Sick on Santorini - Day 3
Misery
I learned a new Greek word today: apergia. It seems I'm getting to know the word for "strike" in every language: greve (French), en huelga (Spanish), sciopero (Italian)....
Since Olympic Airways delivers the daily newspapers to the island on their first flight in, and since Olympic Airways decided to go on apergia today, no Herald Tribune. But at the newsstand/book shop I did see something amusing. There was a book with a photo of Ethan Hawke and whassername on the cover, and underneath it said "Great Expectations — Now a Major Motion Picture!" — which, of course, is a far more important aspect of this story than the "by Charles Dickens" that appears in tiny type at the very bottom of the cover (far less prominent than the movie stars' names at the top).
I intended to go all the way to Thera today, the ruins of Santorini's Mycenaean capital, thence on to Kamari beach below the ruins for lunch at a noted restaurant. I made it as far as the bus stop to scribble down times and rates for various island destinations.
On my way back to the hotel, I stopped back at the pharmakeio to try out some new vocabulary words corresponding to my new set of symptoms. They said my Greek was getting better, this after I managed to mumble out "Santorini is very beautiful, but I am too sick to enjoy it." I am only just starting to get the hang of things like verbs and case endings on nouns so that now I can mangle whole sentences — and the few conjunctions I've managed to remember allow me to multiply my errors by attempting compound sentences as well.
Last night I tried the grappa cure, substituting ouzo, but it didn't seem to work. Perhaps, given my notably higher alcoholic tolerance than the only person I know on whom the grappa cure works, I needed more than one ouzo. Perhaps I needed to add in a carafe of retsina and a few shots of raki.
At any rate, I decided to turn my luck back to the small Hellenic pharmacy I have going on my nightstand here. My two trips to the local pharmakeio thus far have yielded the following:
- 1) Clarityne-D: A perfectly normal medicinal name. In the corner of the box it describes the contents as "14 Repetabs," repetab apparently being the Greek term for "pill the size of a golf ball you're supposed to swallow twice a day to stop your runny nose," although, considering the size of these things, I wonder if it might not be more convenient simply to stuff one up each nostril.
- 2) Herb Balsam Candies: The Greek name says "caramels with cherries," and indeed the box has a nice close-up of cherries on it. However, this photo is the only aspect of the product to which the phrase "with cherries" is referring, for there is a noted lack of any sweet fruity taste in what can only loosely be termed the "candies" themselves. This is too bad, for it would help mask the competing flavors of the rose hip extracts (by which they mean they extracted the most foul-tasting fluids from the rose hips and included them here), acelora, deadly nightshade (I'm guessing), and balsamic vinegar — which is all I can figure the "balsam" in the name is referring to, seeing as how there is very little that is soothing about these candied lozenges, least of which would be the color, which is roughly that of raw sewage, chosen by the same 60s medical philosophy that felt painting all hospital walls puke green is somehow more conducive to the healing process, when in fact the opposite is true.
- 3) Depon: One of those plop-plop-fizz-upchuck forms of analgesics that were banned by national law in the US several decades ago yet remains one of Europe's most popular forms of self-medication. At the bottom of the box it proclaims proudly "Does not irritate stomach!" It wisely does not mention, however, anything about irritating the taste buds or esophagus, inflicting upon the former the vile taste combination of aniseed and rubber bands, and coating the latter with a kind of scratchy chalk, which I believe is interfering with the efficacy of the Herb Balsam Candies. It is supposed to relieve "headache, fever, toothache, neuralgias, muscle pains, arthalgias, and menstrual pains." My headache and fever have not seemed to abate much yet, and I don't have a dictionary on hand to find out whether I suffer from neuralgias (though if hat describes the condition of "brain not working properly," I certainly hope this stuff is efficacious because mine has been on the fritz for days now — and before you can say anything, I came up with a 50-cent word like "efficacious" only four months after the fact when I was marking this up for the Web site). However, I am happy to report that the menstrual pains have all but disappeared.
- 4) Mucosolvan: I'm supposed to swig this viscous yellow stuff four times a day. It's my favorite of the names, more descriptive of the bottle's contents themselves rather than the symptom it is meant to relieve, a expectorant that apparently works on the principle that nothing gets up mucous like drinking bottled snot.
The Hotel Keti has three levels of terraces, the top one hosts the reception and the owners' apartment, and off the two lower terraces open the rooms. I'm on the lowest terrace at the end, which is why I've also got a big private terrace, which opens off the other side of my room from the main door, which also means I can open the swinging glass window on the front door, prop open the other door to my terrace with a chair, and catch a cross-breeze of some of that welcome hearty wind that buffets this part of the island.
The hotel lady saw me stagger down the stairs to the first level and asked me something in Greek. "Ime Arrostos" I replied (I'm sick), and punctuated it with an involuntary coughing fit, to which she responded by motioning me over, sitting me down in a canvas chair at the terrace table under the shade of which I've seen a tortoiseshell cat napping every day, and bustled off.
I sat there gazing dully at the glorious Mediterranean vista spilling out before me and vaguely wondered if I might not just lay my head on this ugly plastic tablecloth and take a nap right here. The hotel lady appeared again with a cup of tea and half a lemon to squeeze into it, mustering all her remaining teeth to give me a big "feel better" smile, then bundled herself off again to do the laundry my arrival had interrupted, with my genuinely thankful "efharisto" (thank you) following her.
She had disappeared by the time I had finished the excellent and soothing tea, so I took a scrap of notebook paper and, with the help of my dictionary, carefully spelled out in fraternity letters the Greek words "Thank you very much. I go sleep now," and left it tucked under the empty tea mug.
And so, well-drugged and weak, with glazed eyes and trembling hands, I fall back into bed for another interminable nap, checking off yet one more sight (Thera) I am not going to make it to from my list of Santorini activities. I am determined, however, to make it at least to Akrotiri tomorrow, no matter how I feel. After all, one doesn't get to gaze upon the ruined wonders of Metropolis, capital of Atlantis, every day.
Should I collapse there and have to be borne back to Fira strapped to a mule (they still use mules a lot on the island), I shall request my body be dumped into the caldera so I can join the denizens of the sunken Lost Continent and let the Atlanteans know that there's no reason yet to come up for air; in the 3,600 years since the isle of "Strongoyle the Beautiful" blew its top and destroyed their civilization, Greek medicine hasn't advanced much beyond Hippocrates. I fear should I visit the pharmakeio again, they may suggest the modern treatment of having a small hole bored into my skull to release the evil spirits and restore the balance of my bodily humours.
Perhaps I'll let them. Anything's better than the Mucosolvan.
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This article was last updated in July 1999. All information was accurate at the time.
Copyright © 1998–2010 by Reid Bramblett. Author: Reid Bramblett.
