Athens Part 2: Grandmas Rule!

So, we were still riding along through Athens with our grandmotherly guide when her monologue turned to Greek Grandmas.  And I have to give it to my best friend “Joanie the Greek”, as it must be in her blood!! Truly...

See, Joanie is the perfect Grandma.  She has babysat for her granddaughter Annie from birth -- nearly everyday and even overnight!  And she ALSO babysits regularly for her two grandsons, who are 2 and 1!  She is known as Grandma Yia Yia which actually means “Grandma Grandma Grandma”, since Yia Yia means Grandma!!  And her children all live within a half mile of her, come over to her house every Sunday to watch football and eat Sunday dinner-- and if Sunday is inconvenient, they come for dinner some other day!  Joanie, a retired first grade teacher as well as a gifted teacher, teaches her grandchildren from birth everything they need to know through high school--and laughs at them and with them all the time.  The kids have bedrooms with toys piled high at Joanie’s house.  And she doesn’t mind if they get paint on something or drop clay on the carpet!  That’s the perfect Greek grandmother. And Joanie happens to be the best sister to her Greek brother as well.  He lives in Minnesota, so Joanie calls him at least once a week, and maybe more than that.  That’s definitely Greek also!

How do I know?? Well, again, our guide speaking; “ Greek grandmas love their families beyond reason.  They take care of their grandchildren from birth until marriage, while their children go to work.  THey would never hire a babysitter or let ‘foreigners’ take care of their children (and by foreigners she means anyone who is NOT family!).  So Greek grandmas take children with them shopping, never take vacations without their grandchildren--and they are never happier than when their entire families from aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, great grandmas, great grandpas are all together eating and laughing.”

To show you Joanie’s “Greekness”, she asked me to bring her dirt from Greece for her and for her brother Johnny ,last time we were in Greece.  We didn’t get dirt, but we did bring her some bottled water with a Greek label from the ship.  Apparently, the ship had picked up water from a Greek company when docked sometime.  Well, when we gave the water to Joanie, she called her family together in a circle.  They EACH got a small jigger with water, drank it all together, with a Greek flag present and danced and sang the Greek national anthem.  That’s my friend Joanie.

So this time we couldn’t stop in Greece without getting the proverbial dirt from their homeland.  We are surrepticiously sneaking two vials of dirt in our suitcases for our Greek friends.  And Joanie the Greek has a plan--of course.  She has seeds from her Grandma (another of those famous Greek Grandmas!) that she has saved for 20-30 years in a paper towel.  And she and her brother are going to plant Grandma’s seeds in the dirt to see if they will sprout.  Now she doesn’t know what kind of seeds they are.  I told her they could be “Jack in the Beanstalk” seeds and her granddaughter might climb them to the clouds and meet her great-grandmother and want to stay there.  But Joanie is willing to take the risk.

Joanie’s comment to me: “If the seeds don’t sprout, we’ll know it wa Turkish soil, not Greek.”  So just to be certain it’s Greek soil (all Greek and nothing but Greek) we are picking up dirt from 3 Greek islands as well as Athens.  Then it’s not our fault...