socrates and lawers in training

*disclaimer-the people i sang praises about yesterday were the older women and the mamma's boys
Some insight. I will take this opportunity to make an observation about life in Greece. The men can be pains in the a$$. My experience with about 3 different middle aged men is that they want to have things left exactly as they were found and they want to be right. First the proprietor at my hotel in Rhodes interrogated my Swedish friend about why she kept the bathroom door closed, then when I went to grab a quick bite to eat today after placing my order with the bar tender (a woman) I sat down at the request of the waiter and he proceeded to ask me what I wanted. I replied that I wanted a sandwich and with a grand gesture he let me know that they don’t have them so I said then toast and I already placed my order for one with turkey, cheese and tomato (sounds like a sandwich). So he said I’ll see what I can find and gave me ‘toast’ which looked a lot like a sandwich. Then this afternoon I went across the street to the beach and sat on a lounge chair with umbrella, I was re arranging the umbrella when a smokey 50 year old man came up to me and said ‘what you want’ so I told him and he said to move the chair instead then ‘where you from’…when I was leaving the lounge chair he walked by me and said ‘did you close the umbrella or left for me to do?’ I said oh I am sorry and he said ‘no sorry’. These people are like disgruntled nurses. I guess it is just that time of the year for some middle aged Greek men.
And now what I have been doing with my time. This morning I took a blue tourist train up to the Asclepion which is where Socrates first practiced and taught medicine in Greece. His garden was also there which would have been very exciting to see but there are no specific herbs anymore. The lay out is amazing with rooms for ailing people, incubating people, different levels of baths which was associated with purification and a grand altar. Religion and Medicine were inseparable and many sacrifices were made for the cause. It was a really magical feeling for me to be there. The land feels very healing and nourishing and I am amazed to think that people were treated at hospitals in the 3rd century BC. The compound was all very well organized.
I got to the blue train station at 9am but the train didn’t run until ten so I went across the street to the old city which is a bunch of ruins and sat for an hour watching different people. I saw two couples one with two children and the other with 1. One Italian man and woman a man who appeared to be homeless and suffering from some psychiatric disease and another Greek man who was the was the keeper of the animals. There are tons of stray cats on these islands and in turkey and they keep the mood light…except that they look to be starving. The Italian lady brought a box of food and the cats all ran to her, it reminded me of St. Peter’s square in Venice where people feed the pigeons and of course I wonder to myself…do animals that are fed by humans loose their ability to gather food for themselves so is it ultimately a dis service to feed them? Apparently it is not an international concern but one where cats are not starving on the street. Hmm.
What do you guys think?
I am almost finished with my book Tis and then I got another one called the geography of happiness which is already making me laugh. Gotta go stick my nose in one of them. Have a great weekend!