How could one ever possibly enter Lent without feeling thoroughly sick to the stomach from the pancakes and sausage ingested during the pancake supper the previous evening? *\;-|
(I start my penance early... *\;-)
"What about Shrove Tuesday?"
All the Shroves in Greece died out 1800 years ago or so; hunted 'em to extinction we did! The Turks tried to reintroduce an Anatolian variety, but by then we had forgotten their early Christian identity and believing them to be Mohammedan demon creatures, the Greek slaves woking on the Turkish Shrove ranches poisoned them with retsina and kokoretsi and the Turks gave it up as a bad idea.
In Orthodox usage, the fast begins on a Monday. The difference between Eastern and Western usage is this: the West includes Holy Week in the count of 40 days, but excludes the Sundays falling within Lent, so that Ash Wednesday is 46 days before the Latin Easter; the East considers Holy Week a separate 6 day fast, and excludes the two feast days that always fall in Great Lent--Annunciation and Palm Sunday--from count of 40 days so that Pure Monday is always 48 days before Pascha. (Or 47 and 49 if you count the old Jewish way).
Liturgically Orthodox Great Lent begins with Forgiveness Vespers on the evening of the day popularly called 'Cheesefare Sunday'. Though fasting begins that midnight. (I do not know why, but Orthodox liturgical days are Jewish days--sundown to sundown--but fasts are observed on Roman days--midnight to midnight.)
We have a longer period of 'pigging out' to eat up the non-Lenten foods: a week with no fasting, followed by a week with the usual Wed. and Fri. fasts, followed by a week when no meat is eaten, but none of the other fasting disciplines apply: hence the popular name of Forgiveness Sunday, 'Cheesefare', since it's the day you say farewell to cheese, milk, eggs and fish--the Sunday before, properly the Sunday of the Last Judgement, is popularly called 'Meatfare' for similar reason.