NOTE: The following text was written in the morning of Euro 2004 semi-finals and of course prior to the great victory of the Greek National Team over the Czech Republic. The atmosphere described below remains the same today. Just add one goal, one huge Greek flag, 11.000 Greek fans in Porto, one National Anthem, and...the agonizing quest of the undersigned for a ticket to Portugal!!!!
Thank you Greece!!!
 I have just arrived at the office after a short shopping trip at the center of Thessaloniki, and what I have seen today, July 1st, day of the Semi-Finals between Greece and the Czech Republic, I had to share it with you!
Greek flags everywhere! I do not think I have seen so many Greek flags! Large flags, small flags, flags on t-shirts, on baseball caps, on pins, on windows of very expensive shops�and thousands of smiling people running around! The truth is that the Greek smile is our trade mark, but I never expected to see it everywhere! All Greece is a big smile, a huge, true, happy smile!
I guess we like being Greeks, but most of all we like to show it to everyone, especially when we experience something that makes even the most nagging of us, take the first flight to Portugal!
I do not think that television is capable of showing everything that happens every day around here, and it is one of rarest moments in history that Greeks stubbornly deny to oppress themselves in order to present an ideal picture of them, since this is actually their best picture! There are no words for me to describe all that happen and everything I feel, but I imagine that we all, wherever we are feel the same thing, an endless joy!
They say that fashion imitates art but in our case, the genius move of a singer, yes I am talking about Sakis Rouvas, to wear a t-shirt with the Greek flag (which by the way is pretty beautiful for a flag), fashion used a national symbol, took it out of our attics and put it in the closets of all Greece and why not of all the world.
I do not know if tonight's game will lead me again to the White Tower in order to share hugs with friends, to sing the National Anthem and to shout the well known Shkwse to, to timhmeno�Den mporw�.Den mporw na perimenwwwwww (sorry no translation for that), in all of its versions. To be honest it is not very important anymore if we win or lose tonight, because our National Team achieved something that nobody up to date has ever achieved: It took out the best of us, the real us, the happy, smiling, full of hope and imagination us, and this my friends is more important than winning or losing a game.
I do not want to sound over optimistic, but I think that we like so much what we all experience these days, that we will stay like that for a long, long time and at least until the end of the Olympic Games!
Win or lose tonight let us all put our blue and white t-shirts and caps and let us show to everyone the reason why we really like being Greeks!!!
Katerina Kourtessi
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