We’re staying with a women named Kathy in the neighborhood of Peristeri at the end of metro line #2. If I had to relate this neighborhood to one in boston I would have to choose quincy – not because it’s ghetto like quincy – sorry Dan I had to go there, but because just as quincy is full of die hard locals so is Peristeri. In addition, this neighborhood is away from the downtown area and also the tourists, which is great because you feel like you truly get to live like a greek, however this is NOT so good when you’re trying to order dinner at a restaurant. Essentially every menu at every restaurant in our neighborhood is in greek and no one in the restaurant speaks English. I feel like I’m 2 years old again when we order because we use the order by picture method. We simply skim the menu and find a picture that appetizing and while pointing at it we ask “chicken?” or “pork?”. Surprising, this method has yet to fail us other than they sometimes bring us 2 pizzas when we only asked for one or one pita sandwich when we clearly wanted two.
We get looks everywhere we go in the neighborhood because we’re three young (yes 31 is STILL young) American girls. At the end of our street there is a old boys club – where all the retired old men in the neighborhood hang out and play backgammon. I think they still don’t know what to make of us. On the way home from work today we passed by them and I said hello (Yassas) and I think two said hello back while another fell off his chair in shock because we could talk.
So renting a room in a house is extremely UNcommon in Greece. Kathy is Greek, however she was raised in London where she ran a bed and breakfast. A few years back she sold the bed and breakfast and moved to Greece where she lives with her now husband, who is greek and who we’ve dubbed Papa Peristeri (I’ve never really met him because he works a lot and doesn’t speak a lot of English so I’m not sure what his real name is). To make some extra cash she decided to post a couple rooms on craigslist.gr and see if she got any hits and this is how we found her.
Here is a photo of my bathroom. Pretty tiny, huh? I literally shower over the toilet.
Actually living with Kathy is great because she’s fluent in both English and Greek so if we have any questions concerning a map, menu, etc she can easily help us plus she’s really nice and refers to things like the garbage as rubbish and the bathroom as the loo.
Down the street from us is a scary big black dog who is never allowed to come out and play and never gets walked. Essentially he’s just used as a watch dog and he loves to bark loudly when someone gets to close to his fence. We’ve named him Zeus and I pray I’m not there the day Zeus gets loose. He’s going to terrorize the neighborhood and take down anyone or anything that stands in his way.
And that my friends is the fine metropolis of Peristeri....
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