Let's Throw Another Shrimp...Err...Lamb...On The Barby

In fitting fashion, we began our Agoratsios family adventure in Australia the same way we left our Agoratsiou family adventure in Greece - with a barbecue! (Oh, and don't worry, that isn't a typo, Agouratsou is just spelled in about twelve different ways...)

So we had finally arrived home to the three-house Agoratsio family compound after 30 + hours of travel, again immediately spoiled with food, drink, and family pouring out of the cracks. Theo Nick and the boys brought out a whole lamb, stuck it on the spit, and hooked it up to the bbq/smoker all while Thea Vicki (Nick's wife) and the ladies prepared the tables heaps of other food for the party.






Before the food was ready, we played with the kids (and the adults) for what seemed like hours...Soccer and penalty shootouts, bubbles, tag, and their favorite: chair races!! Damn these little munchkins are cute!





We spent time over the meal to get to know our family better. Cousins, aunts, uncles...everyone... The fun-loving and playful nature of Nick and the boys is great entertainment.





The similarities (both physically and in every other minuscule aspect of their being) between my father and his newly reintroduced brother Tim are uncanny. Such great families to call our relatives and such great fun still to be had in the coming week of Agoratsio adventures...


Getting to know everyone on a more personal level has, thus far, been quite a treat. I keep telling myself how lucky I am to have these opportunities - to travel to Greece one week after my 25th birthday; to travel to Australia for Christmas - the destinations one dreams of seeing in his or her lifetime. Travel perks aside (and even with all of this writing on the blog) I can't put into words how fortunate we are to have such incredible relatives both in Greece and in Australia.







A wild rainstorm ripped through the Sydney suburbs during our party. It was actually kind of cool to see the weather change so drastically in a five minute period and to hear the heavy thunderous blasts of rain drops slamming into the corrugated metal roofing over head. Along with the parallels I noticed between Sydney's afternoon thunderstorms with those in Boulder, Colorado (where I attended CU-Boulder for college; where summer storms happen like clockwork at 3pm), the rain gave us all a chance to slow down and really get to talk with each other on a deeper level. In fitting fashion, we laughed loudly like the sound of the water on metal; we cried under the pouring rain from the skies.


Here is a view into my most personal gut feelings and reactions: this situation with so many new family members (and the accompanying warmth and love and kindness) is a world I never thought I would be a part of; I never thought my sister or my mother, or most importantly my father would be a part of. Until this year, the Agoratsios and my father's childhood/long lost family had been a distant memory of his, and nothing more than a reticent bedtime story to my sister and I. But from the minute he received the first phone call this spring, it has been a dream - a literal life-long-impossible-unimaginable (other than in my dreams) dream - come true.