Lunch with Tom Hanks

Now that would have been a story.

Back to Tom in a bit, but first an answer to something I've been thinking about for a while - does being Greek pre-date Greece, which is only 200 years old? This question was further fuelled tonight watching the film 'the 300' about the Spartans fighting the Persians. Were the Spartans Greeks? Well, indeed they were.

Of course we should really use Ελληνικά, Ellenika, we get 'Greek' from the Romans. Before Greece (Ελλάδα, Ellida) the country, being Greek was all about culture and language. The shared culture dates back to at least 700 BC and the Greek language is the oldest Indo-European language dating back 3,400 years. So in summary as Isocrates said in the 4th century BC “And if a man should partake of our culture, let him be called Hellene”. That answers that then.

Back to Tom Hanks. We went on a day trip yesterday to the small island next to Paros, Antiparos (Anti means opposite). Its a short ferry ride and Anitparos has a reputation of being special, well at least Tom Hanks thinks so as he has a house there. We were hoping for lunch with Tom on Antiparos, but no luck, he wasn't in.

Antiparos is worth a visit it is beautiful, but may have lost some of its rustic charm to fancy shops. Still very nice though. Some piccies, including the lovely Taverna where we had lunch.

Moving day today, we're off on one of our fave ferries, the Blue Star Naxos, to Koufonisia. Koufonisia is an island few people have heard of, and we hope it stays that way. Once last piccie of Paros, the view from our balcony.

More soon

Yamass!

PS

The ferry ride back from Antiparos was entertaining, as Eliison remarked, he drove it like he stole it, as the video she took demonstrates.