new year's eve this year was a little different than normal. considering we're in a foreign country, i guess that was to be expected from the get-go, though.
rather than spending the night at an overpriced bar or club and running around in a tiny dress like most other years, we were invited to spend new year's eve with a few couples from ben's team at one of the cypriot players' homes. yorgos and his wife giota decided to have a small get together with the two couples other than themselves who have daughters (kevin & eboni being one of them), and the two of us. apparently new year's eve is a pretty big holiday here, traditionally more of a christmas, actually, when they give and receive gifts and spend time with family. it was a small gathering that yorgos and giota were having, and benjamin & i thought it was really nice that they decided to include us :)
we got there and hung around for a bit, chatting and enjoying a couple drinks, and then it was time for dinner. oh. my. god. was it time for dinner. let me just preface this by saying i come from a large italian family and i have seen some pretty crazy feasts before. the dinner that giota made for the eight of us seriously rivaled meals that i've seen made for holidays when 20 people were eating. there were pitas with houlomi cheese (AMAZING greek cheese). there were saladS. there were rice disheS. there were veggie disheS. there were meat disheS. and there were dessertS. did i mention there were eight of us? 8.
the thing that made it even more crazy was that the food was unbelievable! and what made me think giota may actually be a robot of some sort? SHE DID IT ALL IN TWO HOURS! honestly, something must be in the water here because it was just ridiculous.
after dinner, we relaxed for awhile playing with the kids and watching the "new year's show." quotes around it because, well, in contrast to the meal, it was subpar. some raunchy greek man singing and gyrating his hips on stage with women in little leather outfits on stage for way too long. the countdown was up in the corner and nothing really special happened at midnight. not quite the same show that we get in the states, but it's okay because my tummy was happy.
there is a tradition in cyprus that a cake called "santa claus cake" is cut following the stroke of midnight on new year's eve. in greek, it's called vasillopita. it's pretty much the same as a pound cake type dessert, in which a coin (they used a 2 euro coin wrapped in aluminum foil so it didn't dirty the food) is baked. after midnight, the head of the house cuts the cake (in our gase, it was yorgos). the first is cut for jesus, the second is for the house, the third for absent family members (still not sure if this means the ones that have passed or literally ones that are just absent at the time), then the head of the house, and then just clockwise around the room. the person who finds the coin in their slice of cake is the person who will have the most luck that year.
benjamin & i decided that it's a pretty neat tradition, and that it might just wind up being one of the things we pick up from cyprus and integrate into our lives. we were thinking about how cool it would be to gather traditions from each of the places we travel to and carry them on once we've gone... a neat way to keep our experiences with us as the time goes by, i think :)
the car ride home was an interesting one. we had followed yorgos to his house, but he obviously wasn't leading us back to ours. one of the other guys there, voulla, took the directions from him and was sure that he'd be able to maneuver back. i'm still not too clear on whether or not voulla was drunk, but with his wife and daughter in the car, i can only hope he wasn't, but his driving wasn't too convincing. i counted three times that we got to an intersection or roundabout when we went in the opposite direction than where the sign said to go to get back to our town. once, we got stuck at a red light that they had gone through, and voulla literally stopped in the middle of the road (a two lane, busy street) while he waited for us to catch up. it was definitely interesting.
at the end of the night, i honestly felt like the new years we had was an amazing life experience that not many people get to enjoy. yes, it would have been easy to find a club offering a special new year's eve open bar or something, but to spend a very important holiday in cyprus with people who live here full time, learning the traditional celebrations was a once in a lifetime.
totally relishing every opportunity to learn more about cyprus culture, and beyond excited to do the same in every other country we get lucky enough to travel to!!
i know it's a bit belated, but i hope the new year is finding everyone else as well as it's finding us... :)
xox k
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