Blogs from Glyfa, Athens, Attica, Greece, Europe

From Culinary Backstreets website: Fall marks the start of the olive picking season throughout Greece. From Thrace to Crete, from Corfu to Lesvos, and even in the suburbs of Athens, landowners lucky enough to have olive trees will start harvesting their fruit. In fact, Greeks universally prefer the oil from their own region if not their own trees and tend to buy it “loose,” direct from the press rather than the supermarket.Much like back home in the states, late October is olive picking season. It is a well-known facts that Greeks prefer olive oil from their own region. And furthermore, as I learned on my last visit here in May, most Greeks can tell which region the olive oil comes from. And they don't seem to care about awards and quality control. Here, ... read more

I finally know how Toula felt when she had to go to Greek school… My first day of classes at City Unity College was very interesting… My very first class was Astronomy, but I had some confusion as to when I was suppose to take it. There are 2 sections of this class, and the second section conflicts with another class I have, so I logically deduced that I must be in the first section. Well little did I know, the first section of Astronomy was in all Greek…let that sink in a bit. I walked into class and the was rambling on in Greek and I had no idea what to do. She asked me my name in Greek and I just looked at her with a blank stare…the other Astronomy was the English one. ... read more

Yia su! Usually there is some sort of demonstration going on in Athens due to the current nature of current economic policy in Greece, but today was the first day the demonstrations affected how I spent my day. All of the public transportation workers went on strike, causing the metro, bus lines and trams to shut down; bright yellow taxi cabs were also nonexistent in the daily traffic. The police force was out with shields, tear gas, and machine guns, but most of this is strictly precautionary. Greeks usually (almost always) protest with nonviolence. Even though a chunk of the population owns automobiles, much of the population is dependent on public transportation, causing people to be late/unable to get to work/school, etc. This strike is a result of the austerity measures put into place by the ... read more

Herete! (Hello) Today I had my first Greek lesson! I'm glad I finally learned some manners because I felt very ignorant walking around speaking in English and asking for things...the Greeks are much more helpful when one at least tries to use their language. Here is a short list of manners/phrases which are necessary: KalimEra: good day KalispAra: good afternoon KalinIKHta: good night (sounds kind of German...) HeREte: hi, hello, good bye Yia sou: hello (familiar) Yia sas: hello (formal) AdiO sas: good bye Ti kanEte: How are you? (formal) POli kAla: very well Eucaristw (ef-kal-ri-STOL) thank you Ke sas: And you? Pos sas lanEy: What's your name? Me lanEy: My name is... Para kalO: please/you're welcome Oxi: no nE :yes * Don't quote my spelling...most of it is phonetic, with the capital letter being the ... read more

In 1963 the most popular film in British Cinemas was ‘Summer Holiday’ the story where a group of young people take a converted bus to Athens. I don’t know if I was emotionally or psychologically damaged by watching the film at the Roxy Cinema in Blackheath, but since my early 20’s I have wanted to drive to Greece. Spookily here I am driving a converted vehicle, albeit a lot longer route than Cliff did it, into Athens. Although I would have liked to say we arrived in style, alas no, Alison who had done a sterling job navigating us through, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia and the best part of Greece (Tom Tom’s coverage ended once into Croatia) was overwhelmed by the Athens road system when trying to look for the campsite. Twenty quid of petrol and ... read more