Sunburnt in Greece

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I will try to make this succinct because I am sitting on a laptop in an internet cafe and we are only here for a limited time. As the title has already betrayed, I am in Greece right now. GREECE! It still hasn't sunk in yet. As we were crossing the border yesterday in the car, my Macedonian father joked that we will never actually leave Macedonia because the province of Greece we are in is called Macedonia (a cause for bitter dispute between the two countries that I won't delve into right now). How Macedonian of him. The landscape here is actually much like the Macedonia I have already seen: lush, tall, green hills, wheat-looking fields, everything except for the view of the Aegean Sea visible from the balcony of our apartment! Sashka and I were at the beach for several hours yesterday and even more today, and I swam in the Aegean Sea for over an hour straight on one occasion! The water here is waveless, warm, very conducive to long minutes of treading water. It was sunny all day today, giving the Grecian gods (Helios, would it be?) reason to bless me with a sunburn, but I am relishing it along with everything else. Sashka has already taken me to get a gyro (it's prounounced geer-oh here). Getting accustomed to an entirely new alphabet, especially after feeling like a kindergartener after just learning a new one already, is a bit overwhelming, and Sashka informed me that "yes" in Greek is "ne." "Ne" in Macedonian means "no." Ah, the confusion abounds.
As a hasty interjection, I will summarize the week preceding my arrival in Greece. The eight of us took a bus to Dojran, a town that shares a border with Greece and is two kilometers from the border, to stay in Sashka's family's lake house for five days. Like in Ohrid, we spent time on the shoreline and went to cafes at night. Living eight people in a house was like a preview of what college might be like... but I am proud to say that we were very responsible and almost nothing got broken. I was glad to be able to get to know the other delegates more in Dojran, even though I know that process can only continue in our remaining time here, and in the five weeks in America and beyond! Sashka and I then spent two days in Veles, a city-town 45 minutes by car from Skopje, with her oh-so kindly grandparents. Veles made a good impression on me; it has the friendly feel of a village like Dojran but the busybody feel of a city like Skopje, a nice sampling of a happy medium.
And now, Greece. Macedonians are not big fans of Greece as a country, with Greece esssentially trying to claim the Macedonian heritage and name for itself, among other things (yes, they even think that the right to claim Alexander as one of their own is legitimate- ugh). I am on my way to being a Macedonian at heart now, so I technically should be dedicating this entry to how pigheaded the Greeks are. Therefore, in conclusion, I think Greece is...um...okay. Just okay. I will leave it at that and allow you to draw your own conclusions about how if might feel to be in Greece yourself, in the land of these gorgeous, olive-skinned, fast-talking people. It's just okay.

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Comments

[Tracy Ewens]

Greece is...just okay. I love it!
Great Post, Sheridan. It sounds like you are having an incredible time. Wear your sunscreen. Haha!