Becoming Greek

Dr Pepper

    One of the Soda's that I love is Dr Pepper, but this is a very difficult soda to find here in Greece.  There are a few sodas like that such as Mountain Dew, Dr Pepper, Brisk Ice Tea, and Root Beer that are impossible to get unless they are imported....  And normally I do not even have a craving for these soda's until last week.....
    Last week a couple of Navy ships docked here in Thessaloniki spilling American sailors all over the place.  One of our American friends connected with the Navy chaplain and they offered a tour of the boat to any Americans in the city.  So we took the boys on the boat and it was a lot of fun.  They took pictures with machine guns, got to steer the captains wheel, and toured the in's and out's of the ship.  Here comes the good part.....  The dining area had soda machines with all sorts of good stuff - Dr Pepper, Mt Dew, Root Beer, and Brisk Ice Tea.  We were pumped because at the end of the tour the chaplain was going to buy us all a soda.  I was like a kid in a candy store, until the machine was sold out.....  Uhhhgggg.  And the worst part was that it got in my heart.
    So today we went to the import store and they actually had Dr Pepper which is a miracle.  Here in Greece a soda at a restaurant like Applebee's will cost you $6.00, and a 6 pack of Coke at the store is about $5.00.  So the prices are already expensive to begin with, and so when we picked up a 6 pack of Dr Pepper we knew we would pay a pretty penny.  Well, 9.00 Euro's latter (or $13.00) we had our 6 pack of Dr Pepper.  We will enjoy those babys on a much needed craving day!!!

Top 10 ways you know you are not in the US......

    Last night Jamie and I went to a fundraiser for children with down syndrome at one of the nicest party gardens in the city.  People were dressed formally, the food was fantastic, and the atmosphere was like that of an incredible evening wedding reception.  For a few hours we literally forgot what country we were in until a stray dog waltzed his way though the main dance floor.....
    After we had a nice laugh we put together a top 10 list of ways you know your not in the US:

10.  Stray dogs are anywhere and everywhere
9.    People want to help you with directions
8.    You sit down at table with 8 people and everyone can speak at least two languages
7.    No one has heard of the term "customer service"
6.    You have no idea who the president is, or if the president is the man in power
5.    Stop signs really are optional
4.    People still use cash
3.    A total disregard for BO
2.    You can order a beer at McDonalds
1.    A one piece bathing suit is not modest at all

Miss Shannon

    One of the reasons we are here in Greece is to network a study abroad program for AG schools during their University years.  We plan to mentor 6-8 college students each semester as they learn how to live and touch lives while being abroad.
    The past few months we have become great friends with a students named Shannon who is from USF in Tampa Bay.  She was involved in here Chi Alpha program at USF and found us through some mutual friends.  We were a blessing to her life in the form of a place to do laundry, get a home cooked meal, catch up on The Office, and have someone to take here to church.  We were blessed to have a friend to talk English with, a girl who loved our boys, and great person to share life with.....
    Shannon left for the states last week, and the family here in Greece is sad.  Mac fell in love with Shannon and is missing his girlfriend.  We are missing our friend to watch some American tv with, but she is our official represenitive to eat Chic-fil-a for us in the states....
    Some times we get to busy to take time to build new relationships, but we are so glad we became friends with Shannon!!!!

Acropolis Road Rally

       This weekend I went to the famous Acropolis road rally with my Greek friend Thomas.  The rally is a bunch of cars that race on dirt roads over three days to see who can come up with the best time.  So we drove down late Thursday, slept on the ground, and got up early to watch the cars.
    It was wild to say the least.  Greece is one of the few countries that lets the fans near the track, and boy to people get up close and personal.  You can see, touch, taste the cars....  And you can eat as much dust as you want!!!  In the video bellow I am standing with my friend against some trees on the opposite side of the road.  My friend found this video on youtube and we happen to be in the crowd on the other side.....  Wild huh?
    We were at eye level with the cars as they raced by, and it was an experience I will not forget.  At lease we were downwind and did not have to eat a dust sandwich.....

A little bit of travel

Sorry for the lack of blogging of late, but we have been here there and everywhere......

At the end of May we had some friends from Kansas come visit us up here in the North.  Randy and Linda have been great friends to us, and while they were here we had our first Greek Island adventure.  It was a whole lot of fun, and the boys still talk about riding the ferries.

We then ran into the rest of the Kansas crew in Athens and had a two day tour of Athens and Corinth.  It was our first time on a real tour and was really nice to ride the bus instead of walking all over the place.  The boys enjoyed riding the bus with the tour group, and somehow managed to always get a treat or two....

After Athens we we back up North to Halkildiki to our Balkan area conference with others who work in surrounding countries.  It was a great time to meet some new friends, and the kids had a ton of fun with a group of young adults and college students who created a childrens program.  The leader of that team is Sarah and is an old friend of ours....

So after the confrence we brought the team back to Thessaloniki for a couple days and did a tour of some of the local things including Phillipi, Olympus, Dion, Kavala, and Thessaloniki. It was a lot of fun to hang out with the team, but it was a ton of work.

After a big strech or travel we hit the books again to keep working on Greek!!

Euro-Vison

  

So here is an outsiders perspective on one of the biggest music tv events worldwide.  This is a follow up to the video underneath....

    The concept of Eurovision is that 42 countries offer up their best performer and they get to represent their country.  Over the course of a few days the 42 are whittled down to the top 25.  Saturday the top 25 performed and then the viewers text in their favorite performer.  You are not allowed to vote for your own country, and each country gets a set number of votes.  They all get 1-7 points, and three high point numbers of 8,10, and 12.  The performer with the top point total wins.

    Here is where things got interesting to me.  The way a country votes has so much to do with not just the performer, but the history of the country.  For instance Greece always gets a number 1 vote (12 points) from Cyprus.  When Cyprus will automatically endorse Greece as number 1, it is guaranteed that Turkey will get no points.  So a country will ally with nations they get along with, and not give points to countries they do not get along with.  Saturday the winner was Norway, and probably was the top act.  However, on the Greek news they showed a crowd cheering the loudest for the 7th place Sakis (the Greek performer).
    So here is where a foreign view looks at the voting.  I thought it interesting that Greece boarders Albania, Macedonia (FYROM depending on where you live), Bulgaria, and Turkey.  Greece has a tense relationship with Turkey over Cyprus, and political conflicts with the name of Macedonia.  Yet, Greece has good relationships with Albania and Bulgaria when it comes to visas and politics.  Bulgaria and Albania awarded the top 12 point score to Greece.  Turkey and Macedonia did not place Greece in the top 10, and so Greece received no points from those nations.  Turkey finished 4th, but did not get any points from Greece.  Also, the old Yugoslavia countries constantly voted inward to Bosnia and Herzegovinian to the audible groan of the live crowd in Russia.  The most sickening vote was Andorra a small island nation off the coast of Spain.  They awarded their 12 point vote to Span who only collected a total of 23 votes from all 42 nations.
    The UK and Ireland voted with no political reserves,  The Northern countries stuck together, and the Muslim nations of Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan traded amongst themselves.  The most interesting part of the show was the voting, and the history that unfolded in a simple European "American Idol-esk" competition.
    While America was literally undiscovered Greece and Turkey were in a dispute, and hundreds of years latter the tensions have cooled but the sentiments are the same.  History is something a foreign person can never know or truly understand.   As a young generation texted in votes, the old ways of grandfathers came though via a mobile telephone device.  It was just a music completion, and the best man did win.  However, the underlining feelings bellow the surface were interesting.  It was a very insightful and interesting evening of television to watch!

On the tele' tonight!

Tonight we are finishing watching the Eurovision competition which will have over 100 million viewers tonight. On Thursday Greece qualified for the finals with the "modern greek god" Sakis..... I have to be honest that the only thing on the news Friday was 78 overviews of the Greek performance. We are cheering for Greece tonight (the Greek/Ricky martian/Micheal Jackson/Clay Aiken)....

So I ate some lamb brains.....

    We had one crazy Easter weekend here in Greece.  It started with a traditional Saturday Night service at the Orthodox church around midnight.  Everyone goes to church at midnight and brings a candle that gets lit at midnight.  At midnight everyone lights the candles and begins to celebrate, with shouting, setting off fireworks, and proclaiming the resurrection of Christ.
    So let me detail this experience for you to get the picture.  We went inside the church at 10 minutes to midnight, and watched the service inside for a minute but the crowd was to big to see anything.  We then went into the courtyard which was wall-to-wall people, and as I tried to push my little Mac through the crowd it which was very difficult.  We found a small place where we could huddle together as we where getting shelled by fireworks.  You could hear nothing but booms, breath nothing but sulfur, and everyone was holding their own fire sticks including Mac.  Mac was in his stroller almost falling asleep with his candle almost lighting everyone who tried to squeeze by on fire.  It was a great experience, and one Easter service I will not forget.

    Then the next day we to our friends house to eat the lamb.  Bellow the video is our little friend that we ate!  The best part so I had been told was the brain, and a real delicacy here in the country.  SO when the grandfather approached with a cracked open skull, I had to give it a try….  The texture was that of mushy cheerios that had sat in milk for 15 min.  The taste was liver-ish.  And pretty much was a nasty treat….  So the rest of the lamb was amazing including the tongue!  But next year when it comes time to eat the brain I am not sure if I am going to hit them up on it…..

Easter Weekend

    When the "great schism" happened dividing Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Europe the date for Easter has been calculated on different calendars.  So this weekend is our Easter here in Greece a week behind the Catholic date that was  celebrated in the US last weekend.  Easter is the biggest holiday of the year and so let me try and bring a quick overview of the weekend.
    Last night we went to an Orthodox service on Good Friday that is a symbolic funeral of Christ.  During the day different funeral parades were being led all over the city with ornate flower caskets in memory of the death of Christ.  Tonight on Saturday we will go to the Orthodox church around midnight to celebrate the first few moments of Easter.  We will take dyed red eggs, and crack them on other eggs pronouncing "christos-anesti" (christ is risen).  After that we are going to light a candle and bring it to our house which is a traditional Orthodox ritual.  Our friends are having us over for lamb intestine soup, and tomorrow we will be going over to the house for the roasted lamb and a whole lot of eating....  This will really be a Easter to remember!!

My first European "football" game.

    Last weekend I went to the last soccer game of the season to the Iraklis team here in Thessaloniki with my friend Thomas.  Not a lot of people in the city are fans of Iraklis, but my friend is and so I wanted to check out a game.  The crowd was down a little bit because it was the last game of the season, but the fans who were there sure made up for any empty seats.  The stadium is divided into four parts. Two side line areas that have a great view of the field, and then two end sections that are located behind the goals.  The team playing Thess was from the Peloponnesian part of Greece that is over 400 miles away and so their fans stayed home and watched it on tv.  The end stadium section behind the other team was completely empty.  We entered the stadium at gate 10, which is the area of the stadium located in the video behind the Iraklis goal.  The fans are rabid, and really love their team.  We ended up sitting near the sideline giving me a perfect view of the fans and the field.  As I nestled in my seat eating sunflower seeds, I began to watch a truly amazing game.  The team we were cheering for won the game 2-1, but the real show was in the stands.
    As you watch the video bellow you can see the crowd throw things, light flares, and sing the majority of the game.   It really was a fun experience and I plan to attend some more games next year.  The game was coming to an end and I noticed that no one was leaving early to beat the traffic rush.  I stayed to be polite, but as soon as the game ended the real action began.  The reason why people don't leave early is because they don't want to miss the second match; the riot police verse the gate 10 crowd.  It was controlled well, but there was plenty of excitement to keep the crowd happy.....
    The video bellow is not from the game I attended, but is pretty much the same experience.  Watch for at least the first minute to get a glimpse of the chaos that can be Iraklis football!!

Spring Cleaning

    The Easter holiday is the most important day on the calendar for the Greeks.  In the Western world we celebrate the birth of Jesus as our key day, but over on this side of the world the focus is on the resurrection.  The resurrection is the cornerstone to all Christian beliefs regardless of denomination or organization.  Without the resurrection Christianity would be null and void.
    So to prepare for the Easter holiday Greeks often times take on a vegan fast for the 40-50 days leading up to the Easter.  Not everyone fasts, but there is even a change in the McDonald's menu.  They offer the shrimp burger (sounds and looks nasty, but I have not tried it) to appeal to those people participating in the fast.  Most Greeks have a big cleaning weekend, and most people paint their home in preparation for the Easter celebration.  The idea is to clean the body and the home to prepare mentally for the resurrection.  The Orthodox Easter is a week after the Western holiday so people are in a Spring cleaning mode here in the neighborhood.
    Although preparing the body and home and noble gestures.  The most important thing is to prepare the heart to be open to Christ.  The resurrection is designed to allough Christ to walk through this life with us.  As you do some Spring cleaning so more than just white wash the outside of the building, but make sure the inside is open and ready as well.

A view to die for.....

Yesterday I was having lunch in the home of a wonderful follower of God.  We had lunch at their home after church in the modern day city of Kavala.  This is the city where the Apostle Paul first stepped foot on European soil.  The view from the balcony unfolded the beauty of this port city.  Hard to imagine that every morning this man has the opportunity to look upon the ground that made way for most of the New Testament heroics possible.  But history is history.....  Lets see what can unfold today.....

Prasino

So I walked in the door this afternoon after a metally taxing greek school day.  I usually get a huge hug from Brady when I walk in the door, but today he was a little ilusive.....  He snuck up behind me as only a 3 year old can do, and pinched me.  I thought I wonder why he learned to pinch today?  Then he said that I was not wearing any green...... DING! 

On my morning comute I did not see any green, thoughts about green, thoughts about Ireland, leprachons, or pinching those who are not wearing green.  So this was a pleasent suprise.  Brady kept pinching me, and so I had to fight back like only a dad can.  I took off Bradys green shirt and left him green-less, and now legal to pinch back.  It was a lot of fun.  Now I am ironically wearing a Bolivian national soccer jersey that is keeping me safe from St Patricks day Irish tradition.....

The icing on the cake is that my parents are visiting us for two weeks and we pick them up from the airport in a few hours.  Brady is excited to pinch them if they are not wearing green....  I wonder if my mom at 6am Monday morning in Montana was thinking that she should have green on for her 5:45 PM Tuesday arrival in Greece?  Not sure, but I do know one thing....  Brady is looking to pinch anyone he can who is not wearing green.  Good thing his pincher is not to strong!

A favorite Video

The video bellow is back from November in the ancient site of Corinth....  The boys were having a ton of fun throwing rocks, and I wanted to see if Brady might be able to explain where he was.  It was a historical location in history and thought he might be able to say Corinth.....  I was sure he might throw out Greece.....  But the answer surprised me.....

Home Sweet Home....

Third Culture Kids

OUr kids are officially Third Culture Kids.  This means that they truly do not have a nationality or country that is their own.  I will always have the US as my heritage and love things like baseball, taco bell, football, sheetrock, and no smoking laws.....  My boys will their mother country.  Yet, last night I came to a conclusion as we walked the warehouse of one of our favorite stores.  No matter where we live, Ikea will always be home to the boys.....  

Sohos

    This past past Monday was "clean Monday" here in Greece that marks 50 days out from Easter on the Orthodox Calendar.  The Easter holiday is the biggest holiday the country celebrates, and clean Monday is the beginning on the fast of all meat till Easter.  Everyone has the day off, and families spend time with one another flying kites or going to carnivals.  We went to a small village to see the carnival with our Greek friends Nina and Thomas.  We took the boys, and was it a experience!!
    The man in the picture represents an ancient ritual where they chase away the evil before the Spring.  They have very loud bells around their waist and carry around bottles of "ouzo".  They give drinks to people and make a lot of noise as they walk around.  This is from pagan roots that date back to before the start of Orthodoxy, the Apostle Paul, or before Christ.  This tradition is very old, and a famous spectacle in the country.  It was a little scary for the kids (Brady), but after a while they danced and enjoyed their time at the street festival.  They also had a parade which was hoaky at best.  It would make vigilante day in Helena, MT feel like the Macy's day parade.  And made the Mechanicsburg Juballee day feel like the ultimate street fair.
    It was a ton of fun!  We at some lagana (in my hand) which is a special round bread on Clean Monday.  We ate the bean soup they gave away, and pretty much enjoyed the time with our friends.  I forgot the camera in the car, and our friends just emailed the picture to us........  The picture says it all....

3 dangers to ancient statues......

This past weekend we visited a museum here in Greece that had some ancient statues on display.  We walked into the building and I felt like I was reliving a scene from a police station on a classic 80's movie like "Fletch".  The guys behind the counter were your classic chain smokers and as we handed them our tickets I felt as though they would blow a puff in our face and just laugh.....  Ok a bit over dramatic but you get the picture. 

A major threat to the sanctity of the ancient carvings are my two boys.  No rails, glass, or barriers means "touchy-touchy" in their world.  So a lady from a back room literally followed us and watched nervously as we trounced through the exhibits.  During that trouncing we fired off a picture with a flash.  A huge "no-no" according to the lady who was following us.....

So here is where I had an epiphany.....

Six years ago I was looking though a house to buy and it had a family where smokers puffed freely in the home.  The wall was almost humorous because you could see where the pictures where hanging on the walls.  The discoloration was out of this world....

So who is the bigger threat to the statues?  The boys dirty griblemits, the flash photo, or the "good cop/bad cop" behind the information desk.....