Travel Travails: Surprising Greece

Oopah! Greece!

Not so much!

Don’t get me wrong. The historic immersive Athenian experience put me in wonderful places like scaling the plateau to the Parthenon, wandering the ruins of Hadrian’s library, or standing under Hadrian’s arch (Hadrian the Greek loving Roman emperor got around), but it did not put me in an oopah place! 

No one shouted “oopah” after scaling the Acropolis plateau or wandering Hadrian’s library, or standing akimbo under Hadrian’s Arch. 

Perhaps “oopah” was an Americanization of some other Greek utterance, but it was not prevalent in Athens. I know. I tested the theory.

My order of saganaki arrived at my table not flaming, but extinguished. The meek wedge of crusty feta did not inspire an exclamatory “oopah” from waiter or diner.

The toilets however did, at least the first syllable of the interjection.

I uttered “Oh, yuck” when first presented with the Greek plumbing

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Next to the toilet was a large garbage can into which is deposited the USED toilet paper. Yes, USED! Apparently it’s a cause and effect situation. Greece is mostly rock. It’s more difficult to drive a four inch pipe through rock than a two inch pipe. A two inch pipe clogs easily. Hence toilet paper wasn’t flushed but captured in the accompanying can. 

I know what job I NEVER want in Greece.

After an “oopahless” lunch and firsthand plumbing experience, I returned to my table to discover a large bottle of vodka. 

Figuring that a shot of booze was Greece’s way of making up for an unenthusiastic appetizer and a funky toilet routine I called over the waiter and asked. (In Greece bread, water, and olives appear at your table unordered and they are NOT free. I thought I’d ask so I wouldn’t need to exchange a billion dollars to pay for it.) 

It turns out that the bottle with the vodkalike image held water not vodka. I didn’t understand why the bottle didn’t have a waterlike image even after the illustrated explanation, but there’s a lot that I don’t understand about Greece.