matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match...

i'm going to put the stories about my trip on pause for a minute to share something that happened at the boys and girls club a while back. i spend two hours each week at the club, usually in the art room since that's kind of my thing. i help the teacher pass out supplies and i wander around and help the kids if they need it. the first hour is usually insane. i'm not sure why, but it's loud and it's crazy and we very rarely get the project completed. the kids are all hopped up on something. the second hour is my favorite. it's the exact opposite of the first, it's calm and it's quiet. and, because it's a little more sedate i'm able to sit down at a table and hang out with the kids.

when i chat with the kids i try to ask them questions about themselves...school, friends, brothers, sisters. and most of the time they will ask me questions about my life. which generally consist of...do you have kids? are you married? do you go to school? do you have a roommate? my favorite...if you're not still in school and you're not married, then why do you have a roommate?

so, one day a little girl, in the second grade, is asking me these questions. i'm answering them and everything is normal, until...she asks my age. this is not a question the kids usually ask. here is what happened next (names are changed)...

sophie: how old are you?
me: 32
sophie: (very emphatically) 32! and you're not married? what are you waiting for? go out there and pick someone already (points outside for extra emphasis).
me: well, it's not that easy. it's hard to find a good man.
sophie: oh, you want a gooooood man? what about jason (B & G club staff)? he's a good man.
me: i'm sure he is, but i don't really know jason.
sophie: what about tim? you know him. he's standing right outside. (she gets up and runs outside).

i follow her in some kind of daze, out of morbid curiosity, surely this isn't happening. this is the conversation i overhear...

sophie: do you have a girlfriend?
tim: no
sophie: do you want to go out on a date?
tim: um, sure. i guess we could go get ice cream or something.
sophie: no, not with me, with her. (turns and points at me).

and, i know what my face looked like at that exact moment because it was mirrored in tim's. it was a deer in the headlights, yeah, that just happened, kind of look. what happened next? sophie yelled "you need to take beckie on a date because she's not married" and then skipped off.

well, folks, that's the story of how i got set up by an 8 year old. i'm amazed at the thought processes of children sometimes. i often find myself thinking, "wow, how did you get there from here." in this case i knew exactly how sophie got there....to an 8 year old, 32 is old. and, 32 and single is unheard of.

i've thought a lot about sophie's question...what are you waiting for? the only response i can come up with...i don't know, something amazing i guess!

my life in ruins...

when you imagine greece, what picture comes to mind? is it this?
i think for many of us it is. and, i believe that the movie "sisterhood of the travelling pants" only perpetuated this stereotype. this is what i imagined all of greece to look like...white washed walls, beautiful blue water. so, imagine my surprise when athens actually looked like this...athens is big, it's loud, it's busy and it's extremely diverse. i should not have been surprised that it looks nothing like the iconic image in my mind. after all, it's a major city, it hosted the olympics. i shouldn't have been surprised...but i was.

the day we docked in athens found us in the middle of a transportation strike. there were much larger strikes and rioting going on in the week following our departure, but for our one day it was just the transportation. if we had been on tours this wouldn't have been an issue. but, since we are cheap and relied on public transportation, this posed an interesting problem. we found ourselves running for trains and buses, miraculously making it on the last one running in the morning and the first one running in the evening. this was the only port where we very narrowly made it back to the ship on time...with about 5 minutes to spare. (FYI...the ship will leave you behind if you're not back for the "all aboard" time).

our first stop in athens...the acropolis (with about 3,000 of the other tourists from our ship). it kind of became a game of where's waldo as we tried to stay together.
second stop...gyro's for lunch!
after lunch we wandered around down town. these guys guard one of the government buildings. i don't know about you, but don't they instill fear? i mean, with their white tights and pom pom shoes? if i had a video of this moment it would show the guy on the right teetering precariously on his one leg, which gives further proof that these soldiers are not at all scary.
next stop...dessert! greek baklava...yummmm!
if there were any lingering thoughts that i might see the white washed buildings in athens, this image erased them completely. (notice the KFC)