Going on a trip!

I'm taking advantage of my Easter holiday to go on a trip. I'm going to London! My mother is from London and I have relatives there, so I have visited it a ton of times before. But it's London! It never gets old or boring. I wanted to live there - but no one wanted to employ me.

I'm visiting a dear friend who is living in the way out suburb of Croydon. Ever since he moved to London (ostensibly to study, in reality I suspect to get laid more often) I have missed him dearly. And I'm dying of curiousity to see how he's faring abroad!

I have a whole list of things to do: theatre, exhibitions, museums, used bookshops, shopping, and I haven't the faintest what I'll manage to do out of all of it.

But I can't think of that now. I have to pack! And I have to calm down enough to sleep! I always get so stressed before flying... Cross your fingers that my plane doesn't crash and that I don't have to suffer too many delays, I'm going to Heathrow after all.

My bicycles

I hunted down my current bike on the internet. It's the 1989 Peugeot Blois P45 SAZ. Look how lovely it is in pristine condition!



Unfortunately mine no longer looks like that. It's scratched, the front light is taped up and reflectors on the wheels have been lost...

But I also came across my old bike! Look at the adorable girly bike I had as a youngster! It's a 1988 Peugeot Miss45.

I stayed at home today

Nothing much to say for myself. I've had a bad case of insomnia and then I got sick... Bliah!

Today was a national holiday. The 25th of March is both the day of the Annunciation of the Virgin and Greek Independence Day (they were religious people, they chose today on purpose as a good day to begin their uprising against the "infidel" conquerors).

It's amazing what a difference two hours more sleep with make! I woke up today at 9.00 instead of the usual 7.00, and I feel like a human being (albeit a slightly sick one) instead of a zombie just going through the motions! I felt so much better than usual that I spend my day of cleaning the house and balcony and cooking. I cooked squids in red wine sauce with small macaroni (yum!).

But most exciting was that I finally got round to using my brand new spring-form cake tin with the nifty glass bottom! I decided to try out a recipe I've had my eye on for a while now: chocolate torte with prunes. For all you naysayers out there, I'd like to inform you that I think that chocolate and prunes (with a dash of brandy and cinnamon too) make quite a nice combination.



Now if that cake didn't have you salivating, how about a picture of the bike I'd like to buy if I didn't already have my trusty 80s vintage peugeot?

belleville by trek

Gorgeous, isn't it?

Some people are just so cool!

I love it when people get up and do something! (I just wish I would do it more often.)

I'm so so tired

Be prepared for a post that might make no sense...

As everyone must have heard by now, Greece is in serious economical trouble, and EU has ordered the governement ot fix or else. They plan on fixing things by making us everyday folk even poorer than we were before. Wages, benefits, pensions and other such are getting cut while taxes, bills and VAT are going up. In other words most families will be bankrupt and many small businesses will close and the rest of us will end up counting every penny and still won't make ends meet.

Obviously the trade unions aren't taking it sitting down. Besides the near daily demostrations in the centre of Athens, we have weekly and bi-weekly strikes. Which is all very good for civil servants, but we poor sods who work in the private sector still have to go to work. Because the greek private sector is one of the most underpaid and insensitive private sectors in Europe, we are expected to show up for work even when all means of public transport are on strike!. Their response is, "So? Take a taxi", or "It's about time you got a car".

During last week's general strike I got a taxi to and from work. Before going to the office I had to go to the town planning office - which I can reach by foot - so I deftly caught the secretary at a distracted moment and handed her the taxi receipt as "getting back from the planning office". But I still had to return home!

Only thing is there was another general strike today, and there's more comming next week. I do not earn enough to afford all these taxi fares! So I decided today to try going to work by bike.

I must first point out that I'm not in particularly good shape. I'm not completely hopeless (I do two dance classes a week after all) but I have no stamina (I never did, even as a kid), I have low blood-pressure and have weak knees. So, yeah, I was never an athletic person.

But I do have a bike, and I do try to ride it as often as I can (which isn't much with my schedule).

It takes me about 45 minutes to get to work by public transport. Today I discovered that it takes me 45 minutes to get to work by bicycle too. The only problem is I only have the strength to cycle 30 minutes on the tiring hilly roads of Athens. The 15 last minutes I had push myself with a throbbing head and a churning stomach to finish.

The way back was worse. I only managed 20 minutes before feeling ready to pack it in. The return eventually took me 1 hour - I was too tired to move my limbs.

I think I should also mention, that being the masochist that I am, I still went to my dance class this evening...

So now I think I have every right to claim I'm exhausted. Very exhausted. The only up-side is that I must have burned 800-1000 calories today (I looked it up). Imagine if I had the stamina to it every day, what great shape I'd be in after a month!

With that thought in mind, I'll just go and collapse now.

Why yes I am old

...but not that old.

Let me share some Barcley James Harvest with you. I was listening to this album on my ipod on the bus home from work this evening while trying to ignore the good looking guy sitting opposite me, who was emphatically not paying attention to me.