Greek Easter Part 2 and Kalo Mina

First of May! Whoop, whoop! We're in Bollybutton's birthday month! Incidentally, you may wish to know that Home Countryish for month is mahina. Mina, mahina, same thing.

Here's Part 2 of my Greek Easter 2008. I'm starting to love Greek Easter. The days before hand have such an air of anticipation. It almost feels like festivals Back Home. The whole country is gearing up, preparing, soul reflecting and cooking in anticipation for the big day.

In Greece, red eggs are an integral part of Easter. At midnight on Easter, you play a game with them whereby everyone takes an egg and takes turns knocking egg to egg, small end to small end or big end to big end until there is one unbroken egg standing and that's the winner. The prize is... nothing. Maybe a nice egg salad later.

Mr Zeus's mum brought me a packet of red powder dye and gave me instructions on how to make the eggs. Your eggs need to be at room temperature so the heat shock of boiling them doesn't make them crack open. Then you fill a pot with enough water to cover the eggs, lay a kitchen towel in the bottom of the pan and lay the eggs on top of this. The towel stops the eggs from knocking against each other and breaking. You now bring the pan to a very gentle boil on a low heat setting. When you're satisfied that the water is boiling, leave them for about 10 minutes.

Remove the eggs and cool until you can handle them. Check for cracked eggs and remove these because the dye is meant for the outside of the egg and it's probably not good for you to eat it. In one small half glass of red vinegar, dissolve one packet of dye and stir well. Fill a pan with enough hot water to cover all your eggs. The water should be hot but not uncomfortably hot or boiling. Pour the vinegar and dye into the pan with the water and stir, stir, stir!

Next, you lower the eggs into the pan so that they're covered with the red liquid. DON'T drop them in because you'll crack them. Now here is why it's important that you have enough water to cover the eggs completely, they need to soak undisturbed. I didn't, and proceeded to poke and prod my eggs continuously to make sure they were getting enough dye and ended up leaving my red eggs scratched and scarred from the spoon. Leave your eggs to dye for 3 minutes, then remove and leave to dry on kitchen paper.

Finally, take a napkin, dab it with olive oil and polish up the eggs so they look shiny and nice. You can buy egg dye that comes with polishing liquid but I didn't use this because it's some kind of skin irritant and flammable... not sure I wanted to rub it all over a food item. Olive oil was advised by FMIL and I was happy to stick to that.

My first Easter red eggs are not a bad effort despite a few scratches. But next year they'll be PERFECTION, wait and see.

Another first as I mentioned was my first May Catcher. After gorging yourself on Easter Sunday, it's customary to take a walk picking the wildflowers that blanket Greece at this time of year and weaving them into a wreath to hang on your door. The wreath is supposed to 'catch' May and bring it to your house. I've never seen anyone do this, but I'd heard of it and wanted to carry out this tradition.

My wreath is an artistic construction of two shades of purple wildflower as the base accented with little yellow and pink flowers and seven stunning red poppies. It's not just etsi kai etsi, it's fabulous and it's my first ever so I'm pretty proud of it!

Other things I did on Easter was the usual routine of getting to 11.45 pm and running around in a mad panic arming everyone with candles to go to Church, badly dressed as always. We were late and just missed them setting an effigy of Judas on fire. But at least we got our candles lit. Then everyone did a u-turn, piled back in the car and went home to eat. Mr Zeus made a cross on the doorway with candle soot, we played the egg cracking game and I turned the eggs into a salad while the magaritsa was dished up.

Magaritsa is a soup of liver, kidneys, lungs etc. with spring onions and lemon and egg, naturally! It tends to be hit and miss from year to year. Last year it was delicious, this year it was nothing to write home about. I don't like food finished with egg and lemon because I find it overpowers everything else and all I can taste is lemon. My future in laws love lemon and lots of it. They put kilos of the stuff on all their food but on small scale cooking for me they leave a bit with no lemon. Can't be picky at Easter though! Imagine magaritsa with fried onions and garlic, cumin, fresh coriander and chilli powder, left to simmer gently all day... mmmmmm.

After eating you go to bed to prepare for the following day of lamb turning, lamb turning, cooking, matriarchs-in-the-kitchen dodging and eating and eating and talking and talking. It's exhausting, it's stress full, it's greasy and smokey and it's also crazy fun. Greek Easter - the birthplace of competitive eating.

Image: http://www.digitalbattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/mlelink.gif

Kylie, Kylie, Kylie!

Stuck in the house because of chilly weather over Easter I flipped through a trashy lady's mag someone had brought with them and came to an article about Kylie. I like Kylie so I made an effort to start reading the Greek article.

I didn't get past the first line which advertised Kylie's concert in Athens on the 22nd of May at the Terra Vibe Stadium.

*Scream!* I've been wanting for a long time to go to a Kylie concert but they're way to expensive. In Athens, however, the top ticket of EUR 110 is roughly the same as the cheapest or almost cheapest ticket in London. The cheapest ticket of EUR 55 is peanuts if you compare it to anywhere else she's performed. Since my birthday is on the 14th of May (mark your diaries, babies) I thought why not treat myself. I know all her songs, singing along should be fun.

Sadly living in the land of rock lovers means I have no one to go with. Anyway, I just printed my receipt for my ticket and will keep in the hallowed place reserved at the bottom of my underwear drawer for Really Important Things.

If anyone's interested in joining me, dust off your golden hotpants and drop me a line via comments. Whoopee! Really helped to lift my blues!

Image: http://images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/20071128/425.minogue.kylie.x2.112807.jpg

Familiar Sounds from Different Cultures

Eat, Eat, Eat!




The Queen is India

Greek Easter Part 1

I'm sure you all are waiting desperately (!) for my Greek Easter stories and I have so many. I can only skim around the details for reasons of family privacy and because I don't want Mr Zeus to think I'm mocking his family. I'm already in the dog house with him for losing my temper with his mother. Mistake.

So picture this. Me, my mother, Mr Zeus, his mother, his grandma, his best friend, my best friend and his aunt all locked in a 45 square meter house for Easter. You can imagine the comedy moments that took place. His aunty talks non stop. NON STOP. I thought he was exaggerating when he warned me, but hell no. I've never seen anyone in my life talk like that from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep.

My future mother in law (FMIL) went into overdrive about how everything from the White House to my best friend's name was Greek (she has a Greek sounding name). The aunty decided to try out her blood sugar meter, the sort that involves pricking your finger for blood, on Yiayia just for the heck of it but naturally Yiayia wasn't having any of it. My best friend made the mistake of trying to make a cup of tea for herself and was ambushed in the kitchen.

I was on translation overtime and felt my braincells commit suicide one by one, and of course when I pondered what the english was for a word that directly translates to see you again, I was reminded that naturally I couldn't translate since English only was 45,000 words and Greek has 1 million. Aunty also decided to call me Maria all the time since my own name was too hard for her, a concession I usually only make for Yiayia because of her age, but by then I had given up already. What was my inferior culture with my inferior name anyway?

I walked past a fire we had started to keep extra coals going as it decided to flare up for a split second. There was a flash of heat, a crackling sound and the smell of burning hair as I squeezed my eyes shut and yelped. When I opened them... yes, half the length of my eyelashes on my left eye is gone. I look like I randomly took a pair of scissors and decided to trim them. I'm wondering if I wear mascara on one eye if it'll hide what happened.

You know what it made me think? Greece is just the Home Country but populated with Greeks. There is next to no difference between the two in their hospitality and culture of force feeding guests. It also provided great training for me because you grow up learning 10,000 ways to politely decline overbearing matriarchs. But obviously not enough, because the one lesson I forgot from Home Country life is never, ever say anything bad about your man's mother.

Sigh. It was fun. It was also exhausting and I'm glad there is another year left before next Easter. It all makes me wonder... with such mother hens scratching around, stressing each other out and nagging, my wedding next year is going to be hell on earth. Just when I had figured out how to bypass all my own interfering relatives. I don't even want to think about it now.

I have lots of fun moments and firsts from Greek Easter to relay about my first red egg dying and my first May Catcher which I'll do another time. As you can tell I'm still down in the dumps from being in the dog house. :-(

Friends and Family

One of my best friends is here and I'm so happy! The man of the house has been distracted lately to say the least and I was starting to get depressed about my routine of home alone all day, dance class with an eccentric teacher, lonely bus rides home and television.

Having her around is so nice, I have someone to talk to all day and someone to spend time with and who also wants to spend time hanging out with me. Yesterday we went downtown after work and I showed her the usual sights. "That's the Acropolis, those are some ruins, and those are some more ruins." Admittedly after nearly two years I should know what those ruins downtown are. But seriously, all the tourists only want to see the Acropolis, right? And anyway, we had watched a glorious sunset sitting on the steps at Syntagma Square, so who cares.

We've been friends for nearly 13 years. I had just started school in the UK, one week fresh from my arrival from the Home Country. It was hard and awkward especially since no one wanted to know me. I had been to an all-girls school where appearance was secondary to getting an education. The nuns told you off for wearing the wrong colour of hair tie. Wearing makeup and leaving your hair loose was unthinkable. So you can imagine how well received I was in the UK in my big glasses, mortification at my new school uniform and my hair firmly braided back.

In the Home Country when a new girl started at our school we all took turns to keep her company until she settled in and chose her own group. We felt a collective sense of responsibility for new members to our gang. Not so in the UK. I was like a lamb tossed to the lions, a geeky, nerdy lamb that no one wanted to know or help and who boys asked in the corridors for condoms because they enjoyed my horrified expression and wanted to make a point of me being the last person in the world who would have a condom because I was that unshaggable. Those first few weeks of school were like a living nightmare. I cried every day when I got home. High school... I'd never do it again.

So there I was in History class and I picked a chair that was free. I sat next to a blonde haired girl who ignored me the entire class. The next week when I made a move for the same seat, she put her bag on it. "You can't sit here. My mate's going to sit here." I panicked. Class would start soon and I'd be left standing here like an idiot with nowhere to sit. In the far corner by the door I spotted a free seat at a table for four and made my way there. I was almost in tears by this point and practically begged to sit in the free chair. Thankfully this new crowd was much more relaxed and also a lot nicer to me. The girl sat next to me even knew a few words in Home Land language!

We became friends and stayed friends. She's one of the best people I know and I'll always be thankful to her for rescuing me that day.

Last night I couldn't sleep because after so much boredom, having all that fun and all that conversation sent my mind into overload. We meet up regularly when I'm in London but I'm so glad I have the chance to show her my life here in Athens. She was one of the only people who stood by me through everything. When we walked past the taverna I danced in on Sunday night and said hi to the waiter outside, then the guy who was our DJ a few steps further down, then someone else who called out my name a few more steps down, and then my bellydance teacher and a friend from class, all within a few minutes of each other, a huge smile spread across my face.

"Look how well established I am now," I joked, "everyone here knows me!"

Tomorrow my mum is arriving. Aaaah it's going to be a good Easter.

As an Aside

Totally unrelated, I hate this advert. HATE it! It makes me want to grab this girl by her extensions and lock her in a library.

Nona Hates Me

In Greece, it's tradition for Godparents to give their godchild a candle and a pair of new shoes for Easter. The theory goes that the new shoes were a way of spreading the cost of child rearing in harder times. As for the candle, go to any church at midnight before Easter Sunday and you'll see swarms of little brats clutching awe inspiring, fantastical creations with a candle poking out of one end. The Godparent candle.

Naturally, the fancier the candle, the more your Godparents love you. Remember, dear readers, that yours truly snuck her way to Godparentship last summer. So it was off to Jumbo for me and Mr Zeus.

If you've never been to Jumbo, don't go. It's the most effective contraceptive device known to man. Five minutes in Jumbo with it's maze of aisles and lucrative prices set to a cocophany of imp music and screaming children and your illusions of parenthood will come crashing down around you.

We found three aisles of candles and man, I've never done this before so I was gobsmacked. There were Barbie branded candles, Winnie the Pooh candles, and my favourite, a Sakis Rouvas candle. I theorized that since our godson is not even two yet, we should get him something mid-market because he won't even remember the candle anyway.

Mr Zeus insisted we go for a full on chunky candle embellished with boats, ropes, wind chimes and transparent base filled with floating sand and starfish. "We don't want to look cheap." But he's barely two! He'll just break it! I tell you, whoever thought of the candle caste system is a genius. I bet the mid and low range ones don't even sell. The bigger, the brasher, the more expensive the better because that's how your godparenting skills are measured. Big Candle = Big Love.

We left Jumbo mysteriously loaded with lots of auxiliary stuff. How did that get in my basket? Why is the receipt so long? Did we buy that? That's what makes Jumbo so evil. You go in for one thing and before you know it you've decided that xyz is too good a bargain to miss so you'll have 10 of that and 20 of something else. Jumbo is a dangerous place. In these post-credit crunch climes, I advise you to stay away.

Next, shoes. Once again we didn't want to look cheap so we bought three pairs in three sizes. We love our godson. Do you see how much? Do you see? We got him THREE pairs of shoes! We were only obliged to get him one, and we got him THREE! That's how much we love him.

I'm really looking forward to Easter despite what it's doing to the programming schedule for TV. Last night there were three different versions of Christ's birth on TV. Just for the sake of spreading some alternative points of view, in my religion's version, there was no Joseph. Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel and told of her pending virgin birth. Her parents packed her off to a remote place by the desert and when her time came, she ran into the desert, scared, where she gave birth to Jesus under a date palm.

She cried and wished she were dead because she felt ashamed, when a voice from the date palm told her not to worry and that God would provide for her. A stream appeared for Mary to drink from and dates fell from the palm for Mary to eat and regain her strength. Then she walked back to the town with the baby Jesus. The townspeople started having a go at her for her disgraceful out-of-marriage birth and the baby Jesus began to speak to tell them who he was. And that showed them!

Happy Easter everyone!

Image: http://images.cb2.com/is/image/CB2/TaperCandles12InWhite?$lg$

Dance for your dinner

I took up bellydancing when I was still in a long distance relationship with Mr Zeus. We had both just started new jobs, making it difficult for both of us to ask for time off to see each other. It was October 2005, and I wouldn't be seeing him until that December. In order to keep my mind busy and not go nuts pining for him, I packed out my week.

I had university evening classes twice a week and Greek class every Friday. I needed one evening a week free to not burn out, so I had one spare evening which I had to do something with. So I decided to learn a dance and settled on bellydancing because it didn't require a partner and it was a fun, vibrant way to balance out my boring day job.

Last night I took part in my first bellydance show with the girls from my class and it was great! My only mistake was not taking part in the introduction solo dances, when each of the girls takes the stage in turn to do a few steps while the rest of us play instruments (finger cymbals, tambourines or dumbeks). I watched the other girls take their turns and chickened out. I thought "Look at me compared to them. The audience will say they didn't pay to see a little ant in a coin belt." I felt like a sucked out mango next to them, plus my teacher's attitude wasn't helping my faith in my own abilities.

I'm starting to have issues with my teacher. She's one of those other worldly types, in that talking to her feels like talking to some kind of fairy creature and this gets tiring because sometimes you want to have a serious conversation. One week I'm her favourite person and the next I'm on the sidelines again. It's like she can't remember me from week to week. For me to extract any praise from her is turning out to be nearly impossible. No matter how hard I try, I only hear "Bravo Bollybutton" in my dreams. I don't know why, I'm not that bad and I've been going to her classes for a year and a half. Not to mention I costume nearly half the girls for each show. Maybe I've become so thin that I actually AM invisible and she can hear me but can't see me.

Anyway I wasn't going to let personality clashes stop me from elbowing my way into the show. I missed two weeks of the choreography so I went almost every day last week to catch up. I was determined. I was going to be in the show. On the last rehearsal in the taverna on Friday, we were dancing balanced on glasses (I have to say, I'm good at this) and a tourist couple were eating. Later they told my teacher that on the glasses I was better than all the rest. And she laughed. "He must like your type," she said. Woman! Would it kill you to admit once in a while that I do a good job?!

So I casually asked her if she needed me on Sunday for the show and she said yes. I didn't want to ask her outright in case she said no, you're so bad I'd never even let you be in a bellydance show for the blind. Hence the careful wording. If she needed me okay, if not, it didn't feel like so much of a rejection.

I did my makeup and arrived at the taverna where me and the other girls hung out enjoying the warm evening because things were running to Greek time and nothing was starting. I love the girls from my dance class, they're wonderful girls, really wonderful. I only wish my Greek was better to express myself better with them.

Overall I would call the show a great success and I have come to the conclusion that I musn't be a bad dancer because Mr Zeus came to watch and he is brutally honest. He said that I was pretty good, maybe not the best, but certainly in the top five out of the girls on stage. Which makes it all the more confusing as to why my teacher is totally indifferent to me. But like Mr Zeus said, "Why does it matter, you don't have to marry her."

Ultimately, if I don't grab the bull by the horns and dance the way I do at home, the way I know I can, I'm never going to start believing in myself. Bring on the next show! I aim for less nerves, more smiles and to win myself a solo spot dancing on glasses.

And by the way, Creepy Older Man turned up wearing a white suit. Yuck and yuck again. When I spotted him the distance, I quickly moved to hide myself behind the other girls and the girl I stood next to leaned over to me, "Don't look now, but the malakas has arrived." Her stories revealed that it wasn't just me, this awful man has tormented all the girls in my dance group. He selects a victim to separate from the group and tortures her with his garbage talk.

At one point his creepy friend sauntered over to me, "How are you! Did you know that Creepy Older Man is here?"

"Oh yes I think I saw him."

"Have you gone to say hello to him?"

[Why the hell would I want to do that? And who are you to come over here and ask that of me?] polite laugh "No I haven't had the chance yet."

"Well he's just over there."

I stalled and by God's good grace, Mr Zeus arrived a few moment later. I told him Creepy Older Man was there and he insisted that I toy with him. So, with Mr Zeus's hand firmly in mine, I marched up to the table where Creepy Older Man and his cronies were stationed and proudly introduced my fiance.

And Creepy Older Man didn't even look up. Ha ha!

Image: http://data4.blog.de/media/598/1882598_898cd478a3_m.jpeg

Love in a Cheesy Climate

Look out the window. Very funny. Let's have some fun today with Bollybutton's Step by Step Guide to Bollywood Romance.

Stage one involves pretending to hate the person you are actually in love with. You have to be mean to them. If you're a girl you should be sheltered and somewhat obnoxious. If you're a guy, ideally you have to be street wise and a bit of a cheeky chappy, as demonstrated so eloquently in this song. Oh how they want each other, but damn it they're not going to admit it. Not yet anyway.

Stage two - the declaration of love. Some of you might recognise this song. Apparently the Greeks loved it so much they made four versions of it! It probably explains why a lot of the older generation I speak to in Greece actually know who Nargis is.

In this song, two lovers get caught in the rain. The man says "You're in love and you admit it, so why is your heart still afraid?" The woman replies, "My heart says the journey is difficult and the destination unknown." Cheesily enough, I thought of this song when I first fell in love because that's what I felt like too. So that's stage two in your Bollywood love story - admitting your love.

Stage three is trying to do something about it. Here is a song from 80s Bollywood and portrays a scenario which men all over the world are familiar with, your woman taking forever to get ready for a date. The guy sings "Come on, the evening is drawing near, so what's all the fuss about? " The girl replies, "You go, I'll follow." Ah yes... your first date counts for nothing if you're not avoiding your parents while brandishing phallic shaped vegetables. Oh you tease, you!

Stage four is the naughty stage when things start to get steamy and we return once more to the rain. Why the rain? You need to understand, unless you get caught in the rain with your lover, preferably with the female in a sari, your romance doesn't count for anything. Nothing. You might as well pack up and leave for the nunnery right now.

In the movie the guy is magically invisible. Watch how he kisses the actress - that's cutting edge camera trickery. Incidentally, I must admit this was one of my favourite movies as a child. I wish I could report that my tastes have improved since then, but they probably haven't. This movie was released round about the time when Bollywood started moving away from the strong matriarchal figures of Nargis's era and began sexualising women more in really weird and creepy ways. See 3:28 in the video. Hmmm. Orgasmic.

The chorus goes "My days and nights won't pass, there was something I needed to say to you so today I do..." and I don't need to translate the rest. Rain was regularly used as a metaphor for sexual desire in Bollywood movies, not so much now. Maybe because of global warming the monsoon is getting harder to predict and throwing lovers into disarray.

The final stage, naturally, is getting married. But this being Bollywood, things can't just go smoothly like that. This is one of the most famous Bollywood songs of all time and also pretty sad because in the movie the woman is in love with someone else and marries someone else because her parents say so. That's why she don't look too happy about being molested on her wedding bed by this strange man. She's singing a song her lover used to sing to her which says "Now and then my heart wonders, it's as if you were made just for me. You were in the stars somewhere before now, and you were brought to earth for me." Aaaw!

Of course if you're lucky and things go well, then this will happen instead. I hope this happens at my wedding, really. Not one Bollywood wedding ever just goes ahead. Something dramatic always has to happen and I've never in my life seen anything dramatic at a wedding so I'd like to give my guests something to remember.

Image: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060326/spectrum/ind8.jpg

An Open Letter

Dear Mother Nature,

How are you, old girl? You know, I've got to say, I do love you. I love how you've made my garden bloom and all the delicious things you produce for me to eat. I love your wonderful seas and I bet you get a couple of cheap laughs from my attempts to swim in them.

But seriously now. You've got some explaining to do. You see, I don't get it. Why would you fashion me with the body shape I have and then hold back on unleashing summer when you know I have absolutely no body temperature control whatsoever.

I'm not complaining, really. I have the wrists of a supermodel. That's got to be good for something. But will you make up your mind already for f sake??!! Why must you make me suffer like this! How come the whole time I was in the UK you were crapping hot weather all over Greece and now that I'm back you decide you've got constipation and need AT LEAST another week to decide whether it's going to be hot or not? The rest of the week temperatures are going to be highs of early 20s. I demand to know why, why can't you do better than that.

Do you know what it feels like to look out of the window and see all that sun but still be wearing a sweater? Do you know what it feels like to start the day wondering what summer clothes you can wear but go to bed in un-sexy winter fleece pyjamas? You're killing my love life!

I held back a long time from writing this letter to you. I thought that if I've waited forever for the hot weather, another week or so won't kill me. But you know what? I can't wait any more! Maybe you're abusing your position because no one has complained to you yet!

If you don't do something about the weather soon, I'm going to stop recycling and start doing various obnoxious things like set all my plastic waste on fire and throw my used batteries into waterways. I felt sorry for you with all this global warming stuff, but you are so testing my patience, girlfriend. I may be small and I may sink like a stone in water and have no ability to keep myself warm, but I can bitch and moan the living daylights out of you. In fact, I can double my carbon footprint just by complaining. You've been warned.

Yours,

Disgruntled.

Image: Courtesy of http://www.ant1online.gr/weather/

Patrida

I got up much later than I should have this morning, lazily went through my morning routine, reflected on what a beautiful day it was and started playing songs on my computer as I began work. And then I burst into tears and they won't stop.

It threatened to happen like this out of the blue last week on a train from London to my parent's house when I was flipping through a newspaper and a picture taken in the Home Country jumped out and smacked me in the face. It was so full of movement and life and showed a young man walking through the streets, huge smile on his face. And my eyes spontaneously welled up with tears.

I've said before that I don't really feel any allegiance to any place, but maybe the country you grow up in is the one that is most likely to stay with you through your life. Once I was chatting to a taxi driver in Athens about the Home Country. We talked about the usual conspiracy theories and whether I would ever go back to live there and I said I'd love to but it's not possible until things there change for the better. "I do miss it sometimes." I said. "Of course!" he replied, "your patrida is always your patrida no matter where you go."

I don't know what I classify Back Home as. All I know is that I don't miss the UK at all but now and then I do miss the Home Country. Like today. And I cry because what I see on TV is not the country I grew up in. It's a very disorientating feeling to not recognise the life you once lived because it's become so bizarre and dangerous.

Well, I wish I could take all of you to the Home Country and show you what it's like because now and then, like today, I really do feel sorry for it. Now and then, I remember what a happy childhood I had, the songs I listened to and the parties I went to with my girlfriends. Now and then I think of what they might be growing in my village this year. Now and then I smile when I think of how great sugarcane pulled straight from the ground tastes.

Every now and then, a song hits me so hard I can't breath because years passed since I last heard it and now the words mean something to me. Every now and then, I wish I could sing those songs to Mr Zeus and that he'd understand them.

I'll get over it. I know I make it sound more romantic than it really is. But what can you do? Despite everything, you miss the place where you grew up.

Having shared that, I do feel better and the tears have stopped.

click here.

Image: http://www.marlamallett.com/Women_in_Swat_Valley_Pakistan.jpg

Good to Be Back

I swear to God when I landed in Athens on Saturday night, I could have kissed the ground. I tried, lord knows I did. I ate well, steered clear of junk food, wrapped up warm, even took my own food with me and despite all that I caught Tube Flu.

Tube Flu is a particularly nasty type of flu which innocent people catch off London's disgusting, old, dirty metro system. I started to feel ill on Wednesday, and today I am still totally blocked up and heavy headed. Since some inconsiderate fool had travelled while sick and thus spread the germs to me, it was only fair that I returned the favour and rode here and there on the tube, sneezing with gay abandon, until my illness forced me to stay at home.

It goes to show that there is no escaping it. If I am in London for more than 3 days, I get sick. It's a bad place, man, full off unfulfilled dreams, crushed hopes and snuffed naivety.

Something weird happened to me this time in the UK. I felt invisible. In Athens, I feel like an individual. There's only one of me here. In London, there are hundreds of thousands of girls like me. There is nothing special, nothing different about me. It made me feel a little lost. I would buy something in a corner shop and wait expectantly to be asked where I was from. When the question didn't come, I would remember that I was in a place where there was nothing special or different about me. Sometimes I'd start talking about my life in Greece just for the heck of it, and be met with an expression like "I really couldn't give a flying f*ck, love."

So anyway, I managed to get through my two weeks in the UK, SOMEHOW. The utterly miserable faces, the terrible weather, the junk TV. I got through it all and listened to lots of people tell me "Oh come on now! Britain is really not all that bad."

Oh really? My flight landed at 00.10 on Saturday and it was 22C outside. So everyone who told me not to move to Greece because it would be a mistake and that the UK really isn't that bad can kiss my sun-drenched ass.

EllasDevil has tagged me for the April meme and made me feel all popular and liked. So here goes.

These are the rules:

1. When tagged, place the name and URL of the tagger on your blog.

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write 7 non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself?

4. Name 7 of your favorite blogs.

5. Send an email/comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged.

7 non-important things/habits/quirks about me.

1. I can't leave shoes with their soles turned upwards. I have to turn them right again.

2. I hate peppers and okra. I can eat sweet red peppers but all the other types make we want to wretch. Talk about world's most pointless vegetable. I love spicy peppers though.

3. I can not talk to someone on the phone and talk to someone in front of me at the same time. CAN NOT. My brain short circuits.

4. I am an ebay addict. It's the only mail I ever get in Athens.

5. I hate coffee and anything coffee flavoured. Kind of sucks to be me in Athens because I don't smoke either.

6. I doodle eyes and lips over everything.

7. My ears were pierced wrong as a child so I wear only dangly earrings because the stud types make the non-symmetrical piercing really obvious.

Name 7 of your favorite blogs

I couldn't possibly narrow it down to 7. If you're reading, you're tagged.

Image: http://neilperkin.typepad.com/only_dead_fish/images/2007/08/30/rain5.jpg

Moths to a Flame

I'm in the UK at the moment and the press is flooded with coverage of the massive protests that disrupted the Olympic torch relay in London and Paris. I have mixed feelings about the whole thing.

I was at the stadium in Athens when the flame was handed over to the Beijing Olympic committee. It was a glorious Greek spring day and as I walked to the stadium, I wondered if I should do something. Couldn't I write FREE TIBET on my face with eye pencil? Why didn't I think of finding a Free Tibet T-shirt to wear under my clothes? I entered the stadium and walked to the far end past the throngs of Chinese supporters.

And do you know what? There were dozens of Athens 2004 volunteers there, who had turned up in our old uniforms. It hadn't occurred to me at all that they would get back together for this event. And the atmosphere was fantastic. Chinese supporters took pictures with the Athens 2004 volunteers and memories of pin-hunting came back as spectators exchanged wrist bands.

When I saw this, the ordinary people of different countries taking pictures with each other, smiling and laughing, it reminded me of how great the atmosphere was in Athens four years ago. The Olympics may have been hijacked by commercialism and may be a grand show-off, but it's also a chance for people from all over the world to meet and learn about each other and educate each other.

I believe people should peacefully protest for Tibet, but I think it's a real shame that suddenly everyone cares about human rights. Where were they all this time?

There has never been an Olympic host country totally free of sin. Where were the protests about America's abuse of human rights, the death penalty etc. for the times the US got the Olympics? Where were the protests about how Greece treats its Roma gypsy population? Did we see anything of this scale for the Aborigines when Sydney got the games? Were these issues no less deserving? Or is it that only nice, clean, white Western countries deserve the respect that comes with the Olympics?

China is no doubt guilty of serious human rights abuses, but why should people embarrass and shame the ordinary citizens of a country, especially when they don't get any say in their government's policies (hmmm, sounds surprisingly like the UK). It smacks a bit of Western superiority complex to me. We get to ELECT our dictators every few years and now we all want to jump on the human rights bandwagon. I admit that I don't really know much about the Tibet issue but thought of protesting about it, because hey, everyone else is.

I'm not really sure... all I know is that in the stadium that Sunday the atmosphere was wonderful. The mingling of cultures and making new friends - surely that should be salvaged at a time when the Olympics is turning into one big doping-scandal, logo covered, sponsor heaven, one-up manship, hollow farce?

That's just my opinion. I think Britain has no right to say a word about human rights with its history and current track record.

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Like You, No One

A global phenomenon noted by young ladies the world over is that of the creepy older man. Creepy older men are different to your average night out opportunist, because they make your skin crawl, never really get to the point and are inevitably unfortunate looking. And I am positively gifted when it comes to attracting them.

It's been a long while since this last happened because I have been building a social circle and finding my feet so not really having late nights out. But on Saturday night I got invited to a party thrown by the girls of my bellydancing class (more on the fab girls of my bellydance class another time, who are proof that foreign girls can make female Greek friends when I was told it was nearly impossible).

The night had been rolling on for quite a few hours and my company had got progressively merrier when I was introduced to a man who is somehow connected to my bellydance circle, I don't even remember how any more. Creepy Older Man. Dealing with them is very hard because their age obliges me to be polite, and this was my first all-Greek encounter with a genuine Greek Creepy Older Man (COM).

COM: "I've been watching you and I've been telling everyone to look at that Brazilian girl over there, look how she's just here having a good time, with her glasses. All the men are watching you."

Me: "I'm not Brazilian, I'm Asian."

COM: "How fascinating, you've got that exotic kind of beauty [oh here we go again with the Western exotic beauty sweet Indian girl fetish] and those glasses of yours! Don't ever take them off, you're driving me crazy with your style [someone's been watching too much secretary porn. Or too much exotic Indian sweet secretary porn]

COM: "So what do you know of Greece."

Me: [...??] "What do you mean what do I know of Greece? The food, the people, the place... etc."

COM: "Yes, but what do you really know of Greece."

Now I'm confused and he gives me this look like "Oh you innocent young thing, the stuff I could teach you..." Ew! Did he mean what do I know as in the Biblical definition of knowing?

COM: "You've got something about you which would make a man stop and look twice. They see a girl like you with your glasses [the glasses again.] and it makes them wonder Who is that girl? You're the first Asian girl I've met who speaks Greek and it drives me crazy."

Here, when I was filling in the bits with useless dodge tactic conversation, he made that orgasmic face that people in food adverts make when they bite into a product.

COM: "Do you have a boyfriend?"

Me: "I'm engaged." [leans over to his equally creepy friend and tells him in a low voice when they think I'm not listening that I'm engaged so forget it. Double ew.]

COM: "A man from your country?"

Me: "No he's Greek."

COM: "A Greek huh? You managed that! And where do you live?[I answer] Alone? Or with someone?"

Me: " Of course not alone, with my fiance!"

COM: "So... what do you like to do, what's your favourite thing?"

Me: "Writing." [that threw him]

On paper it looks like I was being quite rude and short, but actually I was trying really hard to be polite and was feeling very uncomfortable.

A whole bunch of other garbage followed about India and Indian women and what ladies we are, and I seriously beg to differ because lady likeness is relative. A true Asian woman would consider me highly uncouth to be sitting in a taverna at 3 am sipping rakomelo. I heard for the 100th time in my life how exotic and mysterious we are and how I should wear a bindi all the time because it would further fuel Western fetishes about Indian girls, oops I mean it would make me look even more mysterious.

Still no sign off getting to the point of what this pointless conversation was, and with my company way too merry to come and rescue me, I seized my chance for a graceful exit when he grabbed my hand and ruined the freshly hennaed design on it. My contribution to the party had been to do free henna for everyone. I excused myself, washed my hands and left.

I know women who deal with the above scenario by turning the tables and toying with their prey. I wish I knew how to do that. All I feel is extremely uncomfortable. It's especially hard when dealing with creepy older men in your third language. At one point he asked me if my normal price for a henna pattern like mine was EUR 5, what would I do for EUR 20? I said something more meaning a bigger tattoo, and he smiled a filthy smile and relayed this news again to his creepy friend when he thought I wasn't listening.

If the creepy older men I attract looked like George Clooney, I would not really care as that's some form of compensation for enduring their verbal diarrhoea. But why do they always have that certain look, those too-smooth cheeks and that hair stuck in the 70s? Do I look like my standard is so low that they have a chance? Why don't young, handsome men engage me in pointless long conversations? It's easier to tell them to get lost.

I got home feeling upset at not having handled the situation better and allowing it to end my night unpleasantly, but at least me and Mr Zeus got a good few laughs out of it.

Fragile Contents

There is plenty of debate in countries like the UK and Greece about nationality and what a national identity means.
 
I never paid much attention until it dawned on me that I might be becoming Greek in spite of myself. On Monday morning I arrived at Athens airport and checked in my 19.8 kg suitcase for a flight to London. More than half of that weight was composed of potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, oranges and onions.
 
Yes. I spent my first months in Greece sneering at the mothers who packed off their children to the UK with two tons of food in their suitcases. It isn't that bad, I would say. But faced with two weeks in the UK, two weeks of tasteless tomatoes and blindingly strong white onions, I realised I couldn't do it, hence my trip to the laiki for supplies.
 
Ah, Greece, where you can tuck into pornographically named treats like Milky Dream, buy a health suppliment called Good and Bad, watch garbage TV programmes with endearing names like Show Sexy and stir the deepest fears of lone homophobes driving on mountain roads with large signs that warn gravely of "Dangerous Bents Ahead."
 
A country that mercifully blagged its way into the EU to allow reformed doubters like me to carry a two week supply of fruit and vegetables to the UK without import penalties, so that I can at least console myself with a tomato salad as I complain relentlessly about the food and weather with my sister's French housemate, who naturally appreciates what I say being from the Mediterranean south of France.
 
When I gave her one of my precious Greek tomatoes she thanked me as if I'd just handed her a diamond necklace. "That's the reaction you were waiting for from me, wasn't it." said Sister, who like most people think I've lost it when I reveal the precious cargo that is the reason for my suitcase's weight.
 

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How's my Driving?

In case you've been wondering, I've driven three times since passing my test last November, all three times on the motorway. And I'm really bad, my level has deteriorated back to beginner. Possibly worse. I believe Mr Zeus's exact words were "So bad you're a liability."

There are a number of factors getting in my way.

First, I have had no time to practice in the day and Mr Zeus doesn't feel comfortable letting me drive at night.

Second, whenever some free time comes up, the car gets occupied. Twice now something has gone wrong with someone's car and ours has stepped in to help, which is totally fair enough, but it feels like the universe is trying to tell me something.

Third, everything I learnt was in the UK, on the other side of the road and where other drivers make a few allowances for other drivers. In Greece, forget it. I'm not saying I expect the traffic to part before me like the red sea, but here is an example: on the weekend when I was driving on the motorway a car in front began to drift along into my lane. I dropped back, at which the car then moved back into its own lane. As I built my speed back up it again moved across trying to get into my lane, so I panicked and floored it, trying to get away. Result: Mr Zeus thinks I drive like a drunk, my nerves were shred and confidence at an extreme low.

It leads to comedy-like scenes of the two of us bickering as my stress levels build.

Him: "After we pass the BMW, change lanes."

Me: "When? What?"

Him: "After the BMW... change.. lanes."

Me: "But which one is the BMW! WHY CAN"T YOU JUST SAY AFTER THE BLUE CAR!!!"

Him: "You're slowing down... when you change lanes you're supposed to go faster."

Me: "STOP CONFUSING ME!!!"

My most dangerous mistake is when he says to turn left and I merrily do... only I turn left as if I were in the UK and therefore I turn immediately left into oncoming traffic. Bad.

Fourth, all the other cars I learnt in were fairly new with power steering. The one in Athens is a reliable but relatively old Suzuki Swift. I don't know how much I can blame on that... but what the heck I will anyway.

It's driving (pun!) me insane, because at the point where I passed my test I was a good driver. Both my instructors told me I was a natural at driving and safe on the roads.

When I sit on the bus or metro and think of all the time and money I invested in trying to pass my driving test, it makes me feel really frustrated. The licence was supposed to have liberated me, and it hasn't.

Bugger!

Words of advice would be massively appreciated. As you can tell, it's a complaining sort of day for me today.

Image: corrupted from http://taiwanease.com/art/driving-article.jpg

Why Isn't it Summer yet???

Oh God! I'm so fed up of it not being summer. Just when I thought the weather was on course to get hotter it's done a U-turn, British weather style. I'm sick of feeling cold all the time!!! Please someone turn the heating to 35C.

I don't feel inspired at the moment so have some fun with these songs, here, here and here. Spot the connecting factor.

Hoing and Hoeing

Ho: Slang A prostitute

Hoe: A tool chiefly for digging up weeds, and arranging the earth about plants in fields and gardens.

You've all probably heard by now that the Greek Church in response to a potential new law that would give rights to cohabiting couples, declared that all relationships except for those joined in a Greek Orthodox Church were prostitution.

Oh man! Did I just get called a prostitute? Well that made me kind of sad. I took time out from my whoring ways to order some seeds online, since I'm surrounded by the new life of spring and wanted to create shiny new things, despite being as whorrific as I am.

So far I have ordered the following seeds:

• Lemongrass



• Kaffir lime



• Fragrant sweet pea



• Plumeria (we had a giant tree of this Back Home and I never appeciated it)



• Organic tomato



• Organic corn, normal and rainbow



• Organic sweet pepper



• Organic cucumber



• Organic green beans

Being doubly condemned by my own religion and the Greek Orthodox Church, I'm going to create my own little Garden of Eden right here on Earth. So na!

Image: http://www.konafriends.com/images/Plumeria.jpg

Reducing Rubbish

The strikes in Athens show no sign of letting up. In fact, they seem to be getting worse. I am more concerned with the building mountains of rubbish than the power cuts and have been taking measures to reduce the amount I throw out that will sit festering in the sun.

Athens accommodation consists almost exclusively of apartments. There is not much of a garden culture in this city. However, most apartment blocks do have access to a patch of land in their vicinity which is supposed to pass as a garden.

If you too have access to a piece of garden that you are allowed to use, keep a plastic container on your kitchen work top and save up all the organic waste you can. This means potato peels, orange skins, banana skins, onion peels, bland leftovers like boiled potato or rice etc. Dig a hole in the ground and bury this waste. It's fantastic for nourishing the soil and will help towards reducing the amount you throw out. Tea leaves and coffee grounds are supposed to be very good for roses, so save those up and sprinkle them around the base of your rose trees.

Things like oily waste, chicken skins, sugary, or salty food will still need to be thrown out as they will harm your soil rather than help it.

If you bury your organic waste and separate your recycling, the amount of actual garbage that gets thrown out is not all that much.

**This tip comes to you approved by my grandmother and Mr Zeus's authentic Greek yiayia.**

300

Athens: Dark and Smelly

As my life in Athens continues, I am struck more and more by the similarities between this place and the Home Country. It's sort of comforting. When the powercuts are hitting after work hours I enjoy them. At least they're striking in the spring instead of the summer.

In the Home Country, it wasn't strikes that caused the cuts, it was that there generally never was enough power to go around in the summer. And so the power would go for hours, sometimes days on end. In Athens I am impressed by the vast array of decorative candles we have accumulated which are being put to good use. In the Home Country, we somehow never managed to plan ahead and usually ended up with one solitary stump of a candle.

Those who could afford it had petrol powered electricity generators to deal with the problem, but my parents never thought it necessary to invest in one. I guess sweating it out in that heat with a banana leaf fan for heat relief was character building - the power cuts in Athens are a walk in the park in comparison.

The side effect of the power going Back Home was that the water stopped too. The moment the air conditioner ominously breathed its dying sigh, my mother would rush around the house filling buckets and bath tubs with water for as long as it would flow. When the water returned the taps would either run clear, pour out a rusty sludge or just hiss phlegmatically like a remorseful ex-smoker who had left his voice box on the bus.

Yesterday the news said that the DEH electricity strike was illegal and so the power cuts would stop, but no such luck. I think the picture says the rest.

As for garbage, we used to have a man on a donkey cart who would come and pick up the rubbish we threw into the alleyway behind the houses and if he didn't come around that meant he was dead, not that he didn't think he was getting enough pension.

The one saving grace of the rubbish strike is that since getting spooked about my young colleague's breast cancer diagnosis, I stopped using anti-perspirant. Sadly I'm not blessed with a naturally rosy fragrance, so my experiment will have to be terminated before my love life dies and plants start wilting in my wake.

At least all of Athens smells like a giant armpit right now so I don't stand out.

Summary of strikes going on in Athens:

• Electricity


• Rubbish


• Metro


• Banks


• Strikes against the strikes... don't ask questions, it'll only make you cry.

Image: http://radio.weblogs.com/0123486/myImages/newpix/jul23.04/9.19.04/12.19.04/2.24.05/bullshit.jpg

Going Round in Circles

Anyone who's moved to a new country knows that sometimes you really miss the little things from the place you once lived. On Sunday afternoon when I pondered my mountain of work and craved a Home Country treat, there was only one thing for it. So I did what I do best, I procrastinated and embarked on making home made jalebis.

Jalebi, pronounced ja-lay-bee, is a sweet of fried spiral batter soaked in syrup, a bit like loukoumades if they were curly instead of round. It's a sweet that is popular in the part of the world I come from, and its popularity means it features as part of many happy memories. After a long day shopping at the markets, we would go find someone making jalebis and order a kilo of hot, sticky jalebis to eat with a cup of tea. At birthday parties my mother would string up individual jalebis dangling down from the washing line and hold a competition to see who could eat theirs without their hands.

Last year at the Home Country wedding I went to, when we were all deflated from last second wedding planning, nothing perked up the team's spirits like a big plate of hot jalebis. This time at my friend's wedding in India, I sat in her house on the morning of her wedding and there they were again, jalebis for breakfast although these were a 5 star version I'd never seen, soaked in saffron laced syrup and dusted with ground cardamom.

I had worked all of Saturday and I knew both Sunday and Monday would get consumed by work, so I thought why not have a break? Jalebis are a favourite of children, and I thought it would be really sad if my own future children wouldn't be able to enjoy the hot jalebis I ate as a child.

Here is my recipe:

1/2 cup of plain flour

1/4 cup of yoghurt

Water as needed

pinch of salt

1.5 cups of sugar

1.5 cups of water

Plastic bag

Optional: pinch of saffron, ground cardamom

Method:

Mix the flour, yoghurt and salt together. Add water until you get a mix that pours easily, like cream. Leave to stand for half an hour. In the meantime, boil the sugar, water and saffron (if using) for 15 minutes. Test a little bit with a spoon, let it cool and see how it feels between your fingers. You're aiming for a sticky syrup a bit like melted honey. It should not be hot sweet water, that would be a disaster. Turn off the heat.

Take a frying pan and fill until there is about an inch of oil on the bottom and heat over a medium heat. Pour some of the batter into the plastic bag (a thick bag works better than the supermarket type) and tie a rubber band on the open end. Cut a hole in one corner of the bag and keep it sitting in a mug with the cut off corner facing up. This makes it easier to control, otherwise you'll have batter pouring all over your kitchen.

Now for the fun part! Test the oil is hot enough with a drop of batter. It should bubble up but not burn in a few seconds. Hold your bag over the oil and gently squeeze, pouring messy spirals into the oil. This video will demonstrate how, though you don't have to make joined up spirals, you can make them one at a time.

Fry until golden brown, remove from the oil and dump in the syrup. Allow them to soak for about 15 seconds and remove onto a plate. If you leave them to soak and soak they'll get bloated and soft. Jalebis should be juicy and a little crunchy. Sprinkle with ground cardamom if using.

Mmmmm! How delightful. By the way you can buy these in the Asian shops downtown, but there is nothing like the real thing fresh from the pan and ready made jalebis are bright orange because they add colour to the syrup. Hooray! My future children won't grow up not knowing the joy that is a hot jalebi!

Tip: If you end up with more jalebis than you can eat, my mum drops the leftovers into custard before it sets. Delicious.

Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Jalebi.jpg/800px-Jalebi.jpg

Women's Day 2008

It's Women's Day again and I was thinking about what to post to reflect this day, and I decided to be selfish and write something about me, me, me. I spent all my teenage years shying away from compliments and all my early 20s playing down my successes. Pah! No more!

So here is what Bollybutton loves about Bollybutton and being Bollybutton.

I have lots of dark curly hair which I love, because it's different. I love that at a wedding of 600 guests I was the only curly haired woman.

When I look at my body, I love the way it is beautiful and not just functional.

I love that I was brave enough to love someone who I should never, ever have loved and that I fought and continue to fight for him. Four years ago when I fell in love I was terrified and unhappy because I was embarking on an impossible quest. Home Country girls do not love Greek men, no good can come of it. But it did, and I am proud of myself for having the guts to be so relentless in my pursuit of what I wanted against everyone's advice and against all the odds.

I love my birthmark. It sits just above my hip bone and above an operation scar, which I also love.

I like that my smile is not orange-slice shaped. It's sort of... bean shaped.

My favourite part of my body is my hands. My fingers are long and slender and if I had taken better care of them when I was living near the desert, I could have been a hand model.

I have enough faith in myself to know that if disaster struck and I was left alone in this world I could still take care of myself.

I love my mothering side and how I enjoy taking care of people.

I love that I have a technical mind. As a little girl I delighted in unscrewing and fixing broken toys. It also makes me really good at puzzles.

I love wearing saris and I think I look great in them.

I love the colour of my skin and everything that goes with it.

I'm very creative and I love that I have several random projects in progress at any one time.

I love my capacity to learn and how my mind seems to swallow up information.

I love how I am progressing myself and my career and didn't have to be a bitch to do it.

I am proud of myself, and happy that I reached a point where I can say that. Before I would shy away from a compliment or play down my achievements. But not any more! I worked hard to get where I am and be who I am and I'm proud! Go me!

Happy Women's Day! To see why this day is still relevant, click here.

Image:http://www.headandheartcounselling.com/pics/laughing%20asian%20woman.jpg

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Not Patrick!!

Sad news. Patrick Swayze has cancer of the pancreas and his prognosis is terrible. Please, God, not the Swayzster!

I was 20 when I watched Dirty Dancing for the first time, 20 and emotionally stunted. My girlfriends insisted it was a must-see and so I sat through it and hated it. "This is garbage," I said, switching off the video recorder. They reminded me that I loved Bollywood and Dirty Dancing was nothing if not feel good escapism. Hmm, I see your point.

The truth is once I stopped being emotionally stunted I loved Dirty Dancing, and even more horrifically when I watched it again yesterday I realised how much I related to it. Naive young sheltered girl, irritatingly optimisitc, falls for an older man who is all wrong and who wins her heart by busting his sexy moves, thus discovering who she is and instantly getting demoted from her Daddy's Girl status.

I was a weird teenager and even weirder young woman. I even got told so by a guy who I took out with me one night and who expected that what I saw as an innocent make-new-friends outing would lead to a night of rampant passion.

At the close of the evening as we walked home, and I kept walking, he said "My place is this way."

"Well, goodnight then." I said, not getting the message. A conversation ensued on the footpath about morality and religion and when I was done, he said with a smile. "Bollybutton, you are beautiful but you are the strangest girl I've ever met." I understandably never saw him again.

I didn't make much sense. I was passionate about so many things and danced with no inhibitions, but when it came to my own desire, I wouldn't allow myself to question it, let alone other people. My mind was like a big house full of locked rooms which I refused to go near because they were full of things that I desperately wanted but refused to acknowledge.

It's really difficult explaining that to people who haven't grown up in a culture where intimacy is such a taboo, when they have grown up in a placewhere enjoying your lover's embrace is as normal and comforting as basking in the sunshine or a glass of cold water on a really hot day.

But my how I digress. Enjoy your own coming-of-age memories here. Get well soon Patrick!

Image: http://blogs.news.com.au/images/uploads/swayze_thumb.jpg

Misc.

Me thinks my blog is dying. I don't post nearly as much as I used to. Since it's been a while since my last post, this one is going to be a mixed bag.

Eurovision:

The song selection contest for Greece's Eurovision entry took place last week and the winner was Kalomoira Sarantis, a young Greek girl who grew up in America and came back to Greece three years ago to find her fortune, sort of like Sarbel. What made me happy about her song was that it opens with a typical punjabi sound, sort of like this song by Punjabi MC. Hmmm sweet, so now you like multiculturalism, do you? I bet if I had entered Eurovision with something similar my ass would have been kicked off because I'm not Greek but it's okay because Kalomoira is. Also she can sing, and I can't, so I would have lost anyway.

The show was a big deal as it is every year and presented by two dancing chickens aka the Magirra sisters. Of course the Greeks loooove to complain and the day after they totally ripped the night's offering to shreds, calling it overtly kitsch and boring in a trying-too-hard fashion. I thought it was okay, I fail to see what the difference was between this show and all the other kitschtastic offerings on Greek TV.

Macedonia:

Everyone is still upset about this one and I don't dare wade into it, because I'm young and I have my whole life ahead of me. I'll just offer this advice: if you are a foreigner in Greece, do NOT say "I don't get what all the fuss is about." in the company of other Greeks. I'm pretty sure just asking that question is reason enough to get deported.

American Cosmopolitan:

My sister brought one of these back after a trip to LA. Maybe I'm just getting old, but it struck me as a lot trashier than the UK version, and that's saying something. I had to ride the tube to Heathrow clutching a bright yellow magazine that was covered in the biggest font possible and leading with the story: YOUR VA-JAY-JAY. Classy. Everyone on the tube wants to see me reading about my vagina. Even if I was curious, there was no way I could read such an article with it's screaming sub headlines and graphic illustrations.

The C-word:

It's thrown around so casually these days it should have lost its shock factor by now, but when I bounced into work on Monday and heard my young, into good karma, vegan non-smoking head of department tell me that she has breast cancer I stood rooted to the spot, speechless. I've admittedly not had to deal with much hardship in my life and within the moment that my colleague told me she had cancer, the disease suddenly became real, as if up until then it was just a rumour or something other dimensional.

I'm scared because I don't know how to help her, what to say, what to do.

Something you could only ever hear in Greece:

Saturday afternoon me and Mr Zeus were strolling along on our way to lunch and we saw a small crowd gathered around a policeman and a young boy who had crashed his car. As we walked by:

Police: "So you have no licence and no insurance."

Boy: "That's what I'm trying to explain to you. Without the licence, I can't get insurance, they won't give it to me."

Police: "And why the hell are you driving without a licence?"

Only in Greece...

One Click could Change your Life

Yesterday morning I woke up and in a scene reminiscent from my school days, I burst into tears because I had too much work to do and didn't know where to start. Thank God for Mr Zeus and his pep talks.

This morning I woke up and thought "Come on, bollybutton old bean, it's only a job." As I schlumped through my morning routine I remembered something. Something IMPORTANT! Well, sort of.

This Friday is my big sister's birthday and I'm not going to be there, which makes me officially a loser since she only gets a birthday every four years. But equally interestingly, we are in another Olympic year.

Sweet, juicy, precious Olympic years, I do love them so. I am painfully unathletic but I always watched the Olympics and I can chart my life in Olympic ceremonies. The earliest I can remember was the Seoul Olympics, which I watched in the Home Country sprawled on the pushed-together beds me and my sisters slept on. Next came Barcelona, which I watched in the house of my mother's best friend as the British summer streamed through the vast french windows and onto the cream carpets.

By the time Sydney came around, that house had been repossessed and Freddy Mercury was long dead. I watched Kylie Minoque singing atop a hot pink stiletto as I sat on the floor of a family friend's house in Cardiff on my first day at university. I was an ugly duckling 18 year old, with braces and frizzy hair.

And then of course there was Athens, without which this blog and my moving to Greece would never have happened. I watched the Athens opening ceremony melting into the sofa of my friend's downtown Athens apartment, smiling because I knew the ceremony already having seen the final dress rehearsal a few days before. I was so happy.

In contrast I watched the closing ceremony in my Aunty's house in a Welsh village, miserable and furious because her house had no mobile reception and I had fallen in love in spite of myself and maybe right now, at that very moment Mr Zeus was trying to take the step I had been too chicken to take and declaring his feelings for me.

And I'd never know! I'd never know because of the bloody little Welsh village and it's lack of mobile reception and agreeing to my mum's idea of having a weekend by the sea! He might take my silence as rejection and by the time I got home our relationship would have begun and ended without me getting a chance to join in.

I acted like a spoilt child with an angry scorpion up its bum that whole weekend and I still cringe at how I behaved. On the drive back home, I cradled my stupid mobile phone the whole way until we reached an area with a mobile signal, only for it to lie there, mockingly silent. So he hadn't tried to reach me, eh? Well I wasn't about to let the dream die that easily. And the rest is history.

Today I did the same thing I did four years ago and submitted an application to volunteer at the Beijing Olympics this summer. Like the last time, I got my application in pretty close to the dealine. The end of March is the final date for submission.

Are you interested, dear readers? Why not give it a shot. At worst you'll have a ball making new friends and being part of the Olympics. At best, it might change your life forever, like it did mine.

Click here.

Image: http://www.fivb.org/EN/Infomedia/Photos/Thumbnail/logo_beijing_400.gif

The Jeans Shop, Take 2

I was having a bad day on Saturday so I decided to do some shopping therapy and catch the tail end of the sales.

Since I only own one pair of jeans it was time to invest in some new ones so I went to the same shop I blogged about. I told the girl the size I was wearing. "No way," she said "you're wearing one size bigger than that." Ignoring my protests to the contrary she pulled out a pair of jeans even tinier than the minute size I had forced myself into months ago. Admittedly they'd grown comfortably loose, but come on!

On the scale of asses, if you stood me next to your average Mediterranean woman my buttocks can best be described as mosquito bites. I felt a strange kind of kinship with the sisterhood as I stood in those changing rooms forcing, pinching and pummelling my misquito bites into a pair of too-small jeans. For a rare moment, I felt ample, womanly, like a ripe fruit.

Preditcably neither the zip nor the button would do up, and I was thankful that the mint green triangle exposed at the top of the sorry mess was one of my 'good' pairs of undies. "They fit fine on the legs, you just need to do them up. The guy downstairs can help with that. Shall I call him?"

This I had to see, so I said yes. She dangled over the banister and called out for the guy at the till and up he came. "May I?" he asked. With my permission, he stood behind me, hooked his thumbs through the waistband. "You need to get them over the hip bone and they'll close." he said and he hauled upwards, taking me and the jeans up off the floor.

With some fancy wrist work he got the button shut and I stood there, amazed. Remember a while ago there was scandal that posh Spice wears size 23 waist jeans? She must get this guy to help put them on. Next, he ran his hands up and down each leg and turned the excess length under. That guy must love his job. All day long he helps girls get into jeans too small for them and then crouches on the floor, ass at eye level, as he makes adjustments.

It was all very impressive but since the man was not included in the price of the jeans, no belt would convicingly hide the gaping button and zip and I obviously couldn't get into the jeans without help, I sheepishly opted for a pair of slim-fit Wranglers.

Same size, but with the gift of stretch denim.

Image: http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/54/86/22778654.jpg

A Small Gesture

On my last day in Delhi, I was sitting in the back of a taxi which was waiting at a traffic light. The Sikh driver drummed his fingers on the steering wheel to the energetic bhangra tape playing, his electric blue turban bobbing from side to side.

Mr Zeus was sitting in the front seat with his window partially down. A scrawny girl in filthy clothes and no shoes walked between the traffic with an armful of magazines and threw one through the window. It landed on Mr Zeus's lap, and he passed it to me in the back seat.

"How much do we have to pay for it?" he asked, searching around for some money. "It says invitation price 10 rupees, so I guess that means it's free but if you wanted to pay that's what you'd pay." I replied.

The lights changed to green and the girl reappeared at our window, banging on it urgently. We paid her and her face melted into a huge smile as she disappeared between the traffic.

Today I got an chance to start reading the magazine the little girl pushed through our window at the traffic lights and I'm linking to the cover story of that issue. It's the story of Dr Binayak Sen, a doctor in India who spent 30 years working with the country's poorest and most disadvantaged who was arrested last year on terrorism and conspiracy charges.

In my last post I wrote about the poverty in India. Dr Binayak Sen is someone who worked with the poorest of the poor. I couldn't have said the things I said in my last post and thought "Oh well! I don't have to live there." and carried on. I thought I'd share the story since it has received so little coverage. This is a tiny gesture from me to spread this story.

Please click this link.

Hello Again

Well I'm back from my travels and feeling the post holiday blues. I had a brilliant time at my friend's wedding mostly because I caught up with good friends I haven't seen in years and was on my territory.

When it comes to getting dressed in Asia, I know exactly what I'm doing. I can make myself look absolutely spectacular because the clothes suit me so much better and I know the rules and tricks of the trade. It's double the impact with half the effort

Frankly speaking in comparison I feel ugly in the West. The clothes, the lighting, my skin colour, it's all wrong, wrong, wrong. Oh well, if it bothers me that much I guess I could just move back. Instead I think I will give myself more chances to feel beautiful by wearing all the amazing saris I bankrupted myself with on this holiday.

When I first got the invitation for my friend's wedding, I was already there. I spent days daydreaming about the music, the food, the clothes. Now that I'm back, I'm still there. Every now and then I get a flashback of me and my friends dancing our little hearts out on the dancefloor at any one of the five, yes five, wedding ceremonies.

Our schedule went something like this:

Wedding Day 1 am: Henna Party

Wedding Day 1 pm: Cocktail Masquerade

Wedding Day 2: Pre wedding ceremony

Wedding Day 3: Actual Wedding

Wedding Day 4: Reception

Five ceremonies in four days. I ate, drank, danced, got a tan, barely slept and reminded myself what it was I did with all those spare hours at uni - I was with my friends laughing until I cried.

India itself was a bit of a shock for Mr Zeus because it's so grindingly poor, and that's where the catch lies. I had a great time, but I have to admit that walking around the gigantic grounds of the wedding venue and past the servants who had been up all night stringing marigolds to trees, I felt ashamed in my multicoloured saris that cost more than what they might earn in a year. And that's despite having witnessed similar poverty in the Home Country. In comparison I found the poor of India much poorer and the gap between that haves and have nots much wider. It was a hopeless, desperate level of poverty that even I'd never seen before on such a scale.

The wedding was on a scale I've never seen in my life and I've been to hundreds of such weddings. On the final day, the Prime Minister of India himself turned up, talk about well connected!

In terms of the sights we saw, Agra and Jaipur were totally worth it. Delhi was a bit of a dump and I wasn't much impressed. The city I liked best was the up and coming Hyderabad. It was much cleaner, less touristic and more relaxed than any of the other places we went too, plus the world's number one Dj, DJ Tiesto, chose Hyderabad for his first ever trip to India so it's got to have something special.

As for those Incredible India adverts on TV, they could do with a bit more accuracy by showing the chaos that is Indira Ghandi International airport. It ain't all elephants and yoga out there. We landed at 6.45 am. I had already changed by internal flight once from 8.10 am to 9.25 am to avoid missing it. Between 6.45 am to 9.25 am should have been plenty of time, right? We got through immigration at 8.30 am only to be told that internal flights leave from a whole other terminal.

So we grabbed a taxi which can best be described as a bucket on wheels. At the internal flights terminal, I ran up and down counters, between ladies swathed in screaming babies and over suitcases to reach the check in desk exactly 5 minutes too late and had to rebook a whole other set of one way tickets at double the price of the original return set.

If you think that's a pain in the ass, imagine when on the return journey we got stranded in Doha because of snow in Athens. Snow. In Athens. Athens, which is in Greece, which is supposed to be sunny. My office must have thought it was the worst lie they'd ever heard when I got in touch to let them know I wouldn't be online as planned because my flight got cancelled because of snow in Athens.

The gods of global warming conspired to punish me for all the flying I do.

Oh and if you're wondering, none of us took malaria tablets, just some anti-mosquito cream. To be honest the drugs are so heavy that getting malaria and treating it is probably easier on your body. My own sister had it twice and came out unscathed.

We also escaped Delhi belly. Boil it, peel it, cook it or forget it. That's what Mr Zeus stuck to. Lucky for me I grew up in the Home Country which blessed me with a stomach and nerves of steel, hence my indulgence in food that would have been lethal for him and my steady pulse in traffic that is 1000 times worse than Athens. There really are no rules in India. You wanna drive on the other side of the road? You do it!

I'll leave you with a song that I heard a lot during all the dancing I did. Ignore the video, enjoy the song.

Bringing out the East in Me

A couple of months back I mentioned a wedding I had been invited to, which turned into the perfect excuse to take Mr Zeus to my part of the world for the first time. Not the Home Country, but the neighbourhood.

So I'll be gone for a while to my beloved Asia, where the weather suits my clothes and the food suits my palate, to charge my cultural batteries and bring out the East in me.

Image: http://www.geotonphoto.com/gtp/images/photos/wedding/i025.jpg

Rise up Against the Dummies

It's a sad fact of life that stupid people exist. You know the type, the ignorant morons who just assume crap and vomit out whatever random nonsense comes into their heads. It's kind of a waste, really. We could use such people for more useful things like propping open doors, or construct book shelves by making two dumbasses hold a plank of wood between them. We could even burn them for fuel, thus solving the crisis of non-renewable energy because stupid people are quite plentiful. Unfortunately, all of the above is illegal, and stupidos are free to roam our planet.

My good Irish-married-to-a-Greek friend, who I shall call Mary for privacy, recently had the luxury of a spa day with her hubby at a place called Evexia in Patision. Mary has been in Greece the same time as me and is quite proficient in Greek because her in-laws speak no English. When she and her hubby were done with their treatments, they were taken into a room where a fakity fake over made up woman tried to sell them more beauty treatments. Let's call her Janice for fun.

And there in that room Janice decided to embark on one of the worst sale techniques I have ever heard of. Not realising that Mary understands Greek, she addressed her husband on why they should buy more spa treatments and it went something like: "I mean look at her skin. God only knows what she's going to look like in 10 years. You should do something about it now!"

Mary was appalled and humiliated and I was appalled on her behalf which is why I decided to name and shame the spa, EVEXIA in PATISION - DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR BUSINESS!

I had a somewhat similar experience on Saturday night when I was on a flight back to Athens. I took the window seat, Mr Zeus took the middle seat and next to him sat a Greek woman. She was in her 30s and petite, which as I learnt is the perfect size for the fascistaki that she turned out to be.

Whiling away the time before take-off, I listened to her talking a friend about so and so who was married to a Japanese woman. And then she said, in Greek: "I really don't like seeing Greek men with foreign women. I mean, it really really bothers me. These women should stick to their own kind. We have or ways, our traditions which foreign women don't understand. They just come here and spoil things. They make people unhappy."

I looked at Mr Zeus, shocked and convinced that I had mistranslated. I hadn't. Yes, she was THAT stupid. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but to express those views with a very visible foreign woman sat one seat away and a French-married-to-a-Greek in the row in front of you is just plain stupid. She put the cherry on the cake when she was flipping through the in-flight magazine and said " Vasiliiiiiiii... where is Strasbourg?"

Stupid cow. So remember, dummies, wherever in the world you may be; don't try to hide behind a foreign language you just assumed the people around you don't understand. All that will do is make you look more ignorant and the likes of me and Mary look smarter.

Image: http://www.northernsun.com/images/thumb/0826.jpg