Opa!

My best friend Emily is half Greek and invited Ryan and I to go to the Greek Food Festival in Salt Lake today! It was so great! It was held at the Greek Orthodox Church of Greater Salt Lake, and visitors could have a good look at the premises. The church is beautiful! There were candles burning, icons everywhere, mosaics on the floor, a huge painting of Jesus on the inside of the dome and a huge painting of Mary and the child Jesus covering a huge part of the apse. So detailed, so majestic, and overwhelming in the best way possible! I am not sure if they still have services at this building, but either way, I plan on coming back to attend worship sometime.
There were large signs explaining different aspects and parts of worship that I was dying to read, but I was dying to eat some food. There were so many people that it took a long time to get food and so I didn't have time to go back :(
We ate dolmathes (gravevine leaves stuffed with rice, vegetables, and meat), gyros, kalamata olives, spanakopita (spinach, feta cheese, onions, and egg wrapped in phyllo), and loukoumades (fried balls of dough drenched in honey and cinnamon).

Next, we watched traditional dancing, by both men and women but I think we mostly watched the men's dances. It had fancy foot work and the music was lively and I wished that we could join in the dancing! The dancers wore traditional outfits similar to the ones on the left.
Such a great experience, even if you are not Greek or interested specifically in the Greek Orthodox church. If you appreciate food, art, and dancing, then I recommend going!


PS I did not take these pictures, if you want to find the source, you can click on the pictures and they are linked to the website I borrowed them from.