Opa! Carnival is here!

This past weekend was the last weekend for the celebration Carnival! In summary, it is a celebration to get all the "crazy" out before Lent begins. With a lot of people gone for the weekend, there was only a small group of us who went into Athens to take part in the festivities. Three of us had been galavanting around Athens all day, so close to 8pm we met up with Mama J & Dr. J. In Athens, carnival mostly consists of people of all ages dressing up in weird, or not-so-werid costumes, goofy hats, or masks. You then proceed to walk around the streets of Athens throwing confetti in people's faces, spraying shaving cream on them, or the most common, hitting them with a plastic bat. As we would say, it's all very GREEK! Randomness at it's finest. We also met up with Deano, our friend and preacher from the congregation we attend, and he took us to a greek taverna. Greeks eat very late at night so most people go to eat, but we just sat and waited for the entertainment to begin. We saw many folk dances, heard many songs, and got to just see a lot of the Greek culture. It was so much fun! We even got to go up on stage and do the traditional Greek dances with them! We had no idea what we were doing but it was a lot of fun. Speaking of, this week the whole group is learning some Greek dances. A teacher is coming to the Artemis (our house) to teach us! So we were at this taverna till close to midnight and as we were walking back to the car we continued to get confetti thrown at us - and do the same to others! It was such a great night. Today is "clean Monday". All the stores are closed and most people go out to fly kites (no one knows why...) but its raining as of now so hopefully it'll let off so we can enjoy the traditions of clean Monday! Opa! Opa!