Friday evening. The plane had left right on time in Düsseldorf. We had a little delay in Athens. Unlike on my way home 2 weeks earlier we had to leave the plane while it got re-fueled and cleaned up. All passengers with destination Iraklio were gathered in the hallway. After fifteen minutes we were...
Read more →Does Time fly? In some sense it does. It hovers in circles, A bird of prey, Above us. This chapter requires its own preface. However, the preface must follow the chapter proper. Isn’t that what friendships are like, the explanatory bit always following the existential bit? And that is how this biography is to...
Read more →I’m coming home, I’ve done my time… After a whole month searching for a company that could bring our gear over from Kleine Spouwen, Belgium to Iraklio, I was driving my upstairs neighbour with her cat to the vet last evening. While I was explaining that the transporters in our country charged over €5000...
Read more →Saturday had been a reasonably nice day. It was dry for a change and the temperature had risen to 15 degrees. I thought it would be good idea for me to go to Kastelli Kissamou on Sunday. Sunday morning greeted me with a grey sky, the type that disappears unnoticed into the equally grey...
Read more →The weather, the whole weather and nothing but the weather. It has been one heck of a month, weather wise. To start with, we had massive leaks in the sky, throwing a wet curtain all over the island for days on end. When it wasn’t raining, a fierce and cold wind from the north...
Read more →Do you know what the Number 1 hit was on the day you were born???? I do now. And it feels somewhat appropriate too. Here In My Heart -Artist: Al Martino as sung on “Al Martino Greatest Hits” -CEMA Special Markets(Capitol-EMI) CDL 57361 -peak Billboard position # 1 for 3 weeks in 1952 -competing...
Read more →Today I got a reasonable explanation from someone on the seemingly random way of including VAT in the prices of some goods and not in others, as I told you yesterday. It happened in another electronics shop I went to today. The salesperson seemed a little bit more open to my questioning him on...
Read more →How the heating seriously hampered my climb on the social ladder, the curtains offended my deep sense of symmetry, jobs are weak and the drachme is strong, although VAT is on and off, automated responses aren’t and the Greek government is. Let’s see, what happened this week? In random order, since there is no...
Read more →Maastricht is ne brede Maar Maastricht ‘t is lang Maastricht is de leukste stad Gesellig aan de zang – Maastricht Karnival Song Maastricht is not broad But, Maastricht, it is long Maastricht is the finest city Gesellig* on the song – Translation Maastricht is eene groete cafe – Maastricht Karnival Song Maastricht is one...
Read more →It was half past nine in the evening and they were six — in their early forties — at a table when I entered the “kafeníon”. No other customers were present except those men. I sat down at a table a little bit out of the way and ordered a “karafáki” and “mezé”. The...
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