· Every young person you meet in Athens is unemployed and looking for work.

· It turns out that I can actually read Greek phonetically, mostly, although I don’t understand what I’m saying. People are impressed and ask me how. I tell them I am a mathematician. They don’t understand the connection. Actually, sometimes I can also figure out the meaning if a word is similar enough to something in English/French/Farsi. It’s amazing what you can do with just a little bit of cleverness.

· I played Iranian music for the person I’m staying with to show her that it sounds just like Greek music, and she described it as something in between Greek and Indian music, which I thought was so insightful (even if it’s obvious after).

· Exploring ancient ruins isn’t fun when you can’t climb them.