10 Daily Things

If you want to eat phallus-shaped bread, drink through phallus-shaped straws from phallus-shaped cups, kiss ceramic phalluses, sit on a phallus-shaped throne and sing dirty Greek songs about the phallus, then you should visit the little Greek town of Tyrnavos each year on “Clean Monday.”

The one-day pagan fertility festival in this town of 15,000 people near the central Greek city of Larissa marks the beginning of Lent, the fasting period before Easter, and is one of the most famous carnivals in Greece.

Come prepared. Passersby tend to be grabbed and rocked over a pot of boiling “bourani” spinach soup while a ceramic penis is placed between their legs. They must kiss the phallus, then drink tsipouro — a strong local spirit — from its tip, and then stir the soup before they’re let go.

Phallus-kissers are rewarded with ash-streaks on their face, which presumably absolves them from having to go through the procedure again, unless of course they would like to.

The festival is in honor of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, madness and ecstasy. While the men, women and children of Tyrnavos celebrate the penis, the rest of Greece marks the beginning of the pre-Easter fast more modestly by flying kites and eating octopus, olives and unleavened bread.

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A spelling mistake on the Internet led to a surprise trip to remote southern France for three Norwegian tourists who thought they were going to a Greek island, airport officials said Wednesday.

The family group from Torp-Sandefjord thought they had booked a flight to the island of Rhodes but instead the journey from Oslo took them via London to Rodez, capital of the mountainous Aveyron department.

According to airport authorities at Rodez some 10 tourists make the same mistake every year.

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Miss Piggy gives it her all as well as the other muppet dancers. All the Greek stereotypes in one musical number. The party is on! Dance away! Enjoy!

Europe has rushed to help Greece in its fight against fires devastating its southern regions.
The EU has a Community mechanism in place to facilitate reinforced cooperation in civil protection assistance. Monitoring and Information Centre (MIC) coordinated the offers of many member states and in total 18 fire-fighting planes, 18 specialised helicopters and nearly 100 fire-fighters had been sent to Greece.

Major Southern Greece was on fire. Here in Greece there is a strong public feeling that the real cause of the fires is the exploitation of the forest plant by private developers. Even the ancient Olympia, the place where the Olympic games are born was set on danger. Personally, as a Greek citizen I want to thank every foreigner who helped on the fight with the fire.