It’s all Greek to me

Published: April 27, 2021 / Updated: April 27, 2021 Vilma Life in Europe: Greece

Remember the skinny guy who picked me up on the morning I arrived to Parga? He was one of the twins. The manager. The other twin was the chef.

While their mother Nafsika would sit at the restaurant every night and smile at the customers, the twins would yell at the staff. They yelled at anybody and everybody, even at each other! I later understood it was their way, and I no longer took it personally. But at the beginning of my summer I struggled to comprehend how the boys would shout at me during the day, but would cheerfully invite me for a drink at night.

Although both very skinny (too skinny!) they were also very charming. The chef was closer to my heart, but my Polish friend was besotted with him.

And being a good friend, of course, I let her experience her summer romance with all the ups and downs. It seemed like there had been some history between them the previous summer, and things didn’t go so smoothly this time around.

There were rumors the manager went out with a different girl every night, so I tried to stay away and not get involved. I am a believer in eternal love, as you know. Or was back then. We did have some sweet moments (a hug here, a drink there, a day trip in between) and for that I was grateful.

If my heart was not very much into the twins, it melted the moment I saw the guy from Romania. He was staying at the same house, but not working at the restaurant. He definitely stood out – he had blond hair and light blue eyes (don’t ask me what’s up with that. These days my preferences are very different!), he wore faded blue jeans and white sneakers, and his ‘don’t care’ attitude was very sexy. He fit the role of a holiday romance perfectly. And not only for me, but for many girls who came to Parga that summer.

Then there was the Greek god. One day during that summer he walked into the restaurant and greeted the twins. Family or friends, they were obviously related. And I literally stopped what I was doing and couldn’t take me eyes off him. I couldn’t explain it. I was drawn to him. I stayed close to the three of them trying to listen and understand, which got me nowhere! On the way out, the guy told me he’d come back next day and take me to the beach. I couldn’t say ‘no’ to the beach, of course, and in reality I didn’t want to say ‘no’ to this friend, so mesmerized, I agreed.

The following day he picked me up with his scooter and drove me to the most beautiful beach I had seen in my life up to that moment – Lichnos.

We hardly talked, but did plenty of looking. The beach was vast and truly gorgeous. The guy who took me there was the Greek God. And that afternoon was… Let’s just say it didn’t go as planned for some of us.

Summer passed by quickly. Soon enough I was on the bus back to Athens listening to The Blower’s Daughter, trying to convince myself, that ‘can’t take my eyes off you’ part was about me. And why wouldn’t it be? He asked me come back. He sent me off with kisses. I promised to come back.

Yes to Grease, yes to Greece

Published: April 19, 2021 / Updated: April 19, 2021 Vilma Life in Europe: Greece

One day my fiance told me that we should watch ‘Grease‘. I thought he was talking about Greece, and I wasn’t too keen. Greece? The country in Europe? No, thank you, too close to home… But I did watch the movie, and I did come to Greece.

It was one summer in Parga.

Athens had been an untouched land before my trip to the Balkan peninsula. And it remains so up to this day. I didn’t get to see the famous city or any of its sights. It was the stop before getting into the bus to Parga on the Northwestern coast.

Just like in Petoskey, I was put in a room with 3 other girls. I was not a freshman anymore, I was a graduate with 1 year of a serious job experience under my belt. And I had to share the room and the bathroom with 3 other girls? Actually, I had to share the bathroom with boys, too! I didn’t mind, though, it was the summer abroad, and it was my adventure in Europe, and I couldn’t have cared less about the lack of space or privacy.

I got hired as a waitress at Nafsika restaurant (turned into Gemini restaurant and pizzeria) and I worked hard.

Early in the morning I’d go to the restaurant and prepare for the service. I’d come home, rest and hide from the hot Mediterranean sun during lunch time, come out again in the late afternoon to work my shift.

I remember how much I liked my walks to and from the restaurant.

There were olive and lemon trees growing everywhere, there were walnut trees and exotic flowers. It simply was a bright and happy place. I passed by a precious beach every day and it soon became my resting spot after the morning prep.

I have to say, the heat that summer was immense. The temperatures reached and surpassed 50 degrees Celsius. Some mornings I’d be putting plates on the tables, polishing the cutlery and trying not to leave any traces of my sweat dripping all over the table.

A girl from Poland worked with me and soon enough we became really good friends. After the shift, on the way back from the restaurant, we’d often stop by at a bar and enjoy a Black Russian or two. On the nights when we skipped the drinks, we’d stop at a bakery and buy some delicious desserts. We worked hard, but we also enjoyed every free moment we got.

The pocket dictionary that I brought with me came in handy (or so I thought). I learned to say ‘good morning’, ‘good evening’, ‘thank you’, ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Funnily, Greek ‘yes’ sounds just like a ‘no’ in my native language. I remember all the diners who would tell me ‘yes, yes’, when asked if they wanted bread with their salad. The bread would never arrive as in my mind they were saying ‘no, no’!

Then there was food… I couldn’t think of anything better than a fresh Greek salad on a sunny day in Greece. Spanakopita was on the menu as well, as well as with many other traditional Greek cuisine dishes. However, in Parga I fell in love with moussaka and had that for lunch as often as I could.

So there was food. There was the sea. There were lemons. And there were boys.

Zoo York state of mind

Published: April 12, 2021 / Updated: April 12, 2021 Vilma Life in Europe: Back Home

The other day I came across this pearl of wisdom:

It got me thinking. What is it that I want and look for? Well, in no particular order:

  • a lifelong partner, a.k.a the last boyfriend
  • an awesome job
  • loads of money, enough to bathe in!
  • a place that feels like home

But in reality, do I need any of that?

  • no partner in sight at the moment, but it is what it is
  • I got a job. Is it awesome? It pays the bills. Few of us have the luxury to do awesome every day and call it a job
  • certainly don’t have enough to bathe in, but I get by
  • home is where the heart is

So I don’t need any of this. What do I find then, when I stop searching? I believe I find calm and peace of mind…

That is something I didn’t have when I came back to Europe. I didn’t want to be back, I didn’t plan to be back. I remember standing in my sister’s bathroom with my cellphone pressed to my ear whispering: ‘Yes, I miss you too’. You guessed it, to no other than my husband, who I left on the other side of the Atlantic. Thankfully, it was not easy to drop everything and run back into his arms, the ocean being… you know, the ocean.

The first good thing that happened to me then, I finished my university and got my degree. The second good thing happened when I got a job, and it turned out I quite liked it. The third good thing happened when he walked into my office and his smile lit up the room.

The smile, together with soft blue eyes and ‘touch me’ blond hair belonged to a young man. He came for a job interview at the company that I worked for, and being part of the HR team I had the right to be as nosy as I needed to be, to see how suitable he was for the job opening (in reality trying to find out as much as possible about the guy who’s been sitting in front of me for 5 min but I was already madly in love with him). ‘And why did you leave the States?’ – I asked when he mentioned he’d been living there for a while. ‘Oh, you know, I got married, but things didn’t quite work out’.

I did know! Two young souls who thought they had it all, and who came back right where they started. I kept looking into his eyes, his smile, his Zoo York T-shirt (reminded me of NYC) and felt this was meant to be.

There were coffee breaks, kisses, shared meals, basketball games, trips to the seaside and meetings abroad a few years later.

But I was feeling restless. I was yearning for adventures. My country was no longer enough for me. My job no longer interested me. I started looking for summer placements abroad, landed one in Greece and took a flight to Athens.

Celebrity style

Published: April 5, 2021 / Updated: April 5, 2021 Vilma Life in the USA: The Ugly

While engaged and living in NYC, I remember one day seeing this picture of Renee Zellweger.

I loved it. Renee the bride, she looked so happy. It inspired me. I knew in a couple of months’ time I would be just like her, on my wedding day on the beach.

Sadly, her marriage lasted only 4 months.

Well, Renee, I beat you this time. My marriage lasted only 3 months.

I believe it’s no surprise to any of you that my relationship ended so soon after we got married. I don’t think it was a surprise to me, either. Although to finally be apart took a huge deal of effort and struggle, and mixed feelings.

The last day at my mother in law’s house started as usual. I woke up that morning and got ready to go to work. I couldn’t start the car, though, and came back to the bedroom to wake up my husband and ask him for help. As mentioned, he’d usually wake up just before noon. And there I was nagging into his ear about needing a ride to work early on. He kept trying to convince me to take a taxi, but I was having none of it. I had a husband and he had a car, why would I ever take a taxi?

Words got stronger, voices got louder, till he jumped out of bed, grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me out of the room.

I was boiling inside. NOBODY GETS TO PUSH ME. But my rage came out only as a quiet ‘that’s it’, almost as if said to myself. I took a taxi to work.

That day had the longest hours. But it gave me time to decide: ‘I was done’.

After work I hastily packed my bags (having to leave all the wedding and bridal shower gifts) and moved out. My friend let me stay with her.

Trust me. That time was one of the hardest things I had to go through (but not THE hardest, as I later found out). I hardly ate. I didn’t crave chocolate. And for a huge chocolate addict like myself that was a huge deal. I cried, I felt lost, I doubted myself, I sought help, I was afraid.

I heard the rumors about myself. I stole from the chef, took his money. I was ungrateful woman after having been accepted to the family. The chef knew where I was staying and he threatened my friend. I had to look over my shoulder every time I left the house. I applied for a restraining order.

Fast forward a few months, I had tried to get a divorce, unsuccessfully.

Fast forward a few years, I found out he had passed.

My husband was gone, and so was that chapter of my life in the USA: the good, the bad, the ugly, the wedding and the funeral. Almost as if I had been playing part in ‘Four weddings and a funeral‘ – except with one wedding. It seemed that for a brief moment I had lived celebrity style.

My restless soul, however, kept searching for love.

Expiration date

Published: March 29, 2021 / Updated: March 29, 2021 Vilma Life in the USA: The Ugly

‘Sleep’.

That is the answer I gave once when asked what was my favorite thing to do. And I was being serious, too. ‘Sometimes I sleep till one or two in the afternoon. And I love it!’, – I had gone on and on. I wish I could say the same today. Most of the time I wake up (but try to keep my eyes shut for as long as I can) before sunrise, just listening to the never ending chatter-box next to me.

The day after the wedding sleep was the last thing on my mind. My husband, used to getting up just before noon for a shift at the restaurant, also didn’t object to waking up at 4 am and setting off to Disney World in Orlando. We didn’t need beautiful beaches for our honeymoon. We had the wild beaches at our doorstep. We didn’t need tropical weather. We had plenty of sunshine in Hilton Head Island. I guess unconsciously we just wanted to have loads of fun and feel like kids one last time, before starting our life as a married couple, i.e. adults.

We came back from our honeymoon happy and in love. We were husband and wife, we were a union, standing strong. Except we weren’t.

All the signs of trouble re-appeared, after hiding temporarily in the shadows of the wedding. My husband lied to me numerous time. I remember him sneaking out in the middle of the night and re-setting the mileage button in his Jeep. I would know, too, as his lies were making me borderline paranoid. More than once he borrowed money which I never got to see, I only got asked to pay it back. I started to feel helpless and trapped. The more I moved, the more questions I asked, the more he lied, the tighter got the trap.

Fights continued. They had never stopped. We even had one on our wedding night!

One afternoon in the middle of the argument my husband just took off his wedding ring and threw it out of the car window while driving. I begged him to stop and searched the ground feverishly till I found it.

I gave my husband a video player (quite a novelty piece back then!) for Christmas, so he could watch his Star Wars movies. The chef was the biggest fan, even owned a Darth Vader‘s mask. But whenever I offered to watch an episode with him, he would find an excuse not to. I found it extremely odd and by then I was overly suspicious. I pressed and I pressed till he admitted he had sold it.

In the words of my most loved artist out there today, we all have our Expiration date:

But every woman has a day when she gets tired of the games
And she gets tired of being played like she’s a toy
She finds the strength to up and leave
And she wakes up and finally sees
That you ain’t nothin’ like a king, you’re just a boy

You’ve reached your expiration date, yeah
You’ve reached your expiration date

– Sammie

I soon would have reached mine.

The wedding

Published: March 22, 2021 / Updated: March 22, 2021 Vilma Life in the USA: The Good

I’m hoping you’ll forgive me. I’ll let my pictures do the talking today. Yes, they are blurry, but so is the memory of my wedding day. More than 15 years have passed.

I do remember, though, that there was laughter, there was joy, there were tears of happiness. We ate, we danced, we kissed, we hugged, we said ‘I love you, my husband’, and ‘I love you, my wife’ numerous times. It was a good day. I got the wedding on the beach of my dreams.

Getting ready in the morning…

Letting Kristina do the last touch ups before leaving the house…

Going for THE kiss…

Receiving a phone call from my mom with congratulations…

After ‘the good’ and ‘the bad’ there was finally peace – the wedding.

But then came ‘the ugly’.

Ready

Published: March 15, 2021 / Updated: March 15, 2021 Vilma Life in the USA: The Good

Kristina was here. The one who started it all. The other Kristina was also here. The one who spent the summer in Petoskey with me and braved the cold winter there, too. Amongst my sister, my mother and myself, we would call them the ‘tall Kristina’ and the ‘short Kristina’. Years later I met Christine, an amazing woman all around. That made things even more complicated and listening to my stories my sister would often interrupt me: ‘Which Kristina are we talking about here?’

Back in HHI the two friends were the only family by my side on my big day.

They missed out on my bachelorette party, but took part in the bridal shower. Both events were lots of fun and step by step brought me closer to my wedding. Still, I found it hard to believe that I was the bride to be. I don’t think I understood back then what marriage was all about. I needed 20 more years of good and bad experiences to start getting an idea what it truly meant to be married. What I understood was ‘the wedding’ and I knew exactly what I wanted.

I had always dreamed of a wedding on the beach. In reality, having older people walk on sand and complain about it was not something I wanted to deal with on my big day. So we planned the ceremony and reception at Country Club of Hilton Head.

And the photo shoot on the Dolphin-Head beach.

The mother of the Chef got his side of the family to help decorate the Country Club. The wedding colors were sand, of course, and blue, or shades of it. I consider myself a lover of the sea and the sky, indulging limitless shades of blue (occasionally indulging 50 Shades of Gray, too).

The Chef had planned the perfect menu and I ordered the perfect cake. Not only it was finger licking delicious, it was decorated with real seashells to go with our ocean theme. It was perfect!

The music had been carefully selected. Mostly by my husband to be. I was more into the cake business (see above) and let him be in charge of the songs. He had put a great list together, our song being Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel.

I had done all the scrubbing, waxing, toning and pampering that I could possibly do, and after numerous visits to my hairdresser’s, after a lot of trial and error we had come up with the festive yet beach appropriate hair do.

I didn’t trust anybody with my make up. I was certain I’d have too much of it on and wanted to stay as close to natural as possible.

I was ready to spend the rest of my life with this man. Or was I?

The rocky road

Published: March 8, 2021 / Updated: March 8, 2021 Vilma Life in the USA: The Bad, Life in the USA: The Good

Let’s be honest here. I’m not the best driver in the world. I’m not the worst, either. Hilton Head Island that fall had the bumpiest roads for me.

The plantations on the island are beautiful and with lots of recreational areas. The houses are huge, but so is the space between them. The mail boxes, however, are dotted along the streets right on the road for an easy mail delivery.

It all started with me driving my precious Jimmy (GMC) one day and knocking one of those mailboxes down. I had no excuse! There was no squirrel on the road and I was not being distracted by my cell phone (we are talking years before that became a norm). I did knock it down. And I didn’t even stop! I kept driving, doing a ‘hit and run’ number, trying to escape the neighborhood which was very close to home. I got scared, of course, although there was no reason to be. It’s not like I had hit a person! I kept thinking about it the whole day and on the home, as I slowly passed by the house, I saw that he mail box was up, like nothing had happened.

By that time I was a bag of mixed emotions and couldn’t hold it inside anymore. I told my future mother in law about it and she talked to the neighbors. Bless them, they were easy going and very understanding.

The Lexus driver was not.

The day before the wedding the Chef took my Jimmy and I had some errands to run. We are talking about ONE day before MY wedding, so you can imagine… The Corvette, of course, was out of limits for mere mortals like myself. I had no other choice but to drive the massive Dodge Ram pick up. Don’t get me wrong, I love how much space a truck like that gives me when I’m a passenger. It’s a different story when I’m the driver. I remember feeling like I was in the ocean, the truck was MASSIVE!

I managed to drive to the mall without knocking any mailboxes down. I managed to park it. I also managed to scratch a Lexus while doing it. You can imagine my nerves, can’t you? Come on, I was getting married the next day! I didn’t need this. I kept panicking and thinking: ‘This is not good! This is not freaking good!’

Gratefully, the same tiny girl who felt lost in the ocean behind the Ram’s wheel had a big mouth, a sweet smile and a heart warming story to tell the driver, who accepted my money and let me go… Breath in, breath out.

Do they say the rocky road leads you to hell or to heaven?

Life in NYC: the bad

Published: February 26, 2021 / Updated: March 1, 2021 Vilma Life in the USA: The Bad

You know how everything in this life is temporary? Well, that sucks. If ‘forever’ doesn’t exist, why does the word?

Like I said, I’m not a huge movie fan. I enjoy watching them, but these days I can hardly find time to breath. So when I watch a movie and can’t stop thinking about it, I wanna recommend it to y’all. Sylvie’s love. That is the kind of love story I want to experience. Of course, life is unexpected and hardships are part of it, but at the end everything falls in its place: after the good and the bad, after the years of separation they find their happy ending. And I want mine.

NYC was definitely a place of happy beginnings.

It was the best place to do my wedding shopping, too. The dress had to be simple and sand color. Not white, not off white, not ivory. Sand. And I found just the right one in Soho. The shoes had to match the dress, and I found the perfect pair on the 5th Avenue. The rings had to be truly special, and The Diamond District was where we got them.

The chef was working long hours, of course, but the city kept me excited and the planning of our wedding kept me busy. It took me weeks to choose our invitations. We were planning to go back South to get married, so they had to reflect my love for the ocean. They had to be not too childish nor too business like. The color was also important. The end result was very ‘me’.

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The Chef
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Details like that kept me occupied. In my eyes, I was the best wedding planner.

Alas, after the highs, came the lows. Our new apartment witnessed so many screaming matches I was too embarrassed to look our neighbor in the eye. Our fights would get so bad I’d run away from home and wander the streets late at night with tears on my face.

In the middle of one fight the chef lit up all the wedding invitations on fire. Can you believe that?.. I ordered a new batch. The wedding ring that I kept in its box and admired every other day disappeared. I found out it was pawned and got it back. The chef got fired from his restaurant and our life in the city was due to end.

We were going back to HHI and I was pleased. The wedding on the beach was the wedding of my dreams and I found having to take more than one subway to reach the closest beach on Coney Island a real drag.

And so a year later we set off back South to get married. ‘But how about the fights? How about destruction and abuse?’ – you ask. Well, I told you, I was a master of closing my eyes and not seeing what I didn’t want to see. I remained the believer in the happy beginnings and happy endings.

Life in NYC: the good

Published: February 18, 2021 / Updated: February 22, 2021 Vilma Life in the USA: The Good

My life in NYC was many things. What it wasn’t was ordinary and uneventful.

Our first place to live was a basement apartment. For those who are not sure what it is, imagine opening the building door and going down, instead of going up. Our one window was on the same level as the street. It was our place, however, and it was in Astoria, NY.

A couple of months later we moved into a much nicer one bedroom apartment (you had to go up the stairs to reach it) very close to the subway stop. Those who know anything about the city will understand the importance of this. Although most of the time the ride on the subway would make me nauseous and leave me grasping for air, having to walk just one block to get to it was very convenient.

The chef got hired at a restaurant in the heart of the city – The Sea grill at the Rockefeller center (now permanently closed). I wasn’t doing bad for myself either. I started at the same Rockefeller center working as a sales girl in a Christmas store. Later I got temporarily employed at the Teuscher (https://www.teuschernyc.com/ – the best job hands down in my ‘jobs all over the world’ career… I got to taste so many champagne truffles it was ridiculous. I’d even send packages to my family in Europe).

Finally I ended up at Tristan and America (https://www.tristanstyle.com/) steps away from the chef’s restaurant and the 5th Avenue. I got hired because… I had the most beautiful blue eyes! True story that, the one that still makes me smile today. The manager of the store was touching me quite a lot during the interview, but later he told me not to worry about it as he was gay! He admitted after some time that my eyes did the talking that day, and he was instantly captured by them. We became very good friends. Just like the city itself, our store was a great mix of races, nationalities and sexual orientations. And we all got along. We all belonged. That is what I loved about NYC the most.

The highs were truly high. I was going to the top rated restaurants, trying out tasting menus and enjoying champagne with gold. I was marveling the famous spots and museums the city had to offer. I was exploring the shopping venues and finding hidden gems of any cuisine in the world I dreamed of. Even the one from back home. And it was delicious.

Our love was blooming. Life in the city suited us. But just like Nelly Furdado in her song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pBo-GL9SRg), I’m wondering: why do all good things come to an end?