Greek Superstitions

By now, I believe you have no doubt heard enough of the trials and tribulations that plagued our international travels to Greece.  And, by the way, thanks for reading and offering your support and laughs.  I guess if we can’t laugh about it, it would all just seem REALLY tragic.  Now that we are in Crete and settled into our temporary home at the Sissy Village (how fitting to have Gibbs living in a place called Sissy Village), I’d like to share some of the good stuff with you…

On one of our first mornings here, I was sitting out on our porch with Gibbs.  While I sipped my coffee and read a book, Gibbs was busy surveying the scenery and sniffing about.  Then our neighbor came over to visit and introduce himself.  He’s a pretty handsome fella that could give any Hollywood star a run for his money.  He starts talking to me and WHOA! WHOA!  I realize he’s said about 1,000 words in a span of about 3 seconds.  At first, I think maybe I’m still jet-lagged and I know I’ve lived in the South for a while and people tend to be more thoughtful about their words (a.k.a slow and steady), but this guy could’ve been a professional auctioneer!  What’s worse, even though I KNOW he is speaking English to me, I find it very hard to understand him.  We, I mean, HE talks for a few minutes and then starts to hone in on Gibbs and begins to ask questions about him.  I now realize Gibbs is the main reason he’s come over to “chat.”  Anyway, I notice a change in his inflection followed by a pause and realize he’s just asked me a question about our “British Bulldog” which makes me giggle as now I expect that if Gibbs could talk he’d sound like Prince Charles.  What also begins to capture my attention is that he ends almost every question with “mate”:

What’s your British Bulldog’s name, mate?  Where do you come from, mate?

I seems I have now met a very interesting ethnic combination of a man.  Half-Greek, Half-Australian!  This may be a common blend, but it’s my first, so don’t ruin the novelty for me!  And God as my witness, I will find a REAL Spartan before I leave here!!

So we chat a while longer and as he goes to leave, I start to say, “see you…” 

AND…

DID HE JUST SPIT ON MY DOG?!?!? 

Yep.  Spit-spit-spit!!! (or phonetically, I guess it sounds more like ftou-ftou-ftou!!!)

Just as my brain is processing this, he very quickly tells me (quickly in that he talks a mile a minute and also quickly in that he sees the “WTF?!?!” look of confusion on my face and realizes he needs to explain himself) that this is a Greek tradition to spit on someone to ward off evil and/or for good luck.  While I DEFINITELY could have used a little spit back in Norfolk before this whole adventure began, I feel like my luck has turned a little bit and let him know that I’m all stocked up on good luck at this time.  He laughs and I feel like I just found my first new friend in Crete!

After telling my sister, Natalie, about the saliva incident, she cracks up laughing and tells me that she’s seen that happen in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  I can’t believe I never saw that movie—might have been a little helpful before moving here, so I ran out the next day and rented it just to see for myself.  While the movie is somewhat stereotypical, it’s definitely hilarious and now I feel like I’m starting to understand a little bit more about the Greeks, even though I’m still feeling like “It’s All Greek To Me!”  I just wish someone had warned me about how they feel about CROWS here before I arrived (more on that later).

I later come to find out that our half-Australian, half-Greek, spit-happy, fast talking mate is named Thomas.  He may have told me that on that first day out on the porch, but I definitely didn’t catch it!!  Since our first meeting, we’ve gotten to know him pretty well.  He too is living in Crete for work and his wife comes to visit on some weekends.  His wife is also incredibly sweet and nice though she has kind of an unfortunate name that doesn’t really suit her--Myrtle (which sounds nothing like that in Greek, btw). I guess that is her burden because otherwise she is the kind of girl with the kind of figure that makes other girls want to only order lettuce and a glass of water for lunch!!  After hanging out with Thomas a bit, Kip and I debated on what it is that Thomas does for a living.  All the scenarios we came up with were pretty bad-ass!!  In his super fast chat he dropped words like Tanzania, mate, Qatar, Embassy, Mercedes, mate, pilot, president, mate, King, Arabic, Qudafi, mate…. 

Get my drift?!?!?

While we have learned that he sadly is NOT our own, personal Jason Bourne, he is still pretty cool in our book for a number of reasons:

1.    He brings us lots of tasty desserts.

2.    He brings Gibbs his leftovers.  My dog is never going to want to leave here.

3.    He teaches us “bad words” in Greek.

4.    He wants to come to the US with us so he can eat in a “proper” diner and witness a bar fight (clearly he watches a lot of Hollywood movies and American TV shows).

5.    He said he likes us Americans.

6.    He calls me MATE!!

I now have the strong urge to start calling everyone “mate” after talking to him and continue to find myself intrigued.  I am still holding on to the dream that he still might end up being kinda, sorta Jason Bourne-ish.  A girl can dream, can’t she?!?!

Time has not helped the fast talking and I notice that my mind seems to work on some sort of delay when I’m talking to him (part of his Jason Bourne skills is brain control—I’m certain of it) and I can only seem to catch the important words in the conversation—thank God I’m at least able to do that so he doesn’t think I’m brain damaged or something.  And even though I’m still trying to understand what these Greeks are all about, I can’t help but love every second of it!

So, until next time… spit-spit-spit!!!