Usually when you think of family you think of the parents, siblings, grandparents etc. That isn’t the case for me. My family is the same like any other, but I have around twenty to about thirty cousins and around fifteen aunts and uncles combined. I am a very lucky person for having an enormous family that still keeps in touch and still is growing. One day my mother told me about my cousins in Greece which I already knew about but I only have met two of them and still have around ten more to meet.  She told me that this summer we are going to meet the rest of the family and that gave me some positive and negative thoughts. I had to speak Greek, which is really hard, but since I went to Greek school it wasn’t much of a problem understanding, reading, and writing Greek, the hard was actually speaking the language without a book and without a teacher giving you the answer to every single question.

We were going to be on the plane in late July for my cousins wedding and I was so excited. A good amount of cousins are going to Greece with us for the wedding and to see some of their family too. I was practicing my Greek because it has been two to three years since I actually studied the language and I was very rusty on it. I was with my little cousin Niko who at the time was in first grade and he would always play with handcuffs because he loves pretending to be a cop. He always arrests me and watches me do stuff because he looks up to me. He is one of my cousins who is going to the trip to Greece with me. A couple months pass and I have been studying the language again but as it seems I haven’t gotten far from the amount I used to do at that point which was very little. I started to get nervous while on the plane not because of flight sickness but from the fact that it will be very hard to speak the language. I thought to myself the whole time on the plane thinking, “Will they make fun of me or think that I don’t care about the language.” This really got to me making the ten hour flight horrendous.

We arrive to Greece and I just finished my book about how a star wars prisoner escaped a doomed asylum. We arrive at Athens and stay with the two cousins I already knew from Greece awhile back but explaining the whole story of me knowing them would take forever so I am just going to say that I had them over my house a few years back. They greet me in English and I stayed at their house for about 3 hours. The next day my family and I travel to the beautiful island of Santorini. There we met with more of my family and started going to the wedding. It was amazing and you wouldn’t believe it but I danced like the world was going to end tomorrow. During this wedding my little cousin Niko again secretly handcuffs me and brings me outside. During that I joked around with him pretending to be the hulk and instantly breaking free from my restraints. I had an amazing time at the wedding but the real fun part was going the next day on a catamaran.

After the fun in Santorini we went to Mykonos or as a lot of people know this as the party island because the party never stops. At this point I wasn’t really that nervous since I was learning while I was there but I still wasn’t that confident speaking a lot in Greek. We had a good time and went to one of the clubs there, which I would say was pretty cool. There was a DJ and people were just all over the place. The only downside to it was there was a lot of alcohol and cigarettes on the floor. When I mean everywhere I mean literally everywhere to the point where white shoes become black in a couple of steps.  We eat and just explore in Mykonos, we didn’t do that much but had a good time. After that we went back to Athens because the family members that I still didn’t meet are living there. We travel back and the moment of truth happens. We meet the rest of my family and the first words a say are greeting them. I was amazed that I was still able to keep my composure. It looked like all the practice I did paid off and am I so happy that we met and was able see them.

It has now been a year and I think my family is making another tip to Greece. I haven’t been studying my Greek since I came back but I think I will be fine. This experience has changed me physically because I got a tan but also mentally with confidence and trying new things. I am so happy I went and experienced this once in a lifetime opportunity.