GREEK COFFEE MAKES ME HAPPY!!!!!!!

“Greek coffee makes me really happy!”

That’s Jesse. Ellie taught Jesse and Meagan how to make Greek coffee this morning and Tina and I are being treated by the newly trained. Newly trained and caffienated to the point of extreme enthusiasm. It is heated in small, long-handled brass pot on a bed of fiery sand (we later feel this heat ourselves on the beach in Larnaka...but that is another story). Then you poor the boiling water directly over coffee grounds in the bottom of a small cup. The finely ground coffee remains in the bottom of the cup, so you must be careful as you drink at the end, or you will end up with the grounds in your mouth.

I drink them on purpose. I love them. That's not good, hunh?

Greek coffee, Cypriot coffee (Turkish coffee if you want to cause a fight around here), is wonderful. I know why it makes Jesse happy. Drinking it gives you super powers. I swear. It’s true. We generally order it "metrio", which means lightly sweetened. Perfection. Not sure how I am going to go back to drinking plain old filtered coffee.

Ellie’s family has been making it forever. Tina fondly remembers her Yia Yia making it for her on her first trip to Cyprus as an adult. She could go all day on that coffee. I can see why.

Today, we go to Lycabetta. This is the place we saw when we were at the Parthenon yesterday on the top of a neighboring hill. But first, as we are getting ready to go, Ellie’s friend Catharina calls and wants to take us to lunch at the Greek Officer’s club. We head our stuffed-to-the-gills-bodies back to our rooms and change into fancier duds…hoping that the walk to the club will give us the strength to eat again.

On the way, we sidetrack into the street with the government buildings. This beautiful street is lined with flowering trees and vines. At each of the government establishments, there is a little guard house outside the gate with a uniformed man on guard.

I took stop motion pictures of the changing of the guard...which I am going to attempt to turn into a video and upload later. It is truly bizarre and amazing so I am hoping I can figure it out.

We eat at the officer’s club and then head out for pastries, which was the real eating highlight of the moment, of course.

 More later on the trek up the hill. I need another metrio before I start that one.

xo,

Kimberley