Knowing where you are...

You know you're in Greece when:

1. You wake up in the middle of the night and you don't need to consult a clock for the time, just listen to the noise level of the club next door- Our hotel is next door to a club/music restaurant called suca cuka (pronounced soo-ka coo-ka). At midnight the party is a low rumble. At 2am, it's in full jumpin' bumpin' swing with lots of Cher, DePeche Mode, and Mambo No. 5. At 4am they enthusiastically throw out all of the glass bottles into the dumpster on the street.


2. You can park anywhere....anywhere...as long as you put your hazard lights on- This surprised me, stick on your hazard lights and suddenly it's legal to park diagonally in the middle of the road. I'm not lying, I've seen this.


3. You dress up to go everywhere- Every single Greek woman I've seen in this part of town looks like she just stepped out of a fashion catalogue. Some of the fashion is tackier than others, but still, almost everyone makes a statement.


4. Everyone is wearing oversized sunglasses- I don't know if the sunshine here is terribly damaging, but I'm in the tiny minority when I walk outside without sunglasses on. And interestingly, all of them wear HUGE sunglasses, the kind that cover 3/4 of your face...lending the entire population a look of giant fashionable insects.


5. Any blank public wall is in want of grafitti- There is grafitti on just about every public wall, and not just the sloppy scrawl either (though there is plenty of that), but there is lots of really artistic, delicate grafitti artwork. It's almost like walking through a modern art exhibit everytime I walk to the store. My favorite grafitti I've seen thus far is an elaborate declaration of the phrase BUNS CREW...hmmm, I wonder what the qualifications are for that type of a group.


6. Feta cheese is elevated to an art form- I liked feta cheese before, but WOW!!!! I think almost every native dish has some sort of a feta component to it, and the supermarket has an entire section of the store devoted to the different varieties of feta. This stuff is addictive, I tell you.


7. You get two parks within walking distance of your hotel- I love going to the park with Griffin. He is fascinated by the outdoors. He likes to sit and pull on the grass and compete with the birds to see who can squawk the loudest: Griffin wins every time. We picnic often while Landon is off at work.