Flying Carpets and Marxist Rock and Roll

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.)

Another list

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.

I think I might need a new job

I've been feeling very listless lately. I'm still going through one of my tired and depressed phases and I don't know how long it'll take me to pull myself out of this slump. It doesn't help that I'm terminally broke and have begun to pretty much hate my job. I often daydream of quitting, but then remember my rent and bills. I like my new flat far too much to have to give it up.
I have begun however to look for something else. I'm even considering taking a break from "architecture" (if you can seriously consider what I now do architecture) and doing something else for a year or so. Something else paying obviously. Now if I could just find that something else...

So, if any one is lurking around my sorry journal and knows of any job opportunities in Athens, Greece for me, would they please leave a comment?

To help them out:
1. I speak three languages - Greek, English and French. (I have done translation and interpreting work in the past)
2. I'm fairly adept with a computer and know AutoCad and Photoshop.
3. I'm good at drawing, designing, lay-outs, hand crafts, model making, photography, storytelling.
4. I have a degree in Architecture and a post-graduate in Urbanism.

How to amuse yourself with no money

So I'm broke, and have been since I returned from my summer holidays at the end of August. As soon as I get my paycheck it disappears on the rent, bills, the supermarket, paying back people I owe and god knows what else, and a couple of days later I'm left once again with 20 euros in my pocket to last for two weeks.
But I've been lucky. September and October were good months to be broke. Free concerts and parties wherever you look. And when worst comes to worst I have wonderful friends who will buy me drinks for the pleasure of my company.
Who have I seen for free lately?


1. Sunday 21st of September at Trova Bar - Maraveyas Illegal
2. Sunday 28th of September at Thiseio - Gad
3. Sunday 28th of September at Thiseio - Cyanna
4. Sunday 28th of September at Thiseio - Matisse
5. Fraiday 3rd of October at Art House - Victory Collapse
6. Sunday 5th of October at Art House - Abbie Gale
7. Saturday 4th of October at Thiseio - David Fonseca
8. Sunday 5th of October at Kallimarmaro Stadium - C:Real
9. Sunday 5th of October at Kallimarmaro Stadium - Gabriella Cilmi
10. Sunday 5th of October at Kallimarmaro Stadium - Kaiser Chiefs
11. Sunday 5th of October at Kallimarmaro Stadium - REM
12. Friday 10th of October at Bios - Cast-a-Blast
13. Saturday 11th of October at Bios - Monika
14. Saturday 11th of October at Bios - Matt Elliot

Our house just got a bit greener!

We have plants! Not many yet, but it's a beginning. If we manage not to kill them all off the plan is to turn our balconies into forests - or failing that, gardens.
Yesterday we went to Kotzia square where there was a plant show. It all has to do with the mayor's crusade to fill Athens with green roofs. Since we have no greenery in the streets and hardly any parks, the mayor's solution is to ask people to plant their roofs. It's a win win situation for him, he doesn't have to do anything (like maybe plant a couple of trees or lay down some grass) but still gets to say that he's working on the problem of the lack of green in our sad grey city.
So we went, we saw and we loaded ourselves up with plants. Now we have two edible shrubs: basil and spearmint; three flowers: cyclamen, chrysanthemums and another I forget the name; and one tall bushy plant I think belongs to the ficus family. Not a bad beginning if I say so myself.
Wish us luck!

My verdict on the film festival

The 14th Athens International Film Festival is over. It has been for a week at least. It wasn't bad. Very different crowd this year. Many new, younger faces, while many of the typical ones were missing. Strange.

What with work and being broke, I only saw 10 films.


1. Better Things (uk/germany): Awful, awful, awful film. The english countryside at it's most dreary and it's inhabitants at their worst. Everyone was either a near catatonic teenager/twenty-something with a drug/sex problem or a depressed OAP. They hardly spoke and nothing really happened. A total waste of their time.

2.The Wild Man of the Navidad (usa): A b-movie featuring a man-monster, my kind of film! It takes place somewhere in the american countryside and is complete with red-necks, moonshine, guns and a weird "monster". Very fun!

3.Cat People (Jacques Tourneur 1942 usa): A classic b/w thriller. Not half bad even though it doen't scare anyone - except a two-year old - anymore.

4.The Tune (Bill Plimpton 1992 usa): A cute little cartoon musical about a guy who has to find the perfect song to keep his job and girlfriend.

5.I Walked With a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur 1943 usa): Another classic b/w thriller. I really liked this one. Zombies, voodoo, skeletons in family closets and innocent nurses, all taking place in the Caribbean.

6.Le Marais (Isilde le Bescaux 2005 france) and Demi-Tarif (Isilde le Bescaux 2003 france): She is supposed to be a new up and comming director. Le Marais was a short amusing documentary about the district in Paris. Demi-Tarif was a crazy, strange, touching, ultimately sad story of three children abandoned by their mother. The film was oddly intimate and claustrophobic, and a bit disturbing at points.

7.Bananaz (uk): An on the road documentary about the Gorillaz. Damon is an oddball and Jamie is nuts. We love them anyway.

8.The Upsetter (usa): A very informative documentary about another loony, Lee Scratch Perry. Very informative. Lee Perry was really crazy, but who cares, he's also a genius.

9.Gonzo - The Life and Works of Dr Hunter Thomson (usa): Yet another documentary about a crazy genius. Thomson was the inventor of Gonzo journalism and the author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Very good documentary with good footage of Thomson. Only problem was that it skipped out all his early years.

10. Sita Sings the Blues (usa): A cartoon about the story of Sita from the Ramayana incorporating blues songs. Very funny and well drawn, using different drawing styles.

And that's about it. Not much, huh?

Little update

I have been sick and depressed and internet-less this last week or so. I'm a bit better now, but not much. Now I am broke, depressed and quasi-internet-less.