Impulse shopping: Greek style

So, if you’ve been following along with this blog, you know that I have been trying to buy a little scrap of land in Greece. And you’ve patiently followed along on all the bureaucratic hoops I’ve had to jump through to foolishly spend my money.

Let’s review: a few years ago I found a tiny, but small patch of dirt on the island of Crete. Ever the impulse shopper, I took one look at the views from the land and said “SOLD!” Or the rough equivalent in my really atrocious Greek.

My sales agent, the ever helpful, endlessly patient Andreas, outlined the paperwork needed that I, as a non-EU citizen, would need to assemble to buy my patch of heaven. Mounds of it, piles of it, heaps actually. All duly stamped, notarized, authorized, certified, and stamped again. Paperwork is key – apparently actually handing over my dough is a minor detail - twiddling with more paperwork and stamps is ever so much more fun.

For the last two years I have been getting criminal record checks, arguing with the Greek Minister of Defense, whilst meekly begging for the opportunity to hand over my entire retirement savings to a country that is going bankrupt. I’ve been processed and cleared by the Greek departments of heritage, agriculture, environment, rural development and several other minor provincial offices. I still don’t have my land.

If you’ve been keeping up with the news, Greece is in a financial crisis of epic proportions. Not only is the country teetering on the abyss of bankruptcy, its profligate spending the last decade is now threatening to bring down the entire Eurozone.

I’ve been desperately trying to give Greece my money – buy some land, build a house, employ some locals to build and maintain it, and settle in. Apparently impulse shopping is not a danger in Greece as it’s now going on two years and I still have no land and no house.

I’m told that I am now mere days away from the right stamp being applied to the right piece of paper, duly notarized, authorized and certified and solemnly witnessed by everyone in the village from the mayor to the village barber. Mere days. The pace of land purchasing in Greece makes one dizzy.

I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I’m going to go check on that bottle of champagne I put in the fridge to chill for the day I get my deed. I think it may have evaporated by now.

Living abroad; staying connected

I’ll admit it - I’m a news addict. I come by it naturally. My beloved dad was a broadcaster in both radio and TV for 50 years. As a teenager, he hung around the local radio station until they gave him a job. From those early days as a radio operator, he quickly grew into an on-air “personality” and eventually management. Midway in his career, he switched from private broadcasting to Canada’s public system, the CBC. Widowed early, Dad often needed to bring me along to the radio or TV studio when babysitters were hard to find. I grew up spending a lot of time sitting quietly in a broadcast booth or TV studio while dear old dad was “live on air.” The addiction was born. Radio was always on in our home and Dad taught me what made a good broadcast or how to recognize a talented announcer.

To this day, I can’t miss a newscast on radio or TV. The CBC encourages a lot of audience participation these days – their way of making the audience do the work of programming since the government has slashed their funding for production. So, I do my part by contributing to radio shows as an occasional guest commentator or by providing feedback on issues raised. I’m still good friends with a lot of the announcers my dad worked with or hired and the career I’ve had in the last few decades has had me building strong media relations.

So how do I stay connected when I’m living in Greece? Well the internet allows me to listen to or watch live broadcasts from home – with a 6 hour time difference. It’s very comforting - like having a coffee with a pal and having a good gab about local politics (thanks Terry and Stan). It’s also led to some really cool experiences.

For example, one day I was exchanging tweets with a friend back home while I was listening to the local morning show and pruning back my jasmine in the hot Greek sunshine. They announced a school closure due to a vicious winter blizzard. I knew about it before he did. We both got chills from the weirdness of me knowing that his kid had a storm day from half a world away before mum and dad even rolled out of bed.

The same local morning show maintains a live Twitter feed while broadcasting and they respond to incoming emails. So when the announcer is saying it’s minus 25 in Fredericton, I can shoot him a note and say it’s plus 30 in Chania and I’m off to the beach - sucks being meeee. They usually read it on air and get a lot of mileage out of bad weather jokes. But besides bad jokes, this past winter, it also meant that I was their closest connection to what was happening in Libya. I could relate my experience of meeting the refuges that had been evacuated to Greece directly on air to the folks at home. I could talk about how chilling it was to meet the young NATO airforce pilots one night in a taverna and then watch their jets whistle overhead on their way to bomb Libyan towns. And of course, this past autumn, I’ve had a front row seat watching an entire nation’s economy disintegrate.

Now that I am back in Canada for a few months, I read the Greek newspapers on line every day and watch the BBC broadcasts live streaming. A live web cam over the city of Chania lets me know what their day is like. Last year, in my ultimate act of geekdom, I watched Chania’s New Years Eve fireworks live on the web cam.

http://www.cretadeluxe.com/webcam/webcam_chania_en.html

I love my life in Greece; I adore my Canadian home. The amazing power of the internet keeps me connected to both worlds.