The Blog Slog

I’ve been unfaithful to you, dear reader. The blog this year has become a bit of a slog. Why? Well, quite honestly, I’m not doing anything terribly interesting that bears writing about. And, if we’re really being honest, I’m a bit blue and doing some really hard self-examination stuff about my purpose here in Greece and … well…. on the planet.

I arrived in Greece in mid-January prepared for another 90 days of sunshine. But in my three decades of visiting here, I’ve never seen such crummy weather! Rain almost every day – good god, we even had snow! What’s next - the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup?

So, Ok. The point of these winter odysseys was to just live a regular life here and not as a tourist guest. - crummy weather and all. My days have been a boring routine of going to the market, making meals for one, walking along the ramparts of the city when the weather slackened off to a mere gale and mundane chores like laundry and cleaning. I am still working, cranking out grant proposals to keep starving musicians employed and that’s actually been a pleasant distraction. My new friends here pitch in every now and then and trot me out for coffee or dinner and even for a St. Patrick’s Day dance in the village. And of course, I’ve been coming closer, ever closer to finalizing the deal on my house building project.

Ahhh, the building project. And how is that coming along? Slowy, slowly, as the Greeks say. Let’s review: first I had to prove to the Greek Minister of Defense that I am neither a crook nor a money launderer. Apparently, this is giving him some pause, as he has had my paperwork now for about six months. All normal, my Greek friends tell me. In fact, by Greek bureaucratic standards, this qualifies as clipping right along briskly.

In the meantime, I’ve been driving around the island with the ever patient Andreas looking at architectural styles and features to get some vague idea of what I want in a house. I’m a blank canvas – all I know is that I want a really cool house that has some style and elegance and will be comfortable as I get older and creakier. I count on Andreas, who is more of a visionary than I (and frankly has better taste) to steer me in the right direction. “The blue shutters? Really? No, I don’t THINK so,” he tuts.

All I know is that I don’t want an ultra modern concrete cube, like some of the characterless holiday homes I see piled on top of each other here. And I don’t want a traditional white village house that reeks of cute. Chic, I aren’t and quaint, I ain’t. Other than that, I am wide open to ideas. You can imagine how frustrating this will be for my architect.

Today I meet with a project engineer to start sketching out some plans so we can be ready to jump, er, saunter – when the approval from Athens comes through. Then we can apply for building permits – which take several more months. I won’t see ground broken til late fall I’m told… a full 15 months after starting the process. In the meantime, I will use the time here to pick out marble tiles, the perfect bathroom fixtures, and select windows and flooring.

Next week, I am moving from the lovely city of Chania to the resort village of Almyrida to be closer to new friends and to the village where I am building. With a car, I can putter around the back roads and get to know my new neighbourhood better. I promise to get back on track with funny stories, great recipes (Easter lamb – Yum!), endearing cultural quirks and a minimal amount of whining about my life. Promise.

The next 90 days: Perspectives

Hello again faithful readers - I'm back by popular demand! Well, maybe not - I am back chasing my own brand of hedonism. I am once again searching for my 90 days of sunshine this winter in Crete. I landed back in Greece the end of January and will be here until mid-May. This time, I will be focused on my building project and getting to know my new neighbourhood and seeing if I can fit into the community.
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There's lots I want to share with you over the next few months - my quirky insights into packing for 3 months, the joys of transiting through multiple airports in this post 9/11 time, the exquisite flavour of lamb kleftiko cooked the way the gods intended, the exuberant joy of snagging a fat orange off a neighbour's tree in January, or the vibe in Athens when the tourists aren't there.... and more, of course, on the bureaucracy of a foreigner (me) buying land on a Greek island.

But tonight, as I write this, the Mediterranean basin is in turmoil, with governments toppling from Tunisia to Egypt. Crete is just a stone's throw across the Libyan sea. In fact we are closer to Libya here than mainland Europe. Perspective is important. My friends back in Canada are bitching about yet another winter storm; my friends here in Greece are bitching about the economic measure designed to pull them out of the shitter. But tonight.... tonight I shared a taverna table with 8 bewildered Chinese engineers who had just escaped from Libya. The Greeks sent over their big friendly ferry boats to bring them to Crete. 4,500 Chinese nationals landed in Heraklion yesterday. The young people I was sitting with were still reeling from their experiences and waiting for their countrymen to send planes to bring them home. Suddenly the fact that I had to endure a few days of rain when I got here, or my Greek friends had to endure skyrocketing petrol prices seemed pretty insignificant. Tonight it was my job to listen to their stories and act as a buffer between Chinese needs and Greek custom.

Perspective is important to keep - well, in perspective. Tonight these young Chinese engineers weren't fighting for democracy in their homeland - they were escaping a war zone. They weren't poorly paid migrant field workers, rather they were educated professionals working in high level jobs away from home. But, once they get safely home, I wonder what questions they will chew over after their experience of seeing simple peasants fighting for democracy with little more than hunting rifles and kitchen knives.

Travel delays: What the airlines DON'T want you to know

With this past strange year of weird weather seemingly designed by Sybil - from volcanoes to winter storms of biblical scale, air travel can seem a bit dodgy. So, it's good to know your rights.

I am re-printing this from Frommer's website - this is what the airlines would prefer you DON'T know about your rights if you are stranded.

The EU and Canada both have laws that can help stranded travelers. The U.S., notably, doesn't.

The EU has the strongest protection for flyers. EU protections apply if you are flying out of an EU airport, or if you're flying into the EU on an EU-flagged carrier -- which makes it useful to fly, say, Air France rather than Delta. If a flight has been cancelled or subject to a "long delay" (which is 2-4 hours depending on destination), passengers are required to be allowed to contact two people outside the airport and get refreshments and hotel rooms at the airline's expense. There is no limit on the amount of time they have to put you up.

In Canada, if your flight is delayed more than four hours, airlines must provide passengers with a meal voucher. If it is delayed more than eight hours and overnight, the airline must pay for a hotel -- but only if you're in the middle of a trip, not at your destination or arrival point.

But beyond those countries, you're basically at the mercy of your airline.

Read more: http://www.frommers.com

Chronia Polla!

Just wanted to share this pic......

We have the biggest balls!

I was once on the island of Sifnos for about a month - Sifniots are renowned as incredible cooks. My guide book at the time urged me to hike across the mountain paths to a small village where I would find the most incredible taverna serving astonishing food. This particular place was very famous for its tyrobalakia, advised the book, and other small croquettes made from zucchini, eggplant, sausage - you name it. The guide book was right.

Mouth watering after my hike, I sashayed in to the packed taverna - alone (as always) and hopefully asked the owner - a dashing young man - if he had any cheese balls on the menu today. "We have ALL the balls," sez he! "The biggest and best on the island!" A mortified hush fell over the crowd. He blushed, I sniggered, and the crowd burst into hysterical laughter. The night went to hell after that with fantastic food, buckets of barrel wine, toasts to the largest balls and new friends.

So here is another one of my favourite recipes - with adaptations for North American cooks. Delicious as an appetizer, deadly to the waistline.


Tyrobalakia (Cheese balls)


Ingredients
250g anthotyro (ricotta-style cheese)
250g feta (piquant-style, grated)
250g kefalotyri or pecorino romano (grated)
2 eggs
3-4 tbsp flour
Ground pepper to taste
Sesame seeds
Extra virgin olive oil

Method
Mix all the ingredients together except for the sesame seeds. Add enough flour to ensure the mixture is pliable but not dry. With hands greased in olive oil, ply the cheese mixture into small balls.
Roll the balls into the sesame seeds so the balls are completely coated. Fry in olive oil and serve. The cheese balls can be prepared up to 24 hours in advance, stored in the fridge and fried when ready to serve.

It's in the mail. Maybe

Her majesty is a grand old gal, but her postal service is a bit dodgy sometimes.

I finally DID manage to get all my paperwork (so far) signed, stamped, authorized, notarized, disinfected, inspected, sealed, laminated, framed, stamped again, and signed off by the Mounties, several lawyers, a notary, a commissioner of oaths, a nice lady at the Greek consulate in Montreal and New Brunswick's Lieutenant Governor (I am not making this up - really - the LG had to sign off too).

So the next step is to mail the whole mess of documents to my lawyer in Crete - the talented Dr. Marios. He then gets them all translated by an OFFICIAL (of course) translator recognized by the Greek government (naturally). I'm not sure how many rogue wildcatting Greek translators are skulking about ready to do evil deeds to government documents, but apparently this process weeds them out.

In good faith, I mailed a batch by means of something called an "international package." Cost me 57 bucks but got there in 4 days. The next batch went "expedited" - cost me 34 bucks and has yet to arrive 2 weeks later. The third batch went by regular international air mail - small package - cost me 7 bucks - it also is somewhere in Her Majesty's post office waiting to whisked to Greece. Three different post offices; three different recommendations for the best way to mail; three different prices and three different mail clerks who never heard of either of the first two ways to send the package. Hmmmm. Who needs reality TV when you have a post office providing such great edge-of-your-seat kind of entertainment.

The bad news is that if Her Majesty manages to lose any of these letters, I have to start all over again.

Dudley Doright Done Me Wrong!

Still here? Good lord, you must be a sucker for the boring minutiae of government paperwork! Or a kindly relative. Or a creditor. Hmmmmmm....

I started my paperwork to purchase my tiny piece of Crete in May. It is now October. Oh those wacky Greeks and their bureaucracy, you say. Uhm, no - this 6 month delay in getting the paper I needed to START the purchase process was caused by my very own Canadian government. See, the first order of business in preparing to apply for permission to buy is the need for a criminal record check from our beloved Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Six months this took - fee for getting fingerprinted (O my, THAT was an interesting experience!); fee for requesting the record check. Since my life is depressingly dull, I have no criminal record that would make me pop up instantly on any data base. Back when I was 9 years old and boosting chocolate bars, they apparently didn't record my life of crime. So, yes, six months for Dudley Doright to get off his Royal arse and give me the stinking piece of paper that says I'm a good girl (at least as far as they are concerned - all you exes out there - shaddup!)

So, now the paperwork has been assembled that basically identifies me as (A) a Canadian and (B) Saintly.

Then I had to send it to Greek consulate in Montreal for 6 copies of everything AND little paper stamps and arcane notations on each copy to prove that the Greek consulate agrees that these are in fact, indeed, documents issued by the Canadian government. There was a fee for this, of course. In fact, they charge by the page. I am $125 poorer. Plus the courier costs and the pre-paid return envelope. There are no free rides.

So now, the paperwork rests with my lawyer in Crete. A very stylish hyperactive guy who speaks faster than the speed of stink. Let's hope his lawyering skills are as slick. He now has to assemble all my documents and their various copies and stamps and authorizations and find the topographical maps of the property, find the engineer and architect and contractor and probably Spiros down at the fish market to sign off on the whole mess and then send it to the Minister of Defense in Athens for his approval. My lawyer happily assures me that this will only take eight months. That's 8 (eight) months. It will be interesting to see if the Greek government can beat the 6 months it took for the Mounties to give me my piece of paper.

And THEN...... I can write a check and buy a piece of land that would fit comfortably in a corner of my driveway here in Canada.

Can't accuse ME of being an impulse shopper!!! God, I need and ouzo..... stay tuned.