Bakery Employee & George
It is the beginning of my five weeks stay in Greece. I’m so excited. Constantine is with me, and we are staying Vouglameni for a few days before moving to a hotel in Glyfada for my friend Nathalie’s wedding in which we were both invited. We had discovered the Athenian Riviera last summer and can confidently say: we fell in love. So, we returned. We were staying in an Airbnb and realized we had a problem. We were not prepared with beach towels and for both of us to shower for the next few days there was not going to be enough towels to go around even if we did laundry. We needed to find towels. The first morning after we arrived, we walked down to a cute bakery right in the Vouglameni town center, ordered our breakfast and sat outside and ate it leisurely as all Greeks do. Nothing is fast but the rate at which they talk. We were really taking it all in. Everyone in the town doing what it is they do best, getting their day started at the pace and rate they want; like the man double parking his car to not only block one car in, but multiple cars in and a couple on a mo-ped stopping to pick up lunch before going to the beach, because who works any way here?
As we sat there, we contemplated where we were going to get these towels. Constantine points to a kiosk in the town center between us and the beach and goes “they have to sell towels there”. He could be right but decided to go back into the bakery and ask the grandfather, παπου (pronounced papou) working behind the counter. I attempt asking in Greek and have to repeat myself a few time because my pronunciation is chopping and incorrect most times. Next thing you know he rips off his apron and goes “let’s go”, “πάμε” (pronounced páme). He walks me through the parking lot to, you guessed it, the kiosk and proceeds to tell the guy in the kiosk and the one standing outside straddling his bike in a Washington Wizards jersey, George, what I need. This was perfect but my Greek was not and George picked up on it right away and in English asked where I am from. He too was from the states originally. He grew up a little bit in the states and then in Greece and then back to the states before he made the decision at 26 he was done with the American way of life and had dual citizenship and decided to move to Greece permanently. In talking about what I was doing here and my travels, he wrote down a bunch of local recommendations and gave me his number and said if you need any more recommendations or have any questions about the area here’s my number, text me. ‘What random stranger does this?’ A random Greek stranger does. In that time my brother had texted me asking where I went. When I finally return to my brother and recount what occurred, I ended with “only in Greece’.
Outside the bakery, by the kiosk…don’t feel too bad for my brother as he waited for me with this view: my favorite, an olive tree.
