Wednesday morning. Natalia is online. Laurence opens one eye to check on the "light factor". It's morning. The girls are already up, but strangely quiet playing out on the balcony. Laurence picks himself up off the bed and moseys over to Natalia who is intently staring at the computer screen. From her vantage point she can look out to the balcony and the girls, and beyond into the park. It's another slow moving morning. But something's "up". Natalia announced that she is reading Rebecca's email to us and that, Rebecca, has mentioned that her daughter Lizzie checks this very blog every day! The pressure is on for more complete and up-to-date updates. Laurence measures his response. That's great. But really such passing statements puts one on a different plane. How can we fill so much information onto a blog without making it boring? Would we even want to? Balance. So, with that, here it is...another note of our daily doings with a few pictures to add some spice to things.
Truthfully the first few days have gone better than expected. It is amazing what a difference there has been between this trip and our last one here. By now, last December Laurence would have been to probably four different government offices and such doing bureaucratic this-and-thats'. This time it's more real. The general mood in Greece is an overriding mood of pessimism and concern. Shops line the streets with empty windows. Vasil informs us that, downtown there are areas where one in two shops has closed down. Daily strikes infuse an element of immediate impact on daily lives. News broadcasts are filled with conversations of whether Greece will default on its loans, whether it should or not, how Greece perceives the outside world, and the world Greece. On many levels it is a sad story.
But at the personal level it's often overcome with a smile, albeit sometimes forced. The woman at the bakery gives Irini a little loukanikopita (like a hot dog) because she's so cute. She jokes to Laurence that when he goes back to Malaysia, he should take her with him. He smiles and wishes her well. She smiles back and thanks him for coming to see her. They return home where Laurence gets into another conversation with Dina, the woman downstairs and over one balcony. Outside, with the sunny day facing them, they chat about the family, the growing girls, how long we will be in Malaysia. She asks when we're coming back "this way". Laurence doesn't have an answer, but he would love to. At the photo shop he has pictures taken for an international drivers license. After the trip to the bakery to fill the time and bring back some tiropita and bougatsa (yummy stuff!), he returns to another sales person cutting up the pictures to the right size. The woman asks, "Are these your pictures"? "I'm not completely sure" says Laurence. The woman, without hesitating, answers "I think the eyes gave you away". It's a playful conversation with a stranger, on the edge of rational and yet just beyond it, completely Greek. Laurence walks away wishing them a good day. The woman wishes him the same in return. Irini munches on her bougatsa as we walk down the pedestrian streets of Marousi. Some shops have good bargains.
Yesterday was a day "out" in the park. The intention was to stay much longer, but this year has been a little strange for Greece. It appears that there has been more rain than normal, so what is left is a feeling of spring (maybe more like April or early May). Laurence loves it! It means the flowers are still often in bloom, that the bushes and brushes are still standing high (and all over) and that the fields are full of color, insects and "stuff" to discover. It's in that "stuff" that we decided to venture as Irini insisted on looking at everything from the almonds on the trees to the purple flowers and dead grasses. She wanted to look at every insect in sight, and often hold it. Laurence had to oblige as Natalia snapped the pictures. The only problem with high grasses... the more chances you'll get some prickly thing stuck in your socks. Overcome by itchiness and discomfort we had to retreat to change our socks and give lessons on how some plants work. :-)
In the afternoon, they saw their friends Stelio and Maria and their daughter Mikaela. They went to a local play ground where, as the evening slowly moves toward night, more and more people show up. In there, somewhere, Natalia takes a moment to teach Amalia how to be, quite literally, a tree hugger. Parenting skills vary from supportive to uncontrolled, from trusting parents to some chasing after their children, from those who are laughing with their kids to those yelling endlessly at them giving them ultimatums they will never follow through on. One boy pushes over his cousin and she falls crying. Another boy gets dizzy on the merry-go-round and gets off, takes one step and falls sideways to the ground. With a crash His mother rushes over to pick him up and sooth him, obviously under-rested and looking haggard. Other parents are all too busy watching their own children or conversing with other parents about their children to concern themselves too much. The place is happening (in toddler terms)! For one hour in a neighborhood play ground the world's opposites come together to entertain their children and given the parents respite, and then have pizza. As we did. As we chomped away, Amalia managed to do some rounds around the tables, saying hello to a group of smoking mothers (watching their children from afar), watching a group of teenagers playing cards and hugging a pine tree now and then. She is, by all accounts, totally and completely adorable.
Tomorrow we head off to Sweden on a "biiiiiiiig eroplane" - as Irini puts it - for chapter two of our summer. Chapter one has been wonderfully slow and sprinkled with just enough to-dos to keep things interesting. From breakfast on the balcony to reconnecting friends, it has been the perfect way to start the summer.
Lizzie, we miss you. :-)
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