Somebody explain this to me!

Still on Santorini.  We stopped by for the third time to a small market on a main street.  Surely hundreds of tourist stop by every day.  Maybe many of them stop by more than once, as it is on a main street.

Watermelon and zuccini, yes.  But this is also how you buy bay leaves. From the little market.

Somehow, perhaps using his Greek, or perhaps his very obvious love of cheese, Phil makes a connection with the shopkeeper. He went out for a small bottle of ouzo and a magical device to make portable ice cubes.  No ice cubes, but some ouzo and the shopkeeper talked him into olives, cheese and bread to go with the ouzo.  A smart businessman, surely.  But we go a second time, and select some olive oil soap with pinetree sap or roses or jasmine... smells of Greece, a toothbrush and Phil wants another bottle of ouzo.  The shopkeeper sees our choices and shows us plain olive oil soap... 45 cents he says, trying to talk us into spending less money.  He serves a customer or two.  Next we are called with whispers into an aisle.  Plastic cups are shoved into our hands, and we find ourselves trying something.  rakimelo (honeyed raki) and some dry white wine.  It is good -- sweet but not cloying.  Of course we are grateful for the hospitality for the sense that we are somehow not merely customers, but recognized for our appreciation of food or our fine palates.  Then he asks if we want to try something we've certainly never had before.  He serves a customer or two buying beer or sodas or a loaf of bread and then calls us down another aisle, again, with whispers.  He takes out a knife and breaks a seal.  With the knife he puts an olive in my mouth.  It is sweet, not briney...something very new. It is indeed something I've never had before. He does the same with Renee and Phil.  Then he reseals the jar and puts it under the other ones (to make sure it doesn't get bought or does?  It isn't clear.) Then he repeats the process... this time the olives taste like chocolate.  Mastic he tells us, and natural.  I've never had anything like it.

More spices, straight from the plant.

We leave with a water bottle filled with his rakimelo, no label, some regular olives, two bottles of his sweet olives with mastic, one of the three cheeses he's served us and some of the fancier (but still inexpensive) soap.  Perhaps we've spent $10 more than we planned, but we've had an aperitif, some cheese and some olives in addition to our purchases.  To me we seemed to have made out like bandits.  How does this make sense?  Was he a clever salesman, making us feel both superior and "in the know" and selling us much more than we realized?  Or did he recognize fellow foodies from among the hoi polloi?  Or did he appreciate Americans who tried some Greek?  Or was he just bored?  It is the everyday encounters that are so human, so mysterious that really intrigue me.  It is so easy to move off of the tourist path and into something that feels like a real connection here in Greece.  This has happened in the US - in our particular lives we work hard to have developed many connections with people from whom we buy things -- our bread ladies, vegetable guy, the meat man at the farmer's market, but it doesn't seem to make sense with a guy on a tourist island whom we will know for a maximum of 4 days.  We leave feeling like we've transcended the tourist state but what does he get out of it?

Olives to varelo (in the barrel) at right. Is that really cheese on the left in the basket?  Aging right there out in the open.

This is an echo, and seems to me to hit upon a truth of Greece.  There is something about these human connections that is different than at home and the center of what I love best about Greece.  We are staying in a lovely hotel, the Costa Marina.  It is run by Marina, the daughter, and presumably her brother, Costa, has an interest, too.  Marina is at reception 80% of the time.  She knows my name.  She looks out for my students.  We asked her about good restaurants, wanting to avoid the tourist traps.  She names perhaps 10 places, including one her family owns, but makes no big deal of it.  The first two nights we try some of her places and they are quite good.  The third night, partly because it is close and partly because we want to support the family of this lovely woman, we try her family's place.  It is fabulous, easily the best meal we've had.  When I run into her that evening, I tell her so, and say "you should say something more about it."  She says, "I know it is good, but it is awkward, I don't want to push it.  I get that, but she undersold it.  This can't be a tactic, as it nearly didn't work.  One of the things I like best of all about Greece is the human to human contact.  If you are alert and honest, you can quickly move to being on the inside, to making a real connection.  At least I think so.

Bottom up:  tourlou, stuffed zucchini flowers, roasted vegetable salad from Marina's family's restaurant.

What I don't understand, and need some help with is the question of what meaning those kind of sudden relationships have.  Can they be authentic relationships, some kind of recognition of common humanity across cultures?  Or is it s a clever tactic of some sort?  I ask because in the US, those relationships are hard won and infrequent.  I know my bread ladies, farmer and meat man only because I shop at places that suggest community, and from "true believers" who are motivated by ideals not profit, and I've had long relationships with those people.  I don't think that this shopkeeper is a young idealist, but I also can't see a profit motive.  And this isn't an isolated incident.  My students have met shopkeepers and bartenders who seemed to want to protect them, and I've had similar experiences.  Could it be that so few tourists bother to chat?  I just don't understand.