i’m a polyglot.

Posted in the rest.

i don’t have anything particularly riveting to share from today.
there were stressful moments. luckily, they were only moments. i somehow managed to find my way to the bus station this morning and buy tickets and get on the bus to rethymno- another town on the seaside of crete. its stressful because i’m a tiny girl, planted in large-ish towns, where everything is in another language. its takes me three times as long as your average greek person to read the street signs. although i studied greek, i hardly ever used the capital letters and being that all the street names are written in capital letters, it takes me a little longer.

in addition to that, there seems to be no consistency as to the placement of street signs. so i could be walking down a street for 3 minutes and realize i’m not on the street i want to be on. sometimes i never find a street sign. i am learning that my gut is pretty good though– it leads me in the right direction most of the time.

i was quite nervous this morning because i didn’t want to miss the bus and i really had no idea where to go. i took a bus from mado’s house rather than walk for 30 minutes into the center of town and i had no idea where i was even supposed to get off that bus since i didn’t know where i was going. in the end, i found the bus station and got on the bus to rethymno, again, right before it left (which, coincidently, was 12 minutes earlier than the schedule says).

rethymno was much more quaint (in my mind) than xania is, so i took a lot of photos that i really like. i explored the old venetian fortezza, went into the contemporary art museum where i saw some art i thought was really cool, and finally meandered into a little place called O Nikos, where I ate my first real greek gyro. oh. my. gosh.

i studied a new greek phrase, inspired by the gyro pita: Ήταν νοστιμότατο!
(it was delicious!)

after lunch, i found the public gardens only to be joined on my bench by a half-albanian half-french man who i spoke to. in french. with no problems.
if i have discovered nothing else about myself so far, its that i really do love french more than any language. ever.

i’m also excited at my abilities to still speak it. the creepy thing about the conversation was that he got up and left after i told him i was there in the gardens with my brother who was walking around. crisis averted.

on the bus ride home from rethymno, i remembered my ipod and the gloriousness that is music. the bus rides were probably my favorite part of the day because i got some of the most beautiful views of blue ocean and magnificent mountains. i didn’t snap any pictures, those moments will have to be contained in my memory.
i’ve also been a little disappointed with my sheepishness in speaking greek so i forced myself to speak some tonight. i went to the little store across from mado’s house and bought some bus tickets using greek! okay, so it was one sentence. but that’s a big deal since i have no idea how to say what i’m saying other than by reading it in the phrasebook. (the way i learned to pronounce ancient greek is mostly different than the way the modern words are pronounced.)
that’s right folks, i’m becoming a polyglot before your very eyes.
that’s all for now. i’m about to head back into the main town to meet up with a group of couch surfers- some greek and some foreigners. i’m pretty excited to meet some new people.

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