Peloponnese, Greece - Celebrations

Amelia celebrated her 6^th birthday on the 23rd April. She was very excited that she was having her birthday in Greece!


From the 22nd-24th of April was Greek Easter. Easter is a very big celebration in Greece - there is lots of church services, a midnight feast, lots of traditions and there are even fireworks!
On Good Friday we went to the local church to see the Epitafio. The Epitafio is decorated with flowers and represents the tomb of Christ. All the churches in the area parade their Epitafio around the town late on Good Friday evening. We went to the children's parade in the afternoon and joined with the parade around the island.

The Epitafio

For Easter Sunday we went to Thothoro and Yota’s house for the morning. There were lots of people there, almost all of them either my 2^nd cousins or aunts and uncles. Some of my second cousins are in their 20’S and some of them were mine and Gabby’s age.

Easter at Thothoro and Yota's house

During the middle of the day we went to my great uncle's family's house. We had Easter lunch with 28 of Giorgios' family. One of the traditions is to eat lamb that was cooked on the spit for lunch. Lunch finished with the craking of the eggs. Everybody gets a hard boiled egg that is dyed red and you have to bang them together with another persons egg. The champion is the person who ends up with no cracks in their egg.
In the evening my great aunt took us to another church to go to the Easter service. I didn't understand it and Mum hardly knew what the priest was saying because a lot of it was in Ancient Greek.

The day after Greek Easter was Gioriogos' names day celebration.We went onto the roof of the house. It is my Great Aunt-Thea Antigoni and my Great Uncle-Theo Giorgio’s house. On the roof is a wood-fire oven, fridge, table, chairs, a toilet and a shelter!!! There is even a bed! So you could live up there.

We have also celebrated the birth of 2 kittens! Antigoni and Giorgio have 5 cats including 2 kittens and 2 dogs. 1 of the cats had her kittens 9 days ago! 1 is Ginger and 1 is black. They are sooooo cute!

 

Flight and Athens

After 19 hours of flying we finally reached Athens, Greece, we got a taxi to our apartment.  The plane had individual touch-screens on the chair in front of you and you can watch movies, play games, listen to music and watch the process of the flight. We had 3 legs on the plane, the first one was 7hours and so was the second but the third was only 5 hours. We spent 33 hours either on the plane or in an airport!

flight

 I couldn’t believe the Greek drivers. Our taxi driver was driving at 140km/h in a 60km/h zone, and the parking in Athens is ridiculous, I don’t know how some of them get out! Each car has about 10 cm in front of the bumper and 10 cm behind the other bumper!

    Some different things about Greece;

- The streets are lined with orange trees where the oranges taste gross but smell nice.

- You can’t flush toilet paper down the toilet, because the sewerage system can’t cope.
- Parking is chaotic.
- Everyone has a sleep from 2-4PM

                On our first full day in Athens, we went to the first ever Olympic Stadium-Panathinaiko Stadium. We could borrow an audio tape that told us about all the different parts of the stadium. The King and Queen got their own fancy seats!

 Olympic Stadium

                We also went to the Temple of Zeus  which is a ruin and we also went into the National Gardens but didn’t spend too much time there. I got told off by a policeman, for taking photographs near the Prime Ministers house. Ooops!

 Temple of Zeus

On the way back we saw 2 soldiers dressed in traditional dress. Mum calls them “Tulia men”!!!  Each soldier has to stand extremely still-he can only blink!- he has to wear a funny hat and shoes with giant pom-poms!!!

Greek soldier standing guard!

                A couple of days later we went to the Athens Concert Hall and saw some costumes that were worn by a famous Soprano singer, Maria Kallas.

One of the dresses Maria Kallas wore

I also met 2 of my Aunties for the first time. Their names are Thea Elefteria and Thea Lena. In English are Aunty Freda and Aunty Helen.

A couple of days later we went to the Acropolis. The Acropolis is a set of very, very old ruins. The builings were made long before machinery. It is made of huge peices of stone so I have no clue how they got it all so high and so detailed. They found loads of artifacts, such as jugs and statues. They found so many that they needed to make a whole new museum near the Acropolis. The museum has a glass floor so you can see some ruins underneath you as you walk along.

The Acropolis

                            

 Some facts about the Acropolis;
- The Acropolis  was built over 2500 years ago!!!
- In 1801 the English cut out some of the statues out of the Acropolis and took them to London.
 - It was bombed in the 1600’s.

The Acropolis

Soon we are going to the Peloponnese, where my Great Grandparent lived and where my Yiayia and Papou (Grandparents) were born. I have many relatives that are still living there.