It's All Greek to Me

Yia sou from Greece, everybody! Pegs, Yia-Yia, Sofia and I made the trip from Paris to Filiatra on Friday, arriving shortly after midnight local time. I always forget how long it takes to get here: three hours' flight time from Paris to Athens, followed by another three to three and a half hours on the road to Filiatra. That's not including the time it takes to get to the airport, go through security, clean up after the body cavity search, recover luggage, etc. In any event, we're here now, and the trip was definitely worth it to see Sofia having the time of her life with her Yia Yia and Papou at the beach. The Hybrid is a huge fan of the water, splashing around and shaking like a crack addict whenever we go in with her; earlier this morning she was even dipping her thumb into the water and then sticking it in her mouth just to taste the sea. She's hard-core. Unfortunately, I stepped on a sea urchin this morning while carrying Sofia around, and since Papou refused to pee on my foot no matter how much I begged, it was still a bit tender when everyone went for this afternoon's swim. There's nothing like having a half-dozen barbs embedded in your foot to leave you a bit reticent about going back in the water.

In other news, we started potty training Sofia today. Lately she's been announcing when she's ready to go, and considering that all of the floors in the house are tiled, the timing was perfect. We had a couple of accidents early on, but we've had three successful potty runs in a row now, and hopefully the trend will continue. The trick is to keep Sofia entertained while she's on the can until she finishes her business. The good news is that she takes after her old man and is happy to sit on the throne forever if she has something good to read or watch; the bad news is that the only thing she wants to watch is a video on YouTube called "Elmo's Song". The song has a melody simple enough for cats to master after a couple of repeated viewings and catchy enough to stay in your head all day if you've heard it more than twice. I'm pretty sure the CIA uses this song during terrorist interrogations, because after six listens I was prepared to tell Pegs anything she might want to know just to get her to stop hitting "Replay". And now, because I'm just that cruel, here's the video itself; click at your own peril.