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| One of my favourite things to do is go for a long walk. My grandfather used to walk 6 – 10 km every day, and ever since I first joined him on his walks when I was very young I have also loved walking. It is lovely to see the world around you and notice trees, flowers and birdlife, the little loving and often quirky details people put on their homes. It helps to clear my head and organise my thoughts. I also love singing while I walk along. It’s just a peaceful part of a day, and whenever I get a chance walk, I do so gladly. There are two routes that I like to walk: One is a short 4km route to Grant Avenue, a little neighbourhood road with a series of small shops on it. One of my favourite shops is here, The Lamp Post. It is primarily an antique / second hand shop, but the woman who runs the shop has a knack for displaying things so beautifully, and the staff there are so friendly and chatty that it has become a good way for me to while away an hour or so. The neighbouring coffee shop, Cafe Noble, is also a favourite place of mine, and I really enjoy the outings I take to that little stretch of my neighbourhood. The other route is the route I take far more frequently. I walk all way up my road, continue up the hill to the top of Munro Drive, and then go back down the hill, walk up to Louis Botha Avenue, turn to go around the golf course, and then usually return home (although with time permitting I walk the length of Grant Avenue before returning home). I like this route because it has the incline and decline, and that it takes me past the golf course and you can see the view from the top of Munro Drive, which is a really fantastic one as you can see clear across Joburg. Also, one of Joburg’s parks, The Wilds, runs alongside the road, so there is always a lot of green. On Friday morning, I was running late for my spinning class. It was public holiday, Freedom day, and I was evidently in holiday mode because it took me far longer than I had anticipated to get up and get going. I arrived at gym at about 7:05, and because I hate being late for a class I decided to go for a walk instead, opting for the Munro Drive option. It was a beautiful morning, and I was enjoying the fact that I was really quite alone of the roads apart from a couple of cars and a few joggers. Going up Munro Drive, I was breathing in the morning air and enjoying the walk. Suddenly, I noticed some movement. A man was climbing over the short wall to go into the park, but he seemed to be staying on my wall. He was obscured by tree branches, but I had a feeling he was watching me. I didn’t have any valuables on me, but I still felt extremely uneasy. I decided to avoid him and so I crossed the road to the other side to avoid him, and had started to go back down the hill, when he crossed the road holding an empty green glass alcohol bottle. As he walked towards me, he smashed the bottle of the road, and then continued holding the jagged broken edges towards me. At around that time, someone walked down the pathway by the brick wall behind me and yelled something to the first guy, who responded to him. He continued walking towards me until he was less than a meter away from me. I can’t remember anything about him, apart from his eyes. His eyes had an indescribable expression in them, something like rage. At that moment, I knew he wanted to hurt me. The worst part is that at this point of the road, there are no neighbouring houses, so I could have screamed until my lungs had burst and no one would have heard me. There were no cars on the road driving past. It was literally me, the man brandishing a broken bottle, and another man. These pictures show Munro Drive. The wall going into The Wilds is on the right hand side. The man was right at the edge of the wall under the branches, and so was relatively hidden (the section of wall where he was hidden is more or less where the white car is in the second photograph). If I hadn’t seen his movement, I would have walked right past him there and he could have pulled me over the wall into The Wilds. I then crossed the road, and walked towards the brick wall on the left. There is a pedestrian pathway alongside the wall, so that pedestrians can skip out a section of the road (they pretty much end up where the pedestrian in the first photograph is walking). This pathway is the route that the second guy took, which is how he ended up behind me. There are no neighbouring houses, and on Friday morning there weren't any cars.
 
But then, an extraordinary thing happened: the second man started throwing rocks and sand at him. He was yelling at him, and obviously something about the second man scared my would-be attacker away and he ran up the hill, followed closely by the second man. I didn’t wait to see what happened, and turned and ran as fast as I could down the hill until there was a house close to the street. My heart was beating so fast that my chest was hurting. I knew that somehow I had escaped some horrific experience, but at that point i was shaking so much that I couldn’t even think straight. I wasn’t sure whether I should keep running and risk being overtaken by my would-be attacker, or stay at this random house where at least there were people who could hear me scream for help. Because I was shaking and I saw that there was also a guard hut inside the garden of the house I had stopped at, I opted for the second option. The second guy came power walking past. He spotted me clinging to the gate of the house I had stopped at, and paused to ask me whether I was okay. He seemed concerned, and something told me I could trust him. I asked him for his name, which is Bulisane, and just kept thanking him over and over again. He made me feel safe enough to leave the house I had stopped at, and I power walked with him to the gym where my car was waiting. Along the way, he told me a bit about himself, and after the fiftieth time i thanked him, he told me that this is what he does: he doesn’t fear being hurt, so he steps in whenever he sees a crime like that being committed. He lives in Yeoville, which he describes as ‘Gangster Territory’, and so he apparently often steps in to help others. He says that as someone who works hard to live an honest life, he hates when other people steal or hurt others and generally choose to lead bad lives. At the gym, we parted ways, and he continued on to work. I don’t think he’ll ever know how much he meant to me. I still can’t believe how close I came to disaster – if Bulisane had been running early or late, or had chosen to walk away (as the would-be attacker had apparently told him to do), things would have ended differently. The whole experience left me very shaken up, and I couldn’t quite wrap my head around these two strangers. One saw me, and opted to attack me. The other man stumbled onto this situation and decided to help me. It really was the best and worst of human nature. It got me thinking, and I realised that this is perhaps our greatest and truest freedom, our freedom of choice. We can choose, every moment of every single day how to act. We can choose to walk in the light or the dark. And we get so many chances to make good choices. It’s a good lesson to have learnt. And it has definitely changed the way I see my life and how I choose to act from now on. | | |
| About a month or so after I had my accident, some friends of mine went on a hike around the Tswaing Crater. This is the remains of an asteroid that landed there 200 000 years ago. The crater site itself is situated in a reserve, and from all accounts is very lovely. At the time, I was feeling very miserable because of the situation I found myself in, and wasn’t at all sure whether I would even be able to walk unaided again. At the time, all I wanted to do was go on this hike. It almost became symbolic of everything being okay, and I was very keen to do it. Unfortunately, it’s quite tough to find people who are both interested and have the time to take a day off to do this hike, so even after being up and about on my feet again, it wasn’t really something on the top of my mind. Then one day, Algy and I were chatting at the gym. He and his siblings used to love hiking and are passionate about wildlife and conservation, but since they all became pretty involved with their various careers, they simply haven’t had the time to pursue these interests. At the time, he was also quite disappointed because plans for a hike he had hoped to organize as a team-building exercise for his work had just fallen through. When I mentioned this hike, his eyes gleamed and I knew that I had finally found someone who might be keen for this adventure. His sisters walked past us at that moment, and were also roped in. After a few minor set-backs – the link to the Footprint.co.za website I had sent him mysteriously disappeared – we picked a public holiday (Freedom Day), and arranged that they would collect me on the way to the Crater site at 08:20 sharp. In typical Greek / Mediterranean fashion, we left from my house at 08:45 and settled in for the drive. It turned out that Maria couldn’t make it on the day, so their brother George had taken her place. Eleni and her boyfriend, Costa, completed our little group. The trip there was awesome. I have spent some time with them before, but never such a long time, and with all four of them. They turned out to be a really fun group, which made for a really fun drive, which was a good thing as it was long drive (the site is 40 km north of Pretoria). I had spent years not getting to know this family well despite numerous opportunities, primarily because they are so very Greek, and I just presumed that they would be very different from me. And so the joke was on me, when it turned out that they could be soul mates. It has been ages since I made a friend who I could connect with on so many levels, and here there were four such friends J We spoke about all sorts of things, ranging from politics to childhood memories to teasing about random things (Costa was ragged for being Cypriot, while I was too quiet and thus in the ‘cricket corner’ - too little sleep after editing a pretty difficult thesis + no coffee = slightly less verbose me). On the way there we drove through a squatter camp, and received panicked phone calls from Matrix (a car tracker system), and Algy’s dad, who had also been contacted by Matrix to inform him that the car was going through one of their ‘alert areas’. It was quite a funny moment, and somehow a very surreal one as this area seemed very tranquil and we were all in a very peaceful, happy place. We finally arrived at the crater site. The Garmin tried to get us to go down a sand road to get to the crater, but as it had rained pretty steadily during the previous days, the sand had turned to mud. Luckily, there was another entrance about 200m down that seemed a lot more official with a building and parking spaces, so we headed off to that one. It turned out that this was a good choice, as this is where the actual Welcome Centre is located, and thus where we had to pay for the hike. Unfortunately, this was not where the actual crater was located, and it turned out we had to drive through the mud after all. This was actually tremendous fun, as the car went swishing through the mud. Eleni and I, partly because we were sitting in the back of the car, and partly because we didn’t realize just how little control the driver actually had over the car while we were swishing through, found this to be the best part of the drive there. The boys didn’t seem to enjoy this part as much as we did, probably because they realized that while the steering wheel was being turned one way, the car was going in a totally different direction. Despite this, they were still able to see the funny side afterwards, We soon found the starting place, and were handed a map by the guard, who explained that there were two possible routes we could take. We headed off on the route that the guard recommended. It started off with following a dirt road through various different grasses (which totally brought back memories of trapping with Megan), and then suddenly we came across the remains of a building. ‘Tswaing’ means ‘Salt pan’, and throughout the reserve there are remains of the salt mine that was there a few decades ago. While exploring the remains, we finally spotted the crater. It was huge! We carried on walking, until we reached the main lookout point. It was breathtakingly beautiful. There is something about looking out at this massive crater and imaging the asteroid hitting it, leaving behind this mark that has endured for so many hundreds of thousands of years! George raved about the trees on the sides of the crater looked, saying that they “like a carpet”– all thick and lush and beautiful – and that really was exactly how is looked. Eleni was in charge of the map, and kept on pointing out the various landmarks, which were surprisingly well-labelled. We explored the top of the crater, until we reached the path going down to the bottom. This part was something of a pleasant surprise, because I was expecting the path to go around the top of the crater only. We headed down the path, which was really quite exciting because it felt a bit like a real hike, with rocks and plants to hop over and branches and thorns to manoeuvre around – it was fantastic. Along the way we came across these massive spiders (seriously, they were like the size of my hand easily!). We reached the bottom of the crater, and looked out over the water. There were thousands of mosquitos there, creating a serious noise. Despite their company, we decided to take a short break. It turns out that Eleni and Costa had decided to cater very liberally for the hike, and had packed numerous bottles of water and Powerade, packets of crisps, chocolates and sweets. It was a really peaceful moment (mosquito buzz aside), standing there, looking over the body of water. After finishing our impromptu snack, we continued with the trail. The rest of the trail was very straightforward, until we reached the top. The map wasn’t too clearly marked, and we went slightly off the trail. This was actually a pretty awesome detour, because we got to watch monkeys play, see a salt pan, and watch Algy and George use the compass app and Google Maps on their iPhones to find our way the back, which was very entertaining to watch. We finally reached the place we had started from, and we collapsed at a picnic table to feast on the rest of Eleni and Costa’s catering. It was so lovely to be there, under the shady trees, just chilling after an awesome time walking and enjoying the outdoors. At one point during the hike, Algy kept commenting on how amazing it was to get out of the office and to look out at something other than buildings. And it is true – it was real treat to be somewhere that was so far away from noise and people and general hustle and bustle. It’s impossible to be George suggested that we search for more nutritious sustenance once we had reached Joburg again, so we headed back home. I had worried that the drive might have been getting a bit to Algy, and was quite surprised when he spontaneously raved about how much he was enjoying driving. And this really sums up what was so amazing about the day – everyone just seemed to have a fantastic time and enjoy everything about the day. Once we had reached Joburg, we needed to make a decision on where to find lunch. It was quite late (15:45), and most places had already closed. We found a Fego’s wolfed down coffee, wraps and tramezzini, and we then finally and a bit reluctantly headed home. The incredible day had ended. There were so many awesome things about the day: - Living a dream / goal
- Spending a wonderful day adventuring J
- Getting to know some really great people (and in doing so learning a very valuable lesson about not making assumptions about people)
Here are some photographs from the day:    
And some photo's of the group:    | | |
| On Monday morning, I awoke to the news that the US had killed Osama Bin Laden. And I was really struck my reaction to the news. Part of me thought of my grandfather’s cousin, Edmund Glazer, who had been on one of the planes that hit the Twin Towers, and for his sake I felt a sense of satisfaction. I had never met Edmund, but my father had, and it sounds as though he was a really good, decent, deeply family-oriented, hard-working man, whose passing was deeply mourned by everyone who knew him (including my dad, who had met him only a handful of times). Knowing the deep void that his passing had left, a part of me felt as though somehow there had been a redress. But, another part of me felt incredibly guilty and pretty wretched for feeling this way. Online, people were commenting on various forums about how they hadn’t realized how angry, sad, etc. they still felt after 9/11, and that this news was what they had needed to be able to let go of those feelings. Anderson Cooper wrote that it warmed his heart to see the massive crowds outside the White House gates singing the American national anthem, and it seemed to be drawing a splintering nation together. And yet, somehow, none it felt completely right to me. Luckily Monday was a fairly busy day, with breakfast with a friend in the morning, followed by frantically tidying up the house and getting things in order, and then collecting my dad from the airport in the afternoon, so I didn’t have much time to think about it very much until later in the evening when I logged onto Facebook. My godbrother, Greg, who has lived in Florida for the past 11 years, had posted the following status: “What I would like to see is a priest on TV telling people to pray for Bin Laden's soul, that he might find forgiveness in the afterlife and that we should find it in ourselves to keep an open heart toward our fellow man, regardless of race, creed, sex or religion. Mainly what I've heard so far is "God bless Seal Team 6"... WWJD much?” When I read this, it just kind of put my own confusing reaction into perspective. The reaction in general (even the one that I had felt on Edmund’s behalf) had largely been one that revenge had brought about justice, and that now evil had somehow been eradicated. And yet, that is so not true. And it shouldn’t be something that we, as a people, celebrate. I know that I don’t live in the US, and so maybe being so far removed from there it’s difficult to understand fully the depth of the American citizens (both the latent feelings that they have carried since 9/11, and the current ones of jubilation and sense that justice has been carried out). But in my heart of hearts, I genuinely don’t believe that revenge equals justice, or that somehow we are now living in a better world. And I think this was the intense struggle I felt on Sunday morning. It was easy to feel a renewed sense of outrage at what had happened on 9/11, and to think about the thousands of innocent people, who simply by going about their day as normal had been killed so horrifically. It was easy to picture Edmund, and his sons who grew up without him, and believe that now justice has been done. It’s so easy, and so understandable to feel this way. This past Easter has been a period of very intense introspection for some reason. I suspect that it is because I felt rather disconnected from my family, and so instead of Easter being a family period, I focused my thoughts instead onto the actual meaning of what Christ did. I found myself meditating of the qualities that he really embodied during his last days – Love and Faith and Courage and Forgiveness, etc. These are incredibly difficult qualities to demonstrate, particularly when times are dark and it is easier and very tempting to feel other emotions, especially as other emotions are so incredibly justifiable. And through following Christ’s journey during Holy Week, it was a good lesson – these qualities do exist in all of us, but it is up to us to use them. And it’s not easy, especially with myriad other emotions clouding them. But it is so worthwhile, because light and love and genuine joy are so worthwhile, and really worth striving for. The Monday morning news really illustrated how difficult it is to wade through a mess of emotions to arrive at the quality/ies you want to possess. The natural temptation (at least for me, when hearing this news) was to feel other emotions, including a very deep sense of guilt at the satisfaction I felt. It is a struggle. And it’s really easy to hold onto the emotions that kind of ‘cloud’ how you feel, especially when all around you, people are mirroring them. But, the incredible thing is that once I had read Greg’s status, I realized what the guilt and sense of wretchedness had been about. The moment I thought about Forgiveness, I felt at peace within myself, and it’s been an awesome feeling to carry around. Yes, Bin Laden's acts caused insane amounts of pain and deapir and lasting sadness. They led to a war, that in turn led to the loss of thousands. And yet, at the end of the say, he is a lost soul. And by holding onto feelings of revenge and gladness at his death, we are perpetuating a dark world that he helped to create. And I think that while these feelings and thoughts may be easier to connect to initially, the bigger emotions that you sometimes may have to struggle to connect with (like Forgiveness) are actually far easier to live with. It is a (often very difficult) choice you have make, maybe on a daily basis, but when you make a choice that is true to who you are, it resonantes so much within you. And, while it may only only be one person at a time, there is less darkness. (Yes, my godbrother once again shows his awesomeness and wisdom!) So, in thinking about all of this, I was reminded of an awesome quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.: “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that” | | |
| My little sister graduated on Monday! I am really super proud of her J It also made me realize just how much her degree has meant to her. For three years, I took her rather cavalier attitude to her work as a sign that she really didn’t care, but seeing glowing her on Monday I realized that she did care. Very deeply too. The way in which she works may be very different from the way I approach my work, but it still means the world to her. It was really good lesson in not judging others by my own attitude of values, but rather looking for and understanding the attitude and values of others, and the way they show their true selves. Well done, Irene! 
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| Every now and then I get a very wonderful reminder of how very rewarding it can be to go out of your comfort zone and try new things. A few weeks ago, I received an sms from a seemingly random number, which stated the following: “Hey. Hope you’re well. Sunday is Greek National Day celebrations @ Saheti @ 12:45. Could you please help carry the big Greek flag. Let me know! Thanks” [Short history lesson: Between 1821 and 1832, the Greeks (with help from the UK, France and Russia) fought a war of Independence against the Ottoman Empire. They prevailed, and in 1832 were officially proclaimed to be an independent state. Greek National Day is a celebration of this revolution] I wasn’t sure how to respond to the sms. On the one hand, I tend to avoid these events as much as I possibly can… But On the other hand, I felt that prickle of guilt I always have whenever I say no to helping someone out (Catholic guilt has nothing on Greek guilt). Also If the message was one of those mass sms’s sent to hundreds of people, I didn’t feel any obligation to assist, especially as my Hi Hopes training started the following day, and I would rather have spent the day relaxing far away from any Greek activity/ies. But If the message was from one of two girls I know, then I would want to help them out. They are sisters, and I know them from church and gym, and while I don’t know them very well, they (and their cousin) have the (admittedly possibly rather dubious) distinction of being the only Greek women I genuinely like and would voluntarily spend time with. I was feeling rather torn. I realized that solving the latter dilemma would effectively solve the former – however, I really couldn’t track down either girl’s number. I have recently changed cellphones, and in the process I lost quite a few phone numbers (and their phone numbers were amongst those lost). My brother was in a similar position as he had also recently changed phones, but suggested that I just assume it wasn’t them and ignore the message. This totally didn’t work for me, so I took the detective game up a level, and looked up their Facebook profiles to see if they listed their numbers (or even a work e-mail address), which they didn’t. Knowing that they don’t appear to check Facebook regularly ruled out sending them a FB message, so I was still in a bit of a quandary. I then toying with the idea of e-mailing their brother to ask for their numbers, but given that he and I have a rather comically disastrous track record when it comes to replying timeously to e-mails I figured that they was an excellent chance that the event would have long come and gone before I heard back from him. So reluctantly I phoned the mystery number, in the hope that I would recognize the voice. Alas, that plan also totally didn’t work, and after making polite chit-chat for a couple of minutes, I admitted defeat and had to explain that I really had no idea who I was talking to. After she stopped laughing, the girl on the other end of the phone identified herself as one the sisters, Eleni, and we made arrangements for the following Sunday, when the event was scheduled to take place. It turned out that all I had to do was arrive a bit before the parade was scheduled to begin and change into the ‘costume’ of a white dress (which was provided by them). It sounded easy enough, and I found to my genuine astonishment that I was quite looking forward to the event. So, Sunday eventually arrived. It was a really a chaotic morning, as my sister was also participating in the march. For the past year she has been on the committee for the Greek society at Wits, and she was marching with their umbrella association. Unfortunately, she was less than charmed by the fact that I was also marching in this event, because it meant that my entire family (grandmother included) were going to descend upon Saheti for the afternoon because I had mentioned that I would be participating to them, and my family absolutely love these events. This meant that there were a lot more squabbles etc. than usual, which delayed us quite a bit. I also received a rather frantic phone call from Eleni, explaining that the organizers wanted the celebrations to start much earlier than planned, as it looked as though it would rain at any moment, and they wanted the main event to be over before it started to pour. This meant that we had to rush off to Saheti. However, the Greek way of ‘rushing’ is very different to the commonly understood concept of rushing. In my house at least, it entails my dad and I standing downstairs calling for my mom and my sister, who invariably will always be “ready in like two minutes, so leave us alone”, and then proceeding to take at least 20 minutes to come downstairs. You see, they firmly believe that it is “rude” to be on time, under any circumstances, and actually plan to be at least 15 minutes late. Seriously, there are times when my English heritage is very much at odds with my Mediterranean heritage (and more Mediterranean-inclined family members). Finally, we were on our way. When we arrived, I found that the organizers of the march had pretty much the same attitude as my sister and mother, and had absolutely no intention of starting early. In fact, I think we actually started long after the originally scheduled time. It was especially funny, because they had also misplaced the flag we were meant to carry, so Eleni and her boyfriend were dashing around like crazy trying to find it and set it all up for us. Finally, it was all sorted out and we went to change into our ‘costumes’. The ‘costumes’ consisted of a long, white, loose-flowing skirt and top, a blue sash with writing on it, and a golden wreath that we had to wear on our hair. It is not the most flattering look! We completed the look by going barefoot. One of the problems was that the skirts and tops were very loose-fitting, and were probably made with people taller than 156 cm in mind. Finally, though, we were all dressed in our outfits and waited for the parade to begin. We walked out to the field, and took our places around the flag. In the end, there were only nine of us carrying a flag that seemed to have been designed to be carried by at least 18 people. This meant that we had to be quite creative in terms of arranging ourselves around the flag, as it was critical that the flag be held taut at all times while it was being carried. Finally the music began and we picked up the flag in one co-ordinated movement and started to march. This sounds easy enough, but it was a very big and rather heavy flag, that was meant to be held by twice the number of people who were in fact holding it. To make matters slightly worse, there was quite a wind that day, which meant we were essentially battling the wind too. However, we made it around the field, and stood holding the flag during both the South African and Greek national anthems. It was really beautiful to watch the wind ripple through the flag. We were then instructed to place the flag down on the ground (again, in one co-ordinated movement), and then to be seated. It turned out that we were kind of the centrepiece for the entire ceremony, and had to sit on the field for the duration of all the speeches and presentation of wreaths. The plus side of this situation is that I actually listened to the speeches, and was quite glad that I did. One of the speeches was especially moving, and essentially argued that while Greek National Day is a celebration of those who fought for freedom in Greece, it was also a significant celebration for South Africa, who had more recently fought for her own freedom, albeit a slightly different type of freedom. The speaker continued to say that anyone who fights for liberation is to be celebrated on that day. The speech really moved me, and I found myself really contemplating what freedom means, and how I can fight for it in my own small world. It was an incredibly empowering moment in fact. The only problem was that we were seated on the ground for quite a while! Greeks are known for being rather loquacious, and after the speeches had finally ended, a series of dignitaries and community leaders (both Greek and South African) were called upon to lay wreaths in memory of those who had sacrificed so much of themselves in the name of freedom. After a while, my foot went completely numb, as I had been sitting on it for so long. It was my right foot too – which meant that now when we stood up again and continued with our ‘march’ (we had to take the flag back to the starting point, wait for the various Greek societies and institutions to line up behind us, and only then would the actual parade begin), I would somehow have to carry the flag at a ‘normal’ walking pace with a still-lame left foot and a numb right foot that had that pins and needles feeling in it! This surprisingly enough went very smoothly, despite the strong wind and my having one lame foot and the other with pins and needles. And as a bonus, it was actually surprisingly fun to march along, while a full-on band played a marching song, carrying a flag that looked magnificent rippling in the wind. Afterwards while we had lunch and mingled, I was even more surprised to find that I had quite a good time with the actual people there. Eleni’s oldest sister (who I had never actually met before) had brought her little baby girl along to the celebrations, and she is utterly adorable. I met some very nice women (the other women carrying the flag). The Hellenic Boy Scouts were also marching on the day, and the boys who had been scouts when I was a girl guide are now the scout masters, and so we had an excellent catch-up session. I also had a chance to catch up with John (of the ‘feeding live mice to snakes’ fame - shudder), and Algy (Eleni’s brother). I was genuinely astonished when my dad came up to me a few hours later and said that it was time to be heading home (there was a football match that he wanted to watch). I guess the reason I am even blogging about this is because ordinarily the whole event was very much outside of my comfort zone. I am especially glad that I went, because in the end I gained so much more, and was part of an event that commemorates something that is so easy to be taken for granted, while it really shouldn’t be – freedom. Here are some snapshots from the event: Here we are marching. The two blonde girls leading the procession are Eleni and Maria, while the girls across from me are their cousins.  
Some of the dignitaries were religious leaders. I like this photo especially because I remember trying (very unsuccessfully) not to laugh at how very random that moment was! 
Waiting patiently for the various dignitaries to make their way to the front and then sitting while the speeches were being made.  
Some of the various Greek societies and communities (The Cypriots, Cretans, and others)    
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