Today I... Played Scrabble

Today I found myself in the midst of a life defining moment; a situation that truly showed where I was as an adult. It is the Greek holiday called καθαρά δευτέρα (“Clean Monday”), which signifies the first day of their lent - a supposed 40 days of veganism. As a part of this national holiday, most of the town is closed. It is customary to fly kites on this day, to signify just how cool kite flying really is, I imagine. The kite flying is not taking place this Clean Monday due to the fact that it is raining very heavily. I feel pretty upset that I have missed out on this occasion. It sounded very exciting to me and I was hoping to get many colourful photographs. 

As I got to the front door of my house and saw the extent of the weather, a dilemma passed through my mind. Do I go back upstairs and fetch my umbrella or get drenched; a moment that resembled an iconic scene of contemporary masculinity in Harold and Kumar Get the Munchies. Also resembling the movie, I came to the conclusion that I had gone too far to turn back and decided to fare the weather which, by now, had teetered into the realms of biblical.

After meeting a friend we went to a place called ‘Toy Caffe’, which is notorious for its wide selection of board and card games. Against my friend’s wishes I said that I wanted to play a lovely game of Scrabble. The Greek Version. I am not going to lie; it was possibly one of the most mentally challenging hours of my life. I have lived in Greece for 7 months and have had no lessons. My grasp of the language is based mainly on what I can decipher from signs, the Greek news and what my friends tell me on a need-to-know basis. All things aside, when the dust settled I lost by 17 points. 

Nikos Sfikas: 279

Me: 262

I promise you this…I will not lose again! In the meantime, I have a large mixed grill and a few games of FIFA on the cards. Glad some things don't change