Blog 1 Revised: A Lesson from Greece

It’s funny how much of our lives are centered around food. It is scientific fact that we must eat to nourish our bodies and to stay healthy, but meals have become so much more than just life sustenance. Scientific necessity has created focal points in our days in which we eat food. As Neanderthals we could only experience food as life or death fight, but after thousands of years refining our meals, we as modern humans enjoy something our distant ancestors likely could not even dream of. A meal is an experience. Now, a meal is where bonds are made and strengthened, children learn traditions of their family, and people please their senses. It is by all this that food is a celebration. It took a trip to Greece for me to realize this important lesson.
As a proud Greek American and Greek Orthodox Christian, I leapt on the opportunity to travel to Greece the summer before I began college with other Greek Orthodox teenagers from across the United States. For three weeks we learned about the cornerstones of our heritage and our faith, then traveled to see them and to experience centuries of tradition first hand. I have always been very active with my Orthodox and Greek activities, so before I departed on my second trip to the “mother land” I thought I had a fine grasp on the culture. My previous trip had been 4 years earlier, before I started high school, and I knew that I would appreciate my trip in an entirely different way.
Before we boarded the plane to Greece I was reunited with good friends from Florida and made new friends from Kansas and California. The flight was a rush of introductions and the rapid early bonding common to the Greek race. As I walked out of the airport in Athens, I was already beginning to feel at home and knew that I was going to have an unforgettable experience. The bonding continued as we traveled to the camp grounds where we stayed. As strange as it may seem, we ate our first meal at McDonalds. Despite a considerable lack of sleep, I enjoyed this McDonalds meal more than any other of recent memory. Compared to airline food we might as well have been eating at a premier steakhouse. As a zombie-like horde of Americans, our connection rapidly increased as we took this all too familiar break from travel.
At the camp, our days were busy. We split up and went on various activities throughout the day. We constantly had something to do (except during siesta), but to eat food we set aside time when everyone was together. Though expected and routine, group dining facilitated a majority of our experience. With the Ionian Sea in the background, together, we anxiously anticipated the mouth-watering Greek dish that would come out of the kitchen each day, and, together, we enjoyed each one. Tender lamb served with soft potatoes took no getting used to. Gyros do in fact taste better on the beach at night. We bonded over our undeniable love for everything Greek. Though repetition in meals is something one might avoid on an abroad experience to receive a more full taste of the cuisine, the same daily appetizer could never have been refused or questioned. Feta cheese, Greek salad (tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions), and fresh watermelon unlike any I had ever tasted became more delicious each day.
We quickly found that everything in Greece tasted better than it did in the United States. The milk in Greece produces unbelievably full, smooth tastes. Fruits and vegetables were bursting with more flavor and juice than most Americans could handle. Watermelon there made watermelon in the States taste like plain water. Regional olive oil on bread made every other oil seem like frying oil from a fast food chain. Even Coke, beloved Coke, tasted better across the globe.
Meals at the camp were wonderful, but meals as we traveled left little desire to accomplish more in life. We traded a camp ground for a cityscape. Each meal became an urban escape. In the city of Patras, we ate a rooftop dinner overlooking a sunset behind mountains above an inlet over which the world’s longest suspension bridge loomed. The atmosphere was filled with good feelings and our stomachs were filled with good food. We ate and celebrated the night and our fellowship. After I finished my food, I started to look around, and thought, “How beautiful is that sunset?” Then came, “How beautiful is this coke?” There was only one logical action to follow those thoughts. I ran the balcony and told my friends to take my picture. The picture embodied my mood, which was even greater than any coke commercial which I tried to mimic could have been. I was enclosed by everything good in the world. Great friends, great food, great environment, no worries. I had never enjoyed such a fulfilling meal.
My favorite meal came a week later on the Island of Aegina on the last day of our trip. We traveled to the coast to shop and dine after visiting the monastery of St. Nektarios. Given three hours before the ferry left for Athens, we embarked on a journey to find the optimum restaurant. As predators on the prowl, we combed the streets and alleys along the coast. At last we encountered a fish market alley, sat at the closest restaurant, and immediately ordered mezethes (tapas). Exhaustion from three weeks of travel had taken its toll on everyone, yet we gathered in our travel group around the same substance that our ancestors gathered around thousands of years ago. Our group was the smallest it had been, but we had each other, best friends, and a beautiful environment: the sea on one side, seaside shops on the other. As we ate grilled octopus, calamari, smelts, and shrimp fresh out the ocean, we reminisced and celebrated the lives we had. This was no meal but a feast of triumph. Over the course of three weeks we had gone from total strangers to best friends in a gorgeous environment celebrating a vivacious culture. What extra time we had, we relaxed as close to the sea as we could be and enjoyed extraordinary ice cream.
Greece taught me the power of food. It is designed for pleasure, but it unites people anywhere and anytime. It has the power to please people around the globe. Meals are a celebration of the food you are eating, the company you are with, the place you are eating, and the fact that you are alive to eat it. Meals are a break from my day, though I may only get two a day, but I will always spend those two times celebrating my life and the food I’m eating. A day lived without this joy is not a day at all.