Monday

Feeling a bit bad that we don’t even know how to say “hello”, “good morning”, or “thank you”, so tried to learn some Greek this morning. It’s hard. I’d assumed there would be a bit of “oh that’s like the German word” or “thats almost the same as English”, but there really isn’t many occasions that seems to be the case.
I’ve forgotten what I learnt already.

It’s harder than Spanish, French or German (of which I know a tiny amount of each), as it doesn’t seem to have the patterns of words all the time.
E.g. Montag, Dienstag (German). Lundi, Mardi (French). Monday, Tuesday (English, obv). Words that are grouped/related that are kinda mostly similarly patterned/have same starts or ends (yes I know there are exceptions like Dimanche).
In Greek though, 4am and 5am are very different. Same with 7pm and 8pm. Maybe they differentiate between “very-early” morning and “early” morning, and they’ve finally decided at what point “afternoon” definitely becomes “evening”.

As they don’t use a Western alphabet either, it’s bloody hard to have any kind of visual familiarity. “…so it’s a sorta-K, upside down V, then that letter that looks like a cactus..”
I’ve got a couple of iPhone apps and a Rapid Greek audiobook, so might give it another go a bit later on.
(8 is pronounced “Octo”! Like an octopus. And 3 is a weird “tree-a”. Like The Count from Sesame Street, reading it in a bad Irish accent. Small learning victories.)

Later:

I’ve been thinking about toilets. A bit, not like, constantly.
If I were resolving the toilet paper situation, I would do one of the following.
IF it’s the case that the only reason you can’t put paper down the toilet is because it clogs the pipes I’d fit a macerater device thing like you put on second downstairs toilets in the UK or bigger pipes. Can’t see that this can be the reason though, because even new buildings have toilets you can’t put paper down.
If it is a problem that it cannot be separated before it goes to a water treatment place/thing, I’d fit a bidet with every toilet, in every new place built.
A google search suggests it’s either something to do with the filtration system, the smaller pipes installed (even in new builds), or other general incorrect/not-up-to-the-job equipment.
Surely a macerater device would fix it either way?

Monday PM

We caught a bus to Corfu Town. First Greek Western gave me a change ticket (as I didn’t have the right money), that I have to take to Athens to cash in, between 9am-noon Tuesday-Thursday.
No, of course not. The driver of the number 4 bus smiled, took my money, gave me the correct change. €2 each, for a single journey of about 6km. The bus was clean and cool.
It could actually have been cheaper. You pay slightly more if you buy it on the bus. Lesson learnt – buy from a machine or one of the shops that sell tickets.
It’s very hustley/bustley (neither of which are words), much like any other city, with a mixture of old and new stuff. We just generally had a wander about, looking at buildings and people watching.
We saw a branch of Mothercare, but the ultimate in familiarity occurred when my girlfriend stopped to get a stone out of her shoe, outside a branch of M&S.

Lunch consisted of pastry items from a shop which specialised in catering for vegetarians and vegans. My (vegetarian) girlfriend was suitably pleased.
I was unwittingly eating something called Tiropita (thanks to @wood5y on Twitter for that). All I knew was that it was delicious. 7 types of cheese in very tasty pastry. Like a really REALLY posh Greggs.
Actually forget that. Greggs isn’t even the same food type. A really posh Parsons.

I took some nice pictures but they’re mostly on another camera, so I’ll have to wait until I get home to see for sure if they’re really nice, and upload some to Flickr.

I saw a second lizard today. Which is nice. I quite like lizards. Ibiza (my last trip abroad) had loads. They’re very used to people, don’t cause you any trouble, and eat all those pesky insects that get on your nerves, too. *Applies cream to numerous insect bites*

The noisy Italians in the room next door have left. This seems to mean we have the swimming pool just for us, as I think most of the rest of the building is empty. Good times.

Dinner consisted of rice, green beans (they were ludicrously expensive – €3.50 for a small tray), carrots (quite cheap and very flavoursome), and an Uncle Ben’s sauce, which had only “Oriental” and “suitable for vegetarians” written in English, and the rest – no idea. Not bad, not that expensive, and all mastered in one pot. Self catering victory.