Starbucks Time

After failing to catch a bus for 10 minutes (is the 19 even running today? it is a Sunday, after all...) I caved and walked across the street to Starbucks.  After almost 2 weeks in Greece, the longest I've ever spent in a  foreign country, I nearly sighed with relief after stepping into the familiarity of Starbucks.  Perhaps it is wrong for a mega-chain to represent home to me, but with the taste of a caramel macchiato on my tongue and American music on the speakers, I can't regret it.
Like at the Mexican restaurant earlier this week, it seems strange to be greeted in Greek at a Starbucks, and a perverse part of me refused to speak more than one word that wasn't English in my American escape.  Thankfully, my barista spoke excellent English.  The Greek Starbucks even has a few improvements over its American counterparts - the food, for one.  I chose a butter croissant, but have you ever, for example, seen an American Starbucks with beautiful coffee-flavored macarons?  The coffee for patrons that decide to drink it in house is served in a mug.  The coffee here is even more horrendously overpriced than in a Starbucks at home, but it's worth it to feel comfortable for one of the first times since I've been in this country.  To sit, sip coffee, and not worry that someone won't understand you, that you'll get lost or miss a bus, that you are an outsider.  I hope that I won't grow to haunt the Starbucks - even now I can see myself lesson-planning, listening to the soothing American music - but it's nice to know that it's here.  The patrons sitting at a table nearby are discussing something in Greek, but here, I can imagine that they are the foreigners.