Kalimera Was Enough-Maybe?
I left Greece 30 years ago. Back then, mornings were… let’s call them emotionally honest. You’d walk into a kafeneio, say Καλημέρα (kaliméra), and get one of three responses:A grunt A nod…
Stories Archive
Stories, observations, and absurdities from Greece and beyond.
155 published stories
Three Greek Words for When You’re Not Okay
There are languages that help you communicate. Greek is not one of them. Greek helps you feel things you were perfectly fine not feeling five minutes ago. Take English. You get “sad.”…
You Don’t End Up in Epirus
There’s a version of Greece most people know. White houses. Blue domes. Aperol spritzes with a view. And then there’s Epirus. No one accidentally ends up in Epirus. You go there on…
Stereotypes (στερεότυπα): Europe, According to a Greek Café
Where everyone is slightly wrong about everyone else—and somehow also right. Spend enough time in a Greek café and you’ll hear it: opinions about “the Europeans.” Not the Brussels kind, no budgets,…
The Language of the Caro
Back in the 1980s, I stopped into a Greek diner in Nevada. The owner, a proud man from the diaspora with a moustache that looked like it could flip an omelet on…
Roosters, Wolves, and Donkeys: Greek Philosophy (Unfiltered)
In Greece, life advice comes from roosters, wolves, donkeys—and at least one very blunt philosopher. If the previous act was the village square,This act is the full amphitheater. Aesop. Archimedes. Your uncle.…