September in Mani....

Skoutari seashore

Written on October 14, 2015

The roots of my family are scattered in the land called Sparta. The land of so fine warriors that their fame lives on for over 3000 years. While Greeks to the bone, people here had always their own way to express themselves, live their life, love, and hate…
My maternal side of the family originates from the place which every Greek highly respects…It originates in Laconian Mani. Although Laconia is primarily an administrative division of the Peloponnese, it is also the land, where the Ancient Spartans had lived.

Linguistically the name Mani comes from the ancient Doric Greek word μᾶνιν (mãnin) meaning 'rage' (Attic-Ionic: μῆνιν) which lead to the evolution of the word Μανίαν (Attic-Ionic: μηνίαν) "Manía" (Μανία), meaning "mania", "crazed with rage" or "wild" which itself originates from the Ancient Greek verb, word "Manîsomai" (Μανήσομαι), meaning to "become crazed" or "full of violent rage". The English word "mania" evolved from this.

It is really difficult to say exactly whose ancestors were Spartiates….except Mani.  There is not even the slightest doubt that Maniots (Μανιάτες), the people of Mani are straight descendants of Ancient Spartiates. After Ancient Sparta ceased to exist, the Spartans still were the best soldiers in the Roman Army, and in the Army of the Venetian Republic…and many, many other armies… Their military skills were always in high demand. Not much has changed in the lifestyle; thousands of years after the Spartans, the villages of Mani still resemble more of the military settlements than anything else, and from the Middle Ages onwards the population had been military like organized with the captain as the highest-ranking member of the society.
Income from land was small and uncertain. Maniots (Μανιάτες)  have to be very creative to survive, and they were. For hundreds of years, they used to be merchants….. pirates.
That way of living had stopped when Mani became a part of an independent Greece…..The Maniots (Μανιάτες) were always ready to bear arms as they held their freedom in high esteem, and were never seen to lay their arms down, especially throughout the duration of the Greek struggle for independence. Greece became again a state because Maniots - Μανιάτες made it possible. 

Military tradition in Lackonia lives on. Men from Mani do not have a problem to do their military service, it is still a custom to be in the military, this land produces also the finest generals of the Greek Army.
Even my two brothers, born in Canada, took one year off of their North American life to do, like real Spartiates, a military service in Greece. Spartans from every continent of the planet keep still tradition going….

Late summer in Gythio …the colors, scents, and flavors of the season which I have never seen in Greece…The most Southern end of European continent happened to be the place I love the most, the place I have in my DNA, the place I feel so much at home…
The sea was close, but it had to be reached by car.  The man I love did not mind to have a small drive south…because Skoutari seashore, every morning was different, the light was different and even the taste of the water….After our long morning swim we used to go for a coffee, and sometimes a small gelato with a lemon flavor, the man I love is so fond of…
Two sets of grandparents were taking care of our sons so we could have another honeymoon after 3 years of marriage…
Love, in every dimension, became even more intense than before…now… that we know one another so well….

Our vacation in Mani, started from an e-mail note from my aunt Eva: “High time to learn how to handle the firearms, take advantage of staying in Mani”. Slowly, I discovered that every adult member of my family not only knows how to handle the firearms, everyone in the family has actually a gun at home, including my husband. This is this maniatiko they have…they feel secure when they have it…To my amazement, my mother, a classical pianist, has learned how to shoot at the age of twelve, and my aunt, the essence of femininity with the face of Madonna, can disassemble the rifle in no time, like an old soldier.
I had no choice, just to learn how to handle the arms. Amused by all that what was happening to me, my mother visited us in Gythio and brought me a box of old photographs. On some, my grandparents – students, a few years after the war, in Paris, entertaining themselves….at the shooting range in Bois-de Boulogne….  this was a fun à la maniatiko…… My grandmother had apparently a great affinity to the rifle and was always shooting with a precision of a sniper. This September it was my time. My father – in - law took all very seriously, and for over two weeks was taking me to the mountains for the lessons. Finally, after ten days, I got it. I could shoot, disassemble the rifle, and put it together… all by myself. Although I missed the targets many times in the beginning, I was not that bad in the end…   I became an old style Maniatissa  -  Μανιάτισσα, a Maniot woman….like my grandmother, like my aunt, like my mother…..



Arrivederci Roma

La Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti -famous Spanish Steps ( the Spanish Embassy is nearby ).
On the top of the photo, la chiesa (a church) di Trinità dei Monti

Written on 29th of  May, 2015

A few years ago I was living and studying in Bologna, Italy, and nearly every weekend I have spent exploring towns and cities of Italia, usually alone, but sometimes with my brothers or friends.

There was only one exception: I liked to go to Rome all by myself....alone.

I have developed a very personal relationship with the eternal city. On Saturdays, early morning, I used to take a train to Rome. With time it became a habit. The evening before the trip, I chose some of my artworks, I believed were interesting enough to show them in the Roman art galleries. Sometimes, I was lucky and sold a painting, or two. Sometimes, for over four or five months nobody paid attention to my work....

I have never stayed in the hotel alone, good Greek girls do not stay in the hotels alone. But, I resolved that problem very easily. My Italian friends in Bologna told me that the best place to stay in Rome, for a girl was....a convent. I got an address, and whenever I went to Rome, I have always slept in one place - in Casa Maria Immacolata, in a convent, in a modest hotel run by nuns, one of the best and safest place on earth to sleep. It is in the heart of Rome, just nearby Piazza del Popolo. I suspected that the sisters were angels sent to Rome to make people happy…

My encounters with Rome were profoundly emotional.  Perhaps, because I was already an adult, an artist painter in making, and I needed a touch of Mediterranean sensuality and sophistication to finish my intellectual structure, I don't know. I used to live in Paris before and never had that kind of feelings, but Paris was a home away from home, I have a family there, my parents studied there, I am a product of French culture, and French is the only language I really know…

With Rome everything was different. I discovered it all by myself. I polished my Italian there and for the first time in my life, I started to feel I was ….an artist painter.

There is a street in Rome which became famous because of an American movie - Roman Holiday. In Ancient Rome it was nothing but famous. There was an open waste-stream in the neighborhood. The movie made Via Margutta fashionable. In our days it is a place where many art galleries are located, and even an Italian movie director, Federico Fellini, used to have his home there.
One day, on Via Margutta, I have seen a young couple, kissing, and realized how alone I was. Because, no matter how comfortable you are with yourself, if you don’t love, you really don’t exist.
From that day on, every time I was coming to Rome, I day-dreamt that I would meet the man of my life. Those dreams were always the same: the prince would be Greek, tall, dark, and handsome…and of course well educated, and fluent in Greek…preferably from Laconia….and I would meet him on Via  Margutta, or Piazza del Popolo, or somewhere else…and… and... Rome did not deliver.
I felt deeply disappointed, and started to dislike the eternal city…..

I met the man of my life in America, he was already in love with me for over a year, when I saw him for the first time, and he was all that I have dreamt about in Rome..... with the family roots in Mani, in Laconia….
The man I love is very romantic and loves Italy, so we go there quite often…
I don’t need Rome for a love scenario now…. although, I enjoy kissing on Via Margutta….

Roma, I don’t expect anything from you anymore, so...addio, e grazie per tutto il pesce*
Till next time…Arrivederci Roma!




*So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish– The the fourth book of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
 

How to arrive in Venice



Venice, Italy

Written on 17th of May, 2015

The man I love takes me to Venezia - Venice, the city I have never visited for longer than 4 days, but I know much better than the city I was born in. I have been in Venice many times: in summers, in winters, with my brothers and alone, and lately with my husband. This is a third time we are going there as a couple…because my husband fell in love with this place. Venice is a city of Casanova, a famous lover, a man who knew everything about women, a city where the Carnival gets a completely different dimension.

If you plan a visit, come to Venice by train, in the evening, as the sun is setting over the water, you will not regret it. Like in a slow-motion movie you will change into an islander, and you will like it. As a matter of fact, you will stop being a person of the mainland, and get a pleasure of using gondolas and vaporettos as the main transport medium.

Venice is a city where a romance is in the air, but you have to be very careful with love. You can lose in Venice not only a lover but entire love you have for another person. This is, this water thing, a fluid, ambiguous environment everybody loves and nobody is sure of...  That is why you have to chase your love in Venice, repossess it, reinvented it, and live it again. The man I love is so sure of our love that he is not afraid to romance me in Venice. He says, he is up to this challenge.

Most visitors amazed by the beauty of Venice don’t even realize that it is a very Greek place. The story and glory of the Venetian Republic started at Bosphorus when a small city on lagoons helped to fight Normans - Vikings who wanted to take Constantinople….
This is how the Venetian Republic established the monopoly to the most profitable sea route in the Mediterranean …the route to Levante - to the East. The trade with East had made Venice extremely wealthy and the Republic started to have colonies on the shores of Adriatic and Aegean seas. They owned a big chunk of Greek Peloponnese, Crete, Zakynthos Cephalonia, and Corfu. The naval and the commercial bases of Venice were very well known throughout the Mediterranean.
Venice - a city-state, became a thalassocracy, a Repubblica Marinara, a maritime superpower. And like Romans before, Venice put big taxes in the Greek colonies, and like Romans before, Venice was taking by force a youth from Laconia, it made up the Republic’s light cavalry – the best soldiers in the Venetian army.

When you finally reach a train station in Venice, descend the stairs to the Grand Canal. Instead of trying the shortest way to the hotel, take the vaporetto the long way around, by way of Giudecca and Dorsoduro, you will see the Venetians coming back home, you will smell the air and hear the water, and then disembark at San Zaccaria, on the Riva degli Schiavoni….You will have to find your way to the hotel….

For a skilled Greek eye, the signs of the Greek presence in the city are obvious. The most prominent are the horses of Saint Mark, which were at first placed on the façade of Saint Mark’s Basilica…Well… they were not Saint Mark’s originally, but belonged to the Hippodrome of Constantinople...and, and during one of the crusades were looted from Constantinople and brought to Venice by Venetian soldiers…Those soldiers were most probably Greeks…

In XV century a miracle had happened in the world… in Venice…. It was called
Le Renascimento - the Reborn. Most of us know the French name of it - Le Renaissance.  It was one of the most amazing and beautiful cultural and social movements of humankind, and it started with the biggest disaster of the Christian world, a disaster of biblical proportions…
The Constantinople was taken by Turks – the barbarians. After the imperial demise of Byzantium, many Greeks rich and poor had found a refuge in Venice.
Those who did not have skills joined the Venetian army and formed a famous five thousand stratioti (from Greek – the soldiers - οι στρατιώτες), the most courageous fighters Venice ever had...

But there were a few people Venice will never forget. First - Anna Notara (Ἄννα Νοταρᾶ) a Byzantine aristocrat, a daughter of Lukas Notaras (Λουκᾶς Νοταρᾶς), the last Megas Doux (Lord High Admiral) of Byzantium. The roots of the family were in Greek Laconia, in Monemvasia  ( H Μονεμβασία). At that time there were fairy tales how rich Notaras family was…. But Lukas Notaras was not only extremely rich, he was also extremely bright. He invested all family wealth in Europe, mainly in Venice. Anna Notara had moved to Venice with her two nieces, 10 years before the fall of Constantinople and avoided the massacre of her family.
She became a center of Greek immigration, a great inspiration, and financial support to Greek artists, writers, and scholars. With a help of a new invention - a Greek press, Greek books were printed in big quantities and the Greek language and learning were transmitted to West. This is how a humanist movement started in Italy. Not only Dante Alighieri and Petrarca knew Greek, but even Bocaccio could converse in our language. He was the one who wrote very naughty stories for adults >Decameron< – which means in  Greek - Ten Days.  A second well known Greek in Venice was Basilios Bessarion ( Βασίλειος Βησσαρίων ) a Greek Orthodox monk, who had tried to negotiate between East and West, between Catholic an Orthodox Christians. He ended up as a Catholic Cardinal and was regarded as an ideological traitor…. Bessarion donated to the Senate of the Venetian Republic 500 Greek manuscripts. Because of him, the biggest Greek Library in the West was created, and it was also the beginning of the first public library, a famous Libreria Marciana.

Finding your hotel at night, in Venice, can be difficult. The streets have no names the way we get used to… Well… they are not named at all…….
You have to assert your way through the maze of canals, and alleys and it is nearly impossible to find the right way. Then stop and see the shadows of old houses, hear the water. And when you are well and truly lost, just ask, someone will point you to your hotel…..It will turn out to be just around the corner.  Open the window in your room and see the lights on the Canal. Unexpectedly, you will feel very hungry, so have a dinner at the restaurant near your hotel, and when maître will suggest a meal and the wine with it… say: YES, because it will be the best meal and wine you have ever tasted….

There were many Greek families known in Venice: The Samarianis from Zakynthos, The Courcumelis from Crete….and then they were brothers Papadopoulos from Corfu (Kerkyra): Nicolas and Angelo. Papadopoulos is the most common Greek last name…but there was nothing common about brothers Papadopoulos. Before Aristotle Onassis, they were the richest in the world…..so rich that the Venetians used to say that “they owned their own wave in the sea”..
In Venice, they became Papadopoli, got an aristocratic title, converted to Catholicism, and started to intermarry with the best Italian families. One of the most famous was a marriage into the Florentine family of Aldobrandini, a family of Cardinals and Popes. With time the Greek genius and good luck had dispersed in between ordinary, but aristocratic Italian genes. There is nothing left from the old Greek Papadopoulos glory...because a Greek soul needs only one thing to survive ...another Greek soul. The Palazzo Papadopoli at Grand Canal is still the best address in Venice, but it is now a luxury hotel. It has made lately newspapers' headlines because a Hollywood star George Clooney had his wedding party there.

Mornings are my most favorite in Venice. After you make love to the man you love, you can hear the increasing noise on the water, then it will stop….It is exactly like the musical intervals, you will wait for incoming sounds and try to recognize them.
Have a room service ….
And because you are a very serious visitor go through your list of “Must See!”
It can be the longest list ever.
Architecture with Gothic, Byzantine and Moorish influences: Doge’s Palace, Ca’d’Oro, Ca’ Pensaro. Which Palazzo is the most important on your list?

The painting on canvas was invented in Venice...
There is also a long list of the Renaissance painters: Da Messina, Tintoretto, Veronese and Titian….Who's work will you see and where?
Do you plan to see Tiepolo in Palazzo Papadopoli? Or, maybe a Peggy Guggenheim's home which is now a museum of modern art….

If you are an artist painter, you will discover in Venice one phenomenal thing: THE LIGHT
It changes very quickly and does not leave you to contemplate the moment, it is as fluid as water, and like water makes you doubt the shapes and colors…

Call for a water taxi and allow yourself to be taken to the canal known as Rio dei Greci (the river of Greeks), it is in the area called Castello. You will find there a church di San Giorgio dei Greci, Saint George of Greeks - OΆγιος Γεώργιος των Ελλήνων. Like nowhere else, you will feel there the spirits of Greeks who have lived and died in Venice.

Then return to the Piazza di San Marco and try to talk to the pigeons….
Have a small walk around, as you wait for a boat to San Giorgio Maggiore and its monastery.
Because, believe me, you haven’t really lived unless you have heard the monks sing….



How to fall in Love with a Greek Man and marry Him...Hints for Greek Girls

Written on 1st of February, 2015

For us, Greeks, getting married is the most important thing in the world, for Greeks marriage means: adulthood, fulfilment, mental stabilization, great togetherness, and in many ways happiness.... Although we, Greeks, like to be married, the process of finding another Greek for the rest of our life is more complicated then a rocket science.

Being a Greek who looks for a life companion in Greece is easy, you just have to find another Greek. It might take time, but eventually you will find the person you want.
When you are born abroad, it is a completely different story. Even if you like your small, Greek community, you meet on different occasions, it can happen that your heart does not want to go anywhere, and waits for another Greek heart, which can be far, far away...

Every Greek couple has a story. Now days the most romantic love stories are born on the Internet. It is the place where the whole world is open, and you can find any Greek you dream of ...theoretically. My three cousins have found their spouses on the net, but it did not work for me, it only made my life miserable for nearly a year.

My older brother Kosta found his future wife on the parking lot of  Rice University. My sister-in-law used to drive an old car, which very often needed a small "push", and one day, my brother helped her to start that car, heard Theodorakis played on the radio of that car, and fell in love with the girl. When he gave her an engagement ring, he also took her to the car dealer to buy her a new car ....but the story had a strange twist. My sister in law, Agathe, revealed that...she has used her mother's maiden name, not her real name, the reason she had driven a creepy car was one: she wanted to marry a man who would really love her. All that because Agathe comes from a very rich family. My brother Kosta was so in love with her, at that point, that he would not mind her being a Chinese Princess. Nothing scared him, he just wanted his Greek girl. Since she married my brother, Agathe drives Porsche Cayenne, a car which never has any problem.... Agathe and Kosta lived a real Greek-Texan Cinderella story before they got married.

My other brother, Giorgos, found his wife in the closet.... literary. He was in Boston, participating in a Greek gathering when he heard strange noises in the closet, near the room he was sleeping. He opened the door and saw a girl sitting between the brooms and the vacuum-cleaner. He asked her why she was there, she told him she was hiding because the company was boring. He had locked the door and sat with Athena for the rest of the party and.... he had never left her after that party. They got married in Summer 2013.

My love story was the most boring. It was actually a set up, one of those set ups Greeks are famous of.. .My husband has seen me in our family movie, fell in love with me and for over a year was asking my brother to set up a randez-vous. When we finally met, I also fell in love with him...

But nobody has a story like my cousin Kalliope. Nobody can even compare the love story Kalliope has lived just before she got married to George. My cousin Kalliope is a classical pianist, a pretty, delicate brunette with a crazy Anglo-Saxon sense of humor. Although an artist, she is generally very pragmatic in her life and counts on facts....Wherever she is, she never answers her cell phone, but expects that we answer ours, when she calls. After she turned 25, she was sure it was a time to find a Greek husband and start a family....
There was one difficulty though, year after year Kalliope was touring a world giving performances, and rarely stayed in one town for longer then 3 days. The place, where she was always very unhappy was Italy, because she was there alone, and working. In November 2012, in Northern Italy, in Milano she stayed in Principe de Savoia, a stylish hotel built at the beginning of 19th century. One evening, before the concert, in the lobby of that hotel Kalliope met a man of her life, and it happened like that: she felt someone was watching her, turned her head and saw a man standing in the end of the hallway, staring at her. When their eyes met, she was struck by the arrow of Eros, a Greek God of Love. The man did not lose the time, approached Kalliope and introduced himself in English:
"My name is George, what's yours?"
My cousin Kalliope immediately remembered that she had a bit strange name for non Greeks, and told the man she would tell him her name, if he would not make remarks how strange the name was... He didn't, instead, he sat on the chair and covered his face with his hands...because unexpectedly he found, what he was looking for: he found his Greek girl.

Nobody should ignore Eros. He is one of the first Gods who came from Chaos and gave the people  an extraordinary energy called a romantic love, but also a sexual attraction and desire. This God is really a wandering fire, which sometimes takes a shape of a man, who has wings and who is an excellent archer; what he creates is essential for our existence. Romans, famous Greek copycats, trivialized the importance of Eros and created their own God of Love - Cupid, a sleazy, little child with the wings and arrows...

So Eros struck George and Kalliope in Italy, in a sad month of November, and created another eternal Greek love.
Next morning Kalliope sent me a message:
"I met a man, he is Greek, his name is George".
When I called her, she did not answer.

A few days after this message she was performing in Rome, George followed her there, went to every concert of hers. Every morning he was taking her for romantic walks.
From Rome Kalliope sent me a message:
" He speaks beautiful Greek, but he doesn't want to tell me his last name, I think he is in Mafia!"

I told my husband that Kalliope met in Italy a Mafia man, and he is Greek. My husband thought for a while and said: "Greeks can easily make money without being a part of a crime organization, if he is Greek, he is not in mafia, there is another catch in that story.."
And it was; George was a Greek-American professional with very good incomes, everybody could find him easily on the net. He just wanted Kalliope to love him for what he was as a man, as a person....
Then Kalliope sent another message:
"He is not in mafia, and I love him!"

The Roman days were over and Kalliope went back to Paris, but not alone, George went with her. They were married one month later, in Paris, in St Stephen's Greek Orthodox Church, two days before Christmas. Everything went so fast that only a few people could attend her wedding.

Those were Greek romance stories happened quite recently in my family. Of course there are many other love stories where one part is not Greek, but those are not Greek stories anymore...