Sitting with friends in an outdoor café near our hotel in Athens. It’s a busy street corner – workers are busy with sidewalk repairs, women with shopping bags march back and forth, shopkeepers sweep their sidewalks. We order breakfast and coffee, and despite being the only customers, service is slow, and my attention occasionally drifts from the conversation at our table to the surrounding street scene. I notice that a succession of cars arrive and depart from an apparently strategic spot opposite our café (parking seems to be in short supply). Just before our food arrives a man approaches our table and asks me in Greek if I know if it’s permitted to park there. Or at least, that’s what my limited Greek leads me to understand. “Den Ksero,” I reply lamely, “I don’t know” – and I shrug my shoulders. He nods and walks off to ask someone else. My answer, while an honest expression of my lack of familiarity with the neighborhood parking regulations, also feels dishonest: I don’t really have a right to answer a question I barely understand.