Kathleen and I hope this blog is mostly about the type of large and small surprises that make us smile, but there is another side to experience here. One example: as we walk around, we see shop after shop that is no longer in business. Often they have a sign such as in the photo. The "enoikiazetai" means "for rent," and is something we see way too often. As we walked today, at one point we saw two closed shops next to each other and another directly across the street. That's a bit unusual, but we see closed shops in pretty much every block. Somewhere I believe I read that as many as 30% of the small shops in Athens have gone out of business in the last few years.
Back to more pleasant topics: One of the things Kathleen didn't mention about our encounter with the little old lady is that, when I thought that she said that her husband was 20 years younger (instead of being dead for 20 years, as we later decided she had said), I said to her something like "well done!" She took it in stride, so I can only hope that my accent made me incomprehensible to her! :)
Back to more pleasant topics: One of the things Kathleen didn't mention about our encounter with the little old lady is that, when I thought that she said that her husband was 20 years younger (instead of being dead for 20 years, as we later decided she had said), I said to her something like "well done!" She took it in stride, so I can only hope that my accent made me incomprehensible to her! :)
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