Kali Xronia

New Years eve was a lot of fun and I got to experience it in Greece for the first time. I ate (aka gorged) with my family around 11pm, and then at midnight we cut the vasilopita and wished everyone a great year. Around 1:30am we finally got around to going to the first of two house parties where we socialized & played cards until 5:30 am when we decided to go downtown. You would have thought it was around midnight with all the people out, and we went into a packed bar and stayed there ‘til around 9am. At that time I had to make the decision to go home otherwise I wouldn’t wake up in time for lunch with relatives the next day. A large group of us were going to another bar which would be open until noon. “Last Call” does not fit into the vocabulary in Thessaloniki. Props to the bars for serving free breakfast while they keep getting you tanked in the morning – much appreciated!

On New Years day we had a huge family dinner: soufflé salads, beets, Russian salad, stuffed grape leaves, broccoli, and fresh bread with fish spread. Just when I thought we were done by Godmother announced, “And now for the main course…” where she brought out some very tender meat with delicious broiled onions. The scene could have could have come straight out of some movie like MBFGW or something. Even though I was ready to burst I had to eat some of the main course followed by desert (chocolate cake with pasticcio nuts). I ended up passing out for an hour afterwards (no guilt in doing that in Greece) before we went out to another get together for a friend of my cousin’s name day & to meet our other cousin at restaurant/pub called the ‘Beer Academy’.

The New Years celebrations came to a close yesterday when many of the people here for the holidays left, including my cousin who is my right hand partner in crime. Now, I am back dealing with the issues with the government. I’ve decided that this could go on in circles forever, so I’m going to go ahead and get a flight out next week with an open return ticket. I’m planning to fly into Washington, D.C. first to take care of some business – and make my way down to Florida within a week or two. To be honest I am looking forward to getting into some warmer weather because it’s been freezing up here. It has been around freezing the last couple of days and I’ve gotten a good dose of frost bite as I’ve waited for buses in 20mph winds. In a masochistic twist I’ve actually opted to take buses instead of taxis because I thought it would be a fuller experience here – kind of like taking the train instead of a plane.

I’m going to be exiting the country via Athens and I will probably be going down there next week. If I do get the opportunity to return, with the proper permit, I will look into some opportunities in the Athens megalopolis since it is a bigger, more sophisticated market than Thessaloniki. This doesn’t mean I will stop looking into opportunities in Thess – but for the most part my effort there has led me to companies who (a) wouldn’t know how to properly utilize me as a resource (b) have a very ma & pa attitude organization attitude (c) would rather drink coffee and get to know you over several informal interviews rather than make a decision and run with it.

Here are some resolutions that I hope were made in Greece this New Year:
ARCHITECTS: Stop making small bathrooms with door swing radius’s that force you to stand on the toilet in order to exit.
TALK SHOWS: Just cut through the gossip and just show hot chicks.
THE NEWS: Stop showing exclusively video of white trash voters in Iowa as the image of Americans.
DAIRY INDUSTRY CROOKS: Go hang yourselves for price fixing all the way down the supply chain.
GREEK BARS: Figure out why other countries have fire codes.
EVERYONE: Stop littering!