Greece Day 6 Thessaloniki

Today we ventured on a trip that would  take us from Thessaloniki to the Yugoslavian border ( maybe a Little politically incorrect my apologies to Croatians Bosnians Serbian, Scopians and the rest of the Baltic nations).

We started our day with the usual routine you know the one if your been following the blog. So 6.5 hrs later I get my turn to have a shower and we hit the road and pick up Chrissy and Basil. We take off and head off to the first destination which is a 2 hour drive north (or 1 hr Tellie time ) deep int the one of Greece's agriculture centres to see my Dads Thia Effie and cousin Mary who used to live in Melbourne 30 odd years ago. Well can i say it was like going back in time same people different place lots of laughs and Dad still trying to make a connection to Turkey (shot down again by another of his Thais). Thia Effie looked great Mary still beautiful and full of life it was great. Thia Effie made some magnificent cheese pies, Thassolatha (beans) and Passtitso well can i say hooray for real provincial style Greek food. If the Greeks want to pull them selves out of the proverbial export that. After lunch we we served the fucoffee and left, great to see them both, this day i feel is going to be a beauty.

We head out to town called Polykastro which is the main centre for my Dads province (sounds like we are France, believe me nothing like it, I saw a Donkey wink at me) we meet up with Dads Thia Stella and Theo Spiros, I didn't know I had so much family over there truly wonderful people. I have to tell you we sat down me not understanding a word of whats going on having to get Basil to translate everything ( I think Dad only understands every third word ) we started off by having Syporo which is the very fist bit of alchol that comes out when making Ouzo. Every body was mixing it with a little water, i thought why spoil it so I proceeded to drink this fire water straight, well once you start it's like eating a really hot chili, pride takes over and you stupidly ask for another, thank God for beer the that came out shortly after the second and doused the flames of pride. All of a sudden the food comes out it was like one of those Roman Processions with trumpets. Can i say, no I will say it was the greatest stuffed green peppers and stuffed tomato's i have ever had, and right then i herd the angles sing as they brought in the Spanikopita and Tiropita OMG ( mum are you still with me ) Thia Stella makes the greatest Pitas I have ever had in my life, none of this bought Philo homemade Philo as thin as tissue paper all made with the freshest olive oil from there own trees ( I know Lee Lee another gastronomic tour) well after the Syporo and beer we started on wine, well the look and words i got from Tellie. "If you have ouzo you can have beer and not wine if you have beer you can have ouzo and not wine", well for people that know me there are no rules to drinking if you want wine then drink wine or ouzo or beer or all three at the same time. It was amazing to meet these people that are my blood relatives that I never new existed but some how connected with, it was time to leave and it was a very emotional farewell.

As we say goodbye Tellie asks for directions to where Dads village was, go straight ahead turn left at the fig tree then turn right at the olive tree with 4 branches not the one with 5 or you will end up in Yugoslavia, and then when you see the slightly used goat turn right and you are there. 

Well growing up with all these stories of Dads dog Jacko fighting of Wolves and carrying water from the spring down from the mountains ( I've had bigger pimples on my nose than those so called mountains and the only animals we saw were that slightly used goat which I think is more than slightly used its done a few Kms and some really vicious looking frogs, I forgot to ask dad how Jacko went with the frogs ) well I finally got to see them mountains, I suppose as a 9 year old boy they would like Everest, it took us a while to find the right area as they have removed most of the houses and re routed the road but we got there. This is where a bit of me comes from, that's where it all started . Well as you will see from the photos not a lot to see there so we move on to a town which sits 1/2 a Km away from the Republic of Macedonia border which you can see as you turn into the town off the freeway. We get to this town call Exzonov ( i think ) where we start looking for Thia Marys house well after a couple of minutes Tellie starts using the Greek GPS by asking the locals where she lives and they lead us right there . we are greeted at the gate by this lovely women Thia Mary who takes us in with the warmest of welcomes, we all sat and chattered the rest of the afternoon away with a good Greek Coffee on her front veranda, it was now time to start the trip back to Thessaloniki with our good byes behind us and a very unhealthy conversation about the Greeks And Turks with Dad and Chrisy we finally made it to to the suburb where Tellie and Voula live , We come to a  stop at the lights and a Pakistani comes up to clean Tellies front windscreen, but Tellie with out even a smile or missing a beat turned to the man and said i have a very speacial ointment on the windshield and if you put water on it  it will go blurry, so the Pakistani convinced looks at him and says OK and believed every word . We get back home debrief to Voula ,the boys have just finished watching War Horse and its 1.30 am again and Dad and I are off to Istanbul ( or Instabul if your dad) tomorrow. Good night speak to you tomorrow.   

where dads Town was

this is the wolf