Party at the Taverna

Last night I had a great evening out with Robin, Eileen, George, Oxana, Ioanna, and Robins Greek friends at a small taverna. The taverna is owned by Robins friend Stravos, its a nice little place tucked away on a side street. The evening began with all of us gathered around the table having conversations about various topics some of which were discussing an attempted merger by Aegean Airlines and OlympicAir, another was about programing of control systems used for automated loading of fuel trucks.
Since it was Robins birthday he received some gifts from friends. One of the gifts was from Ioanna and it was a copy of a book she had translated called Bead by Bead. The book goes in depth about Greek Komboloi beads ("worry beads"). The book is beautifully illustrated and reads well as it gives the history of these beads that seem to be used by a majority of the Greeks.

The meal we had at Stravose was an assortment of many home made style Greek dishes. The presentation of the food is basic but the uniqueness of each dish reminds me that I am in a whole new culture. One of the dishes that stands out in my mind was the small fish that were fried and piled up on a serving dish. One eats the fish whole, the bones are so small that there isn't a need to worry about eating them. Along with the food we had some good drinks, mostly wine but we also enjoyed some Geek Tsipouro.

The celebration of Robins birthday along with the company of his friends from the area, and some delicious Greek food was very enjoyable. Our evening ended in the early morning hours, and Stravose was nice enough to offer us a ride back to the apartment. Robin and I climbed into Stravose's small car along with Stravose's daughter and wife as he set out to drop us at our apartments.