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A red poppy & friend. A few poppies dotted the fields.
A cool treehouse. We took a road from the beach and then turned
left on a road that paralleled the beach.
We waved to a family just as a friendly greeting, but they invited
us to share their food and wine.
We don't speak Greek and they didn't speak much English, but we
soon knew who was married to whom, who had never married, and
how many children and grandchildren they had. They shared their
retsina wine, a lovely sour dough bread, feta cheese, tomato wedges,
and since they were done before the lamb, some of the organ meats
that had been wrapped with the intestines. Obviously we couldn't
refuse.
After about an hour, the younger family members started arriving,
so we politely excused ourselves and continued down the dirt road.
A local church was not far from our generous family, but no one
was there. Easter Sunday was for family, not church.
The small road ended so we headed back down to the beach.
Families were celebrating as we walked back toward the ship. We
waved to the man that we'd talked to on our way out, but he insisted
that we join them for some wine and food as well. The older guy
with white hair spoke pretty good English-his name was Takis.
He told us that while people said that Greece was in crisis, he
was the richest man in the world. He had his house on the beach,
a lamb roasting, and family coming to celebrate the holiday. They
served us more retsina and were surprised that we knew the Greek
toast, "Yammas!" (We did not tell them that we'd just
learned it that day.) Again they served us the organ meat, but
they also shared some cheese and a flan-like pudding that was
amazingly tasty.
As the family arrived bearing their own additions to the holiday
feast, we again excused ourselves.
What an absolutely amazing day. We really got to know how the
real Greeks live, what's important to them, and most important,
we learned how generous they were.
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