{"id":5403,"date":"2020-05-06T16:18:56","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T16:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4youth.gr\/?p=5403"},"modified":"2020-05-06T16:25:46","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T16:25:46","slug":"easter-holiday-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/4youth.gr\/index.php\/2020\/05\/06\/easter-holiday-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Easter Holiday 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Easter is the most\nimportant event in the Greek year. After the 40 day long great Lent\nthe Easter holiday usually comes with several celebrations and\nceromonies. It is the time of family barbecues and traditional dances\nconnected with a wenton mood and happiness. All of us were excited to\nbecome a part of this very special time of the Greek year as\nvolunteers in the local community. But the COVID-19 virus had a great\nimpact on our holiday. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had the plan to use our\ntwo week long holiday to travel around the Peloponnese and check out\nsome Greek island but with the travel restrictions and the high risk\nof getting an infection this was clearly impossible. As in every\nEuropean country the Greek government also locked down the social\nactivities to protect the people and to prevent a catastrophe. In\nfact that meant that we were not allowed to leave our house without a\ncomprehensible reason like emergency shoppings or pharmacy visits. So\nwe basically had to stay home. Of course all of us had a completely\ndifferent expectation of what our holidays would look like but what\ncould we do? We all knew that the lockdown was the only right way to\nget along with the virus and the best chane to get over it. So there\nwas no point of feeling upset about the circumstances. Instead we\ntried to make the best of it and still enjoy our holiday and here is\nwhat we did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since there was not much\nto do the holiday was the perfect chance to sleep long and have a\nrelaxed morning.The lockdown brought a very calming atmosphere into\nthe village. Espacially in the mornings you could enjoy the birds\ntwittering because it was so silent. Life in general just felt slower\nand more relaxed. Often we took our dog for a walk during these calm\nmorning hours and felt pleased for leaving the house and seeing all\nthe new flowers the spring brought. Generally I feel like the virus\nshifted our attention. Away from phones and laptops who only brought\nnew case counts and bad news back to nature and the people around us.\nAlso the virus gave us an opportunity to rediscover or discover\ncompletely new interests. Suddenly there was time to work on personal\nprojects and challenges. We started doing Yoga everyday in the garden\nand we planted seeds in the garden, hoping to grow our own vegtables.\nEveryone had his own little personal project but we also spent a lot\nof the time together as a group watching movies, cooking nice dishes\nor just having nice conversations. And if there is one thing that\nwill always remind me of my Easter holiday in Greece it is\ndefenetivly the sound of dice falling on the wooden board of the\nbackgammon game. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although all the puplic Easter celebrations were cancelled including the famous rocket war<\/a> of Vrontados we still wanted to celebrate the regious event a bit. We stayed up till midnight ,the beginning of Easter Sunday, to see if there still would be some fireworks. We were surprised by the amount of rockets and fireworks that lit up the sky. It was amazing to see that the people instead of feeling sad because of the virus still followed their tradtions as good as possible and fired their rockets. Inspired by the spirit we still played the easteregg cracking game and baked a tradtional german \u201cHefekranz\u201d for a nice Sunday brunch. We also did a little easterhunt with chochlate eggs in the house which was a lot of fun. Although we sadly could not be part of the celebrations we could still smell families having barbecues in smaller circles and hear some traditional dance music. So of course it was not the same as usual but it still was a nice weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In generall I think that\nthe virus let all of us appreciate our surroundings including our\nfellow human beings and the beautiful nature of the island more. We\nstill had a great time and the most important thing during these\ntimes is that everyone stayed healthy. Being not busy and having too\nmuch time actually was a challenging experience which taught us a lot\nabout ourselfs. So let`s hope that everyone stays healthy and that we\nwill be able to visit Greece at some other point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n