#gemsofgreece

[gemsofgreece]

Almost SCAMMED

Heads-up to my followers, I almost fell victim to a scam but I believe I stopped before risking my account. I am also tagging @staff on this as I wish to notify them about it, though I am not sure I need to do anything more than this at the moment.

I received a mail by someone telling me they reported my blog by accident and offered to send me the tumblr ticket they received.

This seems like a person and not a bot so I believed it and I replied in a message asking them for the tumblr ticket. They responded promptly. (By the way on the app chat it says he followed me a year ago but on the desktop chat it says "we do not follow each other".)

So the ticket supposedly tells him that his efforts at taking back his report against my blog are NOT believed because I have been so serially reported by myriads of people for Phishing and Financial Scam that they are determined to delete my account no matter what unless I get in touch with that person on Discord within 24 hours for a live investigation.

That's where I paused. The things that did not make sense for me were... well, everything, but in specific:

the structure of the ticket is strange. In the beginning it's like they are addressing me as the reporter but I am supposed to be the reported user. The username of the blogger who supposedly did the accidental report is nowhere to be seen.

multiple strikes for Phishing and Financial Scam... REALLY NOW???

So you are determined to have my account deleted within the day without me getting any notification about it?

so you are telling the REPORTER that the reported should get in touch with that "tumblr support" person in order to save the account but you do not inform the reported person themselves???????? Is the one who reposrted me supposed to let me know that I need to save my account???

why on discord and not on tumblr

"account details will be provided to law enforcement" LOL what details go ahead dimwit, let all the police know my email and my darkest secret that I like my feta drenched in olive oil

So after all that I looked up the tumblr scam tag and there have been indeed similar scams circulating these days and some people even lost their accounts. They are not all phrased exactly identical, so you need to be careful. If you come across someone apologizing to you for reporting you, it's scam.

I believe I stopped before getting my blog in danger, however be also cautious in case you get any sudden and strange message from me or see any weird post being published by me, gemsofgreece.

Anyway, keeping this all here in case anything goes wrong.

P.S. I don't know what to do with the guy who sent me this above. I'll block and mark as spam but I am not sure I want to report their blog because maybe the blogger got his blog hacked ... idk what to do.

EDIT: The blog itself was scam, I tried to block them and they had already deleted their account as I was writing this post. This is a little scary.

[platypusesforarms]

Kaisariani Monastery, Athens 🌍 Monty Don's Adriatic Gardens: Greece

[starsharks]

What are some like typical or like popular Greek dances to learn? I know it’s very dependent on where you’re from, but like just generally

Hey! So if there’s one dance, it’s Kalamatianos. Most popular songs these days are written for it, every glendi will play like an hour of it at minimum, every region will have some variation of it.

Here are some great tutorial videos: ONE | TWO | THREE

For popular Kalamatianos songs: ONE | TWO | THREE

In terms of party dances, the popular ones you’ll see in the US are:

Pentozali (from Crete) - ONE | TWO | THREE

Ikariotikos (from Ikaria) - ONE | TWO | THREE

Zembekiko (from Asia Minor I believe; this one is freestyle, so take the lessons with a grain of salt) - ONE | TWO | THREE

The other one I’m going to throw in is Syrtaki/Zorba. I personally hate it, but it’s famous so what can you do.

Regionally, there are a few that are the hallmarks:

Syrtos/Ballos (from the islands; while the same base step is the same, there will be stylistic differences on each island; syrtos is in a line and ballos is the same step but in couples) - ONE | TWO | THREE

Zonaradikos (from Thrace in northeastern Greece) - ONE | TWO | THREE 

Kritikos/Roditikos (you would think it’s from Crete, but actually it’s the variant of Haniotikos/Cretan Syrtos that’s found on Rhodes) - ONE | TWO | THREE

I’ll go ahead and link Haniotikos too (from Crete) - ONE | TWO | THREE

Sousta (from the Dodecanese and Cyclades islands) - ONE | TWO | THREE 

Kotsari (from Pontos, which is now present-day Turkey) - ONE | TWO | THREE 

Gaida (from Macedonia in northcentral Greece) - ONE | TWO | THREE 

Tsamikos (from central Greece; Thessaly and the Pelopponese) - ONE | TWO | THREE 

Sta Tria (from Epirus in northwestern Greece) - ONE | TWO | THREE

Once you get into each region or island, it gets more specific by village as well.

Also, if you’re trying to learn from videos like these, never watch the leader. They will always be doing tricks. Watch the third or fourth person, or watch one of the women.

If you want more information about a specific region, feel free to let me know! Thanks for the ask!

[gemsofgreece]

So I bought two books together, totally different topics.

And when I got them in my hands and looked at them I was lowkey mystified by a funny coincidence.

The book on the right is the Greek translation of astrophysicist Katie Mack’s book “The End of Everything”, a book that explains all the major theories in the field of Cosmology about how the Universe is going to end.

The book on the left is a book by Greek professor and prehistoric archaeologist Theodoros Giannopoulos, who explains in detail all the major theories regarding the very origins of the people who would eventually evolve into the Greek ethnic group. The book is called “The Greeks: Whence and When” but in the cover there is a script in very ancient Greek which reads “The Beginning of Everything”!

So somehow I got two completely different books with different theories about different things, but somehow one is about “the beginning of everything” and the other one is about “the end of everything” and it was not intentional 😂

* BTW given how the left text is very ancient and the right is current, you can see the evolution of the Greek alphabet from early archaic to classical / modern times!

[gemsofgreece]

I recommend to you, especially if you are adults, to ensure you switch on the “show mature content” option in your settings, because it seems tumblr is spiralling down the Pinterest path of oversanitation. After flagging a post about a Greek American couple wearing the completely modest traditional clothes of Sifnos island for their wedding as “mature” (?!?!??) I noticed they also flagged my entirely NON-graphic history post about when Athens was invaded by the N*zis and how it protected the ancient statues. Excuse me, isn’t tumblr supposed to be about people over 13 years old anyway?!?! Are we trying to create a safe community or perhaps a community of young sheltered ignorants who are exposed to nothing, who eventually know nothing? Maybe it’s convenient to erase so much darkness that happened and happens in the world if you pretend you care about the “safe for work content”.

The fact that I have to put asterisks to talk about the history of what our grandparents very much did go through a few decades ago so that it won’t hurt somebody’s fragile eyes is an insult. We have all been kids and teens and we called things by their real names. In school even. This new numbing mentality is not suiting me. For as long as tumblr does not self combust I am gonna keep making history and culture posts apart from the harmless landscape photos. So all I am saying is there is the crazy possibility some of them will be flagged as mature for no reason, so if you are interested in this content I suggest you took into consideration what setting you have for your dashboard.

[gemsofgreece]

I just wanted to say thank you for posting all you post. You truly love your culture and everything you post expresses it, it really fulfils my interest in Greece in a way that works with my busy and exhausting life. Thank you.

There is nothing more rewarding than knowing that this blog can have a positive impact and fulfill people’s needs. I feel honoured, thank you for your nice words! Enjoy the rest of this special day!

[gemsofgreece]

Okay this is very stupid but I can’t find one of the few posts I am actually lowkey proud of making. It was an answer to an ask about similarities between real Greece and Assassin’s Creed representation. (Yes that’s the one I am proud of, what about it) I have tried all possible keywords and all searches and I can’t find it. Should anyone ever come across it, please tag me or give me the link to my own post lol 😅😅😅

[gemsofgreece]

I am a little unsure regarding what I should post the next few days - I know in several places abroad the moment Christmas Day is over the mood is over. In Greece, however, Santa Claus (Saint Basil actually) comes in New Year's Day and the decorations are taken down in January 7th, after the Epiphany, so it will be still totally relevant if I keep posting Christmas-y stuff...