Photographic Marathon

I'm so tired, it's not funny. The past few weeks I have been feeling thoroughly sleep deprived - even though I have been sleeping at least six hours a night.

But I have decided to stop putting things off! So even though I'm tired - and am thinking of going to sleep no matter that it's still half past nine - I am going to tell you what I did on Sunday.

On Sunday I took part in the Athens Photo Inspiration, which is basically a photographic marathon. A six hour photographic marathon! For six hours I walked (and cycled a bit) all over Athens, zig-zagging and criss-crossing in search of the perfect photographs. I walked over areas I usually avoid, or rush through - mostly because they're a bit seedy and dangerous - and re-visited well know haunts. No wonder my feet are still hurting me!

I even had a run in with the police. While walking through one of the most famously run down parts of Athens, I witnessed the greek SWAT police coming down on the illegal vegetable market the immigrants had set up. Not like the greek police attacking immigrants and drug addicts is anything new! I snapped a couple of photos, as discretely as possible, and I almost got away with it. But last minute I was spotted. They rounded up on me - the police specialise in intimidating the smaller and weaker - and demanded I erase all my photos of them. They said it was illegal to photograph them! (I wish someone would tell me if that's actually true or if they were bullshitting me.) They even accused me of purposely being in the area with the sole goal of photographing them - self-obsessed much? Whatever.

At the end of the marathon we had to hand in four photographs. One for each of the four themes we were given. I'm not very happy with my photos. Except for one that I'm truly happy with,the rest are rather average. It's not easy photographing a specific subject on demand in such a short time frame!

So here they are, just as shot and handed in. No cropping, no photoshop tweaking.



1. Escaping within the city (small moments of respite on Sunday)



2. Time and Space



3. Oppositions



4. Combinations (free subject)

Shopping Headache

Do you remember a time when life was so much more easy-going and innocent? I do. Now even going to the supermarket has become a complex political affair. When I was younger I remember that going to the supermarket felt freeing and adventurous. (Look at me! I'm all grown and I do my own shopping!) Now it feels like navigating a minefield of conflicting and confusing decisions.


Take for example this evening's short trip to the supermarket. I spy the section with the canned goods and make my way over there. Tuna, I think, I need tuna. As I stand in front of the tuna tins wondering which one to get, I suddenly think that I shouldn't buy tuna after all, because buying tuna means condoning the killing of dolphins. I turn to leave thinking that I shouldn't get any tuna after all. But I want tuna! the part of me indifferent to the dolphins' plight cries out, I like tuna, I eat tuna. Fuck the dolphins and get the tuna. So I turn around and ignore my principles - like I do every time - and go back to the shelf.

But that's only the beginning! I should economise, I tell myself, I have to be careful with my spending, so let's get the cheapest tuna. The cheapest tuna is one from Thailand. I pick up the tin and go to put it in my basket. Tuna from Thailand, I muse, exotic! Wait? Tuna from Thailand? What about all those wasteful kilometres it traveled to get to me? What about supporting my country's economy by buying local? I put the tuna tin down and pick up the Greek brand. Lovely, I think, a nice local product. Our economy needs all the help it can get. I make to put it in my basket, but decide to look at the price first. It's twice the price than the Thai one! I stand indecisive for a minute, alternatively making to put it back and making to put it in my basket. In the end I reason to myself that even though it's Greek which is a very good thing, it's expensive which is a very bad thing. So with a heavy heart, I put it back on the shelf and stand dejected. Totally defeated by the act of buying tuna.

I almost give up the whole thing and turn away, but the part of my brain that has craving still demands tuna and reminds me that the next time I want to make a tuna sandwich I will regret not getting a can. Tired and fed up I look at the lined up cans once more. I end up choosing a relatively cheap can of Portuguese tuna. Portugal is not too far away, I reason, they're in the EU like us, and their economy is in almost as bad a state and the price is good. So I end up putting it in my basket and finally, finally!, leave to continue my shopping. I feel frustrated and vaguely guilty, and so far I have only bought one thing!

I repeat a similar (although not so excruciating) with almost everything else I buy. And when I get home and open the cupboard, I realise that we had tuna after all. My sister had bought some. The expensive Greek brand.

Is it like this for everyone? Or am I over-thinking things and driving myself crazy?

Stale News

This is the reason I'm an utterly useless blogger, I never seem to get round to posting my news when it's fresh.

So anyway, the weekend before last (see? old old mouldy news) I went a-traveling again. Monday was a bank-holiday (the day of the Holy Spirit), so my sister and I decided it was imperative to take advantage if it.

Saturday evening (my sister works Saturdays) we took the train to Lamia where our friend Angela unfortunately lives. (No one chooses to live in Lamia, they are either born there and know no better, or like my friend are forced to go there for work.) Lamia isn't too far, it's two to three hours by train.



We got there in time for a late night dinner and a little peak at the city's night-life. It was just as I thought it would be: uninspiring men and scantily clad girls tottering in high heels.

But of course no one actually wants to visit Lamia, so after a lazy breakfast of pancakes on Angela's marvelously huge terrace-balcony, we went a-traveling yet again. We squeezed into her authentic 1994 Mini Cooper (it's the only car that makes me feel so tall and fat!), and took the road to Volos.



It took us about three hours or so. The Mini goes so slow (and the windows rattle too) that out on the freeway even the Smarts passed us! The girls wanted to revisit a tiny beach they had discovered last July when they had gone camping in the little village of Lower Gazea. It truly was a tiny little strip of a beach, hidden behind a complex of newly built houses. It was just perfect! It filled my most important requirement: that we be completely alone. This early in the summer when I'm still ridiculously white and feel all chubby and awkward, the last thing I want is an audience to witness me in a bikini.



The sea was cold refreshing, and very clean, and the weather was constantly alternating between blue blue skies and short bursts of rain. And that was my first swim of the year! Afterwards we went to eat at the tiny adorable seaside village of Lower Gazea. It was practically empty and had only about three places to eat. We chose the one the village priest was sitting with company drinking ouzo and mezedes at. (Priests always know the best places to go.) All in all it was a lovely day trip. We returned late at night after one small mix up where we almost ended in Larissa instead of Lamia.

Next day we took the Mini to Kamena Vourla, an old-fashioned sea-side resort right next to Lamia. I had never been, and I must confess that it was much less decadent that I had imagined it would be. But maybe that was because it was till to early in the summer, and the weather was still alternating between rainy and sunny. Angela yet again managed to lead us to a beach that was practically empty, where we lazed in the sun and swam for a bit, until the sky turned overcast and scared us away.



And now I'm back in Athens, where it's hot and muggy and sticky and just plain awful. And it's not even really hot yet! *sigh* Two more months until my summer holidays.

A little something

I have so many things to say, but never seem to get round to sitting down and typing it out. I'm a pen and paper kind of girl, not so much into keyboards. But I have promised to eventually update with all the thoughts that are spilling out my mind these days.

But until I get round to doing that, here's some Kate Bush!

I went a-travelling

The weekend that past, I gathered up my waning energy and took the train. Four and a half hours is how long it takes by the express intercity to go to Thessaloniki. Of course while I was studying there (it feels like it was a lifetime ago!), the intercity was a luxury. I used to take the slow train (seven or eight hours).

How I love Thessaloniki! How can you not love a city that you lived in for seven years? Every time I go back, it's like I never left, and yet I can't help but notice how many things have changed.

Of course I didn't go all the way to the north of Greece just t visit a city. I went to visit friends. I used the excuse of a christening to go. And now that I'm back, I have two things to note:

1
Travelling is good for the soul. You need new sights and experiences every now and then. And the re-visiting of old much loved locations is comforting and comfortable. But more than that, the actual act of travelling, being on the move, riding trains and buses and boats (but not aeroplanes), is strangely freeing and exhilerating. Kerouak knew what he was talking about!

In particular travelling by night in Greece when the weather's hot, induces odd nostalgic and optimistic feelings for me. It makes me feel like everything is possible. It makes me feel like there is nothing but the feeling of here and now, the warm air, the rapidly passing, shadowy landscape, the dark sky. True, it makes me feel maudling. But sometimes maudlin is good.

2
Most people my age are married with kids. Yup, strange as it seems, I often forget this simple fact. The friends I hang out with in Athens are mostly single - and definitely childless - and the places I go - bars and concerts - are havens for single people like. But this weekend I felt like I walked into enemy territory.

Christenings are the ultimate smug-marrieds gatherings. I was horribly outnumbered. All my friends and aquaintances - plus a large number of strangers - were parading their husbands/wifes, children and baby bumps in front of me. I felt like the token singleton. It was lonely and strange and a little bit depressing.

Do You Remember Vera Lynn?

Isn't it strange that when you're feeling over-emotional practically anything will make you cry? Ads with cute kittens, and particularly songs. Even though I must confess that there aren't many recent songs that get to me like the old ones do.

Things are looking pretty bleak

I don't know what to say today. I assume that everyone has heard of Greece's bankruptcy and today's demonstration cum riot. Athens was in flames, yet again. And three people died, innocent bystanders who were forced to go to work today under the threat of losing their jobs. Their bank caught fire, and they died of asphyxiation. The whole country is broken up over it.





We - the Greeks - have been sitting on tender-hooks for the past weeks waiting to see how our government will deal with the country's bankruptcy and the IMF's unbelievable demands. Slowly slowly the new measures had been made public, as if they were - rightly so - afraid to tell us everything at once. And slowly slowly we had been getting more and more angry.

I remember reading the newspaper on the bus to work this Monday (the Monday after Mayday). The news made me sad and depressed and very very angry.
-Taxes became unbearable - now even I, who barely make ends meet with my pitiful wage, will have to pay taxes.
-The VAT rose - and then threatened to rise again.
-Public service bills (electric, water, telephone) will go up yet again.
-Our pathetically low wages have been frozen (but not the cost of living).
-Unemployment benefits have been cut.
-Pensions have been cut.
-Civil sector wages and bonuses have been cut. (A friend of mine with two kids who works for the state says she and her husband will most probably be forced to move to a smaller apartment now.)
-Civil sector workers have been cut down ( starting with the school teachers!).
-The age of retirement has gone up.
-Compensations for firing employees have been cut.
The IMF also wanted the 40hour week to be abolished! No wonder they waited until after Mayday to go public with the news!

All in all it feels like we are forced to become guinea-pigs for some inhuman hyper-capitalist free-market experiment. And it chaffs, because I have always been a proponent of socialism and the welfare state.

An (anarchist) friend of mine is strangely optimistic. He believes that in two years or so, Greece will collapse and pull the whole of Europe down with it. And then, by necessity, the revolution will come! I wish I were as optimistic. I can definitely see Europe collapsing into a broken bankrupt mess, but I believe that then China will take over the world, and we will be left to starve on the rubble of our civilisation.

Sorry I'm feeling a bit melodramatic tonight, but wouldn't you be?

PS. If you want to get depressed, check out these photos on athensville's blog.