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- 🌀Greece's Olive Oil Goes Vending Machine - and Other Wonders
🌀Greece's Olive Oil Goes Vending Machine - and Other Wonders
The Greek Talk: For Greeks, Greek-adjacents, and the Greek-curious. 👀🇬🇷
Hi Greek Talkers!
Welcome to The Greek Talk, your passport between the homeland and the diaspora — no lines, no stamps, just the stories that keep us connected.
One minute we’re in Thasos applauding an ancient theater’s comeback, the next we’re at a sold-out gala in Chicago or side-eyeing a tourist who decided to lift ancient marble for fun (shaking our heads). Proud, cheeky, and a little unhinged — exactly how we like our news.
Let’s dive in. ☕🤿🇬🇷
**Got a story, photo, or memory we should share? Send it our way — we’d love to hear from you: [email protected]
🇬🇷 WHAT’S NEW IN GREECE
🥇 Maria Rafailidou wins European U20 gold — proving we’re still good at launching things! 👏 👏 CONGRATS MARIA 👏 👏
tovima.com
🎭️ Ancient theater of Thasos reopens - the comeback tour took 2,000 years but who’s counting?
tovima.com
More news from Greece
🛰️ From souvlaki to satellites: Greece plotting its own ISR satellite.
🤖 Greek tech scene is officially trending. Here are notable startups that raised funds the past year.
🌊 Greece vs Turkey, marine edition — Greece says ‘no’ to Turkey’s marine parks.
🫒 Vending machines in Greece now serve olive oil — because chips are too basic.
⛱️ Greece tops American travel list — history, beaches, freddos, and gyros: I mean, what’s not to love?
🏀 Giannis is back with Greece for EuroBasket: because MVP also stands for Most Valuable Patriot!
🪨 Naxos’ Portara gets a fence after a tourist decided ancient marble was a gym prop.
🏖️ Greece lands 5 beaches in worst 100 — reasons: noise, queues, and maybe you?
🏨 Short-term rentals hit 1.061M in Greece and overtake hotels; good luck finding a local still living downtown.
💃 Xanthi celebrates culture with its Old Town Festival — bring your camera and appetite.
🌎️ WHAT’S NEW OUTSIDE OF GREECE
🎓️ PanHellenic Scholarship Gala sells out — somewhere, yiayiades are beaming.
hellenicnews.com
More news from outside of Greece
🇦🇺 Faith, freedom, and Aussie-Greek flair — Samos goes all out.
🌎️ Six years of Boston–Thessaloniki youth exchange and accents now thoroughly confused.
💎 CULTURAL GEMS
Museum of Cycladic Art
🎨 Marlene Dumas: Cycladic Blues at the Museum of Cycladic Art (until November 2, 2025)
If you’ve ever wondered what happens when one of the world’s most celebrated painters crashes a dinner party with 5,000-year-old figurines — wonder no more. Marlene Dumas’ new exhibition at Athens’ Museum of Cycladic Art pairs her haunting, deeply human portraits with handpicked archaeological treasures from the museum’s own collection. It’s part art show, part time-travel, and entirely the sort of thing you casually mention at brunch to sound wildly cultured.
Born in South Africa during apartheid and based in Amsterdam for nearly fifty years, Dumas has spent her career peeling back the layers of what it means to be human — joy, grief, love, loss — usually through the human body itself. In the exhibition, more than forty works (paintings and works on paper) from across three decades are shown alongside Cycladic figurines, marble sculptures, and artefacts from as far back as the Late Neolithic period. The result? A conversation between centuries that reminds you life, love, and mortality never go out of style.
📆 BEST OF GREEK CALENDAR
💃 🫒 August 2025 Greek Festivals around the US (Santa Barbara, CA; Newport, RI; Fayetteville, GA; Palos Hills, IL; Springfield, MA; Omaha, NE; Lincoln, NE; Anchorage, AK; Pawtucket, RI; Mansfield, MA; Manchester, NH; Pittsburg, PA; Lynn. MA; Lynn, MA, and Silver Spring, MD),
🎨 Marlene Dumas, Cycladic Blues, Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens
🧳 TRAVEL NEWS
🏖️ Halki: The island so small, you’ll know everyone by day three — whether you want to or not
tovima.com
Halki is like that one cousin who’s effortlessly stylish without even trying — tiny, low-key, and quietly gorgeous. Just a short ferry hop from Rhodes, this Dodecanese island is all neoclassical mansions, pastel facades, and crystalline waters that look Photoshopped. It’s one of Greece’s official “Slow Tourism” havens, which means there are more lazy afternoons than loud nights, and you’ll likely spend most of your time deciding between another swim or another scoop of gelato.
The main draw here is the picture-perfect harbor town of Emporio, with its clock tower and 19th-century merchant houses. Don’t miss the Monastery of Agios Ioannis Alarga, perched alone on a remote hillside, or the serene beach at Potamos — the kind of place where your “I’ll just read one chapter” turns into three hours.
🍋 Ftenagia Beach Cantina – a family-run spot on Ftenagia Beach where the fish was probably swimming that morning.
🏘️ Ruins of Horio – the island’s abandoned medieval village.
🥾 The Prophet Elias hike – short but with smug-worthy views over the Aegean.
🍷 Local sweet wine – ask for it in any taverna; it’s not on the menu, but it’s nectar-level good.
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🆕 OBSESSIONS
greeceis.com
✨ TRENDING GREEK SOCIAL MEDIA
Some call it the village square, we call it yiayia’s stage.
@greekgateway 🇬🇷 Opa! When your Yiayia’s favourite Greek song comes on! This cool Yiayia has gone viral on Tik Tok. Video by @Κωστής Κωστης #greece #ath... See more
💡 INSPIRATION
Make the best use of what’s in your power and take the rest as it happens
😎 GREEK FYI
🇬🇷 The Ancient theater of Epidaurus was so perfectly designed that a whisper from the stage can be heard clearly in the back row - no microphones, just genius acoustics.
😂 MYTHIC MEMES
@excusemeareyougreek
📌 RECS
If in Greece right now (lucky you) why don’t you:
✅ Watch shadow-puppet theatre (Karagiozis) - Usually in village squares, with kids howling with laughter.
✅ Visit Varvakios Agora in Athens - a meat/spice/chaos market for adventurous foodies.
That’s it for now, with enough homeland news and diaspora pride to last you a week - from souvlaki to satellites, if it’s Greek, it’s here. Catch you next week for more news (but can we really top the olive oil vending machines? I think not), drama and deep dives. 🧿 Stay Greek. [email protected]
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