moussaka (watching the world go by)

Around the corner from my friend's apartment here in New York is a diner that serves moussaka (among many other things). It's good, but not the best I've had, and that got me thinking of the best I've had, and the memory connected with it, half the reason I like ordering it here.

Moussaka is a Greek dish made from ground lamb, eggplant, tomatoes, and bechamel, kind of like a lasagna without pasta or tomato sauce.

I think it was less than a year ago (feels longer) that I first tried it. It was either on the coast of Turkey, or at a small resort on the Greek isle of Thera – where the Minoans used to live before a volcano wiped them all out. I can't remember now. It was better, of course, but still not the best.

That came a week or so later at a restaurant in Athens. My plane had just landed there from Thera early that morning. The previous night had been filled with beach sunsets and wine, so I was more than a little bleary-eyed after the flight. I took the train into town and came up out of the station into Monastiraki square, pigeons and street performers scattered across the cobblestones. The Acropolis was visible on its plateau through the gaps in the buildings.

I arrived at the hostel to find that they wouldn't be ready for me until sometime that afternoon. So I headed back to the square and did what I usually do when I have no place to go. Find a restaurant or cafe to hole up for a while, probably while reading or scribbling away in my journal. This time it was a nice place down the street that looked out onto the square, not far from the Ancient Agora. I asked for a table inside to get away from the crowds. It was well lit, cavernous, and completely empty that time of morning. I was wearing two sweatshirts because they wouldn't fit in my bags, which were arranged around my chair in a mound. My hair stuck up and out in all directions. I couldn't remember when I had last showered or had a decent night's sleep. I ordered moussaka and coffee and sat there for several hours, reading, taking advantage of the wi-fi; the wait staff standing around their giant, empty dining room with nothing to do but check on me occasionally. Outside, the city paid me no mind, but simply went its own way. One man shouted gibberish at a monument that had probably stood hundreds or thousands of years before he was born, while the terrace diners ignored him with ease. I didn't know a single person in the city, and barely in the country for that matter. No connections, nowhere to go really, and no one to care if I didn't go anywhere. This time and place wasn't my life, it was just the world. I could've been a phantom, or an unseen camera spying a time lapse of history.

Not sure where I was going with this. Other than to demonstrate what I think about when I eat moussaka.