2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
Seminars@Hadley
Geography and Travel:
My Big Fat Greek Seminar
Presented by
Cathy Pasinski
Leila Papadacci
Bob Gardner
Moderated by
Dawn Turko
02-25-2015
Dawn Turko
Good afternoon and welcome to today’s Seminar’s at
Hadley. I’m Dawn Turko and I will be moderating
today’s seminar, which we’ve titled “My Big, Fat,
Greek Seminar.” And I have to tell you I did chuckle
when the title was sent through by today’s seminar
organizer. That would be Cathy Pasinski, an instructor
here at the Hadley School.
This is one in our continuing series related to
geography and travel. We’ve traveled globally a few
times already, and today it’s going to be all about
Greece. We’ll hear about culture and the country and
of course the food.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 1 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
Cathy has lined up some wonderful panelists. And I
am handing the microphone over to Cathy to
introduce her panelists and get us started on today’s
very full seminar. As I do that, you will see popping
into the messaging area of the screen something new
we’re doing, which I’ll just sneak in right here.
For those of you who are on Twitter, we have a
#SeminarsAtHadley in case you would like to
continue the conversation about Greece or any of our
other seminars through Twitter. So I’m poking that
one in, and I am handing the microphone off to Cathy.
Cathy, welcome and introduce your panelists for us.
I’m very excited about this.
Cathy Pasinski
Thanks, Dawn. I’m Cathy Pasinski and with me, I
have my friend, Leila Papdacci. She grew up in
Greece, just like myself and she works as a
rehabilitation teacher for the blind in Denver, CO.
Also, I have with me Bob Gardner.
I heard about Bob from a famous YouTube video
among the Greek community, “Bob Goes to the
Parthenon”. And I reached out to him, and he was
very gracious in accepting my invitation to present
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 2 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
about his travels in Greece. I can’t wait to hear more
about that.
But first, we’re going to have Leila Papadacci start our
journey to Greece. Take it away Leila.
Leila Papdacci
Thank you. Kalis peras olous- good afternoon to
everyone. I want to thank Dawn and Cathy again for
inviting me to be part of this. I really appreciate it.
So initially, I want to start with the physical geography
of Greece. It’s located at the southwest corner of
Europe. It’s east of Italy and west of Turkey. Greece
is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea and it has
upward of 6,000 islands in its area. It is South of
Albania, Bulgaria and Armenia and north of Africa.
It has quite a few earthquakes because there’s a big
rift in the Mediterranean Sea where Africa is climbing
over Europe. But it’s part of the European Union,
even though talks are under way whether or not they
will remain in the European Union.
The topography of Greece - mainly mountainous and
of course, with lots and lots of islands, as I said,
around 6,000. It has beautiful beaches that have
different kinds of formations; from the very fine sand
to very, very rocky.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 3 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
So, beaches are wonderful. You can find all sorts of
different ones, from the very fine sand to black
pebbled beaches or red-pebbled beaches, which are
beautiful. The soil tends to be dry in the summer.
The climate usually gets very hot in the summer and
in most cases it’s dry heat with temperatures up to
110 degrees Fahrenheit in July. The winter for the
most part is mildly cold, even though in the last few
years they have seen more snow than usual. It used
to snow only in the mountains, but this winter for
example it even snowed in the islands, which was
quite surprising. And it can also be very, very windy.
For those of you who will travel, especially in the
summer time, once the plane starts reaching the
airport there’s going to be quite a bit of turmoil where
you hear a lot of shaking going on.
Vegetation – Greece is very rich. Its ground is very
rich in minerals so it produces very tasty fruits. Even
though it’s mountainous, mostly in the main part of
Greece provides the most of the produce productions.
We have lots and lots of pine trees in the mountains,
many fruit trees like lemons, orange trees, mandarin
trees, cherry, apricot, Muslim mullah, which are sort of
like… I don’t know what you would call it in English.
Grape vines are very, very popular in every house.
They provide shade, fruit and Muslo, which is the
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 4 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
juice of the grape from which we make wine and
cookies, actually. And lots of olive trees that do
provide the best extra virgin olive oil because of its
very low acidity and great tasting olives.
Landforms - Greece is a very small country with
around ten or eleven million people. It is actually 1/3
of the size of the state of Illinois. It’s not very big. The
mainland is divided in two parts by the Corinthian
Gulf, which actually is not a natural formation. It’s a
manmade formation because it has the Isthmus of
Corinth’s.
The northern part is larger. The southern part is
shaped like an upside down open hand with the
thumb missing actually.
The capital of Greece is Athens, and it’s closest to the
middle part of Greece I would say. The largest island
is Crete, which is at the most southern part of Greece
in the Mediterranean Ocean; beautiful, beautiful
island. If you ever get a chance to visit you should. It’s
great.
Greece is divided into counties called Nomi. The local
animals include lambs, donkeys, chickens, goats,
cats, dogs and lots of fish and seafood. Not very
many cows because it’s dry, so there’s not a lot of
ground for cows to munch on.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 5 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer and
provide you with more information. Thank you. Cathy
will now talk to you about the human geography.
Cathy Pasinski
Thanks, Leila. We will have time for questions and
answers later. I’m going to talk about human
geography and I’m going to start with the history of
Greece, which dates back to 8,000 years BC. I was
looking at making a timeline of historical events and I
picked some of the most important ones.
The first one would be the Trojan War that took place
in 1250 BC. Of course, you can read about that in
Homer’s poetic books, the Iliad and then the Odyssey,
which is the sequel about one of the warriors,
Ulysses, trying to get home after the war.
The first Olympic Games happened in Greece in 776
BC at Olympia, which is located in Peloponnese, the
part that Lelia said looks like an upside down open
hand. The birth of the Olympics happened in Greece.
The invention of the Greek Alphabet and Homer’s
Iliad and Odysseus was written in 750 BC. The
introduction of democracy in Athens took place at 510
BC. So we consider Greece the birth of Democracy.
The Parthenon was constructed in 449 BC. It was a
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 6 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
temple to their goddess Athena who protected the city
of Athens.
The trial and execution of Socrates, like we say in
Greece, happened in 399 BC. He was the first
person to openly speak about philosophy and maybe
the gods that they believed in might not be the actual
gods. He brought questioning; he would question
everything. The citizen did not like that he was
stirring up new ideas especially with the youth so they
decided to put him through a trial. He was found
guilty and executed by drinking poison. His student,
Plato started the Plato Academy of Athens in 380 BC.
In 336 BC, Alexander the Great became king of
Macedonia. He died in 323 BC. Plato’s student,
Aristotle, who was also the teacher of Alexander the
Great, went to school at Plato’s Academy and after
being a great philosopher and scientist, and they
called him the father of science because he is the one
that started writing everything about different levels of
science and philosophy. His works are still admired
today. He died in 322 BC. In 145 BC, the Roman
Empire invaded Greece and spread into other areas
of the known world as well.
Then we’re going to make a big jump during, they call
that the dark Ages of Greece. There’s not a lot of
documentation but we jump to 1453 AD and that’s
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 7 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
when the Ottoman Empire, which is today’s Turkey,
conquered the Byzantine Empire for 400 years.
Before that occupation, Constantinople, that is now
called Istanbul, used to be the capital of
Greece and the main area where everything was
happening. But now that part is still occupied by
Turkey, so it’s called Istanbul at this time.
After 400 years, in 1821 there was a Greek
Independence war that started and lasted until 1832
where the people of Greece decided they could not
be slaves anymore and they decided to fight back.
They did gain their freedom.
The first modern Olympics in Athens came back in
1896. In 1940, we have the occupation by Italy and
Nazi Germany. We have a famous story where the
Prime Minister was asked by the Italians, let us come
into your land. He said, No, ókhi, which is the Greek
word for no. So every year on October 28th all the
people in Greece celebrate that because we stopped
Italy and subsequently Germany from coming in
willingly. We did fight them and the fight lasted a
couple of months where we could hold them back.
People say that because of that period of fighting the
Greeks they could not advance more eastern towards
Russia in time. That’s what caused them to lose the
war.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 8 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
The final thing on my history timeline is the summer
Olympics in 2004 that happened in Athens. I was
lucky enough to go and see some of the events. It
was very, very enlightening. I was so proud to be
there and see the Olympics come back to Greece.
The next thing I’m going to talk about is language.
The language is the Greek language. We have our
own alphabet. It started in ancient Greece and it
looked a little different. It has evolved now to what we
say is Modern Greek.
The religion is Orthodox Christian. The whole country
usually follows that religion. There’s no separation of
religion and state. Since the last couple of decades, a
lot of people have migrated to Greece from other
countries. They do believe in their own religion.
They’re allowed to do that.
The economy in Greece, I’m sure a lot of people have
heard from the news it’s not as good. The currency is
now the Euro, for now. It replaced the drachma in
2002. It’s been a really rough time for the past five
years for Greece. They are going through an
economic depression. They had to borrow 61 billion
euros from the European Union and Germany to
avoid bankruptcy. Now with all the interest and fees,
we own more than 300 billion. It’s very difficult to
repay that, so they’re still trying to figure it out. A lot
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 9 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
of the salaries’ had to be reduced. Pensions had to
be cut. They had to implement higher taxes and
improve their economy. The unemployment rate is
really high; it’s around 28% with the youth. A lot of
the young people are trying to go to other countries to
find employment.
Like I was saying before, about 20 years now a lot of
people from other countries started migrating to
Greece. Although we have predominately Greek
citizens there’s also about 3 to 3 ½ million immigrants
that come from countries like Albania, Bulgaria,
Romania, Russia, China, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and
countries from Africa. A lot of people are migrating to
Greece hoping to find a better life.
The government of Greece is a democratic
government. Like I said before, that’s where
democracy stared. They have different political
parties like they do in this country. Some of them
have ideologies like what they call themselves new
Democracy or socialism, or communism, or
Independent, and now there’s even a lot more.
Just a month ago, they had elections again. The
people of Greece were not happy with the austerity
measures that had been put on them by Germany.
Now they wanted a new government and that’s what
happened. They voted a new government in and
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 10 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
hopefully the new government can do something to
improve the economy.
The government of Greece includes a president who
is the head of the state, a Prime Minister, who runs
the government along with a Parliament.
Greece has a flag that is blue and white, has a white
cross in the upper left corner that’s set in a blue
square. There are nine blue and white strips that
alternate to the right of the cross and below it. Kind of
just like the American flag has stripes alternating to
the right of the box with the stars. The nine stripes;
there are nine blue stripes and nine white stripes that
alternate. They have a special meaning. They
represent the nine syllables of the words, Freedom or
Death, spoken in Greek, which is Eleftheria i
thanatos.
Those are the words that were spoken by the
revolutionaries of 1821 when they wanted to free
themselves from the Ottoman Empire. So they spoke
those words, Freedom or Death, and there’s nine
syllables in the Greek words. That’s why they have
nine white and nine blue stripes. The flag was
implemented in 1822.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 11 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
Now about the education of Greece. Greece has a
good educational system. I actually went all my
school years there. It’s free to the citizens. The
children start with kindergarten through sixth grade.
They call that their Elementary School. Then they
have Junior High for three years, and then High
School for another three years.
The students when they are in their last year of high
school they take college entrance exams. Only the
top students get accepted into college. Everybody
tries really hard. Everybody loves to learn. The good
thing is that higher education in Greece is free to the
students. But since not everybody can enter, they do
have private colleges as another option for people
who are willing to pay.
Now I’m going to talk about culture and customs in
Greece. I’ll start with the arts. Greece is very famous
for its theater. There are the Greek tragedies like
“Prometheus” who was written by Aeschylus, “Electra”
who was written by Euripides, and Antigone which is
written by Sophocles.
There were also comedies like “The Frogs and the
Birds”, written by Aristophanes, which are still
performed to this day. They still have the ancient
theaters that existed many, many, many centuries
ago. They perform these plays that were
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 12 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
written by these ancient writers.
We have cool music. Kind of peppy as you heard
from the beginning, and the basic most popular
instrument is called Bouzouki and it kind of looks like
a guitar but not really. It has a round back like a
bowling ball in the back. It’s flat in the front. You play
it just like a guitar but faster and it has a unique
sound.
There’s also different versions of it like Baglamas
which is a smaller size. Lyre, which is an ancient
instrument, Clarinet, Mandolin, Flute, Tambourine,
which in Greek we call daffy. I’m sure there’s more
that people use all the time.
Now to my favorite part which is the Greek food. My
favorite is the gyro in Greece. It’s so much different
than the gyro sandwich we get here. Instead of
having the process meat, most of the time you have
chunks of meat. It's chunks of lamb or pork. You put
it in the pita. It’s smaller; it’s not as big as the gyros
they make here. They are more like taco size. So
delicious, love it.
Feta, my favorite cheese. Pastitsio, which is like a
Greek Lasagna. I had made it once for the school.
Musica, which is another version of lasagna but
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 13 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
except instead of using pasta you use eggplants,
potatoes, and zucchini.
Lamb of course. That’s a big one, especially at
parties. People like to put it on a spit and roast it all
day. Then just dive in. It’s so good. Tiropita, it’s like a
pie with feta and eggs in it. Love Tiropita and dawn
does too. Spanakopita, which you put spinach and
feta, and eggs. Sadiki, which is the white sauce with
cucumbers, and garlic that goes in the hero
sandwiches or you can just use it as a dip. Tomato
and cucumber salad, which is a staple at everyone’s
table in the summer. Egg lemon soup or cream of
chicken rice soup; really good for the winter. Navy
bean soup, or as we call it Fasolatha, which is the
national dish of Greece. Dolmades, which are stuffed
grape leaves.
Then onto the deserts. Baklava, which is a very rich
desert with crushed nuts in between phyllo with lots
and lots of butter and syrup. Galaktoboureko, which
is my favorite, is like a custard between fello and with
syrup. Kourabiedes, they are kind of like almond
cookies but they have lots of powdered sugar on top
and all around them. Very good. Melomakarona,
these cookies are made with honey, and orange juice
- delicious, lots of syrup in the end. Theeples, which
is fried dough; again you put them in syrup.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 14 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
You can’t just eat, you have to drink your Uzzo, your
wine, which is usually homemade, and beer. And of
course, you would go out and see everyone having
their Greek coffee or their Nescafe frape. Everybody
loves their coffee and they drink lot of it.
Some of the special holidays we celebrate in Greece
are our Names Days, that’s something different. For
example my name is Catherine but my Greek name is
Aikaterinē and I am named after Saint Catherine. Her
Names Day is celebrated November 25th. That is the
day that I celebrate my Names Day. That’s the day
she died. Everybody celebrates their Names Day
more than they celebrate their birthday. That’s when
we have our big parties.
Of course, Christmas and Easter, which is the biggest
holidays. It’s the biggest religious holiday of the year.
Then we have the feast of Dormition, which is August
15th, another big holiday in Greece.
Then we celebrate the Greek Independence Day
From the Ottoman Empire on March 25th. Then we
celebrate Ohi Day, which means No Day on October
28th, which celebrates saying “no” to Italy and
Germany.
Then of course, we have very big weddings and
baptisms, big parties for those. If anybody has seen
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 15 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, it’s right on.
Lelia says we get gifts twice, once for Names Day and
once for birthdays. Yep, we’re so special that way.
The way we celebrate all these holidays and Names
Days, we have usually home parties, and we cook
lots of food and we put the music on. After we eat,
we get up and dance. The way we dance is we hold
hands in a circle and we listen to the music and we
just do our dancing around and around and around. If
somebody’s feeling really sassy they can do a
Zeibekiko dance. One person will go in the middle of
the circle and dance on their own and everybody else
can clap around them. If you go out to party or even if
you’re at home you might start throwing plates, and
breaking them just because you’re getting excited and
maybe throw flowers and some people may throw
money on the dancers. I don’t know. We just go all
out I guess. If you ever go to Greece, make sure to
go to a party. You won’t forget it.
Here’s some dos and don’ts. If you meet someone,
just like here, you would shake their hands at first, but
I guarantee you after you spent time with them in the
end when you say good-bye, you’ll be hugging and
kissing both cheeks, which is a traditional greeting.
You’ll be friends by then. Greek people are usually so
friendly.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 16 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
If you go to visit someone in their house and they
offer you something, accept it because they might get
offended if you say no. The other thing, which is kind
of funny, in U.S. you can put your hand out and show
number five with your open hand, but in Greece that
would mean that you’re mad at someone and you’re
doing like a swear gesture at them and they wouldn’t
appreciate it. The same thing with two. Try to not do
that. Just say “five”, don’t show five.
Some famous people from Greece, I have some
ancient ones – Plato and Aristotle, like I mentioned.
Aesop from Aesop’s fables; El Greco, the artist;
Hippocrates from the Hippocrates’s oath that doctor’s
take; Alexander the Great and Socrates; Homer and
Pythagoras.
Modern famous people are Telly Savalas, who played
Kojak on TV in the 70’s I believe; Maria Callas, an
opera singer; Aristotle Onassis, who was the ship
tycoon that married Jackie O.; Jimmy the Greek, who
was a Las Vegas and TV personality; Nia Vardalos,
she’s an actress, she’s the star of “My Big Fat Greek
Wedding”; John Stamos from “Full House”; Prince
Phillip, who’s married to Queen Elizabeth of England;
George Papanicolaou, who created the pap test for
women to detect cervical cancer; Rita Wilson, who’s
married to Tom Hanks; Kelly Clarkson, the first
“American Idol” winner, Maria Menounos, she’s a TV
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 17 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
personality; Jennifer Anniston from “Friends” and from
movies; Tommy Lee, from which band I forgot. I
know it’s a hard rock band. Yanni, who plays the
beautiful music; and Chris Angel, who does the magic
tricks.
I think I’ve talked enough for now. I’m going to pass
the microphone to Bob so he can tell us about his
experiences from traveling to Greece.
Bob Gardner
Hello everybody. Listening to all this really brings
back so many memories. About 20 years ago, my
wife and I got interested in things Greek. Neither one
of us are Greek or have any Greek ancestory. But we
got interested in the food and then we got interested
in the music and the wine and culture. Over the last
20 years we’ve gone to Greece four times. We’re
probably your average American tourists. We don’t
know Greek. We usually don’t rent a car in Greece.
I’m totally blind, my wife is sighted, but she looked at
some of the roads and the traffic in Greece and
decided she didn’t want to drive there. We do public
transportation.
Over the years, we’ve seen obviously the standard
tourist’s sites – the Acropolis. How can you go to
Greece without going up onto the Acropolis and
seeing the Parthenon? We’ve been to Delphi and to
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 18 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
Olympia, the original Olympic Stadium. Quite an
amazing experience to look down and actually be in
the original Olympic Stadium. We’ve covered a good
part of Greece. I’ve by no means have seen it all.
We’ve gone to Northern Greece and the [inaudible
0:35:02] and I and [inaudible 0:35:04] and the Island
of Corfu in the north and we’ve been on the
Peloponnese obviously through Olympia. We’ve
been to Rhodes, which is an island, which is very,
very far south. We’ve covered a fair amount of the
mainland and probably been to about maybe nine or
ten of the islands.
I’ve always felt very comfortable in Greece as a
tourist, an American tourist. It seems just very easy
to travel there. English is spoken widely, particularly if
you’re in the hotels and the restaurants where tourists
would be. English is usually no problem in the shops
and the stores. You can get in some areas it may not
be spoken all that much, but usually you have no
trouble with the language. The hotels and all that are
very, very nice. Obviously, we as just your plain
American tourists, have stayed I guess I might want to
call them like resort like hotels. Hotels obviously are
very equivalent to like say a Holiday Inn, something
like that. The bathrooms look very much the same as
in the U.S. My first trip to Greece, I was amazed the
bathrooms just about everywhere, even in a
restaurant, look pretty much the same as here.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 19 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
Nothing really strange. You got showers, you got TV,
you got cable in your hotels. Obviously there English
is definitely spoken by the staff. In my experience,
there’s people from all over the world that come to
Greece. Tourism is very big. You could be in a hotel
with people from all over Europe and all over the
world. English tends to be the standard language that
the staff uses. Obviously, they can’t learn Polish or
Norwegian or whatever, so English is sort of the
common denominator that everybody uses to
communicate with each other.
Money is not much of a problem any more. It’s just
amazing how things become in Europe, and Greece
is no exception. My wife and I when we go there we
never take large amounts of cash because just like in
the U.S. you can go to an ATM and put in your debit
card and Whamo, out spits euros. It’s just
unbelievable.
I’ve been asked to talk a little bit about transportation.
Like I said, my wife and I have always used public
transportation. We’ve traveled just about every which
way you can in Greece. There’s obviously an internal
airline, which I can’t remember. It might be Olympia
Airlines, Olympic Airlines, I can’t remember, where
you can fly from Athens to some of the bigger islands
and cities. There’s cruise ships we’ve done, where
you take like an ocean going cruise ship around the
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 20 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
Greek Islands. We’ve traveled by bus, which would be
the equivalent of a Greyhound bus. We have actually
done that. We’ve also have ridden the ferry system.
Since Greece has so many islands, there’s very
extensive ferry system that allows you to go from
island to island. We’ve done that also.
I think that would pretty much wrap up my little
presentation on being an American tourist in Greece.
It’s a very fascinating country. I love the culture. It’s
a very nice culture. It’s very friendly. They still have a
lot of family values that seem like we’ve somewhat
lost in this country. In one of our trips, my wife and I
were able to stay with a Greek family for about a
week, lived in their house, which was quite an
experience. Was really able to get a behind the
scenes look at Greek family life. With that, I think I
will stop for the present. Thank you.
Cathy Pasinski
Hey Bob, thank you so much. I have a question.
How many times have you been in Greece? If you
could tell me what you thought of the environment
and the weather in Greece.
Bob Gardner
I’ve been to Greece four times. The first time we
went, not paying too much attention to the weather,
we went in probably the end of July or August. We
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 21 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
just about died in Athens. It was very, very hot. I
remember another time we went and we decided we
would go in the fall and we went in looking for cooler
weather. We went in September and it was still very
hot. I think that it was kind of an unusually hot spell.
I’ve been in Northern Greece in the summertime
where going over the mountains in Ionian, where it
was pretty cold. The last time we were in Greece was
two years in 2013. Again, thinking a little bit about the
weather and all that, we actually went in the beginning
of May. That was very nice for the mainland and all
that. In the some of the islands, one of the islands we
went to is a very famous island, Santa Rene, and it
was actually very windy and a little on the cool side
there at the beginning of May. Did that answer your
questions Cathy?
Cathy Pasinski
Yes, I also have one more. How did you set up your
trip to go to Greece, and once you were there, how
did you find a way to get to the islands or to the other
parts of Greece? Did you have an agency? If you
could tell us about that.
Bob Gardner
That’s a very good question. I thought about putting
that in at the beginning but I thought I’d wait and see if
it came up. When we first decided we wanted to go to
Greece, which was almost 20 years ago, it was really
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 22 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
before people really did too much on the Internet. I
didn’t have a computer at home. I believe I had a
computer at work, but I didn’t have one at home.
What we did is we went through a travel agency, it’s
actually in Chicago, and they specialize in Greek
travel. The people that own it, that you talk to, are
Greek and they have been to Greece. They’re very,
very familiar with Greece, and the facilities and the
hotels. Even though today you an obviously get on
the Internet, and I could get on the Internet and set up
a whole trip by myself on the Internet, I still have gone
through that travel agency. We did that for our trip in
2013.
One of the things that they do for example is let’s say
that you’re in Athens and you’re scheduled to go to
the island of Mykonos the next day. This travel
agency would have this all set up. They would have a
cab at your hotel in the morning to pick you up and
take you down to the ferry. They’ve made
arrangements; they’ve bought your tickets for the
ferry. Then when you get to Mykonos on the other
end, they would have a cab waiting for you that would
take you to your hotel. It’s very nice that way. Trying
to set up all that on your own on the Internet, it
wouldn’t be impossible, but it would certainly be a
chore. Buying your plane tickets and your hotel
reservations would be obviously very simple on the
Internet but having all those interconnecting travel
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 23 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
arrangements would be more trouble that it’s worth as
far as I’m concerned. I’m willing to let a travel agency
do that for me. Does that answer your question?
Cathy Pasinski
Thanks Bob, that’s great. For Patricia, I just posted,
it’s called Olympia Express Travel Agency in Skokie,
Illinois. I don’t have the phone number yet, but I will
find it and post it in a few minutes.
Next, we’ll go to Leila. She’s going to talk to us about
some speaking Greek.
Leila Papadacci
I was just finishing up typing something there.
Teaching Greek. I have taught Greek for kids and
adults. It’s something I miss doing because I don’t do
it here in Colorado since I moved out here. But
because there’s quite a bit of Greek population in
Chicago, when I was living there it was something I
really, really enjoyed doing.
Some of the things that I’ve put down for you is, the
word Efharisto, which means thank you. Parakalo,
which means please or you’re welcome. I just want to
interject here, Greek is phonetic. What you see is
what you read except for a couple of diphthongs. It’s
very easy to learn how to say things in Greek.
Another word would be Signomi or Mehsinhoriteh,
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 24 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
which means excuse me. Another thing that I wanted
to let you guys know in case you need to go there, a
useful phrase would be pou i’ne, where is, and then
you add there what you want to add, the word. The
way to say, can I have some water, for example
would be- boro na echo̱ ligo neró. How much is it?
póso kostízei? Again, water, neró.
Stási̱ is a useful word for those who are using public
transportation. It can be used for both train stops of
bus stops. Where can I buy or where can I get
jewelry for example, [foreign 0:46:26]. My name is
[foreign 0:46:31], my name is Leila. Kaliméra, good
morning. So Kali means good, méra is day.
Kalinychta, good night. Ti kaneis, how are you or how
are you doing. The standard phrase kalá, good, I’m
good.
If you need any more information I’m sure online you
can use Google translator for simple phrases. I
wouldn’t use it for anything more elaborate because it
doesn’t do exact translations. There’s also some
really nice websites where you can check out how to
say the letters and some simple words.
Cathy Pasinski
Thank you Leila. Also, I’ve seen apps on the Apple
store and I’m sure the Android store has them. I
haven’t added those to the resource list, but that’s a
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 25 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
good idea. I’ll try to add a couple of those. Bob, you
next. You’re supposed to touch on transportation and
accessibility. If you were able to use an elevator, if
you saw any braille anywhere, what kind of
transportation you’ve taken and the ups and downs of
Greece with accessibility.
Bob Gardner
Okay. Also I was going to tell you I didn’t know if I
should say it, I can also give you the name of the
travel agency that I used in Chicago if you want or I
can send that to you by e-mail.
As far as transportation, as I said earlier I think we’ve
taken just about every kind of form there is. As a
blind person, I don’t remember really any particular
problems with any of these. I don’t remember really
as a blind person, really having any particular
problems in Greece at all. I don’t remember being
singled out for special treatment or being looked at or
treated oddly because of my blindness. I don’t
remember even a single incident of that. I can
certainly think of many times in this country where
that’s happened.
I don’t remember much in a way of braille to be quite
honest. For example at hotel rooms, I don’t believe
they’re braille, which I’m pretty sure is a law here in
this country. I think you might have some trouble with
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 26 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
braille in Greece since the braille code in Greece
would probably be different than the braille code here.
There’s only 24 letters in the Greek alphabet and for
the most part totally different letters than we use.
Unless they’re Brailling in English and using the
English code, it wouldn’t do me much good.
As I said, getting around was no particular problem.
Of course, I really feel like I have fairly decent travel
skills. I do travel; do plane trips and all that on my
own. However, when I was in Greece I was with my
wife, who is sighted. Even though I try to be as
independent as I can as a blind person, certainly
traveling in a foreign country with someone who’s
sighted is definitely easier than trying to do it by
myself. There’s no doubt about that in my mind.
As far as the ups and downs, I sort of wrote that down
what I was going to talk about. I think about this as
kind of like half joking, but it’s really true. Greece, as
Leila said, is a mountainous country but it seems like
Greece is not a very level country. It seems like
you’re constantly going up and down steps all the
time. It would be, I think if someone I think was for
example in a wheelchair, had accessibility problems
that way, those kinds of physical disabilities I think it
would be a very difficult country to get around. It
seems like there’s steps everywhere. I was thinking
about this morning. The last hotel that I stayed in in
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 27 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
Athens in 2013, two years ago, I do remember there
was like three or four steps going up to it, but now that
I think about it they actually did have a ramp going up
to be able to get in the front door. I think that is the
only time I ever saw anything like that when I was in
Greece. It can get very tiring at times getting around.
My last trip in 2013, when we went to the island of
Santa Rene, without getting into what Santa Rene,
the Island is like, it seemed like you couldn’t go hardly
more than about 25 or 30 feet without either going up
and down a step or two or three or four. Steps were
everywhere. It’s fun. It’s beautiful. I love the music.
I would encourage anyone to go. It’s quite an
experience to go to Greece that’s why my wife and I
keep going back.
Dawn Turko
Hi, this is Dawn. I’m jumping in now that you’re off
the microphone Bob. Leila’s doing a great job
answering some questions related to Greek braille.
She’s saying that there are no contractions and that
for the most part, the braille is the same except for
letters that are not represented in the English
language. Before we move on Cathy, I just want to
be sure that we give a moment for people who may
want to pick up the microphone with a question. Let’s
do that real quick as the hour is getting away from us.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 28 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
We have open microphone if you have a question.
Sharon Howerton
I was there with my choir in 2009 and we did a lot of,
like Bob was saying, there were a lot of places to
climb. It was a physically demanding trip. They
certainly didn’t have many handrails that I could find.
Of course, since we sang in different churches and
cathedrals, and monasteries and all, we had to do a
lot of climbing into the choir loft and that type of thing.
We sure didn’t find any handrails. Yeah, if you had
some mobility issues, it could be sort of difficult. I
almost fell into the sea trying to get from the tender to
our cruise ship when we were leaving Santa Rene, so
I will always remember Santa Rene.
Dawn Turko
Okay, Cathy. You’ve got the microphone.
Cathy Pasinski
Thanks Dawn. I just wanted to say Bob, was it
Olympia Express that you used as your travel agency,
the one in Skokie? Because I put that information on
the text public chat.
Bob Gardner
No, it was called Apollo Tours. I believe they’re
actually in Chicago. I’m not so sure about that now. I
don’t have the phone number in front of me, but I
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 29 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
could send that to you by e-mail. The people there
were very good. Extremely knowledgeable. If you
want to go to an island and they could tell you oh, you
want to be on this part of the island. The hotels here
are this way and that way and you’d better off
because of this and that. They know the hotels, they
know the transportation and they really have done a
good job for me.
Cathy Pasinski
I’m glad to hear it. I just use Olympia Express when I
travel, or the Internet. I’m going to talk about living as
a blind person in Greece. In the old days, there
wasn’t a lot of support. Now there is a lot since 2008
and all disabled students can get a free public
education. They can either go into a mainstream
classroom or a special education school, whatever fits
their needs. For the students that are in the last year
of high school, when they’re taking their college
entrance exams, they do have accommodations for
blind students so they can do their best.
There is a school for the blind in Northern Greece
called The Sun. It teaches primary school and high
school. There is Panhellenic Association of the Blind
that was established in 1932. It teaches orientation
mobility, daily living skills; it has a talking Vocs library,
it teaches skills of employment and career and it also
has social work services.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 30 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
Another organization is called The Center of
Education and Rehabilitation for the Blind in Athens.
It offers the same things as before that I mentioned
but it also has a school with physical education
classes and psychological services. There’s also The
Lighthouse for the Blind in Athens, which in Greek is
called Pharos and that has a school. It also has a
Tacto museum in it with exhibitions from all periods of
cultural civilizations. They also offer workshops with
metals, textiles and ceramics. They help blind and
visually impaired people get trained in employment
and to find jobs.
I have a connection with Pharos with The Lighthouse
for the Blind. My Aunt Maria actually worked there as
a cook when I was a little kid because I remember her
talking about it. There’s a connection there.
Traveling to Greece with a cane is not the easiest.
The villages don’t really have blocks, they don’t have
sidewalks. It’s kind of just a lot of hills. The houses
are built right up to the roads so it’s not always the
safest thing to travel with a cane. City travel might be
a little bit easier but it can get very chaotic because
cars are very loud, lots of beeping, the motorcycles
are very loud there. So traveling, it’s just chaotic.
Lots of people, everywhere. The grid pattern is not
consistent and not in all places. It would take a lot of
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 31 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
training for someone to do it. I can’t say it’s
impossible. I’m just saying it’s very difficult.
I have never seen a guide dog in Greece. I know they
have a guide dog school in Greece that blind
individuals can go, and train and obtain one. I looked
up the travel requirements for bringing a guide dog
from another country. They said for all pets they just
require that the dog is microchipped and that its had
it’s rabies shot in the last 12 months but no later than
30 days before travel. That’s what I found out. It
looks like you can bring your guide dog, but you
would have to be careful because there’s a lot of stray
dogs and cats in Greece. Some people put like
poison out so when the dog eats what it thinks is a
snack and they get poisoned. So you would have to
hold onto your dog very, very carefully.
Blind people are treated with respect, although I do
know that some people might feel really, really sad for
them.
For employment opportunities, I found that the
American Friends for the Blind in Greece are the ones
that established The Lighthouse for the Blind and they
do jobs skills training. Like Leila was saying about the
braille code, we have our own braille code. In the
resource list I have pictures of the braille letters as
they correspond with the code.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 32 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
Yes, Dawn, you have a question?
Dawn Turko
No, I was just queuing up. I saw that you were getting
close to the end of your notes and we are getting to
the end of our seminar. Finish up your thought and
then I’ll work on saying some good-byes and so there
you go.
Cathy Pasinski
I think I’m pretty much done. But I did want to have
Bob tell us about his experience with visiting the
Parthenon, which is what the story in the YouTube
video is about. Of course, that’s also on the resource
list, along with other information about movies, and
books and websites you can access for travel and
learning about Greece. Bob got a very special
treatment. He was allowed to touch the Parthenon,
which nobody else is allowed to. I’ve never touched
it. If you could just tell us about that.
Bob Gardner
I’ll try to make this as brief as I can. I know we’re out
of time here. My first trip to Greece, of course we
went up on the Acropolis, and we went to go look at
the Parthenon and my wife says, ‘Okay, there it is.’
There was a fence there that no tourist can go
beyond. Basically, you look at the Parthenon. That’s
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 33 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
reasonable because I don’t know how many millions
of tourists that go to Greece in a year. You wouldn’t
want to have five million people going through the
Parthenon. Besides that, it’s being restored. It’s in
ruins in certain parts of it.
Anyway, I was disappointed. I thought about it and I
decided the next time we went back to Greece I
wanted to do something different. I wanted to see if I
could at least be allowed to stand on the steps of the
Parthenon, to maybe touch one of the columns.
There’s been whole articles written just about the
columns of the Parthenon. Like Cathy, as a blind
person I wanted to at least touch it to say that I’d
really been there. Being totally blind, looking at it
beyond a fence didn’t do anything for me whatsoever.
It turned out to be kind of a project. Through the
miracle of e-mail, I was able to get a contact. There
was a Greek lady who worked at the U.S. Embassy in
Athens. I finally found her and she was the one who
was able to set to this up for me. Her name was
Yoanna, and I understand she’s since retired but she
did a fantastic thing for me.
The next trip we went to Greece, went up to the
Acropolis and they had a special guide waiting for me.
Not only was I allowed to stand on the steps of the
Parthenon, they actually let me go into the Parthenon
and took me through the Parthenon. I got to talk to
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 34 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
the foreman there who was in charge of the men who
were working on the restoration. I was allowed to
touch whatever I wanted. Then my guide Desmena,
took me to the museum that was there. She said
there’s all these statues and all that nobody’s allowed
to touch, and she said, you can touch. Even with
some of the people there in the museum started, ‘No,
no, no. Don’t touch this.’ She said he can touch, he
can touch. I was able to get a much better
understanding of what some of the statues were and
all that. That was an unforgettable experience. The
lady who made the video, Stella Kura…kapo. Like I
have a hard time with her name, too many syllables.
Kureakopoulus is the one who made the video.
Cathy Pasinski
Thanks Bob. It’s Stella Kyriakopoulos. That’s a
mouthful. You can watch his YouTube video, “Bob
Goes to the Parthenon”. Everything is in the resource
list. Thank you so much. Dawn.
Dawn Turko
I’m just so captivated by all these stories. This was a
chocked full of Greece seminar today. I think the lack
of questions is because you were so thorough in your
presentations. Bob, Leila, Cathy, thank you so very
much. The recording of this seminar will be in the
Hadley’s Past Seminars Archive probably in a day or
two, along with the resource list that we’ve been
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 35 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
mentioning. So you can go there and re-listen or
suggest it to others. My goodness, if you have kids or
anybody who’s studying Greece, you get it all here.
This was fabulous. I am going to turn the microphone
over to Cathy, and Bob and Leila for their farewells,
while I go ahead and put the short survey hopefully up
on the screen if I do it correctly. I’m enjoying music in
my office, but I know it’ll go away when I let go of the
mic. Just hum along. It’s been a great afternoon.
Cathy, Leila, Bob, the microphones are back with you
all.
Leila Papadacci
I want to thank everybody at Hadley School that I was
allowed to be part of this. I hope we gave you the
information that was useful. I would strongly suggest
you visit Greece because you can experience the
smell of the water in combination with the pine trees
and the smell of thyme and oregano in the mountains.
Nothing compares to that. I really hope you visit that.
Again, thank you for listening and good-bye.
Cathy Pasinski
Thanks Leila. Thank you for listening and
participating in the seminar to Greece. I hope you
make it some day. You’ll love it. Adios.
Dawn Turko
Thank you everybody for participating today. It’s on
my list of places to go, and has just moved up to the
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 36 of 37
2015-02-25 Geography and Travel
top of the list. Thank you so much folks. Let me say
good-bye and thank you. Bye-bye.
©2014 The Hadley School for the Blind
Page 37 of 37