Summer Plans

Happy Memorial Day everyone!  It is finally beginning to feel like summer here in Greece.

These are my plans.... after 3 years of living in Athens, Greece I will be departing on June 19.  I fly into Dulles (Washington, DC)  where I stay overnight at my friend's house and then catch an early plane down to Savannah, GA as my parents live near that airport (though they live in SC).

My grandmother now lives close by so I am looking forward to seeing her... and my niece and nephew are coming down for the last week in June - I am very excited to spend time with them!

July 6th I fly back to the Washington, DC area.  I will be staying with my good college friend JT in Alexandria for 4-5 days, then I will be staying with my good friend Courtney in Kensington, MD for 4-5 days, and then I will be staying with my good friends Kirsten and Geoff in N. Potomac until I leave on July 20.

JULY 20TH I leave to move to Singapore and I arrive in Singapore at midnight of July 21.  The school puts me up in a hotel for up to 10 days while I find a place to live. 

Orientation for new faculty begins on August 1 and school starts on August 15! 

So hopefully I will be able to see many of you in my quick month on State side!!!!!!

Tanzanian Project

Raffle Gift Baskets

I have been working hard this past month getting ready for my fund raiser event at the ACS Spring Fair.  It was a beautiful day here in Athens this past Saturday for the Country Fair!

The theme was a Country Fair which included a chilli cook-off, cotton candy, games, Marine Boot Camp, American food, as well as Portuguese food, Korean food, Israelite food, and many other international countries represented by the student population at ACS.

The PTO of ACS graciously offered to donate 10% of the Spring Fair proceeds to my Tanzanian Project.  Last year, the elementary school raised enough money through bake sales and other donations to send 5 Tanzanian girls to school near Moshi.  The Noonkodin Secondary School is where I volunteered for a week in August 2009.  There are about 200 students - 60% of them girls.

·    Most of the Maasai families will not pay the fees for girls because some of the girls have run away from home (because they don’t want to go through FGM nor marry older men, especially because they are only teenagers and they want an education).  Maasai families would love to send all their children to school as they do value education as a ‘door opener’ for the future, but if they are very poor, the girls are valuable for getting them married in exchange for cattle and they do many chores (ie: fetching water from miles away, collecting fire wood for the daily meal).

i wanted to continue to sponsor the girls so they had the opportunity to continue their education.  However, since I wasn't teaching at the school any longer I was having a more difficult time figuring out how to raise the money.  

At the Spring Fair, I had 4 raffles for the 4 girls we were trying to raise money for (the other 2 girls had to leave the school).  I also sold some patchwork quilted items made in Tanzania.  In hindsight, I think I had too much going on and should have just sold my cards and asked for donations.  However, I raised about 150 Euros and the PTO raised...

Birthday

I had a wonderful birthday this year.  My good friends' parents were in town Tom and Mollie and another couple John and Paula - Athens was their last stop from their cruise from Istanbul.

Wednesday we climbed the Acropolis, walked around the Plaka and had dinner near the Agora.  It was nice to visit the sites ONE more time with tourists!


Although Thursday (my birthday) was an unusual cool and rainy day we were all troopers!  We saw the changing guards at Parliament, walked through the National Gardens, went inside the Zappion, went to the Temple of Zeus and I left them at the Agora while I went to work.

We all reunited that evening at the Grande Bretagne Hotel where we were having dinner at the Roof Restaurant with a beautiful view of the Acropolis.

Tom, John, Jill, Mollie, Paula

Then on Saturday I went to a restaurant called Costa Nostra - an Italian restaurant in the Monastiraki area with 8 of my friends.  Great dinner!

Susan, Christy, Jill, Miah, Cat, Kim, Lacey, Dave, George

Greek Easter

Dimitra lighting our candles at midnight Easter Eve

Agia Paraskevi

 Saturday, April 23 I met Dwain at the plateia at 11.30pm to participate in the beginning of the most important holiday in the Greek culture - Easter.  As I walked down the hill, I was among many others walking down with their spouses and families, each person holding their own Easter candle.  Some candles were plain white, others had ribbons wrapped around them while others had ribbons and things dangling from them.

Everyone gathered in front of the church on the square listening to the service which was being broadcasted from within the Greek Orthodox Church.  Then the doors open, people parted to let the priest and religious folk out and they continued and then ended the service from a raised platform in the plateia.  Those in the church lit someone else's candle who was standing outside and soon everyone around had their candles lit (though it was windy and the candles kept distinguishing) and from the roof of the church exploded with fireworks.

Then everyone parted ways trying to keep their candle lit all the way home and they were all off to the big midnight feast.

Kokoretsi being wrapped in intestines

Lamb and Kokoretsi being roasted for 4 hours

Sunday (Easter) I went over to the Confers about 11am - the lamb and kokoretsi had been on the grill since 9:30am.  Kokoretsi (Kokoretsi or kokoreç is a dish of the Balkans and Anatolia consisting mainly of lamb or goat intestines, often wrapping seasoned offal, including sweetbreads, hearts, lungs and/or kidneys. The intestines of suckling lambs are preferred.- Wikiipedia)

The lamb was really good.  However that is basically all we ate - lamb.  There were no side dishes, no sauce (except French's mustard) to dip the lamb into.  I had made my friend Jennifer's potato salad.  But no other veggies or sides or color to the meal.  There was some hard bread and some cheese.  It was the most random celebration meal.

Not to say I need materialist things, but there were no decorations, no color, no one dressed up for this special occasion.  I am glad I participated in it since I have lived in Greece for 3 years but I was kind of disappointed.

Greek Easter - information

~Easter is the most important feast day on the Greek Orthodox calendar, and completely outshaddows Christmas, which until recent years was a solely religious holiday.

Easter is known as Paska in Greek.  This word derives from the Hebrew word “Pasah” which means passage or crossing, and it alludes to the passage of Christ from life to death at his crucifixion and back to life again at His resurrection.  Another Greek term used for Easter is “Lambri” or light, which metaphorically refers to the brightness and joy of this holiest of feast days.    

          The Lenten period is known in Greek as the Megali Sarakosti or Long Forty Days as it is actually a 7 week or 48 day period, and is thus distinguished from other periods of fasting which take place before the Feast of the Virgin Mary on the 15^th of August and during Epiphany before Christmas.  Lent begins on Kathara Deftera or Clean Monday, a term that derives from the housewives’ custom of cleaning their pots and pans with hot water mixed with ashes, but also from the start of the purification of the body and spirit as believers move away from the sins of Carnival, a three-week period known for its bawdiness that is rooted in pagan fertility festivals, towards Easter.  

Eggs are dyed red on Thursday.  From ancient times red is believed to have special protective powers, while in the Greek Orthodox context it is said to symbolize the blood of Christ.  A popular folk tale speaks of a woman who was holding a basket of eggs when she was told that Christ had risen from the dead.  She reportedly said, “Indeed?  And can these eggs turn from white to red?” whereupon that is miraculously what happened.  Easter bread, called tsoureki in Greek, and cookies, known as koulouria in Greek, are baked on this day.  Children collect flowers that will be used to decorate a bier on the following day.  The evening service is the longest of the week, and there is an all-night vigil.  It is customary to visit the graves of the dead on this day as the devout believe that the souls of the dead are set free on this night to coincide with Jesus’ descent to death and the world below.

Good Friday is a day of total fasting and places of business traditionally shut down.  In recent times this has been modified, and it is now customary for shops to remain closed on Friday morning only.  Flags are flown at half mast and church bells toll a funeral knell.  Vinegar is often consumed, either on its own or poured over lentil soup, in remembrance of the vinegar that was given to Jesus to quench His thirst while He was on the cross.  Shortly before noon the women of each parish decorate a bier where the icon body of Christ lies.  In some villages it is customary for young girls who are still virgins to undertake this task.  Garlands of spring flowers decorate the bier or epitaphios.  Following the evening service, the epitaphios is carried out of the church and carried through the streets in a funeral procession.  The faithful walk behind the bier singing a lament and carry lit candles made from unbleached yellow wax.

Holy Saturday sees a lifting of the gloom that prevailed the day before when the service of the first resurrection is read in the morning.  On the island of Corfu there is a tradition of throwing terra cotta water jugs from balconies and windows.  It is reminiscent of the way the arrival of the New Year is celebrated in parts of Italy, and hardly surprising given the proximity of this island to Italy.

On this holiest of holy days, the devout receive communion during the morning service, which is a particularly joyful occasion.  The somber mood lifts and the church is decorated with bay branches, laurel, myrtle and rosemary.  At the start of the service, the priest emerges from behind the altar screen and casts flower petals or laurel leaves towards the congregation as he announces the “First Resurrection”.      

The rest of the day is spent preparing the Easter feast.  An egg and lemon tripe soup known as mayeiritsa is made from the innards of suckling lamb or kid.  The intestine is carefully turned inside out and rubbed multiple times with coarse salt to clean it.  It is then parboiled, cut into small pieces and then simmered again with spring onions, dill and rice before being dressed with egg and lemon sauce just before it is served.  The fainter of heart make the soup without the intestine, using just the liver and kidneys, whereas others substitute chicken liver and use chicken broth to make a simple egg and lemon soup. 

The entire community converges at the church on Saturday evening.  Adults carry unlit white candles and children carry colorful decorated candles known as lambades that have been given to them by their godparents.  The service begins around 10 pm and shortly before midnight, all the lights are extinguished, symbolizing the darkness of the grave.  The priest disappears behind the altar screen and comes out bearing a candle lit with the holy flame, brought to Greece by plane the same day from Jerusalem, and saying “come ye, partake of the light and glorify Christ who is arisen from the dead.”  The holy light is passed from individual to individual as each person lights his or her candle.  Then on the stroke of midnight the priest announces “Christos anesti” or Christ has risen and the church psalters break out in an Easter hymn.  Everyone present turns to his or her neighbor and embrace and kiss.  Then the church bells start to peal and the church yard fills with the noise of fire crackers going off.

The truly faithful remain in church for the entire night, but most people rush home taking care to protect the flame of their lit candles so they can inscribe the sign of the cross in the lintel of the house before entering.  The fast is broken upon with hard boiled red eggs and mayeritsa.  Wine is finally allowed and flows freely.  Everyone engages in the ritual of cracking eggs, saying “Christ has risen” or “Christos anesti” to which the response is “alithos anesti” or “he truly has risen”.  It is said that this tradition dates from Byzantine times, when the belief was that just as a chick emerges from a cracked egg, so Christ emerged from the tomb.  There is a real spirit of competition around this tradition, and the person who manages to emerge with an intact egg is said to have good luck for the year to come.              

     On Easter day, the adults of the household rise early to prepare the Pascal lamb or kid.  In most parts of Greece the entire carcass is impaled on a spit and then roasted over an open fire lit in a pit specially dug for this purpose.  However on some islands the lamb is stuffed and roasted in the oven. ~Maria Vertopoulos and

Greek Calendar Customs, written by George A. Megas, and published in Athens in 1963

Beautiful Bern, Switzerland

 Clock Tower

I certainly lucked out with the weather while visiting my friend Lauren in Bern this weekend.  I met Lauren in New York at the 2008 job fair.  This is where I got a job in Athens and she in Bern.  Spring has definitely sprung here in Bern.  The grass is so lush and green, the tulips are in bloom, the trees have grown leaves as I watch them and the sky is a beautiful blue.

I arrived on Friday afternoon I arrived in Zurich and then took the train to Bern.  Though Bern is the capital of Switzerland it is much smaller than Zurich.  We went to a microbrewery by the bears for dinner and I had a typical Swiss meal of potato hash with apples, cheese and bacon and of course a beer!

Baby Brown Bear

Saturday it was a beautiful day  walked all around Bern, checking out all the stores.  It is nice to see cute Easter stores with unique  gifts - preppy things.  However, though I love to shop it is probably great that we don't have these great stores because I would waste money!  The mascot of Bern is the brown bear.  And so they have 4 brown bears in the bear pit.  Daddy bear was on one side and Mommy bear and her two cubs were playing on the other side - climbing the trees and eating the branches.

What I like about Bern is that when you look around at the people you really can't tell where they are from or what language they speak.

Sunday we packed a picnic and headed to this large green space right by the main river in town (Aare River).  Others had the same idea as us but many folks were there in their Speedos and bikinis!  it was about 70 degrees, not a cloud in the sky.  Lauren and I put our towels down, had a picnic and I read and she napped.  However thinking to bring sunscreen was not on my packing list and now I have a beautiful farmer burn!

Lauren

Albert Einstein's house

Monday I went with Lauren to school - The International School of Bern - I started the day in her classroom - grade 4 but also visited grade 1, 2 and 3!

Bouzoukia!

a bouzouki

Kate, Lacey, Susan, Carrie, Christy, me

 

 Bouzoukia Night! 12 of us "Americans" went out for the traditional Greek “Las Vegas” style night club outing! The bouzouki is a stringed guitar style instrument yet nowadays, it isn’t the spotlight of the show! Nightlife in Athens is just that - at night. Most clubs, bars, bouzoukia venues don’t begin until midnight and go well into the early morning. It is said that Athenians spend more money on going out to a bouzouki than anywhere else!

A former student’s dad (and my good friend’s husband) owns a bouzoukia club called Anodos. So I arranged for us to go to this unique yet traditional Greek outing. Our table was right beside the stage as you can see from my photos. They certainly pack you in there! It was a fantastic time! There were 4 singers whom performed before the headliner Natassa Theodoridou came on. The show began at midnight. Instead of throwing plates (as it is now considered a hazard) people buy plates of carnation heads and throw these at the performers. This shows the performers you like what you are hearing! Mr. Louskos generously gave our table 8 plates of the flowers!

But the peak of the entertainment / the liveliness of the guests and singers didn’t peak until about 3.30 AM.  

Natassa Theodoriou

At this time you found people dancing on their seats and right on the stage with the performers! For the 40 Euros per person, you have your reserved table, nuts and fruit and ¼ bottle of liquor. It really is a great deal for the live entertainment you get. Like most places in Greece, the no-smoking law doesn’t really apply and I would estimate that 90% of the people in the club last night were smoking! That is really the only turn-off. I don’t know if you could imagine that, nowadays!



Half the group left around 3ish and myself and the other half we left about 4:30, but then continued to stay out in the Gazi area. To take a taxi home during the morning hours costs double so we stayed out until we could take the metro home. I got home at 6:45 am this morning!!!! This is quite impressive for me! But really it was a great night!