Block party in Monopolata

This is the first installment of our new series, AC/PC.

Peter's comments will be bullet points; Drea's will not.

Our first installment takes us to the Friday night party in Monopolata. I was nervous. Super nervous. Our hosts, Marika and Gerasimos, had invited us the day before. We accepted immediately as it sounded fun. But then I got nervous. I've never been to this kind of party before. What do I bring? What do we say? What do we do?

• Arrived at the end of the given time span (8:30 - 9:00), was too early.
• Location is a community center/tavern that is just starting to open for the tourist season.

Literally a 1 minute walk from the house. I was slightly confused originally when Gerasimos told us where to go. He said, "you know the <insert greek word I dont' understand>?" as he points just past his house up the street. I usually just nod, smile and say yes to everything he says. I got the general idea it was at the little plaza up the street. Well that was 50% correct. It was at the tavern I didn't realize was even there across from the plaza. I only knew we were in the right spot because (1) I could smell food and (2) Gerasimos dog, Kanela, was outside. 

• Ate dinner before arriving, because parties that start at 9:00 PM don't have dinner, right?

Well we ate Meze. I figured there would be food at this "party" because, well Greeks. But I didn't know if it would be dinner, snacks, drinks, etc. Eating ahead of time was completely and entirely unnecessary. 

• We're given soft drinks to start (Greek soft drinks, of course).

One of the local kids, in his very limited English, asked us would we like something to drink. Not sure what to do just yet, I asked for water. His English did not extend to knowing the word for water. My Greek did not extend to knowing the word for water. We had Greek Fanta instead. 

• People slowly trickle in over the next two hours. About 25 people total. We're the only xenos.

Everyone here was connected some how, even us. Let's see if we can find the common thread...

We rented our house from Spiros. Spiros' parents, Marika and Gerasimos, actually own the house and live next door. Spiros is in Berlin, so really we are renting from Marika and Gerasimos. 

At the party, we meet another Spiros, Gerasimos' best friend. I asked if Spiros (the son) is named after Spiros (the friend). Yes, his godfather. Of course. Spiros (the friend) is over frequently at the house visiting with Gerasimos and Marika. Apparently they have parties at each others houses several times a week. Party animals. 

Gerasimos cousins were there I think? Maybe two of them, I'm not sure their names. 

There are the owners of the tavern, Christos and his wife (not sure her name either). His wife arrived later, we recognized her immediately as she works at the supermarket in Lixouri. Her sister is married to Gerasimos other son (not Spiros -- Vangelos I think?) who lives in Rhodes and is coming to visit next month with Gerasimos and Marika's first granddaughter. 

• Background music that is similar to 1920's American jazz plays (but it's Greek music, notice a theme?).
• Someone swats at a fly with an empty beer bottle and nearly breaks one of the windows. Everyone thinks this is hilarious and not at all alarming.

HA. That was Spiros and it was hysterical. There was a small ledge behind the window. He didn't realize the window was closed (probably due to the number of beers he'd had) and tried to put the beer bottle on the ledge... 

• We shift to the wine we brought, not realizing it was a bit of a faux pas to bring your own drink. Everyone else had drinks from the bar.

Oops! Again, wasn't sure the social norm but knew coming empty handed wouldn't be appropriate (or at least I wouldn't feel right not bringing something). When we went to the winery, the wine guy told us to bring wine. 

• A spread is laid out: Greek salad, bread, feta, a baked cheese dish.

SO MUCH FOOD.

This but repeated at every table about 10 times. 

• Then platters of pork and lamb are brought out. The lamb is exquisite.

DELICIOUS. 

• Our (wonderful) host makes sure we know which foods are which and that we are welcome to partake by picking cuts of meat up with his bare hands and putting them on my plate. Weirdly, I don't even mind.

I could not stop laughing when this happened. I remember my Mom was mortified in that scene from MBFGW when the Greeks are using their hands to give food to the xenos. And then here we are, Greeks literally handing food to the xenos. 

• The musicians start playing. It all sounds the same to us.
• A couple close to us has Amstel bottle service, or something similar, and they have freshly opened beer all night. At least 8 (AC: easily more) between the two of them, and each bottle is about a pint and a half.
• Everyone sings. It's tempting to call it karaoke, but that does not quite hit the mark. For the Greeks, times and places to not sing are abnormal. They live karaoke. They all get quite into the singing and gesturing back and forth.
• It's not entirely clear whether they're all singing with, to, or at each other. Much gesticulating towards each other ensues.
• A woman shows up late, and we notice her as the checkout person from the nearby town. She recognizes us too and comes over just to say hi and welcome us.
• Then they start dancing. Most everyone dances at some point. It's hard to establish a pattern in the dancing, but it seems to be mostly determined by winging it and not giving a f*&^.
• Now the dancers are being showered with (unused) white paper napkins. This is a thing, apparently.

Hypothesis - This is because breaking plates is too expensive. 

• The napkins have run dry (stupid limited forests *shakes fist*), but some enterprising patrons have wiped their plastic plates dry and are throwing them into the ring. Now it's a party.
• The napkins are gathered and re-thrown multiple times.
• They want us to dance with them. Drea is up for it, I am not. I cannot describe how not up for it I was. Like, panic attack inducing just considering the question.

• All night, our hosts and other villagers are speaking to us in fractured English and what they think is self-evident Greek. Most everything flies over our heads.
• The first couple leaves, and we see our window to make our exit. We signal we want to leave, but our hosts sit us down and say that we can't leave before the dessert course. It's 1:00 AM.
• They start the dessert right away for us: some salted chocolate oatmeal cookies Drea made, some cinnamon/sugar/semolina thing that was slightly reminiscent of malt o' meal, and a frozen chocolate hazelnut mousse with bits of biscuits inside that's like tiramisu without the coffee and not soggy at all (basically, fixed tiramisu).
• Everyone tries the cookies once they know Drea made them. They are very supportive, appreciative, and hungry. They were all gone fast, and that batch did not even have vanilla.
• All night, Drea showed pictures of her family to everyone. They all seemed to latch onto the concept of family, which part of Greece she's from (the island of Marmara), etc.
• The Greeks know how to live life. They may not be great at building lives, as evidenced by their economy, but they know what to do with what life they have.
• All night they smoke, about half of them. All indoors. Greece has no surgeon general...?

I was surprised and not surprised. We're basically in a rural Greek community on a non-touristy island. I'm sure smoking indoors is probably not allowed but seriously. Who's going to come and stop this party?

• Monopolata is almost a retirement community. It's a tiny village on the sleepy side of a small, out of the way island in Greece. Basically, we found the Greek Sequim, and we could not be more happy about that. We're not technically the age to fit into retirement communities, but whatever. We love this place.
• I had the suspicion from having been around Greeks in Seattle that they were like Mediterranean Hobbits. Seeing them in their element, though, cemented that concept entirely. They have strong family ties that they keep track of closely, they smoke like chimneys, they delight in the making and eating of food, they have strong communities, they make and enjoy alcohol. They're even a little short and hairy, as humans go.

We finally make our exist around 1:30 am, just as a song ends. We stand up, knowing that if we don't commit and just walk out, we'll never get to leave. As we stand up, I grab my sweater and scarf and the plate we brought the cookies on. We have to climb over / around several people to leave and of course say good bye, thank you, etc. One of these people is Spiros (the Amstel drinker) -- in the process of giving him a hug (I've had a fair amount of wine at this point myself), I drop the plate on the ground accidentally and it shatters. Yes, I dropped a plate at a Greek party. So basically everyone thought I was amazing and cheered.

• The plate Drea dropped was from our rented house. When we apologized to our hosts about it, they would hear none of it and thought that was even funnier.