Greece's

The ferry trip from Italy to Greece is a blur to me now. I know the boat left Brindisi late in the evening and sailed all through the night. My friend Quaz and I slept poorly if we slept at all, trying to twist our bodies into comfortable position in our seats. We were young, on a student budget, and had opted for the cheap seats rather than the more expensive cabins. If I really strain my mind I seem to remember a rather scary boat, seats that had been recycled off an old airplane, and the fear that perhaps we weren’t on the right boat at all, that we might wake up off the coast of Africa instead. Did they still shanghai people?

We were going to Greece and I was excited. I had been in love with the idea of Greece ever since reading (and rereading) the D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths as a child. Their watercolor illustrations brought the world of Hera and Zeus to life for me (this is still my absolute favorite gift to give any child, it's wonderful). I’m not sure what I expected to see in Greece, but I had insisted it be on our itinerary. Quaz and I had wound our way down through Italy, staying with friends in Tuscany, hiking through olive groves and vineyards, eating copious amounts of gelato in Rome, wandering the ruins of Pompeii, the teeming streets of Naples. Now we were on a boat bound for Greece.

The one thing than concerned me was our ability to communicate. Between the two of us Quaz and I function reasonably well in French, German, Italian, Japanese, and a smattering of Spanish, but neither of us spoke a word of Greek. I had dutifully bought a phrase book and tried to teach myself the basics, but at the sight of an unfamiliar alphabet my brain froze (go figure on that one—I speak Japanese). The fact that the Greek word for yes is nai, which really seems like it should mean no didn’t help my confidence level. I realized I probably wasn't going to become conversant in Greek on our brief visit. But how would we navigate, how would we communicate, how would we order dinner?

Salvation came in the form of another American we met on the boat, a student who was studying in Athens and on his way back from a winter holiday in Italy. His name has also been lost to memory, but let’s call him Brad. By the time our train from the port town of Patras had reached Athens, Brad had recommended a hotel for us to stay in and we had made plans to meet up later that night for dinner.

The restaurant Brad led us to that evening, down unfamiliar streets on sidewalks made of marble, was a small homey place with a partly open kitchen. Walking to our table Brad glanced at the pots bubbling away on the stove. “I wonder what’s good tonight,