Tuesday, 10 December 2013

Sunday. December8/2013



We go to the Catholic church round the corner on Chalidon Street. It's Franciscan, like most Catholic churches in the Mediterranean, and an ethnically mixed lot as one would expect in a country that's primarily Orthodox - Philippino, Polish, Italian, etc. The service is mostly Greek but partly Latin with bits of English. One of the Franciscans looks. Lot like our former colleague Ron Skitch. Seems weird to hear Ron talking in fluent Greek, though not nearly as strange as hearing his heavily accented English. 

We're lucky in the Sunday we picked. The second Sunday of each month there's coffee after Mass, and today it has been agreed, for the first time that everyone will bring some food from their own culture to share. It's crowded but friendly. J complements a Polish woman in Polish on her poppy seed roll - as well he should having had three. But there's tons of goodies and everyone happy. We chat with a retired English expat who lives in Plaka, a nearby village. He says there's a large expat community, and in his village it keeps three tavernas running all winter.