Half of Fame Ceremony

Thanks to the magic of Tivo, I watched almost all of the Hall of Fame induction ceremony today.

I was a little underwhelmed by Ricky Henderson's speech. It was nice but there was no third-person references to Ricky this and Ricky that. During the broadcast, MLB Network (which by the way we watch a lot) showed the list of the top five run scorers of all time; Henderson is first on the list of Cobb, Bonds, Aaron, and Ruth. You can argue about Ted Williams, Willie Mays, and others, but you can also easily argue that those five may be the best baseball players of all time.

I also liked that Hank 'The People's Home Run Champ' Aaron got the loudest ovation of the day, save Henderson. And how about Tony Kubek's 'you have overcome' shout out to Hank Aaron? Obviously a valid point to include Aaron with Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson, and Barack Obama - but from Tony Kubek? Who knew?

Great stuff all the way around. We went to Cooperstown 4 years ago, and it's a great trip. It's a great little village in a gorgeous part of New York state.

Last Greek Blog

I forgot to blog about two profound issues that came up on our great trip to Greece.

One is diet and eating habits. It's been common the last 5 or 10 years or so to see articles extolling the traditional Greek diet. When I worked at CSPI the magazine even featured an article entitled 'Zorba the Dietitian." And just last year NPR ran a three-part series on the virtues of the traditional Greek but especially Cretan diet. The gist of all the Greek-diet press was that until recently most Greeks fasted for between 120 and 160 days a year - eating no meat or dairy products - and even when they weren't fasting ate plenty of vegetables, olive oil, fruits, lentils and other non-meat proteins, and very little red meat (some lamb at Easter, Christmas, and feast days).

But recent press has also lamented how fewer and fewer Greeks are eating that way, and we noticed that on this trip. Everywhere we went there were plenty of ice cream novelties, salty snacks, and chocolate bars and pastries on sale, and Greeks are scarfing them up. We didn't notice that many overweight Greeks - nothing to compare to the many overweight folks I run into on the DC Metro everyday - but statistics say that obesity is on the rise in Greece. And in Chania, Crete of all places we saw a few ads for liposuction and the "Crete Obesity Center." To be fair all those ads were in English so maybe they cater to American, British, and Aussie tourists, but it is still odd to even have to think about poor dietary habits in Greece.

The other unexpected dietary issue we ran into was diabetes in Spilia. Both Theo Taki and Thea Toula have type II diabetes, and I did not expect to discuss how Ariadne's pump worked to my relatives there. Granted, Thea Toula is 87 years old, and despite her age and the diabetes looks great and is still pretty active. We ran into her at dinner one night, at her daughter's house, and they were eating a healthy Greek meal of grilled fish, greens, and fruit. My cousin pointed out 'almost no carbs!' But i have to admit, it was pretty depressing to think that folks who have eaten healthy food for 70 and 80 years could still have developed diabetes.

The other hot-button issue we ran into in Greece was immigration. I think at every meal, at least at every dinner, we were approached by an immigrant from China, west Africa, or south Asia peddling bootleg DVDs, trinkets, and goofy toys. We saw the same thing in the Plaka and on the waterfronts of Chania and Nafplio - immigrants selling handbags, statues and art work from China and Africa, and these gelatinous toys meant to look like a splattered tomato when you threw it on the floor.

But immigration was even more prominent in Spilia. My uncle casually mentioned that Spilia is probably a 50-50 village now: 50 percent Greek, 50 percent Albanian, Bulgarian, west African and south Asian. Immigration does not seem to be much of a concern, at least in Spilia. My uncle and cousin stated that most if not all the immigrants become Greek, learning the language and sending their kids to the local public schools, and even getting baptized into the Greek Orthodox church.

My uncle has even built a dormitory behind his house with bunk beds, electricity and running water to house workers who help him with the olive harvest in October and November. My cousin John told us they mainly hire guys from Senegal, give them free room and board in the dorm, and pay them 30 Euros (approximately $45 - not $20 as originally reported; my bad) a month for two months. I may have misunderstood my cousin, but he went on to say most of the Senegalese workers send half of their money home.

My cousin did say that in other parts of Greece, mainly Patras in the northwest Peloponnisos, immigration is a problem. Patras is a port city with ferry service to Italy (and then beyond). There, immigrants from the middle east - Kurds, Iranians and Iraqis according to my cousin, mainly dumped in Greece after being caught in Turkey - do not want to settle down but are in Greece of only one reason: it's a stop between Turkey and Italy and other EU countries. So rather than finding steady employment they often turn to petty crime, prostitution or selling drugs to pay for their passage to Italy.

The changes in diet and the immigrants from third world countries made me change my perspective on Greece. Growing up it was understood that Greece was a poor country. That's why Greeks like my parents left. But while hardly on par with European countries like Germany, France, and the UK, Greece is a relatively prosperous country now. And instead of exporting people like my parents, poor people are MOVING TO Greece. And relatively well-off Greeks are eating more and more like Americans, with a liposuction center in Crete as one bi product.

A few more Hellenic musings

A few more thoughts on our trip to Greece:

• I must look Greeker than I think.  More than half the time when a Greek spoke to me – at the Acropolis Museum, at restaurants, on the ferry boat – they spoke to me in Greek first, assuming I was a native.  Kind of cool.
• One thing that makes me very un-Greek – I don’t smoke. Unbelievable to see how many folks STILL smoke there.  However, that may change.  The week we were there the Greek government started to enforce a new ban on indoor smoking in public places.
• Two of the best things about visiting Greece: unlimited access to frappes, and the little periptero stores on every corner. The periptero stores sell sodas, water, stamps, key chains, newspapers and magazines, batteries, etc. and are everywhere.
• Athens seemed very clean, at least in terms of litter and air pollution. But graffiti has gotten worse, one by-product of the riots in December 2008. And you still see cars parked on sidewalks and all over the place, on curbs, in front of fire hydrants, street signs, etc.
• Driving in Greece was kooky by also fun.  I drove from Chania to Heraklion, and survived getting lost in the latter.  The drive from Athens to Spilia is easy, at least until you get to Tripoli.  That drive is on a modern, 4 to 6 lane highway. But the last 50 miles to Spilia is on old fashioned mountain roads complete with hairpin turns, steep climbs, and crazy Greek drivers.
• We used a travel agent for part of our trip, and it really worked out great.  Our agent - Dina Kastranaki at Fantasy Travel if you're interested - made getting from the hotel in Athens to our ferry boat, our ferry boat to our hotel, and picking up our rental car in Chania and later Athens, incredibly easy (mainly by providing a car service).  She also hooked us up with a fantastic suite - with a nice balcony overlooking the harbor - at the Porto Venezzo Hotel in Chania.
• We didn't have as much luck with our flights to and from Greece.  We flew from Dulles via Paris on Air France, and outside of the excellent food our flights stunk. We had trouble with our seats, our luggage weighed too much for Air France, we missed our connecting flight out of Paris, and AF lost one of our bags.  Last time we traveled to Greece we flew from JFK direct to Athens, and a direct flight is the way to go.  Next time we plan to fly direct to Athens from JFK or Philadelphia.
• Probably the most ironic thing you see in Greece is tourists on package tours.  What could be less Greek than traveling around in a group, doing what someone tells you, going along with everyone else?  I wonder if any tour leader ever tells his or her group “The essence of Hellenism - from Socrates to Kazantzakis to Charisteas - is the exact opposite of what you are doing right now.”

If you are not on Facebook and want to check out my vacation photos you can go to: http://www.me.com/gallery/#100039.  This MobileMe gallery includes video, which will be coming soon to Facebook.

Trip to Ellas

I'm glad to be home after 10 days of vacation, but I still wish I was in Greece. We had a good to great vacation in the motherland, visiting Athens, Chania in Crete, Nafplio for a day, spending 3 days and 2 nights in my mom's home village of Spilia in Messinia before wrapping up our stay with a trip to the Temple of Poseidon on Cape Sounion south of Athens.

Greeks are famous for living in the moment, and I think part of that may be due to Greece being such a tantalizing place. For a small country there is a lot to see and do, 3,000 years of unmatched history to soak up. If you didn't live in the moment you would go crazy in Greece contemplating which site to visit, taverna to eat in, fish to pick out the back of the kitchen to eat, even which relative to visit. So instead of lamenting a wrong choice or bad relative Greeks just live in the moment, reveling in what they have or where they are right now.

Democracy, reason, Kalamata olives, the Olympics, and living in the moment. A great legacy for a great place.

For me, the highlights of the trip were: the new Acropolis museum, visiting my family in Spilia, and Sounion, though it's hard to leave out Greece's two loveliest towns - Chania and Nafplio.

The new museum is excellent. It's a cool modern building just south of the Acropolis and on the edge of the Plaka (our hotel, the Philippos, was a block away). And the inside is elegant which beautiful and dignified displays of the artifacts from classical Greece, topped off by the third floor display of the Parthenon friezes and metopes (the ones not looted by "Lord" Elgin). A wonderful, beautiful space filled with the building blocks of western civilization.

Spilia, for a small village, is a charming place.  All four of us had a good time there but the kids especially enjoyed that part of our vacation. The good karma and affection from our many relatives - 4 surviving aunts and uncles plus countless cousins, second cousins, and I think some third cousins - is beautiful and palpable. And since no one there speaks English it's a great place for me to practice my Greek. Both Ariadne and Evan understand a little Greek, but despite a real language barrier our kids got along great with their Greek relatives.

They also enjoyed visiting the family farm, checking out my mom's portion of the family olive grove, and picking fresh fruits and vegetables from my uncle’s garden. Our first day in Spilia we ate at my uncle's house, and except for the spaghetti they offered as part of the kids' meal everything they served - the roasted chicken, the Greek fried potatoes cooked in olive oil, the Greek salad, feta cheese, olives, greens, bread, wine, watermelon, and cantaloupe were all home made/home grown/home cooked. To call my uncle’s family locovores would be an understatement.

Finally, wrapping up our trip with a visit to Cape Sounion was both magical and fitting. Though it’s on the water, the cape surrounded by mountains AND oceans, and is topped with the Parthenon-like Temple of Poseidon. We were there at sunset, and it's a stunning site at that time of day. For me, Sounion IS Greece: mountains, ocean, temples, and stunning. I’m ready to go back right now – pame!

I'll share some more random Greek observations soon.