Yesterday we finally got ourselves a carpet! Marble floors are wonderful, but they're also cold, which is great for the summer, but not so great for the winter. And I do believe that winter is finally, finally, coming to Athens.
We went to Plaka
. Plaka is a prime touristical spot in Athens, yet even Greeks shop there occasionally. And of course if you're Greek they don't try to overcharge as much! What's more our lovely new apartment is walking distance from Plaka. (Score one hundred to Koukaki over Glyfada - where we used to live). Also the shops in Plaka and Monastiraki are the only ones to open on Sunday, and with our different work schedules, Sunday is the only day we both have off.
We got ourselves a lovely kilim. We would have rather got a pile rug, but didn't have the money. So we compromised with a kilim (ours is way better than the example I'm linking). They are woven woolen rugs, coarser and thinner than pile rugs, but also much lighter and easier to store. They're supposed to be very long lasting. Theoretically our kids could inherit it!
Our living room is looking so much better and colourful with our new rug. Now we need curtains, a throw for the sofa and a lamp (which I'm going to make).
Besides getting a carpet, and cooking,I also went to the theatre on Sunday. We saw Rock and Roll by Tom Stoppard.
I love Stoppard. My sister went to a British school in Athens and for her A levels she did Stoppard's Arcadia. Over those summer holidays I stole her book and read it on the sandy beaches of Crete. I loved it. It was so smart and complex. There was maths (which I was very keen on in school) and landscape gardening (for which I have a secret unrequited love for) and poetry (Byron to be exact). All that in a play that was funny and sexy as well. Years later the National Theatre of Northern Greece put on the play in Thessaloniki while I was studying there. I persuaded friends to go, and I was blown away once more. A couple of days earlier I had seen The Serpent's Kiss for the second time. The film, just like the play, is also about landscape gardening and poetry. They both deal with classicism vs romanticism and the making of worlds and environments to suit our whims.
Rock and Roll is not as good or as tight as Arcadia. I enjoyed it non-the-less. It's themes are rock music, revolution and socialism/marxism. Out of the two main heroes, one is an unrepentant member of the communist party and a professor in Cambridge and the other is a Czech former student of his who is unrepentantly in love with Rock and Roll. The story evolves over a time period from 1968 to 1990, moving back and forward between Prague and Cambridge. (However I haven't had enough time to think about it yet to write a propet review yet. Also it's past my bedtime. So I'll just have to return and add to this post.)
It's been a while. I've feel feeling so listless, sad and tired lately that I can barely find the energy to answer friends' letters or pick up the phone to call friends or family, let alone update my blog. Thank god I don't live alone, but with my sister. Having her around being all normal and energetic, bullying me into pulling my weight around the house and getting a thing or two done, stops me from slipping into the sort of abyss of wallowing, aimlessly surfing the web and turning into a pathetic slob that I did for a period in Paris. I'm patiently waiting for when I'll snap out of it.
Enough of that. I sort of promised myself I'd keep the boring whining to a minimum in this blog on the off-chance that someone might actually be following it. Trust me, up capable of becoming very boring and whiny.
A propos of nothing I thought I'd list some of my favourite sites. Most of them are hugely famous and well-known, but what the hell...
1. youtube - such an amazingly cool site. Lately I have spent more hours than I care to count watching old episodes of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, one of my all time favourite british tv shows.
2.wikipedia - wonderful, wonderful site, especially for people like me who are always full of questions and can't be bothered to open an encyclopedia (I don't even own an encyclopedia). It's amazing what people can do if they just organise themselves and put their minds to it.
3. urban dictionary - not as great, or as well layed out, as wikipedia but a very fun and informative site non-the-less. I'm so ignorant of modern slang or internet jargon that without urban dictionary I'd be lost.
4. last fm - this site is a godsend for people like me who love music but have particular tastes, not enough money to buy all the records I'd like to, and live in a country with awful radio stations.
5.flickr - a cool site for putting photos online. I don't really use it for anything more than posting my own photos and checking out my friends' photos, however.
6. skyehawke - at present my favourite fanfiction site. It archives consistently good quality stuff, because I no longer have to time to wade through bad grammar and cliched, emo storylines.
7. the hex files - my second favourite fanfiction site. It also archives good quality fics, plus it let me become a member to post my own humble scribblings.
8. lifoland - the website of one of the two most popular free press newspapers in Athens. It's an easy, simple way to find out what's on in Athens, what freebies are on offer, what new places are hip etc.
9. athens voice - the website of the other most popular free press Athenian newspaper. As a newspaper I actually prefer Athens Voice to Lifo, it's website however isn't as good.
10. the technical chamber of Greece - as an architect I'm a member and it's nice to keep up with what is being organised, especially seminars and conventions. Mostly though, I use it to search the library catalogue so I can go to the library with a prepared list. (I linked to english page which doesn't contain much compared with greek page.)
Apart from these sites there are a number of online magazines and blogs I follow, but this is enough for now. I might list those at a later date.
