Anyway, back in my office in Cairo, all seems to be quiet again. Our mad two weeks of traveling has come to an end (well international travel anyway) and Mum has headed back home after a rather tough fortnight of dealing with the boys!
Last weekend saw our final bit of overseas travel (for this month anyway). In the wee small hours of Friday morning, Soma and I boarded an Olympic Airlines plane headed for Thessaloniki via Athens to attend the wedding of our long standing friend Matt to his Greek better half. Egypt having changed its hour early and, more specifically not having told the rest of the world about it, we actually landed in Athens an hour later than we thought- good news since we more or less got right onto our connecting flight.
Coming out of Thessaloniki Airport, the place did not seem that impressive. Other than the nice weather and the fact that our driver was smoking like a chimney and playing non stop Bee Gees tracks the whole way, there was little to differentiate this place from Wolverhampton!
Once we got into the city centre, to the Minerva Hotel, that view changed radically. Thessaloniki is a port town with beautiful classical architecture, wide plazas and a long waterfront on which hundreds of small bars and cafes stretch off into the distance. We met up with Matt and some other friends (many recognizable from the haze of his stag do in Munich last year). What a difference a year makes, I thought- none of them were too bothered about heading to a bar. We all opted for lunch and a quiet coffee instead. Was this a new found maturity? Had the fact that two had become fathers brought them kicking and screaming into middle age? No- they had all been out on a bender the previous night and had only got in at 7am!
Soma on the Thessaloniki waterfront- a brief interlude of walking between cafes!
Anyway we wandered through a marketplace to a very small but very good little restaurant recommended by Matt and sat down to one of those long leisurely lunches you’re meant to have in these places. We must have spent hours in the place, picking away at the various mezze, working our way through the myriad film posters on the wall working out which of the classics we’d actually seen (nobody had seen Citizen Cane which confirms my suspicion that, despite it always getting voted the best film of all time, nobody has ever watched it).
Anyway, on to Saturday- the wedding day. As with our own wedding in India there were a number of pre wedding rituals that had to be followed during the day. The oddest of these was Matt getting shaved and dressed by his friends. All of us were crammed into a small hotel room, sipping afternoon drinks with Matt sat in his boxer shorts on a chair being shaved- very odd.
At 7pm we were all suited and booted and were picked up by the coach taking us to the church. We stayed outside the church a while taking photos. Everyone got very excited when Soma came and announced the bride was round the corner meeting her Greek family and friends “and she’s wearing a meringue!” she said to the delight of at least the female contingent. We all headed off to see her and started taking photos until I realized that this was not the Christina I knew- unless she’d put on weight, dyed her hair and more worryingly, shrunk! Indeed this was not Christina, but another newly wed lady who had taken the 7pm slot!
Bang on time we headed inside the church and waited a while taking in the beautifully ornate artwork of the place. Interestingly, although it was obviously a church, it lacked the European feel of a Catholic or Protestant church. This was much closer in feel to the religious places close to our home in Egypt- a useful reminder that Christianity is not a Western religion at all, but one rooted in the Middle East.
Matt and Christina came in together- not a bride being given away so much as a couple presenting themselves before God. The priests came in with them and conducted the entire ceremony themselves. According to the wedding notes, this was because the wedding was not so much a conversation between the couple as one with God- one which only the priesthood could conduct. The ceremony ended with the couple and the priest walking round the altar three times (three times to represent the Trinity, the priest was there to guide them on their first steps in married life) and that was that- hitched!
Matt and Christina being taken on their first married steps by a very large priest- also being pelted by a lot of confetti/ rice.
After a slightly convoluted ride to the reception we arrived at close to 10pm. Food was ready and waiting and we dug in! The music varied from your traditional wedding fare to some more Greek stuff and, predictably we all ended up in a big circle dancing to Zorba the Greek- a huge cliché but a lot of fun!
We headed back at 2am (5 hours before the bride and groom left the building apparently!) and went to bed, treating ourselves the next morning to our first lie in years!
We enjoyed this Greek wedding and the whole experience of Greek café life. However, on more than one occasion we got the sense of time having passed. More than a few people now have kids and Matt, the epitome of the single man, is now married. There were some huge nights out had by some but they seemed be a bit of a last hurrah- two of the protagonists now have small kids and are beginning to realize that screaming babies and hangovers don’t go. Matt I’m sure will be at that stage before long too. This time round we all drank more tea and coffee than beer- seems like the sensible life is upon us!
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