"It's a beeeauuuuuuuuutiful house!"

Exclamation point. Greek people have a greater tendancy to exaggerate things beyond my comprehension. In particular, exaggeration of vowels is most pronounced... both in terms of elongation and enthusiasm. I think it's actually pretty close to what the Japanese language possess... just missing the Greek enthusiasm.

Just imagine. "Moooooooo chooooo sugokaaaaaatta! Kandooooooooooo shiiiiiita!" The Japanese language can use some character sometimes, as it's greatly wordplay and stationary talk. If a Greek were to talk Japanese... my gosh, I would love to observe the tremendous spectacle by way of vowel pronunciation with a Greek accent. It just might be a Mediterranean thing, as Italians would be great candidates to make the Japanese really interesting. You know what I think? The Japanese language lacks body language. Outside the "genki" cynicism coupled with structured Japanese, Japanese -- in every way possible -- needs some animation. I would kill to see a Japanese businessman break out in Japanese ebonyx if there is such a thing. Sure, a Japanese talking ebonyx is a spectacle in its own, but listening to this enthusiastic Greek person gooooooo craaaaaaaazy wiiiiiiiiiith vooooooooooweeeeeeeels was really infective. I caught myself talking in elooooooongated English. This actually doesn't work too good in English -- especially lacking the up and down enthusiasm... but having seen variations of super flowery elongated Japanese in action, gay San Francisco flowery English really eats dirt by comparison.

For certain, this really was the highlight of my day.

It all happened when I was reading Murakami in the cafe. (I guess I'm back to my basics) Some whatever classical music echoing in the background... tweaking the speakers at high frequency. Certainly, the speakers are getting their milage. "Berkeley Espresso", a place right around the corner from me... a place I frequent when I need company. My pals hang by on their way home... figuring I'd be there if not home. I guess I'm pretty damn predictable these days. But becoming incompetent to digest any chemical vices no longer -- coffee and alcohol -- I've resorted to tea and occasional pastries. Get this though...

I've been trying every flavor of this "???? Republic" brand of tea for quite a while now... andthey put pretty curious names for flavor. Ginger peach, Earl Greyer, and my favorite -- Tea of Inquiry. On the side, was a reference alluding to green tea... and in an instant, I pulled out the oval tea bag and immersed it in the boiling water.... watching it sink slowly to the bottom. The "TEA OF INQUIRY", turned out to be nothing more than Genmai cha, with a sharp snobbish elitst flavor to justify its classy tin can of a design. The tin can, I must add... is a schnazy bit of character reminescent of a J. Crew catalouge... indicating "yuppie culture" in full bloom. Feels very San Francisco -- though I'm in Berkeley. Bekreley is the antithesis of high urban culture and needless to say... yuppie-dom. Why I patronize this tea is a behavioral mystery of its own, but there's almost two dozen flavors in both caffinated and decaffinated form... FYI, my flavor today was Vanilla Almond tea. Wasn't as exciting as my previous flavors, but I think I'll entertain the thought of being "fit" and the target customer of this brand for a little while. Dressed up really schnazzy and shibui with a pony tail. Basically a middle-aged man with a leather coat, leather gloves, driving a vintage convertible whose underging male menopause. I think that's what it boils down to. Regardless, "tea of inquiry" was really something to get excited about. I think I'll try a new flavor tommorow. :)

Oh! The connection to the Greek. I almost forgot. It's almost not as important... because this Greek woman standing behind me in line started talking to me in some "oriental" language. At first, it was an annoying attempt... I thought... to get clever on me at this very PC place called Berkeley. There liberalism once enjoyed is certainly a concept enthralled aeons ago. Anyhow, this FOB Greek person -- in countenace to the oriental bias I preceived -- was going off on vowels, and was trying to make communication in what seemed to be anything BUT English. I don't know how she made her way to the United States, but speaking a mixture of Asian languages surely didn't aid coherent communication. I heard "Ni-how" and "Kam san nida" somewhere between "oyasuminasai" in a string of words which was presumed to be a sentence. Ok. I may be stretching it a bit... but I figure you get the general idea. The Vowel elongation alone was to everyone's amusement, and it turned out that she wanted to order a Greek salad or something. Ok... a Turkey sandwich. :)

I think she gave up on the whole situation, and pointed to the board rather blindly and decided to take what she can. Wacky. Nonetheless, we sat down for a shortwhile trying to make some kind of communication. She was obviously interested in Berkeley of some sort... as that was the only English I could make out. So the infectious vowel disease took over me really quickly as I sipped on my Vanilla Almond Tea. The "conversation" went nowhere... as she started drawing a picture of a house. Picture communication. I did something like this in China with kanji ... but this was far more bizzare. First, I had no idea why she was drawing pictures, and I couldn't figure out why the flowers in her garden were larger than the door. The flowers -- I presume were daisies -- were half as large as the house, and there were no apparent signifiers which really distinguished this house other than the flowers. I guess a house with lots of daisies are pretty rare in Berkeley... but with a campus population topping 30,000 -- the neighboring area is a landmine of possibilities. I ended up throwing up my arms and apologizing. She disappeared soon after. Wacky for sure... but it's something all over a cup of tea. :) Mooooooo tsukarata.

oyasumi

Euge