Holiday

Today was a lot of fun. It was festival here in Greece the last day of Christmas. For those Christmas lovers out there this stretch is for you. They start Christmas 25 days before and then run 6 days after. I even listened to some Christmas music on the train today. It was nice and made me think of home where my mom plays Christmas music to her hearts content. Anyway, I was going to try to get up early today in preparation for tomorrow needless to say I was running behind all day. We walked down to Ana's mother's house and had festival dinner there. It was pretty good food. We started off with rice soup. It was eggs beat with milk and rice and a bit of lemon. It had a tangy flavor and was a little bizarre for my pallet. After we finished the soup they brought out fried chicken with boiled vegetables and Greek winter salad. It was a kind of coleslaw mix with vinegar, lemon, and pepper and salt instead of white sauce on it. The salad was also a bit tangy I am noticing this trend so far, but it is good just unusual to me.
Ana's family was really pleasant. Her sister Angela was at the house with her 19 year old son George and then there were two other family friends there. They all spoke a little bit of broken English but could understand more of what I was saying. Ana's sister is an Astrologer and spoke about how the universe was balanced and the trade of powers it was interesting to say the least. She writes for a local magazine. I wonder if all Greeks take astrology so seriously? It was funny because she talked about the kinds of relationships I would have with people in the room because of my Astrological sign, which is Gemini if anyone wanted to know. The whole family was asking about what it was like in my town. They could really not understand how small, small-town-Iowa. They really got a kick out of me telling them that it has been in the negative degree temperatures there. They of course kept asking if I was cold here. It was 60 degrees today and we had wind from Africa. It was like early summer in Iowa. I love it!
Anyway on our walk I took some pictures in an Orthodox church we went by and then a few of the family and the streets thought you might like to see some of the outside shots already. Ana didn't want to wait for too long so I will get more later. There is also one of the family. Hope you are all staying warm.

The two on the left are the family friends then there is George Angela's son, George from down stairs, Ana, Angela, and Ana's mother.