From a villa renter to villa owners: 10 tips for happy holiday villa stays

1. Toilet paper. I know, it’s not my favourite subject either. But, listen, I just flew for 20 hours to get here. I am jet lagged. Greek plumbing is VERY different from what I am used to. So, what’s up with the one roll of toilet paper? Did you think I brought a stash with me in my suitcase? Do you think that after a 20 hour flight, landing in a strange village in the dark, I am likely to run out to the supermarket? Please leave me enough toilet paper to get me through a few days at least.

2. Towels. I am tired and stinky after that long flight. Don’t be mean with the towels. This is in your best interest. I will use your drapes.

3. Pillows. Change em out at least once a season. I have no great desire to sleep on other people’s drool. See note above about using your drapes.

4. Garbage. I come from a world where there is weekly curbside pickup. Please leave me instructions for what to do with my garbage. Do you pick it up? Do I have to take it some place? What about garbage bags? Can you leave me enough to manage? Otherwise I will throw my icky stuff directly in your bin and you can damn well wash it out when I leave.

5. Water. If you have a villa in an area where the water is not safe for drinking, please let me know. And as a kindness, please leave a few large bottles of water for me to tide me over until I can figure out where the market is. If you don’t let me know, then we will probably need to review Tip # 1 about toilet paper.

6. Kitchen gadgets. I am tired of annually outfitting villa kitchens. How about a can opener, corkscrew, decent bread knife and something more substantial in the pots and pans department? Dish soap would be nice too – for some odd reason, I never think to pack a bottle to take with me from Canada. Oh – and a cutting board, please. I will use your countertops otherwise.

7. Electricity. Hopefully your guests are smart enough to understand about the different power requirements for appliances and come equipped with plugs and adapters for their own stuff. However, in the countryside here there are lots of planned power cuts for mysterious reasons. The power company helpfully posts notices around the village – but I can’t read Greek very well. Can you let me know?

8. Security. Those little personal safes are great. Remember to leave me the code, please. Also, remind me about locking windows and doors when I go out. Bad things happen to good people – even though we prefer not to think about it. Thankfully, property crime is still pretty low here in this country.

9. Batteries. In my 30 years of renting everything from cheap studios, moderately priced hotel rooms to posh villas, I have yet to find one that has fresh batteries in the various gadgets. I routinely need to buy batteries for TV and air conditioner remote. It’s not a big deal, but it is annoying. I’d rather spend my time in a taverna or on the beach than fannying about the village trying to find someone who sells a AAA battery for a decent price.

10. Be nice. I’m coming back. And in this day of instant social media, I am definitely telling my friends and I will very likely write a review.

FINALLY!

I got my deed. I got my deed. I GOT MY DEED! Not bad - only took 18 months!!!! It's about 12 pages long and devotes as much space to my genealogy as it does to surveyor's measurements and map coordinates and has more stamps on it than a parcel from the North Pole!

The winter of my discontent

Always one to enjoy a good farce, I have to say I'm not having much fun with this one.

Normally, my travel gods ensure that I have blissfully worry-free travel with no health, money, or crime issues - good lord, I've never even missed a flight or has a suitcase go missing! Not so this trip.

For the first few weeks of my winter in Crete, we've been plagued by rotten rainy cold weather. No problem - well, except this lovely villa I've rented for the season has no central heating. It is a summer holiday let, you see, and not at all suitable for what can be cold winter nights. I've taken to bundling up in layers, drinking hot tea and raki and snuggling under fleecy blankies while I watch TV at night.

Just as the weather was finally breaking and Greek sunshine starting to show the promise of spring, I suffered a pretty catastrophic fall down a slippery staircase. Sadly, I was sober, or it might not have been so bad. I was trying to muscle a space heater from the second floor to the first and away I went. I already have a knee that is pretty much made up of loose gravel and twigs - ligaments and tendons long having been destroyed in an old basketball injury. But this time, I damaged it in a truly spectacular, if not technicolour, fashion. I cried like a baby, as nothing hurts worse than a joint injury.

My splendid friends here immediately showed up to nurse and soothe me. I was plied with drugs, hot water bottles, food, love and attention. I slept on the couch in my clothes for a few days as I really couldn't walk. In a few days I was able to hobble a bit with a cane. I resigned myself to a few weeks of being house bound recuperating.

Then came the salmonella poisoning.

Generally, I am one of those annoying smug people that never gets stomach upsets. I used to joke that I could lick the water out of a mud puddle in Mexico City and not get sick. Hardy har har. Not so funny now. No, the real comedic value here is the vision of me racing to the loo hopping on one leg, sort of like an animated corkscrew. Howling in pain all the while for complete dramatic effect. Let's just say that Mr. Dictionary deserted me in favour of a few choicer words I learned from my sailor pals.

One thing about constant pain - it is exhausting. Another thing about gastric nastiness - it also wears you out. While I am thrilled to have lost about 10 pounds, I am utterly exhausted. The superduper antibiotics I eventually took to slay the salmonella beast also wiped out all the other good bugs in my gut. Bring on the yeast infection in my mouth and eyes. I am not making that part up. Fortunately, that's an easy one to fix in the land of real yogurt. A few bowlfuls of good Greek yogurt fixed the balance - infection gone.

It is now week two of my confinement. Cabin fever is setting in. I can't bend my knee enough even to get into my little rental car and bomb around the country side. And if I did, the thought of having to haul over and find a clump of bushes is enough to keep me housebound. I am mending slowly. But it is frustrating. Getting lots of reading and sleeping taken care of so I can tick that off my to-do list. The time I spend lying on my bed of pain contemplating the ceiling also allows me to stew over losing my job the day I flew out from Canada and allows me to seethe that my former boss and dear friend is screwing me out of my back pay. What? Me, worry? Yes, this truly has been an epic adventure. I'd quote Queen Elizabeth and her "annus horribilus" line, but the obviousness of the pun potential is just too great.

But, listen: can I just say thank you to my wonderful friends here? They check in on me several times a day, bring me homemade soup and stolen fruit, meds, mags, laughter and buckets of love. I am overwhelmed.

I commented that I wouldn't get this kind of love and attention at home - my very wise cousin Harriet said, "maybe you ARE home."

Winter Number 3: 90 days of …. rain?

Well, this is now my third year of wintering in Greece. This particular trip has not begun auspiciously – my job back home seems to have evaporated, although there is always my other contract work to keep the wolf from the door; the weather in Greece sucks – rain, rain, and more rain – rare for these parts; and my building project here is grinding along more slowly than I would like. Oh yeah, and there’s that pesky Greek economic crisis that is putting everyone in an edgy mood.

Other than that, life is good. I am happily ensconced in a large villa (a deal for rent this time of year) in the countryside near the sea. I woke this morning to birds singing their hearts out, the sight of almond trees in bloom and a hungry eagle soaring on the updrafts over my olive grove. I think the sun may even finally emerge. Yup, life is good.

I have arrived just in time for Apokries and this weekend is when all the Carnivale activities wind up before Lent settles in. Today, Sunday, I am off to watch the miles-long parade in Kalives – a lovely little town at the edge of the sea. My friends and I will settle into a street-side café, order buckets of fine local wine and generally just pass the day with the locals and ex-pat residents. Parties tonight, fireworks if we’re lucky.

Tomorrow is Clean Monday – kite flying, house tidying, and picnics with delicious traditional foods (seafood is on the menu today). In the old days, it was a day of fasting and prayer. Now it is more or less considered the first day of Spring. And, let’s face it, with this rotten uncertain economy the Greeks are in no mood for more penance.

So, eat, drink, be merry, watch the parades, fly your kites…. Spring is nigh!

I’m Finally Legit!!

No, really!! I am finally a landowner in Greece! I've got a deed and everything - er, not that I can read it.

Didn’t take too long – I started in May 2010 pulling together the vast amounts of paperwork needed for the application to buy the land. And here it is December 2011 – 19 months – this would be the warp speed pace of bureaucracy in Greece.

So, the paperwork has finally cleared and I can now sink my life savings into a tiny scrap of land in a country with an economy that is circling the drain. What the hell am I thinking?

Well, I’m thinking of turquoise seas and azure skies; of lovely friends I’ve made in my little village overlooking the Cretan Sea; of the smells of Easter lamb roasting on the spit and incense burning in the church. I am thinking of my generous and friendly neighbours who think I’m a bit dotty but harmless (what a coincidence – my neighbours in Canada feel the same way).

I am thinking of sitting in a waterfront taverna staring out to sea and pondering life’s questions; of dandling the taverna owner’s child on my knee while I sip a glass of wine in the country the grape was grown in.

I am thinking of a future in a country with a fascinating past. And I am thinking that if I didn’t do this, I would regret it the rest of my life.

Now the next feat of endurance is to apply for a building permit. My engineer, Kostas, has the building plans, the elevations, seismic surveys (gulp), topographical maps, knows where to site the house on the land for the best views and is ready to submit something like a few dozen different documents to the authorities. They tell me that it takes about four months to get a building permit. But it might take two weeks. Here we go again.

In the meantime, I am dreamily leafing through plumbing supply catalogues and agonizing over what kind of knobs I want on my kitchen cupboards. I feel a bit silly looking at seed catalogues and trying to decide where I want the jasmine planted or the orange trees so they don’t block that all important view.

Maybe I need to focus more on where they will put my septic tank and how high I need to build my stone wall to keep the goats out of my flowers (no, I am not making that part up).

In February I will travel back to Crete to go look at my patch of dirt. I’ll dream about where the excavators will start to dig and I’ll imagine the sounds of workmen pouring concrete and cutting marble tiles.

I guess in a country with a past as long as Greece’s, time is relative.

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.