Sovereignty of SeaWitch

457 Channels and Nothing On

2006-09-21T20:54:00.000-03:00

For the past month, I've been quickly readjusting to life back in Canada. I'm no longer surprised when people say "thanks" when I open doors for them and I'm getting used to chatty neighbours who just "pop in for a visit". But that's just life in the Maritimes. People really are friendly. My husband even has his favourite toll booth employee on the bridges and he's now on a first name basis with the employees at the local Home Hardware store.

My son's adjusting well to school even though there's a lot more expected of him, he finds it interesting. He's even impressed that his school has a PA system where the principal can talk to all the classrooms at once or just one at a time. The things I always took for granted like school busses being on time and teachers showing up 99.9% of the time are nothing short of miraculous for my son.

So with nothing really to complain about, I find it difficult to blog when things are going along too smoothly. I can't just blog about boring things and that's why, dear readers, it takes so long for me to post.

The one thing that puzzles me though is the number of totally mindless shows there are on TV. For a continent with some of the most educated people in the world, there seems to be no shortage of pseudo self-help and reality shows and gossip mavens who try to pass off their shows as something more than the advertising shills they really are.

24 hours a day, you can watch people divulge their most shameful secrets in front of millions while others clog up an hour of tv just to talk to you about absolutely nothing of importance or even remotely interesting. Today, I turned on the TV to see if I could find a good documentary or just some news but all I found were dancing dogs on one channel, religious ex-cult members on another and at least a dozen soap operas. Even BBC Canada didn't offer me a reprieve...just another do-it-yourselfer telling me how I can spend a whole day painting fake tiles on a wooden wall.

Out of 400 TV channels I get with my satellite cable company, I watch a grand total of 3. The History, Discovery and A&E channels. The rest of them are witless drivel aimed to feed the egos of their over-hyped hosts or to serve as vehicles for the legions of advertisers paying top dollar to get their products into your homes.

What's the point of having an education, the freedom of speech and thought and decent wages when all people seem to want is to be spoon fed a daily diet of junk information? We don't use the internet to become more informed about the world around us. No, the majority of people use it to download porn or play games. So why should I expect TV to be any different?

The real question is who dictates the programming? Like good little couch potatoes, do we just watch what's thrown in front of us or because we really don't want to be intellectually stimulated or challenged anyway, the TV execs just cater to our innate and proven predilection for nonsense?

I'm inclined to believe it's the latter and that disturbs me even more. Bruce Springsteen was almost right when he sang "57 Channels and Nothing On". Had he written it today, it would be 457 Channels and Nothing On.

Take a Pill

2006-08-20T11:58:00.000-03:00

So pretty. So colourful. So available.

All of my home medication fits in one small basket on top of my microwave. If you were to look inside today, you'd find some headache pills, indigestion tablets, allergy medicationvitamins, anti-bacterial creams, cough syrup, some anti-itch spray and, of course...Band-Aids. This list of supplies has remained relatively unchanged for the past 8 years and it's served my family well. Every now and again, I had prescriptions filled for some antibiotics for the more persistant viruses.

I believed I had a well-stocked home pharmacy until I started watching TV here in Canada. Instead of being bombarded with car and weight loss commercials during prime time viewing, I am now subjected to countless advertisements for prescription drugs.

I am told to consult my doctor for medications to help me sleep at night, to improve my sex life, to help my loved ones battle urinary incontinence, psoriasis, high blood pressure and a host of other medical problems. There seems to be a drug for everything and all I need to do is choose which ailment I have and get him to prescribe the specific drug for it. Even better, I can play doctor and pick a drug for my loved one as well and cure them too.

This can't be good.

I do not feel reassured knowing that pharmaceutical companies are no longer content directly influencing doctors to prescribe their drugs, but they are hell bent on influencing people with absolutely no medical background to demand medication they know nothing about except their mistaken belief that they'll be able to live happily ever after if they consume it.

Promoting healthy eating and exercising have taken a back seat to the quick-fix remedies of taking pills for all that ails you. It's doubtful that people would even be affected by stronger heathy lifestyle advertising campaigns anyway since it's so much more time consuming. Why bother going through the trouble of cutting down on fatty foods or stress when you can just take a pill to control it? The pharma companies rely on our own failure to regulate our lives and we're more than happy to let them do it...even if the side-effects outweigh the benefits of their medications.

The only upside to a drugged-up nation is that PETA won't have to protest animal testing at drug labs anymore. The drug companies have millions of willing human guinea pigs instead.

With all the advertising pressure drug companies use to push their products, how can I be sure if I actually NEED the drug I'm prescribed let alone whether it's any good for me? When profits and money are the motivating factors behind my health and well-being, I worry. I know it won't concern them since they have a drug for that too.

Conversions

2006-08-10T10:58:00.000-03:00

The Universal Currency: Beer

Has it really been 3 weeks since I wrote my last post? I ought to be ashamed of myself. In fact, I would be if I didn't have a really good reason for my absenteeism from the blogosphere. Well, at least I think I have a good reason...moving into my new house.

Moving is difficult enough when you stay in the same country but when you change countries, especially from Europe to North America, there's a lot more work to do. The biggest thing being our appliances. We took most of them with us and since they all work on 220 volts, we had to source and buy adaptors and transformers to ensure they work in Canada. It wasn't cheap but I'm happy to report that my frappe maker works along with the 'inconsequential' things like my husbands home cinema.

I also wasted alot of time just shopping for routine household products like cleaning supplies and food. When there seem to be a hundred different brand names and prices for everything, it takes me forever to choose just one. I'm still thinking in euros and doing the conversions back to Canadian dollars to see if I'm getting a good deal on something. And manufacturers don't make it any easier by selling their products in odd volumes and weights. Instead of buying 1 kilo of rice, it's now a 900g box for one brand and 850g for another or 975mL of liquid soap instead of a litre. It gives me a headache.

Then there's the metric system. In Canada, we converted to the metric system years ago but you'd never know it since produce is still advertised in imperial units on the shelves (with the metric equivalent in microscopic print on the bottom of the signage) and at the cashier, it's back to metric when you pay for it. My husband has a really hard time with it when he's buying hardware which is still sold predominantly in inches and yards.

One good thing about living here is that the cost of a worker's tip is still a beer. When a neighbour offered to mow our lawn for us, I asked how much it would cost and he replied, "a cold beer". When the movers brought in our last box, my husband offered them a cash tip and they all said "thanks, but do you have a beer?" My own father solved our leaky laundry room pipes last night at midnight and all he wanted was a beer for his efforts.

Now, if only there were a 'beer' option when paying for a restaurant bill tip through direct debit, I'd have it made.

Doers and Dreamers

2006-07-19T22:45:00.000-03:00

Since I'm still in 'vacation mode', I haven't been paying much attention to the current events of the past few weeks and therefore my blog has reflected my complete lack of interest. Instead, I've been enjoying the tourist's life and visiting as many attractions the Doers and Dreamers Guide of Nova Scotia has to offer...such as Monday's trip to the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park.

I took my son and my nephew to see some of Canada's indigenous animals (except the peacock and emu) and although they weren't so happy to see us, we were more than happy to spend an afternoon watching them laze about in the sun.

Here's a few photos of some of them...

Canada's showpiece...the moose. Although they can be found in the middle of the Trans Canada Highway, this one found its way instead to the Park.

Dall's sheep.

I don't think there's ever been a time that I've visited the park and seen any of the Black Bears doing anything but sleep. This visit was no different.

The peacocks roam free in the park and there isn't a child who has seen one and not tried to touch it. As easy as it looks, the peacocks aren't that naive and never let the kids closer than 2 or 3 steps from it. This guy led my son on a 20 minute chase through the pheasant exhibits and successfully dodged all his contact attempts.

My hero. The raccoon. Why? Doesn't this pic make it obvious? At least I know what they do when they're not into our garbage.

Off season for the Easter bunnies.

Postcard from the Great White North

2006-07-10T23:47:00.000-03:00

It's now been exactly a month that I've been in Canada and one of the things I just love the most about being back here is the scenery and wildlife.
Since I'm living 30km outside the city, I get to enjoy the drive in every day. Nothing but green forests, lakes so calm they look like mirrors and the odd porcupine and rabbit on the edges of the tree lines. After 8 years of honking horns, noisy motorbikes, and noisy neighbours, it's just so relaxing to appreciate the tranquility that country life has to offer. The noisiest neighbours I have right now are the bullfrogs in the pond at the end of the lane.

Even domesticated dogs seem to have it better here. Almost everyone seems to have one and they all sit in the front seat of their owner's cars if they can get away with it. My own dog is enjoying all the attention every time she's on her daily walks and she's making friends fast with all the four-legged critters on her street except my sister's black lab, Jackson. I guess she's finally met her match when it comes to begging for scraps from the table and she doesn't like it one bit. Once we get settled in our own house next month, she'll resume her place next to my chair without any begging competition and maybe the two of them might be able to make amends.

By the end of this week, I hope to have some photos to share with you of my corner of the Great White North--if I can only remember where I put my digital camera.

Proud to Be a Disloyal Shopper

2006-07-05T23:03:00.000-03:00

Swiping Away Your Privacy with Loyalty Cards

Shopping is easy here.

Stores, product selection and (thankfully) parking spaces are plentiful. I can always find what I want, when I want, and usually all in one place at the hypermarkets. But my fun ends at the checkout counters.

Every time I walk into just about any store, I'm hounded by the cashiers asking me if I want one of their loyalty cards.

I try to brush off their requests by telling them that I'm the most disloyal customer anyway and a loyalty card wouldn't make me any more loyal. Every single cashier has, so far, ignored this response and they continue to hound me to fill out a form so I can get one by extolling the supposed benefits they offer. Again, I will tell them that I don't want to give out my personal information to strangers just so I can get Air Miles or a $20 rebate on every $500 I spend there let alone have my mailbox filled up with junk mail when they sell my personal details to other companies.

But on and on they go until I become angry and demand they tell me how much I owe so I can please go home.

It's so aggravating.

Whatever happened to coupons and just plain good old-fashioned in-store sale prices? I would become a loyal consumer at any store which consistently offered me good quality products at reasonable prices without having to divulge details that I wouldn't even give to Revenue Canada.

On second thought, maybe I will actually apply for these cards and use the personal details of the store's marketing personnel who adopted this useless ploy to get consumers to cough up their personal information. Let them shovel their way out of an endless barrage of junk mail and telemarketing phone calls on Sunday nights. I'm sure if I asked them to give me their Social Insurance and home phone numbers, they wouldn't be so forthcoming as they expect their consumers to be.

Sick to Death

2006-06-30T20:38:00.000-03:00

The attack of the Killer Peanuts

I've come to the conclusion that Canada must be a disease factory.

So many people seem to be suffering from diseases which, up until now, I'd only read about in the back pages of obscure medical journals. If they're not already on disability insurance for it, they're doing their best to convince the government that they should be, or, failing that...persuading anyone and everyone around them to change their lifestyles to accommodate their wide range of (what I previously thought were) rare symptoms.

Canadians (myself included) seem to be obsessed with our health and I'm not sure if it's a result of government advertising campaigns to promote a healthier lifestyle or if it's because corporations use our already innate fear of death to manipulate us into buying their products. Either way, it's getting on my nerves already.

Let's start with peanuts. They seem innocent enough. But not in Canada. Here, they're a surefire way to kill people. In drive-through windows at fast food outlets, there are signs assuring customers that their food is not cooked with peanut oil. Attached to my son's summer day camp registration form was a reminder not to give him peanuts or any food which could include any peanut derivative (like peanut oil) in it. On restaurant menus, diners are reassured that their food does not include nuts.

The reason behind all the notices is that some people suffer a serious allergic reaction known as anaphylaxis which can be life threatening. According to Anaphylaxis Canada, about 1-2% of the population suffers from it but from all the warnings I'm seeing, you'd think 100% of the population is midst of an anaphylactic epidemic.

I'm almost 40 years old and throughout my whole life, I only know one person who is allergic to peanuts. I grew up on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches along with the rest of my childhood friends. Because I am a vegetarian, my nutritionist told my mother that she should include peanuts in my diet since I wasn't eating meat to ensure a good dose of protein to keep my immune system working properly. I feel badly for people who suffer from this allergic reaction but does it really warrant so much fear mongering?

And then there are all these people walking around wearing masks suffering from environmental illness. While I recognize that some people do feel sick from smelling too much perfume or detergent, but in the eight years I've been absent from Canada, has our environment deteriorated so much that it justifies the sudden increase in people claiming to have environmental illness? Am I that naive or insensitive to the horrors of such illnesses? Or are people just taking things too far?

We could tell the sufferers of such diseases to stay home but apparently they're not even safe there since the advertisers for bug repellant are telling us that if we don't buy their brand, then we might very well be bitten by the deadly West Nile virus carrying mosquitoes.

And I thought terrorism was our biggest threat on our lives. Coming back to all these peanut, perfume and mosquito warnings, you'd never even know there was a War on Terrorism.

Lord of the Stubbed Toe

2006-06-26T10:57:00.000-03:00

It's been another week in Canada's Ocean Playground and the most eventful thing that's happened was my son's impersonation of Michael Flatley doing Lord of the Dance in the living room and stubbed his toe as a result. I have to take him to the doctor today since his toe has swollen to the size of a Polish kielbasa.

I'm sure if I sent that story to the newspaper, it would receive front page placement since the biggest story for the past two weeks seems to be the Sunday shopping debate. More than half of Nova Scotians don't want Sunday shopping to come into effect citing that small businesses will suffer at the hands of the hypermarket grocery chains and workers being forced to work on the one day they can count on having off.

Both are valid reasons to oppose Sunday shopping but the way I look at it, if over half of Nova Scotians oppose it and workers don't want it, then it's much ado about nothing. The problem will take care of itself. If shoppers really don't want to shop on Sundays, they won't and the stores will open with no clientele. If workers will either quit or be fired for having to work on Sundays, then there'll be no one to staff the stores anyway.

Already some stores, like pharmacies (which are more like mini supermarkets anyway), are open on Sundays and they're just as busy on Sundays as they are any other day of the week so I guess there is a demand for it.

For the workers who are afraid they won't have one day of rest during the week, I can't say I buy this argument since the labour laws are still in effect over how much time employers can demand of their employees. It's not like employees will be working 24-7 anyway. Since I was the owner of a small business that stayed open 7 days a week, we certainly had no problem finding workers willing to give up their Sundays for pay. Many young people looking for weekend shifts and older people looking to supplement their incomes ensured us of a steady supply of shift workers--including myself.

Even when I wasn't working in retail but in advertising, I not only spent Sundays working but many evenings as well and since I had a salaried position, I rarely got paid for the extra hours I put in. I did them anyway because even if I found another job that was strictly 9 to 5, it didn't pay enough, was boring or both. As a working mother and wife, I appreciated having stores open later hours and on Sundays because it meant I could shop around my own working hours instead of stressing myself out trying to get my shopping done in stores that closed before my company did.

I'm sure that once Sunday shopping becomes the norm rather than the exception people will calm down and realize it does have its benefits as well. And maybe then they can focus on more important issues like increasing the minimum wage for workers.

My Left Foot & Other Anomalies

2006-06-18T08:57:00.000-03:00

After spending a couple of days in London, England, we finally made the trek across the Atlantic. We arrived in Canada last weekend and we've been pretty busy ever since.

So far, we've:
-bought a mini-van
It seems 75% of the population own one and now I know why...they really are very comfortable, roomy and reasonably priced.

-gotten accustomed to driving an automatic car.
It took me about a half hour to figure out what to do with my left foot (having no clutch pedal to worry about) and my right hand (having no gear shift) before I can safely say that I think I've got the hang of it again.

-found a house.
We won't be able to move in until August. Hopefully our furniture will arrive before then.

-replaced my Swiss Army knife that was confiscated from me at the Athens airport.
I know you're all thinking "why on EARTH would she THINK she could take a knife on board a plane. I'll tell you why. Security never took it from me when I went to Olympic events and I even took it to Spain with me two years ago and the airline didn't have a problem with it then so I figured I could still get away with it. Besides, a girl's gotta have some protection if a plane is ever hijacked. So there is a method to my supposed madness.

-confirmed that smokers are second-class citizens in Canada.
90% of public spaces ban smokers. Although we did find one waterfront pub that allowed us to smoke on the back patio. How gracious of them. I'll definitely be returning there. I've heard that by December 31 this year, I won't even be able to go there either since there'll be a 100% ban on smoking everywhere. A question to ponder: why is it that Greece, with almost half the population smoking, has the same lifespan with Canadians where only 21% smoke? Either way, I'll probably still have to quit because I can't afford to spend $10.25 for a pack of cigarettes.

-realized that my husband will take quite awhile to adjust to nature.
He kept telling my sister and her husband that one of their cell phones was ringing. They weren't. Apparently he can't tell the difference between a bird call and a ring tone.

-realized that pubic servants can be friendly and helpful.
When we went to get licence plates for our mini van, the plate she gave us ended in an odd number. My husband jokingly remarked that it would be nice if we could have an even numbered plate so he could remember it better. She promptly got up from her chair and returned with an even numbered plate. Christmas came early for my husband. AND when she told us we needed photocopies of our ID, we started to gather our papers to get them done, when she stopped us and told us she was going to do it. I felt like I was on another planet.

-seen more rain in one week than we had in Greece all year.
Out of the 8 days we've been here, it's been raining and/or completely foggy for 4 of them. No wonder most of the houses here look like doll houses with their perfectly manicured lawns and spotless interiors...Canadians have nothing else better to do on rainy days but to clean. I'm doomed.

Since it's another foggy day today and most likely will rain again, I'll be trapped inside doing housework. Because I'm staying at my sister's house till we move into ours, she'll be thrilled and perfecting her rain dance skills.

Thanks again for all your good wishes on my last blog. If there is such a thing as "positivity", then all those comments should have a positive effect on my life over here. Good or bad though, I'll still be blogging it all.

Time to Fold

2006-06-01T02:47:00.000-03:00

Back in January, I wrote a post where I questioned the logic of staying in Greece or returning to my home country of Canada. I felt, at the time, that we could probably wait until the situation in Greece improved. When phone and electricity bills would stop climbing. When tax laws might improve and tax inspectors would eliminate their 'personal salary supplementary payments'. When the education system might get reformed and we wouldn't have to spend hundreds of euros a month on extra lessons at frontistirios. It was a lot to hope for in six months, and therefore, it hasn't happened.

So, it is with mixed emotions, I have to announce that my family will no longer be living in Greece as of next Thursday. With the price increases in utilities, declining sales and the sharp increase of customers who can't or won't pay their bills, our businesses have suffered the effects of a population burdened by debt. We sold the stores in March (although due to bureacracy, the sales were only finalized 2 weeks ago) so we could focus on another technology project of my husband's. While he received rave reviews and positive feedback, it wasn't enough to consider continuing this part of the business in Greece where internet penetration is still very low and people haven't adopted the view that computers are a necessity and not a luxury. He decided that Canada would offer him more opportunities to grow this part of his business in earnest without having to deal with the corruption and limitless bureacracy we experience daily here.

We talked to our son as well about the possibility of moving back to Canada, and like all kids, he has visions of Christmas with snow, deer in the backyard and camping by lakes so he was only too happy to move. When we told him that his life in Canada wouldn't be a permanent vacation and that he'd still have to go to school, do homework and chores, he was still positive about the move since he'd also see his grandparents, aunts and cousin again and live in a house with an actual yard and not a balcony. I thought he would probably change his mind once we got to the actual move but it's upon us now and although he's feeling sad about leaving his friends, he's absolutely determined to go.

Even though I know that from a business and education standpoint, leaving Greece is the wise thing to do, I am not doing it with excitement or happiness. I will miss so much about Greece that I've come to love which makes it very hard for me to say goodbye to the country which was my home for the last eight years. I will miss the Greeks on the streets, in stores, on public transit who engaged my son in conversation about his world of dinosaurs, sea creatures and stray animals. I will miss seeing them hug and kiss him as if he was their own. I will miss Greek food, Greek islands, Greek culture and history and of course, the famous Greek weather. It is just too bad we can't live off those things alone.

I don't regret moving here despite all the problems we've had over the years with the system. I may regret leaving. If only Greece had some semblance of a responsible and competent government, we wouldn't have even entertained the thought of leaving.

I will continue to update my blog from Canada but the focus will change as I begin my life again. I hope all my readers will still continue to read my blog from time to time--there's enough scandal happening in Canada as well so I doubt my blog will suffer from lack of fresh content. Someone has to blog it all so it may as well be me!

I'll see you all in about a week since I'm off to the land of hockey, beavers, snow and Molson's!

A Gifted Teacher

2006-05-29T14:27:00.000-03:00

In my last post, I wrote about my son's 6th grade teacher who I believed overstepped the boundaries of teaching and ventured into the shadowy area of instructing children according to his own personal beliefs.

Thankfully, not all teachers adopt the same methodology in classrooms and my son was also lucky enough to have one of the best teachers I've ever had the pleasure to know.

Her name is Kyria Olga and she was my son's 1st grade teacher.

Teaching 1st grade has to be one of the most difficult classes for a teacher to handle. I'm not discounting the efforts made by junior high or high school teachers who deal with dozens of adolescents because God knows they deserve recognition as well. But I still consider the first grade class to be more difficult on a teacher since they not only have to deal with small children who are leaving the safety of their homes for the first time, they're also dealing with mothers who have a hard time leaving their 'babies' to a stranger for several hours a day, every day for the first time.

And this was exactly the scenario in my son's first grade class. Children crying uncontrollably when their mothers left them,and even worse-the mothers who wouldn't leave their kids and constantly wanting to talk to Kyria Olga every chance they got about the eating habits of Stellitsa or how Giannaki's hand hurt from having to write the alphabet every day. They would stalk her during recess breaks, before and after school and even in the supermarket while she shopped. For mere mortals like myself, I would have probably banned the lot of them from the schoolground altogether and shopped in supermarkets two districts away from the school.

But not Kyria Olga. She handled them all with such tact and patience that within the first two weeks of school, the tears dried up, the tantrums were thrown outside the schoolgrounds and there weren't any parents left peering through the crack in the classroom door. Order was restored and there wasn't a child who would intentionally try to disappoint her because her praise meant so much to them and her disappointment in them was more than they could bear if they didn't take their jobs as students seriously enough.

She started off each child's day by giving them a hug and she ended it the same way. She knew the children so well by the end of the month that she even knew which coat and backpack belonged to whom.

On more than one occasion, she told me about other children whose families couldn't afford food for their children let alon all the school supplies required for the school year and asked if I could donate a couple of extra notebooks and pencils to help them out. I'm sure I wasn't the only parent she solicited help from because at Christmas and Easter, her office was filled with bags containing food, school supplies and the odd backpack or two. Her bulletin board was plastered with photos of her hugging pupils she had in her classroom spanning over two decades. My son was one of them.

Unfortunately, that year she retired and there wasn't a child or parent--myself included--who didn't beg her to stay. I have never met a teacher like her before and my son hasn't one who has even come close to exhibiting the kind of devotion and love she reserved for her students and her job. It's been 5 years and my son still misses her and wonders why kids aren't asked to choose their own teachers. I just tell him to keep showing up every year at school and maybe, just maybe, he might get lucky enough to have another teacher of her calibre. If all teachers were like her, then maybe there'd be a lot more kids finishing high school and entering university.

A Lesson on Homosexuality

2006-05-25T16:19:00.000-03:00

When my son came home from school today, he was all fired up about what he had learned in school this morning. I was expecting him to tell me about the results of his geography test we studied for together this past week learning all the European capitals and country locations. But his excitement was for an altogether different reason.

It seems that his teacher inspired him to prevent children from becoming homosexuals! Apparently, during his Greek language lesson, the children read a story about a little boy who had a high fever and the rest of the child's family slept in his room until the fever passed. Now, most of you probably thought what I did...that this was a story about how a family's love can make children feel better and have the strength to fight difficulties. According to my son's teacher, this story was to show the children that 'overprotection' can cause children to become homosexuals!

After a shock which lasted about 5 seconds, I asked my son if he agreed with his teacher. He told me that of course, he agreed with his teacher and that it was society's obligation to prevent people from becoming homosexual so their lives 'could be better' and that he would be doing them a favour since they wouldn't be teased for being 'anomalies'.

I tried a different angle. I asked him if he thought that it might be better if people changed their own attitudes towards homosexuals and just stopped teasing them.

Oh no, Mom...you don't understand what I'm saying. It's better to change a few people than the many. So there are fewer homosexuals and I'm going to make sure kids don't become homosexuals because it's easier to do that than to try to change all the people who aren't.

Brick wall.

"What makes you think homosexuals have to change? Are they evil? Do they hurt you?" I asked.

My son then told me that he didn't think they are evil or do anything really bad like murder anyone. (I breathed a sigh of relief here...at least some things we've talked about in the past sank into his mind.) But he continued..."It's just that they will feel bad if they become homosexuals and I want to make sure they don't feel bad."

"If they don't do anything to you and they're happy, what makes you or your teacher think you have the right to even try to change them? It's not like they're criminals, right?"

"Mom, you're still not listening. I'm not saying they're criminals. I'm just going to make sure they don't end up sad and without friends."

Back to square one. I give it another shot.

"I think it's great that you want people to be happy but how would you like it if someone decided to take it upon themselves to 'fix' you because you're not what they think you should be? Wouldn't it be better if you just decided to like people if they were kind and good to you no matter what religion they were or who they decided to have for boyfriends or girlfriends?"

"Mom, of course I'd still be their friend if they were good to me but you just don't get it, do you? My teacher says that we can prevent some of them from even BEING homosexuals if we just tell parents to stop overprotecting kids." He became frustrated with me and said he wanted to change the subject because I wasn't listening.

"I am listening, I'm just telling you that I don't agree with you or your teacher. And I really don't think it's anyone's place to decide to change people if they haven't done anything wrong and especially if they're already good, kind people. I think the world needs more kind people and it's not our job to make everyone conform to what we think they should be. I'm not saying that you have to agree with everything everyone else believes in or how they behave. Just that you don't have to make them become exactly like you. Wars started that way. How do you think people justified the Crusades?"

"Oh, not the Crusades again Mom. Everyone knows they were wrong. I'm only trying to help people and you refuse to understand that and think I want to start a Crusade."

I must have tried a dozen different approaches with him to try to make him realize that it might just be better if we let good people stay good and focus on trying to change ourselves so that we don't dismiss good people just because they're different from us.

At least he promised me he'd think about what I said and he might talk to me tomorrow about it if I promise not to freak out. Fine by me. I think I'm more upset with his teacher for even having this one-sided sermon with a class full of impressionable young minds based on his own personal opinions and without having any concrete evidence to support it. I've had to deal with a teacher who told his class that Muslims have a gruesome, violent version of our bible. Another teacher told him that all Americans were killers because of the NATO bombing of Serbia. (He was only 5 then and he thought he was an American killer because he spoke English like Americans.) And now I have to contend with this latest 'lesson'. I just wish some teachers would stop trying to use the classroom as a breeding ground for discrimination or at the very least, to think about the repurcussions of their statements before they say them.

What's In a Name?

2006-05-22T16:37:00.000-03:00

The Saints: Constantinos and Eleni

Yesterday was a very busy day for my family and millions of other Greek families. May 21 is the Name Day for Constantinos and Eleni. Since my husband's name is Constantinos, we hosted a barbecue for friends and family to celebrate the occasion with us. Since 100% of all Greeks are either named Constantinos or Eleni or related to someone with those names, they were out celebrating as well. This was the reason my husband's aunt who lives in Penteli, spent nearly an hour in traffic getting to our house in south Athens. Despite the hassle, she managed to make it on time along with 20 other people for what proved to be a great feast.

I was run ragged preparing the food, the coffees, and just being the general information centre for our guests with all their requests. It soon becomes quite stressful when I'm trying to get the food upstairs for grilling and all the while I'm constantly being bombarded with requests for more ice cubes, extra cutlery for the kids who can't manage to keep their forks from becoming projectile missiles, sunscreen for the paranoid, baseball caps for the kids to prevent them from getting sunstroke, and so on. In between all these requests, I have to make sure each guest feels welcomed and no one gets left by themselves in a corner watching all the action but too shy to include themselves. Usually, this isn't a problem if it's just a regular party where the food is set out buffet style and all I have to do is mingle. But it's hard to cook, serve, and talk about one guest's dating problems, another's work problems, and another's business problems. I think I managed to give some good advice as long as Guest 1 isn't dating Guest 3's wife today and Guest 3 never hired Guest 2 at his company. If they're all returning my calls this week then I think it's safe to presume I really am the Hostess with the Mostess.

As for the gifts, my husband now has two of everything--two bottles of cologne, two cakes, two shirts, two cd's, two business card holders, two wallets and two pens. Combined with the birthday gifts he received in February, he has 4 of everything which means that, by Christmas, he will have enough inventory to open his own gift shop.

I'm just surprised at myself for having the restraint all these years to keep my given non-Christian name and not trading it in for a Greek Orthodox sanctioned name just to have the excuse to throw a Name Day party for myself. I wonder how many people would show up if I changed my name to Eleni Dimitra Maria Evangelia Vassiliki Seawitchakou. I wonder how long it would take for people to figure out what I was up to? Maybe they'll accuse me of being a Name Fraud but I think it's definitely a case of the ends justifying the means.

One Size Does Not Fit All

2006-05-20T02:19:00.000-03:00

There are standards of measurement around the globe. A kilometre in Canada is the same length as a kilometre in Greece. A litre of milk is the same size in Germany as it is in Greece. A kilo of cheese in France is the same size as a kilo of cheese in Greece. So, why is it that the clothing industry can't standardize their sizes? In North America, the size labels are pretty much standardized but in Europe, the size labels are huge since the size is listed with its equivalent in each country.

Every time I buy clothes, I can't rely on the size printed on the label. Sizes seem to be dependent upon many variables which only serves to triple the time I spend in stores choosing what to buy.

Manufacturing country
Often, if the label says "Made in China", extra large (XL) is really only a Small (S) in Greece. XXL in Greece is just Large (L) in Canada. When my parents sent my husband some t-shirts from Canada for the first time, they asked him his size so he said XXL. They sent him XXL. The t-shirts were big enough for the both of us to fit in at the same time!

Clothing brand
You'd think that brand names would have standard sizes in their stores but that's not the case. On Thursday, I bought 3 Small size t-shirts from Reebok for my son since the day earlier I had bought 3 Small size from Fila and they fit him perfectly. But when I got him to try them on, they were too small and I had to go back and exchange them for Medium. And even then all their Mediums were different sizes. It's so frustrating because I'm wasting too much time exchanging them.

Type of fabric used
Once I get the size narrowed down to just one or two, then I've got to look at the fabric. If it's 100% cotton, I will shrink it just a little when I put them in the dryer. Or if there's a bit of spandex in the fabric, then I don't need to buy a larger size since the material will stretch. Even the waste bands are important when deciding size. Elastic ones will stretch.

Men's and Women's clothing
I think companies who design clothes for women purposely misstate the size on the label so that women who are size 12 will be more apt to buy a dress if it says size 10 on the label. It's a psychological thing. And it works. What size 12 woman wouldn't love to have clothes with labels that say size 8 or 10? I think men don't really care about what the label says, so the manufacturers don't have a reason to lie about it when they print the size tags.

With all these things to consider before buying clothes, the only way to save time and avoid extra trips to exchange ill-fitting clothes, I have learned to do two things. I ignore the label sizes altogether and bring a tape measure with me to ensure they will fit the person when I give the clothes to them. But this means I have to always have updated measurements written down and I can't impulse buy. I suppose that's a good thing for my wallet.

The other way is to take the person I'm buying for with me. If it's my son, we'll be at each other's throats in the store. He'll accuse me of making him wear 'girl colours' which, right now, are anything other than navy blue, black or beige. Or he'll just be bored within 5 minutes, refuse to try on the clothes and that puts me back to square one. If it's my husband, we won't be able to walk out with less than 20 things because he hates shopping so he always wants to make it worth his while to go so he won't have to come back for another 6 months. Even though he rarely ever needs all the stuff he buys anyway. And that's definitely a bad thing for my wallet.

I suppose I could always learn how to sew and make clothes. Right. Just like I could learn how to make a Ferrari and build it. Who am I kidding?

Or I could stop buying clothes for my family and make them fend for themselves. But the world is not prepared for a 12 year old wearing pyjamas 24-7 or a 37 year-old wearing a linen suit to get his car washed.

There's a lot to be said for permanent body painting.
Imagine that.
No more shopping required and it really does fit all.

Vacations

2006-05-16T16:04:00.000-03:00

It's only May but already people are talking to me about diakopes (vacations) for the summer. As always in these conversations, it seems mandatory that everyone will share at least one vacation horror story in the effort to dissuade another person from visiting a particular location to prevent them from wasting their money and time while another person who claims to be an authority on the locale will refute that person's claims of bad service, overpriced lodging and substandard substandard local cuisine. It's a rare thing when everyone in the discussion will agree on a particular place as worthy of a visit.

For instance, a friend of ours had always tried to convince people to visit the island of Kefalonia since his family was from there and therefore, not a year goes by that he doesn't spend at least a week on the island in the family's summer home. 4 years ago, we decided to see what all the fuss was about especially since I had read the book Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Although it's a beautiful island, and bougainvillea decorated just about every stone wall and terrace, I can't say I enjoyed myself. No matter where we ate or what time it was, when it came time to order, half of what the menu offered was not available so we would spend at least a half an hour trying to find substitutes that we could eat. After the third day, we became so accustomed to not getting what we ordered that we just told them to keep the menus and tell us what they actually had in the kitchen which, didn't amount to much more than a couple of pork chops, tzatziki, french fries and Greek horiatiki salads...all overpriced. A glass of milk cost me 5€ in the main square!

We had rented a nice little apartment with a great view of Argostoli but in the 10 days I was there, not once did they change the sheets or clean it. Twice I had asked the owners to change give us clean sheets and towels, and twice they dumped the linens in my hands and told me to do it myself. We complained to the Tourist Police and they told us that the owners could be fined for not adhering to the standards set out by the tourist board. When it came time to pay the bill, the owners were told to give us a discount or be fined by the Tourist Police.

The only thing that saved our vacation from being a total waste of time was the beautiful beaches and the Melissani Caves.

At least we didn't experience an earthquake there like we did while on vacation in Zakynthos and it wasn't so overrun by tourism that we could still order Greek food and buy Greek magazines which was next to impossible on Zakynthos.

My favourite island so far is Milos. It's still very Greek and has the best beaches I've ever seen. Santorini is also well worth the trip. It's everything you're lead to believe from travel brochures even if ordering seafood does cost you an arm and a leg.

Every island has its own character but if you can't find a decent place to sleep and are constantly being disturbed by noisy and drunken tourists on low-cost vacation deals, then your vacation can soon become a horror story.

When booking your dream vacation it's always best to do a bit of research and request some photos of the rooms of your prospective hotel from your travel agent. I can't tell you how many times we've paid for A class lodging only to find out that once we arrive, the A class designation was given to the hotel in decades ago by EOT (Greek Tourist Board) according to the standards of that time and was never reclassified because EOT never got around to it. So we ended up paying A class prices for a room without modern amenities like air conditioning or a fridge and the decor of a 1950s rural farmhouse.

Since most Greeks vacation in August, you can get better room rates if you go in June, July or September not to mention vacant beach chairs with a bit of space between you and the next person.

If only it were July now, I'd be on a beautiful Greek island beach instead of at my laptop blogging.

Waiting

2006-05-12T17:08:00.000-03:00

Life in a small town looks pretty good right about now.

This week just flew by like a bat out of Hades. I barely had time to read the news let alone blog it. The sad thing is, I can't say I was productive. Most of my 'free' time was devoted to waiting...
-waiting to find parking spots
-waiting in the bank line up to pay bills
-waiting in the supermarket line up for groceries
-waiting in doctor's offices

I spent yesterday morning and last evening trying to get my son's medical permission slip signed by a doctor to allow him to play in a soccer tournament next week. That alone ate up 4 hours of my time and the cardiology exam itself only took 5 minutes to do.

This is why I like small towns. I can do a dozen things there in the time it takes me to do one thing in Athens. When I was younger, I always thought that living in a small town was synonomous with mental destruction. Now, that I live in a large city like Athens, I see that I had it all backwards.

It reminds me of an anecdote I heard awhile back about an GreekAmerican asking a Greek fisherman why he never did anything in his life but fish in a small town since there was so much more to life. The fisherman patiently waited for the Greek-American while he pontificated about the importance of a university education which enabled him to land a job involving long hours but good pay working for a multinational company. The fisherman asked him why he went through all that trouble. The Greek-American looked at him incredulously and told him that's what he needed to do in order to achieve his lifelong dream...to retire to a small island town in Greece and spend his days on the azure blue waters in his boat.

"Like me?" asked the fisherman.

Gulbeyaz Karahasan

2006-05-08T15:22:00.000-03:00

Because of Greece's 400 year occupation by the Turks, some Greeks still harbour distrust and/or resentment towards the Turkish muslim population inside Greece today.

So, when Gulbeyaz Karahasan, a 28 year-old lawyer from northern Greece was chosen as PASOK's candidate for the upcoming prefect elections to represent Drama-Kavala-Xanthi, the decision sparked criticism from both the Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki and the Macedonia-Thrace minister, Giorgos Kalantzis.

Unfortunately, their criticism of PASOK's choice has nothing to do with her qualifications as a politician but rather, with her religion. Mr. Kalantzis questioned her loyalty to her country by asking her if "she would stand next to him during the March 25 celebrations"--the day chosen to commemorate Greece's independence from Turkish rule. This challenge prompted Ms. Karahasan to respond "I am Greek and Muslim in faith. I was born and brought up in Greece and I attended a Greek University. I believe in a modern society that stands no discriminations. A society that appreciates and respects everyone’s opinions."

Even though Mr. Kalantzis states he never questioned her nationality, he has questioned her loyalty to Greece on the basis of her religion which shouldn't have been an issue either since the Greek Constitution specifically states...
Article 4
1. All Greeks are equal before the law.
2. Greek men and women have equal rights and equal obligations.
4. Only Greek citizens shall be eligible for public service, except as
otherwise provided by special laws.

If anyone has any criticism about Ms. Karahasan, then it should be restricted to the scope of her abilities and qualifications as they pertain to her capabilities as a politician. I wish her well in the upcoming elections because Greece certainly needs more elected women officials and hope that voters' opinions won't be clouded by religious intolerance and past prejudice.

What Fodor's Didn't Tell You About Greece

2006-05-04T16:29:00.000-03:00

If you want to hail a cab, you must first know where you're going since you have to stand on the side of the road in the direction you intend to go. Cabs don't stop for you on opposite sides of the street.

The gesture that most westerners use for "Stop" (open palm facing outwards) is a supreme insult when used in Greece. It's called the moutza and if you don't want to hear obscenities shouted at you, then you best figure out a better gesture for it.

You don't have to take your shoes off when entering someone's house. I was told off once by someone I visited for doing this. She asked me "You don't think my floors are clean enough for your shoes?" Several times I was told that this isn't Japan and you don't have to leave your shoes at the door.

When you give out your phone number, separate the digits differently from North America. So if your phone number is 555-1234, in Greece, you have to say 55-51-234. I still have to think twice when saying my phone number here and it's been 8 years.

When you go out to eat at a taverna, many dishes are shared by everyone present. Especially salads. It took awhile for me to get accustomed to not being insulted every time I gave my order to the waiter and to have it literally disappear in front of my eyes once everyone at the table took a bite.

To be called 'baby', 'darling', 'sweetie' by both Greek men and women doesn't automatically mean people are condescending towards you. Most of the time it just means that they like you and truly do mean it as a term of endearment.

There is no such thing as a No Questions Asked Refund Policy at stores. There is no such thing as a refund. I don't know anyone who's ever gotten their money back from a faulty product they've bought. The most a store will do is offer an exchange or they will tell you to return the non-functioning item to the distributor which will often takes weeks for them to repair and that's if they don't have to send it out of the country. I devoted a blog to this entire issue a few months ago.

An engagement ring is not a requirement when getting married. You wear wedding ring on your LEFT ring finger when you're engaged and on your RIGHT ring finger when you get married.

The Men in Blue

2006-05-02T15:15:00.000-03:00

Women Need Not Apply
On April 28, Greece's highest court (Council of State) told the Greek Police Force NOT to hire any more women after ruling "that men were better are fulfilling the force’s tasks."

Are they? Are men better equipped to handle female victims of sexual assaults and sex trafficking, or wife abuse? I sincerely doubt it. I'm sure most women will agree that female victims would much rather to have their cases dealt with by a female police officer. Considering that the majority of all the disgraceful charges brought against the Greek police force recently (rape, torture, corruption, gambling and prostitution), the perpetrators were male, not female.

The Council of State said that only 15 percent of recruits going through the police academy should be women. Some 2,800 women currently serve in the police force — out of a total of 42,848 officers (6.5 percent) — and the court said this figure was high enough.

What leads them to believe it's high enough? Did they do any research on it or did they decide all by themselves that 6.5% is the magic maximum number and that's the end of it? What are their criteria for making this percentage the ceiling of female police officers on staff?

Explaining its ruling, the court said that the limit was justified because of the nature of police work. According to the court, this demands “a high level of physical fitness and muscular strength, speed, endurance, a large degree of courage and composure — qualities in which men are superior to women.”

We may not be as strong or as fast as men in every case but when it comes to endurance, courage and composure I beg to differ. Throughout history, women have endured as much if not more than men. Is there a quantifiable method to ascertain the level of courage anyone has let alone females? Bouboulina would roll over in her grave if she heard this one. As for composure, it's quite obvious the good Court has not read the Policewomen on Patrol study where it states that "women patrol officers tended to be more effective than their male counterparts in avoiding violence and defusing potentially violent situations."

The court said that policemen are often called on to confront violent situations and catch dangerous criminals, and that women could not be asked to do this “because of the well-known biological differences.”

Because we're not physically as strong as men, we can't catch criminals? Is that what this statement implies? With all the new technology available to police departments in the 21st century, surely there are positions inside the force which don't require women to apprehend the most violent criminals by themselves in dark street alleys.

I checked the calendar and I'm still in the year 2006. I can't speak for the persons who were behind this ruling though, I'm sure the calendars on their desks read 1806.

Mobile Police Vans
By the end of this year, Athens will be getting some hi-tech mobile police vans in a bid to help Athenians feel safer while hopefully reducing some of the workload on the traditional bricks and mortar police stations. Just how many we're getting, they don't say. What their actual capabilities are remains to be seen. They might turn out to be ice cream trucks with a plastic fold-up desk, frappe maker and a fan for all I know. How much they'll cost is not mentioned either...and I'm too afraid to find out.

The Public Order Ministry plans to park them in densely populated areas like Kypseli to assist citizens in reporting crimes as well as getting signatures validated for the endless amount of paperwork demanded by nearly every single government office and financial institution in order to process their own paperwork. Having spent hours in the past searching for parking and then waiting in slow-moving line-ups to get this done, I'm really hoping against all odds that these vehicles may save Athenians a lot of time.

Considering that the vans are supposed to be equipped with the same technological equipment (ie., one dilapidated computer and 4 inept operators) already in police stations, reality dictates that we will still be waiting outside the vans while the equipment goes on the blink.

Apparently, they'll also be 'examining the crime scenes in their areas'. Whether this means they'll be packing CCTV equipment or just observing activity in recognized crime areas could be anybody's guess. Who knows? Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and find out that sidewalk parking could be eliminated, crime will decrease and efficiency increased all for a reasonable price. And maybe pigs (no pun intended...honestly) really can fly.

Happy 40th Anniversary Mom & Dad!

2006-04-29T18:12:00.000-03:00

The beginning of 40 years together.

40 years ago today, a man whose lifelong dream was to either sail around the world or live in the Canadian arctic and win the Iditarod married a woman whose lifelong dream was to have a luau in Hawaii. Despite their obvious difference in travel plans, they managed to make their marriage work over the next four decades. The one thing they did have in common was their devotion to each other and to their four daughters.

I was lucky enough to be one of those daughters and even though I can’t be with them to celebrate such this momentous occasion with them, I want to let them know a few things of what their marriage has taught me:

That marriage is about love, respect, commitment and compromise. You set such a good example for me that for the first time in my life, I actually see the importance of the last point…compromise. I’m not good at it yet but because of you, at least I’m trying now.

That when you have kids, sacrifices need to be made to ensure that we were all well-fed, clothed and educated. Now that I have a child of my own, I really do understand just how much you did sacrifice for us to pay for the music lessons, the yearly vacations, and so much more for not one, but FOUR children. You both gave so much of your free time (not to mention the financial sacrifices) to watch us perform in concerts, on baseball teams and never missing one parent-teacher meeting.

That being a wife doesn’t have to mean I have to lose my independence. It means by choosing the right husband, I have a partner in life, not a master.

That my own marriage doesn’t have to be one that ends up in divorce just because the statistics are stacked against me. Because of you, I have proof that marriages can stand the test of time if we make the right choice of spouse and we want it to work.

Just two more things...
Dad, if you’re reading this, I want to let you know that I forgive you for punishing me when your eldest daughter broke the maracas over my head when I was 3. And yes, I can remember that far back. You don't forget traumas like that easily.

Mom, I forgive you for ratting me out to Dad when I broke the glass in the dining room door with a baseball when I was 6.

So, with that out of the way, I want to wish you both a VERY HAPPY 40TH ANNIVERSARY!! As parents, I couldn’t have picked a better pair if I had been given the opportunity to do so!

Easter in Keratea

2006-04-28T14:16:00.000-03:00

A view from the top veranda of my friend's beautiful home in Keratea. The mountain on the other side of the bay is where they imprisoned the communists after the war. A prominent Greek businessman who was imprisoned there bought a villa further down the road in the pic. I've been told that he bought it because he could always be reminded of the time he spent there.

The view from the front terrace of my friend's house. I was sitting in the left chair till I decided it would make a better picture than a comfortable seat.

I just love these windows with the wrought iron grilles. The cats still get through this one though.

The front courtyard of my friend's house. The little octagon building next to the car was built by her father as a games room. We've played ping pong, billiards, and one of my favourite card games...Biriba. It's a bit like Gin Rummy but better.

This picture was taken at the foot of Agios Giorgios church on Anastasi night...the night before Christ rose from the dead. All those little lights you see are the candles (lambadas) lit from the Holy Flame and are held by the people as they walk back down the hill. It really is so beautiful to see it. So many candles from the plain white ones to ones festively decorated in everything from Spongebob to Cinderella for the kids and artistically decorated ones for the adults. My son's had a sort of tie-dyed look to his green candle. I have to hand it to him...he actually managed to keep it lit during the long walk back to the car. As soon as midnight came, celebratory fireworks went off everywhere...much to the annoyance of the dogs...and one actually caught on fire at the top of the hill next to the Church. Thankfully, they managed to put it out because I don't see how the fire department could have ever got to it on time with the crowds choking the only road up there.

This is a view of the back courtyard of the house. THIS is the Greece I love. The beautiful whitewashed houses decorated in the traditional Greek style. The small villages put eyesores like Athens to shame.

A Woman's World

2006-04-26T15:20:00.000-03:00

For centuries, women lived in a world where men make the laws. A world where women were (and in some places, are) treated like chattel. Owned and subjugated by men as slaves, we had no voice, no rights, no freedoms until the last century. In children's literature we've been portrayed as the wicked witches or evil stepmothers. In mythology we've been blamed for men's weaknesses and bad fate. (look no further than the Greeks whose sailors were led to their death by the Sirens or Odysseus who "succumbed" to the enchantress, Circe) Even the decline of society has been attributed to us when we started to trade in our aprons for office jobs.

It’s now 2006, and even though we’ve won some major victories during the last century…the right to vote, to work and on paper, we’re equal in the eyes of the law, we are still reading stories of women being beaten, burned, raped, and traded as slaves by men.

In China and India, female fetuses are being aborted because a male child is still perceived as more valuable. In Western societies, working mothers are often castigated for not forsaking an education and career to stay at home to become domestic servants for their families.

But all is not doom and gloom for the modern woman. A recent study in the Economist magazine has discovered that women are the most underused asset in society. The report in the April 15 issue made some very interesting observations and conclusions:

Females consistently outperform boys in school.

Half of all university degrees in most developed countries are being awarded to women.

Financial investments made by women consistently earn higher returns than their male counterparts.

Countries with high female labour participation rates, such as Sweden, tend to have higher fertility rates than Germany, Italy and Japan where fewer women work.

Not only are educated women more productive, they raise healthier and better educated children.

Women make perhaps 80% of consumers buying decisions.*

Considering these positive trends, hopefully, the corporate and political landscape, presently underrepresented by women, will reflect these statistics. With more women in positions of power, then, we could be seeing increased wages and better working conditions for working women. Women’s issues could receive more attention resulting in better enforcement of laws protecting the rights of women around the globe and stricter penalties for those who break them.

Can we do a better job at running this planet? Or will we also succumb to the same vices of greed, corruption and self-interest of our male predecessors? Only time will tell but we won’t know until we try and a lot more of us need to try. For the sake of our children and their future.

*Excerpts from The Economist, April 15-21, 2006 pp. 73-74

Καλό Πάσχα!

2006-04-22T13:25:00.000-03:00

Happy Easter!

I'll be leaving for the weekend like a million other Athenians for the Easter weekend. I wish you all a Happy Easter and Καλή Ανάσταση!

If you want to find out about the story behind the red easter eggs in Greece, click here.

If you want to read more about Greek easter festivities, click here. (Scroll down to the section on Easter.)

Finding, Working & Keeping a Job(Part III)

2006-04-20T14:57:00.000-03:00

Tips for Employers

Hire the best people for the job
Don’t succumb to the evils of nepotism and patronage to run your business. Just because your nephew has been jobless for the past 10 years is not sufficient enough reason for you to hire him. No matter how much you love your children or spouse doesn’t mean they are necessarily capable of working for you. And even if they are, tread lightly in this area because family businesses are often a hellish experience for the rest of your employees. Families bring their fights to work and usually have no problem questioning your judgement and decisions in front of other staff. Your other employees will feel they have too many bosses and can’t figure out who they’re really working for.

If you hire employees based on appearance alone, don’t expect them to be hard workers when you both know they were hired as eye candy. When you consistently hire employees for reasons other than experience, education and work ethic, you can kiss any expectations ofa healthy profit goodbye.

Treat your employees with respect
Employees aren’t inanimate objects and you don’t own them. For the most part, they’re thinking, feeling humans with lives outside of work. Just because you have chosen to forsake your family, personal life, hobbies to devote yourself 24-7 to your job doesn’t mean your employees have chosen the same path for themselves…especially when they’re often working for a paycheque not worthy of the time, stress, and effort they put into their jobs. So stop screaming at the receptionist if you can’t find your golf clubs. Don’t resort to name-calling and insults if you have a problem with the work they’re doing. And most of all, don’t treat them as your personal harem when you need a date for the weekend.

If you’ve got problems with all your employees, then the real problem is you and your hiring methods. Treat them with some respect and you might just be surprised with the results you get.

Train your employees well
When you hire someone, make sure they know exactly what their job description is and what kind of performance you expect. If you don’t spend some time training them properly, then you will only have yourself to blame when things get screwed up. If you tell them you hired them as salespeople and didn’t tell them that from time to time, they’ll be expected to cover the phones when the receptionist is at lunch or if they must type their own quotations then you can't really blame them if phones go unanswered and handwritten quotations are sitting in their out boxes.

Establish a clear chain of command
In all workplaces, there will be problems from time to time. To prevent your phone from ringing off the wall every time the coffee pot is empty or there’s a paper jam in the photocopier, let your employees know who their direct supervisors are. You have a company to run, don’t waste your time on a dying ficus plant or every irate customer who believes he’s your best customer deserving your personal attention. Let your employees do their jobs and handle the day-to-day routine work of your business. Don't take the “my door is always open” policy too seriously or there will be a steady stream of employees, customers and supplies bothering you with inanities at best. At worst, middle managers will find their positions obsolete with every employee questioning their authority and going over their heads to you.

Don’t micromanage
If you feel you have to hover over your employees shoulders to make sure a fax gets sent, a garbage can gets emptied or a salesperson emails a quote, then you’ve either hired the wrong people or you are a dreaded control freak. Only become involved in your employees’ jobs if you notice a pattern of sloppy work and missed deadlines. Otherwise, leave them alone so they won’t come to resent your presence and go off in search of greener pastures.

Show some leadership
Inspire your employees. Lead by example. Deal with problems as they arise. An army is as good as its leadership.

Reward them on a job well done
When employees have gone above and beyond the call of duty to get a job completed, make sure you recognize their efforts. Let them know when you’re pleased with them. An employee who only hears from you when they’ve made mistakes will start to think that’s all that gets noticed and will soon lose their desire and initiative to give a little bit extra effort in their jobs. If an employee is constantly exceeding your expectations, give him/her a raise, bonus or time off in lieu of pay without them having to ask for it. The majority of employees will appreciate it and reward you with loyalty and continued hard work.

Finding, Working & Keeping a Job (Part II)

2006-04-18T15:36:00.000-03:00

EMPLOYEE TIPS

Be punctual
Just because you’re hired doesn’t mean you can be lax about being at work on time. Employers have a business to run and customers rely on us to be open for business on time. That means employees have to show up on time. Even in Greece, where being late seems to be a constitutionally guaranteed right, employers will appreciate any employee who thinks enough of their job to show up on time. Maybe you’re getting away with being consistently late but if you haven’t had a raise or promotion since you started working 10 years ago, you might want to try showing up on time. If you are going to be late, phone your boss and apprise her of your situation. Some things are beyond your control and most employers understand that. The only time we have a problem with it is when your ‘emergencies’ become routine.

And it’s not just punctuality with regards to your starting time but to all aspects of your job. If you’re constantly late performing your regular duties then don’t complain when your boss is always frustrated with you.

Promotions and raises are earned.
Employers shouldn’t have to pat your back every time you finish the job you were hired to do. It’s expected from you. The only time I will go out of my way to commend an employee is when they’ve done something extra. If you want a pat on the back every time you show up for work then give me something to praise. Be better at your job than other employees and work harder so when you ask for that raise, your chances of getting one will be that much higher. If you want a promotion then do extra work, show some iniative, come up with some innovative ideas to make the business more profitable. Get rid of your sense of entitlement. Your mother thinks you were born special—you have to prove it to me.

Don’t argue with your boss.
If your boss tells you that he wants the photocopier stocked with lemon yellow paper, do it. If you have a problem with it, state your reason and don’t resort to whining. If you really do have a point and he’s got half a brain in his head, he’ll listen. If not, just let him have his lemon yellow paper. The only time you should be ready to argue with your boss is if he’s asking you to do something illegal, morally reprehensible or dangerous. Other than that, it’s his money, if he wants to waste it on frivolous things, bad decisions, or crazy schemes, that’s his problem, not yours. If you don’t like it, then you owe it to yourself to find a new job if it’s that bad. If he can’t be reasoned with, no amount of fighting will make him a better person.

Know your place.
If you were hired in a position other than VP or President, don’t presume to think you can treat the petty cash box as your personal piggy bank. Don’t think you can take two hour lunch breaks because the CEO does or that you can talk on the phone all day and neglect customers just because the boss’s wife can get away with it. Just do the job you were hired to do and don’t obsess about your co-workers unless it seriously affects your own job. If you have to complain about the laziness or incompetence of your boss’s spouse, chances are your boss knows about it already and he or she is more apt to fire you than divorce the spouse. If you don’t like the CEOs extended lunch breaks just remember that the CEO has to answer for his/her own performance. Most incompetence is rewarded with a place in the unemployment lineup. (Unless of course you work in the Greek civil service where it's considered to be a prerequisite for working there.) Even if you’re on friendly terms with your boss doesn’t mean you have the right to constantly tell him how to do his job. If you can’t respect your boss, at least respect his/her position.

Don’t make a nuisance of yourself
Just because you may have finished all your work for the day doesn’t mean everyone else has too so don’t engage your co-workers, least of all your boss, in conversation just to kill your time. That means no pointless phone calls to ask your boss if he thinks you can have Aug. 21, 2012 off work or whether she prefers Bic blue pens or Uni-ball black pens. She won’t care and will resent you wasting her time no matter how good an employee you are.

Extra Note
If your job requires you to handle cash, do not ever presume to think you can take any of it without permission. Ever. Not even 1€. Not even if your car is going to be repossessed or if you have no food to eat for the day. Not even if your boss is your friend, your relative or on vacation in Tahiti for the next 2 months. You never take anything…especially cash…without permission from the employer and even then you should think twice about it. Would you allow your best friend to take money from your wallet and leave you an I.O.U. note without asking first? Too many employees make the mistake of thinking that just because there’s cash in the till that it’s pure profit and as long as they let their boss know they took money, it’s not theft. If you haven’t asked permission, it most definitely IS theft.

If you can't be bothered reading all this...just rent the first season of the BBC sitcom The Office and learn how NOT to behave at work.

Finding, Working & Keeping a Job (Part I)

2006-04-18T15:03:00.000-03:00

Yesterday, I came home from work in the blackest of moods. The events which occurred yesterday at work angered me as both an employee and as an employer. If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you will have understood by now, that I am a small business owner in partnership with my husband. We own two home entertainment stores and since we both believe that you can’t run a business only by looking at balance sheets, we also work in both stores.

I spent 14 years of my working life as an employee. I’ve spent the last 5 years as both an employer and employee. Therefore, I now consider myself qualified enough to objectively give some advice to both people looking for work and those presently employed and employers who want to get the most of the employees they hire. Because I don't want any other employer and employee to go through a Monday like I just did...having employee-induced nervous breakdowns. I'm going to share my thoughts with you in the hope that you may avoid similar situations.

I’ll start with some Dos and Don’ts tips for potential employees. Tomorrow, I’ll post the tips for employees and on Thursday it’ll be the employers’ turn.

Don’t apply for a job without a resume/curriculum vitae.
As obvious as this sounds, you’d be surprised how many people just show up on our doorstep asking to get hired without one. Just because you can remember your name and phone number does not mean that a potential employer will. Not only that, you must remember that you’re not the first person to walk into any place of business looking for work. You have to make the best effort you can to ensure YOU get the job and not the next person who comes in after you does. Let us know why you think we should hire you and not anyone else and keep it as succinct as possible. We really don’t need to know that you were the first in your daycare class to build a 96 piece Lego helipad at the age of 2 but we would like to know what your education, work experience and special skills you’ve acquired as it pertains to the job.

It wouldn’t hurt to include a cover letter to personalize your application either. That just lets me know that you’re not on a generic job hunting mission and any job will do. Make us think we’re special too.

Image is almost everything. If you’re telling us that you are meticulous, accurate and hard-working, don’t give us a resume saturated with spelling errors, grammatical mistakes and outdated contact information. Make sure it’s typed and if you’re going to photocopy it, keep the black splotches from a dirty photocopier to a minimum. You wouldn't want a prospective employer to have problems reading your phone number because one of those splotches appeared over it.

Dress decently when submitting your job application
Many people think they only have to dress up for a job interview but feel just fine showing up in flip flops and sweatpants to drop off their resumes. Just because the employer might not be present when you show up doesn’t mean that other employees and secretaries don’t notice your appearance. And you’re making an even bigger mistake if you assume they won’t talk behind your back when it comes time to give the application to their boss. Even in other jobs I’ve had, receptionists and secretaries would bring job applications to my office with their two cents worth about the demeanour and appearance of the applicant or I’d hear them laughing about it with other employees around the reception desk.

I don’t expect you to wear a tuxedo or a prom gown but wearing sweatpants to any job other than a gym will cut your job prospects in half before you even make it to the interview stage. If you’re female and the job you’re applying for is not as a waitress for Hooters or for a strip club, then don’t show up in a mini skirt, stilettos and tank top. Remember that not all employers are male—don’t bank on seduction as a surefire way to land a job.

Interviews
Be Punctual
If you’re lucky enough to get called back for an interview, make sure you’re there on time. If you can’t be bothered to show up on time for an interview, why should an employer believe you’ll be bothered to show up on time for work. Emergencies are the only acceptable excuses for being late to an interview. Traffic, having no babysitter, a fight with a family member and being lost are not emergencies. They’re just excuses.

Be confident, calm, pleasant and smile.
If you plunk yourself down in a chair with a scowl on your face then don’t be surprised if your interviewer soon has one on his/her face too. I don’t really want to hear why you’re in a bad mood, I’m looking to hire someone for a job, not become a psychologist. If you constantly fidget in your seat, punctuate your sentences with word whiskers and turn red with embarrassment if I ask you about your last job, then I really can’t see how you’ll be able to answer a phone call or serve an irate customer without a self-induced heart attack. The fate of the world doesn’t rest on your performance in an interview. Just think of it as a fact-finding mission by a prospective employer. We’re not out to get you, just to get a better idea of who you are.

Friend and Foe

2006-04-17T16:37:00.000-03:00

It's no secret that Greece is up to its neck in debt and Finance Minister, Giorgos Alogoskoufis has been trying for the past two years to scrape enough money together from tax revenues, privatization of public companies, slashing (or so I thought) public expenditures and attempting some creative accounting to get the debt under control and under the EUs 3% Growth & Stability Pact limit.

So why then, is Greece planning to spend 22 billion€ on new weapons? Are we planning a war and no one told me? How can this kind of expenditure be justified considering Greece's dire fiscal straits?
Elefterotipia daily in Greece wrote that the Greek government plans to purchase a new weapons system worth €22 billion as part of its 10 year armament program.

According to the Greek daily, Greece will purchase 40 warplanes, 45 training planes, six frigates, four submarines and 35 helicopters of various types, 291 TOMA type chained vehicles, 26 fighting vehicles and satellite communications systems.

Are the new planes needed to replace the ones that have crashed in recent months? Are we expecting civil insurrection? Is the government planning to use the 35 helicopters to ensure the recent spate of bank robberies are kept in check? What on earth is a TOMA type chained vehicle anyway?

As mentioned on the Phylax blog, if there is such a real threat from Turkey, why is Greece climbing into bed with them by investing 2.3 billion€ of Greek depositors' money in acquiring a 46% stake of Turkey's Finansbank?

No doubt Greece's military weapons are outdated and in need of modernization but surely not enough to justify spending 22 billion€ especially at a time when every penny counts in the effort to keep this country from falling into an economic sinkhole.

The Road to Blogging is Paved With Good Intentions

2006-04-15T11:40:00.000-03:00

I intended to update my blog yesterday but it was Friday and as usual, I'm in a rush on Fridays to prepare dinner before my son goes to his computer classes, feed him and then drop him off to be picked up a hour later. When I got home sheer laziness overwhelmed me and I did absolutely nothing worthwhile with my time.

Today, I had a full schedule. First my son had to go to his basketball practice and then we were off to the plateia (square) to shop for the birthday party he will go to tomorrow, buy a few groceries for the weekend and then come home and do laundry and make supper. As I sit here now, I am pleased to inform you that I have done all of these things. I guess miracles really do happen.

The only thing I didn't manage to do is write the blog I intended concerning the 100 million€ passport fiasco reported on the news last night. I can't really write it until I have some supporting news links to back up the story. And so far, neither Kathimerini or ERT news has mentioned anything about it. From what I know, MP Christos Markogiannakis is being blamed by his former boss, Georgios Voulgarakis, for a microship machine used in the making of passports which no longer works. This means that all passports issued this year will be rendered invalid by September and they will have to reapply for new ones once the machine gets fixed/replaced. My husband just received his passport last week and paid 60€ for it. He will now have to pay another 60€ plus the 12€ cost for affixing the microchip on it. The rest of the taxpayers will have to absorbe the 100 million€ cost for the faulty machine. Of course, no one is 'officially' to blame. Former Minister of Public Order blamed his deputy, Markogiannakis. And as is routine now with New Democracy politicians who find themselves being held accountable for mistakes, bad judgements and/or scandals, he blamed PASOK. And as always, the Greek citizens are the ones paying for their mistakes.

As soon as I find out more information about this latest act of incompetence I will blog it. Besides, why do today what you can put off for tomorrow?

But for now, I have to get ready to meet some friends for a coffee and maybe some board games later on.

What 8 Days of Garbage Looks Like

2006-04-12T14:15:00.000-03:00

The woman in the busboard behind the bins expresses a look

most Athenians have right now about the 8-day garbage strike.

The smell is unbelievable.

I don't know how the residents near the trash bins can handle it.

By tomorrow, I expect the car parked behind the bin will be buried in trash

if the owner doesn't park it elsewhere.

This is one of the 'tidier' piles of trash in my neighbourhood.
I've paid my municipal taxes, I shouldn't have to put up with this public hygiene nightmare.
I'm just waiting for the rats to show up like they did a few garbage strikes ago.

UPDATE: The strike has ended and as I type, the garbage men are collecting garbage off my street. The strikers' demands weren't met so I guess we'll be having another strike in a couple of months. But for now, the garbage men will be collecting overtime pay to clear the streets of garbage in the next three days in time for Easter.

Customer Appreciation

2006-04-12T11:29:00.000-03:00

For the most part, working in a video club is quite boring. I’ve noticed that most people are creatures of habit. You can set your clock by them. You know what days they’ll rent, what movies they’ll rent and not much out of the ordinary happens. But every now and again, you meet people who are distinctive when you take the time to get to know them. People who make a lasting impression on you.

Several years ago, one such customer became a member at our stores. At first glance, I thought he was someone to watch but not in a good way. His appearance was unkempt, he never spoke much, never even smiled for the first couple of months. But he was a regular client and rented a lot of movies. But that’s not what made me rethink my initial opinion about him. It was his choice of movies. He wouldn’t just rent the most popular titles and predictable movies. He’d watch classic movies and Cannes/Sundance/Venice Film Festival award winners which is almost a rarity for most customers. Especially for someone who was only 19 years old and an immigrant from Kazakhstan whose grasp of the Greek language was on par with mine at the time. I figured I had to know more about him so every time he came in, I’d try to draw him into a conversation, asking him what he thought of the movie he just returned. I tried to suggest more movies which I assumed he’d like based on his previous rental history and siga, siga (slowly, slowly) he became more socially interactive.

After a few months of movie talk, I told him I was curious as to why he would rent the same movies 5 and 6 times each. I was humbled by his answer.

Rouslan, an ethnic Greek, emigrated from a small town in Kazakhstan where there wasn’t much to do. So he’d go to the cinema. The ‘cinema’ in his very small town was an old hall with a big screen but because the owner’s projector was a relic of the Stalin era, it didn’t work so he would buy video cassettes from the closest city…about 200km away…and the customers would watch a movie on a 21” TV he bought which was powered by a small generator. He wouldn’t change the movie until he had made a small profit from the current video cassette. Since it was a small town and quite poor, this meant that it often took more than a month for him to recoup the cost of the gas to travel the distance to buy another one plus the cost of the video cassette. As a result, the movie goers would end up watching the same movie at least 15 times and Rouslan became accustomed to not just watching a particular movie, but memorizing all the lines in it and every single person who worked on the movie by reading the credits at the end…from the gaffer to the director. Rouslan’s mind became a database of movie trivia.

So now he’s become addicted to movies because he has such a variety of them here and rents quite a few to make up for lost time. When he likes a movie, he can’t help himself and therefore, he must rent the movie at least a half dozen times. He said that the movies allow him to travel the world and introduced him to many concepts previously unknown to him like apartheid and the women’s suffrage movement. He considers movies to be his sole educator on popular culture and credits them for becoming literate in Greek since he was lost in the cracks of the education system when he first came to Greece at the age of 12.

He’s 23 now and I consider him to be our best customer and my most favourite. I’ve learned so much about his world through the things he experienced growing up in a remote part of the planet and he’s made me appreciate my own upbringing in Canada and all the opportunities that I had taken for granted but were denied to him.

Because of all the obstacles he had to overcome just to be able to live, work and buy a home in Greece, I have such an incredible amount of respect for him and find myself wondering just what kind of life he would have had if, by chance, like me, he had been born in a country full of possibilities and opportunities.

The Pot Sues the Kettle

2006-04-10T14:34:00.000-03:00

Convicted of bribery, former judge, Evangelos Kalousis is suing the Greek state for 3 million euros.

Already convicted for demanding a 50 million drachma (146,735€) to return a favourable decision in the case of a man on trial for narcotics charges, he claims that his own trial was fixed and based on lies and libel. I guess he would know. The 3 million euro lawsuit is to compensate him for loss of salary and pension because his life now is totally destroyed.

The sheer audacity of this man amazes me. Talk about your frivolous lawsuits. This morally bankrupt bottom feeder puts a price tag on justice and then cries 'foul' when he's been held accountable for his actions. The People of Greece should be filing a class action lawsuit against him for his personal involvement in sabotaging the Greek justice system.

Some people's children.

Les (Grecques) Miserables

2006-04-09T04:36:00.000-03:00

Ti kaneis, Cosette?

Ti kaneis?/How are you?

I remember the time I could ask that question and hear a simple "kala/fine" response or 'mia hara/great". Lately, I noticed it's been quite awhile since I heard anyone tell me they're doing great. So much so that I've become wary of even asking the question in case I don't have enough time to hear the litany of complaints from people.

Parents bemoan the fact that their sons and daughters can't find jobs. It's the rare person who tells me that their kids are doing just fine in the job market.

Business people tell me that they're thinking of closing their businesses unless they've closed them already which, in that case, means I will hear how much money they lost last year and the effect it had on their families.

University graduates tell me that they're going to Chicago/London/Toronto to go live with a relative there in the hopes of getting a job.

Relatives have told me that after 5 years of studying abroad, their kids won't be coming back to Greece since they've found better jobs in other countries.

Greeks from abroad can't remember why they moved here in the first place.

For every immigrant that has just arrived, it seems I know two more who left.

I hear these complaints at my stores, at parties, in the lineups at the tax or health fund offices, and from our friends.

The most common question I'm asked when people hear my accent is "Where are you from?" followed immediately by "Why would you leave Canada for Greece?"

There was a time when my stories of romance, great weather, beautiful scenery and love of Greek history would meet with approval. Now, if I mention those things in response to their question they will tell me that I can't live off scenery and history and it's time I start thinking about my son's future if I don't care about my own.

Is it just a case of the winter blues or are people really that miserable? Or maybe I hear more from disillusioned Greeks than the average person by virtue of my foreigner status or because I ask this question a hundred times a week, it stands to reason that the percentage of negative responses are that much higher than if I was working in an office cubicle?

Maybe I just need to change my greeting to a simple "yeia sas/hi" so I can take a break from the doom and gloom conversations that emanate from "ti kanete". If I don't, then I might just be inspired enought to write the Greek version of Les Miserables.

Movie Time

2006-04-07T15:38:00.000-03:00

It’s Friday. And as always, on Fridays I am inundated with friends, customers and readers asking me what movies are worth the rental fee for the weekend. So, for all of you who have 2€ in your pocket and a couple of hours of free time this weekend, here is a list of movies that will keep you from threatening to sue directors for reckless endangerment of your sanity and fraudulent waste of your time.

Action
Banlieue 13/Ghetto 13
Don’t hate it because it’s French. If you’ve run out of Jackie Chan movies to watch and are looking for some great acrobatic stunts, rent this one. It’s non-stop action from start to finish with not one, but two French actors from the Jackie Chan School of Stunts.

King Kong
Great visual effects and Jurassic Park bugs and dinosaurs to keep you and your (older) kids frozen in their seats. I don’t know why King Kong himself didn’t get a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Too much gorilla for Hollywood to handle I guess or they were too afraid of what might happen if he didn’t win.

Lord of War
Inside the world of your friendly neighbourhood arms dealer as he travels the globe procuring weapons for anyone with cash. From tin pot dictators to drug lords, Nicolas Cage racks up the cash while Interpol is always one step behind.

Drama
Paradise Now
Filmed in Palestine, director Hany Abu Assad, relates the story of two suicide bombers. He lets their lives tell the story leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions . You’ll have to turn on the subtitles though as it’s filmed in Arabic.

Crash
Many people debated whether or not it was worth the Best Picture Oscar but it’s definitely worth a rental. It’s not as hard-hitting as American History X (an excellent movie on the subject of racism) but it shows how racism infects every single group of people … even those who have been subject to racism themselves.

Hotel Rwanda
A powerful, disturbing and moving film based on the experiences of a Rwandan hotel manager during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Don Cheadle is at his finest here. An average man transformed by the horror around him and is credited with saving the lives of hundreds of Tutsis.

Family
Sahara
Looking for a lost Civil War battleship takes Matthew McConnaughey to West Africa where he meets UN doctor, Penelope Cruz.

Hitch
Will Smith gives dating tips for men in desperate need of them.

National Treasure
A treasure hunt taking you from the White House to the Liberty Bell to Antarctica. Just imagine if Greece made a film like this...what a treasure hunt that would be!

Thriller/Horror
You’re on your own here. I watched The Grudge with both hands over my eyes and people laugh at me so what can I possibly tell you about what constitutes a good thriller?

Who Owns Who?

2006-04-05T02:06:00.000-03:00

Dubai is very busy. Over the past few months, I keep reading about a string of acquisitions and major investments in Western businesses and real estate. One of its companies, Dubai World Ports*, bought management control 6 US ports through the purchase of London-based Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (They have since put those ports up for sale due to a backlash of American public opinion.)

Americans don't want their ports to be operated by the tiny Emirate but it seems they don't seem to have a problem renting their homes from them. 21,000 apartments in the southern states are owned by Dubai Investments.

This same company is also investing heavily into Greece's banking and health sector.

Dubai Investments has bought 31.5% stake in the Marfin Financial Group which is also the largest shareholder in Cyprus Popular Bank and owns 14% of the shares Greece's Egnatia Bank.

Yesterday, the Greek Ygeia Hospital announced that it would buy 25.83% of Mitera Maternity Hospital. 49% of Ygeia is owned by Marfin which now has Dubai Investments as one of its major shareholders.

And we thought the Arab world only had oil.

*Both DP World's official website and a Reuters DP World fact sheet are empty pages. Too many prying eyes perhaps?

Learning to Get a Long-Term Resident Permit

2006-03-31T13:41:00.000-04:00

For once, I think the Greek government has gotten it right.

Almost a year ago to the day, I blogged about the need for culture immersion courses for all new immigrants in their new country. I felt (and still feel) that courses teaching immigrants the law, language and culture of their host country will benefit not only them but their new country as well. In order to get the coveted long-term resident status, the interior ministry has issued a presidential decree requiring immigrants to complete 125 hours of formal instruction in the Greek language and culture.

The decree was drafted in response to an EU directive compelling member states to outline the procedure necessary to obtain long term resident status to immigrants. Even though the deadline for implementation was three months ago, it is nonetheless welcome news to know that it has finally been completed.

The lessons will cost 900€ and will probably take about 3 months to pass and obtain the certificate needed to apply for the resident permit. The money is non-refundable. I'm sure many people will complain about the price and the time needed to complete the courses but I think their complaints are unfounded for several reasons. The benefits outweigh the cost and time factor.

Knowing the language will do a lot to ensure their integration into the new society. It will become easier for them to get employment, navigate through the endless channels of Greek bureacracy and most of all...allow them to communicate with everyone around them--not just immediate family members. Social isolation will be reduced and they will be better equipped to help their children once they enroll in school. At my son's school, foreign children often lag behind their classmates to the point where not only do they receive failing grades but they become socially excluded.

Knowing the culture will further advance their integration because it enables them to find common ground with the rest of the population and understand and possibly appreciate Greek customs which seem so foreign to them.

I wish this law was in effect when I received my long-term resident status in Greece. I wouldn't have felt like a fish out of water at the supermarket, social events and at my son's school. Knowing English further hampered my efforts in Greek because I could still watch movies, listen to songs and read my newspapers in my native language. I became lazy when it came to integration much to my own detriment. I did learn to write the language on my own but if you can't speak the language, it's pointless. I ended up paying 900€ for a 3 month introductory course to Greek over 7 years ago and immediately, I didn't feel like an outsider anymore. I didn't avoid answering the phone. I could go to the doctor by myself and accomplish dozens of routine tasks outside the house without a Greek babysitter. I could hold my ground with civil servants at government offices.

Learning the language was independence to me. Learning the culture meant I no longer sent my son to school on national holidays because I didn't know any better. It meant remembering friends' Name Days, buying red eggs and lambadas (candles) for easter and saying phone numbers the Greek way (55-55-123 and not 555-5123) and to stop waiting for cabs on the wrong side of the road. I'm sure these all sound like trivial things but if only I could tell you how much time was wasted and the embarrassment and frustration I felt for not knowing them...that would be a book unto itself.

This law is a necessity and I can only hope that immigrants will not try to circumvent it by bribing corrupt officials as has been the case with past resident/work permits and driving licences. They will do a great disservice to themselves and their new country. Considering the benefits and increased opportunities for immigrants, 900€ and 125 hours is a small price to pay for them.

And What Colour is the Sky in Your World, Dimitri?

2006-03-29T13:07:00.000-04:00

As if we didn't need further proof that lunatics are running the asylum, Greek health minister, Dimitris Avramopoulos, comments on the HIV tainted blood which was given to a 17 year-old girl and 76 year-old man last year.

“Greek citizens must feel safe, particularly ones who need fresh, clean blood,” he said.

I'd really like to meet the people who would need stale, dirty blood. And I thought only George W. was capable of such inanities. The statement would have made much more sense had he omitted the words 'fresh' and 'clean'. It goes without saying that if someone needs blood, it most definitely ought to be the fresh and clean variety.

Opening his mouth wider to accommodate both feet, Avramopoulos then insisted this should not be allowed to happen in a country as organized as Greece. Now I'm wondering if he's even living in the same country as the rest of us. Greece organized? Did pigs start flying and no one told me?

The Euro Has Eaten Us

2006-03-27T11:52:00.000-04:00

What many Greeks would like to do to the Euro

If you ask most Greeks what they feel about the economy, they usually respond with Το Ευρό μας έχει φαει. Literally translated it means "The Euro has eaten us". Idiomatically speaking, they're saying that the Euro destroyed us.

They see their disposable income slipping away and blame it on the replacement of the drachma with the Euro currency in Greece in January, 2002.

When Greece changed from the drachma to the Euro, it seemed that literally, overnight, prices went through the roof.

Coffees which used to cost 800 drachmas (2.35€) now cost me 4€ at the same café.
Greek salads at the local taverna used to cost 1500 dr. (4.40€) are now 6€.
I pulled out an old souvlaki menu to make a take-out order where all the prices were in drachmas. It was immediately obvious that most of the prices increased by 25% or more on each item listed on the new menu. Just since September, I saw the price of my usual brand of olive oil increase from 4.25€ to 5.98€.

Some of the fluctuation in prices can be attributed to the droughts or floods across Europe. The war in Iraq is also to blame for increased costs on other items…especially petrol. I’m not an economist but I certainly don’t believe that inclement weather, the bird flu, normal currency fluctuations and the invasion of Iraq is directly responsible for the rapid and phenomenally high price increases on every single thing we purchase. I believe much of it was due to profiteering and people just not understanding the value of the new currency.

It was common to give 100 drachmas (0.29€) for a tip to a delivery person. Just try getting away with giving them a 30 cent tip these days! Even the beggars will frown if you give them anything less than a euro. The days of “ενα εικοσάρικο σε παρακαλώ” (100 drachmas, please) are long gone. Now, it’s ‘ένα ευρό σε παρακαλώ” (a euro please).

The Greek Consumer Centre reports that Greek opinion is justified. The prices of many things have increased from 20% to a whopping 147% since the country changed to the Euro in 2002. Unfortunately, the salaries have only increased, on average, by 12%. And even that’s debatable. I don't know many people who have received a 12% pay increase. Either way, any increase given is hardly enough to compensate for the exorbitant costs of everything else we purchase.

Back in 2002, the Ministry of Development assured us that the "worst is over." Four years and 147% price hikes later, I think it's safe to assume that Ministry of Development is just as clueless now as it was then.

Protecting and Serving Whom?

2006-03-24T15:54:00.000-04:00

After a string of robberies in the vacation towns of Oropos and Kalamos, the townspeople were furious because the police weren’t doing anything about it. The local police chief dusted off the usual response and claimed that his department was understaffed and therefore, couldn’t handle the 200 or so robberies in the towns. Once the media got hold of the story, the government initiated a police sweep involving 2,000 officers to root out the culprits resulting in the arrests of 6 members of an organized gang responsible for the break-ins along with several hundred other offenders during the questioning of over 14,000 people.

While the arrests were a welcome event to the citizens in the affected areas, a greater issue is evident. The police simply aren’t doing their jobs until the media gets involved and the government becomes embarrassed. The operation and subsequent firing of the two police chiefs was largely seen as a public relations ploy designed to quell the hornet’s nest stirred up by both the media and disgruntled townspeople.

Considering that there are approximately 3,000 police officers serving as bodyguard to VIPs, the Hellenic Police are in no position to complain about being understaffed. These police officers are paid by the taxpayers, not by the celebrities and therefore they should not be allocated to celebrities as a perk just because they recorded a few pop songs. It is nothing short of scandalous that taxpayers are paying for a service from which they do not benefit. Celebrities and rich businessmen are neither employees of the state and therefore, should not be entitled to personal police protection. The practice needs to stop. Police need to be patrolling the neighbourhoods making their presence felt not escorting the rich and almost famous to awards and parties.

Reassigning the police bodyguards back to active police duty is the first step to making the police force more efficient and effective. The police departments need to be computerized and staffed with competent personnel. My husband went to the local police station to apply for a new passport this week and they told him he had to come back on April 11--3 weeks away. He managed to get the date changed due to the intervention of a police acquaintance of ours. As soon as the woman took his passport, the office experienced a blackout and their one and only computer shut down and could not be rebooted. The two women processing the applications used the down time to have a conversation with each other and after a half hour realized that their computer would not magically start working since they didn't even have a surge protector and they didn't even know who to call for service. Dozens of people ended up waiting for over 2 hours while their information was written by hand. Experiences like this one are the rule, not the exception.

The Greek taxpayers deserve better service and protection from their police departments not just one-day dog and pony shows to appease the media. Consistent, diligent police work is required on a daily basis to stem the surge in crime rates and time-wasting bureaucracy.

Scandal at School

2006-03-22T14:38:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, my son came home from school and told us about the big scandal at his school. A scandal no parent ever wants to hear.

The 59 year-old caretaker of his school was arrested on child molestation charges. My husband and I were shocked. It's not like we live in an alternate reality. We know just how widespread paedophilia is and that paedophiles aren't always the creepy looking strangers lurking on street corners and by playgrounds. They are most likely people the family knows--either friends, teachers, neighbours and even family members. Armed with all that information and the fact that I've blogged about it before, I was still completely horrified when I heard about it.

This was the same man who always opened the locked gates to the school when my son was late. The same who ran the school canteen and made sandwiches for the kids, retrieved their soccer balls when they got kicked over the fence. He warmed and served the food for the children who were part of the after-school program (φύλαξη). To think that he is now accused of molesting a 9 year-old for a month is almost impossible to reconcile.

My husband and I thought that maybe, just maybe, it was a vicious rumour but when my husband went to pick up my son's report card for the second semester and meet with his teacher, the teacher confirmed that the accusation was true and that the man was in custody as a result. Other parents are refusing to believe that it could have happened and my husband was handed a letter protesting the arrest in support of the man. Parents are having a meeting tonight to discuss the charges, but considering that the meeting seems only to serve as a show of support for the man, we decided not to attend. If the accusations against the man prove to be substantiated in court, then I want to be no part of such a meeting supporting him. I wasn't there when the incidents were said to have occurred therefore, I cannot defend his character. That is something to be decided by the judicial system.

My main concern right now is if this is the first incident involving this man because last year, I remember at the parent-teacher association meeting, they discussed another incident of the same nature which had happened the year before but no one came out and stated exactly who the culprit was. All kinds of thoughts are running through my head. What kind of background check did the school do on this man before they hired him? Was he hired as a 'friend of a friend' without any investigation to his past work experience? My son has complained about him on entirely unrelated issues with regards to his ill-temper, hygiene at the canteen and impatience with the children. Were these symptoms of a disturbed man which everyone chose to ignore or did they take on a new meaning in light of the present charges against him?

I'm sickened by the whole matter. I question myself. Have I trained my son to be vigilant enough so that he never becomes a victim of such depraved creatures? How will I know? I can only hope against all odds that I have. It just goes to show that no parent can take their child's safety for granted. We owe it to our children to educate them well on the dangers surrounding them and the tricks that paedophiles use to lure children. Tell them that they will have your full support if they ever do fall prey to the twisted minds of perverts no matter who they might be. As much as I wish I didn't have to teach my son about such a disturbing subject, but tonight, I'm so very glad I did.

Useful Links
Protecting Our Children--An online guide to inform parents about paedophilia and how to safeguard your children.
McGruff.org--Useful information on every aspect of child safety.

Facing Reality

2006-03-18T17:04:00.000-04:00

Will this be me in a couple of years?

I am 39 years old. I don't have a problem admitting my age and so far, I haven't ever felt the need to lie about my age as some are inclined to do. I never really gave any thought to getting older since I never felt I was getting older...until recently. Over the past few months, there have been tell-tale signs that I am, indeed getting older. I am not the least bit prepared to face it and yet there's absolutely nothing I can do to prevent it. The only thing that makes me feel better about getting older is that I know it doesn't have to be synonomous with being old.

Because the initial trauma of recognizing the aging signs has faded to such a degree that I can now talk about them without shuddering, I will now share them with you.

Tell-tale Signs You're Getting Older
My son pulls out a vinyl record from the bookcase and asks me what it is.

A customer tells me about a great new band he just discovered on the radio. It's Duran Duran.

I am shopping to buy a new pair of shoes and for the first time, I opt for comfort and put the high-heeled slingbacks back on the shelf.

I play 20th Anniversary Trivial Pursuit and the other players are amazed at how I know all the answers even though they're no more than 10 years younger than me.

I overhear teenagers talking about what a great lyricist Alanis Morrissette is with her 'new' song "Crazy". When I inform them this is a remake of Seal's song from 15 years earlier, they stare at me in disbelief.

I wire money to my younger sister in NYC for Christmas and the bank clerk asks me if the recipient is my daughter.

I don't need to buy Retro fashion since I already have it in my closet.

I can have a conversation with my father and find myself agreeing with him most of the time.

I am nothing short of astonished to learn that my high school friend is married with a 17 year old daughter.

I complained about going to a party because the guests were all old. The thought never even occurred to me that they were the same age as me until my husband had to remind me.

I can't get away with not wearing makeup anymore...too many people ask me why I look so tired.

I have to fight the urge to brush teenagers hair and tell them to pull up their pants.

Customers ask me which one of our employees is my son. (The youngest employee is 24 years old. Do the math.)

I chose to a cafe bar last night because I liked the decor, overstuffed sofas and background music. Then I regretted my decision when I saw that all the patrons were in the 40+ age bracket. Surprise, surprise when reality set in a second later...they chose the place for the same reasons I did. I am one of them.

I woke up one morning and out of the millions of hairs on my head, it was the new strand of grey hair which paralysed me for several minutes.

When Perversion Becomes Mainstream

2006-03-14T15:16:00.000-04:00

Just when I thought I'd seen everything on the covers of mainstream porno DVDs from titles like "Fun on the Farm" and "My Granny is a Tranny". You can just imagine what the viewing content is without even seeing the cover itself. The majority of them are explicit--leaving nothing to the viewer's imagination. Of course, that doesn't keep customers from renting them and then complaining that the subject matter was vile or perverse when they return them. Most likely they feel compelled to complain from some sense of false guilt when they have to return the DVDs to a woman since my husband has said that the only complaint he's ever had from men about porn DVDs is that some of them aren't subtitled in Greek. I just think they know better than to complain to me because I will make fun of them. "Ooooh" and "aaah" are self-explanatory in any language. No translation should be required.

However, I can honestly say that even the 'mainstream' porn DVD industry has hit a new low when I saw today's offering of titles for sale to the rental stores. Two of the many DVD titles offered for sale featured women with bruised faces on the covers. In a world where forced prostitution and violence against women is on the increase, I guess it makes good business sense to them to produce movies which reflect the growing demand for such garbage.

In the past, I've destroyed the DVDs and videos which implied underage sex and incest in the titles or those which glorify rape. I've been accused of censorship by disgruntled customers but I can live with it. The men who find those movies acceptable, I don't want anywhere near me anyway. They should be more worried about their predilection for violent pornography than my attempts at censorship.

The world becomes collectively enraged when a cartoon offends Muslims. We are infuriated if a flag gets burned Iran, cars get torched in France and our leaders are objects of scorn and ridicule. Where's the outrage when it comes to violence against women?

Showing women with bruised faces on movie covers used to be a taboo--relegated to underground sex shops. The fact that these images are now poised to enter mainstream acceptance causes me to examine the reasons behind it and our toleration of it.

Ask yourselves these questions:

Do men feel threatened by the social and political advancement of women and resort to viewing violent portrayals of control over women to regain some of their power?
Have women even achieved any sort of control over their destiny if violence against women in pornography is increasing rather than decreasing?
What will happen to us as a society as these depictions become the norm rather than the aberration they should be?
If violent pornography IS offensive to the majority of the population, why are we listening to the arguments of the minority who want it?
Is protecting anti-censorship more important than protecting the rights of women?
If any other segment of the population were to be constantly depicted as subjects of violence, humiliation and degradation, would we be so blase about it?

In Praise of Photo Blogs

2006-03-11T03:42:00.000-04:00

The blogosphere is a great place to travel the world. When I was little, I used to read all my father's National Geographic magazines and from them, I caught the travel bug. They probably are a large part of the reason that I had no problem to hop a plane and try living in Greece. With encyclopedias, you learn the history. With photos, places come alive.

I still roam the world through photos...most often, the photoblogs I stumble across on the Internet. It's made me into somewhat of a voyeur...peeking inside people's lives around the world. Legends of unboilable fish in a pond of Nigeria or seaside chapels in a blogger's 'outpost' are just some of examples of what you can find in the blogosphere.

One of the best photoblogs I've seen is from Eagersnap, a Dane who had the good fortune of living and working in India for the past 6 months. The photos are amazing and you can follow his journey throughout India as he gets blessed by an elephant and visits a Portuguese village inside India. It's definitely worth a click.

Where (Female) Angels Fear to Tread

2006-03-08T14:05:00.000-04:00

According to the Sofia News Agency, women in Greece have started to demand access to the Athos Monasteries. This is the first I've heard of it. Greeks are always demanding something or other but it's usually related to better wages, pensions or American foreign policy--not access to a 1,000 year old monastic community. Other than MEP (Member of European Parliament), Anna Karamanou, I don't know of any Greek woman, let alone a Greek women's movement which collectively demands access on legal grounds. I'm sure many women would love to visit the site out of historical curiosity but would they take the necessary steps to file a lawsuit against the Holy Mount? If they do, it certainly won't be a simple and clear-cut matter.

Karamanou believes that the ban should be lifted on the grounds of gender discrimination and freedom of movement which are fundamental rights guaranteed by the EU. However, Mount Athos (Άγιο Όρος-Agio Oros) is an autonomous state protected by the Greek Constitution. Also, Mount Athos is also protected by another of the EU's fundamental rights--the right to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.

So which rights take precedence? Do the rights of women supercede the rights of Athos to practice their religion in their Constituonally protected territories?

As much as I am a firm believer in gender equality, I don't think that Mount Athos should be forced admit women to its monasteries any more than a Jewish synagogue should be forced to seat women with men or the Catholic Church to ordain women priests. Religion is a personal choice and if women don't like that their religion treats them as second-class citizens, then they can exercise their right to practice and worship in another religion of their choice. I am disappointed that I won't be able to see the all the centuries-old icons and relics they have but does that mean I have the right to see them? If that's the case, then maybe I should start my own movement to demand access to the Pope's personal Papal Chambers in the Vatican.

Unless a religion advocates and encourages practices which endanger lives, then I, personally, am not bothered if they won't let me take a gander at their religious trinkets.

Good News and Bad News

2006-03-03T13:52:00.000-04:00

If I can get my act together, I'm going to do a bi-weekly blog on current events which have caught my eye in the Greek news over the two week period. These items are noteworthy but not necessarily blogworthy (worthy of devoting a whole blog to the subject) and will keep my readers abreast of what's going on in Greece without having to wallow through dozens of websites. I'll add my own commentary to the news items I find and hope that you will do the same in the comments section. So....towards that end....

The Good News
Cremation Law Passed
On Wednesday, Greece passed a new law which will finally allow cremation as an alternative to burial for those who aren't of the Greek Orthodox religion. This is a welcome law especially since the graveyards are full to capacity and since many people who aren't Orthodox have had to ship the bodies outside of Greece for cremation. The Church's official stance is still against cremation and will refuse burial ceremonies for their brethren who do choose cremation. The up side is that Archbishop Christodoulos may consider reviewing the policy in the future.

Recycling Comes to Athens
For the past week, I've been noticing a strange site in Athens. The appearance of plastic blue garbage bins on street corners all over Athens. Finally, it seems Athens is joining the Recycling ranks. Now, Athenians can separate their garbage into recyclable items like cans, cartons and plastic bottles and put them in the special blue bins for that purpose. It remains to be seen if they will or not. The Municipality has been handing out blue nylon bags to help us in the effort. I got mine last week but I'm still waiting for the blue bin to appear on my street so I can empty the bag contents into the bin. Hopefully, they've fixed the Recycling plant since a mountain of rubbish collapsed on it.

$210 Million in Funding for SMEs
If you own a business in the tourism or manufacturing sector, you could be eligible for funding. Economy Minister, Giorgos Alogoskoufis, announced that $210 million would be made available to Small and Medium Enterprises who qualify and submit their applications between March 15- July 15. Banks will hold complete responsibility for the approval and disbursement of the funds under the supervision of the Public Sector. Considering Greece's track record as a bureacratic and favouritism gold medallist, I pity the poor applicants who will no doubt, be sent on a never-ending paper chase.

The Bad News
Growth Rate
For quite some time, the world has been hearing about Greece's high growth rate which has exceeded the EU average for several years. Living in Greece, you might wonder how this phenomenon has occurred when many citizens are complaining of unemployment, high cost of living and rising inflation. The growth rate is real but as Kathimerini reports, "it was based on increased state spending, inflows from the European Union and credit expansion". So the growth rate in Greece isn't based on increased production but on continued cash injections. This can't be good.

PASOK Takes the Lead
For the first time since the March 2004 elections which saw New Democracy put an end to almost 20 years of PASOK rule, PASOK has again taken the lead in the latest polls. 34.4% of Greeks would vote for PASOK in the next general elections as opposed to 34% for ND. Greeks are disillusioned. After 2 years with ND in power, Greeks don't know which way to turn. Although ND has implemented (albeit rather clumsily) new reforms, they just aren't enough to convince Greeks that the country is doing any better. The government's handling of the Vodafone scandal probably had a lot to do with the results of this poll. Once the clamour of that botched PR fiasco dies down, maybe Karamanlis will manage to get some of his voters' confidence back.

Greek Poultry Farms in Danger
Since the outbreak of the avian flu was confirmed in Greece several weeks ago, poultry farms have seen their sales plummet by as much as 80%. In an industry which employs over 15,000 people, the economic effects of the outbreak will most certainly jeopardize those jobs. The Association of Greek Poultry Industries has stated “Losses are incalculable and we are already in a position where keeping all jobs intact is impossible.” As usual, the fear-mongering media exacerbates the situation by failing to mention that eating poultry doesn't put you at risk to contract the disease.

Keeping History Alive

2006-02-27T17:13:00.000-04:00

She spent her money saving her homeland,

I'll spend my money saving her home.

When I spend money, I try to spend it wisely. Before I buy anything, I will shop around to get the best deal. I rarely ever buy anything on impulse and I usually complain about the prices of most things...except museums in Greece. I never question the price of admission, nor the fact that an 8-page pamphlet of whatever museum I visit costs 10€. I will even buy things there that I don't really need like 2€ postcards or a 3€ photocopied picture of the museum on a piece of laser paper. Why? Because museums in Greece are severely underfunded if they're funded at all. I feel that if my 10€ helps keep the museum open for another hour, then it's money well spent.

I just love visiting museums. I've been to the Acropolis, National Historical Museum, the War Museum, Folk Art Museum and Children's Museum in Plaka as well as the Jewish Museum. I find them all interesting and the historical details I glean from them gets committed to my memory much quicker than when I read my history books. Books give me an impersonal overview of events whereas the museums make events a much more personal experience. It's one thing to see a picture of traditional costumes from Northern Greece and quite another to actually see the fabric and the hundreds of creases in a dress on display in the Folk Art Museum. I sympathised with the poor Greek woman who had to iron all those creases in the days before Stirella irons were invented. I was amazed at the painstaking detail in the embroidery. You just can't experience that from reading a book.

Most of these larger museums and historical sites (Delphi, Epidavros, Palamidi Prison) are funded the by the Greek Ministry of Culture. Because nearly every square inch of land in Greece can be deemed a historical site, the State just can't afford to maintain and operate all of them. This leaves many of the smaller museums on their own trying to scrape enough money together from private funding and visitors to keep their places open.

On the island of Naxos, Mr. Della Rocca owns and operates the Venetian Museum. He converted his family's ancestral home into a museum all by himself and relies solely on the proceeds he makes from visiting tourists. He also makes sure everyone knows this by posting a sign outside the entrance stating that he's managing his museum on his own with absolutely no help from the Greek government. I admired this man's initiative to keep his museum open and bought everything he had to offer for sale.

When visiting the island of Spetses a few years ago, I was privileged enough to tour the home of one of my favourite Greek figures in modern history, Laskarina Bouboulina. Her direct descendant explained to me that he was also trying to keep her home open on a shoestring budget and again, I bought every single pamphlet, postcard and photocopy he had for sale to support his commendable efforts.

The other reason I never quibble over the cost of museum fees is because I grew up in Canada where anything over 100 years old is considered history. To be able to experience history on the scale of what Greece has to offer exceeds the 50€ or more I spend at the museums. It's a chance of a lifetime for me and I'd much rather spend my money trying to keep history alive than at a movie theatre or taverna any day of the week.

Why Steven Seagal Still Makes Movies

2006-02-22T14:27:00.000-04:00

Owning home entertainment stores in Athens has made me realize several things about people.

People really do like sex and violence.
People prefer to watch notoriously brainless movies rather than watch critically acclaimed ones because the subject matter is 'too depressing'. This is why I can't even give away Hotel Rwanda or Human Trafficking for free.
No matter how old and how bad an actor Steven Seagal is, his movies will always make money on rentals. We have two stores in two distinctly different income areas and Steven will be happy to know that he does well in both stores.

I've also come up with the following lists, based on our customers' rental patterns to let those of you who are interested in good movies know why your local DVD club may not order them.

5 Ways to Kill A DVDs Profitability

1. Print Rosebud/Cannes/Sundance/Toronto/Venice Festival Award Winner on the cover.
As soon as customers see those words, the majority of them will refuse to rent the movie no matter how good it may be. If it's not an Oscar award, they assume that it's an incoherent 'culture' flick that only "artsy-fartsy" people will like.
Examples are: Monsoon Wedding and Vera Drake

2. Use Unknown Actors
If a movie uses actors that aren't on this week's tabloids front covers, then the movie won't make it from the rental shelf into the DVD player. Band of Brothers was a great series but I had to practically whip the customers...even the ones who only rent war movies...to get them to rent it.

3. Put women on the front cover.
Unless it's obvious the women are lesbians, a movie with only fully-clothed women on the DVD cover (almost always on a white background), will get labelled as a "chick flick" and therefore will only be rented by women when their husbands are watching a soccer game.
Examples: First Wives Club, Waiting to Exhale and Beaches

4. Put an an animal on the cover.
Unless it's a porno movie, animals appearing on DVD covers will ensure that the movie will only get rented if it's Sunday, all the other titles aren't available and the customer has children. Hidalgo managed to escape this fate because Viggo Mortensen (of Lord of the Rings fame) was emphasized and the horses appeared far off in the background.
Example: Seabiscuit, Snow Dogs and The Horse Whisperer

5. Classic Movies
We have ordered classic titles such as To Catch a Thief, Casablanca, The Caine Mutiny and over the course of 5 years, we have rented Casablanca only a few times. The rest of them are in pristine condition, never having been removed from the shelves since the day we bought them. Customers would rather lie to me saying they've already watched them so they can get away with renting garbage like Parasite.

5 Ways to Ensure a DVDs Profitability

1. Put naked women on the cover
No matter how bad the movie is, we will always make money off movies depicting women in various states of undress or in sexually provocative poses on the front cover. Most infantile college humour movies are bound to rake in money just because they have a semi-naked woman on the cover. It doesn't matter if the movie tanks at the box office, as long as there's sexual innuendo on the front cover, it will rent.
Examples: Road Trip and Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle (You'll notice that the words "unrated" appear on both covers which only serves to hike up the rentals)

2. Put Guns or Blood on the Front Cover
Movies that people probably wouldn't watch if they read the plot summary, will end up renting them.
Examples: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Oldboy. Both of the movies are worth watching in their own right but I'd have a harder time renting them if the covers didn't feature violence.

3. Use A list Actors in the Movie
Just as using unknown actors in a movie can send it straight to the bargain bin, using A list actors will ensure the movie gets rented by enough people to turn a profit...even if the movie has been panned by every critic.
Examples: Ocean's Twelve and Showtime

4. Print "Oscar Winner" on the Cover
Even if you didn't think Halle Berry deserved Best Actress for her role in Monster's Ball, it will still rent because the word "Oscar" appears on the cover. I doubt anyone would have rented A Beautiful Mind without it's Oscar status unless of course a gun, blood or naked woman replaced the little gold statue.

5. Create a catchy movie title
If the movie Promised Land was not released in Greece as Whores, then I would have lost money on it. Also notice how the cover changes from two women to several women in their underwear in the Greek version. Men rent this movie and are quite disappointed to find out that it's a mockumentary about human trafficking and not a movie about happy strippers. The only reason people still rent Sex, Lies and Videotape is because of the title. Most customers have returned it saying that they got bored because there wasn't enough sex, lies or videotapes of sex and lies.

All Dressed Up and Everywhere to Go

2006-02-18T04:52:00.000-04:00

Party Time in Greece

In Greece, you don't dress up in costumes for Halloween, you dress up for Apokries. It's a 3 week period preceding Lent. This year, the dates are from February 12 to March 5. All over Greece, you'll see children dressed up as princesses, pirates, cowboys and the villain in the movie "Scream". The custom is said to have pagan roots related to the Dionysian festivals celebrating the God of wine and feasts. The last day of Apokries is celebrated with carnivals. In Athens, the district of Moschato has a parade down the main street complete with festive music blaring over loudspeakers and entrants wearing elaborate costumes comparable to Mardi Gras celebrations around the world. The most popular carnival is held in Patra. By the end of Apokries, many adults will join in the fun and dress up as well.

The day after the carnival is called Kathara Deftera (Clean Monday) and most Greeks will celebrate it by flying kites. Quite a few Greeks still follow the tradition of excluding meat and eggs in their diet for the 40 days leading up to Easter. Many Athenians will head up to Mt. Philopappou hoping to get better winds to propel their kites higher and longer than the rest. Every time I go, I spend more time with my kite on the ground or disentangling it from the dozens of others around me. Hope springs eternal so maybe this is the year I'll actually manage to get mine aloft for more than two minutes and high enough so that when it eventually does its spiral descent, it'll be somewhat entertaining. Since the kites are readily available from the kite vendors all over the city on this statutory holiday and cost only about 10€, everyone in the family gets the chance to fly one.

In my house, Apokries has started with the traditional Scare Tactics. My son has been terrorizing me all day in his Scream costume so I better hurry up and find a Genie costume so I can threaten to turn him into a frog if he dares to jump out from behind one more door. If that doesn't work, at least I know I'll drive my dog batty wearing it around the house.

Germany's "Muslim Test"

2006-02-15T15:42:00.000-04:00

German Citizenship Test: Discrimination or Necessity?

Last March, I blogged about the need for culture-immersion courses for new immigrants in light of the honour killings and abuse of children committed by foreigners in western countries. In a district of Germany, it looks like they're trying to implement something similar. "Discussion Guidelines" for new citizenship applicants attempts to gauge their attitudes towards behaviour which is considered criminal in Germany but sometimes tolerated if not promoted in their native countries and/or religion. The 30 question test given to applicants is under fire from the Muslim population.

They believe that these questions are for the sole purpose of excluding them for citizenship. As far as I know, this test will be administered to ALL new applicants, not just Muslims. I believe it is a necessary process because I really cannot stand to read anymore news articles about women being murdered for 'disgracing' the family and children being beaten because it's an acceptable form of punishment in their native countries. If a simple questionnaire can prevent more women and children from abuse in our countries, then it's worth people's feelings getting hurt. I can say this because I wouldn't object to any such questionnaire if I were emigrating to a new country. In fact, I would expect it.

If I were to immigrate to Indonesia and I plan on smoking marijuana while I'm there because my country allows it, I would think the Indonesian government has every right to ask me about my beliefs pertaining to drug use since it is a taboo in their society and chances are I will force them to spend quite a bit of money to prosecute and incarcerate me. Likewise, if I were applying for Saudi Arabian citizenship and they asked me what I thought about forsaking my rights to vote, work and drive without my husband's permission then I'd fully expect them to reject me based on my answers. And they would be right to do so because it's obvious I will not adapt or integrate into their culture.

The questions, which have been leaked to the German media, cover a range of subjects. A few examples:

How do you view the statement that a woman should obey her husband, and that he can beat her if she doesn't?

You learn that people from your neighbourhood or from among friends or acquaintances have carried out or are planning a terrorist attack - what do you do?

Some people hold the Jews responsible for all the evil in the world, and even claim they were behind the attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York. What is your view of this claim?

Imagine that your son comes to you and declares that he's a homosexual and would like to live with another man. How do you react?

Are Muslims complaining because they know what their answers will be? If so, then all the more reason to take the test. Or are they complaining on behalf of ALL foreigners? If so, why aren't the Chinese, Greeks, Russians, Japanese and Filipino applicants voicing their disdain for the new measure?

Turin's Opening Ceremonies

2006-02-10T16:52:00.001-04:00

Let the Games Begin.

Athens has nothing to worry about. The 2004 Summer Games Opening Ceremonies were the best I've seen. What a letdown to see Turin's Opening Ceremonies. In a word--boring. I've seen the same routines a zillion times over. Maybe I expected too much from a country who gave the world da Vinci and Botticelli, Verdi and Puccini, law, aquaducts and good roads.

The producers promised us Rhythm, Passion and Speed and what we got was Clumsy, Uninspired and Lethargic.

Why on earth were we listening to disco? Was Pavarotti in Las Vegas? While the parade of countries took place, disco songs were the background music. Athletes were waving "hello" and Gloria Gaynor was singing "Go on now, go, walk out the door, just turn around now 'cause you're not welcome anymore". Didn't anyone listen to the lyrics?

The acrobatic 'dancers' hanging from the Olympic rings performed in oblivion--their size (in comparison to the ginormity of the rings) and their costumes served as camouflage making it next to impossible to even see what they were doing without zoom binoculars and a front row seat. And the performers with the huge lightbulbs on their heads? Apparently they were supposed to represent snow but that was lost in translation for me. It looked like a Kraftwerk video from the 80s.

The Botticelli Birth of Venus inspired lady in the clamshell was pretty though.

All I can say is that I hope the actual Olympic events will compensate for the disjointed and lacklustre Opening Ceremonies.

Million Euro Baby

2006-02-08T14:37:00.000-04:00

Population of Greece: 10,668,354 ..... + 1

Yesterday, I became an aunt for the second time. I now have a beautiful little niece who will make it next to impossible for me to pass a baby store without finding at least 127 things that I will convince myself to buy for her.

I like to think that I am a practical woman. Anything I buy must be good value, good quality and of course, useful. However, when it comes to babies, practicality takes a back seat to fluffy, colourful sleeper sets and little dresses with Walt Disney glitterized cartoons emblazoned on the front. I know babies aren't toys or pets. I understand that. And even though I have worked amongst the conniving forces who market and advertise these non-essential and often overpriced items to consumers, I still succumb to their machinations. The only thing I can say in my defence is that I don't substitute necessity for style. A baby's safety and comfort come first and then I load up on the non-essentials like Weebok sneakers before she can even walk.

The birth of a new baby anywhere in the westernized world is expensive even if you are immune to guerilla advertising tactics. In Greece, probably even more so. Most Greek parents will pay several thousand euros in cash bribes to their doctor even though their healthcare insurance covers the delivery and hospital fees.

The other costly difference is naming the baby. Babies are not named until they are baptised in the Greek Orthodox Church which usually happens in the baby's first year (unlike in Canada where they like to have the baby named and his/her birth registration forms filled out before you even leave the hospital). Baptisms are usually costly affairs involving many expenses. Most of my friends have paid anywhere from 3000-7000€ for the often lavish event. In a year's time, my brother-in-law will be paying for invitations, caterers, the christening outfit and bonbonieres, lambades (candles) and the priest before "το μωρό" (the baby) receives her official christian name. Since the guests will be bringing gifts in honour of the baby's baptism, she will be outfitted and spoiled with toys well into her third birthday.

Of all the celebrations in life, the birth of a baby is the one I enjoy most and I'm so happy that Greeks believe it too. Yes, babies are expensive but I consider the money spent on them is just a symbol of the love people feel towards them. It's wonderful knowing that my niece will grow up in a country where she will be loved by family and doted on by affectionate Greeks.

Burden of Proof

2006-02-02T10:45:00.000-04:00

Jesus the Man or Jesus the Legend?

It was only a matter of time before someone actually got up the gumption to sue the Church and question its very reason for being.

Confirmed atheist, Luigi Cascioli, has sued the Roman Catholic Church for conning its citizens. Invoking a law known in Italian as "Abuso di Credulita Popolare" (Abuse of Popular Belief), he wants the church to prove that Jesus actually existed as a historical figure.

Whether this actually gets past the preliminary trial remains to be seen but it would be great to see what kind of evidence the Church can come up with besides using the Bible as the sole resource as their basis proof for Jesus' existence.

I have a vested interest in this myself. Last year, while helping my son research the life of St. Thomas on the internet for his religious class in school, I could not find any concrete evidence of his existence let alone his death. This has never happened to me. I always find what I'm looking for on the internet and my own library...from the names and addresses of long lost relatives to actual CDC invoices of viruses the US shipped to Iraq. I could find tons of credible evidence of men who lived long before Jesus from many different sources but when it came to researching saints, the only 'proof' of their existence came from religious sites.

If I wanted to prove the emperor Tiberius existed, I know where his house is. If I wanted to prove Alexander the Great existed, there are hundreds of places both online and offline to confirm it. But when it comes to Jesus or the saints, the Church seems to have the monopoly on any information pertaining to them. Anything else seems to be based on legend. It's easier to prove the existence of alien abductions than the lives of Jesus and his apostles.

For those of you who do decide to comment on this post, I want to make it clear that I don't really care to have the Bible quoted back at me verse by verse. I have read it. But if anyone has credible and tangible proof of Jesus' existence without resorting to how-dare-you-question-the-bible arguments, I'd love to read it.

I've Been Diagnosed as Heartless and Greedy by My Spin Doctors

2006-01-28T15:56:00.000-04:00

Ever since the New Democratic party took over the reins of Greece in March 2004, some media outlets have afforded them an extraordinarily long grace period which continues at present. Initially, I agreed with their lenience and even though I agree with any government efforts to combat the corruption and financial mismanagement of this country. Karamanlis has been in power almost two years now so it's time to stop holding his hand and covering up his government's many mistakes and missteps. The government already has enough spin doctors and sycophants on its payroll. The media needs to stop spinning the news as they've done in the examples I've listed below and just report it.

When the State paid 1.5 billion€ to rid themselves of feckless OTE employees, the press cheered the decision instead of questioning the financial feasibility of such a hyperinflated payout for parasitic public servants.

When the judiciary was rocked to its very foundations by countless charges of bribery and trial-fixing (Ted Laskaris at Phylax expertly blogged this ongoing sordid saga), the media towed the party line again and applauded Karamanlis for tackling corruption. However, they didn't bother to ask if he even had a backup plan to keep the already creakingly slow justice machinery on top of its caseloads while judges and lawyers alike were being removed as the indictments were handed out.

When the deficit was constantly revised upwards (just do a search for "Greek deficit" and just try to count how many times it was revised), they again, rightly blamed PASOK for incurring such an exorbitant debt but refused to question the inability of New Democracy's Finance Minister to accurately report the magnitude of the debt in his first 3 attempts. He also could not pass the 2006 budget in under 3 attempts. This is also the same man who predicted he would be able to increase State revenue collection by 11% and when he realized he couldn't, he downgraded his original prediction to 5%. When he managed to collect 5.4%, the media praised him for 'exceeding' his revised target instead of lambasting him for having only collected half of his original target.

These unofficial State cheerleaders have gone overboard this time with today's commentary in Kathimerini. The journalist, Nikos Nikolaos goes back 30 years into the archives of his memory to tell his readers a story of generosity. Apparently, an entrepreneur was owed $20 million by the State for a nickel subsidy owed to him. The Coordination minister refused since the State's coffers were empty. At the same time, the Defence Minister entered the office and requested that the Economy Minister issue a cheque to get a Greek frigate out of hawk in Bremen. At this point, the entrepreneur told the ministers to use the money owed to him to pay for the Greek frigate "since the frigate is for Greece". The journalist then proceeds to praise the entrepreneur's benevolence and patriotism while insulting the Greek businesspeople of today who, as he says, are "heartless and greedy, they demand more and more from the state without putting their hands in their pockets to help Greece."

I fear that the Greek citizens are being primed for new laws aimed to further tighten the State's chokehold on small businesses because of the actions of a few plutocrats. As a business owner, I am insulted and angered by this man's opinion that we are all heartless and greedy while we pay the wages of other citizens, the health funds and burdensome taxes. We pay our own way in society and strive to contribute something to this country's economic growth. We, like so many other small business owners we know, are struggling to survive in a country whose Draconian tax laws, suffocating bureaucracy and civil servant extortionists conspire against us. The majority of us do not have teams of over-priced lawyers, Swiss bank accounts, luxurious yachts or palatial villas on the French riviera.

All I know is that if most of us "heartless and greedy" businesspeople put our hands into our pockets, all we will retrieve is lint.

Bouzoukia. Places to Go When You're Bored.

2006-01-26T16:40:00.000-04:00

A night out at one of the many bouzoukia in Athens.

The first time I was asked if I'd ever been to 'bouzoukia', I thought they were talking about a geographical place in Greece. When I was informed that they were actually Greek night clubs with live entertainment, it was only a matter of minutes before I morphed into Party Girl and was on my way to a Greek night out.

If you've got money and enjoy the performer's music, you can have a lot of fun. Although, I've always felt claustrophic in them, I do enjoy watching the 'shows' in the audience as well as the one on stage.

The Cost
When I went to see Giannis Ploutarchos (a popular Greek singer whose face adorns Greek secretaries' screensavers everywhere), we paid the mandatory 200€ for a bottle of whiskey. Since there were four of us in attendance, that worked out to 50€ per person. And because I don't drink whiskey, I shelled out more money to have my preferred poison, Kahlua, brought to the table. Granted, I would probably have paid the 50€ for a ticket to see Ploutarchos anyway because I do enjoy his music so I can't say I was too put out by that cost. For second-rate singers I've seen, even 25€ per person is too much.

Next come the flowers. Trays and trays of stemless carnations are sold to the patrons for about 15€ each so we can throw them on the stage only to be swept off minutes later by a stagehand. One patron in front of me spent, by my count, 1500€ on them. Most tables buy at least 5 trays and since the patrons are packed in the clubs like sardines, it doesn't take long before you start to wonder where all these flowers are grown. I've never seen fields of carnations on any of my travels in Greece so I figure there must be some uncharted island which is home to nothing but carnation fields to support such a popular industry.

The Dancing
There is no dance floor...there's hardly enough room for the waiters and flower girls to pass between the tables let alone dance. Many women resort to jumping on the tables to dance. I always laugh when this happens because they're usually wearing high heels and mini skirts. Too many times I've seen these Glamazons keel over backwards while trying to maintain some sense of modesty by pulling down their mini skirts as they try to navigate through the dozens of bottles, flowers and glasses on the tables. Just a suggestion ladies, if you're embarrassed about your dresses rising too far up your thighs, maybe you shouldn't be on the table in the first place.

If you're not a table dancer, then there's always the stage. I like this part of the evening because no other night club I've ever been in allows patrons to be on stage with the performer at the same time. I'm quite amazed that anyone can actually sing while being pawed by dozens of inebriated or overly-infatuated women. Now I understand why some bouzouki singers make upwards of 20,000€ per night. It's truly a talent.

The Verdict
After all is said and done, I still prefer dance clubs to bouzoukia. I like huge dance floors and the fact that I don't have to spend an hour trying to fight my way the 20 metres to the stage and where the cover charge won't mean my financial ruination. But you can't say you've had a night out on the Greek town if you haven't been to bouzoukia so pick a singer you like, find out where he or she performs, and try it out if you're not claustrophobic and allergic to flowers.

It Was Bound to Happen

2006-01-22T06:21:00.000-04:00

Sun, Sand....and lineups

When you become a permanent resident of Athens, you will also become a permanent victim of bureacracy. No matter how prepared you are, you will spend hours every week waiting in endless lineups to pay your bills or deal with the necessary evil called the civil service. Just because you wait patiently in a line-up does not mean that you will complete your transactions. That's just the first step in a long and arduous journey of lost paperwork, misinformed staff, strikes, vacations, and numerous mistakes which will keep you running from one department to another and they're usually never in the same building. Chances are, you will never get anything done the first time around and you will soon realize that employees and civil servants are never accountable for their own ineptitude and incompetence. You will be sent on a week long paperchase only to find out that all your efforts were for nought since the papers you received weren't the right ones or even necessary to have once you return them to a different clerk within the same department. I am almost convinced it's all part of the master plan to keep Greek citizens so wrapped up in paperwork so they don't have idle time on their hands to criticise the government and demand better service.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise to me to read that an off-duty policeman and his brother beat up a town planning clerk in front of his colleagues because the clerk had lost the man's mother's application for electricity connection to her home. What does surprise me is that situations like this one doesn't happen more often.

Greek Issues Chat Room Now Open!

2006-01-21T02:17:00.000-04:00

I have good news. Not only has OTE decided to fix whatever was wrong with my ADSL connection after being without internet for 4 days this week, but a fellow blogger, Eff25, has created a chat room for us.

I talked to him about my desire to chat with bloggers and commenters alike in real time because I like the immediacy of being able to discuss issues on my blog or on other blogs. So, now I have a place where other bloggers and commenters can discuss, rant, and interact in real time.

The room is hosted on the Everywherechat.com server. If you don't see the room there listed by opening the home page, you can click on the direct link in the sidebar and it should open the room for you. All you need to do is register a nickname for yourself and join the room from the list or from the links in my sidebar. Eff has also created a blog with the links there as well. I will usually be in the room early in the morning before I go to work and in the evenings after work so come for a visit! Even if you don't have any Greek issues to discuss, just come for a real time conversation. Hope to see some of you there!

Knowing When to Hold or Fold

2006-01-16T13:50:00.000-04:00

It could be worse but it could also be a lot better.

For the past several weeks, I've been attending parties and dinners for Christmas, New Year's, birthdays and name days. As much as I love to go to these events, socialize and have some fun with my friends, the 'party' atmosphere was missing. The same people, music and food were present but at each and every event, the mood soured when the conversation turned to everyone's plans for the New Year.

It's no secret that the cost of living, inflation and unemployment are increasing in Greece while our salaries (for those of us still employed) are barely keeping up. For the first time in 5 years, our stores suffered a 25% decrease in sales. Two relatives of one of our friends ended up shutting down their businesses after 30 years in operation. Those who are employed complain of working longer hours with no increase in salary. Recent university graduates who came home from abroad for Christmas said they wouldn't be returning to Greece to live and work because it's just not worth it. I don't really blame them since the salaries they'd receive here pale in comparison to what they're getting in Finland, Germany and the US. One 42 year-old woman who lost her executive position last year said it took her 8 months to find another job...as a legal secretary for a law firm. She considered herself lucky to find it. One thing's for sure, this present economic climate is affecting everyone across the board...from graduates to employees to business owners.

With all these tales of woe, it's no wonder that as the night wore on, many of them asked me what I'm still doing in Greece. They said if they had half the chance to leave, they would. This comes as a surprise to me since 8 years ago, these were the very same people telling me that Greeks who left Greece during the Junta were cowards. At that time, I told them cowards don't leave the country and family they know and love to move thousands of miles away to create new lives for themselves. Cowards don't abandon everything they've ever known to exchange it for the mere possibility of a better life elsewhere...struggling with a new language and culture without the support of their immediate family. Those words fell on deaf ears then and now, they are asking me how difficult it would be for them to emigrate to Canada. I was asked this question so much over the holidays, I figure the Canadian Dept. of Immigration should be paying me a salary for all the work I did on their behalf.

As much as I would hate to leave such a beautiful country as Greece and all the wonderful experiences I've had here, I would be lying if I said that I haven't considered going back to Canada. It's a decision I don't take lightly because I would have gone after the first 6 months when I found it the most difficult to be here. But I have my son's future to consider and with things as they are, I don't see much of a future for him in Greece. If only I had some faith in the current government's ability to turn this country around but with 37 government appointees fired or resigned (Markoyiannakis was #37) due to incompetence and corruption, the signs don't look positive.

I liken my dilemma to a game of poker. Should I continue to bet on the 'two pair' I was dealt in Greece or should I fold and find a game in Canada where a four of a kind or flush may await me. I never mastered the art of knowing when to hold my cards and when to fold so I guess it becomes that much more difficult for me to know if staying here and weathering the storm will prove to be the right choice. I can't speak for all Greeks, but for me, I'm playing the waiting game and hoping against all odds that the worst is over and better times are ahead.

Families and Marriages

2006-01-11T14:39:00.000-04:00

If you've ever seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I'm sure you all remember the scene where the groom-to-be's parents are invited to their future Greek in-laws home for a dinner. The emotionally cold parents show up with a Bundt cake on their doorstep and are literally overwhelmed by the multitude of extended family members as well as their affectionate nature. For those of you think that the scene was over the top, think again. Greeks really are like that and I love it. It took awhile to get used to all the kisses and hand-holding when people first met me because I had grown up where 'personal space' was to be respected and public displays of affection were for the weak and those of questionable character.

I was exactly like that couple in the movie...wondering what on earth these people were up to with all their touchy-feely behaviour. I would recoil in horror when so many people would greet me with a kiss. I would retract my hand when relatives would try to hold onto it while talking to me. I just didn't know what their intentions were, so I did everything I could to avoid physical contact with them. Looking back at it all now, I must have seemed like such an inhospitable and cold-blooded creature to them.

I was born into a large extended family as well where everyone knew what everyone else was doing and if they didn't, they made it a priority to find out. I grew up knowing that no matter what happened in my life, my family would be there for me and I am grateful for it. However, I remember being taught to be distrustful of strangers which is the antithesis of what I experience with Greek families. They don't even have to be related to you to consider you family so every party, BBQ, dinner I attend, I am greeted with the same affection that I, myself, had reserved only for blood-relations in the past. You should see me now. I'm a changed person. Their affectionate nature is infectious. I no longer balk at being the first person to answer the door so I wouldn't be deluged with kisses. My Cold War is over. I've exchanged handshakes for kisses and hand waves for hugs.

Although Greek families are very close, I've noticed something else. Many marriages seem to be dysfunctional. Spouses who are married on paper only. One or both partners are unfaithful. I've personally known several women who grew up with both their mothers and their father's mistress eating meals together. At first, I thought these sham marriages existed only amongst the older generation where shotgun weddings and arranged marriages were quite the norm in the previous generation. Now, I see that this is not exclusive to only older couples. It is prevalent amongst couples my own age and even younger.

When I hear of infidelities time and time again, I can't help but think the reasons they got married in the first place are the cause. Husbands and wives have told me that they got married because:

their families expected it
their girlfriends were pregnant
theyreached an age where they felt they wanted a family and that they could not be guaranteed of finding someone 'better' than the girlfriend they had
they didn't want to be alone

Love was not a deciding factor when it came to choosing a spouse in these marriages. Many of the weddings that I have attended over the years are already showing the signs of emotional detachment if not infidelity. Even though very few of them will ever get divorced as would be the case in North America, they have a 'τι να κάνω" (what to do?) attitude towards it all. I suppose, then, that it doesn't suprise me to hear that half of all married men visit prostitutes according to Thanos Askitis, a clinical psychologist who founded Greece's first sex therapy centre.

People have blamed this disturbing statistic on the increased availability of strip clubs and legalisation of prostitution. Do strip clubs and brothels facilitate infidelity or are they the result of unstable relationships? I believe it's a symbiotic association. One is dependent on the other.

I would also like to know the demographics of the men visiting the brothels. What are their ages, their socio-economic status, and the geographic regions of the men included in Mr. Askitis' research study. I doubt many of the men I know visit brothels. Instead they have preferred to find long-term mistresses. So who's visiting the brothels?

If more couples were as devoted to each other as they are to their children, then none of this would even matter. With STDs on the rise, I would think that even self-preservation would be reason enough to keep men monogamous and women dedicated to both marriage and family.

A Meme by Me

2006-01-09T16:08:00.000-04:00

Diva just tagged me for a MEME. Although I've been blogging for over a year now, I didn't know what the word 'meme' meant. So I looked it up and found this definition...

“ meme n (mëm): A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. From the Greek mimëma, something imitated, from mimeisthai, to imitate. ”

In Blogspeak, a meme is an idea that is shared and passed from blog to blog, like a question posted in one blog and answered in many other blogs.

Because I loved the Proust Questionnaires on the back page of Vanity Fair magazine, I will now do my part and contribute to this meme.

FOUR THINGS MEME

FOUR JOBS I'VE HAD
Waitress. That lasted all of 3 weeks. What can I say? Most people don't deserve to be waited on.
Social Page Editor. I was the Birth/Deaths/Events lady at the newspaper. Interviewing Miss Azalea and the Dental Hygienist of the Year got me fired (apparently complaints were made about my apathy regarding their accomplishments) and I ended up in the Art Department.
Graphic Artist. Most of my co-workers believed I would meet my untimely death by an X-acto knife but technology intervened, and my blood levels were restored with the conversion to desktop publishing.
Production Manager. Finally, a job that I liked and excelled at. Working on tight deadlines and to strict budgets suited my autocratic personality.

FOUR TV SHOWS I WATCH
The Sopranos
CSI
The History Channel
The Discovery Channel

FOUR FILMS I CAN WATCH OVER AND OVER
Fight Club
Gladiator
Sound of Music
The English Patient

FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Fredericton, New Brunswick
Athens, Greece

FOUR PLACES I HAVE BEEN ON HOLIDAY
USA
Spain
Scotland
Greece

FOUR BLOGS I VISIT EVERYDAY
Mel's Diner
Devious Diva
EllasDevil
Phylax

FOUR FAVORITE FOODS
Vegetarian Lasagna
Yemista
Tabouleh
Pizza

FOUR PLACES I'D RATHER BE
Inside the Oval Office
Inside MI-6 Headquarters
Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia
Any traditional house on a Greek island

FOUR ALBUMS I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT
I like so many different types of music and musicians that there is no humanly way I can narrow them down to just 4.

FOUR VEHICLES I HAVE OWNED
Kawasaki motorbike
Chevrolet Nova
Mazda 626
Toyota Yaris

FOUR PEOPLE WHO NOW MAY CONSIDER THEMSELVES TAGGED
If I don't tag anyone does this mean evil things will happen to me?

Earthquake

2006-01-08T07:58:00.000-04:00

About 5 minutes ago, most of Greece experienced another earthquake. The latest reports say it measured 6.4 on the Richter scale and lasted 13.4 seconds. The epicentre was about 215 miles from Athens...off the coast of Crete.

I have experienced tornadoes, ice storms, hurricanes, blizzards but nothing scares me as much as an earthquake. There are no warnings. You can't see them coming. You can't prepare for them. I feel like I'm being held hostage on the 6th floor. It's not a matter of just opening the door and running onto the street.

Every time I feel an earthquake, I'm wondering if it's just a precursor for a bigger one. To say I'm nervous is a gross understatement. I will no doubt break out in hives again. At least I have my son who is much calmer than me. By the time I left my bedroom, he was already under the massive oak dining room table telling me to join him. My husband was even calmer. He did nothing. Just as he had when the 1999 quake struck and the one in Zakynthos over 2 years ago. It'll take at least all the forces of nature to get him to move faster than a snail's pace.

My son has already put his guinea pig cage under the table in the event that there are more quakes and aftershocks to follow today. As for me, I'm feigning calmness. If I had a tent, I'd be camping in the street for the rest of the day.

From Ruins to Wonders

2006-01-03T18:05:00.000-04:00

On the ferry to Santorini a few years ago, my husband and I befriended a congenial and talkative Australian world traveller. This man had left his country two years prior to see the world and when we met him he was on the last leg of his journey back to his native Australia. To fund his globetrotting, he would sell a head of cattle from his cattle ranch and have the money forwarded to a bank in whichever city he was in at the time. Since he had left Athens with us, we asked him what he thought of the Acropolis compared to other monuments elsewhere. I expected him to respond like I had when I first visited the Acropolis...that it was truly a remarkable architectural feat and a privilege to stand in the same place as the ancients before me. Instead, he simply responded, "If you've seen one ruin, you've seen them all."

Now that the 7 Wonders of the World list is being updated, I wonder if he'd vote for any particular one or stick with his original opinion.

Out of a possible 77 structures, UNESCO in collaboration with the World Heritage List has shortlisted 21 nominees:

the Acropolis, Athens
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul
the Eiffel Tower, Paris
the Statue of Liberty, New York
Jesus the Saviour, Rio de Janeiro
Sydney Opera House, Australia
the Colosseum, Rome
Stonehenge, Great Britain
the town Petra, Jordan
the Taj Mahal, India
the Stone Statues on Easter Island
the Great Wall of China
the Kremlin, Russia
Timbuktu, Mali
Machu Picchu, Peru
the pyramids of Chichen Itza, Mexico
the castle of Alhambra, Spain
Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany
the temple of Angkor Wat, Cambodia
the temple of Kiyomizu, Tokyo.
the Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt

Having only seen two (Statue of Liberty and the Acropolis) of the monuments personally, I would definitely vote for the Acropolis. The Great Pyramid of Giza is a 'must' for inclusion because it's the only remaining monument of the original 7 Wonders of the World. As for the rest, I'd have to do some research before casting my vote for the remaining five. Which ones would you choose?

Happy New Year!

2005-12-31T16:22:00.000-04:00

ΚΑΛΗ ΧΡΟΝΙΑ ΑΠΟ ΤΗΝ ΑΘΗΝΑ!

In an hour and a half, I'll be cutting the Vassilopita with my family to ring in the New Year and then it's off to play Eikosi Ena (a variant of Blackjack) at friends. What I wouldn't give to hear Auld Lang Syne being sung by my family and friends at the same time. Oh well, there's always next year! Have a very happy New Year everyone and make every day of it count.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o’ lang syne!

Chorus:
For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne!

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu’d the gowans fine,
But we’ve wander’d mony a weary foot
Sin’ auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl’t in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin’ auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie’s a hand o’ thine,
And we’ll tak a right guid willie-waught
For auld lang syne!

And surely ye’ll be your pint’ stoup,
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet
For auld lang syne!

Only in Canada

2005-12-29T15:30:00.000-04:00

Bob and Doug Mackenzie--Canadian stereotypes brought to life.

"You're Canadian? That's weird. I always thought Canadians were nice people."

"If I went to Canada, would people understand me if I spoke only English?"

"You Canadians think you're so much better than us. But you guys club baby seals to death."

"Why are you wearing your winter coat? It's 5 degrees celsius outside. You're Canadian...you should be used to the cold."

"You have no concept of politics because you're Canadian and your government does all your thinking."

These are just some of the many misconceptions people have about me when they find out I'm Canadian. The only one I haven't heard is that we're chronic complainers. Maybe that's because it's not a misconception. It's actually true.

We do complain a lot and we don't even realize it. I never realized it till I moved here. Canadians back home and expats I meet here complain about the obscene wait times in banks...spending 10 minutes in a lineup was unacceptable and evidence of a country rife with bureaucracy. Canadian women have complained about the audacity of public servants calling them "Mrs" instead of the customary "Ms" when their marital status hasn't been divulged. We're even encouraged to complain. A morning radio show rewarded listeners with cash for reporting the largest pothole in the road they'd seen that day so that it could be reported to the Department of Transportation for repairs.

So it comes as no surprise to me today when I read that the Premier of Canada's oil-rich province, (Saudi) Alberta, was giving every Albertan a $400 refund, they complained. Premier Ralph Klein decided to share the wealth amongst his province's residents and will be disbursing $1.4 billion within a couple of weeks. Most other nationalities would be thrilled to get money FROM the government instead of paying them. Not Albertans. Nope. Parents are complaining that their kids will only blow the cash on iPods or clothes they don't need. Even though I'm a complaining Canadian myself, I find this all a bit much.

I think a couple of months living in Moldova or Bangladesh might be the cure for our innate desire to complain.

Mama's Boys

2005-12-27T15:34:00.000-04:00

Stuart Smalley from SNL:

Back in the day, when I was single and an active player in the dating game, there was always one kind of guy I would never date. In fact, this was the kind of guy 99.9% of single women would never date. Who was he?

The guy who lived at home with his mama.

Even an unemployed, high-school dropout who lived in a rooming house and rode the bus to nightclubs had a better chance at securing a date than the Mama's Boy would. If a man who was over the age of 25 and still lived with his parents, you basically assumed he was socially retarded or a serial murderer (or both) and therefore, had to be avoided like the Plague. It didn't matter if he was good-looking, drove a nice car, had a good job and had the best manners...if he lived with his parents, he was dating poison.

The rationale amongst us single girls was that living with your parents made you dependent, lazy and weak. The last thing you need in a potential boyfriend was someone who needed to ask his Mom if he could stay out past midnight or clear it with his Dad so he could bring a girl home. You just couldn't help but get a visual image of either:

*Owen in Throw Momma From the Train
*Norman from Psycho
*Stuart Smalley from his Saturday Night Live skit

In Greece, however, it's quite the norm if a man as old as 30 still lives with his parents. He's not even ashamed to admit it. Single Greek women don't seem the least bit bothered by his living arrangements. Most Greek men have never lived on their own until the day they get married. They've never even paid a phone/electricity/water bill on their own let alone know where to pay them.

In their defence, the cost of living is quite high in cities like Athens and Thessaloniki where it's not uncommon for a rented studio apartment and related expenses to absorb an entire paycheque. But surely, couldn't they find a roommate to share the costs like many single men have done in order to have some semblance of independence?

There are 30 year-olds and even 40 year-olds who don't even have one bill in their name in order to get a membership card in our stores. They're all in their parents' names. In fact, if they have overdue movies, their mothers will come into pay for them pleading with me for lenience because their 35 year-old "Giannaki" (Little John) didn't have the time to come in himself. Have they no shame whatsoever?

Just because mothers cook, clean and wash their clothes for them is not reason enough to forsake their personal independence and opt for the laziness that parental roommates afford them.

Many of them will cite the comfort and high cost of living as reasons they aren't motivated to live independently. But for me, there comes a time when those reasons become nothing more than convenient excuses.

Merry Christmas from Athens

2005-12-24T03:43:00.000-04:00

Christmas in Athens (Syntagma Square)

One good thing about Christmas in Greece is that I can divide my Christmas shopping into two expeditions. Since Greeks traditionally exchange gifts on January 1, I get an extra week after Christmas to buy my Greek friends their gifts. My foreign friends and I still exchange our gifts on Christmas Day and fortunately, I've finished buying all their presents on time and by tomorrow, I will have more space under the tree to put all the gifts for my Greek friends. This way, my Christmas tree gets more 'use' and doesn't look so empty after Christmas Day. The Christmas season seems to last longer and I love it. Any reason to keep the glitter and lights around for another week suits me just fine.

Although Christmas ranks second to Easter in Greece, it's still quite an event. More and more Greeks every year are decorating their balconies in Athens with Christmas lights which makes driving at night dangerous since I find myself looking at the lights and not the street. It's not yet to the extremes of Chevy Chase's "Christmas Vacation" but I figure in a couple of years, the light displays will become even more elaborate and I'll have to make sure I walk instead of drive so as not to become a danger to myself and others around me.

Some homes and offices will decorate a boat instead of the imported Christmas tree tradition. The boat is a symbol of Greece's long-standing role as a seafaring nation and many Greeks consider the Christmas tree to be a foreign custom although it seems to be quickly replacing the boat in Greek living rooms during Christmas season. Since Christmas is nothing if not a holiday of tradition, I think I will pay tribute to the Greek custom and have a decorated boat in my house next year as well as my Christmas tree. Glitter is my personal tradition so having another object to decorate is a good thing.

Glitter aside, I now need to focus on my Christmas dinner. It's been an hour since the last child sung the kalanda (carols) so it's time to leave the house and get the last minute ingredients to complete my Greek/Canadian Christmas dinner. If all goes according to my plan, there'll be a perfectly roasted turkey and Christopsomo (Christ bread) on the table by 3pm tomorrow.

ΚΑΛΕΣ ΓΙΟΡΤΕΣ! (Happy Holidays!)

Achtung Baby!

2005-12-19T12:49:00.000-04:00

Paul Hewson aka Bono Vox aka Person of the Year

Normally, I couldn't give a rat's posterior about what a celebrity does or thinks. For the most part, they're nothing more than impediments I must endure when trying to read my daily fix of online news articles. Sometimes, if I even see a pseudo-celeb's name mentioned in an article, I immediately click out so I don't have to waste any time reading about some quasi drama in their asinine lives.

But I must admit, when it comes to Bono of U2, I have a soft spot. I always have. To a large extent, I credit him for my own interest in politics and current events. I was 16 when I heard his voice on my radio singing "All is quiet on New Year's Day" in 1983 and 22 years later, I'm still a fan of his music. Because of his involvement in reducing 3rd World debt, the Chernobyl Children's Project and Live Aid, I've become of fan of him as a person.

Other than Bob Geldof, I can't really think of another musician who has campaigned so long and so fervently for global awareness on poverty, disease, and our collective responsibility towards eliminating them. Needless to say, I was only too happy to see him get some recognition for his efforts by being name one of Time's Person of the Year along with Bill and Melinda Gates.

For the many people who have criticised him for grandstanding and being a wannabe politician, I can only say that I'd rather his brand of self-promotion over the likes of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton any day of the week.

Peace on Earth
Heaven on Earth
We need it now
I'm sick of all of this
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
Sick of pain
Sick of hearing again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on Earth
from All That You Can't Leave Behind, 2000

How Can Kids Learn if They're Not In School?

2005-12-16T02:06:00.000-04:00

Marietta Giannakou, Minister of Education

I know I must sound like a broken record because I'm writing once again about the quality of Greek education but it's a subject of real importance to me. Marietta Giannakou, the Minister of Education, seems to be a capable politician so I'm hoping that during her tenure as Education Minister, things will actually change in the school system.

Since the beginning of the school year, my son has missed quite a bit of school for many reasons which are beyond his control. He hasn't missed one day of school because he was sick or even faking sickness.

In September, on his first day back from school, he had a substitute teacher for a week because his regular teacher got married and took the first week off school. (A 3 month summer break and the teacher decides to take an extra week off to get married on the first week of the new school year?? )This is the same teacher who drilled into his students' heads last year that there was no acceptable excuse to miss school unless they were too sick. At least once a month, his class has a substitute teacher and while she is a teacher, he tells me that she can't teach much other than the religion class and language. Yesterday, she gave them a two-hour break to play soccer. The day before, he didn't have school because of the strikes.

He's missed at least 3 days due to class trips. Now, I wouldn't mind these trips if they were visiting museums, archaelogical sites or musical concerts. But all of them, bar none, have been to the cinema and theatre to see movies and plays that were more suitable for 6 year olds, not 12 year olds. Each of these trips cost about 8€.

For Oxi Day in October and the commemoration of the Polytechnic uprising in November, students spent several days each time preparing for them. Lessons are scaled back each time so they can practice marching in the parade for Oxi Day and learning songs and poems for November 17. For the last 10 school days, lessons have been scaled back again to prepare for the Christmas party.

When you factor in teachers in-service days along with strike days, I figure that my son has missed, at the very least, one week of lessons every month...and it's not even the end of December!

Both my husband and I have tried to bring up the subject in the Parents'-School Association meetings but that was just a forum for two parents who were hell-bent on removing cellular phone antennaes within the vicinity of the school. None of the parents who did show up did not seem the least bit concerned with discussing the quality of education their children were receiving. When I talked to two of my son's teachers about the manner of teaching and the educational value of the field trips, they both said I should talk to the Parents' Association and see if any other parents felt the same way.

Public education is not free. Our taxes pay for the schools and books. In order to supplement the the lessons he lacks at school, I pay (like most Greek parents) for computer/music/language and athletic lessons in private learning institutes. If this situation continues when he goes to junior high school next year, I will most likely be paying for additional science/history and language classes as well. Once that happens, I fear his interest in learning will subside and I may not be able to afford it all anyway if the economy continues its downward spiral. Friends of mine send their children to private schools but I'm not sure that's the solution either since they are so expensive and the pressure on these children to bring home good marks is unbelievable.

Since our children are now competing in a global job market, I simply cannot leave his education solely in the hands of the State. How long will it take the State to actually initiate change instead of dialogue in our public schools? Employment options for our children are disappearing with every day they spend discussing the situation.

It's Best to Let People Think You're a Fool

2005-12-13T11:37:00.000-04:00

“We see that the forces of darkness are undermining this country and are trying to remove Christianity from Greece and create a new order in our society so that in a few years nobody remembers God or the Church.”--Archbishop Christodoulos (Kathimerini Dec.13, 2005)

I honestly think the Church has a reference book on "Hyperbolic Retorts" and whenever the priesthood find itself on the wrong end of a court summons or caught in a power struggle or scandal, they use a quote from it. Either that or they're playing too many video games and watching too many vampire movies.

“Our staff do not have the knowledge to verify whether a sports shoe is counterfeit or not,” he said. “We need help from the companies.” (Athanassios Skordas, the Development Ministry’s secretary for consumer affairs) Kathimerini Dec. 13, 2005

I'm going to hlep Mr. Skordas out here for free because sometimes, I really am just THAT nice.

1. If you see someone selling what looks like Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Dior goods on a cardboard box on the corner of any street, I think it's safe to say they're knock-offs.

2. If name brands are misspelled (ie., SONYE, Guci, Dolce & Gabana) then you can presume they're knock-offs.

3. If music CDs are sold from people carrying backpacks, inserted into plastic envelopes with low res cover art, then you're looking at a pirated CD

4. If a movie hasn't even arrived in Greece in the cinemas and it's on sale at the laiki or from other street vendors, then it's a pirated DVD.

5. Hire new staff who have actually graduated from elementary school to work for you.

Καλά Χριστούγεννα...Έπιτελους!

2005-12-11T02:43:00.000-04:00

A Merry Christmas...Finally!

Every year, I'm getting better at celebrating Christmas in Greece. My tree goes up the first Sunday in December, I can actually locate all my ornaments and all my Christmas CDs have their own section in the CD jukebox. I've even shopped for a few Christmas presents. All in all, I'd say I've got the whole Christmas thing under control. Not like my first Christmas here.

That was probably my worst Christmas ever. I had no snow, no tree, no Christmas decorations, not to mention the fact that my knowledge of the Greek language was just enough to get me in trouble and my driving licence wasn't valid in Greece. Every simple task seemed gargantuan. I had totally underestimated celebrating Christmas in Greece.

The Tree
My mother-in-law decided to help me out by giving me her tree since she was going to Austria to spend her Christmas holidays. When my husband brought the tree home along with the decorations that went with it, my friend and I decorated it. She kept telling me how beautiful Dimitra's tree was on display at her house and how lucky I was that she gave it to me. But when we finished decorating, it looked nothing short of awful. The tree had a total of 8 needle-bare branches and the ornaments themselves were Ugly personified. My friend looked at me and said "What did you do to the tree? It never looked THIS bad before." I was crushed. How is it my mother-in-law, who would put Martha Stewart to shame with her home decor, could make such a sorry-looking tree look good with those ornaments. When my husband saw the tree he told me it was indeed ugly but not to worry about it because his mother would 'fix' it. How embarrassing. I come to a new country and I can't even decorate a tree. How was I going to survive? Luckily, my mother-in-law phoned later on that day and asked my husband how the tree looked. When he told her that she needed to come over help me make it look normal, she paused for a second and then said, "Which tree did you use?" He replied "what do you mean, "which tree"? I took the one you left by the door with the box of ornaments". She was horrified and said "you took the tree I left out for the garbage!" It turned out that the tree was a relic from the time the Reign of the Colonels in Greece. Now that the mystery was solved and my Christmas decorating skills were still intact, I immediately went out and bought a new tree with new ornaments that very evening rather than risk my husband finding another tree in a dumpster somewhere.

The Gifts
My husband told me not to worry about buying gifts for everyone since he would do that and it would take him a day. I thought he was exaggerating. Buying gifts for 20 people in under a day 2 days before Christmas? Impossible. But I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Big mistake. He came home with several ceramic picture frames with teddy bears on them and a bunch of 300 drachma (1 euro) Coca Cola can lighters. I wouldn't have given them to my worst enemy. To this day, he still doesn't see what was so bad about his 'gifts' which is why, to this day, I still won't let him out at Christmas time with money in his pocket. I did the Christmas shopping myself and incredibly, I didn't forget anyone.

Christmas Dinner
In Canada, I always had Christmas Dinner with my family so someone else always went through the trouble of cooking the turkey which was a good thing because I'm a vegetarian. In Greece, I was left to my own devices. I thought "how difficult can it be? I'll just buy a Butterball and be done with it." Famous last words. When my husband brought home the turkey from the local butcher, it still had FEATHERS on it and the giblets still inside!! There was no way I was going to touch it let alone stuff it...I would have been traumatized for life. Since it was already Christmas Eve, there was no alternative but to cook that poor creature. Our first big fight ensued. After a couple of hours bickering about who was going to prepare the turkey, we came to a compromise. I realized that there was no point getting a divorce over a dead bird. I would cook the stuffing and he would de-feather, de-giblet and stuff the turkey. Despite all the problems, the turkey turned out just fine and our marriage was saved...until New Year's Day.

New Year's Day
On New Year's Eve in Greece, many people play Eikosi Ena (21) a variant of blackjack for money. The game usually starts after midnight on Christmas Eve and finishes around daylight. On our first Christmas in Greece, we hosted the game at our house for all of our friends. My mother-in-law made the Vassilopita (a cake served on New Year's Eve with a coin (flouri) inside to bring good luck to the recipient.) Once the cake was cut, the game began and we played until 7:30am. I won about 75€ so I went to bed happy. I even woke up happy until my husband asked what I was making for the New Year's Dinner. Since I only had about 4 hours sleep in the last 2 days and the house looked like war zone, I reasoned that it would be better if we just ordered a pizza. (In my own defence, this is usually what we did in Canada on New Year's Eve since we usually partied all night long and the next day, my place would be occupied by the previous evening's party goers who were often too inebriated to drive home. )

The Turkey Fight was nothing compared to the New Year's Day Fight. My husband was not the least bit impressed with my pizza solution and what started out as a lecture on the importance of New Year's Day dinners in Greece culminated into complaints about my total disorganization during the holiday season. Since I figured I already did The Compromise for Christmas, it would be a cold day in Hades before I caved and started cooking a 5 course meal on a minute's notice. So out the door I went. I came back a few hours later and neither of us would talk to each other but we did have to eat so I fried some pork chops and boiled some rice and that was our New Year's Day dinner. Later on the evening and after I had checked out airfares back to Canada on travelocity.com, we ended up talking to each other. He realized he could have informed me about the tradition of a Greek New Year's Day meal and then we came to an agreement which we still keep to this day. I would always cook Christmas dinner using a featherless turkey of my choice and on New Year's Day, we would go to his mother's house so I didn't have to spend my entire holiday season cooking and cleaning. Unbeknownst to him, I also decided I would delete Travelocity on my list of bookmarks if I was going to make a go of it in my new country.

Since that horrendous Christmas, every holiday since then has gotten better and better each year...more fun and less fights. What a difference time makes.

Live Richly?

2005-12-07T02:10:00.000-04:00

Live fearfully would be more accurate.

There used to be a time that you could walk into a bank, present your account booklet to the teller and withdraw some of your paycheque to pay bills. It used to be that easy. Apparently, things have changed. Whether it's because of 9/11, November 17, anarchist's Molotov cocktails or just plain paranoia, one bank in Athens seems to have an unwritten dress code for their clients before they withdraw their own money.

About two weeks ago, the son of a friend of mine, Giorgo (not his real name) had just returned home from a short tour of duty in the Greek navy. Because he's a responsible person, he decided to go straight to his bank to withdraw money to pay the bills that had accumulated while he was away at sea. Although he is not a fashion icon wearing conspicuous name brand labels, he has never had a problem conducting his personal financial affairs wearing jeans and a t-shirt until two weeks ago. He walked into the Citibank branch he had been using for years and stood in line waiting to pay some bills and withdraw some money for household supplies. He was then asked to leave the lineup and accompany a security guard who had decided that he was a prime candidate for an interrogation. He demanded that my friend's son produce his ID card and state his reason for entering the bank. Giorgo provided the security guard with his ID card, bank passbook and stated his reason and was released back into the lineup once the guard scrutinized the documents before him and decided Giorgo was no longer a threat.

Giorgo believed that the only reason he caught the attention of the security guard was due to his casual clothes and the fact that he didn't shave that morning. He did not complain or create a scene but quietly submitted to the pop interrogation even though he was somewhat embarrassed to be questioned in front of so many other clients and bank staff.

If it were me, I would have produced all the evidence the security guard required and then I would have stood in front of the lineup and told all other clients that they better think twice about keeping their money in a bank where it has become necessary to treat people as criminals first and clients second. Then I would have withdrawn every cent I had in the bank and closed my accounts.

I do realize that banks have been the target of bombs, robberies and vandals over the years but if it's that dangerous for them to open their doors to the public, then maybe it would be better for them to reconsider doing business in Greece altogether rather than subject the very people who keep them in business to humiliating interrogations. It has been my experience that bank robbers usually don't wait in lineups wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Their modus operandi is more likely to involve masks, guns and a mad dash to the tellers' booths. If people have to dress to the nines in order to enter a bank and avoid these checks, then maybe it's time to choose a safer bank. We mocked our grandparents who preferred to keep money in a sock under their mattresses. Considering the risks of banking today, maybe they were right all along.

'Tis the Season to Be Penniless

2005-12-03T16:40:00.000-04:00

Last night, while driving back from Ygeias Hospital in Maroussi to my neighbourhood, we must have passed, literally, a thousand stores. From Kifissias Ave. to Vassilisas Sofias through Syntagma I made a very disturbing observation. All the stores were well lit, fully stocked but shopping customers were nowhere to be found inside them. In fact, the only people on the streets were those waiting for the bus. I could understand if it was a Wednesday night in the middle of November but this was a Friday night at 7pm--less than a month away from Christmas and only a day or two after most Greeks receive their monthly paycheques. I thought that maybe it was the weather and everyone was having coffee enjoying the unseasonally warm temperatures. But no, this didn't seem to be the case either since even the coffee shops were empty. That was even more strange since coffee and Greeks are synonomous.

I first noticed this phenomenon back in July when my husband and I were out for a coffee at one of the main squares in our neighbourhood. Normally, it's jam-packed with people and we are so accustomed to morphing into table vultures (the act of spotting patrons leaving a table and moving in fast enough before anyone else gets there) that when we saw the empty square we thought it must have been a long weekend and no one told us.

Our stores have had a noticeable drop in revenues from last year and we had assumed it was because a lot of the migrant population had left the city after the Olympic Games and that it would pick up again like it usually does by the end of November. However, that increase hasn't happened and from what I saw last night, I doubt it will.

Greeks just don't have money anymore. Both friends and customers are complaining about it. It's no wonder since Greeks have been borrowing money for unreasonably high mortgages; using credit cards like they were free money and the Athens 2004 employment bubble burst. When every second store has a "for rent" sign on it and every third car has a "for sale" sign on it, you just know things aren't going well. I don't need a status report from the Economy Ministry to tell me otherwise. The proof is on the streets and in our dwindling store profits.

2006 doesn't look very promising from where I sit.

Racism: The Road to Nowhere

2005-11-30T16:01:00.000-04:00

If you tolerate this, then your children will be next. --The Manic Street Preachers

1478-1834. Spanish Inquisition
1453-1821.Turkish atrocities in Greece.
1915.Armenian Genocide.
1700-1965.Slavery in the USA.
1948-1994.Apartheid in South Africa.
1940-1945. The Holocaust.
1994. Rwandan genocide.
1995. Srebernica.
2004.Darfur, Sudan.

Racism kills. It is not limited to one country, one civilisation, one time period. I've listed only 9 examples of the atrocities mankind has inflicted upon itself in the last 500 years. There are many more and there will be many more to follow because we seem incapable of change. We refuse to learn.

We've had the memorials to the victims. Speeches vowing never to let it happen again. We know about it. We have more power than ever before to implement change and prevent it and yet the best we seem to do is acknowledge its existence.

How many more Holocausts, genocides, mass murders do we need before we get it through our thick skulls that racism affects everyone, everywhere? Our apathy towards it has become the means to ensure its continuity. The continuity of racism will ensure the annihilation of the human race. Over the years, we've proven that we have become more adept at extermination rather than self-preservation. By tolerating racism in our lives, we haven't proven we deserve a better outcome.

**Kudos to Devious Diva for her continued effort to combat racism daily in her blog. If you haven't made the visit, don't waste any more time and click now as part of the Blog Against Racism Day.

Photo Blog of Karpenisi

2005-11-30T02:25:00.000-04:00

The town of Karpenisi as seen from my hotel balcony.

Sheepherding dogs blocking us from moving up the mountain till the sheep were off the road. This dog was in front of car and we had one on each side of us and one behind the car to prevent us from moving. No shepherd in sight....just the dogs.

The bus that takes you to the snow centre at the top of the mountain. I have no idea if they still use it.

That mountain is where the snow centre is. That is also where we changed our flat tire from hitting a rock in the middle of the street on the way up. Maybe we should have taken that bus.

The Big Chicken. Since my son thought he discovered a new species of giant chickens, he took this picture. I told him it was a turkey and he thought it was beautiful. Raising a child in the city means he can identify all the sports cars manufactured in the free world but he couldn't tell the difference between a chicken and a turkey.

Mist formations on the way down from Karpenisi. I must have taken at least 2o photos of them. The scenery reminds me of the Cabot Trail back home in Nova Scotia.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

2005-11-28T14:48:00.000-04:00

Once, just once, I'd love to be able to:
hop in my car...
go to the store...
get what I need...
pay for it...
not get in any verbal fights...
drive home with my purchase in under an hour.

You'd think I'd know by now that this is not possible. That things like this only happen in TV commercial. There's a fine line between naivety and optimism. At least there WAS a fine line until last Friday. Now, there's just stupidity on my part.

Besides the logistics of shopping in Athens, active combat training would be a useful prerequisite to deal with the hostile drivers and salesclerks you are bound to encounter in a (what should have been) 20 minute trip to Carrefour.

I decided to go with my friend to Carrefour because she needed to start her Christmas shopping (yes, she's THAT organized and she's still my friend) and I needed to buy my son a new pair of hiking boots for our little excursion to Karpenisi. The plan was a good one and probably would have worked anywhere else but in Athens.

So, at 9am I left my house to pick her up. I didn't even manage to make the 10-minute drive to pick her up at her house before I was blockaded by a driver driving the wrong way down a one-way street. I'm quite accustomed to drivers driving down the wrong way on a one-way street since they usually know it and will pull off to the side of the road to let me through. However, this one didn't. No, he decided to head straight for my car, stopping within millimetres of my front bumper and to scream and shout at me for not backing up to let him pass. Had he not yelled at me, I might have considered it. Had I not any other cars behind me blocking my exit, I might have. Had he not called me "xeni" (foreigner), I might have accommodated him. But all 3 of these things at once? Absolutely not. I rolled down my window and told him he was on a "monodromo" (one way street) and I had priority since he was illegal. He continued to shout at me while cars were piling up behind me. It took two bystanders to finally convince the man that the lady was right and he needed to move before they'd call the police. As I drove by, I 'firmly' suggested he should have taken a driver's test instead of buying his driving licence.

I finally managed to pick up my friend and drive to Carrefour. We bought what we came for and a few other things and proceeded to the checkout where I was charged 10€ more than the listed price for a toy that I bought for her son and she was charged 3€ more than the listed price for pillowcases she bought. She let the 3€ charge slide. However, when I was charged 10€ extra we both had a fit because this was the second time in the same store where something we bought was a higher price by the time we got to the checkout. Because I'd already had problems with several other stores in the past couple of months for the exact same thing. Because I just wasn't in the mood for it.

Many times over the years, when the price differs at the checkout from the price listed on the shelf, I question it and complain. And I always hear the same answer..."you must have been mistaken. That price was for another product. You didn't read it well." This time was no different. I can accept that maybe I could make a mistake if I read the Greek description of an item too fast. But this was written in English and I checked it and so did my friend.

I went over to the "Returns" counter to complain and have my money refunded. The clerk told me that I didn't read the tag well and that's why "I was confused" about the price. I told her that my English was excellent and that if the lower price was for a similar item, where was it? Show me the smaller version of the toy if one existed. Like so many clerks before her, she claimed that the 'other' item was out of stock. If an item is 'out of stock', why, then would the price tag for it be still on the shelf? She then explained to me that I should have...wait for it...checked the multi digit bar code of the item with the bar code listed on the shelf.

Enough already. I demanded my money back and told her not to worry about it anymore since Carrefour was no longer on my list of stores to shop. I don't have the time, patience nor inclination to compare hundreds of bar codes when I do my shopping. I'll stick to the stores where the prices on the shelves accurately reflect the prices at the checkout counter although it's getting more and more difficult to find them these days.

Weekend Excursion

2005-11-25T09:14:00.000-04:00

Karpenisi, Evritania-Greece

Because I'm bored with Athens, I'll be leaving for Karpenisi in Evritania today. I'll be back on Monday ready to blog again. Have a great weekend everyone!

Thin is In for Britain's NHS

2005-11-23T14:25:00.000-04:00

Thin enough for the NHS?

If you're obese and you live in Britain, you better pray you're in good health. The BBC reported that

Three Suffolk primary care trusts have ruled patients with a body mass index (BMI) over 30 will not get operations like hip and knee replacements.

Their reasoning for the ruling is as follows...

"The argument that the life of joints is reduced because people are overweight is more relevant to those with a BMI of above 40.

While I'm an adamant believer that people should take responsibility for their own choices in life, this ruling is unfair for the simple reason that it targets only one group of people who, due to their own lifestyle choices (improper diet, lack of exercise and/or overeating) have contributed to their decline in health. This ruling does not take into consideration that not all obese people can control their appetite since obesity is also an inherited problem or the result of an emotional disorder. The lifestyle of most people these days...sitting for 8 hours or more behind a computer, cash register or steering wheel doesn't afford them the time for exercise that manual labour jobs of days gone by once did.

This ruling is also a dangerous one because if obese people are being punished for their lifestyle choices, then can the same ruling can be applied to smokers who need chemotherapy for lung cancer. What about sports enthusiasts who experience higher-than-average sports injuries because of their hobbies? Can we also deny treatment for people who contract sexually transmitted diseases because it is assumed they choose to lead a promiscuous life? Anorexics who choose not to eat? Drug addicts who need to be treated for overdosing?

Obesity affects an ever-increasing amount of today's population and health practitioners are correct to be worried about the cost of treating the ailments of the obese. The same attention that has been given to the prevention of drug addiction, smoking and STDs should also be given to obesity.

If this ban is only applicable to obese people then it amounts to discrimination. If this ban is just the start of an effort to reduce health care expenses, then its ramifications could prove far more grievous than just the denial of a hip replacement.

Munch Worked in Retail

2005-11-19T15:47:00.000-04:00

I know why he Screams

In my previous life back in Canada, I was a production manager for an ad agency. I very rarely dealt with clients since that was the job of the account executives so I never really honed my "people" skills. My job was to make sure things got done on time, on budget and without mistakes. Because I have been described as a demanding, critical, austere and meticulous person, I did very well at my job but meant that my superiors had to keep clients away from me and that suited me just fine.

Now, that I have to deal with dozens of customers a day, I feel out of my element. I literally have to bite my tongue so many times in a day, it's a wonder I still have one. The stupid things that come out of people's mouths just invite my wrath. The stupid things they do, send me off the deep end. Thank God we own the stores otherwise I would have been fired by now if I was working for anyone else.

I've blogged some examples last year and in January of the odd things that I deal with but if those aren't enough to convince you that I'm daily driven to the brink of insanity, keep reading. There's more. Now, I want to blog the things people have DONE in our stores as well as what they say.

The Porno Section
This section of both stores is in a separate room and I monitor it like a hawk. Why? Because men just can't seem to keep their hands out of their pockets. We have posted signs outside the room to let them know it's monitored by CCTV but that doesn't seem to deter them from doing the unthinkable. When I confront these deviants to kick them out, Mount Vesuvius has nothing on me when I explode. One guy even had the nerve to ask me why I was so angry. He was lucky I was wearing boots that day otherwise he would have had my shoe print on the back of his neck.

Then there are the customers who complain that their porno DVD has no subtitles. ????!! I just tell them that grunts and groans are pretty much a universal language and don't need subtitling. If they're missing the "plot" in a porn movie then maybe they need to be talking to a sex therapist instead of renting porn to begin with and bugging me about such stupidities.

Underage kids who try to rent porn irritate me. When I refuse to let them into the porn room without ID, their standard response is "My mother doesn't mind." My response to that is "I'm not your mother. Let her come in and rent them. " And I send them home to do their homework.

Kids & Parents
One girl brought a bicycle in the store to ride it while her mother was choosing a movie. I waited the obligatory 10 seconds for the mother to say something to her child. She didn't. So I told the girl to remove the bicycle from the store and I'll take mine to her house so we could ride them together in her mother's living room. The mother wasn't too happy but at least I didn't have to explain to our insurance company how a 7 year old broke her leg riding a bicycle in our store.

Another woman's 4 year old urinated on the upstairs' floor. When the mother came to the counter I thought for sure she'd ask for a mop since I had seen the whole thing on CCTV. Instead, she asked me to clean up the mess without one hint of embarrassment on her face. I took the mop and bucket upstairs and told the child that I didn't like what he did especially since he did it out of spite because his mother wouldn't buy him the Finding Nemo DVD and that it better not happen again or he would not even be able to rent Nemo let alone buy it.

Why parents expect me to do their job of disciplining and monitoring their children is inexplicable. This happens far too many times. Parents don't have the backbone to tell their spoiled kids to behave when in our stores. They will tell the children that the "lady" is going to get mad at you if you don't behave. Of course, I will get angry but why should it be MY job? I'm not the parent. No store clerk has ever admonished my son in public, I was always quite capable of disciplining him myself. I've been asked to lie to their children as well and tell them that we don't have a particular movie when we do or that the MP3 player they want is not for sale. And then the same people wonder why I have to be so rude about it.

When we first opened the stores, 10 & 11 year olds would rent movies like Hellraiser, Nightmare on Elm Street and Scarface or other movies I would think was inappropriate for children of such a young age to watch. I used to phone the parents to inform them what their children were watching and then I stopped phoning because not one parent ever told me not to rent the movie. Sometimes, I still refuse to rent certain movies to kids anyway just because I don't think anyone under the age of 18 should see a movie (marketed as a thriller) about the notorious paedophile serial murderer John Wayne Gacy .

I could go on and on but this blog has to end some time and I need some material for my next Snitch 'n Bitch instalment.

Disconnecting From OTE

2005-11-17T15:09:00.000-04:00

Disconnecting becomes 500% cheaper

Back in June, I blogged OTE's grandiose and extravagant early retirement scheme. At a cost of 1.5 billion€, they planned to get rid of thousands of useless OTE employees whom they never should have hired in the first place. The average cash windfall each of these employees will receive, on average, is 250,000€. As if that isn't offensive enough, the Finance Minister, Alogoskoufis reassured us that

"Taxpayers won't be burdened. (June 3, 2005-Athens News)

Fast forward 5 months to the present and we have this little newsbite...

OTE said on Tuesday that its EPAK connection charges, which offer users Internet access via a regular phone line, will increase by 75 percent during the day and 500 percent for those wishing to surf at night. (Kathimerini)

I think it's pretty safe to say that a 500% price increase is a burden to taxpayers, wouldn't you? Yes, good citizens of Greece, despite Mr. Algoskoufis' statement, we are once again the proud owners of another couple of billion euros of debt. The man can't seem to get a budget passed. His attempts to combat tax evasion failed miserably. He thinks he can combat thousands of cases of money laundering with two men with a borrowed computer. He is the second most disliked man in the ND party and so when he says taxpayers won't be burdened, he still expects people to actually believe his distortions of the truth.

Here's the fuzzy logic for their decision to up the charges...

Industry sources said that the move is aimed at pushing more users on to the faster — and more expensive — ADSL connection. (Kathimerini)

Considering that Greece already ranked last for Internet usage in the EU because of the already high cost of internet connection (double the EU rates), those numbers will no doubt shrink even further. So much for Greece's new Information Society Observatory superbly blogged over at Phylax...with this new price hike the only thing they'll be observing is users disconnecting.

Six Feet Under

2005-11-15T15:04:00.000-04:00

Athens Rent-A-Graves

When you move to another country, your main concern is how you'll be able to live and adapt to a new country. You don't spend much time thinking about how you're going to die. At least I didn't. Call it optimism or ignorance. Either way, the last thing on your mind is what your death and burial will be like. Even after living in Greece for 7 years, I still never gave it much thought. Until January of this year.

My husband's 91 year-old grandfather died in January. When he died, I felt better for just having known such a good, decent, kind, generous and principled man. After 91 years of surviving two world wars, civil unrest, famine and a military junta, his death did not come as a shock to us. His funeral came as a big shock to me. I was accustomed to a North American funeral involving a funeral home, eulogies to be prepared and written, which priest, how many days for the viewing. When I asked my husband about how we were going to arrange his grandfather's funeral, he was surprised and said "what's to arrange? It'll be over and done with in a day."

And true to his words, a quicker and more indifferent funeral I had never experienced. The priest who officiated did not offer kind words of condolence and spiritual hope to the family. Instead, he read the same funereal words he probably had read at dozens of other funerals. There was no one who stood up to read sincere and poignant eulogies for the man who had affected so many lives. A man who had provided for not just his own immediate family but his extended family as well. Most of whom still live in the houses he bought them while he was alive while he died in a small but immaculate one bedroom apartment. 91 years of life on this planet and the best we could do for him was a few grains of sitari (wheat) thrown on his rent-a-grave while a religious stranger spoke emotionless words. It just didn't seem right.

He deserved better. His family deserved better.

In Greece, most funerals are like his. You die. Your family rents a grave for 3 years since there is no space left to bury our dead in Athens. It's so bad that the bodies don't even decompose because there's just not enough soil to do the work. On the 9th day after your death your closest friends and family pay one of the many priests walking around the cemetery to officiate for 5 minutes and you go back home waiting for the 40 day memorial service. Then they return again on the 1 year anniversary of your death to repeat the same banale process. After 3 years, you get exhumed and if you don't pay for a reburial elsewhere, your bones are thrown down a well. Cremation (and embalming) is illegal. The Greek Orthodox Church claims that cremation is sacrilege so it's forbidden but digging up the dead isn't considered desecration? The Church makes more money off burials than cremation. Priests, who are paid by the State, also get paid in cash (most likely never declared for taxation) for performing all these ceremonies when someone dies.

By comparison, when my grandfather died 11 years ago at the age of 92, his funeral service lasted almost two hours. The priest knew my grandfather personally and many members of his family by name. So many people came that the funeral home that they had to extend the viewing days so more people would have a chance to pay their respects to our family. People I had never met drove hours just to make sure someone in our family knew what my grandfather had done for them . I was so touched by the outpouring of emotion and love from them that I actually have good memories of my grandfather's funeral. I had hoped I would be able to remember Pappous Yianni's funeral in the same way. But I can't. I feel we didn't do his life justice. My husband now wishes we had taken more control over how it was arranged. We can't bring him back, but we at least could have been comforted by the thought that we gave him a funeral befitting such a wonderful man.

His funeral made me realize that the way you leave this life is just as important as how you entered it. Therefore, I've made my wishes known to those closest to me that I do not want strangers anywhere near my grave and if I could get buried in the middle of some field in a Hefty bag, that would suit me just fine. No money to be spent on useless rituals or fancy graves. I'd want donations made to as many reputable charities as possible. Most importantly, I would not want any memorial services where people feel obligated to show up. The most I would hope for is that every now and again, that they think of me while they're living their lives and not mourning over mine. I dislike miserable people around me while I'm alive, I certainly don't want misery surrounding me when I'm dead.

At the Mercy of My PC.

2005-11-14T13:24:00.000-04:00

The fate awaiting my PC

If I had a clue, I'd be dangerous.

If I had two, they'd rattle.

If I had three, I would be able to successfully post a blog this week.

I haven't abandoned my blog. My blog seems to have abandoned me. This is the second time I've tried to post a blog this week and I've lost it. The first one was because my blogger editor froze just as I was about to post and the second time was because I decided to type my blog at work and save it to a floppy disk. It's still on the floppy disk. I'm almost to the point where I would take a screen shot of the file I can't open and leave it at that. Even that effort has been foiled since my floppy drive is holding the disk hostage. So once my temper subsides, I will rewrite the blog once again...and have the presence of mind to make a backup. I just hope there will be someone around to read it.

Of course, there is still the distinct possibility that my PC has become self-aware and will spontaneously combust just to put the last nail in my blog coffin.

Reporting Greece's Evils

2005-11-08T14:09:00.000-04:00

Has it come to this?

What's going on in this country? For months now, the priests, politicians and public figures caught up in scandals have been blaming the media for their demise. Every day new revelations of corruption, embezzlement, fraud, drug and sex trafficking, lying, money laundering, pimping and theft keep surfacing and all the guilty parties can do is blame the media for reporting their sins.

Even newspapers have jumped on the political propaganda bandwagon demanding the TV tribunals stop exposing the scandal. The media has even turned on its own by presuming that it has to provide solutions for the problems they bring to light. That's not the media's responsibility, that's the government's job.

I always thought the role of the press was to accurately and without bias, report the events around them. Just because what they report does not meet with approval from their subjects doesn't make it any less accurate or less worthy of being reported. The freedom of the press is one of the major indicators of a democratic country. Greece is no exception as its Constitution proclaims to protect that right.

Article 14 (2) of the Greek Constitution states

The press is free. Censorship and all preventive measures are prohibited.

That sounds pretty straightforward, doesn't it? But if you read the clause immediately after you will see freedom has restrictions and the Constitution defines in which cases the press can be censored...one of them being an

a) insult to the Christian and all other known religions,

I guess freedom of the press exists only when the press acts as a mouthpiece for the clergy and politicians.

Last week, Greece's NCRT (National Council for Radio and Television) shut down Athens radio station Best 92.6 because of comments made by journalist, Grigoris Psarianos. He criticised the Church during a show back in July. The NCRT claimed the remarks made during the show were vulgar and then made the unusual decision to shut the station down without warning or a fine. The station has stated that it will appeal the ruling and defied the order by continuing to broadcast with the full support of Reporters Sans Frontieres and the International Federation of Journalists.

I find it hypocritical that the parties who attack the media for being vulgar are themselves IN the media because of their own vulgar actions. The same people are claiming to have the public and national interests at heart by 'protecting' us from the ugliness being exposed. I don't need their help to decide what I can and can't read or watch. I'm fully capable of thinking for myself. If other people don't like what they read or see, I have three words for them: head, hole, sand.

Why Greece wants to take a huge step backwards and return to a Junta controlled media state is beyond me.

Note: I came across the website of author, writer, journalist Nikos Dimos. Read his thoughts and experiences with Greek censorship.

Fighting the Online Porn Hydra

2005-11-06T05:35:00.000-04:00

Surfing made safer.

For the past year, newspapers have been reporting a global crackdown on internet child pornography resulting in the arrests of hundreds of paedophiles and child porn racketeers. Dozens of them have been located and arrested in Greece as well. Although I applaud the efforts being taken by law enforcement to rid these dregs of humanity from our society, I know it's not enough. The porn industry is a multi-billion dollar marketplace and even though the number of arrests have increased, the police and concerned citizen groups (click this link just to see what the freaks are capable of) can't keep up with the number of new online porn sites which appear every day. New heads on this perverted Hydra sprout up faster than they can chop them off which means parents, like me, have a dilemma on their hands. Do we forbid our children to access the internet and deny them the chance to become part of the Digital Age? Do we allow them access and then monitor their web surfing 24-7?

Both solutions are impossible. No parent can monitor their children around the clock. If you ban them from internet access at home, they will still get online at any of the numerous online Net cafes or even at their friends' houses. With porn spammers becoming more aggressive, software like CyberSitter, can greatly reduce the amount of garbage kids see from websites and instant messaging. Up until now, anti-porn shields relied on a database of known sites and spammers in order to block questionable content from your child's eyes. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing.

Soon, a new product will be on the market to help concerned parents and educators. It's called Filter X and was developed in Greece by information technology experts at Democritus University of Thrace. What makes this filtering software so special is its ability to scan text and graphics of sites BEFORE your child accesses them and it does it all within a fraction of a second. The software has been tested over the past 2 years in a pilot program in schools across Greece and the EU and will soon be available for purchase. Since brainpower is about the only growth export sector in Greece these days, I only hope that it's release won't be delayed by bureacratic red tape and will pave the way for more Greek hi-tech products to hit the market in the near future.

Θα Γυρίσω? I Don't Think So.

2005-11-02T14:08:00.000-04:00

How do you translate an Austrian accent in English into Greek?

You don't.

When DVDs first came on the scene, I just loved to play around with the added features they offered...subtitles in a dozen languages, "behind the scenes", interviews and the games. The most fun I had was switching voices into other languages but after hearing Clint Eastwood say "Do you feel lucky, punk?" in Hungarian, the novelty soon wore off. Some actors weren't meant for dubbing. No one but Eddie Murphy can DO Eddie Murphy.

Now that I'm back to watching movies in their original format, I find myself driven to the brink of insanity from reading the poorly translated subtitles. Sometimes, the translation is so bad, that even my husband will turn off the subtitles so he can understand the movie better.

I'm baffled by this phenomenon. In a country where there are more frontistiria (private learning institutes) for English than there are public schools, why is Greek translation from English so bad? I can't remember the last time I actually saw a movie where a number was translated correctly. Learning numbers in another language is usually covered by the second lesson...after the alphabet.

If a scene in a movie isn't translated properly, the entire meaning is lost. Here are some examples.

CSI Las Vegas. Catherine asks one of the other CSIs to get her a "double double" because she knew she would be up all night on a complex case. The translation for it read as "hamburger" and not "coffee".
In another movie I watched recently, one of the characters asked her cop partner if he had "her back" and it was translated as "do you love me?" Viewers would be waiting for a romance to blossom instead of a partner who would do his job and protect her.
Pootie Tang. A completely forgettable movie had it not been for the translations. Most English speakers would have needed to watch this movie with English subtitles but that didn't stop Greek translators from entirely rewriting the movie.
Stigmata. Early into the movie, they actually translated Spanish PHONETICALLY into Greek. So, "hola, que pasa" didn't get translated as "hello, what's going on?" but as ολα και πασα.

I think translation for movies should be left to native speakers of both Greek and English. The problems arise when a non-native speaker tries to do it. Considering that the price of an original DVD is quite expensive...often over 30€, you'd think the Greek distributors would at least try to give us value for our money and get decent translation for them.

Walking on Roads, Driving on Sidewalks

2005-10-31T17:18:00.000-04:00

Who needs parking lots when there are sidewalks?

This photo was taken on a street in my neighbourhood. As you can see, there are no cars parked on the street because they've all parked on the sidewalk. My son regularly walks this street to get to school but he's forced to walk on the road because thoughtless drivers believe sidewalks are their own personal parking lots.

A couple of weeks ago, I demanded (translate "yelled") to know from one driver (as he nearly ran me over in his mad dash to get on the sidewalk) why he was parking on a sidewalk. He simply replied, "my car won't get scratched here", and then off to his house he went.

His car won't get scratched. There's logic for you...children may get killed but as long as his precious car doesn't have a scratch, all is well with the world.

Lack of parking spaces is admittedly, a major problem in Athens but I've been driving in Athens now for years and have NEVER, not ONCE, ever parked on the sidewalk. Granted, if I need to be at an appointment at a specific time, I don't just run out the door 5 minutes before the appointment, I usually leave a lot earlier so I find the time to park in a proper parking space. I do this not because I love to spend 20 minutes to find a parking space but because I empathize with mothers carrying groceries and babies in strollers. I do it because I don't want my own child or other people's children resorting to walking down the middle of a street to get to school. I don't care how busy and pressed for time you are, there is simply no excuse for monopolizing sidewalks as personal parking spaces. This city is dangerous enough as it is without drivers encroaching on pedestrian walkways too.

When the Tax Office Calls

2005-10-27T17:09:00.000-03:00

Spotting fake invoices is a Herculean task in Greece.

For years now, companies in Greece have been issuing fake invoices in order to dodge taxes. In the first half of last year, Kathimerini reported that, while retail sales increased by 8.5%, the collection of the Value Added Tax (VAT) only rose by 0.2%.

The government decided that it was high time to do something to combat the tax evasion and decided to criminalize the issuing of bogus invoices. Today, I found out that the tax bureau is actually taking this legislation to heart since I got a call from them today.

She questioned me about our business which is home entertainment. Then she asked me why I was receiving invoices from a supplier who sells electronics. She even tried to read one of the invoices out loud to me over the telephone..."it says here you've bought something called "Yaoumahu". For those of you who haven't figured it out yet...the word was "Yamaha". It took me a second too to understand her pronunciation as well but I'm rather adept at strange accents in English now anyway. I explained to her that it was globally recognized brand name as were the others on her list... Jama, JVC, Sony and Toshiba. The sudden surge of activity in previously unused sectors of her brain sent her into a tailspin since it took her a minute before she asked me why a store who sells videos would sell something called a DVD player.

I realized I was not speaking with the brightest of God's creatures. If she didn't know what Yamaha was, how on earth was I going to explain the evolution of VHS to DVD and that you can't play a DVD in a video recorder. So I didn't. I couldn't very well climb the slippery slope of informing civil servants about technological innovations since one of us would no doubt have to be institutionalized at the end. I was not about to let it be me. I took her name and phone number so I could let our accountant deal with her on Monday.

Who knows? Maybe by then the tax office may miraculously grasp the fact that the brand name Yamaha doesn't manufacture only motorbikes. Uh oh. Maybe they don't even know that. I pity the poor business owner who sells microchips for a living. Having to explain that they don't have a food licence because you can't eat microchips may just make them voluntarily close their business before the health inspector comes knocking.

Spies Like Us

2005-10-24T15:04:00.000-03:00

Every politician's worst nightmare...a spy cam

This weekend, a 60 year old woman dominated the headlines in Greek media. On Friday, Eleni Voulgani, walked into the Labour Ministry's office with some sweets, a 5000€ cheque and a hidden tape recorder. According to Mrs. Voulgani, she had attempted to catch a politician on tape of accepting her bribe. According to the politicians, she had offered a bribe for the sole purpose of obtaining a position for her son in the civil service. Despite the attention devoted to the story, details of what actually happened are fuzzy. Righteous indignation from the deputy minister, Gerasimos Giakoumatos and New Democracy mouthpieces have obscured what actually transpired.

Makis Triantafilipoulos, host of Alpha channel's "Zougla" show was also dragged into the dog & pony show with people on all sides accusing him of masterminding the plot to get politicians caught red-handed on the take. Last night, he categorically denied setting her up to do anything and she confirmed his story. While on the show, he produced two police reports filed against Voulgani...in one Giakoumatos stated he was in the office, in the other, he stated he was not present when she dropped off the bribe. After Voulgani left the Labour Ministry office,5 hours had lapsed between the filing the complaint and her subsequent arrest. In addition, Voulgani submitted two business cards of the civil servant she left the bribe with where he had written his home address and phone number on them. It was at Mr. Rembis' home that she had already delivered kilos of cheese and roast pork.

However, these details have not been reported in the print media. Instead, they choose to parrot what looks to be the official New Democracy response on the matter...that society is the problem by allowing citizens to walk around taping conversations. Given that Greece ranks 47th on Transparency International's Corruption Index (alongside Namibia, no less), it is completely understandable why people in Greece feel the need to take hidden cameras or microphones with them to record meetings with public officials, doctors and civil servants.

After questioning her motives, the character assassination began. Within 24 hours she no longer was a 'lady' or a 'citizen' but a housewife. 72 hours later, they rolled out the inevitable 'blame the media' stance championed by everyone once their actions have been put under the public microscope. By the time Voulganis gets to court, all anyone will remember is that she was the silly, misguided housewife with a tape recorder and the pervasive problem of government corruption will be swept under the carpet once again.

The finger has been pointed at just about everyone in this case except the officials involved. More questions need to be answered. Why would a public official feel the need to give out his home address and phone number to a citizen unless there was something shady going on? Why did Mr. Rembis accept previous gifts from her at his home? Why did it take so long for her to be arrested? Why did he file two different police reports? Why is no one calling into question the logic behind Karamanlis' decision to give Giakoumatos a government post after he brandished a gun in parliament and uttered death threats against a PASOK minister in 1998 and was suspended for it?

If Mrs. Voulgani's true intention was to capture bribery on tape, she certainly went about it in an irresponsible and careless manner. She definitely will have to respond to the allegations levelled against her in court but will any of the officials involved have to address theirs?

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

2005-10-22T07:24:00.000-03:00

He preaches, but is he practicing?

On Friday, I picked up the Greek edition of the tabloid magazine "Hello!". I didn't expect to find anything of real interest in there since I only read it in the effort to improve my Greek. It's a glossy magazine which devotes itself to celebrity photo spreads and and fluff interviews with the subjects. In most countries Hello! appears, celebrities are usually limited to actors, pop singers, reality TV stars, and royals. In Greece, politicians are also considered to be celebrities.

As soon as you open the October 26 issue of the magazine, the first 'celebrity' readers see is none other than Giorgos Voulgarakis, Public Order Minister with his wife, Katerina. Of the many photos depicting home life with his wife and family is one of him taking a ride on his motorbike with her and neither of them are wearing their helmets. On page 9, he is asked if he always wears a helmet to which he responds "I wear one. Not always."

Given that the law in Greece specifically states that both driver and passenger must wear a helmet at all times when motorbike and that his ministry oversees the Hellenic Police force, I would think that he would not flaunt the laws his ministry is responsible for enforcing. To be photographed blatantly disregarding the law confirms the conspicuous existence of double standards here in Greece. It's no wonder the Greek population's trust and faith in the government is eroding.

Let's Keep It Civil

2005-10-20T15:13:00.000-03:00

When I wrote my last blog, "Greeks, Immigrants and Oxi Day", I was hoping that people would express their opinions with some degree of civility. However, the 'discussion' quickly deteriorated into mudslinging. . While I'm a firm believer in freedom of speech and expression, I would think that people could refrain from vitriolic comments in order to express their opinions. I certainly do not want my blog space to be a haven for such people because I fear I will lose some valuable contributions from people who do take the time to write their comments with tact and some degree of diplomacy. I know how difficult this can be especially on the thorny issues such as immigration, gun control, racism and abortion but I'm hoping that it can be done because I quite like reading many different opinions even if I don't always agree with them.

Now, I find myself facing the role of a moderator. An online babysitter. I haven't the patience for it. I don't want that role forced upon me by inconsiderate commenters but at the same time, I will not consent to having this blogspace turned into an insult forum. Being in agreement with me or any other reader is definitely not a prerequisite to post. On the contrary, I enjoy a lively debate as do most people. I just ask that the personal attacks and insults to be excluded.

Greeks, Immigrants and Όχι Day

2005-10-18T13:19:00.000-03:00

Honouring Greece's "Oxi" With a "Nai" for Immigrants.

On the 28th of October, Greeks will celebrate "Όχι Day". This national holiday commemorates Greece's valiant and unequivocal "no" (όχι) response to Benito Mussolini's threat to invade and occupy Greece in World War II. To honour the thousands of Greeks who died fighting the Italian invasion, Greek schoolchildren march in parades across the country.

Traditionally, the student with the highest marks in each school is awarded the distinction of becoming the flagbearer, leading the rest of his or her classmates in the parade. Unfortunately, this privilege has been open to attack in the past few years as some immigrant children have been receiving the highest grades in their schools. Classmates and parents alike question their 'Greekness' and demand that only a Greek should have the right to carry the Greek flag.

In several incidents, they've gone so far as to forbid their children to march along side them in the parades--some parents even booing and spitting on the child as they marched. Because of the resentment and outright fury exhibited by some schools' parents and classmates, immigrant children succumbed to the pressure and opted out of the parade altogether.

Although many government officials, school principals and state ministers have condemned the public outcry, many Greeks are still divided on the issue and the whole debate begins anew every year.

Prior to 2000, only Greek citizens were eligible to become a flagbearer. However, in 2000, a Presidential Decree signed into effect by the former education minister, Petros Efthymiou, specifically states that any immigrant child attending a Greek public school for two years would be allowed to carry the Greek flag in parades.

Like many European countries, Greece is trying to adapt to the sudden influx of immigrants into a previously homogenous society. If Greece does not afford immigrants the chance to integrate and adopt a more tolerant attitude then the controversy surrounding the flag will only fuel further anti-immigrant sentiment ultimately dividing this country. It is most unfortunate that children whose only 'crime' was to be exemplary students, should be caught in the middle of it

Is someone Greek solely by virtue of where he was born or could it also entail a genuine pride, love and devotion to the country exemplified by commitment and determination to assimilate into Greek society?

I am inclined to agree with famed Greek orator Isocrates when he said "One is not a Greek by right of birth but by right of Greek education".

The Importance of Learning Ελληνικά

2005-10-16T05:35:00.000-03:00

If you understood Greek, you would be laughing now.

The life of an expat is not an easy one. Homesickness, culture shock and illiteracy in our new language are the three things guaranteed to take the shine off our decision to move to a new country. Language is probably the most important which we must conquer. Once we learn the language, homesickness and culture shock become less of a concern.

There are basically 5 kinds of expats and people in each category face these obstacles to varying degrees.

work related- -people who move to a new country because of a job transfer or to start work in a new position
married--people who get married to a citizen of another country and end up living there (that's my category)
ethnic--people who were born in one country, raised in another and then move back to the country of their birth or that of their parents
retired--people who choose to live in another country once they retire
refugees-people who were forced out of their country due to persecution, wars, famine, and/or economical collapse in their own countries. These people decidedly have it much worse than the rest of us.

(For more on what refugees face here, visit Diva's blog because the difficulties the rest of us experience in our new countries are nothing compared to what they deal with and I wouldn't presume otherwise.)

That being said, we still encounter problems. Language being the most formidable. While reading one of Melusina's blogs, I was transported back in time to my first year in Greece. I didn't even know how to say "hello" in Greek. How I made it through that first year, I have no idea. My husband, who is a fluent English speaker, did not exactly pressure me to learn Greek. In fact, he said it wasn't important to him whether I learned it or not. Most English speakers will agree with me on this when I say that learning Greek is not essential to our survival in Greece. Most of the movies and television we watch is in English. It's not difficult to find english publications to read...either through the Internet or at bookstores which sell them. Many Greeks do speak some level of English and prefer to speak English with us rather than listen to us stumble along in Greek. All of these factors combined almost ensure that the most we'll learn in Greek is "please, thank you, hello and goodbye". It makes us even lazier to learn when we don't have this sense of urgency to communicate. Non-native English speakers like Albanians, Bulgarians or Polish will usually learn Greek and speak it better than we do in half the time it takes us unless they don't work, have satellite TV and associate only with their countrymen.

In order to learn the language, expats must first WANT to learn. No amount of chiding, coercion, or shaming will do it. In fact, in my case, it made me become even more isolated and homesick. I knew that every time I went anywhere with Greeks, the only time they ever spoke to me directly was to deride me for not knowing Greek. Of the few words I attempted in Greek, they would laugh at my accent, spend the whole time correcting me so I forgot what it was I was trying to say in the first place, or worse...completely ignore me in social settings because they didn't have the patience to hear me mutilate their language.

Then I went through a period where everyone I met was going to "teach me" Greek. They would give me 'lessons' over coffee, "lessons" while I watched the news, "lessons" at the beach. Usually, these lessons never amounted to more than a one-hour history of a particular word and proved that it was possible to fall asleep standing up. Fat lot of good it did me to know the origins of periplaniemai if I didn't know how to use it in a sentence. Despite their good intentions, it has now been almost 8 years, and not one of my Greek friends or relatives has even so much as bought me a Greek-English dictionary. I bought one myself and then realized I needed to know the Greek alphabet in order to use it. So I learned the Greek alphabet and armed with that knowledge, I began to read in Greek. Watching movies with subtitles made me semi-literate. Then I took a 3 month course and learned the basics of the Greek language. From then on, it became a matter of practice makes perfect.

The person I credit the most for my foray into the Greek language was my mother-in-law. She was perfect because she doesn't speak a word of English, had enough patience to correct me in Greek without dragging out the whole process and always encouraged me to keep speaking no matter how frustrated I became.

Even though I'm far from being an expert on the language, I'm just so proud that I can succesfully drive to Penteli without fear of ending up in Romania, order meat from the butcher without having to play "Name the Mystery Meat" with my husband once it came time for me to cook it, and most importantly, I no longer feel like the retarded cousin at social gatherings. I can actually participate in conversations. I may still have difficulty pronouncing my soft gammas or words like fthinoporo and xrisimopoio but at least I know what they mean. It's a far cry from the days when someone would say kali sas mera to me and I had no idea it was the same as kalimera.

We owe it to ourselves and our adopted country to be able to communicate in their language regardless of how difficult and frustrating it may be. It's the key to integration.

So, to all the Greeks who smile and listen to me as I mangle your language in the effort to speak it, I thank you. For all the Greeks who want to practice their English with me, I'm grateful to you for making the effort to communicate with me. For all the Greeks who laugh at me, beware...I know how to swear in Greek now.

Encourage Greeks Bearing Gifts

2005-10-14T15:18:00.000-03:00

When it comes to giving gifts, nobody does it better than the Greeks. I've never seen anything quite like it. It's not as if I never gave or received gifts in Canada or the US. Christmas Day is the Mother of all gift days in North America but that's about it. Any other occasion is usually marked by a bottle of wine, a party or an e-card.

In Greece, it seems any occasion is worthy of a gift. And there are a lot of occasions. My bank account can testify to that fact. They give housewarming gifts, name day gifts, birthday gifts, easter gifts, baptism gifts, wedding gifts, and Christmas gifts. Even if you've lived in your house for 20 years, if it's the first time your guest has visited you, they're going to bring you some sort of gift...either sweets, flowers or wine. I've never received or given so many gifts in my whole life.

The days I dread the most are Name Days. (The day of the saint after whom you're named.) The worst Name Days are May 21 (where probably one third of the population is named Constantinos or Eleni) and Oct. 26 (where another third of the population is named Dimitra/Dimitris). On each of those days, every single Greek has at least 10 presents to buy. I'll bet it's safe to say that every Greek also knows a couple whose names are Constantinos and Constantina and have a daughter named Eleni. With that triple whammy to your bank account, you don't repeat the same mistake twice and remember to ask all your potential friends what the names of their spouses and kids are so you can lessen some of the financial damage.

Frequently, Name Days are also celebrated with big dinners or barbecues if they occur during the summer months. I love any reason to celebrate and I think it's a wonderful thing that the Greeks really know how to socialize and have fun. Had I known about this aspect of Greek culture before I emigrated, it wouldn't have taken me so long to get here.

I don't have a Name Day (I don't have a "Christian" name) and I don't even celebrate my name on the All Saints day. It's of no consequence since I suspect that's the reason I have quite a few friends...I'm cheaper than a Greek friend. Although I should probably cut down on acquiring new Greek friends otherwise I'll be forced to change my name to 'Chreokopia' to honour my patron saint...bankruptcy.

Money for Nothing

2005-10-11T14:30:00.000-03:00

At the beginning of each school year, the school requests that parents pay a small sum to supplement the wages of the school's cleaning ladies. For the first time, I have no problem paying the 8€ since my son informs me that the woman works 4 hours in addition to her regular shift each day to help out at the school and the children think the world of her. For the previous 5 years my son has attended school, this hasn't been the case. The cleaning lady would show up for 1-2 hours after school to empty the garbages and mop the floor every once in awhile. I wouldn't even allow him to use the washrooms in the schools because they were so disgustingly dirty. They also demanded the 'fee' at the beginning of each school year and then again at Christmas and Easter.

I’m fed up with the practice and it’s not just limited to the school’s cleaners. At Christmas and Easter, all hairdressers and cab drivers exact extra fees on top of their regular prices from their customers. This isn’t an arbitrary sum they invent, rather, it’s dictated by law what they can charge. They will have signs posted informing you of these ‘bonuses’. Even the school’s cleaning ladies are doing the same thing although it’s not covered by the law. I don’t even know why some professions believe they are entitled to these bonuses while others are excluded. Is there some mathematical formula to figure it out or was it done on a whim. How it all started and why it still continues, I have no clue. All I know is that I’m financially held hostage by such an innane law.

To question paying the sum is an insult to them. They believe it’s their God-given right to demand that customers give them money just because they don’t make enough money in their chosen professions. I'd love to be able to charge people extra just because I think I'm worth it not because they think I'm worth it.

Hairdressers can charge whatever amount they feel is appropriate for their services. If a customer feels it’s worth it, they’ll pay it. I have no problem paying my hairdresser 30% more for a haircut than his competition across the street because he’s a better hairdresser. That’s his “tip”…the fact that I chose him over another hairdresser.

Cabbies drive. That’s all they do and in Athens, even this is open to debate. They don’t even drive well, their cars are often scrapyard relics, most of them are rude and they’ll try to pick up other passengers as well so it’s not like you’re paying extra for driving in comfort and solitude. Demanding a bonus where none is deserved is nothing short of legalized extortion. Even the labour laws dictate that the cleaning lady who works at our stores makes more money per hour than our best performing salesman. Salary increases on minimum wage are also given if the employee has gotten married and then another raise if he has a child.

Merit-based salary raises are practically unheard of and productivity suffers as a result. They expect and demand wage increases without doing any extra work, learning any new skills or becoming more effective at their jobs.

A society which rewards the lazy, the uneducated and the unskilled punishes itself economically.

Uncommon Sense

2005-10-10T16:03:00.000-03:00

Introducing Alogoskoufis' New Sidekick...Antonis Bezas

It's no secret that Greece's economy is the worst it's been in years. To exacerbate the situation, Deputy Finance Minister, Adam Regouzas has resigned over his admitted involvement in 'state-sponsored advertising' scheme and of course, his notorious remarks to customs officials. Giorgos Alogoskoufis was then left with the task to find someone to replace him. Common sense would dictate that his deputy's replacement would be a more qualified individual with both an economics background and relevant political experience. Unfortunately, common sense was not a prerequisite for the job of Finance Minister. He chose an obscure MP, Antonis Bezas, with absolutely no experience in economics and relatively little experience as a politician.

I suppose if it was good enough for George Bush, Sr. and Dan Quayle; Laurel & Hardy; Cheech and Chong...it's good enough for Alogoskoufis & Bezas.

My Dog Made Me Do It

2005-10-09T07:10:00.000-03:00

My partner in crime.

While taking my dog, Suzy for a walk this morning, I was verbally accosted by a man in a car.

I was surprised because he had chosen to yell at me and not the other pet owners. I think the digital camera around my neck advertised that I must have been some stupid foreigner in need of a good tongue thrashing. I've grown accustomed to this kind of behaviour from other drivers while I'm driving but not while I'm walking. Apparently, his problem was with my dog and my inability to obey the law. I had let her off the leash as we were about to walk in a neighbourhood park and he felt that it was a serious enough offence to bring his car to an abrupt halt to yell at me for disobeying the "No Dogs Allowed" sign. I backed up 3 paces and then I saw the sign. I told him he was right and instructed my son to put her back on the leash. As I turned my back on him to walk out of the park with her, I obviously didn't do it fast enough because he continued to berate me for my complete disregard of Greek laws. Only when I lost my temper with him did he drive away.

I expect this kind of reaction from Canadians who have approached me on the street to chastise me for wearing perfume or fur or smoking but it seemed rather hypocritical for a citizen in a country which prides itself on its ability to ignore laws. This man was no exception. He had committed several traffic violations in order to point out mine.

Let those without sin cast the first stone.

The Wrath of Mom

2005-10-07T13:56:00.000-03:00

I wonder what he's like outside the honeycomb?

Children are our future. Children are a blessing. Children seem to be many things these days except disciplined. When I use the word 'disciplined', I don't mean spanking them if they so much look at you the wrong way. In fact, I don't even mean spanking at all.

I'm talking about the original sense of the word. Websters defines discipline as 'the training expected to produce a specific character or pattern of behavior, especially training that produces moral or mental improvement." The key words being moral and mental improvement.

It seems that everywhere I go these days, I see badly behaved children. Maybe I'm just getting old and what little patience I have is nearly depleted but I'm sure everyone knows someone who has kids who make you re-examine any thoughts you ever had of becoming a parent yourself. If you do have kids then you are probably thanking your lucky stars that you didn't have more.

Being a parent myself, I really do understand the 'terrible twos' or the 'troublesome threes' or even teenage angst. But just because I understand all the stages a child can go through on his or her way to becoming an adult doesn't mean I'm not bothered when I see 7 year olds throwing temper tantrums in my house. Or 5 year olds slapping and evenbiting their parents when they can't have the entire set of the Barbie Fairytopia collection. I can't understand how the parents allow such behaviour. What's more, I am baffled by the fact that parents don't seem to mind when such behaviour occurs in someone else's house.

I've had children come to my house, make a mess of it, break things and have fits while their parents do one of three things: stare vacantly at me while I clean up the broken glass from the floor; tell their child that destroying my son's toys wasn't nice and continue their conversation; or ignore the behaviour completely. Whatever happened to "get over here now and apologize" or "as soon as you clean that mess up, we're leaving because if you can't behave properly outside the house, you will not go anywhere" type of firmness? A lot of the time, parents have said "Billy, you've upset our hostess and now she's going to get angry with you".

This is even worse. Then I become that "mean woman who hates kids" just because a parent is too cowardly to discipline their child themselves.

Has discipline become such a dirty word that it can no longer be used in parenting? My conclusion is that it's a combination of many things. Parents equate discipline with spanking and truly believe that a screaming banshee 2 year-old will respond to reason in the middle of a tantrum. Many parents now work full-time and feel guilty reprimanding their children in the little time that they do see them. A lot just find it's just easier to cave to the child's petulant demands and deplorable behaviour than it is to spend extra time and patience to discipline them.

I know that kids don't come with an instruction manual at birth and that God gave them faces of angels so we wouldn't send them back but I refuse to believe that children can't be trained manners and good behaviour at an early age.

I won't know if I've done a good job raising my son until he's well into adulthood but I do know that no one else will ever feel the need to discipline my child for me. Some people considered it cruel and unusual punishment when I made my son clean his purple ink artwork off my white walls when he was three, but he's never even attempted to write on anything but paper since then. So if people call me Captain Von Trapp, I am not the least bit bothered. At least they know that my son won't be walking over their furniture, breaking their vases or giving them any flippant remarks without incurring the Wrath of Mom.

Don't Call Me. I Might Call You.

2005-10-04T15:14:00.000-03:00

Here is an account of some of the phone calls of some of the most annoying people I've had the displeasure to experience over the phone. Remember, these are not just isolated examples. I get variations (where either the caller or the name of the person they're calling changes) on each of these calls several times a day!

Call #1
Line 1 rings. No message left. Line 2 rings. No message left. Line 1 rings again. No message left.
My cell phone rings twice. Same caller who probably phoned me two seconds ago. Since he didn't bother to leave a message then, I punish him and refuse to answer the calls to my cell phone. No doubt I will pay for this random act of vengeance tomorrow when he finds out that I just chose to ignore him. One way or another, I will drill proper phone etiquette into people's heads.

Call#2
Caller asks for Babis. I tell her there's no one living here by that name. She calls back 5 seconds later and asks again for Babis. She's obviously an older woman so I explain to her again that she has the wrong number and that Babis does not live here. She becomes a bit upset as she tells me she's worried about him since he never came home and she can't find Dina. She apologizes for the trouble. On her third call, I offer to call Dina for her since she can't understand that she transposed the last two digits of that woman's phone number to get mine. She's very happy. I phone the number she gave me but as she said, Dina is not home. I phone her back to let her know and she does not know who I am, how I got her number or who Dina is. I give up.

Call#3
Caller asks for Dr. Corbas. I tell him there's no one here by that name. He asks me if I know where he is. I explain I don't know this person nor his new number. He asks me if I know of another doctor he can phone. I tell him he did not phone OTE directory assistance either so maybe it's high time he found their number and stop calling me. (And if Dr. Corbas had actually informed his patients of his new number, then he might not be sitting at work twiddling his thumbs in his new office wondering where they all went.)

Call #4
Caller asks "who's this?" as soon as I pick up the phone. I am now quite irritated and tell her since she phoned ME maybe she should already know. She becomes angry and demands that I give her my name and then I switch to English to tell her off and then back into Greek to ask her if she REALLY wants to ask me again who I am and then I hang up on her.

Call #5
Caller demands to speak to my husband. It's 10pm and I tell her he's not available but she can leave me her name, number and what company's she works for and I'll see that he gets the message. She then asks me WHERE he is and I tell her that's it's enough for her to know that he's not here and to leave a message. She again ignores me and starts listing off all the possible places she thinks he might be and for me to identify the correct one when I hear it. I've had enough. I get angry and tell her that he's having a shower and would she also like to know what brand of soap he's using on which body part? She backs down and tells me what I already know....that she's calling from the insurance company to let him know our car insurance payment is due in a week. I berate her for having the nerve to call me at 10 pm, not identify herself and to never ever call me again after 5pm unless she has her life insurance premiums up to date since she will most definitely need it when I'm done with her.

And people wonder why I never want to pick up the phone. All I can say is that Alexander Graham Bell is lucky he's dead, otherwise he'd have a Panasonic Hybrid System phone hurtling towards his head right now.