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.**

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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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Think you know your TV, music and film? Try Search Charades!

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

You Can't Play

I was wearily going through my airport routine of browsing over-priced English paperbacks at Athens airport on Saturday when I saw this book. And I felt deflated.

I am not an American size 2 (UK size 6) most of the time, but now and then when I've lost weight because of the heat or because my worries have literally eaten me away, I become a temporary size 2. And some woman has gone and not only written but had published an entire book on how the likes of me are not real women.

That makes me irritated.

Can you imagine the uproar if someone wrote a book called "Real Women Don't Wear Size 22."? What a stab in the back to chop the likes of me out of the club just because we take up less space on the communal floor cushion! Thanks for nothing, sister.

So here is another thing to add to my list of what I am not. I am not English. I am not really Home Country. I don't feel British except by way of Nationality. I am certainly not Greek. And now I'm also not a real woman.

Sad times.

Image: http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/14600000/14603774.JPG

My Eyes and Ears are Bleeding!

I'm pretty unwell at the moment (has to happen when the weather is great, right) and then yesterday our internet stopped working. We're changing providers from Tellas to Hellas Online because Tellas proved to be rubbish and I need the internet for my job. When making the switch we specifically told them not to disconnect us until the switch was complete because I can't afford to be stranded without any internet. So of course they disconnected us, but lucky for them I was too unwell to work anyway.

The side effect of not having any internet to amuse myself with was that I switched on the box and started watching Greek daytime TV. The horror! How many animals were needlessly tested and tortured for the buckets and buckets of makeup worn by those female presenters? How much environmental damage was done by the gallons of bleach they insist on pouring onto their very dark (and I think beautiful) hair? I stared in hazy fascination. It was like a car crash - you want to not look but you can't help it.

On one channel the topic of the hour was "The Woman I Married Turned out to be a Man". Alright I kind of felt sorry for the man because he was desperate for a child after losing his only son and the lady knew this and didn't come clean about not being able to have children. But saying that a post op transexual is a man isn't right. A man by what measure? She used to be a man would be fairer. But to be honest if you're going to meet someone and get married to them in the space of six weeks, I don't exactly know what it is you're looking for.

I switched channels. This time another set, another sofa of fake blonds with too much makeup and the topic of the hour was the weight of women. Inneresting! This would be worth a watch knowing how blunt the Greeks are, so I sat back as they opened the phonelines. Boy do I wish I hadn't. The first caller was a women whose 27 year old son was in love with a girl who was a skinny bitch. She was mean and unhelpful and made her son miserable, but he loved her so he wanted to be with her. Mother understandably didn't want to see her child unhappy with this cow.

Actually I wish that had been the topic. In reality, the caller was a psycho mother whose 27 year old (note 27 YEARS OLD, not a child) son was in love with a girl who was a bit on the chubby side but had a lovely personality. "I don't want this to happen." she trilled down the phoneline, "I want my son to marry a model! How can someone who can't take care of herself take care of my son." Hmmm, yes. I see your problem. Your son is after all only 27 and probably can't even tie his shoelaces. How's Mrs Michelin going to reach past her belly to do that? I wonder...

And the moronic Barbies with an olive for a brain between all of them (should add that to my Olive post!) actually gave this insane woman airtime and tried to solve her 'problem', her problem being that she is an idiot who cares more about what's easy to her eyes than whether or not her child is happy. She admitted herself that her son could do with losing a few pounds. Translate: my son may be an ogre but I can't see that and believe he's a god. None of the Barbies said "So what if your son ends up with a tall blonde model who treats you and him like shit. Would that make it better just because she's pretty?"

It made me want to find this beleagured couple, marry them and then tie down the mother in law with toothpicks holding her eyes open as I forced her to watch her daughter in law eat the entire wedding cake. How do you like that!

The next caller was a man who cheats on his wife with skinny girls because after 10 years and two kids she's put some weight on. Wow. Way to solve a problem. So instead of trying to fix what you have you just throw it all out. Well done you. Now to a level I sympathise and bear with me. Most women would not appreciate the handsome man they married letting himself go and turning into a walrus. But couldn't he have tried some team work measures, as in from now on I'll do the shopping so that I pick up low fat stuff for me and you to get into shape together? Sounds like he was uncommitted and just looking for a reason to cheat.

Today I have my internet back and thank

God.Pros of learing Greek:Ease of communication

Cons of learning Greek:Understanding Greek daytime TV

An Open Letter

Sometimes there are things that need to be said and we don't say them. If I was doing a kind of emotional spring clean, this is what I would say if I had the balls, um I mean opportunity...

Hey! Hi there! How's it hanging? All good I hope.

Listen, I know you don't like me and I really don't know why. I also know I shouldn't ponder over this too much since, well, it's not like you're going to stop being the ice queen you are.

But I've got to say, I tried. Since I only ever extended good will towards you and you're still acting above it all, let me just say this:

I think you're a self righteous bitch.

Have a good weekend!

Image: http://www.adliterate.com/archives/Bravia%20balls.JPG

What to do with Too Many Olives

Harvest gone a bit over the top this year? Wondering what to do with all those olives? Wonder no more!

1) String up a line of olives and wear it around your neck. Fashionable and practical!

2) Ladies, kiss that pasty skin goodbye. Mash up some black olives, spread liberally over skin, rinse off after two days. Voila! Home-made self tan (you may end up purple but purple is IN this year)

3) Feeling shy on the nude beaches of Greece? String two olives with one piece of string (choice of colours) and a third olive on 3 pieces of string. Your attractive g-string micro bikini is ready to wear.

4) Bored of your eye colour? Take a green olive. Remove the stone and chop it in half. Next, using a sharp blade, cut off two thin rounds. Insert over cornea. That come hither look is now yours.

5) String an olive on a piece of string. Make a batch of these and sell them to unsuspecting tourists as "Traditional Greek Treat. Olive on a String!"

6) Attach olives onto hooks and use as fishing bait. If unsuccessful, wear as earrings to the taverna you will go to after fishing.

7) That guy you like not paying you any attention? Place two olives strategically under a tight fitting sweater. Enough said.

8) Roll black olives in dirt. Wait for seismic activity and scatter on the street. Run around saying "Did you see that giant goat that just walked past here? It crapped all over the street!"

9) Buy a glass fish bowl. Add fish-friendly gravel and plants. Drop in one olive. Your entertaining olive pet is now ready.

10) Try to convince checkout girls that the EU just okayed olives as legal tender in Greece.

11) Take 4 olives. Attach each pair in the middle with a paperclip. Your olive cufflinks will wow your colleagues and provide a nutritious snack during boring meetings.

12) Sick of being cat-called in the summer? Wear a pair of bicycle shorts and fill with olives all around. Walk down the street complaining loudly about your cellulite.

13) For that god-like feeling, purchase thousands of pairs of googly eyes and glue a pair onto each of your olives. Cover every surface in your house with your little minions staring up at you in awe and adoration.

14) Pour olives into bowl, add milk, eat for breakfast.

15) Break into the studios of any Greek TV channel in the morning armed with olives and a slingshot. Wait for the loud shouting matches to start and shoot olives into the mouths of the partakers of these embarrassing displays. The nation will thank you for the quieter, more relaxed start to their days.

16) Distribute olives to school children and encourage them to play conkers. But with olives.

17) Noisy neighbourhood? Olive earplugs!

18) Gents, still looking for your princess? Worry no more with this patented Princess Finder. Place one olive under your mattress and wait to see what your lady love says the next morning. If she didn't feel the olive, she is NOT a delicate princess, she is a tramp. Keep looking.

19) Freeze little cubes of gin with a toothpick through them. Serve in a cocktail glass full of olives. Whacky!

20) Stick an olive in each nostril. Well, you never know, it might be fun.

Image: http://www.argirioufood.gr/images/trofima/big/olives.jpg

Shimmy Shiver

Lately I've noticed my blog has spluttered to a halt in terms of content and readership. I've now lived in Athens for a year and a half and I guess the stuff that I used to get annoyed about before doesn't bother me enough to merit a post any more. I must be mellowing out in my old age.

So I'll talk about some general crap today, okay? Last night I grabbed a backpack and threw in two pairs of bellydance pants which I had made. It's been literally months since I went to class, for no other reason other than my own supreme laziness, and I wanted Rhea's opinion on my efforts. Since my day job is as dry as a cracker in the middle of the Sahara, I need a creative outlet to keep myself inspired so I decided to start making and selling these pants.

They seemed to be well received and we agreed on a price of EUR 40 a piece. This might seem like a lot of money, but making one pair of these takes hours and hours of cutting and pinning. Since I was on my way to meet friends I didn't stay for class but I did catch up with some of the regulars who I hadn't seen in a while.

As of next week I am going to go to bellydance class twice a week because in less than a month I'm flying out to the wedding of a good friend and I have offered to dance at her henna party. Yikes galore! I better get some practice in.

If anyone is seriously interested in getting a pair of pants, please get in touch with me through comments and we can go from there. The pants will be made to measure with any adjustments you want.

Over hot chocolates with my friends I admitted that I am sick to death already of it being winter. It's getting really boring now. How much winter do we really need? Can't it be just two weeks?

I'm cold and I feel like I'm about to come down with something. I'm a summer baby. Winter stinks, even if it is a glorious Greek winter. I'd much rather strip off in 46C heat than shiver and try to stay warm in 12C. I was made for summer. Moan moan moan.

When will it be summer...?

Image: http://www.ingmariesgarden.se/plant18.jpg

Alkionides

Didn't we have a beautiful day in Athens yesterday? The sky was as clear as the Mediterranean in August and the sun was warm. There was barely a breeze. I took walks every chance I got during the day and hummed songs to myself. That beautiful day reminded me of sunny winter afternoons of my childhood in the Home Country.

Winters in Greece are made much more tolerable for me thanks to days like yesterday, which are called Alkionides. What explains these 15 or so days each winter where summer gives you a sneak preview? Metreological magic? No! This is Greece and there is a myth to explain everything.

The legend goes like this. Alcyone was the daughter of Aeolos and was married to Ceyx son of the morning star. They were so ridiculously happy together that they went about calling themselves Hira and Zeus. Of course the gods were having none of that so when Ceyx went out to sea Zues fixed it with Poseidon to wreck the ship and Ceyx was killed.

Alcyone learnt about this when Ceyx appeared to her in a vision. She was so distraught that she wept and wailed and finally threw herself into the sea. Once their jealous egos had cooled down, the gods felt pretty bad about this so they changed the lovers into halcyon birds, otherwise known as kingfishers.

Alcyone made her nest on the beach in the winters, but the sea and the wind kept destroying it. So the gods got together and gave her 15 days of calm weather before and after the shortest day of the year so that she could nest and hatch her eggs.

That's where the alkionides come from. Enjoy them and don't anger the gods.

Image: http://www.cuerdenvalleypark.org.uk/jpegs/kingfisher.jpg

Mother Earth Rocks Me to Sleep

For my first post of 2008 I have chosen to talk about the 6.5 earthquake that hit Greece on Sunday morning. Many people I know were woken up in their beds by the major aftershock that reached Athens.

And me? I was sound asleep. I slept through an earthquake and only learnt about it when we watched the news. I've been living in Athens for 1.5 years now, and every single time there is a minor rumble I just happen to be away.

The only time I have experienced a tremor happened to me in Cardiff of all places. It was a calm evening and I was sitting on my bed in my university halls writing in my diary. I had my 'mood lighting' on and the wardrobe doors open. For some reason I could never sleep with them closed.

All of a sudden there was a creaking sound and I noticed the wardrobe doors swaying. Then my bed began to gently rock from side to side. It was so bizarre that my mind tried to find a solution to what was happening and came up with: "It must be the wind." About 5 seconds later, all was calm again.

The next morning the news confirmed that indeed a small tremor had hit the previous night and my Californian friend commented that it was just like being back home.

That was it. While many people were awake and scared by the Athens tremors, I was sound asleep. The strange thing is not a single thing was out of place when I woke up, not even the tube of lip balm that I keep standing on the edge of a shelf. Nothing fell over. Not even a drop of water splashed out of my fish's bowl.

A 6.5 richter earthquake hit Greece and there was minimal damage... gotta love that earthquake proof housing!

ps: Reading around, it seems that everyone else in the blog world felt the tremor. I am officially the laziest Athenian blogger. Yay!

Image: http://sar.informatik.hu-berlin.de/research/projects/2006-EWS/FOR_art_Tsunami_Seismogramm.jpg