And Here Comes the Raki

There are dignified ways to spend your final day in Greece.

You can take one last walk through the old city. Visit a museum you somehow missed. Sit beside the harbor contemplating the ancient civilizations that have passed through this historic island. Perhaps write thoughtfully in a leather-bound journal while sipping Greek coffee and looking mysterious.

I stayed in bed.

Because that was where I wanted to be.

We had already packed most of our things, and Tim had gone out on a last-minute souvenir expedition because apparently there were still people related to us who did not own enough objects from Greece. I had reached the stage of international travel where my enthusiasm for activities had been replaced by a strong commitment to horizontal surfaces.

Then my phone rang.

It was Tim.

“Makis is working. He’s waiting for us to come to breakfast.”

Well.

Apparently I was getting out of bed.

Breakfast. Technically.

By the time I arrived at the Red Bicycle, breakfast had wandered rather decisively into lunch, but time had stopped having much meaning anyway. I got there first, claimed a table and waited for Tim to return from his Great Souvenir Procurement Expedition.

We ordered food. Makis and Anna came over. They gave us crap.

Naturally, this only made us love them more.

This is one of my favorite stages of friendship. Politeness is lovely, but there’s something comforting about reaching the point where people stop treating you like a customer and start making fun of you.

And then came the raki.

Three shot glasses appeared on the table.

Now, if you’ve never had Cretan raki, imagine someone looked at perfectly innocent grapes and thought, You know what these need? Violence.

Raki is a traditional Cretan spirit made from what remains of the grapes after winemaking, and it is frequently offered as a gesture of hospitality. It is also capable of removing several layers of tissue from the inside of your esophagus.

We raised our glasses.

Down went the raki.

Jet fuel.

Lovely, hospitable jet fuel.

Then Makis poured a second round.

There were only two glasses this time.

“Wait,” we said. “What about you?”

“I’m working!” he said apologetically.

Apparently Greek workplace safety standards draw the line somewhere between Shot One and Shot Two.

Tim and I looked at each other and drank the second one, because that’s what you do when someone shares raki with you.

It would have been rude to say no.

I am nothing if not culturally respectful.

The Best Activity We Did All Day

We didn’t have to leave for the airport until ridiculously early the next morning, so we had an entire afternoon stretching ahead of us with absolutely nothing scheduled.

No tour.

No hike.

No boat.

No gorge.

No ancient ruins.

No questionable staircase.

Nothing.

And after weeks of going somewhere, we finally just sat somewhere.

Tim periodically wandered away to hunt for more gifts. I stayed at the Red Bicycle and watched Chania happen around me.

And it might have been one of my favorite afternoons of the trip.

There was a group of local yiayias having lunch together. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, yiayia means grandmother in Greek, although I have come to suspect it may also mean “woman who knows absolutely everything occurring within a five-kilometer radius.”

They were laughing, talking and, I am reasonably certain, gossiping.

I don’t speak enough Greek to know what they were saying, but there is a universal physical language that occurs when gossip reaches the really good part. A certain lean across the table. An eyebrow. A hand gesture. The sudden widening of the eyes.

You don’t need Duolingo for that.

Whatever had happened, somebody had done something.

And Yiayia Number Three had opinions.

This was exactly the sort of place I wanted to be.

I’ve never been particularly interested in restaurants decorated with plastic sea creatures and strategically draped fishermen’s nets screaming, WELCOME, TOURISTS! PLEASE EXPERIENCE AUTHENTIC GREECE™!

Give me the restaurant where the grandmothers eat.

That’s my travel advice.

If there are six local grandmothers sitting at the table beside you arguing animatedly over lunch, you’ve probably chosen well.

The Head Yiayia

Eventually the yiayias finished their meal and began paying.

One woman, whom I had privately designated Head Yiayia because every grandmother group clearly has an organizational structure and I refuse to believe otherwise, stood up and shoved some money into Makis’ hand.

Makis immediately tried to give it back.

She immediately refused.

He tried again.

She refused harder.

There was hand waving.

There were words.

There was the unmistakable body language of a woman who had already made a decision and would now entertain absolutely no further discussion on the matter.

I swear she said, “Go buy yourself something nice.”

Did she actually say that?

No idea.

I don’t speak Greek.

She could have said, “This is reimbursement for the municipal goat.”

But that’s not the story I’m choosing.

In my version, Head Yiayia tipped Makis and told him to go buy himself something nice.

Greek culture isn’t built around tipping the way American culture is, so he genuinely seemed reluctant to accept it. But she kept insisting until he finally did.

And it was lovely.

Not dramatic. Not Instagram-worthy. Nobody had climbed a mountain or discovered an ancient temple.

Just one human being saying to another human being, in whatever words she actually used, I appreciate you.

You don’t really need a translation for that.

The Regulars

Then there were the men.

Every morning, a group of older men sat at the same table. They drank coffee, smoked, talked and read the newspaper.

They weren’t doing anything.

Which, after the way I had spent the previous few weeks, seemed revolutionary.

Nobody was checking an itinerary. Nobody was photographing breakfast. Nobody was trying to cram three historical sites into the morning before their 1:30 catamaran departure.

They were just together.

There was something warm about it. Familiar. Comfortable.

And then there was another older gentleman who came alone.

Same table. Same coffee. Same newspaper.

I had watched all of them throughout our stay without really realizing how much I had noticed.

Which led to one of my last conversations with Makis.

“I Make a Thousand Judgments a Day.”

We were talking about people watching.

I was getting ready to go home and back to school, where I would soon be teaching character study. Actors have to become professional observers of human weirdness. How does someone stand when they’re nervous? What happens to their voice when they’re lying? What do they do with their hands when they don’t know what to say?

Watch people long enough and they’ll give you everything you need.

“I make a thousand judgments a day,” Makis said.

That stopped me.

Because in English, we tend to treat judgment as something ugly.

Don’t judge people.

Don’t be judgmental.

We hear the word and immediately imagine somebody looking over the top of their glasses and disapproving of our life choices.

But that wasn’t what Makis meant.

“That’s how you get to know people,” he explained. “You watch them, you judge them, you help them get what they need.”

Well.

There it was.

The point.

And naturally it had taken me several thousand miles, multiple boats, one gorge, an unreasonable number of cats and two shots of Cretan jet fuel to find it.

Maybe We Should Judge People More

Not that kind of judging.

Put your pitchfork down.

I mean Makis’ kind.

Pay attention.

Watch.

Notice.

The woman at the next table is looking around because she needs another fork. The old man comes in every morning and wants the same coffee at the same table. Someone is talking more quietly today than they did yesterday. Someone is standing slightly outside the group. Someone needs directions. Someone wants to talk. Someone desperately does not want to talk.

You notice because you’re paying attention.

And maybe that’s what I had really been doing throughout Greece.

I thought I was seeing places.

I was seeing people.

The guides who told us stories. The restaurant owners who fed us. The hotel staff who became friends. The people who helped us when we were confused. The strangers who made us laugh. Makis and Anna giving us crap over lunch. Eleftheria checking on us. The yiayias gossiping at the next table. The old men reading their newspapers.

Those are the things that linger.

Places lose some of their shininess surprisingly quickly. I will eventually forget which Venetian building was built in which century. I will confuse the names of beaches. Tim and I will absolutely argue about which village contained that one restaurant we liked.

But I’ll remember people.

That’s the stuff that sticks.

And Off We Go

Eventually there was nothing left to do.

The bags were packed. The souvenirs had been acquired. The raki had been consumed. Tim had presumably purchased enough olive-oil-based products to qualify as an importer.

It was time to leave.

And yes, I was sad.

But I don’t think I want to end this trip there.

Because going home isn’t really the sad part of travel.

Going home exactly the same as you left would be.

Every trip should knock something slightly crooked. Change an assumption. Add a story. Introduce you to someone you never would have met otherwise. Make you curious about something you hadn’t thought about before.

Maybe even teach you a different way to judge people.

Tomorrow I would get on a plane and eventually walk back into my classroom to teach teenagers how to study characters.

And I think I had my first lesson.

Pay attention.

People will tell you who they are.

Not necessarily with words.

You just have to watch.

Preferably over lunch.

With a table full of yiayias nearby.

And if someone brings out the raki?

Well.

It would be rude to say no.

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