- Hey tall man, when do you leave?

- Two and today (is my today's, very envied, reply :-))

This is the standard discussion when two soldiers meet in a military camp in Greece.

First, everybody is called "tall man" independently of his height. It may seem strange but somehow it comes naturally. It happened also to me! I wanted to call somebody who was not looking at me, but for some reason I couldn't use the standard expressions that we often use in greek. Because of the uniforms perhaps you need to use a different word (and the word "soldier" sounds too formal). So, "tall guy" (it sounds like "psile") is the established word. Its convenience in the case of really tall guys was somehow inherited for the case of short guys as well :-)

But the most important part is the second one! All souldiers count the days from the very first moment and this is the most popular topic of discussion:

- When do you leave?

- 360 and today (this is the way to answer this question in order minimize the number included in the answer -while some know also the minutes or even seconds :-)).

or

- 22 are a lot? (for those that want to tease the ones that have still many days to leave)

So, for me these days are now only two and I am very happy about it, although I feel a little guilty seeing all the other souldiers leaving for the borders with 10 more months of service in front of them. Of course, I didn't do anything illegal to have this privilege (see here) but still it feels bad when you are there. The army is a "micro-world" and what is important or not in there is totally different from the outside world. This is why the discussions of men for the army are so boring for the rest of the company (at least I can now participate myself! :-)).

Anyway, I have a lot to write about these 2 months, good and bad. I hope I will find the time to write the most interesting stories, although I am afraid you will find them boring as I did before living myself the "greek army experience" :-)