The Fort Lauderdale Greek Festival begins today and runs through the abnormally chilly weekend, which could put a damper on the festivities. Most people associate the festival – and the country – with warmth, though for me it will bring back memories of the winter a spent teaching English in the northern city of Arta.
My rented room, in an unheated stone house, was so frigid I could see my breath. I used it only for sleeping, and passed every evening at a café, writing and nursing a glass of ouzo. I learned very little Greek, and had a boss who, because of his minimal English, rarely spoke to me. The first day of class, my students gasped when I wrote my name on the blackboard: They had never been taught by anyone left-handed. All the cafes in town were off-limits to women. I had arrived from six months in Poland, a country stuck behind the Iron Curtain that seemed much more modern and progressive than Greece. But somehow I retain fond memories of the country: the music, the dances, the food, the ouzo, the quiet appreciation of life’s small pleasures.
