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Update on the strikes
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May. 14th, 2008 @ 08:14 pm
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The gas truck drivers have ended their strike, but the rest of the truckers are still on strike. There are rumors of an additional port strike starting tomorrow. Tomorrow also there are also going to be a number of protests (my email to myself didn't make it through the government firewall, so I can't list them all) about all sorts of things.
And the new list of people going on strike tomorrow: Olympic airlines, all the banks, the public electric company, the public water company (and some more I can't remember, but you get the point.)
In happy news, our car arrived today. At the Embassy. It's sitting in the garage overnight waiting for one final bit of paperwork that we'll have tomorrow. The ironic thing is that I got an email from the shipping company today telling me that the delivery of my car would be delayed because of all of the strikes and they didn't know when I would get it. |
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Today's protest
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May. 12th, 2008 @ 06:36 pm
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is against cell phone towers.
Oh, and still no end to the truckers' strike. Gas is sporadic, in some places costing 3euros/liter. That's $17 per gallon. |
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Strikes and demonstrations
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May. 11th, 2008 @ 06:48 pm
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Greece has brought the art of demonstrations and strikes to its pinnacle. There hasn't been a week since we've been here without one or the other.
Usually the demonstrations are against things like imperalism or using a park for a government building. Sometimes they are pretty cool, like when the bicyclists ride through town to protest the lack of any bicycle-friendly streets and laws. Or when the mothers come out with the baby strollers and take over the streets protesting the anti-pedestrian friendly traffic.
Sometimes the strike makes sense, but for the most part I don't get it. They are always announced ahead of time, including usually how long they will last. In my way of thinking, the point of a strike is to force "the man" to do what you want him to do. But, when the metro workers say they're going to strike for one day, all it does is throw the city into chaos for that day.
There's been an ongoing port strike since before we arrived, making things take a long, long time to get shipped here. Apparently, the history of this is that the dock workers were claiming overtime when they weren't all working overtime. Discovering this, the port owners said enough and now refuse to pay overtime. So, it's not really a strike, but a work-to-rule. Still though, it creates its own chaos, such as our car not being put into port until May 1st (it was supposed to arrive Feb. 28). All things being equal, even with the work-to-rule, we should have had the car May 5.
But, guess what happened. Another strike. This time the truckers. They want a 12% salary increase. So, no trucks, no moving things from the port, no car. Also, no groceries or other deliveries of any kind. Like gas. The truckers' strike started Wednesday. Today there is no gas to be had anywhere in the city.
Oh, and the taxi drivers are going on strike tomorrow.
It's a good thing I can walk to work. |
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2 cats in a tree
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May. 9th, 2008 @ 02:24 pm
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I met Brian for lunch today at the souvlaki place that is just around the corner from the Embassy. On our walk back, we kept hearing this loud, insistent meowing. Looking up we saw...
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Happy Birthday
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May. 4th, 2008 @ 11:16 am
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Happy Birthday ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sallysimpleton!!! |
| » Notes for travelers |
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When you're planning to travel overseas, please make sure you carry a copy of your passport someplace separate from your passport. My Duty Officer calls this weekend have been from people who have had their passports stolen or lost.
They all want to leave Greece this weekend, but without a passport, they're here until Monday.
Applying for an emergency passport will go much easier if you have a copy with you of your original.
May. 3rd, 2008 @ 04:44 pm
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| » A week of holidays |
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This year Orthodox Easter fell a bit late (on our anniversary, actually). We had Friday and Monday off. I also have today off for May Day. So, that makes this week a 3-day week. Add to that, that most of the Greeks have taken advantage of the double holidays and taken the whole week off and it's pretty quiet around here.
Even the promised march on the Embassy today should be fairly low-key.
I'm also Duty Officer this week. At the risk of tempting fate, so far it's been a quiet week.
May. 1st, 2008 @ 09:56 am
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| » Gas |
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I forgot to mention that gas in Prague is about $8/gallon. It's $7.68/gallon here in Athens, about a buck cheaper for us on the Embassy compound (since we don't have to pay the VAT).
I just heard on talk radio (via AFN) the host panicking about how pundits are saying that in the next 4 years gas in the U.S. will be $8/gallon.
Well, here in Europe, we're there already.
Apr. 28th, 2008 @ 10:17 pm
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| » Prague |
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Since we're now based in Europe, we're trying to take advantage of all of the places that we can travel to from Athens. SkyEurope has direct flights between Prague and Athens and I have a classmate serving there. So, we spent the long weekend (with Greek Orthodox Easter we had both Friday and Monday off) celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary in Prague.
Prague has always held a fascination for me as part of the Old World and being behind the Iron Curtain. Of course, it was also the cool place to travel when I was in high school.
Finally getting there was worth it. My first impression as we drove in from the airport to the city was that it looked a lot like Pennsylvania, at least the part where I grew up, a lot of green fields and deciduous trees. Arriving into the city, it was the beautiful mix of architecture.
We spent all day Friday and Saturday wandering around the Old City, the Prague Castle, Wenceslas Square, the Jewish Quarter, and the Charles Bridge. As fshusband said, we walked and walked and walked. Despite the rain on Friday, we got some good shots. I took nearly 250 pictures (that I kept on my camera) and Brian took 15 rolls of film.
Prague is a very easy city to navigate and most of the "important" sights are all within 2km of each other. The tram system makes it even easier to get around. Everything is very well signed, in English and in Czech and the trams come every 10 minutes or so with digital maps on the inside to tell you what the next stop is.
The buildings all have their own individual character and blend nicely into a cohesive city. Many of them have intricate balconies and statues. Some have mosaics, paintings or gilding. We saw buildings that look like they were built 50 years ago, but in reality were erected 1000 years ago. I was struck by how straight and in alignment all the buildings were. I now understand what St. Petersburg looked like when it was completed. It doesn't look like that now, of course, but it was a bit like stepping back in time.
Despite Czech being a Slavic language and having some similarities to Russian, we had a hard time communicating in the local language. Fortunately (or not) Prague is so dependent on tourism that nearly everyone we spoke with had enough English for us to communicate. In the one instance that we needed a bit more, I asked the woman behind the meat counter at the grocery store if she spoke Russian. She was of an age that it was worth taking the chance. And of course, she did. At least enough that I could ask what I needed to know about the sausages.
We had great food while we were there and excellent beer (both dark and light pilsner). And I discovered that pilsner can be a good beer when it's fresh. We had Czech food, Brian had goose, red cabbage slaw and potato dumplings and I had beef in cream sauce with dumplings and cranberries. On Friday, in the middle of the cold rain, we had an excellent lunch of garlic soup, fried cheese and kielbasa. We also sampled hot mulled wine and a variety of desserts and pastries at cafes around the city, including two different yummy desserts featuring plums and poppy seeds. I also bought a cylinder of fried dough covered in sugar and nuts. Obviously, Brian passed on that one.
Just for variety, we also ate at a Tex-Mex place (surprisingly good) and a Greek restaurant (at the request of our host). Unfortunately, the Greek restaurant didn't quite measure up to the food here in Athens. But, we were able to impress our host with our Greek language ability.
We also managed to get in a Thai foot massage and a little bit of souvenir shopping. 11 of our friends and relatives will also receive a postcard from Prague. Sorry, Mom and Dad, I forgot to include you guys in the list. You'll have to share J and Baby May's.
Sunday was a much less walking heavy day. We headed to one of the many shopping malls (I was looking for a couple of specific things) and had some Japanese food. I was also excited to see two Icelandic cafes on the mall map. However, after walking around the entire 5 stories, we discovered that the Iceland cafes had been replaced by a Starbucks. In the Old Town, we came across another Icelandic restaurant, but sadly, there was very little on the menu that was truly an Icelandic dish (other than the fact that they used Icelandic ingredients like salmon).
The only negative thing about our flight was that it left Athens at 4am and got back at 2:30am, so it made for two very long days. But, today, Monday, I had off from work, so I was able to sleep in and veg around the house.
Next tourist trip--Paris.
Apr. 28th, 2008 @ 09:47 pm
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| » View from Prague Castle |
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We spent our anniversary weekend in Prague.
Apr. 26th, 2008 @ 06:17 pm
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| » Small world |
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Yesterday we headed to a cafe with bouzouki music with a few people from the embassy. One of the people along for the ride turned out to be from Gettysburg. He's here visiting a friend of his who works at the embassy. He's also a professional photographer, so I made sure that Brian sat next to him so he could pick his brain. The music was okay. It started out as more Western music, probably because our group of Americans were the only people there. But, within half an hour a big group of Greeks showed up and they started playing more Greek music.
That morning, we took advantage of having the rental car and headed out to the fytopoleio (plant nursery) to decorate our balcony in an attempt to blend in with the locals. We came away with three shrubs (white camillia, vine maple and red bottlebrush) and a hanging pot of purple petunias. We also bought some ceramic pots, saucers, stands with wheels and dirt. The nursery guy replanted everything for us and loaded it into the car. Because we bought so much, they threw in a mint plant. Of course, now we need a better pot for that. But, that we can get a the grocery store. I had also planted some seeds in our planters that we had brought along (mums and something else that I can't remember now). They are starting to sprout. Soon we'll blend in better.
Today, we headed to Evvoia, an island in the Aegean, joined by a bridge with the mainland. We had lunch at a fish taverna right on the beach, sardines and anchovies. I never thought I'd be eating such stuff, but when fresh and cooked right, it's delicious! Then we headed a little further into the island, stopped to take pictures of the poppies and the effects of the summer fires, grabbed a freddo (iced coffee with frothed milk) and headed home.
All in all a good weekend.
Apr. 20th, 2008 @ 06:26 pm
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| » Mmmm steak |
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Yesterday we headed out for sushi and ended up here. Probably the best steak dinner I've had in ages. You know how you never eat the veggies that come along side the steak? I finished mine before I really got into my steak. There's something to be said for truly fresh vegetables.
Apr. 18th, 2008 @ 08:59 pm
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| » The treatment |
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The 10am visit got me this.
By 2pm, the bite closer to my elbow really started to show up, so I headed back to the nurse. You can see it just a bit in the picture. They gave me 50mg of benadryl but told me I couldn't go home yet. They wanted to check my arm again in a few hours because there was a slight streaking.
At 4:30pm I went back to the nurse, after nearing falling asleep at my desk while simultaneously pigging out on Fritos. They weren't particularly pleased with the swelling and the heat coming off my arm. So, I got a few tablets of Tagamet. Apparently, in addition to helping heartburn and ulcers, it is also an anti-histamine.
So, tonight I'm supposed to take the two of them together (benadryl and tagamet).
Brian came in to work to walk me home. I was/am still a bit loopy from the benadryl. The nurse told me that 25mg makes her loopy, so she was impressed that I was still on my feet.
Now, I'm sitting at home, watching the Colbert Report with an icepack on my wrist.
The swelling seems to have gone down a bit. It doesn't look nearly as red and angry. But, just in case, I traced the outline of the inflammation so that I have a reference point.
We'll see how it goes tomorrow.
The funny thing is earlier this week I asked my staff about calling my landlady to see about getting some screens in the windows. Athens doesn't typically have screens, except in the brand new apartments. They weren't hopeful that she would agree to it, even if I paid for it. Now, this morning, they made it their top priority.
Apr. 17th, 2008 @ 03:41 pm
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| » Mosquito bite(s) |
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Apparently mosquito season has started. At 5am this morning I was attacked by one or more mosquitoes. I have at least 3 bites (two on in inside of my wrist and one halfway between my wrist and my elbow.)
When I got up this morning and showed Brian his comment was "did you break your arm?" because the swelling on my wrist and hand was so bad.
By 10am, it was so inflamed that I headed to the nurse's office.
Apr. 17th, 2008 @ 09:45 am
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| » Car, no car |
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Our car was supposed to arrive in Greece on 2/28. Then it was 3/20. Now it's 4/28.
The only good news is that the shipping company has authorized a rental car for us. We got the first reimbursement check today.
It's been so delayed partly because of a work-to-rule strike at the port (meaning no overtime, no weekends so things are just backed up) and because the shipper and the boat line have decided to waylay shipments along the way so they don't get stuck in port at Greece. At this point, I have to think that it would have been just as long here as bouncing around between Italy and Egypt on its way.
I just hope there isn't any damage. Each port they offload the container and reload it. Each time they touch the container there's the potential for damage.
Apr. 15th, 2008 @ 06:49 pm
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| » Brian's new toy |
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This weekend at The Mall, we got a new toy for Brian--a cappuccino stencil.
Apr. 14th, 2008 @ 01:08 pm
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| » Wildflowers on the hill |
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We took a walk up the hill by our apartment this morning. The wildflowers are in full bloom. It was 75 yesterday and today promises to be just as warm. The humidity, surprisingly, is also very high.
Apr. 13th, 2008 @ 10:52 am
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| » A day at The Mall |
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We spent the day at The Mall of Athens. It's just like an American mall with a few different stores. We had lunch at Ruby Tuesday's. We bought some books in English. Brian sat at Flocafe (Greece's version of Starbucks but better) while I got my hair done. We had some Haagen Daz.
It's nice to know that when I need my American shopping experience, there's a place I can go. 45 minutes by metro, so I don't even have to worry about parking.
They've even got a bowling alley, a pool hall and a 14-screen movie theater.
Apr. 12th, 2008 @ 01:28 pm
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| » Pilates is working |
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So, I've signed up for Pilates twice a week at work. I really like the instructor and more or less I've been good about going. This week I did 5 real pushups, not on my knees, but on my toes.
I also learned a new word at work this week. USUFRUCTUARY.
Apr. 3rd, 2008 @ 08:33 pm
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