Our Vacation

And Re-Writing History! Okay our Vacation wasn't history changing, but what we saw will change the way history books are written. I can't believe it has been 3 weeks since we went on our very small trip of 2 nights away to the northern part of Greece.

The Heart is our Home and the Box is where we went.

  What I love about traveling is:

• Seeing Historical Sights
• Seeing Natural Sights
• And Eating!

We had plenty of food to eat, first stopping for lunch at the mall in Thessaloniki for our bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken (we eat this any time we are there).  Then we ate dinner in Asprovalta, calamari and tzatiziki (if you need a tzatziki recipe you can get it here).

 Enjoying Calamari

Yes, I get 2 Ice-Creams!

The shop owners offered the kids ice-cream and they of course said Yes, but it was a Mastika ( μαστίχα) flavored, which is pretty good in ice-cream form, not sure how to describe the taste, but this is something they only make in Greece, specifically Chios Island. The next night we enjoyed Gyros in Nea Peramos

I don't have many pictures of the beaches, since I am always in the water.

This is near Nea Peramos, the beach is called Sand Dunes (but in Greek)

The 2 places we stayed at are starred and the little teardrop is where the find of the century has been discovered.

The signage at Amfipoli

The top sign says Macedonian Tomb, we wanted to see it, but when we crossed the road, there was nothing there, the nicely paved road turned into a dirt road.  We thought the Greeks must have gotten the signage wrong, but what it is is something that they didn't announce till this week.  They have discovered a new tomb to rival that of Vergina.  Here is an article in Greek(pictures are nice) and here is a smaller article in English(my husband and I have been arguing all week about who is buried there). Amfipoli (amphipolis-Αμφίπολη)  is an Ancient City, if you have watched the Movie 300 with the Persian King Xerxes, this is where he was defeated.  And where Alexander the Great's wife and son were executed. (I believe they are the ones in the tomb)  My husband thinks that Alexander the Great is in it.  We can't wait to find out WHO is inside, I also believe that Alexander the Great's mother could possibly be inside.

Ancient Aqueduct.

Rolling Hills and the river meeting the Sea.

The most popular sight of Amfipoli right now is the Lion, it is right off of the old road from Asprovalta to Kavala.

The Lion Monument, was found in 1912 and rebuilt in the 30's.  I am using this as my color palette and the story behind it and the region Amfipoli to Design my Surface Pattern for my class that I took with Bonnie Christine at Creativelive.

I made this on Adobe Illustrator, aren't you proud.

The class was great, you can take it too, I watched it live, from 7pm to 2am for 3 days to see it for free.  But you can pay just $79 to watch it anytime.  I was a little scared when on Friday we didn't have any electricity all afternoon and then boom at exactly 7:05 the electricity was back on, phew. Now I didn't know anything about Adobe Illustrator and it is a definite learning curve, but the I would have been really lost with out Bonnie's lessons.  The other cool thing is that you can use the Illustrator for FREE for 30 days.  Sign me up right, I have always wanted to make my own fabric line. (you will need to sign up for Adobe first and then the Creative Cloud and then you can download Illustrator for free) You can find more info on the Design Surface Challenge from Bonnie's web site, Going Home to Roost. Of course no trip is complete with out some fun!

Everyone should learn a little Greek

Today we are going to talk coffee, (Leslie you might not want to read this-good luck with the no coffee ban) the Greek coffee life is very important. People spend hours at the small coffee houses, longer than what you see in the States, much longer. Now I wasn't much of a coffee drinker when living in the States but I have now become addicted to the coffee I make here (Ι don't know if it's because it taste good or if I just really need the pick-up after having a kid). I even worked for Starbucks and pretended to drink coffee there by making a "Vanilla Steamer" aka. warm milk with vanilla syrup. Now I drink φραπε γλυκο με γαλα και παγωτο (frappe sweet with milk and ice-cream-sounds like frappe gliko may gala kay pagoto). The Frappe is their cold drink if you want a hot coffee it is a Nes Cafe, simple hey!
So here is how to order your favorite drink or as close as you can get here in Greece.
Hot Coffee - Nes Cafe (Νες Καφε)
Cold Coffee - Frappe (Νες Φραπε)
Espresso Shot(as close as you can get, but taste even better) - Greek Coffee (Ελληνικοσ Καφες)
The sugar (ζαχαρι) they add when they make the coffee including the Greek coffee
sugar little - may ligi zachari (με λιγη ζαχαρι )
sugar medium - metrio (μετριο)
sugar sweet - gliko (γλυκο)
milk - may gala (με γαλα)
vanilla ice-cream - vanilla pagoto (παγωτο)

This is pretty much it for the Greek coffee system, so I hope you aren't the type who gets a Grande Latte Extra Foam Four Shots of Vanilla in a Venti Cup Type- Starbucks Lingo.

I think everyone should learn a little Greek

Obviously if you don't want to learn Greek then you don't have to read this blog entry.

So today I thought we would do a little grammar lesson.

When you come on your Ταξιδι (trip) to my σπιτι (house) you will be coming to the town of Καλαμπακα (Kalampaka) where the Μετεορα (Meteora) rocks are.

The Greek language does not have a B in it, the β you see sounds like a V. So in order to make a B you combine the Greek letters (showing upper case and lower case together) Mμ (Mm) and Ππ (Pp), they also do not have a D, the Δ you see sounds like th. So to make a D you combine the Greek letters Νν (Nn) and Ττ (Tt). So if your name was Braden it would be spelled ΜΠΡΑΝΤΕΝ. p.s. the P is a R so my name is spelled MAPA.

What is the proper spelling of where I live when translated into English from Greek?

You may wonder why I am doing this and it is to help me, the more I write it down the better I understand it, so thank you for going through my Greek lesson's with me.

I think everyone should learn a little Greek

When you come on your Ταξιδι (trip) you will be coming to visit me at my σπιτι (sounds like spi-ti, means house).

I think everyone should learn a little Greek

When you come out here for your trip you will be going on a Ταξιδι (sounds like tax-ithi, the th hard sounding like a d)

The History of the Galopollo

I was admiring the view of Meteora.
When a man started chasing me.
I got caught and he hung me upside down.
Then he slit my neck, someone else will have to take over the story.
Arthur and I watched as Kostas defeathered our feathery friend.
I cleaned the rest of him up and put him in a salt brine bath.
Then I cooked him, nice and tender
We put him on a plate with stuffing, potatoes and gravy.
Arthur had a plate full.
So did Nick, Mara and Katerina.
For my first time at cooking a Turkey all by myself, I must admit I did a pretty darn good job. He weighed 7 kilos, about 15 lbs., he didn't take as long as I thought he would to cook, perhaps being a very fresh bird they don't need as much time, it took me 2 1/2 hours.
Galopolla, means french bird, either the Greeks don't like French or they think the turkey sounds like a french person talking, you take you pick on what you think.
Merry Christmas too all !