Archive note: This text comes from the old archive of Nomika Epilekta and is preserved with care for historical and informative reading.

What shall I remember first? All of Athens had passed through Aegli or Papaspyrou in Syntagma to eat a Nougatina or Serrano pastry. Now we need one day to decide where we will go, one hour to read the menu with all the varieties, and one hour to decide what we will eat. There was no home without a huge doll, by today’s standards, decorating the bedroom or placed in the best spot on the sofa. I remember mine was dark-haired, with a pink dress.
When we went visiting, we bought Papadopoulou biscuits in a tin box, something innovative for that time. Today I use it for my sewing things. For those who did not drink alcohol, we bought orangeade, sour-cherry drink or IVI lemonade. Diluted with cool water, it got you out of difficult situations quickly and economically. Now we see them only on some hospital bedside table.
Do you remember the taka-taka? Two wooden balls tied to a thick cord, like a twenty-centimeter begleri. We did not leave anyone in peace. Until they banned it and the police chased us.
There were more than enough group games. PENTOVOLA, which we usually played at the beach or at noon, during quiet hours. XYLIKI, a boys’ game, though if you were a tomboy an exception could be made. SKATOULAKIA, which needed only a few flat stones or pieces of marble, a ball, and wings on your feet because it involved a lot of running. TSIGKAKIA, caps from FIX bottles or IVI orangeade and lemonade, and a free curb to push them along. And of course the well-known KOROIDO: back then, two or three people going up and down and one in the middle running back and forth to catch the ball were enough. Today we play it differently.
Three hundred divided between up and down, and ten million of us running back and forth without knowing where we are going or what we are doing.