Look Good Enough to Eat

It's hunting season and bikini weather is upon us. So time to buff those bodies up to perfection!

I'm into homemade therapies and discovered to my delight that a friend from bellydancing class is too. When we chatted together during break she gave me her recipe for an amazing body scrub that she uses on herself. I made it last night and though I had to resist the urge to eat a spoonful of the mix, my legs are now buffed to perfection.

For a leg scrub you will need:

2 - 3 tablespoons of sugar

one small piece of cinnamon pounded to a coarse powder or 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 a teaspoon lemon or orange zest

olive oil

Method:

Add the olive oil to the sugar to make a crumbly paste. Add the cinnamon and lemon/orange zest. Mix it all up and scrub it thoroughly over your legs after you have washed and soaped. Rinse off. Your legs will be silky smooth and the sheen of oil left behind will nourish your skin.

Sexy times!

You know, I was told a few times by foreign women living in Athens that it is impossible for foreign women to make female Greek friends. They said that Greek women treated them with such hostility and suspicion that they had found it impossible to form any friendships with them.

Well, this is what I have found: there is a certain broad spectrum of Greek woman who will not ever want to be friends with you. But that's because she won't ever want to be friends with any woman. She views every other woman as a threat and a rival. She has female friends but she doesn't trust them. Such women are paranoid and rude to me and all other women but syrupy sweet to men. Thankfully I never have to mix with them in a social setting because not even Mr Zeus's female friends, who I count as my own, are like that.

The only place I regularly come into contact with Greek women outside of Mr Zeus's social circle is bellydancing class. Here, the girls welcomed me from the start. They were friendly to me and curious about where I was from. They took me under their wing and never once made me feel like I was any less than them. Am I friends with them? I'd like to think so. Am I good friends with them? No, but that's my own fault because I let the language barrier stop me from calling them up and arranging meetings outside of class so we can know each other better. I plan to work on this, because these are personalities I would feel disappointed to let out of my life.

At the end of the day, people in Athens react to you mostly the way you react to them. If you are rude, they are rude back. If they extend the hand of friendship and you don't take it, they will stop offering. After all, why should they chase me around to be my best friend if I'm not interested? It's already happened to me and I learnt my lesson.

So in my experience that myth of Greek women not making friends with foreign women has turned out to be totally untrue. Women might not have wanted to be friends with me because I was acting like a snooty cow, not because I am foreign and with one of their men. You take a little, you give a little.

With that in mind, here is the face scrub recipe I gave in return for the body scrub:

You will need:

2 tablespoons of gram flour (source from health shops or the Indian shops off Athinas street)

Rosewater, milk or plain water

Method:

Mix the flour and rosewater/milk/water into a thick cream and spread all over your face. Rub it in for five minutes and leave to set. Rinse off. Use rosewater to soften and refresh, milk if you have very dry skin and water if you have normal skin. A really good exfoliant and skin tightener.

So from Asia I give you a lovely face and from Greece I give you gorgeous legs. What more does a girl need?

Image: http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/pretika/st120scrub.jpg