It happens like this every year, mostly. This is one big change with the economic problems, having to pay for school supplies.”

  Apparently before, the country paid for everything—college and books and housing . . . I couldn’t believe it. Imagine college being free!

  “But here is what, Zona,” Yiota adds. “There are always, historically, demonstrations in Greece. Now we are on the world stage, people are paying more attention, it seems like a new thing. But really it isn’t.”

  I make a mental note to tell my dad all of this for his research, then snap a picture of one of the cops texting. Unfortunately, he spots me and yells something in Greek that sounds angry, so we quickly move on.

  The second half of the week, we explore places that aren’t on the tourist maps, like coffee shops down tiny alleys where Yiota and her friends hang out for hours even though they only buy one cup of coffee apiece. I explain that in New York the manager would kick them out after an hour if they weren’t buying anything else, but they just crack up laughing and tell me that isn’t the way Greeks do things.

  We get gelato (like ice cream, but somehow more ice creamy) and gyros, which are meat sandwiches on pita bread with a yogurt sauce called tzatziki. Of course, we have those in New York, too, but Yiota is quick to point out that real gyros have french fries on top, which I admit I’ve never seen before. Yiota gives up on making me try olives and makes spanakopita (amazing flaky pastry pie filled with spinach and feta cheese) in a funny little oven that sits on top of the counter in her tiny, light-filled apartment. It’s absolutely delicious.

  We spend one night walking around by a gorgeous marina in an area called Floisvos, where everyone in the city seems to be hanging out, even at midnight—kids my age, college students like my cousin, old people, mothers with tiny babies asleep in their carriages .
. . and everyone just commingles. It’s so odd to see, somehow, and yet it just works. No one is cooler than anyone else or doesn’t belong.

  The water at the marina is lit from below with blue lights, and there are giant black fish swimming around that follow us as we walk past. We sit at the edge of the water drinking coffee, looking at the massive ships docked at the harbor, and talking—about beaches we can get to by ferry when it gets warm out, and about school, of course. I tell her how nervous I am. She tells me about the guy she’s sort of dating, and her college classes, and her friends, and how she isn’t sure what she wants to do after she graduates.

  “Does the economic crisis make you more worried about what comes next? It must, right?”

  She pauses to think a moment, looking out over the beautiful dark water.

  “You ask about this a lot, Zona,” she says, sounding a bit sad. “The answer is that I truly try not to think about it too much. Greeks want to work to live, not live to work. We aren’t letting this ‘crisis’—what you call it—get to us or change our lives or stop us. We can’t move ahead this way, you understand? So we just don’t think about it. Well, not more than we have to.”

  I can’t decide if this is an incredibly silly and uninformed way to go through life or a refreshingly positive one.

  Good thing my dad is the one writing the story about this, I think. Yiota puts her arm around my shoulders and squeezes, so I know she isn’t upset. We sit together like that for a while, each of us quiet with our own thoughts. And then, of course, Yiota bursts forth with another dozen ideas of things to see, to taste, to explore. And we’re off again.