How I spent "Meat Thursday"

 In another one of my entries, I have mentioned the so-called “Meat Thursday” and how we celebrate it by going to costume parties but, most of all, by eating lots of meat! The other day, on the 20thof February, it was meat Thursday, so we gathered at a family friends' house, in order to celebrate.

We stayed there from midday until the afternoon: greek gatherings for a meal or dinner are always like that. First you eat and then you stay at the table for hours, talking about everything: your life, the news, politics, religion, philosophy! You even end up yelling at each other! Once, I have read an article in a Spanish newspaper that was about politics in Greece. The writer began by mentioning two of his Greek friends that were supposedly fighting every time they had a conversation about politics and the situation in Greece. As the article went on, the writer explained how he soon realised that his two friends weren't fighting - “that's just how Greeks talk to each other”. This is true. We can be really loud, especially in such conversations. Maybe it's in our genetics, I have no idea! But, even I, tend to be loud when talking about politics, even though I consider myself to be a quite calm person overall. So, yeah, same goes for family tables or any type of social gathering -we sit at the table until late, having our dessert or fruit, then our coffee and then we just hang out there. This is pretty much what happened on meat Thursday, but I enjoyed it a lot.

We went to their house at around 12:30. They had set a barbecue on the back yard and, since it was a rather sunny day, it was ideal to sit there and help a bit as we were chatting while we were waiting for the food to get ready. There were steaks, sausages and some burgers. Since we were about twenty people, they formed some kind of buffet, so that it would be more practical for everyone to get whatever they wanted. There were hotdog bread buns, as well as round bread to make a burger. There were some bowls of salad, mostly green salads with lettuce etc., as well as the traditional greek salad. There was a variety of cheese (greek feta and a bunch of yellow cheese, like emendal, gouda and kefalotyri, for us to put in oue sandwiches). There was also rice with peas and corn, some incredible fried potatoes and various types of sauce: barbecue sauce, mayonaisse, mustard and ketchup. All foods were delicious and we tasted a bit of everything! As a dessert, there was fruit: mandarins, apples and oranges. On the apples, there was a bit of cinnamon, which made them really tasty and they also smelled great!

After the meal, we all stayed together and chatted, enjoying the sun that was shining on the sky. Let me tell you that many Greek families choose to put on some traditional music and even sing or dance, but the truth is that we didn't do that. I have done this in the past, though, when invited to some other house gatherings. We stayed there until 4 in the afternoon and then we helped cleaning up the table a bit and we went home. The very same night, I was invited to a mascarade party with some friends, somewhat close to my house, in a bar. I didn't dress up, because the past few years I am not in the mood for doing so -although in the past I did dress up every year. What I did was put a funny red headband with two antennas with little hears on the edges -just to accessorize a bit. We had some wine and danced -not to traditional songs, but to modern rock ones, the ones I personally like dancing to! It was a fun night and I enjoyed it a lot.