Sunday Afternoon in Portaria

The winter here has been very mild. As we often do, one Sunday afternoon last month we took a walk in Portaria to one of the playgrounds. Above, you can see Damiani in her all-terrain stroller as we walk along the village's cobblestone paths to the playground.

Here's Damiani enjoying the swing.

And the triplets on the merry-go-round in their superhero outfits.

And here we stopped for lunch at one of the village's gyro/souvlaki shops. Damiani is acquiring a taste for tzatziki and other Greek cuisine from an early age.

First Visit to the Athens Zoo

At the beginning of the New Year, we had to go down to Athens to the American Embassy in order to arrange all of Damiani's paperwork. We then spent the afternoon at the Athens Zoo, which was fantastic! I admit that my expectations were pretty low, but it truly is a great zoo with a lot of interactivity with the animals. There is a bridge through the giraffes' land and, as you can see from the photo above, they like greeting the visitors. If you look closely, you can make out Pelagia and Benny. They finally even got to pet the giraffe's nose.

Another highlight was the lemur section. The whole area is caged, and the people go into the caged area with the lemurs. They jump all around the people. One came and crawled on my arm, which the kids loved. He then suddenly leaped off my arm, did a hop off the top of Phoebe's head, and sprang back up into a tree. The kids really enjoyed that!

They also had an excellent show involving birds of prey, as well as a dolphin show. Above, you can see the kids goofing around with the fake alligator outside the reptile house.

They're now adding a large hall for dinosaurs skeletons and digital dinosaur exhibits. It's expected to be completed by the fall, but in Greece nowadays you never know what that means. Anyway, the kids want to go as soon as it opens.

Family Photos

Shortly after Christmas, we had a local photographer take some family photos out in the courtyard of the church and our house.

We had some photos with more formal dress...

...trying to capture at least one good one where everyone was looking (good luck!).

Here's little Damiana.

And then we let the kids wear whatever they wanted, which meant the boys were sure to be superheroes. This photo was taken just outside our Chapel of St. Anthony.

Here are the two sisters.

And here's one of all of us in the stairs and ramp from the church up to the bell tower.

And here's a nice photo of Phoebe.

For more photos, click here.

Christmas Morning in Portaria

Christmas morning began, like almost all parishes in Greece, with Orthros and Liturgy from 5:00-8:00 AM. After the Liturgy, the kids were ready to open presents!

Of course, in Greece, Christmas hasn't become (yet) the commercial holiday it is in the US. Traditionally, presents are exchanged on St. Basil's Day (Jan. 1), but nowhere near the scale as in the US. But things are changing, and many of the western Christmas/winter holiday customs are coming to Greece. We celebrated a more "American" Christmas with moderate gifts for the kids.

Among their favorites were knight costumes for the boys, and a handmade Snow White outfit for Phoebe, from yiayia.

Here they are in their new outfits in front of the fire.

Damiani mostly watched and chewed on ribbons.

The Kids' School Christmas Party

At the holidays, schools in Greece tend to put on events in which the younger kids recite poems or sing songs related to the holiday.



Here's a video from the sketch and poems our kids did just before Christmas at their school.

Visit to the Christmas Village in Trikala

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I have a lot of catching up to do! I've been swamped since the Christmas fast, and I just now have some time to catch up with photos and the blog. So here goes. This is from back in December, when we took the kids to the Christmas village in Trikala, which is just south of the famous monasteries of Meteora.

We'd heard good things about this annual Christmas village, and I must say we weren't disappointed. Although it was 1.5 hours away, it was worth it. We combined it with a visit to Trikala's small zoo, which was only 5 minutes from the Christmas park. Overall, we were very impressed with the mountain city of Trikala, which is amazingly clean and well-organized, especially in comparison to most Greek cities. The city underwrites the Christmas park, which means that it has lots of free or very reasonably priced activities. Above, the kids did the tea cups.

Here, I took them on the ferris wheel while Pelagia and Damiani took photos from below.

This was one of their favorite parts.

As you can see from their expressions.

Bumper cars.

And, finally, after much talking about it, they got to meet St. Vasilios (who, in Greece, is usually identified with the western figure of St. Nicholas or Santa). They were pretty shocked when they first saw him, but eventually they recovered enough to have a photo with him.

Another highlight was the trampolines, for which we had to wait "in line" for quite a while. I put "in line" in quotes because we were frequently cut off by Greeks, who, generally speaking, think that lines are for suckers.

Face painting: Paul wanted to be Rudolph the Reindeer.

And Phoebe got a wintery snowflake design.

And, finally, the traditional merry-go-round.

The kids had a great time and I'm sure it will be on the list of things to do next winter.

For more photos from the day, click here.