Dom

Most of the times it stands there, glorious and scary. Imposing on you whatever it is that it was build to impose.

But sometimes it seems out of place. Like a construction made from LEGO pieces. A thing out of a movie set, that after the shooting will be demolished and its LEGO pieces will be soon be part of something else.

this thought is more comforting. Simply because its perfection and beauty does not, and never will, excuse the motivation for which it was build.

Not as a sacred prayer place, but as a symbol of power, to scare and impose.

Tribute to the Beatle and his girl

In 1995 I went to Odessa. Being so young I had to be placed in the care of a family. I don’t know what you imagine about Ukraine in the mid 1990s but it was not at all like that.

The father was a very Russian-looking Ukrainian (that is what my memory of a 14-year-old tells me), very tall and squared, with beard and red cheeks. Also, very proud of his vodka (and his capacity to drink endless amounts of it). His way of showing me his country was to offer me few glasses and give me some pickled vegetables. It worked. My Russian became fluent after that (don’t ask…).

The mother was a nurse, a very useful mother of two. She was fit and sporty and was full of positive energy. Not at all motherly to my Greek eyes, where a mum should be at least size 18. Her way of introducing me to all things Ukrainian was to take me to the famous stairs of Odessa, and then to her hospital where I could see the state of the art equipment for ill children. Sadly, I was not interested, and mine and hers limited English did not help the communication.

The oldest daughter was my age, very round faced and happy-jumpy. She was exited that she could communicate in a language other than her own (you know the feeling, after all, this gibberish they teach us at school called English are actually useful for communicated with other bipeds). The youngest daughter was drawing non-stop princes and princesses (communist did not affect children imagination after all).

After a few glasses of vodka the father of the family was ready to make a statement. He looked at me very carefully and he said something in Russian which was later translated to me: I think I know why you look familiar to me! You look like John Lenon and Yoko Ono at the same time! Incredible!

Lenon was killed on December 8th 1980. I was born on January 24th 1981.

I am their lost child.

What’s so great about England?

Having taken enough physical mental and time distance from the island, I can say now officially, I miss it. Don’t start looking at me with those bit eyes full of surprise… or is it something else?
Wanting it or not (mostly not) England was my home for the best part of my adult years this far. It is there, where I learned how to interact with other adults on equal terms, deal with authorities and survive bureaucracy. So now, I have moved worlds choosing as my new planet a place without queuing traditions but with widely know good cuisine, a place that everybody acknowledges as a “great place to be”. So, how do I dare miss England?

Okay, step back for a moment. I don’t miss everything about it. I don’t miss the teenage mums, the dirty streets on Sunday morning, the cold feeling in the gut until I get home Friday night after pub closing time, the train delays, the shops closing at five (or rather the world closing at five). Plenty of things I do not miss.

What do I miss?

First and foremost, I miss that in England, this great little country, everybody knows what to expect. There is a certain order, there is a certain routine, even in the most un-orderly of situations. You know that when you enter a restaurant you have to wait to be seated, while in a pub you have to go find the seat that suits you unassisted. You know that customer service people will greed you with a smile, will be full of thank yous and pleases and I beg your pardons, and they will even be sorry for your inconvenience. Well not really, but they will say so. It is part of the game.

When you enter the country it upsets you, then you get used to it, when you leave you miss it. The world out there is a jungle without these unwritten rules.

I also miss the pubs, the ones with good real ale, some nicely made burgers and interesting customers who can tell you stories from the old days.

I miss the bookstores, that had books in a language I can understand, and that had logically designed sections.

I miss the bbc iplayer. My only contact to pop culture.

I miss the high street shops, where I knew where I could find the things I need, sparing me the time of wondering around for three hours in a tourist invaded city centre.

But above all I miss Indian restaurants.

Don’t get me wrong… Italy is a great place, which I still need to explore to more detail. But England was the awkward place I was used to. And like with bad relationships, habit is the critical factor.

Now, is time I give Italy a chance.

Ein Tisch ist ein Tisch

I am in Florence. I walk alone in the cold.

All this moving around has not changed my habit of talking to myself out loud while I am convinced (and most of the time I am convinced) that there is nobody around to hear me. The empty streets around Campo di Marte make sure that I wont be mistaken (?) for a crazy person.

So, I talk to myself, or to imaginary others. Nothing wrong with this, do not try to make me feel that I am weird. Everybody does it. Yes, even you. But I am weird, I know it. Simply because I can define the language I use to talk to myself. Being me, I understand most of my languages. Mixing and matching them as I walk past traffic lights, supermarkets, and bus stops, makes perfect sense to me. I think though few others would feel the same.

The problem starts when one leaves their country and changes the default language, the one of common reference. The second and most important level is when one starts developing concepts in the second default language that did not exist in the first. Now imagine one makes this move several times…

I ended up in a situation where my default language is not the language of my country of origin, not the language of the country I live, not the language of my significant someone and not the language of the people I hang out with.

I work, talk, dream, write, speak in English, but I buy bread in Italian, read French at breakfast, talk on the phone in Greek, have the occasional drink in German, and overhear conversations in Spanish. The rest of the languages I ignore in an attempt to keep my sanity. The result though remains the same. My head contains a language soup.

My Chinese colleague, who has spent all her adult life in Germany, speaks perfect English, only with at least two German words in each sentence. My only problem with this, is that I do not notice… it makes perfect sense to me, which simply confirms my language soup hypothesis.

I write my shopping list and I catch myself using four different languages. No sane person does this. In the end I will find myself using English words in German syntax with Italian verb endings and French accent: My own Esperanto that nobody shares.

I remind myself of this old pensioner, who lonely and bored with his life, he created a language game. Calling the bed a “table”, the table a “chair”, the chair a “window” and so on… he isolated himself completely from society, not being able to communicate. Nobody understood why he wanted to sleep on the table, eat at the chair while sitting on the window.

Okay, my case is not quite that bad. I still call the table a table, but communicating anything beyond that takes quite a bit of effort. Moving yet to another country might though have fatal consequencies on my ability to use this simple tool: language. Back to the time of the apes.

Ich will von einem alten Mann erzählen, von einem Mann, der kein Wort mehr sagt, ein müdes Gesicht hat, zu müd zum Lächeln und zu müd, um böse zu sein.

For the brave among you, children’s (of all things!) story by the Swiss Peter Bichsel.
Ein Tisch ist ein Tisch

(Ask google to translate if your German does not help you)

Weddings: Chicago

I first noticed the cold, and then anything else. The second day of 2010 the temperature in Chicago reached minus Fahrenheit. You can imagine how bad it was in Celsius.
And here I was, in my green summer thin dress posing for pictures in a rainforest themed conservatorium. My only thought was: at least I am not outside in the snow.

The day started for me at 5.45am, the alarm went off to wake the bride-to-be, who was sleeping next to me. So my duty started, taking pictures of her inability to wake up. The she rushed here and there. Hairdresser, make-up artist, bride’s maids, family paraded through my room in the early hours before 7am. Armed with coffee and bagels we all got pretty in our green dresses and saw Jane transforming from a rugby girl into a beautiful bride.

To me this was the first wedding I attended that I actually cared about the couple. A true friend got married, and I ventured all the way to the other side of the Atlantic to witness it. Jane is the first of my Elmstead girls of the Essex gang to say ‘I do’.

The ceremony took place in the back room of a Korean restaurant somewhere north of the river in Chicago. It was very emotional, touching everybody’s heart, as two young people from different continents got over the hurdles posed by geography and USA immigration agency and finally managed to be together.

Jane, an American girl with strong Korean background and Lee an Englishman with Irish roots, finally found home in each other. And people from three continents came to celebrate.

This wedding taught me a lot:
If you believe in something and you work on it really hard, it can come true. (Quite handy for my low moments).
Even with a small budget you can create a truly memorable moment for the people close to you. (Also handy for my academic salary)
There must be at least six different kinds of cake. (If you know Jane that comes as no surprise)
I don’t hate Korean food. (Now that… nobody expected)

Be mobile and freeze your eggs

As an overall note for fellow nomadic academics I feel like reporting from a conference I recently attended. The hot potato topic was careers for young researchers. The first panel stressed the following points:

There are lots of grants out there for brilliant ideas, you just need to be aware of them.

The paradox: You need to demonstrate your ability to get grants for your research in order to get a tenured position in a university, BUT you need a position in a university to be eligible to apply for a grant (catch-22 situation… as a fellow researcher pointed out).

The advice: Be mobile! Spend the whole of your late twenties and thirties hopping from one country to the next wherever you find an available research job. A strategy that resembles seasonal agricultural workers, who follow the harvest map: oranges in Spain, strawberries in England, olives in Italy, grapes in France… and so on…

In the meantime we have to forget we are human. That we have families and social networks (more sophisticated name for friends and drinking buddies), partners and above all our favorite bakeries, coffee shops ect… From the outside our jobs look very glamorous (if someone has not looked at our paycheck that is), traveling around the world, researching stimulating ideas, meeting other brilliant (although often sort of autistic) people.

The tradeoff is that we never have one stable point of reference. We constantly need to build new social networks. Our best friends are normally in another country, if not spread around the globe and our family most of the times lives in a place without accessible universities. Our partner is having the same career path, which means (s)he is changing jobs and countries more often than a shirt, and we never (or rarely) are lucky enough to be on the same side of a river (or the Atlantic ocean come to that). Being on our productive age we need to focus on our career… but simultaneously being on the re-productive age too… we need to make some choices. The potential parents have about a thousand km or more between them, which does not constitute a healthy growing-up environment for any child.

So we are faced with a clear choice. Reject that post-doc position in the other side of the continent from your partner or freeze your eggs!

Smoking Ban in Greece: Three months on

Passing from completely compliant England on to nagging but obedient Italy, I had assumed that oxygen inside confined space was my natural right, especially since it is generally considered vital for survival. I had taken it for granted that I could happily breathe inside bars, coffee shops, public buildings and other protected spaces. For me, the small crowed outside each bar was a group of socializing smokers, and my flatmates standing on the balcony for a smoke without previous arrangement, only natural.
My trip to autumnal post-smoking ban Greece was about to shake my smoke-free world.
Some history first: Greece reluctantly adopted the smoke ban law on July 1sr of this year. Initially nobody took notice as the fun was outdoors and outdoors smoking was allowed.
As the cold creped in so did the numerous amendments and interpretations of what started its career as a total smoking ban.
So the total ban that I saw was far from being total…. With the following amendments:
1. Small bars (like very small) can choose to be for smokers or for non-smokers. So ALL small bars I know are for smokers, since this is the dominant trend.
2. Large bars and coffee shops can divide their area into smoking and non-smoking, and divide the two with a two meter high glass wall (which was a state of the art, hey, as you could literally step through it! … It did not exist! Anywhere!)
3. Big nightclubs, with the traditional bouzouki where in the old days the best clients broke some plates reaching maximum entertainment.
4. Universities, being a police-free zone, once upon a time to ensure freedom of speech, now ensure freedom of smoke of equally academics and students (we are all equal in smoking!). This includes lecture theatres and seminar rooms.

This covers bars and coffee shops. The restaurants I have not tried yet. Let’s hope that the government has been a bit more successful there.
The best result of the smoking ban was the new discourse on discrimination. Apparently smokers who are the majority of the adult population feel discriminated against… Their rights are suppressed not because the government cares about their health, but because some insurance companies have lobbied far too well and refuse to pay for the operations needed to cure (or slow down) the diseases caused by smoking alone. We pay all our lives, they say, damn straight they have to pay for the operations!

The irony....

Walking back to Florence

Some say this was the last summer day of the year. I’d say, we were lucky having it mid-October. Golden light, warmth, and off we went to the very north of the Chianti region, the village of Impruneta. Legend wants its famous terracotta stones to cover the roof of Santa Maria del Fiore, the Duomo of Florence. I doubt any of us noticed it. What we did notice was the St. Luca’s fair that spread all around the small village. The dominating feature was the smell of hog roast. Nobody could overcome that.

So even before starting our hike (which later proved to be just an afternoon walk, but that is a different story) we engaged in watching, smelling, tasting and finally just wolfing down this lovely pig that was roasted for the believers of St. Luca.

The hike was mainly rolling down a Tuscan hill, but with undeserved, spectacular views of the valley below. Our first target: La Certosa.

On the top of a hill (because monks always choose well, as spirituality and good views go hand in hand) we found the monastery of Galluzzo, named La certosa from the order of monks it serves. These carthusian monks, live in silence, and only train their unused voice cord once a week for a whole hour, gossiping with their fellow monks. The rest of the time they live in their small cells, the size of a one bedroom central London apartment, with food service. A plate of food appears once daily through a small window in their room, as a reward after a hard day of prayer. Being there with a bunch of economists, we debated about the waste of material and human resources in this spiritual business, concluding that, it would have been better if the monks wrote PhDs. (The priest blesses first his own beard, say the wise Greek folk)

The most impressive finding of this walk was the monk who gave us the tour of the certosa. Father Benedicto was very grumpy at the beginning of the tour, giving us “efficient” information (This painting, this year, by that painter, represents this, moving on… boom boom boom!). Slowly, he warmed up on us, especially to the ladies of a certain age in the front of our group, always complimenting him. In the end - what an audience we were - he did not want to let us go. Our tour, supposed to last an hour, was dangerously passing the one hour and a half threshold, and he was violating his weekly speech quota by thirty minutes! And on top of that, he was flirting with the ladies, whose age should inspire him to chant his funeral hymns. Maybe he could smell paradise close to them, who knows. Fatigued after our tour, he removed his hat, only to reveal a glorious head bump, benign tumour I was informed. But I could not help but thinking it was a horn being hatched in there…. A hybrid devil, identical to the one of Salman Rushdie’s imagination in the Satanic verses.


After these thoughts, and sure that the catholic church would had burned me in purifying fire, we continued our scroll to Florence. We arrived at piazzale Michelangelo exactly at the time the sun was setting. Florence below our feet and the sky in purples and pinks. All I could think about was my blisters… F**k the sunset. My feel are hurting!

Είπαν... (just a quote...)

Έφυγε για αλλού και αλλού.
Όπως κάθε παιδί που αφήνει τον τόπο του, μα όχι ο τόπος το παιδί.

Ζ.Ζ.
(She left for other places. Like every child that leaves her home town, but never does the home town leave the child.)

First days in Florence

Yes I know. I read something similar in the Guardian the other day, just before leaving England. I had all the good reasons to leave the country that I cannot claim as mine. Now ten days later, I still think I made the right choice.

But with what cost…

Leaving South England for beautiful Florence causes a lot of envy. My first day here I lived all the reasons causing that envy: beautiful weather, stunning architecture, bohemian life style, good food, staying out late.

That’s all for that. Then real life begins. So I got the job, I got the apartment. Now I have to build the life around them. Being used to England where everything is just a mouse click away, Italy is challenging. The internet speaks Italian here, and does not do things for you… it only tells you about them, if that.... Then the internet stops working… just because, and you, go figure…

I have my little habits. I want to cycle to work. Then I want to cycle to my gym and then I want to cycle back home. Florence simply does not let me do all of that. I have to pick.
My enemies? The incredible traffic, the famous Florentine hills, the stunning architecture (with equally stunning walls around the building resulting in tiny roads of 40 degrees incline, somehow mostly uphill, don’t ask why)
I feel defeated. No way to get to the gym I want… so I visited the local one to accept my fate. My very welcoming host was a huge pumped up guy clearly Italian who clearly had spent far too many hours under the solarium lamp. The inmates of the gym looked rather suspicious. My eyes were locked on this old woman with full make-up on, working on her inner thighs… I could not stop thinking about her potential profession… la Madame? [Ahem…brothels are illegal in Italy, no?]

So that one, rejected… even though I was assured that all the players of the Fiorentina train here (one more reason to put me off).
Maybe I expect too much wanting just to import my old habits into a new environment. Maybe I should just accept that my only sport for a while will be the chewing of the gorgeous Italian pasta I can get everywhere.
Until I find my way around this city, or until this city finds its way around me…

But in the meantime I miss England more than just the anticipated little bit. Not for anything else, but for its ability to accommodate.

Basqueball

My crash course in Basque culture started early Sunday morning (see: Greek definition of “early”). As church was the only other recreational alternative at that time of day we picked the first choice: Basque pelote, or basqueball to be Anglophone-friendly. We drove to a neighboring village hosting a most peculiar game, not only to my inexperienced eyes. Even the locals have difficulties understanding the full set of rules: Le rebot…. Or the cricket of pelote basque, as I was wisely warned. I started the hard way.

Being unable to understand the mystifying rules of the game holding the key to decode the English class system, I feared I would have the same fate with pelote basque. To me, basqueball only represented an instrument of reproducing and intensifying the basque identity, both in France and in Spain. To Basque people and my not-so-basque hosts, though, it is a great form of entertainment.

Le rebot: Simple it was not. Two teams playing against one another in the village’s “fronton” trying to defend their own ‘territory’ of variable size. Explaining the rules of this game is beyond my intellectual abilities, since I failed to understand them in full. One needs high levels of geeky-nes or at least geek-potential to be able to absorb all this information.
I will nonetheless highlight some points: The game has the structure and numbering system of tennis. In simple English, that means there is a net, over which the ball has to pass. Or… or through it in this case, as the net is actually made of human players trying to block all passing balls (while avoiding to be hit by it, as it hurts…). The position of this human net changes and is marked by two small basque flags.
For those who think that this is hard core nationalism, I remind you that flags in Denmark are used to indicate the “sales” in a shop. Not that nationalistic…

Oh and the count of points is sang in Basque. Quite an experience.

During the game, exactly at midday, after hearing the church bells the game stopped, the audience, players and referees had to pay their respects to Virgin Mary. Following the instruction “Angelus”, we sang the Ave Maria. And by “we” I mean “they”. I was just standing there respectfully, pretending I fitted in.

The game was a massacre of the green ream. The blue team were the kings! I am sure the colors represented some local towns but I was unable to pronounce them and thus I forgot.

Watching basque pelote is not as exciting as playing it as I found out that same day. We went to our local fronton, where I was taught hot to play two different kinds of pelote. I used the “pala” first, a wooden racket that hurts your feelings, as it simply does not want to be tamed. Result….? The ball goes all over the place or over the fronton, including the neighboring gardens/windows/cars.

An embarrassing hour later I tried the chistera and I fell in love. A long thin basket that attaches to your hand in the form of a glove. A “small glove” as it was called, le petit gant, even though it was at least one third of my height. Apparently there is a grant version of it ( I suspect, half my size.. and I am not small… for a greek). Using that basket-glove was easier than anticipated and much more fun to play.

Afterwards I had a clear feeling of achievement and was convinced I deserved my French three-course dinner that was to come. After all… how many Greeks have ever tried their luck playing basque pelote? Especially female Greeks, considering the sport is exclusively male territory. A raised eyebrow is least amount of criticism a woman gets if caught playing.

Putting my hand into the “petit gant” at once challenged both my gender and national identity. So many connotations for just one object, even handmade.

The rest of my days in the French side of the Basque country I watched, and became passionate with, two more forms of the sport (and it has many, as you have guessed), joko-garbi and cesta punta. The first for the atmosphere in the village fronton on Wednesday afternoons, where the elderly joke around, the younger relax after a days hard work and the kids try to catch the missed shots. The second for the technique, the beauty of the movement and the excitement in every gained point.

As I saw it, Basqueball is much more than a sport. It contains the philosophy of life of the Basque people. And watching it, is not only exciting because of the competitive element, but for the deeper understanding of the country in itself. To me, basqueball was an experience.

And I am hooked!

The hat of nationality change +1

Monday morning 8.30am El. Venizelos airport, Athens

My last five hours of the fieldwork-easterholidays-weddinginSantorini month in Greece have to be spent in the transit of the Athens airport. The local internationalism of airports always intrigues me. As the same safety and consumption standards have to be kept everywhere, you get the same familiar feeling of airport-land. It matters not where you are, you still see the same signs, smell the same perfumes, eat the same food. I was even surprised to find traditional english train-station food in the main "food village" area of the airport.
For those nomads like myself, true citizens of no other country but airport lounges, differences between airports are small.. but striking. Sipping my coffee, eating my spinach pie I observe my co-airport-time-wasters being approached by:
1. A lottery ticket seller
2. An unfortunate lady begging for money
3. An unfortunate lady selling lighters
4. A lottery ticket seller (yes, a second one)
Typical, I tell myself. Having coffee in any square in Greece one would be approached by 5.2 people per hour asking for money. So.. the only thing that is missing is the small gypsy child playing (really really badly) some sort of musical instrument and a disable persopn that is normally too upsetting to look at (hence the 0.2).
By the time the second unfortunate lady appeared it was clear to me. Nobody approached me. I checked if I was invisible. Negative. Did I look poor? Negative. I had my (infamous duck-hunting) hat on and I was scribbling on a bit of paper.... Maybe, just maybe, I looked to foreign to be asked?
An hour ago, while trying on some face cream (of the type my academic salary will never be able to provide) I noticed... the shop assistants talked to me in english when I had the hat on, but in greek when I did not. Does my silly duck-hunting hat actually have magical powers? [Oh just now another lottery ticket seller passed me by. It must be the hat again].
The power of hats was never more clear to me. I praise now the wise english saying "Putting a different hat on". Never underestimate the wisdom of a people with an enormous ability not to adapt to new environments but to transform these environments to fit its own needs, a different hat in each case of course!
9.45 I wonder how many spinach pies I have to eat to pass my time until my flight...
10.51 Why does my computer not eat spinach pies too? Plugs seem to be nowhere in sight. Aspiring laptop users are strongly encouraged to do shopping instead!

PS. The title is inspired by DnD, for geeks of the bad kind. Wearing it in the head slot gives you a nationality change bonus of +1 (hmmmm.... My case is serious).

Small home-comings: Switzerland

Staring: Achilleas-Jessica, Erasmia-Andreas, Alexandros-Claudia, Alexia and the little Filippos

Strange as it sounds you can find home in places you have never visited before. The cold surroundings and fairy-tale architecture of German-speaking Switzerland definitely do not warn you of such a possibility. The expectations do not exceed the stereotypes: Challenging ski slopes, breathtaking mountain views, cheese fondue (of course you get punished if you lose your piece of bread!) and the gentle aroma of cow waste all over the countryside. As expected… none of these living stereotypes matches my memories of home. Not to mention the Zurich extravagance and stylistic explosion based on insurance industry money. Far from my salary-forced academic modesty…

Chocolate-biscuit house, like those I used to marvel at my school’s German Christmas market, this is how I would best describe the Switzerland I saw. Nonetheless, what took place in that biscuit house, is a whole different story. Oh yes… once again one of those Wherever-I-look-Greece-hurts-me-stories. But also one of friendship and of family-you-choose and of dreams and happiness. I met with my best school friends and their respective (German) partners, all –by coincidence - hunting their future in Switzerland. Doctors, architects, business consultants, you know… “real people”, unlike academics in the fish bowl.

Knowing them from the age of 12, aware of all their faults of character and all that they are capable of, even if recent life details are missing… it is always interesting to glimpse in their homes just to see which IKEA series they have picked. Just to check your knowledge on their tastes. Friendship trivia.

Shared anger: “Greece is collapsing”, shared fears: “My parents are getting older”, shared hopes: “Better job prospects”, shared plans: “Let’s all move to Berlin!”

The curious thing this bunch of self-exiled Greeks has in common is their unconventional education in a German school located in Greece, giving them a good glimpse into a very different culture to their own. I still have not decided if this was a gift or a torture. As the other shared characteristic of the bunch is the constant theme of their conversations: their love for Greece, their pride for what Greece should be, and above all their pain and anger for what Greece has become.

How did I manage to turn this travel chronicle into a “Greece hurts me” entry…
Back to Switzerland…

All of us able users of Hochdeutch with small variations in dialects, possibly except only the “Schwabe”, had a good laugh at Schwitzer-Dutsh (Swiss-German, click here for sample) but were deeply concerned that our friend’s toddle growing up there started showing signs of thicker “ch” and suspicious use of Swiss words. We put all our efforts to convert him back to orthodox German. We were more frightened of the possibility of Swiss accent than by the fact that the kid would not utter a word in Greek. Priorities…

Saying goodbye to Switzerland was easy. Fairy-tale places are beautiful but do not capture my bohemian soul. Saying goodbye to my friends was interesting. Every time we meet in a different scene, so we paint our visit with different colours, but the essence remains always the same. All of us strive for the creation of a new imaginary homeland, we need these meetings to populate it.

Bus science

I never liked the location of my dentist’s practice. He is a relative though, checks my teeth for free you see, that gives me enough incentive to bare the bumpy bus ride once every six months. Lost in my happy thoughts that I avoided yet another filling I slowly regained contact to my bus environment, only to overhear a lady’s sociological comments.

Oh how happy she was to meet that old man next to her by coincidence. Like good old friends they caught up with each other’s lives, and so did I as a matter of fact. His son was a student at the University in a city near by. Her son, all grown up now and oh so independent had a good job and his own apartment. “He is independent now, he does not want to live with us”. Fair enough I think. Greek men finally emancipated themselves…

The conversation moves on to more trivial topics… “Where are you heading now?” “Oh yes, I am on my way to my son’s flat, I need to cook for him. I normally do it at home and bring him the fresh food every day, but today I also need to do some ironing”. Wooooaaahh! Hang on a minute! The dream of male emancipation disappears like a bubble, with a loud plafffff! I can almost picture him, talking to his mum in this deep bored voice “What.. lentil soup again? You are going to kill me woman…”.

Ah… this boy is definitely a catch… sad I never met him.

I thought I would stay shocked for the rest of my twenty minute ride. But then comedy started. The woman moved on to sociological analysis of the bad habits of Greek youth.

“This new generation does not appreciate anything. The expect everything to be brought to them, they do not say thank you, they are lazy, they want to be spoon fed” And the man was the second violin: “Yes you are right, where is this country going.”

Okay… I just could not hold it back. I tried hard to disguise my laughter into a very bad cough. I do not know if I convinced them, but luckily I had arrived to my destination. Walking home I was thinking…

what is the reason for the lack of independence of Greek offspring, even after they reach the age of 30?
Overwhelming maternal love maybe?

And what is the reason of that then?
Lack of social activities for people above 50?

And what is the reason for that??

Oh, how I love blaming everything to the government! They should have produced a sort of “five a day” rule to distract the parents and stop child (emotional) suffocation and subsequent (household chores) disability.

Dr. Health, the Greek

Two old friends in central London….

Englishman One: Oh hello! How are you?

Englishman Two: Not too bad, yourself?

Englishman One: I am all right. Thanks.

…

[Uncomfortable silence]

…

Englishman One: Bad weather today…

Englishman Two: [good! Something to talk about!]

Yes indeed! The rain did not stop all day!

[10 minute rant about the weather]

Two old friends in central Athens…

Greek One: Oh hello! How are you?

Greek Two: I am fine thanks. Just this stomach ache is killing me!

Greek One: Oh really? Is it something you ate, or maybe stress?

Greek Two: Well, it started three days ago, I had eaten at my sisters, and you know how she cooks…

Greek One: Yes I remember last month I had dinner at hers… very spicy food. My stomach was hurting. Lots of acid and burping.

Greek Two: Yes me too. But you know now the acid stopped and I have this weird muscle pain every time I have a cigarette.

Greek One: Maybe it is ulcer?

Greek Two: You think?

Greek One: Or… now that I am thinking about it, your grandfather had cancer didn’t he? If I were you I would go have an endoscopy just to be sure you know…

Greek Two: Oh God, don’t say that! I am going to the doctor right away! Good to see you again!

Greek One: Yes you too, and let me know!

You now know why the Greek health system works unlike the NHS. Greeks are natural born doctors. Asking a simple “how are you” can lead the average Greek to providing a full medical history of himself and his immediate family. Discussing symptoms of illness is as common as “please” and “thank you” in the English everyday language. Trained for an early age to use medical jargon, combine symptoms, give a diagnosis and provide remedies for cure, Greeks find NHS inflexibility unbearable.

The whole nation has opinions about all kinds of ailments, a simple cold to cervical cancer. This combined with our natural mistrust to any type of authority (yes blame it to the Turks) does not allow a moments rest if you have to rely on the diagnosis of a single doctor. How can you trust the opinion of just one doctor, when you need at least three to create a simple majority? And if their opinions clash, the better!

The average Greek is very aware of the type of doctor needed, so he wants to go see the specialist right away. What’s with this go to your GP first and then get referred to whoever…. Nononono!

Being a doctor in Greece is almost like being a politician. You have to convince the electorate, hmmm yes sorry the patient, that your diagnosis is actually the right one, and yes please come again. And just like politicians, doctors have their constituency, their special friends and their supporters. Oh yes, and their secret funding… do not forget the secret funding (commonly known as the “little envelope”). So if you want to live happily ever after in Holy Greece, consult at least three doctors (state pays for that) and have your own doctor-friend to operate you. He wont ask for money, but if there is no “little envelope” be sure to have a grave-slot with nice view.

I hear you say that’s harsh, I hear you say its unfair. Well no. Having friends always pays off, being inquisitive always pays off, and having money… well that ALWAYS pays off. After all NHS is for free, but somehow you always end up buying your own medicine suggested by the Indian at the Boots counter.

It’s Queer up North!

No, I am not playing with words, so I do not mean gay, although gay pride plays a big role in Manchester culture. I mean surprising, funny, astonishing, unexpected, and all that in a good way.

Gothic buildings stand in reconciliation next to super-modern glass’n’ wire constructs giving the palpable feeling of human continuity in the space. People walk through the architectural centuries without even noticing, which shows exactly the extent of success.

And in this parade of centuries art has a dominant position. Street art, music, fashion, sculptures. My surprise was too big to express when I realized that the crowds in the Manchester Art Gallery were no tourists, but students, mums with babies and normal working people in their lunch break checking out the newly installed exhibition. Not that all were interesting. I mean, I could not care less about the history of buttons (the ones on my clothes). But definitely they were an escape from the daily routine and the weekly visit to consumption temples.

In less than 24 hours in Manchester I already feel that had I to stay here for ever, I would have accepted my fate quite happily. In the 12th hour of my visit I even chose the area of my potential residence, my local bar, and my favourite coffee shop. What else does one need to live happily ever after?

Well, yes, I might have some problems with the accent. But then again, my first night at Essex I had to spend a night at Stansted airport just because I misunderstood a coach driver. Now I blame it to his Suffolk accent. Back then I was not even aware of the very existence of Suffolk. I bet the Northern accent would take me less than four years to decode.

The local ales look very promising too. Joseph Holt seems to be doing a way better job than Adnams oyster ale. Yeah I think this place has won me over.

I only see one fault: Curry.
In the whole length of the curry mile I have not found a single curry house that would resemble Alishan Tandoori in Colchester or Tiffin Club in Southampton. Someone has to tell these people that concentration of Indian restaurants in one street does not necessarily mean good quality. Look at Brick Lane. You can find the best and you can find the worse. It looks like Curry Mile found only the worse.

So for now on I vote Manchester. I will only make sure to cook my own curry.

4000 years and 1600 miles in a day

I left Southampton as a modern Titanic, all happy and full of hope, at 4.30pm on Sunday afternoon. Fair weather, no rain, no problems wearing my sandals (my only defence against the anticipated heat in the place of destination).

3am Stranded in Athens, I find myself unable to sustain warmth in my body. There is only one thing that is efficient in this country, and that is air-conditioning. The specific one in the El Vel (greek attempt to mock El Paso) airport can create arctic condition in central Greece mid August…

6.30am The Nomad has landed in a field disguised as Airport. Heraklion in magestic Crete. And from the fridge I end up in the oven. To make the most of the relatively cool temperature I head to Knossos in search of the Minotaur. I arrived there just on time for a spinach pie and a coffee, to feel like home again. Looking for a mythological beast without sleep requires at least a magic potion. Nescafe Frappe with ice (Greekness in all its Magnificence)

Knossos, the ancient Minoan capital was build to confuse. It did not contain Daedals’ labyrinth. It WAS the labyrinth. Thus I decided to hire a guide. Infallible Greek logic informed me that I needed to find another 13 people to share my enthusiasm and the fee for the guide. The lucky 13 never arrived and there was no recorded guide either.

So I ventured in the labyrinth alone searching for the Minotaur without even Ariadne’s clue to anchor me to reality.

The palace’s ruins were partially rebuild according to the imagination of the English archaeologist Arthur Evans who discovered them. Inevitably his imagination is part of the exhibition, mainly because he was wrong.
I sneaked in different groups of people to listen to the appointed tour guides contradict one another showing how archaeology is as bad as interpretation of literature.

Full of European firsts, Knossos is not incorrectly considered by the Myth the motherland of Europe. First staircase, first multi-storey buildings, first cooling and heating system (better than the El. Vel. Airport) first sewage, first amphitheatre and first road (which I walked on!).

Europe daughter of mighty king Minoa was seduced by Zeus in the shape of a white bull who kidnapped her, crossed the Aegean sea and brought Europe… to Europe.

American tourists dragged to the site from their luxurious cruising ship kept asking where they can see the Minotaur. Mythical beasts, half human half bull, are more interesting than boiling ruins in the heat.
Truth is I could not see the reason why the bull was so important and sacred in this civilization. Crete’s ecosystem cannot sustain herds of such big animals (which the current population consumes like there is no tomorrow… long live Mediterranean diet!). The bull appeared everywhere. But even the size of the amphitheatre did not allow much acrobatics on the back of a running bull either. Somehow the scalling did not make sense…

It might have been the lack of sleep or the massive change of temperature but by 10am I was hallucinating. Under pine and olive trees listening to the familiar “home” sound of cicadas jumping from stone to stone… For a moment I thought I saw the Minotaur. He was there, ignoring my presence with only one target. Devouring the place. Short attention spam, heat and boredom made him irritated. He did not even notice that he was transformed into a queue of tourists.

I had to escape to the familiar city buzz of modern Crete.

Berlin: Bleibtreu Cafe

The change in my father's voice gave me all the proof I needed. It suddenly became 40 years younger, became jumpy and excited, as if these 40 years were a heavy coat, he just through of him to run out and show me.

Sunday morning is sacred for Berliners, not for any religious reasons, no not at all. It is their traditional breakfast meeting with friends. So there we were, proud son and daughter of two 1970s Berlin émigrés. Two poor young men who found in Berlin a safe place to study, but mainly to escape from politically troubled little Greece in the dictatorship years.
From stories I know that they used to meet in dark Cafes in Charlottenburg, spend as little money as possible and hunt for those few bits of painful but precious news from homeland. More often in Bleibtreu cafe. It even became a song by the famous musicians of the Greek émigré community. Stay faithful.

And so we did. 40 years on with our parents well back in Greece, established and retired, we retraced their steps. K. lead me to a stylish street that definitely lacked the dynamic character of the new east quarters of the city. Prezlauberg it was not. But he said: "You know, here was the field of action" It's here they met, lived, worked, fought their daily wars. Can you feel it?

Yes I could.

The area aged gracefully. It accepted the fact that it was no longer the “field of action” of modern émigrés’ kept the wisdom of its past and gained in style. Just like the old hippies who come to terms with reality, accepting that they lost the battle, that the world will never change… but at least they know they tried.

West Berlin was full of memories. Not mine. But somehow I could feel my blood moving faster, getting warmer. Maybe after all strong memories and big loves of one’s youth pass on to the offspring and in that way they achieve immortality. They live on.

Maybe this is how you stay faithful to yourself; to your youth and its companions.
Bleib treu

I should ask my father. He'll know.

My little farewells to London: Camden

Camden will never be too far away. I just need to open my wardrobe or look through my selection of earrings. I suppose in a way I had Camden in me before I actually moved there.

It was love at first sight. I was 22, at my belated teenage rebel time and I found myself surrounded by pretentious Goths, lost in time hippies, colourful weirdoes. Back then that was paradise. Utopia in London.

Now it is simply the place where I could blend in and feel comfortable in any mood, any outfit, any face. Camden is not the intellectual place where I could conceptualize complex theories and construct abstract voting behaviour models. Thus, not the office. The home. Wannabe bohemian with a hint of commercial taint it is exactly the place where my gypsy heart could float happily, wearing a life vest. Exotic enough but in the familiar wrapping.

Oh and most importantly it is the only place where I can actually stand shopping. Preferably on Monday mornings, not to avoid people, but to have my home to myself!

Camden is the living room of the house. To go to the bedroom, where one relaxes and dreams I head north towards the Heath. My Sundays were full of it.

And home is not a place you leave from, it is a place you return to.

My little farewells to London: Bloomsbury

We never really said goodbye. It was one of these casual relationships that you merely say “See you later” when you make your leave. Considering I lived in a dungeon office – chained to my desk, as JK, my boss, used to say – on the main square of Bloomsbury campus I have to say we kept it pretty unemotional.

It is a place that gives me a cool breeze and sharp thinking all year round. No matter the temperature outside, when I stand in Tavistock square I feel ready for the most rigorous academic thinking, the most sarcastic comment, the most cynical view of the world.

If it was a person, Lord Bloomsbury, would be a frisky aristocrat in his late 30s. With cool skin, and flawless white shirt; phlegmatic humour and sharp calculations. Lots of “indeed, my dear” and “lovely weather”. He would use the same condescending smile both to invite you for dinner and to shoot you in a dark alley (as long as he did not get blood on his shirt).

The buildings are flawless, the once private park squares still reflect the intellectual snobbery of their famous frequents, immaculate perfection that even the drunk students are not able to affect. They get swallowed by it.

The university buildings add to the feeling. Especially the big Senate Big Brother presence. But turn left and you are in front of SOAS. The only place in the area that managed to add its own colour. Curry smells, colourful ethnic clothes, colourful people, music… A spot of red wine on Lord Bloomsbury’s white shirt!

I like him. Not sure he likes me back. But you never know with these upper class fellows. We might meet again, who knows. But next time on more equal terms.