Yep , Life is strange .
I got into the Greek bit about 30 years ago during the unlamented reign of ghastly Mrs Thatcher here . my wife and I had both lost our jobs ( In her case for the second time in a year , in mine for the FOURTH time in a year ) and we both said oh to hell with it , and booked a 10 day holiday to Corfu/Kerkira .
At that time I was hardly aware that it was Greek , I only knew it from books about Napoleon Bonaparte and the Venetian Empire , but we both read up on it before we went , and Boy , were we knocked out by it , the food , the people , the music , the history , the sea --BLUE , and WARM ! ! !
, the groves of olive trees , the wildlife , the landscape .
So when we got home we signed up for some Greek language classes after work one evening each week , ( we both eventually had found found jobs again ) and it all snowballed from there , and I've been studying Greek and Greek things , and travelling to different places there ever since .
( we are fortunate here in Norwich , because we have the University of East Anglia here , with a big modern languages dept, which includes Modern Greek AND the European Centre for Literary Translation , so we get a stream of foreign authors passing through , and a lot of the Lecturers Moonlight a bit teaching evening classes , so you can still get a liberal education here if you have a little bit of money and quite a bit of time for your hobby ).
Stops your mind from rusting up , I say . Mind you , I am a very lazy student and struggle with the grammar , but it is a joy to go on holiday now and get off the tourist trail in some hill village , and sit in the Kafeneion and chat with all the old boys -- and drink far too much , of course .)
I'm 56 now and want to retire soon , buy just a small apartment here in the UK ( so we've got somewhere to hang my hat still )
and then move out there and rent a house for 6 months or a year , and see if we'd like to stay there .
Ahh , dreams .......
What were you doing here in Norfolk ? USAF ?
" Relax ! No-one else is going to be fool enough to be sailing about in this fog ."