Λονδίνο, Άμστερνταμ ή Βερολίνο...

...έχεις ξεχάσει πού ακριβώς θέλεις να πας, λέει το τραγούδι. η αλήθεια είναι πως στα 2 πρώτα είναι πολύ πιθανό να καταλήξω για κάποιο καιρό, και θα το ξέρω σύντομα. για το τρίτο δεν ξέρω.

γενικά όμως έρχονται πολλές στιγμές που σκέφτομαι ότι υπάρχουν ευκαιρίες για δουλειά και φοβερή ζωή και εκτός ευρώπης, και πως δε μεγάλωσα και τόσο πια για να τις κυνηγήσω και να ζήσω κάτι τελείως διαφορετικό. ούτως ή άλλως όπου και να πάω, μόνος δύσκολα θα ξεμείνω.

οψόμεθα...

how much do you know about your family history?

i mean, ok, for sure you know the same old stories told at family tables, about how different things were back then, when your parents used to be kids. and how they met, and how their relations with their families used to look like, more or less. but, anything more than that?

i decided i need to know more about my family, so last nite i started a walk with my father and went through the family tree back to my great grand father, then when we coming back home we included my mum and sister in the conversation over a bottle of wine. i can tell you it's one of the most rewarding history sessions and there's a lot lot more to know about my family (both my father's and my mother's side).

the stories are not only interesting because i don't know much about my grandfather's 5 brothers and sisters for example, but also because there's life lessons in there as times were more difficult. i know that's what they always say, but the truth is that there's the history of two world wars and how they affected the life of our family, the civil war in Greece after WWII, a dictatorship in the 60's - 70's, the Russian revolution in 1917 which caused my great grand father to stay in Russia for a long while, and finally Greek-Turkish relations which caused my great grand father's family to leave Istanbul where they used to live all the way till 1927.

It seems like the entire history of the 20th century has played a big role in the way my family evolved. and there's still so much more to know!

always like this, or not?

when you decide to go play basketball all your friends are busy

you say it's ok, i'll just go jog to exercise. and just when you say it, it starts raining. i am serious.

but well, it's ok, i can always start exercising tomorrow :)

movies movies movies

i just watched a couple of movies on dvd

madagascar (cartoon kind of a thing you all know) and

Annie Hall (by Woody Allen - 1977)

just my short impression on those:

Madagascar: I enjoyed it as the cartoon fan that i am, but i am not too fond of the message of the movie itself:
"we shouldn't wanna leave our cage, and when we do, we should try to go back and not explore our origin or destiny". the animals live in new york, know nothing of what is going on outside their cage and where they came from, and when they go to madagascar tall they wanna do instead of discovering theirselves is go back to their cages. it's too difficult out there i guess.

Annie Hall: I really enjoyed it, it seems it really is a classic of Woody Allen's. No spectacular movie, just a simple analysis of relationships and a life view point. A couple of the best lines in the movie "I wouldn't wanna be part of a club where I would be a member" and "A guy goes to his shrink and says that his brother is crazy, he thinks he's a chicken. The shrink asks why he doesn't ask his brother to come for a visit and the patient replies: I need the eggs." - that's more or less how relationships are, according to the movie: a crazy thing, but we all need it.

goldfish in a glass

I am just finishing a book about photography, and one of the many photos featuring in the book is this one, taken by Herbert List. I think it's both a great conception and a very cool photo. The whole setting of the goldfish in a glass with no access to the water and freedom, which is nevertheless so close. in the background you can see the isle of Santorini.

a simply great photo.

κοντολίζα and the pandaemonium

after the easter celebrations are over - we have our first grand visit tomorrow in athens. condoleezza rice is on her way here.

all the people who don't want her here as they oppose the us foreign policy aside, what normally happens during such visits is a general chaos in the capital, from the demonstrations and from the security measures taken by authorities. i imagine that similar things happen in other countries as well, but i heard in the news today that apart from the interruption of circulation in the center of athens for severla hours, there will even be some snipers (!!!) places around the hotel ms. rice will be residing at. unimagineable. so maybe smn is around and is going home and looks (???) "suspicious" the state we are represented by has decided it's a good idea for them to be taken down. cool or what?

the other big part of the story is the announcement about interruption of car circulation (short notice) in the following main streets of the capital: Attiki odos, Kifisias ave., West Ring road of Imittos, Katehaki ave., Mesoghion ave., Vasilissis Sofias ave., Irodou Attikou str., Vasileos Konstantinou ave., Vasilissis Olgas ave., Amalias ave., Siggrou ave., Kokkali str, Gelonos str., Dorileou str and P. Kiriakou str. (Αττική οδός, λεωφόρος Κηφισίας, Δυτική Περιφερειακή Λεωφόρος Υμηττού, Λεωφόρος Κατεχάκη (Π. Κανελλοπούλου), λεωφόρος Μεσογείων, λεωφόρος Βασιλίσσης Σοφίας, Ηρώδου Αττικού, λεωφόρος Βασιλέως Κωνσταντίνου, λεωφόρος Βασιλίσσης Όλγας, λεωφόρος Αμαλίας, λεωφόρος Συγγρού, Κόκκαλη, Γέλωνος, Δορυλαίου και Π. Κυριακού).

Now take ANY map of athens and look at it. this is the entire city center of athens and all the main streets leading to it. Attiki odos alone serves more than 200,000 cars on a daily level.
Pandaemonium, and all this bcos a few ppl are afraid of what? that ms. rice might be shot by some looney? i wonder what measures the entire world should be taking then, when receiving a visit from the us of a army? oh, i forgot: that one would be called foreign policy, not a threat. it's for our own good.

last things i wanna say about this whole story:
1. i think it's kinda humiliating for all the people who will have to go through a 3 hour traffic jam just to go to work tomorrow. the government owes all of them an apology big time. but well, any government in greece wouldn't know what to apologise for first, if they ever decided to do so
2. don't get me wrong, but the majority of the population in this country don't enjoy this whole thing, and the visit in general. that's not personal with ms. rice or whoever else, but it has to do with the fact that we oppose foreign policy which is related to war. take it from a nation who has suffered a lot of wars and intrusions throughout it's history, ancient and recent. and i don't know for how long we have to see history repeating itself, especially in all that's related to its bad aspects.

Easter in athens

first time in my life i celebrated Easter in Athens, with my close family. we decided for a change to celebrate at my sister's place, instead of our annual celebrations in my parents' place.

we enjoyed each other's company and the fact that at least 1.5 million ppl are away from athens so traffic is minimal (which i think is only possible in the beginning of august when most ppl are on holidays). other than that, i don't know if it's changing the habit that counts more here, but i didn't enjoy Easter this year - maybe becos of the fact that we celebrated away from Lamia. And well, none of my friends was around here. comparison with last year is not valid, since last year must have been one of the worst easter celebrations ever (i was in camp, for some strange reason the same happened for xmas, new year's and all other celebrations :)

i am becoming notorious for the contrasts i have as a personality with myself, though i have not been found to be schizophrenic. :-) though i am not known to be a particularly religious person, sometimes i do go to church, and not necessarily on celebrations (i.e. my trip to mt. Athos in november). Easter is one of the instances where i enjoy going to church and i didn't like it in Athens, in fact it was a colourless experience, if you know what i mean.

And thus, i have decided taht unless circumstances change in the future, i am not spending Easter in athens again, unless there's a very serious reason for doing so.

tmw heading home again.

latest update

in short...

• no news on the job hunting front
• been spending the last few days (since thursday) in athens
• had to call of my egypt trip which was planned for may (if you don't have a job you don't risk spending most of your money at once, right?)- sorry guys and gals - i am not gonna be there.
• reading, reading, reading - my next reads are "does god play dice?" and "the world is flat" which i bought a couple of days ago
• going through a self teaching html course - am so bored i feel i need to learn something new
• applied for my adsl connection - according to OTE i should have it by the first days of may, but i wouldn't bet on it

waiting for ote

i am sick of this whole story - if only the main telecom provider was private, things would be much better in this country for a lot of reasons. unfortunately, it's public (www.ote.gr). i have been waiting for over 2 weeks to get an adsl line at home, and it looks like i have a week's more time to hang on with my die-hard dial-up connection (like volodja calls it).

lets see how long this will take...

12

days without blogging.

a friend mailed me last nite and asked why i don't blog anymore. hehe :)

well...in fact this is the longest (must be) that i haven't blogged for since it all started, some 2+ years ago...so what's happening? I'll tell you what's not happening for starters.

I am not on a trip
I did not suffer an accident
I am not on a deserted island
I am not ultra busy - so i don't have time to post sth online or e-mail friends
I am not braindead (yet)

i am just stuck in Lamia, trying to find new rhythms in life as long as my online jobhunt will last for. Oh, i forgot mentioning: i have a dial up connection, which slows things down a lot for every single thing i wanna do online. i hope this don't last for long though.

it's been interesting being here though, for the past 10 days or so. no close friends here, staying with my parents for a while once again (which is great btw - recommended experience!), and well, since they work for most of the day (and I don't) i end up spending most of the day alone. online or in a book's pages :) there's not much to blog about when the most interesting activity of the day is reading (though i am way on track for a new record, now through book #17 over a total of 33 read in 2005).

just saying i am here - observing - looking for a job - not having lots of fun lately
- and waiting to read your new adventures online or in my inbox :) will blog again when i think i have sth to write about!

how does that sound?