Rule of the Masses

These past few days have been so amazing! I’ve had a lot of fun but I’ve also been able to connect with Greek people in a way that I never really got to in Thess—I loved my friends in Thess but most of them were Americans, or kids my own age. I don’t really have any pictures, though, so this post is going to be kind of longer with no photos to break it up, I apologize for that in advance!

Thursday my Greek professor, Daniel, proposed a sort of impromptu trip to his summer house in Faliraki; a nearby church was having some kind of liturgy and festival for St. Amos and he thought it would be interesting for us to see it. Rachel and James wanted to study for their exam the next day, so I went and was able to bring Nick as well. Family members came and went, but at one point it was the two of us, Daniel and his wife, all three grandchildren, one son and his wife, the wife’s parents, and his wife’s sister’s kid. Some spoke a little English, some a little more, but we spent most of the time trying to talk to each other in Greek. It was so great! I got so much practice with real conversation and they all loved that I was trying. At the beginning everyone spoke very slowly and simply, but as time wore on and they saw how much I knew, they began to speak normally—I couldn’t always understand and would ask for clarification, but it was so fun to just be swallowed up and accepted by the family.

First we stopped by Anthony Quinn Bay because I expressed interest in seeing it and it was close-by—it was absolutely gorgeous! The water was smooth and intensely blue and the shoreline had a little beach, but the rest of it was massive rocks and hills coming right to the water’s edge. I was nerdily excited to see it. We just looked at it, and then had a swim at the beach near their house. Faliraki has a massive, 5 km sandy beach, and the water is much smoother because it’s on the windless side of the island, but that also means Faliraki is a good 2-3 degrees Celsius warmer than Rhodes; even when it got dark it was really hot!

Their home was small but really gorgeous; my favorite part was their garden. They grew all kinds of things: figs, oranges, lemons, grapes, olives, kumquats, lavender, mint, oregano, a couple different kinds of flowers and roses. The figs were actually ripe for the picking so we helped to collect them and ate some right off the tree—you can’t get more Greek than that! We had kumquats and oranges too. It smelled so delicious in the garden, and it was so fun to help!

We went to the church after for the festival. Daniel is a canter so he was actually part of the service, but we didn’t all stay for the whole thing. It was a tiny little church, very Greek-looking with the white walls and blue trimming, but it was interesting because below the church (it was up on a hill) a fair was set up that looked just like the Greek festivals we have at home, with loukomades and fair food and crappy little fair games. People were coming and going as the service progressed, walking up to kiss the icons or talk to friends as the service went on.

We went back to the house afterwards for a lengthy Greek dinner. I helped the women in the kitchen while Nick helped the guys grill, and we had quite a feast: grilled fish, pork, homemade tzatziki and homemade bread, fried potatoes, Mythos, ouzo, ice cream for dessert. We also had some homemade lemoncello that was absolutely delicious, and Stamatia told me how to make it. We all just sat around a big table, children and adults, and everyone yelled and joked and ate—it was a big, chaotic mess and I loved it! The children were adorable; the youngest had gotten a bubble gun at the fair and was shooting everything, and the two oldest (ages 11 and 10) had been learning English in school and practiced on us. They had been learning for only 2 or 3 years, but they were so good! They spoke to us in English or very slow Greek and we would respond in Greek, and Katerina especially was so proud of us! Daniel’s son made fun of Nick for being too skinny, saying that in Greece it is the rule of the masses—and by masses, he meant body mass, so you could make women do what you want, he said as he squished his wife in a huge hug. Daniel told us stories about Greek weddings and how a friend was once so excited to eat one of his figs he leapt over the wall but the ladder collapsed under him and he sprawled on the ground, figs in hand, telling them it was worth it. It was such a fun night, and we really were just one of the family, everyone loved that we were there and trying to speak Greek, it was amazing! Mentally exhausting as well, I just had to expend so much more energy to keep us with what everyone was saying and respond appropriately, I was so tired by the end! We’ve been invited back, though, and I’m so excited to go!

The next morning I had my Greek final, which I aced, and then our professors took James, Rachel and I out for coffee to celebrate. There were people learning to windsurf right outside the coffeehouse, and it looked like so much fun! Standing up looked to be easy, but actually getting somewhere was more challenging.

A bunch of us then walked to a beach about 20 minutes away on the other side of Rhodes Town where they have a huge diving board thing set up out in the water—they had a normal sized one, but you could climb further up for a medium-sized one, and finally one about 15 meters off the ocean. We jumped off that one a few times, it was terrifying but exhilarating. Then, since it was a few people’s last night in Rhodes, we went out to one of Nick and my favorite restaurants. The owner is named Kostas and is always so happy, and he let me take everyone’s order and called me and Nick his children.

That night, Friday night, we decided we were going to stay up and watch the sun rise. We played games in someone’s room for a little while, like Kings and a game without a name that was a cross between telephone and pictionary that was hilarious; everyone writes down a sentence and passes it to their left, where they read it and draw a picture to describe it, and then pass it again, and the next person looks at the picture and writes a sentence describing it, until you get your original back; “Justin was punched in the eye by a gypsy” becomes “Sarah hates cats” with a series of entertaining sketches in between.

Then we went to hookah, the Euro shot bar in Old Town, another bar in New Town that was having a smurf-themed party and coated us in blue paint. Around four we went back to the hotel, changed into bathing suits while trying not to touch anything, and then went down to the beach for a nighttime swim. The water was a little chilly but it was really fun. Then we just lay on the beach talking until we noticed the sky was starting to lighten. At that point, we walked along the boardwalk to the diving board beach since it faced east. We passed a couple literally having sex on the beach, I’m not really sure what to do with that bit of information. At any rate, by the time we got to the beach it was fairly light out but the sun was not quite up. We sat on the beach for a few minutes until the sun came up over the mountains of Turkey; once it decided to come up, it rose so fast! After that the attitude was “yay we did it, now I’m tired let’s go”. We got back to the hotel around 630, I tried to wash the remaining blue crap off me, and finally got in bed around 7.

I couldn’t really sleep that well, however, and was up by 11 anyway. We just had a pretty chill day yesterday, everyone was tired. We went back to the diving board and just lay on the beach, and I tried to nap throughout the day. More people are leaving today, so we had another group “last dinner in Rhodes” and then some of us watched the Greek-Russia game for EuroCup. Greece won! It was really exciting; I’m not really sure how the points translate, but I think, based on the level of excitement with the win and what I could understand from the announcers, this means Greece gets to advance to the next round of the EuroCup! Which will just be so fun to watch while I’m here, plus it means I have another chance to wear my Greek team jersey. I went right to sleep as soon as the game was over, I was so tired!

And that was my weekend. Sorry this post is so long! Today looks like its going to be another slow day, and then Monday I continue taking Greek lessons with Daniel and start my Mythology classes with Spiros. Everyone who isn’t staying for the next session is leaving either today or early tomorrow morning, and most of the new kids are coming in at some point today. Even though it’s only been three weeks, some of the kids this session have been really great, I wish they were staying the whole time I was!