I'm using old pictures of Kim's today because I have none.

Yesterday Stelios and I spent an hour discussing all the different research projects he wants to collaborate on. At this moment, we're up to 4 different articles. Fortunately neither of us expects that they will all be completed in the next 8 weeks. He doesn't want to burden me by asking me to do too many guest lectures, but he's all about research projects. I think that just demonstrates his strong publication emphasis.

I was thrilled yesterday to find the tram air conditioning was on (it doesn't take a lot to excite me). I know that in some of the other places we've been, they wait until it is much warmer before turning on any AC. We haven't had to turn it on in the apartment yet, but we have had the balcony doors open and the ceiling fan on.

Since I don't have much to report from yesterday (as evidenced by the previous paragraph), I will reflect about the language.

We've learned a little Greek but both of us wish it were more. One of the reasons we haven't learned more is because we haven't had to. The vast majority of people here speak English. Even if you tell a beggar "I don't speak Greek," he will quickly switch and ask you in English. All of my conversations at the university have been in English, obviously everyone at Fulbright is at least bilingual (many speak 3 or 4 languages) and our landlords/friends speak English. We haven't been pushed.

This relief is the wall behind the tomb of the unknown soldier.

Kim wants to pick up rocks. I tell her taking their pictures is a better way to "collect" them (and makes for lighter suitcases, too).

Of course there are a lot of lot of words that resemble English, since a number of English words came from the Greek. We got democracy from the Greeks (both the word and the concept), just about any "ology" word, asthma and hundreds of others. Greeks have adopted some English words, such as computer and OK. Greek for OK is "doxi" (that's phonetic - another Greek word) but they use both terms. It's interesting to hear a Greek on the phone speaking Greek and then all of a sudden an English word or two - maybe a whole sentence - drops in.

There are also Greek words that are identical to Italian. The words for beer and park are just birra and parco (although Greeks use k instead of c). They use "bravo" and lots of food words: provolone, mozzarella. The word for strawberry in Italian is fragola (accent on the first syllable): in Greek it's fra-oo-la. Apple in Italian is mela, in Greek melo. Not bad, right? To read these things is a whole different challenge. The Greek word for apple looks like this: μήλο.

One thing that throws me is when the Greek word is like another language but with a different meaning. In Italian, "posso" means "may I?" It would be a word you use before picking up an item in a shop or clearing someone's plate after dinner. In Greek, it means "how much," as in what does it cost? The word "kai" in Slovene means "what" but in Greek it means "and." But the biggest difficulty is with the simple word "yes": it's "ne" in Greek, but "ne" means "no" in Slovene. I can't tell you the number of times I've meant to say no but said yes (that is a straight line waiting for a punchline, but I'll leave that to you).

Watching US TV shows that have been subtitled is a little helpful. As we hear the English being spoken, we see the Greek subtitles below. It moves a little faster than I'd like, but I can catch a word every so often. In spite of my problems saying yes, I've pretty much got reading yes and no.

Of course some words don't have any relation to their counterparts. For example, "good" is completely different in Italian (buono), Slovene (dobro) and Greek (kalos).