Making friends

Ria and I stopped at a panoramic pullout on the side of the road to get something to eat from a food cart there (called a Kantina here). A group of locals — friends and family of the woman running the cantina — was gathered there, sitting at a table on the edge of a cliff overlooking a roiling sea. One of the children invited Ria to play ("Gabriella, come to playing with us?") and one of the men invited me to come and drink ("Parakalo?"). Ria and four children played for an hour, and while the adults and I drank a local drink, tsipouro (which sounds a bit like "giggalo" when pronounced) and we all chatted in a mixture of English and Greek.

One man left the table, walked across the turnout, and disappeared behind a large rock for a while. I thought it was fairly obvious what he'd gone to do. But as soon as he reappeared, a massive cloud of smoke erupted from behind the rock. In shock, I said to the table, "I thought he'd gone back there to pee; what are we drinking?!" One man actually fell over in his chair laughing so hard, a combination of having been drinking all day and the fact that he grasped enough English to get the joke. More drinks all around ...

I saw a strange thing among the Greek men: they were vaping, smoking e-cigarettes (and one e-pipe). But this was in between real cigarettes (hand rolled, no filters). Their cardiologists must be having their own heart attacks.

Ria, Gavriel (9), and Maria (11)