One of the things I love about Chicago is how cultural it is. Chicago's people are incredibly proud of their culture and heritage and love celebrating it. Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the Greek Independance Day Parade on Halsted in Greektown. People not familiar with the Greek community would be amazed at how many Greek organizations there are in Chicagoland. Greek churches from Chicago to Elgin were represented in full force. There were Greek dance groups of all ages and sizes, a Greek Professionals organization, Greek schools, even a Greek motorcycle group called "Gama". Some villages in Greece were also represented with banners and marchers. My favorite dance group to watch is Dionysos Dance Troupe. They perform dances from all over Greece and grow in size every year. To view some of their dances, check out this YouTube link of their performance at a 2009 White Sox Game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeBLZcVJD5A
After the Parade, we all went to Greek Islands, on Halsted, for a mouth-watering dinner. Greek Islands has a variety of traditional Greek food at reasonable prices. There is something for everyone's taste from chicken to seafood to soups to salads to gyros to even different lamb dishes. We enjoyed flaming saganaki cheese, grilled octopus, calamari, fried zucchini, traditional greek spreads, dolmades (grape leaves stuffed with ground meat and rice), and spanakotiropita (layers of spinach and feta cheese in a filo dough). I left Greek Islands last night holding my very full belly.
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