Neoclassical balcony - Kypseli, Athens

For days now, my friend has been telling me about the fat Greek man in the string vest opposite her apartment.  She wakes up to him being yelled at by his wife and today I received the following from her:

"What a wake up call, seeing the old fat guy in his y fronts on the balcony across from me first thing in the morn...!"


Which got us both thinking about Balcony Life in Athens.  You see being a city, balconies become the 'gardens of the home.'  Even in the country, people don't often live in houses and live in flats - thus the balcony becomes a great extension of the home. 
Me?  I have the odd Aloe Vera plant on mine, the air conditioning pipe leaking into a dead plant, a storage cupboard for my hoover and my washing can quite frequently be found drying on it. 

Used for hanging out washing - Exarchia, Athens

On the subject of washing, some people extend their washing machines onto it - others drag their living room furniture out there in the summer, turning it inwards to watch TV from the balcony... often Cd's can be found dangling off the (almost always) green awning that serves as both a cover from the sun and a cover from prying eyes (no "Friends" spying on you from their balcony across the way!), in order to reflect the sun and scare away the ever present pigeons.



Breakfast and dinner is often served out there - in fact, as mentioned: it is a real extension of the home.  It helps if you've a big area and are not facing the main road, but even then it's great to utilise your balcony.  Unless you live on the ground floor or in the basement, rarely does an Athenian home not have a balcony. 

And if your even 'luckier,'  like my friend, you can witness and hear everyday life going on around you - but maybe I draw the line at semi naked fat old Greek men in y-fronts, the Greek version of Ugly Naked Guy!





And who could forget the most famous balcony men of all? Source: http.www.sofreshandsogreen.com20100214are-you-here-for-the-love-of-obama

Have a great day everyone!  And if you have any lovely balconies or balcony stories where you live, do fill us in and Comment here.

Last year, I wrote a post about the outdoor cinema experience in Athens, Greece.  Specifically I wrote about Cine Paris near the Acropolis.  Well, last night I had the delightful opportunity to once again visit another outdoor cinema, Cine Dexameni in Dexaminis Square, Kolonaki (near St George's Hotel) to see "Moonrise Kingdom". 
Apart from the film being touching, creative and just, well, different, I have to profess to being an outdoor cinema convert.
It's just such a civilised way to view a film!  And Athens has many open air cinemas on offer, as this post by True Athens author lists. 
My father came to visit me a couple of weeks ago and I took him to the Athinaia Ericsson Open Air cinema, again in Kolonaki to see "Key Largo" (godda love Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall!).  Apparently this cinema offers the best homemade cheese pies in Athens (according to the Lonely Planet).

Lovely entrance/ticket office

Many cinemas like to show old films, and Cine Thission, located under the Acropolis has been voted as one of the Top 10 in the world!  I was lucky enough to see "The Children's Hour" here (Audrey Hepburn & Shirley Maclaine) in such beautiful surrounding.

My only gripe: Smoking is allowed and the Greeks like to smoke! So check the wind direction before choosing your seat.  And make sure that big, fat Greek businessman turns his mobile phone off before the film starts and doesn't proceed with a full blown conversation mid-film (luckily the person sitting next to him shoved him so hard, he nearly toppled off his seat).

So I urge you: on your holidays here, do come and experience the Athens Outdoor Cinema Experience.  You will NOT be disappointed.

Getting settled in

There's no doubt that today was a pivotal turning point in Greece's modern history, and I certainly do not want to detract attention away from that.
However, everyday life goes on (yes, even here in Greece it does) and today, Bex found herself pondering the following with friends (with one eye on the TV screen, awaiting election results):

Why is it, that when a group of English men get together, they appear to love to strip naked???

Let's backtrack.  Last week, I met the daughter of a lovely English couple I know here.
"Oh God" she moaned to me.  "English men are so gross aren't they?  Thank God my parents are currently living in Athens - at least the men are better to look at!"

I steered her in the direction of a post I wrote about exactly this issue: how at least Greek men are aesthetically pleasing. 

"I mean," she continues, "take my brother, who plays rugby.  When all his rugby mates come over, they get tanked up, strip off and play naked table tennis in the garden!"

Source:http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-870821/stock-photo-woman-holding-her-hand-in-front-of-her-face-with-a-shocked-look.html

Oh, er, OK?  I really didn't quite know how to respond.  But then it got me thinking, hence our discussion today.
I remembered how when I lived in the UK, in the flat above me lived some Sub Mariners from the Royal Navy.  I once had to go upstairs to ask them to turn down their music - 2 of them answered the door, stark bollock naked. 

"Hi love, you want to come in for a cup of tea?" they enquired.  I placed my hand strategically in front of my eyes, politely informed them that no, I actually wanted to go to SLEEP, and by the way, did they always walk around naked and answer the front door in such a manner?

"Oh this?" one of them looks down at himself in surprise, as if he's just realised he's naked.
"This is nothing.  Why, does it offend you?"

No, not really - but please, put 'it' away in future when the doorbell goes.

As I was regaling this to my friends here in Athens, I asked the male company of our group if they ever did the same when serving their National Service - when a group of the males got together, was it part of the 'male bonding' to strip off.

"Er, I can safely assure you that NO, we didn't.  We saved that for the females, didn't waste it on our male friends" reassured my Greek friends.

And the more we thought about it - the more my English friends cited examples of English or American men getting together in groups and stripping off: 'hazing' activities in U.S. universities, footballers, rugby players, etc.

So, on that note, Bex wants your feedback:  Why do Northern European men and our American (and Antipodean?) male cousins insist on getting tanked up (drunk) and stripped off???  What is it about the male pack mentality?  It doesn't happen here in Greece, believe me (even more reason for you to visit Greece for a holiday!)

Looking forward to your answers!

The harbour of Kea/Tzia

I always felt that in order to feel like your on a 'proper' Greek island, one has to travel about 5 hrs by ferry to Paros or Naxos, for example - or even further afield to Skopelos or Alonissos.  I shouldn't be so quick to judge, as my experiences in Poros and Aegina have taught me.  Both are islands very near Athens, and easily accessible (all islands are, actually - it just depends how long you want to spend travelling to them, if you don't fly direct).

This time I chose Kea, or Tzia in Greek.  It's an island only roughly one hour away by ferry, but you have to leave from the port of Lavrio.  Lavrio is approximately a 2 hr bus ride from Athens, mainly because it doesn't go direct, but via a few different outlaying towns and villages. 
Lavrio itself is nothing to write home about - and a piece of advice: if you get a bus that gets you there at least 1.5 hrs before the ferry, don't get off at the port.  Instead, get off in the town centre, go and eat in a taverna overlooking the harbour and then give yourself about 15 mins to walk to the port (or get a taxi if it's too hot) and buy your ferry ticket.  The ferry offices won't be open if you're there too early and the port is a bit of a dump quite frankly.

As you know, Greek islands are full of churches

But all these grumpy feelings of mine (hot, bothered, cr*ppy port) disappeared as soon as I set foot on the ferry and pulled off.  Incidentally, it's only 11 Euros one way - a good price eh?!  And the bus ticket is 4.90 Euros. 
There's something about being at sea that blows the cobwebs away (literally) and leaves one feeling excited about what lays ahead!

Fishermen mending their nets

Pulling into the harbour of Kea, I made the short walk of about 10 minutes to my accommodation: Koralli Studios.  And what a lovely location (opposite the beach) and gorgeously done up rooms!  They were a fair size, very clean and not worn looking.  The hosts cleaned my room daily and with solar heating, there was an abundance of hot water.  Prices for one room as 45 Euros, lowered to try to attract more visitors.  It's a shame there weren't many people staying (not from my point of view, from the owner's point of view - the lovely Dimitra) as I like to see local businesses thriving, especially in these times.

A great hire care for 30 Euros a day was perfect for a Citroen C5.  I took myself off to beaches, monasteries and the Hora (the old capital in the centre of the island - up in the mountains).

Gorgeous beaches

Entrance to the monastery

So here, in pictures, I present Kea.  Enjoy.

View from the monastery (I might just become a nun!)

Monastery Garden

Monastery cat (I'm in love!)

The Hora's small streets

Old houses

Add in a good sunset, that's Greece

Source: http://www.riseandgrind.com/2010/06/29/honesty-is-a-policy-but-it-aint-the-best/

Hypocrite is a Greek word.  I've been thinking a lot about hypocrites lately.
As we all know,Greece is in the news a lot lately for being 'very naughty' and not paying their taxes (well - we all know it's primarily the mega rich that don't pay and this goes on around the globe, but that's a different story) as well as various other 'naughty Greece!' things such as a bloated public sector (once again, a blog post on its own, seeing as the previous Government introduced a corrupt system of "jobs for votes").

But Bex has been thinking about who is really hypocritical; the Greeks or other nations, that pretend to be 'straight.'  For example: The Leveson Enquiry in the UK that examines phone hacking by the tabloid press in the UK.  Well, let's face it - a great, long, drawn out enquiry's going on at the British tax payer's expense, the barristers involved are getting paid a fortune for their daily rate (so they don't want to see it end anytime soon!) and it all looks good and fancy - a 'show' to the British public that says "Look!  we take corruption seriously!  We are doing something about it!"

But WILL anything come out of this enquiry?  All that money wasted, just to put on a 'show.'  You know, paradoxically at least the Greeks are honest about being dishonest.  So ingrained into their culture is dishonesty that if someone is honest towards them, they look at you strangely and wonder when you're going to stab them in the back...they expect dishonesty.

Source:http://themodernjedi.wordpress.com/2012/05/20/anything-you-do-i-do-better-in-heels/

A Greek man once said "The difference between the British & the Greeks: you can see the Greek coming towards you with the knife. The British?  You think they're your friends, then as you walk away, they stab you in the back."

So "Leaving Cairo..." asks you once again: who, actually, is being the most dishonest? (that's a rhetorical question, by the way).

Take care people.
:0)

Bex's dad has come to visit her in Athens!  I was so chuffed in the lead up to dad's arrival, yet managed to remain realistic as well, because more often than not, after about 48 hrs in each others company, I am ready to commit patricide and no doubt he's ready to commit 'daughterside.'
Well, it's less than 12 hrs he's been here, and already he's got lost.

"I'm going for a walk" he yells.  I'm in the shower. 
"Out my flat, turn left" I yell back, but the door's already slammed.

Half an hour ticks by.  I feel like a role reversal has happened, IE: I am the one who's the parent, worrying about the 'child.'

The door clicks open.  "I'm back!" he sweeps in bombastically, "And I got lost!"



Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/valeriebb/2248744703/

 "Hmmm, you don't say?" I reply, raising one eye.

"So, I turned left like you said, I found some lovely cafes and a lovely neighbourhood, but I turned off back to your street too early."

"Uh huh" I laconically urge him on.

"So, there's these 3 old geezers sitting outside a cafe, I go up to them and tell them 'I'm lost!'  They mutter in Greek to each other, one guy asks for your telephone number, which I can't remember!" my father blew out his cheeks as he remembered this, almost like he's worried he has Alzheimer's.

"And in the meantime, the other guy's disappeared to his home, taken a street map, gone to his other friend's house and photocopied it for me and bought it back, covered in yellow highlighter!"
"They then proceed, the two of them, to walk me back to your place!"

"And you know what? I thank them over and over again, and they just shrug at me, pat me on the back and impart - "We are all humans.""
As my dad's relaying this, there are tears in his eyes.  He's been to Greece many times in the past, but he's never EXPERIENCED the REAL Greeks, the KIND Greeks.  Only the arsehole business ones (who are probably responsible for getting this country into the mess it's in).

I smile knowingly.  We're both glad he got lost - so that he got to experience this.  He got to see the real Greeks 'in action.'

We're off to try to find that cafe again now, to thank them.  See you later.

I've thought long and hard before writing this post. I aim to keep "Leaving Cairo..." as upbeat as possible and talk about the beauty of Greece and the 'funny' experiences had by Bex here. However, obviously we cannot blithely ignore all that's been going on here, and I feel I need to address some sort of post to it here:

Recently, I read an article about how mental health is in decline due to austerity measures in Greece. It got me thinking about Greece's 'lost generation.'  I started to draw parallels with my experiences of Cambodia:  during 1975-1979, Cambodia was ruled by the awful Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot which, to simplify it, sought to bring the country back to 'Year Zero' and killed anyone who was considered to be intelligent.  This led to a generation of people who were illiterate and by the time I went to Cambodia to partake in some work for an small NGO in the early 2000's, I noticed that the literacy rate was very, very poor.  Many a time I would be the one reading the map and pointing out where to go for the taxi driver who was trying to make a living.

I am not saying Greece is going through it's Pol Pot equivalent, I am suggesting that there is evidence of decreasing standards of health, hygiene and education in this country due to the social cutbacks that are always implemented under the auspices of austerity (ironically defence spending rises, but this is a 'condition' of the bailout loans).
Articles such as these can no longer be avoided (and I am not a fan of the Daily Mail, but they highlight the phenomenon of what is going on, in the name of austerity).

So, how could a country that produced Socrates, Hippocrates and Alexander the Great get it so wrong?  My final bone of contention is LaGarde and her God awful interview to The Guardian newspaper (interestingly, apparently this provoked the most Comments about a newspaper article ever - over 3,200!).  Her interview lumped all people living in Greece with the same brush and suggested that NO-ONE pays tax.  Er, let me assure you Ms LagGrde, I do and I am a FOOL, given that there are people on MUCH higher salaries than me, who avoid paying tax AT ALL!
Another example to give: I know of someone who pays over half their monthly salary in taxes and social security contributions, therefore he/she has to do more cash in hand work in order merely to survive!  Surely the system is perpetuating people to break the law?!

I love Greece, I really do.  But I hope to God she gets her act together, before a whole generation of people are lost to malnutrition, depression and the like - because let me assure you, dear reader: austerity is never designed to assist a county...it is always designed to destroy (look at other countries the IMF has weaved it's evil wand in) - the question is, WHY do they want to destroy?