Former Australian ambassador to Greece Jenny Bloomfield was born in Greece on January 26 - Australia Day - and migrated with her family to Australia in 1981. She shares her inspiring story in a new memoir.
It's June 2010 and I'm waiting in the coffee line at Brindabella Café, tucked inside the RG Casey Building, home to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra.
The place is buzzing with chatter as public servants grab an afternoon coffee before heading back to their desks.
Just ahead of me is Chris, head of the Corporate Management Division and the central person for staff placements and overseas postings.
As we shuffle forward, Chris greets me with his easygoing smile and strikes up a chat.
He mentions that the latest list of vacancies for Heads of Mission - Australian ambassadors, high commissioners, consuls-general and other senior diplomatic roles abroad - has just been issued.
"Why don't you put your hand up for Athens?" he asks with an encouraging smile. "You speak the language, you know the culture - you'd be fantastic for the role."
His suggestion throws me. For most diplomats, overseas assignments are the ultimate dream, but applying for another posting, especially now, when we've only just settled back in Australia, hasn't crossed my mind. And ... Greece?
My first thought is my family. After six years of back-to-back stints in Argentina and Japan, we've finally returned and begun to re-establish ourselves in Canberra. The children are only just starting to remember what life here is like. For the youngest, Australia is a new and unfamiliar place.
Yet a single thought eclipses all these practical considerations: I am Greek.
I was born on Australia Day, January 26, in Thessaloniki, Greece's vibrant northern city and a sister city of Melbourne, where I grew up. To those around me, my Greek background is hardly apparent. I don't have a Greek name, accent or distinguishing features; in Canberra, I am just another Australian public servant. Still, my heritage is wholly Greek.
A rush of questions fills my mind. Could someone who is wholly Greek truly represent Australia as its ambassador to Greece? Am I "Australian enough"? How would Greeks see me - as Australian, as Greek or as something in between? Whenever the idea of serving in Greece has arisen in the past, these doubts have always made me hesitate.
My colleague smiles. "Think about it," he says. "At the very least, your kids would all learn Greek!"
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I was the first child of my parents, Pavlos and Penelope. They married less than a year before my birth at Thessaloniki's Church of the Holy Trinity, across from the iconic Makedonia Palace Hotel on the waterfront.
They had a brief honeymoon, spending a single night at a beach hotel on the outskirts of Kavala, after making the roughly 150-kilometre journey along the east coast by bus. Soon after, they settled into my grandmother Valentini's modest apartment in the heart of Thessaloniki. There, they shared the small space with Grandma and Mum's younger sister, Eleftheria - Aunty Ellie to me. That little apartment was where I was born. By that time, Mum's older brother, Theodore - Uncle Theo - had already begun a new life in Melbourne. Before I reached my first birthday, Grandma and Aunty Ellie followed in his footsteps.
At the time they were married, Dad had recently returned to land after serving as an officer in the Greek merchant navy, and he'd used his savings to set up two small businesses. Mum left her bookkeeping job shortly before the wedding.
Although we lived in the city, my father came from a village, Kariani, located 100 kilometres east along the coastline from Thessaloniki. My grandparents, Pappous Apostolos and Yiayia Polyxeni, were entopioi, locals of eastern Macedonia, who spent their lives working the land. My dad was the sixth of nine children, raised in a tight-knit rural family shaped by village traditions.
As a young man in Kariani, Apostolos met my grandmother, Polyxeni, famed as the village beauty. She had a relatively privileged childhood, raised as an only child by her uncle and aunt, who owned Kariani's sole grocery store. Their romance blossomed as Apostolos serenaded her beneath her window, and soon they married. Apostolos moved into the family home along with his in-laws, where they would spend the rest of their lives.
Each day, my grandparents and their children worked tirelessly on the land. Even with nine children, Polyxeni returned to work in the fields soon after each birth.
It wasn't just hard work that shaped their lives. Living at the crossroads of Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria and Serbia, the family also faced war and turmoil, often narrowly escaping danger.
After the war, facing severe poverty and hardship, many people from Kariani, like thousands of other Greeks, made the brave decision to migrate abroad, including to Australia, in search of a better life.
For me, Kariani was the backdrop to some of my most treasured childhood memories. We'd visit often for weekends, summer holidays and family celebrations - Easter lamb on the spit, grape harvests in September. For a time, Dad and his brother managed a four-acre vineyard, and I remember picking grapes and tying grafted vines with strips of cloth. I can still taste Yiayia Polyxeni's fresh goat's cheese, steaming trahana soup and ribbons of handmade pasta. We'd climb sand dunes, hunt for hidden treasure and dive into the cool northern Aegean waters.
In my mind's eye, my grandparents are still watching over us. Hardened by life's difficult circumstances, they were tough. They were resourceful and resilient, fair and honourable, compassionate and fiercely proud. In times of war or hardship, my grandfather's flock of sheep ensured the village a plentiful supply of meat. He was a forbearing man who seldom demonstrated affection but was charitable and generous to anyone in need. He cared for those who worked for him like his own children.
These are traits that they passed on to their children, and they to their children. Though our lives couldn't be more different, those qualities shaped me, too.
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My mind is filled with these childhood memories as I take my seat at the table with the family for the evening meal and calmly announce, "I've been asked to apply for ambassador to Greece."
"What?" Knives, forks and spoons clatter into bowls and plates.
"That's amazing news," my husband James says.
"Does that mean we have to go back to Greek school?" the children ask, concerned.
"Yes, most likely," I reply, grinning. "That, and plenty of Greek practice with Yiayia."
They all smile at that; they absolutely adore my mum, Penelope, who dotes on them with indulgence and boundless love. "But I haven't even decided whether I'll apply yet," I say. "This is a family decision, so I want to know what everyone thinks first..."
"Well, you can't very well not apply," James says, interrupting me. "It'd be, like, the pinnacle of your career - no, of your life!"
I look at him and smile. "It would be full circle."