Tag: athens

September 26th 2006-8

September 26th, 2006. This was the day that was to change some of the most superficial (but important at the same time) aspects of my life. Some days ago it was 2 years since that fateful day so I decided to write a little something about it all.

Summer 2006, shortly after my final exams. My university plans were changing every week or so because of my: 1. Subsequent low exam scores 2. Failure at drawing subjects 3. Entry score boost of the school I wanted to get in (Audiovisual Arts in Ionian University, Corfu). Cultural Technology, Mytilini, had been my second option but the one I ultimately followed. Many discussions later and after having fought urges of preparing for another round of exams just to avoid the move to Mytilini, September 26th was, in the end, the day I took my first ship to Mytilini. It was Nissos Mykonos, leaving at 12:30. I’ve kept the ticket.

I was very scared while making that very first trip. That Mario person I had found through the nintendo.gr forums sounded really friendly and had offered to host me till I actually found a more permanent place to stay, but alone and unaware, I was heading to that strange town (which I still thought was closer to a village than a town). Turned out Mario and his part-friend-part-roomie HouseMaster were cool people. First night with them they introduced me to what still is the largest souvlaki I’ve ever seen or eaten. I repaid the favour by teaching them what Katamari On The Rock feels like! Important note: inside my very first baggage were my GC and PS2 along with all of my games for them: Mario had specifically asked me to bring them along so he could try some GC games he never had the chance to play. In the end, a night with them was enough for me to trust them. Ready they were, not only to show me the whereabouts, meet me to people, help me integrate over the course of mere days, we had great fun while at it! Plus, they helped me find my old place on Gravias 1. My hat’s off to you guys!

Left ro right: HouseMaster, Mario, me. October 3rd, 2006

Fast-forward to September 26th 2008. What has changed now then?

  • I’ve been living alone for 2 years. Before coming to Myt the idea alone seemed awkward.
  • Distance, physical and mental, has shown me who my real friends in Athens are. One of them now lives in Chios, another in Canada. Before coming to Mytilini I had contact with a lot more people. Now my real friends from Nea Smyrni can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
  • My love life has certainly improved a millionfold, although this took a while to occur. Most of my first year I was a proud pink glasses wearer. Now I have what I always wanted: a girlfriend I can trust, have fun with, dream about and love.
  • My life was touched and changed by CouchSurfing. In turn, travelling has become a major aspect of my existence.
  • As far as my actual university career goes, my end of 2nd year sees 17 subjects passed and 11 I’ve got to repeat. Cultural Technology has made me look at both culture and technology from a whole new perspective. Their combination definitely feels promising.
  • I’ve actually cooked some things.
  • I realised my plan to take up bass guitar. Let’s rock!
  • German language skills have certainly improved.
  • I met Mordread and Garret, two unique people to say the least. With them, I got to know many new things and broaden my horizons, especially with Garret. Mordread has been more of a (invaluable) all-around lover of fun. Though we have had many discussions, watched many movies, played many games, even teamed up for university, it’s been 2 years and I still feel I’ve hardly got to know these 2 any better.
  • My taste in games has changed. I no longer am the huge Nintendo fan I was when I first came here. I try to play many different types of games and by many developers. This became much more evident since I bought my Xbox 360. My Wii’s been gathering dust…
  • May old values I had have just crumbled to dust. One does change in the span of 2 years, especially between the ages of less-than-18 and less-than-20.
  • I’ve been reading books like crazy for almost a year now. Can’t say I’m complaining!
  • I launched Cubimension! But it’s still largely undeveloped… 🙂
  • I took up astronomy and astrology. The mysteries of the sky are no longer a silent interest of mine.
  • When I first came here, I was unsure what to think of it. It didn’t take me more than a few days to start liking it, and now I admit. I love living in Mytilini. It is so much better than student life in Athens although we do have some problems here, namely places to go out and variety of entertainment. But it all gets sorted out in the end.

Pink Dawn

It’s 7:30AM. Me and Mordread are sitting in my futon couch, going though the last, epic stages of The Force Unleashed, watching the final twists and turns of its plot unfold. Outside it is raining. The gentle sound of the drops hitting the street outside is audible even through the soundproof aluminum windows. It manages to reach our ears, as well as the lightsaber hums, Darth Vader’s iconic scuba breathing and the sound of lightning coming out of Starkiller’s fingertips. The sky is not entirely grey; in fact, its colour would be best described as a kind of dim pink. Soon I would witness what should have been the tie-in between the original and the prequels, the old and the new, the successful and the perhaps disappointing. My drowzy mind, amidst all this, was thinking that the line had been crossed; a new blog entry was finally at hand.

More than 3 hours later, the time is now 11:05. October 3rd, 2008. Rain sporadically cheers my ears but the sun has decided that its no time for playing hide-and-seek. The result is a wonderful colour of the sky. A fantastically unusual bright cloudy grey. Isn’t it strange that I often choose to write when my mind is working in ambiguous ways, powered by the strength of overnight determination but deterred by sleepiness? This fact could mean many things, quite controversial in their own right. Is it because I deem blogging so important a task that only the special moments of sleeplessness can truly get it going? Is it because writing is a time-consuming activity, best left for when my time constraints are only limited by my fatigue? Is it just because I’m bored and feel somehow special that I want to share my thoughts with the world (surrounding me)? I digress…

It’s been almost 3 months since my last blog entry. 3 busy, important, fascinating months. My last entry was written just hours before our journey to Europe had begun. Now, in mere weeks 2 months will have gone by since we returned from our trip. I won’t go into much detail about how it was, what it meant to me/us, if it was interesting or if I have any pictures to share. Answer to last two questions is yes. To the first two it is… well. I just can’t do it now. When I first came back from the trip, I was eager to tell everyone about it! Trying to remember every little detail so that it doesn’t get lost somewhere in the mists of memory lest it isn’t readily available so as to tell anyone who might be interested or write right here in Cubimension. But my enthusiasm was quickly discouraged. Not all that many people, especially friends, were genuinely interested in what I had to tell or show (I might write something else on this subject one day. It’s a deep matter). A lot of them will never read these lines either but the sentiment remains. It does sound too self-important, (as much of this particular entry, forgive me!) but I think it does have some right to be. Anyway, to not sound too melodramatic about something that doesn’t deserve it, if anyone would really like to ask me anything about our experience out there, I’d really gladly discuss anything! YEAH! But as it is now, I just can’t bring myself to summarise 38 days of travel for a questionable audience. Alexandra says that if we write all that happened down (something we did try to do…) we’ll remember it much easier. I kind of agree but writing it down isn’t exactly easy in the first place (hell, visit this topic on MyAegean and maybe you’ll catch some of all the previous feeling: http://my.aegean.gr/web/ftopict-991.html.  But when it comes down to it, for whom do I opperate this site anyway, is it just to showcase what I do and am all about or is it too more like a personal dia… ANYWAY! My apologies for this nervous breakdown! 😀

OK after this last bit my post has lost the aethereal tone it had in the beginning. Fudge it, it was taking too long to think of all the difficult words anyway! What else has been going on? Well on August 23rd I first walked through the door of my current home. It was the week I was looking for my new place to stay. I was with Kira/George/Darthy. I’m not sure he had a good time, since I had to wake up early every morning just to take care of all the sudden obligations and do some new-home-hunting. We did have our very fair share of nargile and WoW discussions though (yes I was always the debunker! Sort of…) August 23rd was also Mordread’s 20th b-day. This can’t have been random cause now he’s my new neighbour! Walks in for gaming sessions, brings Pepsi along, takes care of the cat when I’m away — everything a good neighbour should do! Thanks Mordread, you’re a star! 🙂 After another week in Athens, IKEAing, meeting up with long lost friends and celebrating Alexandra’s nameday, it was time for me, her and mum to come back to Mytilini armed and ready! September 3rd-8th was the moving to brand-new home preperations. The two girls helped me a lot and I do so love them for it, even though one of them worked significantly more than the other, oops shouldn’t have let that one slip! 😀 It was a great time us being together, had some talks, some good breakfasts and stuff. And I can’t forget mention: whut!! We played Rock Band all together. Mum played a video game. As we say in greek, many bakeries fell in ruins on that day…

The real fun started when mum left, which was right on the day we moved! For another week, it was just me and Alex taking care of the brand new home. We painted every room in crazy happy colours, pondered on what should go where, watched sick and crazy funny movies, cooked some tasty food (I tell you, squeezing meatballs isn’t nearly as disgusting as it once seemed… nor is chopping turkey), quarreled for a little bit just to break all the happy tension, played lots of Geometry Wars (and Alexandra made a brave new footing into the world of Hexic! A round of applause for our would-be hardcore please), explored the new surrounding area, discovered that afternoons are sexy too (sometimes sexier than evenings), quarreled a bit more to keep things balanced, and had to keep Yuki’s teen sexual heat under contro as well. Shut windows, air-condition. Yeah. This is what brought that happy week to a close. I did something I will never forgive myself for doing which was nevertheless necessary… *read on*

I had to have Yuki neutered. I wasn’t happy that I had to keep windows shut to keep her tomcat-seeking skills at bay and neither was she. But having little Yukinos around wasn’t the problem here. The problem was that there’s the bloody busy road just down the street. One sexy night out for Yuki could be her last, as she made a perfect white contrast against the cold, hard pavement . They’d be one in their lifelessness… Nightmare inducing, I agree wholeheartedly. So for us to be both happy (or for me to be happy and at least hoping she will be happy rid of her sexual distractions or at least indifferent to their absence — pleasure or pain) it was a tough, not to mention costly decision. Seeing her dizzy from the anaesthesia was a cruel pleasure though, have to admit! She also bit her stitches out, had an open wound Mordread thankfully treated while I was away in Chios visiting good old Fanis, ignorant and blissful about Yuki. We had her second stitches removed yesterday. All is well with Yuki now. She’s as playful, active, cuddly, hungry (for “milk” and more serious food) as ever! Minus her uterus.

While Alexandra was here I tried another first. I pursued the foundations of some career as a waiter/barman at none other than Mousiko Kafeneio. Yes, the one and only! It took no less than 2 weeks of me trying to make coffees and other beverages, failing, drinking my concoctions and always looking somehow confused to realise that I was not entirely suitable for the job. Not because I wasn’t any good at all at it but due to new emergency weekend tactics by me and Alexandra that can’t allow any weekend work obligations. No less, of course because of Piscean inherent looking-for-excuses when being in situations I don’t particularly like, behaviour; that woman pulled no punches when it came to rookie training. She demanded I took full care of bar and service  within my second week! Negotiating unacceptable. Hey, at least now I have some experience. And hey, I did eat and drink for a few days for free. That’s something! And now I can set out for some less stressful work solution. English teaching here I come (?!).

If we undserstood something together with my little sugary crabby (believe me it sounds better in greek) these weeks, it’s that we cannot manage to be apart for more than a few days. Meaningless misunderstandings through MSN (which is the DEVIL!), general dysphoria and everything just proves that. We couldn’t not meet last weekend (even though there were more fights last week because I didn’t have any money, which by the way made me cook some truly good but thick chickpeas (name sucks in english, revythia all the way) but it was urgent so I could just find some but it doesn’t work that way and and and and it wasn’t hard for things to just settle right. Last weekend in Athens was just made in heaven. Everything was so great! We had such a great time within such few hours. If our emergency weekend plan ends up like this, it’s going to be grand.

Well. It’s 13:05 straight! Hah, I’ve been writing for 2 hours straight. And now again, it’s all stuff that only interests me in the end. Maybe Alex as well. But I feel very satisfied that I finally came down to writing something! If you’ve reached this end, dear reader, we should hang around more!

Next blog may be (but it may also not be) about all the new games, movies, music, books and cool stuff that has come to my attention recently. It’s going to be big! Don’t expect it soon! 😀

A little piece of February

Sunday, February 24th 2008. My location: Dad’s and Vasso’s place in Aegina. We came here yesterday with Alex (it was a good opportunity for her to see the island and meet the owner’s of the house!), but she left an hour ago so that she could catch her choir practice session.

It’s been 9 days since I returned to Athens for February. This month is chock-full of celebrations. On the 1oth was George’s birthday. On the 14th was mum’s birthday. I missed both because of the weather’s annoying shifts of mood and general exam obligations but I didn’t miss my chance and by the 15th I was back in Attica. Most of my first few days were (well) spent with Alex, who stayed at my place a few nights. We watched Sweeney Todd at the cinema the first night, brilliant movie by the way, excellent clash of horror and musical, and the second night we went to Taj Mahal, the place Savi’s currently working at, with Alex, George and Elena. Nargile, drinks and even munchies for us all came from buddy Savi who treated us the lot. We thank you again! That night it also started snowing…

The next few days were dedicated to enjoying the Reign of White that took us all by such great surprise. Till Savi’s birthday, that is the 18th, and the day after, Athens and of particular interest, Nea Smyrni were as white as I never remember seeing them. Okay, I kind of missed the great snow of 2002 and the 2004 one lasted for just one day, but still. Streets frozen, plants all suddenly bearing the same bright appearance, a searing pain in the hands every time you tried to make a snowball with no gloves,  going to Syntagma Sq, realising that it’s only you and your friends and only a few other (probably nice and interesting) people at the square, and then playing with the white stuff and watching it fall, denser and denser, more and more intrusive, more beautiful by the second. And oooh the chill, ooooh the cold. That’s what I call a flash whiteout! I took many pictures of us and the world but they will have to wait till I get back to my island home.

Then there was the Planetarium… Me and Alex enjoyed a documentary there about flight and a show about how violent the universe is, how the destructive nature of its components make the recycling of the stars’ lives possible (through novas, supernovas etc) or how great events like the collision of a newly formed planetoid with Earth during the earlier stages of its life, apart from almost turning our planet to space dust, created the moon and tilted the Earth’s axis to the place it is today -23.5 degrees from being perfectly vertical to its orbital plane- and thus created such seemingly unique phenomena as our yearly cycle of seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Climate change is showing a tendency of screwing this balance up but more is yet to be seen, let’s hope in the right direction. That night was also the night of the total lunar eclipse… The moon, only illuminated by the red beams that aren’t filtered by the Earth’s atmosphere, looked like a giant peach or christmas tree ball hanging in the sky. In fact, under this dim light it looked more like a satellite than usual, more like an actual celestial body than just a bright light. It was pretty.

These days I’ve also been watching Heroes, the TV series about superheroes which is actually pretty awesome, and re-reading His Dark Materials. I love this book (books)! Last week I also got 3 games for 50 euros, 2 of them used: I got Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Rare’s first game for non-Nintendo machines in a long time, Beyond Good and Evil, a game everybody knows is good but few have played and Viva Pinata (I bought that one new). I’m just so curious to see how they play. Oh and erm… My very own birthday is right around the corner and I’ve been thinking about how to celebrate. Alex had this great idea of having friends at home and just relaxing! It’s amazing how it’s an idea on its own, I had almost forgot/ruled out automatically the option of staying in with pizzas, drinks and games almost completely! Now let’s see who will be able to come and what presents I may receive. It’s possible I’ll get a DSLR camera, but I’m still researching prices and honing my diplomacy skills with my parents. But if no camera does fall into my hands, a nice Go board would do just fine, I fell in love with this game ever since Cies, the dutch guy who hosted me in Rotterdam, played it with me. “It was a gift to us by the gods” indeed.

This next week I’ll be around looks interesting and eventful. I can’t wait to have a good time with everyone. As usual, I’m missing Mytilini a little bit but when I get back there I’m going to miss Athens, or more like the people that live in Athens, my folks. But why is it that we only want what we can’t have?

They say that true happiness doesn’t come from having what we want but rather from wanting what we have.