Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

This past weekend, I visited a small village called Mavrilo where I celebrated at a chestnut festival with the locals. Mavrilo sits up in the mountains of Greece overlooking a colorful forest. It's about a 4 hour drive from Aghia Paraskevi (where I live in Athens).

The day consisted of a short hike through a green, red, and yellow forest and a tour of a church and historic gun powder mill. I also ate traditional Greek food and lots and lots of chestnuts. Oh, and I partied like the Greeks do by learning one of the traditional dances. Ώπα! (Opa!)

I can now relate to the line, "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" from one of my favorite Christmas carols so I'm pretty happy about that. The brisk weather and smell of the fire added to the Christmas mood I was in during October - no spooky Halloween feelings here.

The speaker at the event spoke mostly in Greek with only a few English translations so I didn't know what each of the dances we were watching signified... But who needs to understand the language when you can bond over joining in and dancing instead?

Overall it was a great day that gave me a new perspective on the culture I've decided to immerse myself in. The locals loved us Americans so much that they gave us each a bag full of chestnuts and a key chain to remember their cute, little, traditional Greek village.