{"id":555,"date":"2012-07-27T12:31:17","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T12:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/?p=555"},"modified":"2012-11-17T10:26:08","modified_gmt":"2012-11-17T10:26:08","slug":"panigiri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/?p=555","title":{"rendered":"Panigiri!"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, at about 9:45 we made our way to the center of the village of Pollonia to the panigiri (pronounced pan-ah-YEE-ree), which means party. \u00a0It’s kinda sad, but if I’m being completely honest, I’m not sure what the occasion was celebrating. \u00a0In general there are name days for saints, and these are celebrated. \u00a0But, since the flyers were all in Greek we couldn’t figure it out, and it wasn’t in our guide book, so\u2026 \u00a0Anyhow, it was awesome. \u00a0We showed up when the line for food was pretty small. \u00a0We waited and watched all the men cooking the meats on the grill. \u00a0We gathered and paid for our food and then went to find a table. \u00a0I forgot to describe the venue. \u00a0It took place at the playground on the basketball courts. \u00a0There was a stage for music, an open area for dancing, then tons of tables and chairs surrounding the ‘dance floor’. \u00a0So, one of us should have grabbed a table while the other two got the food, because by the time we needed to find a table, tons of people were already doing this and all the tables were full, or reserved. \u00a0We asked some people with empty tables if we could share with them, and we were turned away. \u00a0When we were resigned to hide away on a bench on the outskirts, by where they were cooking the food, a woman approached Seth and offered to share their table with us. \u00a0She went out of her way to cross the sea of tables to invite us, so this was really, really nice. \u00a0When we got to her table, she and her husband kicked their three kids out of the chairs and insisted we sit. \u00a0This was awesome. \u00a0Then again, the kids were probably happy not to be kept prisoner when all the town’s children were running a muck with glow in the dark bouncy toys and play guns. \u00a0We had a great spot where we could see the dance floor and the musicians, and eat with a table. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Milos<\/p>\n

\"Milos<\/p>\n

The food was delicious. \u00a0There were cheese pies, fried fish, meatballs, but the best were the pork skewers. \u00a0Those were so good. \u00a0And of course tons of Fix beer to wash it all down. \u00a0The music started promptly and it was great. \u00a0I think I’m safe to say that it was traditional Greek music, with guitars, fiddle\/violin, bass, but they were all Greek instruments. \u00a0The music was amazing. \u00a0The discordant, twirling harmonies combined with the savory warble of the singer’s voice, and the steady, almost Arabic, beat prompted the locals to begin dancing with their arms stretched wide, dipping to the beat. \u00a0The older men began dancing first, almost in friendly competition with each other. \u00a0Soon the women rushed the dance floor to join. \u00a0The older men held handkerchiefs in order to bridge the gap between their hands with the women. What a wonderfully romantic, and seductive dance. \u00a0We spent the evening drinking and watching the interactions between people. \u00a0It was so wonderful. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Milos<\/p>\n

\"Milos<\/p>\n

\"Milos<\/p>\n

\"Milos<\/p>\n

Eventually a middle aged man sat down at a table next to us with a giant water bottle of what looked like home made wine. \u00a0Eventually he began handing out cups of it to some people behind him. \u00a0Somehow we were left out, so Sloane, with some prodding, ended up asking him for a cup. \u00a0In the end, when he was leaving, he offered the rest of the bottle to us. \u00a0Even though it wasn’t very good, it was so cool to be drinking some home made wine from Milos, that was given to us by the maker.<\/p>\n

\"Milos<\/p>\n

Here’s a sample of some of the music from the panigiri.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/downloads\/milosMusic.m4a<\/a><\/p>\n

This morning we lazily awoke and Seth made breakfast. \u00a0We, then, made our way to the ferry dock in Pollonia to catch a ride to Kimolos, a tiny island barely touched by tourist influence. \u00a0We started to walk up the hill to get to the main village in hopes of catching, what the bus driver called the best beach on the island, which wasn’t accessible by bus, Prassa. \u00a0Boy it was hot today, definitely nineties. \u00a0These uphill walks in the heat have to stop. \u00a0When we were almost to the top of the hill we stopped in to a shop to grab some water, and decided to call a cab. \u00a0Though the cabbie was deft in her maneuvers, it was scary as hell to be in the car while speeding around blind corners on super skinny roads on the side of a mountain, with lots of loose gravel. \u00a0Yikes! \u00a0But, we made it to the beautiful white sand beach of Prassa. \u00a0The water was a little cool, but we were pretty hot, so it was great. \u00a0There were little fishies all over the place, and since the turquoise water was impeccably clear we could see everything. \u00a0<\/p>\n

There was an island nearby, so Seth and I decided to swim out to it. \u00a0That was a long swim. \u00a0It took us at least 10 minutes of continuous swimming to reach the little island. \u00a0We walked the coast a little bit before finding a shorter route back, another long swim. \u00a0Afterwards we dried off a bit and hitched a ride back to the port. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In the evening Seth cooked a dinner of pasta with fresh vegetables, and we hung out till we fell asleep<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, at about 9:45 we made our way to the center of the village of Pollonia to the panigiri (pronounced pan-ah-YEE-ree), which means party. \u00a0It’s kinda sad, but if I’m being completely honest, I’m not sure what the occasion was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,107],"tags":[99,114,105,115,116],"class_list":["post-555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-greece-2","tag-greece","tag-kimolos","tag-milos","tag-panigiri","tag-prassa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1684,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions\/1684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sethandberkley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}