Hidden London

London is not the easiest introduction to a Cretan about the ways of the north. There are some things that you can understand better inter-generationally and (not 'or') with experience. Age helps, but cultural education starts very early. Even I make bloopers along the way, but the difference between me and my family is that I know how to correct myself. During our recent winter holiday in London, we went to a 'curry house', a Pakistani restaurant that we often visit when in London. Before we got there, I found a few sites of interest along the way to extend the journey. Here are a few things we discovered about London that you may or may not find in a guide to the city, with a Cretan twist.

Oyster cards
London's transport system is a good, albeit complicated, introduction to the ways of the north. The stations are modern, the pace is fast, the system is automated, and some human movements may look robotic to the uninitiated. We've been using London's 'oyster card' transport ticket system for a few years now. It's the easiest cheapest way to get round London, rather than buying individual tickets every time you use public transport. We just 'top up' our cards with credit every time we want to use them. The maximum amount of money an oyster card will charge you depends on the places you travel, but it's equivalent to a day pass according to the London 'zones' you've traveled in. The card will let you begin your travels if you have enough money in it for the hypothetically cheapest fare, and it will let you finish the journey even if the card runs out of money along the way (because you went on a longer journey); therefore, it still runs in 'overdraft' mode, ie you owe money on it, which can be paid back before your next journey. Because oyster cards cost £5 to buy, without any credit on them, it will usually work out cheaper to top up your card rather than buy a new one. Whichever way you travel on the London trains, you will notice that they are expensive.

Some stations don't have barriers, so you can enter them even if you don't 'touch in' (I did this once by accident - if there was a barrier, this wouldn't have happened), but if your destination station has a barrier (in the previous case, mine didn't), you won't be able to get off the platform without embarrassing yourself as a fare dodger, unless there is no barrier. So as a rule, if you don't touch in, you mustn't 'touch out', otherwise your card will be credited for the longest possible journey on that train line, because the card will think you just tapped in rather than out (thankfully, I knew the rule). Confusing, isn't it? Pity the Athenians, who are now waking up to a new dawn, as the barriers at the metro platforms finally get put in place. A similar system to the oyster card is now working too, called the ATH.ENA card.)

Knowing how to use the train system of one of the largest capital cities in the world takes some getting used to. Experience comes with time, and age makes you less flexible. I now watch my kids handling the whole process more quickly than I do, even though I taught them to use it. 

So the first thing we do before catching a train is to check how much money is still on our oyster cards. On that particular day, each card had about £2 on it, so I topped up the adult cards with £10 each, and the children's with £5 (they travel half price until their late teens). It's better to top up the oyster card as you need it, rather than adding a lot of money to it, in case you lose it: as tourists, we don't have 'registered' cards, which means that in case of loss, we can't claim back the remaining credit on them. When you touch in, you'll hear a sound which tells you that your card was read properly by the card reader. So sound is very important when you use the trains. My husband once passed through a no-barrier station thinking he'd tapped in. He tapped out at the end of the journey, but the card thought he'd just tapped in, so he was charged for the complete journey of that particular train line. I tried to teach him how to use the system: 'SLAM the card on the reader, don't pet it as if it's a cat!' (There are ways to get your money back: it takes a bit of patience.)

With our travel cards sorted out, we began our journey into London's city centre, which is a bit of a misnomer since London is not a small city. The best way to see the city is to walk as much as you can. You won't save a lot of transport money by walking if you come into the centre from far away as your oyster card will be 'capped' to the maximum amount equivalent to a daily travel card, but you will see more of the real city, instead of being stuck in the twilight zone of the 'tube', as the underground train system ferries you about in the darkness of the tunnels. 

The Shard
As London stands today, it's in the midst of a concrete-glass-steel reconstruction, as it races to become the leader of the global connected world (while the UK's prime minister rushes to take the country out of the EU), and it keeps changing appearance on a regular basis, every time a new building starts to be constructed. It's both frightening and exciting: you have to try to keep in mind the end result of the hideous construction sites, otherwise the city will look like a cruel, heartless and ugly monster. But if you are lucky to see the end result one day, it may leave you gaping in awe. The Shard looks like just another tall building when seen from far away against London's horizon. It felt formidable seeing it from close up. It's about as tall as the Eiffel Tower.

If you come from a small town and this is the first time you see a skyscraper, it can feel very intimidating. Having lived all my life in seismic-prone regions, the first thing that comes into my mind when I see a skyscraper is earthquakes. It's an awesome experience to look up to the top of the building and to literally see it scraping the sky. (You can go to the top floor of the Shard for £30 or so per person if you can afford it.)

The Beatles
I added a brief surprise detour to a place whose significance my family knew nothing about, nor would they understand what I was talking about if I told them what we were going to do there. They often let me lead the way: they know I know the Anglo-Saxon world in a way that they don't, and perhaps can never know it, especially now when the Anglo-Saxon world is barricading itself and turning turning inwards. I too make 'mistakes' when I find myself in that world (which used to be the only world I knew a quarter of a century ago), but I know how to hyper-correct while I am maneuvering myself in it. They don't: that's the difference between me and the rest of the family. It takes years of experience to understand the highly developed world. The internet has brought us closer together, but it does not replace experience.

Now imagine the conversation:
- Where are we going?
- We're going to a pedestrian crossing.
- A pedestrian crossing? Is that all we're going to see?
- Yes, in a sense.
- OK. And what are we going to do there?
- We're going to take a photo.
- Of the pedestrian crossing?
- Of US on the pedestrian crossing.
- Why?
- Because that's what people do there.
- They take photos of themselves walking across the road?
- Yes, but it's a special road.
- Why?
- Because. You'll see. Promise.

While all my English language books are visible to everyone on the shelves in our living room, my vinyl collection from abroad is still in storage: I would have to wait until we got back home to show everyone my Abbey Road album. I liked 60s music and during my teens, I built up a small collection of records with my pocket money (earned by working at my parents' shop every day after school). My kids are too young to know about the Beatles, and Greece's 60s came a little later than the 60s (some time in the 80s, in my humble opinion, when wealth was more widespread and everyone could afford more or less the same things) which means that my husband missed out on the furore that the Beatles caused in their heyday. He knows that they were a 60s pop group, but he did not live through the craze that swept through the Anglo-Saxon world in those times. For a start, television was not so widespread in Crete in the 60s; Crete was quite considered remote from the Greek mainland back then, and it was hardly urban compared to Athens' sprawl. Greek youth culture was more developed among the wealthier class. Young Cretans did not have a rapport with the outside world. I recall a story my late mother told me, which shows how she came to understand the concept that was the Beatles: Even though she was a relatively newly arrived Cretan immigrant to NZ, she could recall the traffic jams and crowds of people in the area of the St George Hotel where the Beatles stayed in Wellington, during their NZ tour. She may have never heard their music, or cared for it, but she had experienced the concept. My husband started school at the beginning of the 60s, in a rented house in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Hania; only the very well to do had 'pickup' players and records.

Platform screen doors
The Abbey Road crossing is located near St John's Wood station on the Jubilee Line. This gave us a chance to see one of London's more modern train stations. At the London Bridge stop, the platform has barriers (known as 'Platform Screen Doors') that separate passengers from the trains, in order to stop people from jumping/falling onto the tracks. So two doors have to open before you get onto the train - the platform door and then the train door. The significance of the double doors has a more sinister meaning than just passenger safety, ie to stop people falling onto the tracks accidentally. The act of falling onto them deliberately, ie the concept of 'one under' (or 'track pizza' in American English) is a relatively new one in Athens. Despite the rise in suicides in Greece over the period of the crisis, the Athens metro is not the place where it is commonly performed: there was one incident per year per year in the last two years so far. But 2017 has not started very well - a man fell onto the tracks just last month, although he was pulled up in time.


Abbey Road crossing
Coming out of the station at St John's Wood, the area looks quiet and feels very suburban, whereas in actual fact, it is anything but so. The area hides great affluence: Lord's Cricket ground, Regent's Park, the London Zoo, the Sherlock Holmes museum and Madame Tussauds are clustered close to it. The Abbey Road pedestrian crossing is located within a few minutes walk from the station. We headed straight to the crossing. Not many people were walking towards it on that day, so I hoped that it would not be very busy, and we could take our photo in relative peace. This was not quite the case: a busload of Italians had arrived before us, and they were all having a jolly time on the crossing. The presence of the Italians softened the stark austerity of this otherwise ordinary looking London street. They were talking loudly and laughing, Something rarely heard on London streets. The media often talk about the lack of affordable housing in London, but most of the time, you cannot be sure if people actually live in any of the buildings. The streets are noisy from the sound of the traffic, not from human voices. That's an aspect of northern European culture which southern Europeans find hard to cope with: in the north, people are seen but not heard, while in the south, people are heard without necessarily being seen. To understand the significance of this, think about your neighbours: we can hear ours more often than we can see them. They will not lower their voices to keep the area peaceful. If they're having a party, we'll hear that too. But Greeks are also slowly but surely becoming more sensitive to too much noise: one of my neighbours called the police last summer to get another neighbour to lower the volume of the music they were playing at an outdoor party. If they had specifically come to inform us about the party, perhaps we would all be more accommodating, by arranging to go out ourselves or buy earplugs. When no notice is given, people are less compromising.

Had only the regular users of the Abbey Road crossing been there on that day, I would have had a harder time taking a good photo. I could say that the Italians did me a favour getting there before we did, since it helped my family to better understand what the fuss was about, and to calculate aspects of safety concerning how to get into the middle of the road and snap the photo. If you are a Greek driver, you won't realise how patient English drivers can be. Regular drivers passing through the Abbey Road crossing slow down for photo-takers, showing relative courtesy towards a very banal activity. Every now and then, they honked the horn lightly to remind the sightseers that they shouldn't loiter. This is how I was able to stand in the middle of the road to take a reasonably good photo, at least in terms of the photography process.

The family had not seen the Abbey Road album cover before we came here, so I had to give them instructions: "I Want You to stop in stride on the crossing." Some of them understood what I meantL the younger and the more outgoing you are, the easier this will be. My daughter clearly knew what she was doing after watching the Italians taking photos. She is experienced at taking selfies which also helps. My son seemed to know what he was doing too, but he probably decided to show solidarity to his father, who was totally clueless; when husband has his photo taken, he clearly poses, like most people his age would do, and doing the splits while being photographed is obviously not part of his culture. "OK, The End, no loitering," I reminded everyone, so we could hurriedly Come Together to get back to the station. It was probably the weirdest thing they had ever taken part in, the closest they had come to a real life meme (although I did once glimpse a photo of one of them doing the ice bucket challenge - you never know what they are up to when you aren't looking).

Transport etiquette

Touch in, pass through the gate, don't loiter, walk forward, don't step back, check the platform, mind the gap, wait for the doors to open, wait for the passengers to exit, get onto the train, wait for your station, get off the train before those waiting, clear the doors, find the exit, stop on the escalators on the right, walk on the left, run only if you have to, get to the exit, touch out, clear the station, just keep moving. If you take a wrong step while performing this act, it is immediately visible to the other actors around you. Everyone in London has to know how to use the tube in order to avoid holdups. Except maybe Her Majesty, although she has been seen on the tube on occasion - no doubt the doors were held open for her, if she used a ticket, it would have been as a token gesture, and she didn't have to follow the rules exactly. My children need about a second to go through the barriers from the moment they touch in; my husband still needs more than a second - just to touch in.

Borough Market
Our next stop was the Borough Market, which, as we were to discover, has now become a tourist trap. Along the south bank of the Thames, nearly all the restaurants are branded, there's very little in the way of traditional atmosphere, and someone's always trying to selling you something overpriced. We have better memories of Borough Market from previous visits, but there is no turning back to old times: reviving the market's ordinariness will look like a recession rather than progress.

Pie, mash, mushy peas and gravy from a stall in the Borough Market

Our good experiences of Borough Market in the past are based not on the products on sale at the market, but on the sellers we meet there. We once met a Greek woman there who was selling Greek extra-virgin olive oil. Across from her stall were some Italians, also selling olive oil, among other Italian products. She told us sales were very slow, because local customers in the area were not really very well informed about what constitutes good olive oil (something I could confirm with a trip to the supermarkets there). Another of our favorite stall holders is the Kosovar manager of a paella bar. Whenever we're in the area, we pass by and say hello, and he treats us like old friends. We talk about our messy politics with him and his Greek-speaking Albanian staff. When we're there, it feels just like home to us - we may be in the centre of London but at that moment, it feels more like I am on the Balkan Express; the ride is bumpy, but the end of the journey feels sadder. We've also bought fantastic French cheese from the market. It's hard to find something 'traditional' now; everyone these days is creating their own traditions.  

Southwark Cathedral
Near one of the entrances to Borough Market is the very well preserved Southwark Cathedral. Entrance to the cathedral is free; by buying a guide (£1) to the church, you have permission to take photographs inside it. The last time we were in the area, the church wasn't open for visitors because a service was taking place. We took the opportunity to enter it today, as a chance to warm ourselves up in the process. (It was very cold in London over New Year's...  a bit like what January 2017 turned out to be in Hania!)

Religious tourism is always of interest. The Gothic style of architecture is so very different from the Byzantine one that we are used to, and in Hania, we have nothing to compare it with. But it is not just the architecture that is worth noting: Churches in the western world make for an interesting case of trying to hold onto a concept which no longer has a strong following in a liberalised world. Let's face it: we are not very religious these days. So why do we need churches which costs £4,500 a day for maintenance costs (as the cathedral guide informed us)? The way Southwark Cathedral was being used at the time might be of interest tot he Greek Orthodox church too, as people move away from strict adherence to a creed, and use churches more for their social aspects rather than their religious function. For example, Greeks generally don't get married too quickly in a church these days: it's expensive. In Crete, they are more likely to marry at a registry office to legalise their union, and have a church wedding later (complete with white wedding dress), preferably after the first child is born, so that the wedding and baptism take place together.

Southwark Cathedral provides a peaceful setting to get away from the cacophony of the street noises. As we entered, we were most impressed by the clearly Christian Orthodox icons that we found in it, which obviously makes the church very welcoming to visitors, irrespective of which denomination they belong to. We found the addition of a lit-up Christmas tree rather odd, detracting from its religious function. But it also made for a more convivial environment, similar to the use of organ recitals and concerts that arouse the interest of more than just religious devotees. These are all ways to create a new use for an obsolete concept whose historical significance in the ares makes it too precious to turn into luxury apartments, as many churches in the west have been transformed. Greece has, perhaps sadly, too many churches that are not being used, but their redevelopment at this time is a culturally sensitive and highly controversial issue. We don't place Christmas trees in our churches; we don't have organ music; we rarely see religious iconography that is not part of the Byzantine tradition. Some lessons could be learnt from less traditional churches concerning the survival of the Greek Orthodox church and its place in a modern changing world.

Hay's Galleria to Tower Bridge
Despite the chilly weather, we continued our walk to the restaurant, passing through what looked like a mixed-bag cluster of relatively new buildings along the south bank of the River Thames. Hay's Galleria is not a gallery as its name suggests; it's more like a high class restaurant and shopping hall. Affluent, indulgent, plush, it looks like it's catering for very expensive tastes - or, at least, for people whose tastes are based on brands, similar to Attika Mall in central Athens, a soulless virtual reality playground for the wealthy. Everything looked too expensive for our own pockets. It wasn't busy when we passed through it, neither in the late afternoon, nor in the evening on our way back. Perhaps rich people's tastes have changed too; you don't flaunt your wealth these days. It reminded me of a time when someone asked us to book a table on their behalf at an expensive restaurant in Hania, 'something in the range of 50€ per head', they asked. They did not realise how egalitarian the town where I live is. To pay 50€ per head in a town like Hania, you will have to go to a popular Japanese restaurant and order a bottle of wine per person together with the meal. Good food out need not be expensive, and expensive restaurants don't necessarily serve the best food either.

Hay's Galleria overlooks the Thames, and it has a steampunk sculpture in the middle. How do you explain steampunk to someone whose appreciation of art is limited? I think you don't. Art is not only subjective, it can also be very abstract. This sculpture was installed here as a tribute to the area's working class past. Personally, I couldn't make the connection between the sculpture and working class society. We wandered out of mall to the chill of the outdoors, walking by the river past the egg-shaped City Hall and over the Tower Bridge where you can get a good look of the Tower of London. The skyline of the buildings in this area of London is quite spectacular and worth spending some time gazing at it: many skyscrapers with the kinkiest names - the Walkie Talkie, the Cheese Grater - and more going up. What was once a dirty dingy dockland has now all been gentrified. Despite the mix of mainly new buildings with many old ones, nothing looks neglected or forgotten.

Whitechapel
Over the Tower Bridge and north-east of the Thames, the area is not very tourist-oriented (you will understand why later) and finds itself in the midst of gentrification, a kind of slash and burn process if you will, which is redeveloped into something that bears no resemblance to what existed before. Some parts of Whitechapel have been renovated while others are undergoing the process. Along some of the streets, you can see old and new London staring across at each other, or standing side by side, like strangers forced to live together. What was once considered an area for immigrants and the working class is now undergoing transformation for the investment of the wealthy/elite classes. What once may have been some kind of factory is now an apartment block. The warren of small streets hiding behind Commercial Road in the Whitechapel area hold the greatest surprises. Here, you will get a glimpse of those empty London homes that are being used as 'gold bricks': rich people who do not live in the area are buying up the properties, mainly as a way to invest their money for lucrative profits. People who grew up in the area are most likely unable to afford such properties. Some properties may be rented out, but the rents will be very high, hence the kind of people who live in the properties will not necessarily need the kinds of stores that a neighbourhood survives on, to provide a community feel. Most absent of all is the sight of perambulators and the sound of children. Since the buyers do not live in them (and if they do, it's only for a very short period of the year), the area has no need for the traditional elements of a typical British neighbourhood: what do you need a betting shop, florist, teahouse, chicken shop, drycleaners, among others, if there are no people in the area?

The streets here are well lit, despite the lack of sound and light coming from the apartments, with most of the curtains drawn, although I did spot a nice sofa set with cushions - it looked as though it had never been sat on. The main signs of life are seen in the concierges who wander around aimlessly in the empty lobbies of these empty buildings. They are probably doubling up as security guards, only coming out of the buildings for a quick smoke. A few of the ground floors of those buildings are occupied and used as 'stores' of a kind, mainly real estate agents: money brings money.
 
Most of the empty shop fronts have a very enticing sign on them: "This could be your next business!" But imagine how hard it must be to entice businesses to set up there that rely on street trade, when the area which is void of people.

We landed in the midst of this gentrification without actually intending to. My online phone map gave no hint of what we could expect. I was actually looking for a particular street next to what looked like a compact streetless zone, where there was either an empty plot or just one big building. What it actually consisted of was lots of apartment blocks, some roads for cars, and a few pedestrianised areas. We weren't really sure if we should risk walking through the area, in case we hit on a dead end. At one point we passed by what looked like a beautiful landscaped garden which was sectioned off (read: gated) so that the public could not wander around in it, probably for the exclusive use of the very large apartment block that was facing it. The fencing and trees still had Christmas decorations on them.

The road led through to a small well-lit piazza - that was once again void of people - graced by a very snazzy sculpture of galloping horses, light and sound effects included, to make them look as though they were moving. It is very entertaining, as it distracts one from thinking about the complex factors that gave rise to the development of the area.

Commercial Road

We wove through the nameless streets until we came out to the high street, close to where the restaurant was located. Commercial Road is a completely opposite experience to the gentrified streets we had just emerged from. It maintains its ethnic identity as the home of mainly South Asian immigrants, and it is still closely linked to the 'rag trade', as evidenced from the many clothing and bag stores located here, selling not retail but wholesale. The traders are mainly South Asians, having taken over from the Jews who took over from the Huguenots, an almost uninterrupted stream in the area of cloth makers and sellers. It was quite revealing to see well known bag and clothing designs in one area, as viewed from the shop fronts here, and to imagine how those items on display make their way not just to this road in London, but throughout the rest of the world, including Greece. The styles look very familiar even though they are not branded. They can be found in both cheap and expensive stores, on any high street almost anywhere in the world. They make you think seriously about who may be making these items, whether they would wear/use them themselves, how much they are getting for this work, and what the end price of these items is in our stores. 

The restaurant
We arrived at our destination restaurant - and were surprised to find it looking rather empty: in past visits, we could not always get a table and would have to wait! Initially we thought it might be closed for the holidays; the main hall was not well lit up, and there was only one person sitting at one of the many tables in the dining area. You have to understand that this was a big indoor restaurant, in our terms at least, since we are used to seeing large outdoor seating areas and small interiors! We could see only a couple of people in the kitchen, which is usually bustling with activity, creating steamy windows and a noisy atmosphere with the clatter of pans and mumble of voices. Then we thought that perhaps we had arrived too early; it was only five o'clock and dusk had already set in. Don't the English eat much earlier than the Mediterraneans?! Finally we saw the door opening and a man came out. He didn't even notice us: I couldn't work out if this was because we were not from his cultural group, or because we didn't look like potential customers. So we asked him if the shop was open: of course it was, he told us, with a surprised look on his face. Service couldn't have been faster today for us!

Chili peppers and Asian food are not really a mainstay of Greek cuisine, but Greeks are getting more used to this kind of food. There are now Japanese and Chinese restaurants open all year round in Hania, as well as an Inidian restaurant which opens in the summer - it still caters mainly for tourists. The world is coming closer in terms of food, but in attitudes, they couldn't be further away from each other, as we have seen in the current global political arena.

Bonus photos: London by night - the city is more exciting in the dark.

The red words are all Beatles songs from their Abbey Road album. I deliberately highlighted them when I tried to listen to some genuine Beatles music on YouTube. Some bastard's bought the right of access to them, so you can hear hardly any of their tunes on the web. Not even the Beatles can own thier songs. At least we can now sing Happy birthday without paying royalties, but I would also like to hear the Beatles on youtube, and I don't mean cover versions of their songs!

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Youvarlakia soup (Γιουβαρλάκια σούπα)

Youvarlakia is Greece's version of a meatball soup, most commonly made with white sauce, although you will also see it made occasionally with tomato. The dish basically consists of meatballs boiled in a light water-based broth, with egg and lemon juice beaten into it once the meatballs are cooked. I make youvarlakia about once a month in the winter period. Since the kids have become avid vegetable eaters, I now add a lot of vegetables to the soup, together with the meatballs, and our youvarlakia soup turns into a very hearty and less meaty meal. My recent youvarlakia variation turned out to be the most popular version of the dish to date.

For the meatballs, you need:
1 kg minced beef (or pork, or a mixture of beef and pork)
1 large onion, finely grated
2-3 garlic cloves, finely grated
1/2 cup rice
a few springs of parsley, finely chopped
a few sprigs of mint, finely chopped
salt & pepper to taste
a little olive oil
some flour for dusting

For the soup, you need:
3 litres of water (or stock - I prefer water for a lighter soup)
50g butter (you can also use olive oil instead - I prefer butter because I don't use stock)
a few sprigs of dill, finely chopped
1/2 small cauliflower (or broccoli), broken into bite-size florets
1 large carrot, cut in small chunks
1 cup of peas
These are the vegetables I used in this version of the soup. You can use any vegetables that will keep their shape when cooked - I try to use only seasonal vegetables, especially if we grow them ourselves.

For the sauce, you need:
2 eggs
1/2 cup lemon juice

Mix all the ingredients for the meatballs (except the flour) together very well by kneading them. Make golf-ball sized balls, and roll them in flour. Set them aside while making the soup.

Boil all the ingredients for the soup together. When you get a rolling boil, add the meatballs, one by one, and continue to boil the soup until the liquid starts rolling again. It may need more water if the liquids have evaporated too quickly (you can make it as thick as you prefer). Turn down the heat to the minimum, place a lid on the pot and continue to cook the soup until it becomes creamy, for at least 60 minutes. Turn off the heat, take off the lid and allow the soup to settle for a quarter of an hour.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs and lemon juice together. Pour a tablespoon of the soup into the egg and lemon mixture and keep beating the sauce (otherwise the egg will 'cook', like scrambled eggs). Pour another tablespoon into the sauce and keep beating. Keep doing this until the bowl is nearly full. (Don't try to hurry this step - you will spoil the soup by cooking the egg.) Now pour the sauce slowly into the soup. Stir it in gently. The soup is now ready. Serve it hot.

Youvarlakia soup is hearty enough to be eaten on its own with some thick slices of toasted bread. If you like to add a bit more protein to it, try it with a thin slice of feta cheese on the side, or crumbled into the soup. This soup will congeal once it cools down, but when warmed up, it becomes runny again. It also tastes good the next day.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

All in an evening's work

January as slow as molasses? You read about my busy January in my previous post; here's an account of yesterday evening, in my cabbie husband's words.

"Just as I was relaxing for the evening, the tablet rings out a fare. I was the nearest free cab within a 15km radius. When someone needs a taxi in winter this far away from the centre of town, it's usually because they need to go to the hospital. But the pick-up point for this fare was outside a supermarket. That's a bit suspect: if you do your shopping at a village supermarket, you must be within walking distance of the supermarket. 

When I arrived, I saw a man standing outside the supermarket (the only one in A_________) with a heap of bags sitting next to him on the ground. He was also carrying a bottle... of ouzo... which was open... and half-full. All I could think of that moment was FUCK. I put all his bags into the boot of the car. He sat in the front next to me. He didn't stop talking, not one moment. He was barely intelligible; I couldn't understand what he was talking about. All he had on his hands was the half-filled bottle. I suspected that he had paid for the goods he bought at the supermarket. But no one can really know what is in a drunk's pocket. 

"So, we're going home, are we?" I asked him, hoping that the ride would be as short as possible. Somewhere amidst the gibberish he was spieling off, I heard the name of another village: M_______. That's just seven kilometres away from the south coast of Crete, an hour away from where we were at that moment. This was going to be a very long night. I put on the metre, not justfor the reason that I should be on the right side of the law, but because I wanted to see how much the metre would clock up so I can at least talk about the fare the next day at the rank. Being able to tell a story out of it may be my only trophy for the evening. 

I suddenly remembered who this man was. He was a pensioner, having held some high-level public service job. I had picked him up once before, in a similar drunken state, again in the same village of A_______ and he had asked me to take him to the other side of the island. I took him to the town centre and dropped him off at the taxi rank, with the excuse that I had run out of petrol. He's well known among the cabbies. Some will take him round in circles (as long as they know his pockets are full). This is not my idea of work. At that moment, all I could think of was my warm house, the armchair and the TV. 

"M______? Are you sure that's where you want to go? It's a bit far, isn't it?" He said that he was going to see his friend V_______ who ran the cafe there.

"Don't you want to go home first and drop off your shopping?" I suggested, but he was adamant that he didn't want to go home. Had I known where he lived, I would have taken him there immediately. I was in two minds to turn for the town centre or to take the road to the south coast. I set off for the town centre. "No, not that way!" he shouted. In his drunken state of mind, he was still able to see the road. I was stuck with him. I had just cleaned the cab that morning, so I opened the window on his side so he could vomit if he needed to; from the north of the island, the journey to the south involves climbing up and down mountains. 

I've driven to the south coast many times over the course of my life as a cabbie. A faraway fare is a cabbie's joy.  But in the middle of winter, it is one of the most desolate experiences you will ever have. The villages in the province of Hania are small, so small that they now have very few inhabitants, nearly all of whom are old and go to bed early. We were leaving the last inhabited village on the way to the south coast. There were hardly any lights on in the houses we passed. They were either uninhabited, holiday homes at best, or the residents had gone to bed. Street lighting is poor. During the whole journey, the man didn't stop talking, occasionally taking a swig of ouzo form the bottle he was carrying. The smell of his alcoholism shielded me from the smell of his body odour. This man was in his own world at that moment. 

When we finally reached M______, I asked him where his friend lived. He said he didn't know. I headed for the village square. There was a kafeneio in the village, near the church. Thankfully, it had a light on, and I could see someone inside. I helped my fare out of the car, locked it and headed towards the kafeneio with him. As soon as we entered, I noticed the look of horror on the young owner's face. While my fare continued speaking in his unintelligible gibberish, I asked the cafe owner where we might find V_______. 

"V________'s my father," the man said, speaking in whispers. "He's been dead for three years." FUCK. My fare continued to call out to V_________. The cafe owner asked me to take him away. A baby was heard crying in a cot, and a toddler was playing on a mat, overlooked by a young woman who spoke Greek with an accent. If a young man wants to stay in his village, he needs to marry a teenager and bog her down with childcare responsibilities right from the word go, or he needs to import a foreign wife. The woman was fair, short and slim - she was probably Albanian. 

"OK, G______ (he had told me his name), let's go home and drop off that shopping, shall we?" I tried to coax my fare back into the cab. At this point, the metre had already written up 75 euro. 

"Home?" he looked at me with a wry smile. "I'm not ready to go home now! Take me to the town. I'm a great dancer! Did you know that? I am the best χορευτή in all of Crete! Let's go and listen to a λυρατζή, and I'll show you how good a dancer I am!"

I've been driving a cab for nearly 40 years. It's given me enough time to develop various people skills, one of which is the role of psycho-analyst. As we headed back to the village of A________, I worked out roughly where he lived. I was able to take him to his house. "No," he said, "I'm going to the town, remember?" 

"OK, G______, let's drop off the shopping first, so I can take a driving break, is that OK?" Luckily he agreed. I helped him out of the car once again (because I was really worried he might damage it, or throw up in it), and got him to the door of his house, a large 60s style village home built next to an olive grove, which he probably owned. He fumbled around for his keys, but he managed to open the door by himself. I would have done that for him too, but you never know when a drunk might wake up from his slumber. They are used to being robbed or attacked, and may recognise the signs of an imminent one, like he did when he realised I was taking him in another direction. 

I brought in his shopping - he had done a lot of it, 10 carrier bags full. The outside of the house did not give any sign of what you would find inside it. It was nothing less than a τρώγλη. Εverything was in disarray, the house was filthy. It was obvious that he lived alone, without any family. I wondered how long ago someone other than himself had entered his house. I may have been his first visitor for the year. 

When we had finished carrying the shopping, he asked me how much the fare cost, to my surprise, and partial relief. I showed him the meter: it had written up €140 at that point. "Oh, I've only got €100 on me at the moment," he said. I told him that would be OK. "No!" he insisted. "I have to pay you in full. Take me to an ATM." There was one in the village, so I took him there. He handed me the fare immediately. "Now let's hit the town!" he said. I'll show you what a good dancer I am!" 

Again, I had no choice, but to take him into town. I dropped him off at a kafeneio where I could hear Cretan music playing. "how much do I owe you up to here?" he asked me. "Nothing," I said, you paid me earlier, remember?" I just wanted to get rid of him at that point. "No, I didn't! You're still working!" So I asked him for €10. I didn't want anything other than to get away from him at that stage. "You're coming in to see me dance, aren't you?" he asked me, imploringly. "Of course I am," I lied. "Just let me park the car." 

What a night. But it wasn't over. As I was driving back home, I picked up another fare about three minutes away from my home. What's there to lose, I thought, I may as well go for the bonus prize. I arrive outside the house and a young woman enters the car. There was something unusual about her face. But it was dark, and I couldn't see her very well. I asked her where we were heading, thinking I'd picked up a typical winter's evening fare (town centre or hospital).  

"S__________", she said. 

"S________? That's a bit far for this time of night, don't you think?" S______ was just two or so kilometres from A________ where I'd picked up the drunk. 

"It's my husband's village," she said. 

"Oh, going home then?" I inquired, building up a picture of my fare. "No, we're separated. I'm from D______, in the H______ region. I live here now, and I'm going to pick up my son from his father's." I had picked her up from the middle of the road between her ex-husband's and her own village origins. She was in a bad state: I could now see that half her face was swollen. She told me that her husband had insisted on taking the child with him to show her what a good father he is because he wanted to help raise it, even though they were no longer together. She had advised him not to because the child was ill and he could wait until the child was better, but he didn't heed her advice. He had just called her to tell her that the child was unwell and he couldn't look after it. She said he'd left him because he beat her up. I wanted to ask her what a nice girl like herself was doing with a jerk like him, but I could tell what the answer would be: something like 'he was never violent when we were getting to know each other'. He was probably a good dancer too. Girls from small villages fall for that kind easily; it's a way of leaving your village - and ending up at another one. 

When I arrived at the house, I realised who her ex was: his drunk brother had blown out his brains at a wedding when he insisted that his gun wasn't loaded. "See, look, it's empty," he said, pointing it to his head. The dead man's brother came out of the house as soon as he heard the taxi drive by. He looked as though he had not shaved or changed his clothes for a year. The woman paid me. I thanked her and was just about to leave when I decided to ask her one more thing: "How will you get home tonight?" She said that her ex will probably give her a lift. I wondered if she would actually return home that night, or end up staying overnight at her ex's. I left, turning off the tablet, as I did not want another fare that night."

We all listened incredulously, as my husband related his evening's exploits. I'd phoned him once to ask him if he could pick up one of the children from the after-school activities, so I knew what was going on. I also called him twice to make sure he was OK. He called me after he picked up the second fare. I keep reminding myself that it's winter, and Greeks hate living through the darkness alone. Everything will be better in the summer, won't it? But not for everyone. Some of us live in perpetual crisis, while others live off other people's crises. (When he got home, he got a call from another cab driver who wanted to know if the drunk guy had any money to pay him for a ride out to the other side of the island. My husband said he had no idea.) 

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January in proverbs (Ιανουάριος)

January is supposed to be as slow as molasses. In Greece, 2016's January has been full on. 
January has many proverbs associated with it in Greek culture. Click here for a list of them.

In January, I put the fear of God into the last lot of students who did not obtain a suitable grade in the TOEFL test. I give them the all advice and support they need, and I know that if they don't take my advice, they will probably fail. A couple seem not to be heeding it. Let's see what the results will show. And with this last testing session over, I finally took a week off work, at the beginning of the sales shopping period. Very convenient that my private writing jobs came in at the right time:  Γενάρης στεγνός, νοικοκύρης πλούσιος. Ι got myself new boots (€25), new shirts (€55 for 4), and new jeans (€30), with a little left over - maybe a new hair look? Even children ask me why I don't dye my hair. Maybe it's time I did. (Hm. The salon was closed when I decided to make an appointment. Is that a sign?)

January started off freezing - Αρχιμηνιά, καλή χρονιά, με σύγκρυα και παγωνιά; then it got warm - Δέκα μέρες του Γεναράκη, ίσον μικρό καλοκαιράκι; and now it's back to freezing. It is winter after all. The kids are walking around in short sleeves, making their parents feel very old as we bundle up against the cold. I can't believe they don't feel it. I don't remember under-dressing at their age. Perhaps we should turn off the heating and see how they feel then. But that's impossible - it's their bundled-up parents that can't cope without the wood fire.

Son's birthday party went very well - 9 kids turned up. They were really quite kids too - one was Albanian, another Bulgarian and one more called himself Skopian (I suppose he's been told not to say Macedonian).  "It wasn't like that in my days," my husband said. "We were all Greek." He completely forgets that half his classmates were actually the children of refugee Greeks from Asia Minor, whose parents and/or grandparents had come to Crete in the early 1920s. (He went to school with kids who had surnames like 'Agop'). The difference between my childhood and my husband's and my children's is that the migrants were different colours at my school, whereas they were/are roughly the same colour in my husband's and children's classrooms. Τ' Αλωναριού τα μεσημέρια , και του Γεναριού οι νύχτες. We've all gone through some kind of migrant experience, but they've seen the migrants through cat's eyes, different shades of the same colour.


The kids watched a thriller movie with some donuts and cheese pies, then we served BBQ, baked potatoes and salad for lunch while they listened to youtube videos. The they played a  game which involved banging the door open and shut (I think they've damaged it a bit - Γενάρη διαβολόμηνα ποτέ σου μην ξανάρθεις) while each one took turns entering the room wearing a long white scarf. (I have no idea what they were doing, and I never asked them.) Then we cut the birthday cake and they watched another video till it was home time. Very innocent. My English friends remarked that their kids would be out on the lash at this age - I waited a long time that day to have a drink, and I had to make sure I wouldn't be ferrying kids around.

After the weekend, the skies finally cleared. We can now see how low the snowfall has been. Only the lowest lying hills are bare. That's why it's so cold. But it's a good sign: Γενάρης χωρίς χιόνι, κακό μαντάτο. And now, I also hear both kids sniffling, blowing their noses and coughing. Serves them right.


The cat walked into the house after a week's absence. He disappears like this every year at this time. Nα 'μουν γάτος τον Γενάρη κι ας μην είχα άλλη χάρη. But now, he's come back blind. His nose has been scratched, his tail is slightly torn at the tip, and his one good eye is now bloodshot (he lost his other eye very soon after he adopted us, about 8 years ago). He occasionally crashes into the walls of the house and he doesn't feel confident climbing onto and down from his chair. He also jumps when he hears someone coming into the room, out of fear - he can't see us but he can hear us. When we speak to him, he feels reassured, and goes back to sleep. We're letting him stay indoors throughout the evening, but he always wakes up in the middle of the night crying to be let out. He doesn't always want to stay in anyway. He's still eating well despite losing one of his teeth a few years ago, but I think he's on the last of his nine lives. Today, I spotted him at the nieghbour's and called out to him. He heard me and jumped his way towards the fence to get to me. He had no idea how to get through. He just sat there and meowed. I coaxed him to follow me until I found a hole big enough for me to grab him and pull him through. I took him home, and gave him something to eat, and then he stared at the door again, meowing to get out. Even though he can feel so human, I really need to remember that he's a cat. A Greek cat, for that matter. He will live out his ninth life, and we will probably never find out how he lost it.


The four posters on our bed finally lost their last life. They were always a bit wobbly, and we had tried to secure them, but the new laundry basket is a bit bigger than the previous one I broke, and I bumped it onto one of the posts as I was taking out the washing. The whole thing came crashing onto my head. We decided to take down the posts after that. Κόψε ξύλα τον Γενάρη μην κάψεις τα παλούκια. It had its charm, but in our later years, it served more as a place to hang clothes we couldn't be bothered putting away. (Now we'll have to start putting them away.) Just when I was thinking what I was going to do with the curtains, my daughter says she wants to get rid of the girly ones in her room so I offered to recycle the ones from the 4-poster bed (which now looks like a plain old bed) for her use. She said she'd like that. She's grown up so fast: just the other day, she asked her dad (she is a daddy's girl after all) if he could take away her cellphone for a few hours in the week so she can concentrate on school work. I'm very thankful she found a solution for her problem instead of me having it on her (perhaps she'll remember to wear long sleeves too).

I'm trying to sort out my needs from my wants. I think I want rather than need new hair (despite what kids tell me). I think I should have new hair, but I don't think I need it. At least that's what I think. I need new glasses. I've always worn glasses to see far away, but I'm having problems seeing things close up. If I take my glasses off, I can see things close up quite clearly. I don't have problems driving with my glasses. Perhaps I can let the glasses wait for the time being. I need a new cellphone. I keep worrying that because it's nearing 5 years old (HTC Desire, if anyone's interested), it will soon break down. But it does everything I want it to do, and even more. So I could say I just want a new phone because my present phone is old (and it has a 3" screen and naturally I'd like a bigger screen). So I'm putting that on hold too. The way I think about things, it seems that all my needs are really wants. Ο Γενάρης δε γεννά μήτε αβγά μήτε πουλιά, μόνο κρύο και νερά.

We weren't sure whether we needed a coffee maker. I've had the same coffee maker for the last 15 years: a tall plastic cup (I gave up on plungers after I broke two in succession), a very fine sieve (it's lost its handle, but I haven't seen anything in Hania that can replace it) and the good old Greek briki (I prefer gas to boil water and I didn't want another kitchen gadget on the worktop). Husband has always made his milky coffee using the briki, but recently he admitted that he didn't like the taste any more. He has a takeaway cappuccino when he's suddenly called away on a fare in the morning, and he has obviously developed a taste for it. I personally never found takeaway cappuccino tasty enough and it's always so hot it burns your tongue if you try to drink it as soon as you buy it. On the other hand, a cappuccino in a sit-down cafe is NEVER hot enough, and it's always too small (even the ones that are supposed to be large). In the end, I decided to buy a cappuccino maker (DeLonghi, €130), probably because I got a €50 voucher from the purchase of a vacuum cleaner. Kotsovolos (UK's Dixons in Greek disguise) was giving €50 vouchers with the purchase of various German products. I think I bought a Siemens (or was it Volkswagen - haha). Money well spent. Γενάρη μήνα κλάδευε και το φεγγάρι χέστο. We LOVE our cappuccino machine.

The country's in tatters at the moment. I always put it down to winter. Μωρή πουτάνα αμυγδαλιά π' ανοίγεις τον Γενάρη δεν καρτερείς την Άνοιξη ν' ανοίξουμ' όλοι αντάμα. The farmers are on the streets up north. Greek winter is at its shortest in Crete, which is why the farmers have delayed their raging here. How can they strike anyway, when the whole of Southern Crete is busy supplying the country's tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers at present? (A good experiment: plant only seasonal produce, and see how long it takes before the peasants' revolt begins.) Cretan farmers are too busy making money in their greenhouses at the moment, as well as keeping their olive trees trimmed. Κλάδεμα του Γενάρη κάθε μάτι και βλαστάρι. Come summer, they'll be busy harvesting tomatoes in the open. Που να σου να Γεναρη καλε και ξακουστιαρη. The north is now covered in snow. Βαρύ το καλοκαίρι βαρύς και ο Γεναροχειμώνας - Χιονίζει ο Γενάρης, ξεψυχάει ο γαϊδουριάρης. Northern Greek farmers have less to do in winter; no wonder they have the time to think about how to block passage to Makedonia Airport. In any other democratic country, this would be seen as placing the security of the country in danger. But not in Greece: we are just too democratic to stop the undemocratic. Democracy as its most democratic.

The lawyers (and scientists, and engineers, among others) are raging too, in their suits and ties. They no longer have 'their' people in government. They are no better than the farmers if they think they deserve different taxation methods and special pension funds. We are all in this together, mates: we ate it altogether, didn't we? I don't care if they strike forever. We are used to a very S-L-L-L-L-L-L-O-W justice system, because lawyers are used to striking in this country - they did it for different reasons before, but they didn't take to the roads like they do now. The greatest moaners are those that can't live without their comforts. They don't know how to downsize. May Syriza rule for a long time, no matter how badly they are doing it. Κάλλιο να 'δω σκυλί λυσσασμένο παρά ζεστό ήλιο τον Γενάρη. The others won't rule any differently, except to look after 'their' people, just as Syriza is doing now. That's what politicians call sharing.

Europe is also raging - again, against Greece. First they wanted Greece out of the eurozone (which they didn't manage to do), now they want her out of Schengen. They can't decide what to do with the Schengen among themselves. They say they want to break it, but if you ask me, those crying out for Schengen to be suspended want to go back to the past, where there was a mini-Schengen zone among a few Northern buddy countries, a Schinken zone in a sense. Northern European countries feel that they are the 'safe' countries, while they view Southern European countries as unable to control what is happening within their territory. They cannot get away from the fact that the north is landlocked against a cold inhospitable sea with hardly any neighbours - Οι γεναριότικες νύχτες, για να περάσουν θέλουν συντροφιά και κουβέντα - while the south borders the warm hospitable Mediterranean, and its nearest neighbours are Arab countries. The north thinks that the south lets in all the 'problematic' people. This is of course utter bullshit. The north has its own serious problems of home-grown terrorism. The problematic people are already living in Europe, as bona fide European citizens. Some countries were slow to catch onto this (France and Belgium in particular), while others (notably the UK) have been through it much earlier than the Paris attacks. In the meantime, Greece has done all it can for the refugee crisis. We put up a fence between Greece and Turkey to stop people walking into the country undocumented - did that stop them? No! They just sailed in instead. Apart from allowing them to drown, we can do nothing else. We cannot turn the boats back towards Turkey - that's a war signal. Marine borders DO NOT EXIST - Tsipras is spot on in this sense: No matter how many patrol boats are out in Greek waters, attempting to force a vessel of asylum-seekers back into Turkish waters is both illegal and dangerous, even in calm seas. So unless a Turkish patrol stops a migrant boat and returns it to Turkey, there is little Greek or Frontex patrols can do once it has entered Greek territorial waters but arrest the smugglers and pick up the passengers or escort the vessel safely to land. What use is the Greek navy in this case, apart from plucking people out of the water?

Those Northern Europeans think they know everything: Johana Mikl-Leitner, the Austrian interior minister, rejected Greek arguments about the difficulties of patrolling its maritime borders with Turkey and explicitly warned Athens about a Schengen expulsion. “Greece has one of the biggest navies in Europe,” she said. “It’s a myth that the Greek-Turkish border cannot be protected.” Come on over, Johana, and show us how to do it. Our arch-rival Turkey isn't bothering us. But not even Turkey can stop people from sailing away in dinghies. People say that Turkey is not a good place for refugees. Sure it isn't. But neither is Greece. These people do not want to start growing a few potatoes and keeping chickens to survive. If they did, we could probably accommodate them, just like we did during the population exchange: the numbers are the same now as they were back then. the present-day refugee issue involves approximately 1,000,000 people migrating to Europe in 2015 - the 1922 population exchange forced 1,000,000 Turkish-speaking Greeks to leave Turkey for Greece, while 500,000 Greek-speaking Muslim Turks were forced out of Greece and repatriated in Turkey. They were given land to live on and to live off - but this is not what the modern-day refugees want: they want a Western lifestyle. Many Greeks themselves are also biding their time, waiting for better days. Greece isn't a difficult country to live in; it is simply a little challenging at the moment. News sites write about the dreams refugees have for a better life in a Western European country. Is it any different from the dreams that Greeks have at the present? Most of us to a very large extent have a home and a family to turn to. Most of us also have jobs, albeit low-paid. We can't change that at present, and neither can we offer much more to desperate people. But we don't intend to let them drown, even if we can't offer them anything. We offer them a second chance to breathe; if they can wait with us, I'm sure we'd be happy to have them here too. History is just repeating itself, without any lessons learnt from the past.

When I travelled through Europe in 1991, between France and Belgium-Luxembourg (on the latter, what is a city that calls itself a country? Try cutting off its food supply and tell me if it can function), you rarely had your documentation checked. West Germany was also relaxed, but former East Germany wasn't - the wall had only just fallen, and the guards were used to doing things differently from their Western counterparts. Does anyone remember those pre-Schengen days when you could drive through different countries without presenting any documentation? "You cross the bridge from Germany into Luxembourg, turn left, and 300 metres on you’re in France – three countries in about three minutes, and not a police officer in sight. In 1985, ministers from five governments met here to launch a bold experiment in border-free travel. Cars and lorries with green dot stickers on their windshields could roam the five countries – the same three plus Belgium and the Netherlands – without passports." Those five countries trusted each other, they knew each other well. In fact, they were hardly different from each other, and they had nothing to share or divide between them. They just pretend to be different, so they can have a place to call their kingdom (and with a kingdom, you have rulers, and rulers have power. That's all.) They bordered countries they also trusted; they were all far away from Greece, who was cut off from them by the Iron Curtain that the north didn't trust. Greece was simply on the 'wrong' side. Suddenly, it's the other way round: Το Γενάρη το ζευγάρι διάβολος θε να το πάρει. Τhey now trust former communist nations more than Greece, who is now seen as the devil.

A lot depends on trust. A colleague who left Hania for Paris just after the attacks told us that immediately upon exiting the plane (from Athens), she had to show her passport. The French authorities had no proper space for this kind of check for flights within the Schengen zone. So they just 'caught' the passengers as they exited from the plane and checked their passports. They didn't trust the Schengen agreement after Paris was attacked - even though some of the attackers were bona fide European citizens, with French or Belgian citizenship. But checking your borders at all times is sensible, isn't it? Σ' όσους μήνες έχουν «ρο», μπάνιο με ζεστό νερό. Schengen just felt too utopian. Just because a law says you can pass through without checks doesn't mean you are maintaining safety. You are just putting your faith in the law, without really being certain that the law is protecting you.

So will I need a passport after all? Let's see. I've booked the tickets, I've hired the car, I've got my International Driver's Licence issued, I'm trying to get my credit cards sorted out (I really have no idea if they will work abroad, with all this capital controls σκατά). Will we be turned away at Border Control because we have Greek ID cards and not passports? I am wondering when my luck and my confidence in knowing what the future holds will run out. Χαρά στα Φώτα τα στεγνά και τη Λαμπρή βρεμένη.

There are often times when I am very thankful to be a Greek citizen. We are much more democratic and so very much less fascist than most other European countries. I HATE what Europe stands for these days: it is generally a money-focussed organisation that everyone wants to be part of, but they don't want to be led by a united Europe because each country thinks their way of seeing/doing things is superior to other countries' ways. They are afraid of losing their power. They want the money without the responsibility. They are no different from Greece, even though think they are. Do they really believe that they can have their Schinken and eat it too? With the North's predominantly sedentary lives and the ease with which Schinken is produced these days, having too much Schinken is a sure killer.

PS: All except one of my students passed the TOEFL. I've become a star. Everyone is in general agreement that he probably didn't follow my instructions. We're talking about a never-before-sighted test, sat by the weakest students, and they all scored more than 500 points (except that one person). When I initially suggested to my superiors that students need no more than one week of intensive courses for TOEFL, and they should sit the exam no more than a week after the course, they thought I was nuts. Instead, they listened to those fools (English teachers that no longer work here) who were bleeding them dry by demanding intensive courses for a month (so they could make more money) and staging the exam two months after the end of the course (when the students had forgotten everything they had learnt). Serves them all right - both the teachers that left (they were anything but teachers) and the superiors that didn't listen (and now have to admit to the role they played in the past recurring systemic failures in the English courses).

PPS: Get this: the same hair salon that I checked in at during my spending spree phoned me randomly with a €40 giveaway for whatever I want done! I can now have new hair. (Wednesday's the day.) Talk about good luck, which often comes to me. I think it's got to do with the level of patience I am willing to show. I have a lot of patience, and it really pays off. But I admit that this may not play a role in whether Schengen becomes Schinken. Let's see what develops.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

A whiff of Paris (Άρωμα Παρισιού)

I'm a bit of a σπιτόγατος, so I appreciated the offer of a friend last night to meet up with her in town. It was a mild winter's evening, quite a change from the very cold temperatures that we experienced over the Christmas and New Year period. The town was not at all enticing on this night as it had just started drizzling, it was rather dark, and there were hardly any people walking with us. Quite surprisingly, many of the cafes and restaurants were closed in the area where we were walking, which seemed strange, as one would think that this is the time when people would be out making merry. But the New Year's holiday was pretty much over, and the next day was a normal working Monday. We walked along one lonely street after another, often in the company of more stray cats than human beings. At one point, we stopped to admire the display at a clothes store. "Very chic!" we both agreed.

We continued to walk towards our destination which was a cafe located on a side street close to the cathedral of Hania. As soon as we entered Eisodion St, the atmosphere changed. The street was lined with cafes and tables, which were all looking quite full, despite the rain. Awnings had been placed on both sides of the street above the businesses, which shielded the patrons of the half dozen businesses that were doing brisk trade in the area. There were no empty seats indoors, so we took an outdoor table at Sketi Glyka where we had a great vantage point with the whole street in view.

The cafe has been open for about three years in Hania, and it has a good following. It's very popular among young people, with a reputation based mainly on the high quality French-style pastries made on the premises, which make it original to Hania. It is also popular as a dessert restaurant, and serves nice warm drinks to go with its sweet offerings.

  

These days, novel businesses that rely on local rather than tourist custom pay great attention to details like decor, a far cry from the plastic-lined paper tablecloth of the traditional Greek summertime taverna. Businesses in Hania constantly have to juggle between different tastes on extreme ends, something which proves difficult when the two different kinds of clientele are cohabiting the same space. It's easier to do this in the winter when the tourist go, and the town is taken back by the locals.

Our tourists from abroad - both Greek and non-Greek alike - decry the modernism of new-style Greek businesses, slandering them as blasphemously non-traditional in a 'traditional' country like Greece. They forget that the average Greek citizen is just as modern as they are, and seeks the same globalised lifestyle that they themselves are enjoying in tier respective countries.

All the while that I was sipping my chili-mango flavoured tea, I couldn't help feeling a little smug about having found a bit of Paris in my own hometown, without the threat of terrorism. Every country has its own problems, but that particular problem is not at all particular to Greece. No one is immune to terrorism, but our own form of home-grown terrorism is quite different to that of France.

Bonus photo: Christmas lights in Hania - Christmas isn't over for us here until Epiphany, and the post-Christmas sales start in mid-January, not Boxing Day.

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Broccoli and potato hotpot (Μπρόκολο και πατάτες με σάλτσα)

Broccoli is a sweet winter vegetable which can be used in a variety of ways; it can be fried, baked, steamed or boiled. We have been eating HEAPS of broccoli this season, and we never get bored of it. I cook it with varying flavours - it goes very well in Asian cuisine, especially stir fries. Here is a really easy broccoli recipe to prepare and cook. It gives broccoli a Greek flavour and warms you up in the cold weather (we've been having lots of that lately).

You need:

a medium-large head of broccoli (about 600g), cut into florets - you can also use sprouting broccoli  

10-12 small potatoes, peeled (if they are of various sizes, cut them in half to make them even-sized) 

2 medium carrots, peeled and cut in chunks

1 tablespoon of tomato puree

1 large fresh tomato, grated 

1 large onion, roughly chopped

1-2 cloves of garlic, finely minced

1/2 wineglass of olive oil

salt and pepper (and oregano, optional)

Heat the oil in a wide deep pot, and cook the onion and garlic till translucent without burning. Add the broccoli, carrots and potatoes, and stir well to coat all the vegetables in oil. Let them cook for 2-3 minutes on high heat, stirring just enough to stop them sticking to the bottom of the pot. Then add the tomatos and seasonings, with a cup of water (about 250ml). The water should not completely cover the vegetables. Turn the heat down, cover the pot with a lid, and let the vegetables cook till tender (about 30 minutes). Check the pot from time to time to ensure that there are enough liquids, and stir lightly so that the vegetables at the bottom of the pot rise to the top. Take care not to break the potatoes. Serve warm.

This meal tastes even better the next day. It can be re-heated without a fuss. Although it is a vegan dish, it is easily adapted to a vegetarian one. The leftovers can be placed in an ovenproof dish and grilled slightly to give a crispy edge to the vegetables, and/or some cheese can be placed on top. A crusty loaf of bread is vital to mop up the juices in the pot, which are too precious to discard. 

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.