In about a week’s time we will pack some essentials into a couple of small rucksacks, take the ferry from Iráklio to Piraeás and set off on a discovery of a part of Greece that I have wanted to (re-)visit for a long time: Argolida, the name itself sounds like a symphony. It was...
Read more →As far as reading goes, I’m not a gourmet, I’m a gourmand. I read everything that falls into my hands. Today, while I was taking my daily infusion of “ellinikó métrio” at the Internet Cafe opposite our street on Knossou, I read an article by Rika Vagiani in Ethnos newspaper. You can find the...
Read more →Remember the strike of the garbage collectors a couple of weeks ago? We are slowly entering a period where every non-priviliged Greek will feel the effects of the latest strike where it hurts most: on his diner table and in his (parked out of necessity) car(s). I’m talking of course about the strike of...
Read more →What follows is a story that I was told the Russians tell about us: One day God got up exhausted from governing the planet and so He decided to divide the whole globe into pieces, call all the different nations and give them a piece each, so that from then onwards they would be...
Read more →For the year 2008 the Greek government has implemented phases 2 and 3 of the planned tax reform program that the conservative ND (Nea Demokratia) party has initiated when they came to power in 2004. You might think of Greece as a poor country. You’d be wrong. As a matter of fact, Greece is...
Read more →An article in Athens News caught my eye today. According to it, Greeks gamble to the tune of 8% percent of Greece’s GDP, or larger than the market capitalisation of the Greek Telecom organisation (OTE). To be precise: more than 16 billion euros have been gambled away this year. Wow! The total population of...
Read more →Day 7 of ADSL flakiness. On Monday December 31st I went to OTE in Iraklio to speak to a real person about my ADSL problems. Of course I didn’t get any further than an administrative staff member who dully noted down what I said (I presented her with a nice spreadsheet of all the...
Read more →Everybody knows that some countries “excel” in bureaucracy over others. On a European level Greece definitely belongs to the top of the league. On a national playing field within Greece, IKA must be the champion. The one and only requirement to enter the IKA workforce used to be your affiliation with the right political...
Read more →Well? Where? I’ve been waiting for nine months exactly and nobody shows up! Just kidding, really. I seem to have taken a rather long break, haven’t I? But rest assured, everything is well with us. It must have been writer’s block. Or something. The thing is, it gets boring — not only for me,...
Read more →Tuesday, six thirty in the evening. Dinner has just been brought in and the room is full of visitors. I’ve been here for 3 full days now, yet Saturday afternoon seems like months away. I don’t feel any pain, have not felt any for more than 48 hours, so I’m bored stiff. Of my...
Read more →