Just another weekend

It's so hot! And all the flowers are out, and haven't died yet. So I'm suffering twice as much. I'm in a state because of my hay-fever and I'm forced to work in this weather, which will just get worse and worse and worse. August is so far away!

The weather and my hay-fever have done such a number on me that I'm skipping half my dance classes. And when I do go, I get dizzy half the way through.

But I've got plans! Big plans! (If the heat lets me go through with them and I don't end up spending all my time flat on my back trying to catch the breeze.) I've bought ingredients - and I've others yet to buy - to make my own cosmetics and cleaning liquids. I'll keep you posted!

Also I've got plans for my little balcony-cum-garden.
I'm taking cuttings from my giant mishapen basil (I'm new at this and don't know how to properly prune plants yet.) and plan on filling the place with baby basils. On the down side, my spearmint is full of bugs and has infected everything in sight - which is making me very angry - but I plan on prevailing. I have a number of little aloe style plants I've saved from the rubbish in pots and am waiting to see how many will survive. I also plan on planting some old potatoes that sprouted to see what will happen. So all that keeps me rather busy.


In keeping with the whole domestic image I've got going on I cooked a traditional greek dish earlier today.




Do you want the recipe?

IMAM BAILDI
Serves 4
2 long aubergines, cut lengthwise
4-5 red onions, cut in half and thinly sliced
2-3 tomatoes(preferably soft and mature), diced
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
fresh parsley, chopped
olive oil (good quality and lots of it, don't scrimp)
salt and pepper
dry bread crumbs
grated hard cheese like parmesan or greek graviera

Cover bottom of large frying pan with olive oil. When heated (medium heat) add aubergines (score the fleshy part with a knife) fleshy part down. Turn the aubergines over a couple of times and remove from pan when they are soft and fully saturated in oil. (Don't be afraid to add oil to the pan when needed.)

Put the aubergines in a shallow square oven dish and let them cool down a bit.

In the meantime add the onions and garlic to the frying pan (with more oil if needed). Add salt and pepper. When the onions are soft add the parsley and tomatoes. Lightly fry for a couple of more minutes and remove from heat.

Using a spoon, push down the soft fleshy insides of the aubergines creating space inside them. Pour the onion mixture into them. Sprinkle breadcrumbs and cheese on the top to create a nice crispy topping. Liberally sprinkle more olive oil over the lot and put in the oven. Cook for about 40 minutes - until soft and mushy - under a medium heat.

Once ready, take them out and let them sit for 30-60 minutes before eating. (All greek "ladera" - oily dishes - taste better when cool.)

This dish is much heavier than it looks, so one half aubergine is plenty for one person. Accompany with a salad (lettuce or boiled leafy greens go nicely), greek feta cheese and oven potatoes.

By the way did you know that there's a greek music group called Imam Baildi? (http://www.myspace.com/imambaildi)

Filling the centre of Athens with Bicycles

Unfortunately I forgot to put a hat on and it was hot and sunny. I think I got heatstroke or sunstroke. I'm still feeling it a bit.

Cycling for treasure

Want to know what I did the Sunday that past? I went on a cycling treasure hunt! It was a lot of fun!

We were divided into groups and each given a list of 17 riddles. The answer to each riddle was a location in the center of Athens that we then had to find and photograph. The starting point of the treasure hunt was the park at the corner of Patission str and Kuprou str in Kupseli and the finish point was the park at the corner of Zoodohou Pigis str and Nauarinou str in Exarcheia. Both are parks that are being planted and sustained by the inhabitants of the neighbourhoods despite the mayor wanting to turn them into parking lots.

I spent about three and a half hours cycling backwards and forwards all over Athens, learning about places I'd never been and constantly bumping into the other groups that were also searching for the locations. It made Athens feel so small and so interesting.

Of course afterwards I felt accomplished and very very tired!

For those of you who know greek here are the riddles. How many can you answer? With a little cheating we got 16 out of 17. We didn't go too bad. Here are the results. We were the Fantastic Four.

Money well spent

Another thing I did over Easter was use my easter present money from work to buy myself a d-slr camera. Now I am no longer camera-less! I splashed out and got the Olympus E-410 with two zoom lenses (it was on offer). It's a super-cute super-small d-slr! unfortunately it's also rather complicated (I haven't finished reading the manual yet), and I am having a bit of trouble with the manual focus too.

But anyway, I'm happy about it!

I checked it out over the holidays and took a bunch of mediocre test photos. Want to see a couple?

The Resurrection


The only time a year Monastiraki Flea market is closed


The Ancient Agora


The Acropolis' "good side"


An old house in my neighbourhood

Easter came and went

So Easter came and went. Far too fast for my liking. Five days aren't nearly enough! Especially when Easter day is spent unconstructively with the family eating.

Besides eating lamb and red eggs, I did a couple of other eastery things, like going to church. I've been in Koukaki since the summer and I had never got round to checking out our neighbourhood church (Saint Nicholas). We went for the Epitafios (the Good Friday Epitaph) and the Anastasi (the Resurrection) - the only days most people bother going to church. And for good reason, they are the two single most theatrical and convivial services of the year! My impressions of my neighbourhood church? The priest is nervy and irritable, and on Friday he gave us a heartfelt advertisment of the Saturday morning service. He almost persuaded me to go - until I remembered it was at eight in the morning! The crowd was big and varied and multi-national. Besides greeks of all ages , there were also plenty of eastern european orthodox christians and a couple of pakistanis who were videoing the whole thing (!). Unfortunately the psaltes (choristes) were rather off-key. You can't have everything!


One other thing I did remember over my five days of freedom, was how much I am missing by wasting 10 hours a day at work (I count the two hours of transit as work hours).

Over Easter, I woke up nice and late and took advantage of the beautiful sunny days to go walking, cycling, shopping etc. How I had missed the sun and being outside midday with no hurry to get everything done on time!

I have often thought that a forty hour week is overdoing it. Who needs/wants to work forty hours? Except workaholics and doctors? I could very well my work done in twenty or less hours a week. I spend at least half my working day killing time. It makes you feel like a factory worker - clocking and clocking out. There's nothing that spells enforced labour more that being expected to arrive at nine on the dot and leave at five the earliest. I would like nothing more than to be a freelancer. To be payed by the project and to be able to make my own schedule. I always worked better with deadlines better than this enforced nine-to-five business that makes me feel like a damn secretary (being expected to answer the phone and occasionally make coffee doesn't help either). I didn't spend more years than I care to share studying architecture and then getting a post-graduate in urbanism to end up as a glorified designer/secretary!

So now I'm back to the old grind-mill, busy counting time till this annoying crisis/recession finally ends so I can find a better job. Sometimes I feel like I'm mentally marking down days on my figurative cell wall till it's time for my parole.

Riding the wind in disguise

I finally got round to doing something interesting today! I took part in the Athens Masked AlleyCat Race. I had heard of the AlleyCat Races and had always wanted to gear my self up to taking part in one.

Let me explain. These races are fun competitions/actions organised by a group of activist cyclists called λοκαλ (local), with the premise that its a fun way to reclaim our public space, by actually using it rather than just passing through in hermetically sealed cars. If you read greek, you can check out their site.
So what exactly is an alleycat race? It's a cycle race through Athens without a set itinerary. Starting off from the starting point you are given the location of the first check-point. Once there, you are told the location of the second check-point, and so forth. So you end up going in circles and zig-zags through the city never knowing where you'll end up, every one choosing their own route from one check-point to the next.
Only this alleycat race (my maiden one, but hopefully not my last!) had a twist. It's the second Sunday of the Apokries (Mardigras), so it was a masked race! Being my usual procrastinating self, I left it till last minute to decide what to dress up as. I ended up making myself a pair of wings late last night and this morning before the race. I almost missed the race because of the damn wings! They ended up a bodged job because I was in such a hurry.
Word of advice - when cycling in fancy dress avoid wings! They catch the wind and slow you down, they make it difficult to look over your shoulder at the cars behind you, they don't let you easily fit through narrow spaces. I originally made the wings to fall outwards like real ones. They looked great, but were hardly practical, so I had to stitch them up to sit behind my back. On the final leg of the race the stitching came undone and I found myself flapping down the street, wings stretched wide!

For those who want to know exactly how much of Athens I cycled through today, here are the check-points:

Start point: Zappeio Megaro
--> Omonoia Square
--> Syntagma Square
--> Hilton Hotel
--> Katechaki Metro Station (on top of the Calatrava Footbridge!)
--> Kolumbitirio (the swimming pool opposite the Kallimarmaro Stadium)
--> Syggroy-Fix
--> the workers housing on the Filoppapou ring road
Finish point: Gazi on the pedestrian street opposite Technopolis.

I didn't properly count but I think it took me about an hour and a half.

World Press Photo of the Year 2008

I was looking at the World Press Photo of the Year Winners last night. Truly amazing photos! If anyone is as interrested in photography as I am, they should really check them out!