Tagged
Turkey
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?
Here’s an interesting question poised to me the other day. If you were having a Christmas dinner, and you could invite seven people, living or deceased, who would you invite and why? Interesting. I started…
What, now the Hagia Sophia too?
It was not three months ago, when writing to express my outrage at the conversion of Trabzon’s Hagia Sophia Cathedral-Museum into a mosque, that I wondered out loud if Sultan Erdogan’s next move would be…
Philadelphia’s Cypriot Society honors Consul General Sofianou at their annual dinner dance
Berlin, NJ – Throughout the evening, Consul General of Cyprus, Koula Sofianou smiled as she reached out, humbly shaking hands and thanking the Cypriot and Greek community of Philadelphia for their continued support and hospitality…
Greek School on Imvros Reopens
Greeks are returning to the island of Imvros where a Greek school has reopened. In 1923, the Greek island became part of Turkey where nationalistic policy slowly forced Greeks to leave by the thousands.
Re-Greeking
From the 1960s through the 1980s, I had a friend once, contrary to popular belief, that came from a very “Greek” family. You know the type – they spoke Greek all the time, cooked Greek…
Balkans: End of the First Balkan War
The Treaty of London, signed by the belligerents in May 1913, ended the First Balkan War. The Balkan League had crushed the Ottoman Empire and sent the borders of Turkey in Europe to the Chatalja…
You Know You’re REALLY Greek When…
You have seen thousands of them on Facebook, websites, and plain paper just being handed around. The “You Know You’re Greek When…” sayings. For example, you know you’re Greek when you have bottles of Ouzo…
Gyro Gyro Oloi
Gyros, shawarma, doner and tacos al pastor all over the world are names used to describe a big mass of meat that spins over open fire on a vertical rotisserie. Depending on which part of…
Pontian Community Celebrates Dormition of Virgin Mary
August 16, 2013 – West Milford, NJ – This weekend, the Holy Institution of Panagia Soumela in West Milford, NJ, will host its annual August 15th festival and liturgy, honoring the Dormition of the Virgin…
Xanthi Redux
Thrace always draws me, its beauty, mystery, and somehow its remoteness and foreignness from the “Heart of Greece” captivates me. Last year, visiting relatives in Kavala, with a zippy car and no obligations my destination…
Ghosts of Smyrna in Izmir
There is something about travel to our lost homelands that creates spectral yearnings in me. I have had the great fortune to visit and to experience nearly every country bordering Greece, or where the Byzantine…
I never made it to Trebizond’s Agia Sophia, at least not in time
I traveled to Turkey a couple of times, always in the thrall of Byzantium yet charmed every time by the kindness and brotherly feelings of Turkish friends and strangers. I think it is important to…
