Last Post of 2007

Lift your tear streaked cheeks off that keyboard dear fan(s) of this blog because I'm back after a week in Barcelona.

In case you were blind and hadn't noticed, I love food, so travelling for me is mostly about how good the food is. Every bad meal I eat makes me feel cheated, that I've lost a precious meal in my life which I will never get back. This trip to Barcelona was not my first - I did a grand tour of Spain in 2005. Out of two weeks, the only dish that sticks in my memory was a prawn and chilli tapas either in Valencia or Seville.

And this time round I can't actually remember anything that I ate which was WOW, apart from two rounds of dulce de leche, which is not Spanish it's South American. All that fancy architecture and good city planning makes up for it though. My only other issue with Spain is that I just don't understand why people there sit at home with their blinds shut. We drove up to Andorra and all along the way there were cars aplenty, people entering and exiting houses, but nearly all the blinds were down.

Why would you sit with your rollers open only a crack on a sunny day when your house faces the sea? It made me go all Greek, saying things like "Our salads are better." or "We wouldn't do that." and "We are more people in a city and our drains don't smell!" We, we, we.

I've noticed outside of Greece my Greek is pretty good because I only have one other Greek speaker with me. I could talk about whatever I wanted, make comments and in-jokes without anyone knowing what I was saying. I added a new word to my vocabulary, papari which I can't tell you what it is because anyway I only intended to use it when no one knew what I was saying, as in "What do you want to do today? Shall we go to Cafe Papari again?" Tee hee! Potty mouth! I told Mr Zeus it was his fault because like a child, I was learning the language by repeating what he said around me and if he didn't want me talking like a sailor he should watch his own language. He told me I was not a baby so I couldn't use that excuse.

Back in Athens my Greek instantly fell apart under the gaze of 5 million other Greek speakers. I'm also being a lady and not saying papari any more, because I've found the comic effect wears off pretty fast.

And now I find myself at the end of my first complete year in Greece. How do I feel? Pretty good. For the first time since I was little, I have reached the end of the year and done everything I had set out to do. Nothing is left over, I have no regrets.

Wishing you a great New Year!