Tradition...

 Spring has fully blossomed and a lot has happened the past six days. I met old friends and made some new already. I walked on new trails on the mountain with Freeda. I helped my mom dye eggs red. I even went with her to the church for the decoration of the "Epitafios" Christ's tomb, on Thursday night. The church's protocol is as follows:

Thursday night, Christ dies.

Thursday midnight until Friday morning, the women decorate a wooden tomb.

So I went to take some pictures and do a sociological study... The women were really happy. There was a lot of noise. There was a lot of christian gossip about how they did not like the final look of the tomb. Around 3 in the morning I was so bored, I fell asleep on a wooden chair. My mom took pity on me and said we can go now. But on the way home she wanted to see the tomb of the central church. So we went in this church. She found her friends, started helping them with the decoration and I continued sleeping on another wooden chair until 4 in the morning. More christianic gossip about the money spent on flowers. Very interesting. I made a mental note, not to do this ever again in my life.

Friday night, each church takes out it's decorated tomb and they all go around town until they meet in the center of the city. Lots of people, lots of priests, lots of gossip about which tomb is better. Lots of nonsense...

My sister was playing the clarinet in the Philarmonic band for the first time. I couldn't miss it! She was great and the music piece they were playing was exellent. I was constantly worried my mom would burn someone's hair with her big candle. She kept turning round to talk to me and she did not pay attention to the flame...

Saturday night, at midnight it's the ressurection. Lots of noise, lots of people wearing their best clothes. Lots of gossip. We go to the church for 10 minutes and then go for the food. The easter fasting is officially over. We can now eat meat. So we stuff ourselves with a soup called "magiritsa" made of lamb's guts, aniseed and fresh onions. my personal favorite, I just hoped I did not have to eat it in the middle of the night...

I'll skip the church bit and go straight for the food. I had enough religious experiences to last me for many years.

On the bottom line, it was fun doing something with my mother.

Hope you enjoy the photos...