Oakland Greek Festival

The front of Ascension Cathedral-Site of the Oakland Greek Festival

The gorgeous view from Ascension Cathedral

Yesterday was a beauty of the day in the Bay. It was one of the happy accidents in the adventures of my life. Last Friday I went to the yard to see the A's play Detroit and on the scoreboard they flashed if you bring your ticket to Greek Festival admission is free. So, I went and glad I did. I do not know much about Greek culture and the Greek Orthodox Christian Church, yesterday I learned so much.

One of the first things I did was (even with the great food smells and music going on) is go inside the church and hear Fr. Nebojsa Pantic speak about the church. I found it quite interesting and found the inside of the church. Fr. Nebojsa was very kind to answer my questions about the Greek Orthodox Christian Church.

The inside of Ascension Cathedral

The beautiful ceiling of the Cathedral

Once outside I found a lot of great smells that led me around. But I decided to walk around and check out what else was going on. It was like a great bazaar with people selling all kinds of great stuff. Everything from pottery to clothes to handbags to artwork to jewelry being sold. Everything was high quality and hand crafted.

Pottery being sold.

Handcrafted jewelry by Shakeels Concepts

After getting into things, I checked out the music. I'm a big music fan, but never have listed to Greek music much. I guess I need to start as I really enjoyed it. I really got into the sound of the instrument called the bouzouki. It is a plucked string instrument that is a mainstay of Greek music which I found out at the festival. It was really cool sounding and guy I heard playing it -George Mylordes was really shredding it and I really enjoyed the band he was in Kymata, even though they sang in Greek I thought that they were great

Georges Mylordes on the bouzouki

The group Kymata preforming

What made the music really stand out was the people who were dancing. People got out and were doing traditional Greek dancing. They were mainly female and I would love to learn how to Greek dance.

People dancing to the music

Lamb on the spit

And the food was wonderful. I love lamb and rice. But seeing a whole lamb on the spit was just too cool (above). And I found a new food that I like and I bet it will like me. It is called Loukoumades which is a honey dipped pastry puff and it was so good.

A bowl of Loukoumades

On the way out, while waiting for the shuttle. I noticed a beautiful reflecting pond outside the Cathedral and took a look at it and I know that this sounds corny, but reflecting at the day-I had a great time and glad I went.

The pond outside Ascension Cathedral