Lost In Translation

Backblog from 23 March -- Mykonos

Part of the fun of being effectively clueless about the language of a foreign country is that it provides pretty much endless opportunities for creative translation. Nattybug and I were trapped on the boat to Mykonos for ~6 hours, so after the motion sickness had subsided and the copious napping had ended, we were left with a solid hour of travel with not much to do, so we watched Greek TV.

Now, Nat speaks some Greek, so she may have had some clue about what was going on...me? Not so much... What I got from the programming was that this talk show (called "Breakfast Coffee," she told me) was doing a featurette on the Grecian version of My Big Greek Brother Idol...or...something. Imagine an American Idol competition with lots of footage of the houseguestcontestants living together and having Very Important Discussions. And since I had no clue about the topics of these Very Important Discussions (and the Greeks are very demonstrative folk and talk with their hands a lot -- thus lending credence to my Very Important Discussion Theory)...I improvised for Nattybug's amusement.

What? I think it's totally logical that the black-haired rocker girl was arguing with the blonde-haired pretty girl about who should get to do Britney Spears and who should get to do Joan Jett.

Later, on Mykonos, after getting settled and taking a long walk through the labyrinth of walkways between buildings, Nat and I stopped for coffee and a snack down by the harbor to watch the pelicans.



There are, apparently, four pelicans who live on Mykonos: three lovely, pink, proud, smooth-feathered pelicans (see above)...and Crazy Eddie. Crazy Eddie's actual name might be something like Petros, but we decided that Crazy Eddie was much more fitting.



Crazy Eddie is a wild-feathered white pelican who doesn't cavort much with the pink trio. He walks with a lopsided list and has a flock of pigeons for a fan club. We must have watched these birds for three hours...voicing over little scenes from their lives (and laying out the strawman for the ad for "Crazy Eddie's Used Pigeon Lot -- with prices so low, they're CRAZY!") It was immensely entertaining and we only reluctantly left when the sun got lost behind the buildings and it got cold.

It's too bad there's no way in a blog to recreate the humor of this most excellent day of wild interpretation. Sadly, some things just won't translate.