My “short break” turned out to be a rather longish break. Everything went fine with the trip to Brussels. We had some problems at the car rental desk due to my credit card having extended it’s limit for the month (I didn’t keep track carefully enough) but after 3 hours of phone calls and...
Read more →We will be taking a short trip to the Low Lands as per tonight. I will (finally) attend a Zhineng Qigong workshop with Patricia van Walstijn in Nijkerk (The Netherlands). I’ve been looking forward to that for a long time. Back in 2003 I learned about Zhineng Qigong through a symposium that Yvonne had...
Read more →The Greek authorities are finally going to be cracking down on misbehaving tourists in the Gouves-Chersonissos-Malia area this year. The three resorts, about 40 kilometers east of Iraklio, Crete, are probably the most popular holiday destinations for tourists in Crete, each year attracting hundreds of thousands of youngsters, mainly from Great Britain and the...
Read more →You remember how I mentioned a few days ago that we just put some inflatable mattresses on top of our spread-out tent and call that “camping”? It was not looking too good for our upcoming “vacation” this year. A couple of weeks ago we were invited by Giorgos and Maria to join them in...
Read more →Two weeks ago we had friends from Belgium over for their holidays. We had a nice meal together and in the course of the conversation the subject of money came up. When I told them what the average salary in Crete was, they were shocked to learn that I worked for the minimal legal...
Read more →“What’s with the boat”, you’re asking? Well, before the Greeks imported the custom of the christmas tree, they used scale models of boats in just the same fashion as other parts of the world used pine trees. They would dress up the boat in similar ways, with candles and balls and other glittering garlands....
Read more →It looks like the Greek lifestyle doesn’t agree with a lot of electronic gear. I didn’t mention it before, but I haven’t had a lot of luck lately, electronically speaking. There was the defective battery in my Macintosh Powerbook back in spring. Small problem you would say, and it would be, except in Greece....
Read more →Let me translate that for you. Τσικνοπέμπτη. That’s it. Today that is. Today is τσικνοπέμπτη. It is translated into “mardi gras” by one of the electronic dictionaries that my employer makes available to the staff. It’s just that it is not “mardi” today, it is “πέμπτη”, eh “pempti” for you, and that means “thursday”...
Read more →It’s done. Flight A3-540 leaves on Saturday 29, at 7 in the morning and we will land at Düsseldorf at 12:40, with one hour to kill in Athens. We will be in Belgium/The Netherlands for a week and a half. It’ll be a little busy probably, what with our presence required in the Greek...
Read more →Tomorrow morning I will be leaving for Belgium, so entries to this weblog will be sparse. I’ll take my laptop with me, but with a full programme ahead I doubt that I will have much time to add new entries. If everything goes well Yvonne and I should be back by Friday, 28 of...
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