Another couple of weeks have passed with very exciting things going in other parts of the world (welcome to the world little Ruby Gray Seddon, Ford David Thompson & Oskar Flynn White)! It is moments like this that make being over here, away from my friends and family, extra hard.
While not as life changing, there have been a couple of fun events over in this part of the world as well. We have celebrated both Ilias’ name day & his birthday. Name day, you may ask? In Greece, babies are named in a very specific way. Traditionally, the first born will be named after the paternal grandmother or grandfather and the second will be named after the maternal grandmother or grandfather, and back and forth, depending on how large of a family you decide to have. No matter what though, you are always named after a saint, profit or one of the ancient gods. This is the only way the priests in the Orthodox church will allow a baby to be baptized (which is extremely important over here). Your name day, is the day of the year that the church celebrates that saint or profit. While birthdays are still celebrated, as you get older they don’t hold as much significance (much of Greece has the Peter Pan syndrome I think!). Your name day becomes the day of importance that everyone celebrates.
Ilias started his name day off in Naxos (a neighboring island that houses the larger court system of the local islands). I picked him up mid afternoon from the ferries and presented him with his present...a new iPad. He was very excited and relieved, because he had almost bought himself one in Naxos. He was bored of ferry rides with nothing to do (the main reason I bought it for him too). We carried on with our day and met Ilias’ brother & his girlfriend, Yiannis & Rodoula, and another friend, Mr. Takis, for dinner at a local taverna in Kamari. After dinner we met some more friends for a couple drinks and then called it a night. I had made tiramisu for him, but we were both still so full from dinner that we decided to wait until the next day to have it. (It was deeeelicious if I do say so myself.)
While Ilias may not care too much for celebrating his birthday (the king of Peter Pan syndrome), he married a Canadian girl after all, and as most of you know, I love birthdays. So too bad, we were celebrating. The day started with Ilias spending the morning doing his favorite pastime, sleeping. I was busy cleaning the house for our guests that were coming over that night, so it worked perfectly for me. When Sleeping Beauty finally awoke, I made pancakes (his favorite breakfast) and we headed to the pool. A couple of sun-soaked, relaxing hours later we headed back home. I had to get to the grocery store to pick up the last few ingredients for dinner. Well this is where my Sunday afternoon adventure really started. I headed to a big grocery store in Fira to buy the chicken for tonight’s chicken parmesan and a couple other key ingredients. I was just about to pull into the parking lot when I noticed all the lights were off and there wasn’t another car to be seen anywhere. Closed. What the heck? I was annoyed but we do have more than one grocery store here, so I headed down the street to the next one. It’s actually bigger and I prefer it, life always works out as it should. Again, closed. What the f%^k? Annoyed turned to panic because what is chicken parmesan without the chicken? Oh gawd! Off to another one, please oh please oh please! I arrived and thank sweet baby Jesus it was open. This particular grocery store is not my favorite, but I’ll take what I can get at this point. They had the chicken and the parmesan I needed but were missing the fresh spinach I was looking for. Plus while the chicken was there it was pre-packaged so I was questioning how fresh it really was because (very surprising I know), everything is written in Greek here. Hmmm, if this one is open maybe the one down the road another block and a half will be open too? If the competition stays open on Sundays...I drop my chicken and my parmesan and head for the car. 45 seconds later I am pulling into the next grocery store saying Hallelujahs because it too is open and I like this grocery store better. Woot woot!! I head inside, find my parmesan, find my spinach and head for the meat department. WTF?! Where is the meat department?? All they have is a deli with chesses and processed meats and a freezer with an array of frozen poultry. It is 5:30 and company is coming at 7pm. I don’t have time for any frozen chicken. Man! After noticing that they have frozen, uncooked prawns (something I have also been looking for here - everything comes precooked and frozen), I make a mental note and head for the checkout. Back to the previous store to get the stupid chicken!
At long last I make it home. It is 6pm and aside from the birthday cake, nothing is ready. I walk in the door and like a tasmanian devil, get to work. Mom, you can imagine what this kitchen started to look like! I love to cook people, but I also usually end up using almost every dish in the kitchen. Our apartment is small, the kitchen even smaller and it does not employ a dishwasher. With the chicken now successfully in the oven finishing to cook, I manage to get some of the dishes done and to clear enough counter space to start on the pasta, veggies and salad I am making to go with the dinner. As always, things all managed to come together pretty much on time. We sat down and had a wonderful dinner with Yiannis, Rodoula and Kiki, who was over from Athens for her book signing in Santorini & for Ilias’ birthday.
With dinner over I start clearing the table and am going to start working away at the pile of dishes waiting for me in the kitchen. It would be nice if at some point we can indulge in the banana split bombe ice cream cake I had made. Dishes stacked, scraped and ready to be washed, let’s get this show on the road. I go to fill the sink and again what the f#^k?!!! No water. Nothing. Not a drop. Ahhh island life. It is the time of day in August . The tourists that are staying in Oia have made it back to their hotels to shower after the beach and they have used all the water. Well what’s a girl to do. We clear and clean and get as much done as possible and get on with the cake. It was AMAZING and a big hit. (Thank you Martha!) After cake, we headed back to Fira to celebrate with a couple friends. We got home hours later, to water that finally worked again and a mountain of dishes. I did as many as I could, before Belle decided that the noise was interfering with her sleep and she had had enough. I didn’t want her barking to wake the neighborhood, so I called it a night and went to sleep. The dishes have waited this long, what is a couple more hours?
So while, no life changing events here, it has been a good few weeks for learning to adapt to the small differences of Santorini life. Don’t plan on doing any grocery shopping on Sundays and always count on the water being gone when you need it the most. :)
The next few weeks have us busy with all kinds of visitors. One of my besties, Amie, arrives on Sunday for 2 weeks. Along with Ilias’ best friends from France Marc Antoine, Gerald & Francois.
Until next time.
xoxo
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