Efi is lying in bed sick right now. I think the gyro she had yesterday isn't sitting well, and she woke up in a bad way. Poor girl. She's prone in the bed with her head covered up looking very pale and I don't really know what I can do about it. Hopefully she'll feel better by this evening, but if not she might call our friend Costas and I'll go out with him or something. He's an avid backgammon fan as am I, and I've been playing a lot so I'm hoping I can defeat him. Heh heh.

I read that it snowed in Chicago and further north in Greece it snowed as well. Volos had a steady trickle of rain all afternoon and evening today and as I gaze out of the window it looks as though it could rain again easily. We went to a bar with an Arabian theme yesterday and Efi and I smoked a hukah! Haha. It was extremely light, which is what I've always heard. It wasn't like smoking at all - more like inhaling flavored steam. It was something different. Thannos met us at the bar and we had a couple of drinks before heading home at 1 or so.

I neglected to mention my new years eve in my last post. New years here is like Christmas for us - it's a family holiday. We were in Thessaloniki staying at Efi's sister's place. Her mom is from that city and her grandparents still live there, so of course we went there for the holiday. We arrived at 11 or so in the evening after I had taken a nap. I still wasn't 100% adjusted to Greek time then; waking up early and napping in the early evening was my bizarre schedule.

Her parents were in town for the holiday as well, and that night was the first that I met them. I always have trouble in Europe about when to kiss on the cheek, when to shake hands et cetera. It seems that every country has a different tradition about which cheek to kiss first, how many kisses and so on. So I was all handshakes at first. We had some wine and snacks and sat around while the grandparents, parents and Efi's sister moved in and out of the room doing various chores and whatnot. Efi sat next to me on the couch and her uncle sat silently for the most part across from us smoking cigarettes.

Her father sat down at one point and was talking to me in greek, and Efi's sister Pepi was translating. He could understand english so I responded directly to him which was strange. He was pretty nice. At midnight we all crowded into a small TV room to watch it turn 12 in Athens but we missed it, and made a toast at 12:02 or so. All of the men kissed the women including the awkward American thrust in the midst of this family party. It was a small group and hard to remain inconspicuous.

I'll write about bouzoukia after the family party in my next post.