August 15 Greek Fest

Friday evening:  Having never been to Greek Fest before ... man! Did I get the surprise of my life tonight when I drove from Montague to Holy Trinity. 

Okay--here is what I had pictured: their church parking lot transformed with tables of Greek food, and probably a stage where the children would be dancing and where Greek music would be playing, and I figured it would be full of people (perhaps a few hundred), I would easily locate Dylan and Kelly and kids ....  probably parking might be difficult to find, but no big deal.

Oh.my.word. Was I ever OFF. Completely.

When I approached the site from Michigan, getting close to Lakeside, traffic was at a stand still! Cars everywhere! Throngs of people walking from every direction towards the Festival. I drove up and down through parking lots without finding a parking place, so I turned back on Lakeside just as someone was pulling out right close to the church parking lot. Voila!

Holy Trinity's parking lot was completely fenced off. Multiple huge white tents were sheltering tables and chairs and people eating ... and the lines to get food wound around and around and around! There were not hundreds of people ... there were a couple of thousand people! 

I didn't take many pictures--mainly because it took so long to find Dylan and Kelly and the kids that I was too exhausted to care about pictures! 

Aidan found ME and helped me find Dylan and Kelly. Kelly was at the book tent selling items and Dylan was with the kiddos getting them fed and taken care of that way. Cal asked me to stand in line with him to get some donuts, only they weren't donuts but were a yummy sort of Greek pastry. So we stood in one of those very long winding lines ...

Little Cal was being a Wise Guy when I asked him to smile so that I could get a nice picture of the two of us reflecting in his balloon ... hmmm.

After getting Cal situated with his "donuts", I got into another LONG line to get a GYRO which was especially yummy.

My friends, Victor and Julie, go to the Greek Fest every year. Victor's mom was born and raised in Greece and Victor still has many family members who live there. Julie has a few Greek relatives too. They are both great chefs and Victor especially loves Greek food. I was able to introduce them to Dylan and Kelly!

It turns out that Victor (a former middle-school math teacher from the Chicago area) substitute teaches in the same district as the kids! He even remembered Brendan, and Brendan remembered him!

I didn't get any pictures of Julie in these shots--but she was at this table during the discussion with Victor, Becky, and Dylan. Victor was speaking in conversational Greek and even told a few jokes to test Becky's expertise in the language. She enjoyed this very much, but admits that since no one speaks Greek on a regular basis in her family, she is a bit rusty.

I am glad I finally made it to a Greek Fest. Wow. What a party. !!!