Greece: Trash Talk and Socrates

“All I know is that I know nothing.”

-- Socrates

Truer words were never spoken, than those of Socrates, the ancient philosopher, I’ve concluded after being in Greece for three weeks. Our time here has spanned both an old and new year – the time it seems that people get introspective and think deeper, philosophical thoughts. I have been thinking with such introspection it seemed the best way to tell you about them was with some ‘trash talk’:  garbage collection, quite literally.

 

Maybe it is the atmosphere or something in the water, but we’ve become a bit philosophical after spending time in Greece.

 

On this visit, we’ve cut ourselves off from television and have significantly reduced computer time, mainly because the house doesn’t have either. We’ve tapped into another’s w-ifi (with his permission) and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

 

 

 

We’ve spent a lot of time outdoors – working with our hands and thinking with our heads; not relying on a Google search for a definition to answer questions. Our time and our ‘being’ has allowed for pondering. A gift of time in a manner of thinking. (When’s the last time you gave yourself unlimited time to just ‘pondered’ something?)

 

Back in the Northwest I’ve been involved with an organization that is focused on developing cultural competencies. I’ve thought a great deal about that concept as I have thought about our garbage and yes garbage and cultural competencies do go hand-in-hand for the purpose of this writing: 

 

 During one of our first visits to this area - the southern Peloponnese region of Greece - I had exclaimed in what I call ‘ignorant tourist’ disgust, “OMG! Those people are throwing their garbage in the public bins!” 

 

Two years later we bought a house here:

 

The Scout on a garbage run

And quickly learned that is the way garbage is collected!

We have become “those people” who at first impression left me so aghast. In fact, I chuckled at my change in this particular activity when on New Year’s Day The Scout asked, “Shall we take a garbage run and check out what’s happening in the village?” Would this be trash talkin’ or trash travel? It certainly is a step towards making me a bit more culturally competent and less quick to judge.

The road to our house - a road that connects two villages

And as I’ve had time to ponder the concept, it does make perfect sense.  The roads here –like this one in the photo that leads to our house – in many cases are small.  Not so very long ago they were dirt tracks through olive groves. Ours, a bumpy little asphalted ribbon up the hill connects two villages, but certainly is not a road that could accommodate a garbage truck!

Trash bins – and they include recycle bins as well – are located throughout the towns, on larger roads and along the highway, which in this area is a two-lane road.

My list of logical but distinctly different cultural nuances doesn’t stop with garbage collection, it continues to grow with each passing day.

For example: collecting used toilet paper in a trash can aside the toilet and not the throne itself with its small plumbing pipes, makes perfect sense as it would plug them and fill the septic tanks); or heating water as needed when the solar power isn’t enough to do so. It is a matter of flipping a switch to heat water and then turning it off after a period of time to cut the electric use and bill. . .

Different countries, different cultures, and different ways of doing things. When it comes to travel it is good to remember the words of Socrates – All I know is that I know nothing -- before making those quick cultural judgments. 

How about you? What have you concluded about people and places before knowing their full story. . .the one that explains actions and behaviors?

We do wish you a Happy New Year and hope that you’ll spend time exploring the world with us in 2015! See you soon~

Hopefully I am linking up today with Nancie’s Travel Photo Thursday at Budget Travelers Sandbox.

Decking the Halls ~ In Greece

Rosemary Clooney was dreaming of a “White Christmas” right after Elvis had predicted a “Blue Christmas” and somewhere between the plastic goods and kitchen accessories, Bing Crosby had swept us off to Hawaii with his rendition of Mele Kalikimaka. The store’s background music had shoppers pumped by the time they reached the enormous Christmas decorations area.

Kambos Town en route to Kalamata

I need not have worried about ‘missing’ Christmas because we are in Greece. The spirit – both Holy and Shopping – is alive and well in this part of the world.

Christmas Bazaar fund-raiser - Stoupa town

The store I described above called, “Jumbo” is in the city of Kalamata, the shopping Mecca of this region. Those of us in the surrounding villages make pilgrimages there sometimes once or twice a week. In this ‘stone house on the hill’ we are about an hour’s drive away.

Our House day three

Our shopping has been focused this week on more practical things: coffee pot, microwave, rugs, furniture, bedding. . .so I am afraid if you were hoping to see this perfectly decorated new holiday home of ours, you are out of luck!  In fact, I am writing this post sitting on a folding chair hunched over a small end table in our nearly empty living room.

We bought the car as part of the house deal

 I must thank all of you who wrote comments or sent emails containing good wishes about our finally catching the daydream, and purchasing the stone house on the hill. They all meant alot to us and I would normally respond to each, but because we are limited to cafe internet time this trip, a bulk thank you will have to do until I get back to Wi-Fi land.

Some of you said you were eagerly awaiting more about Christmas and others wanted more about the house. . .so today you are getting a mish-mash report with a little about both.

We purchased the house ‘furnished’ just because that is the way it was sold. The well-used furniture was not to our taste so in addition to buying furniture, we have been selling furniture this week.The heavy, and far-too-big-for-this-house furniture (see last post) was sold Friday

And for another few days we are ‘camping out’ in our home. The new stuff is scheduled for delivery December 24th! And what a present that will be!  (Our good-sport English friends, Sue and Don, pictured in the photo were our first guests yesterday, proving again that good times can be had in the barest of surroundings.)

The painters arrive tomorrow to start the process of ‘warming up’ this hospital-white-from-ceiling-to- floor house.  The color chips have been selected and by the time the furniture arrives it should have a warm, colorful setting in which to reside.

For those of you wondering whether we are enjoying this or whether we are having second thoughts, I can assure you we’d have missed one of life’s great experiences had we not thrown caution to the wind and chased the daydream.

Waterfront in Stoupa Town Saturday night

Merry Christmas!

A Bit of Christmas Magic ~ Catching the Daydream

A recurrent theme of TravelnWrite this past year has been chasing the daydream. Our daydream, to be more specific, ‘that stone house on a hill’ in Greece. 

Much like youth chasing butterflies, we came close, so very close, but it got away just like the illusive butterfly.

Ahh. . .but never under-estimate the seasonal mysteries of Christmas Magic.

Were I writing that famous Christmas column, it would read:  ‘Yes, Virginia. . .it is Christmas and we’ve finally caught the daydream.’


Our Christmas will be spent in ‘our stone house on the hill’ in Greece’s Peloponnese. Something that even as recently as Thanksgiving, we’d have probably never believed possible. But here we are in the house that caught our eye last spring; the one that got away from us last summer.

Details fell into place rather rapidly in the last few weeks.  A deal was reached. Airline tickets purchased to avoid the Christmas sky-high prices and we headed back to Greece last week.

Home for the Holidays

The entryway from the home's parking area

I didn’t show you many photos of ‘the house’ because after the deal fell through, we didn’t feel it proper to be showing someone else’s home.  Now that it is ours, come take the first of many tours I plan to take you on and let me tell you the plans we have for this place; where we plan to spend a few months each spring and autumn:

The view from 'the stone house on the hill'

We had a number of criteria, first and foremost was view. That we have! The home looks out over The Mani and the Messinian Gulf. Olive groves stretch out before us, with Mediterranean Cypress, and small stone villages giving the feel of Tuscany (without Tuscan prices!).

Speaking of olives, we have our own grove of 17 trees that cascade down the hillside on three terraces.  We’ve been studying up on olive pruning and harvest. (Move over Frances Mayes, we may be producing oil one day ourselves!).

But what won my heart was the lemon tree next to a small patio –’ the wine patio’ it is now called – at the side of the house; a part of a large garden area that cascades down the hillside.

The home’s previous owners took good care of it – they’ve owned it since it was built eight years ago – it was their retirement daydream.
 
As with all homes, though, new owners have a plan for making it their own and improving it  – we certainly do with this place.  We packed garden gloves, work tee-shirts and blue jeans on this trip and are putting them to use during the short time we have here this winter.

The garden needs some TLC

There’s painting, pruning and planting to be done.
 

Colors speak to the soul - we want this place to shout!

Out with the old and in with some new.

Temptations at a furniture store

 

It will take awhile, but I hope you’ll come on long on our journey in this new adventure.  It may lead to a new blog, or our efforts may be recorded every so often on these pages.  For now – it is time to do a little Christmas decorating. . . 

Christmas – in terms of celebration – in Greece comes in second to Easter.  So my next post will take you on a tour of Christmas shopping and decorating ~ we do hope your holidays are going well and that you are sprinkled with a bit of Christmas magic as well!

If I am able to find internet I’ll be linking up with my usual blogosphere buddies this week. Visit them for some amazing travels and decorating ideas:

Travel Photo Thursday – Budget Traveler’s Sandbox  
Travel Inspiration – Reflections En Route  
Mosaic Monday – Lavender Cottage Gardening

Greece ~ Unexpected Joys Off-the-Beaten-Path

We did get back in the saddle again last month after our Greek house deal fell through and resumed our search for homes and/or property in The Mani.  And I have to tell you, searching for real estate in a place with the history and mystery of the Peloponnese is simply a task punctuated by unexpected joys.

With our realtors, on our own and with friends our search continued

From olive groves to gorges, we spent our last few days in Greece exploring "possibilities' with our realtors and even with friends who were kind enough to escort us. We also set out on our own several times. The one thing that becomes very clear when searching for property is:

When you get off the beaten tourist path there is always a treasure to be discovered!

 

The Gulf of Messina and Kardamyli

High above the small village of Kardamyli on the Messinian Gulf where we were staying, is an equally small – actually, smaller –  ancient village called Proastio.



Proastio

Proastio is known for its many churches. You can find them in every size, shape and condition.

Our destination was an area just outside the village.  We set off on a rather bumpy dirt road because that is often where you find the most interesting of houses for sale.

It wasn’t long before we came upon a small brown directional sign that alerted us to a church somewhere ahead that obviously had some historical significance. 










By this point in our home search/purchase process we were easily swayed from our task. We decided to table our search to find and explore the church in this scantily populated area.


We parked the car under the shade of this ancient olive tree and set out in the direction of distant, but distinct, goat bells; their dull clanking calling us to the old church where the animals grazed. . .

As was the case in so many places we visited – wonderful, enchanting historic sites – we were the only ones there. In this case we had  two or three grazing goats who had greeted, then, ignored us.

Signage explained the structure was the old Katholikon of Agio Theodoroi, (Saint Theordoroi) and dates back to the 13th Century.  At some time in history it was severely damaged by an earthquake and restoration measures have brought it back to its present condition.  Sadly, its door was locked as its interior is decorated with murals also dating as far back as the 13th Century.

 

This newer church sits behind the old one but there were no signs to explain its more ‘modern’ history or age.

This carved stone basin just outside its door caught our attention.

What was it used for?

Holy water?

When had it last been used?


We peered and poked around – desires to look at real estate completely forgotten with this treasure to be explored. We didn’t touch the walls so fragile looking that it seemed the slightest touch could topple them, yet obviously strong enough to withstand centuries of wear and tear.

Our curiosity satisfied we returned to our original task. . .but we’ll long remember this topsy-turvy treasure that we discovered off the beaten path:

Katholikon of Agio Theodoroi

Have you had the courage to venture off-the-beaten tourist track? What was it you discovered?

We are giving a big shout-out today to our new followers and subscribers!  And another shout-out to those of you who recommended TravelnWrite to them! We appreciate all of you who take the time to read TravelnWrite very much~

Linking up:
Budget Travelers Sandbox – Travel Photo Thursday

That Greek House ~ Waking from A Daydream

“Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die,

Life’s a broken-winged bird,

that cannot fly.”

                               --Langston Hughes

In this post, we continue to sidestep a bit from “travel” but then what travelers haven’t once or twice imagined themselves chasing a daydream of owning a home in some foreign location. . .

"That stone house on the hill. . ."

We’d arrived back in The Mani in late June to close in on that daydream of ours: owning a home in Greece. The purpose of our month-long trip was to purchase ‘that stone house on the hill’—the one on the far right in the photo above to be exact. We’d examined it twice last spring along with several others. It was ‘the one’.

Our offer had been accepted, a down payment made and a closing date set before we left the U.S.

By noon our first day in Greece we’d opened a bank account and secured tax ID numbers (both necessary for home ownership in this country).

A few days later we toured the house with its current owners (we’d met them last spring) and had a tutorial on details like power and water sources, and olive grove maintenance.


They were busy packing their belongings to ship back to their homeland, England. Their big boxes would leave several days before closing. They would leave Greece July 17th.

The house's front deck and view from it

As they prepared to leave; we prepared to arrive and function – if even on our planned part-time basis – in this new world.  We were learning to think of temperatures as Celsius, not Fahrenheit; measurements using the Metric System (cheating by using a dual tape measure we’d purchased that had both millimeters and inches) and we spoke of prices in terms of euros – not dollars. We were immersing ourselves in another culture – just what we had hoped to do with the purchase of a house here.



View from the bedroom deck

We all moved toward the closing date – the day we would take occupancy of this vacation home of ours: July 10th.

As we would have only 12 days in our new property on this trip we established a timeline of projects that would be undertaken or possibly completed before we returned to the U.S.








The 17-tree olive grove, pictured below, in need of some major trimming, was The Scout’s focus while I had my eye on painting interior walls and getting some new furniture in place.

I had brought the paint chips with us

We’d decided this home set amidst olive groves would do well with a bit of country rustic and had decided upon these pieces as ‘probable’ for the house that had both dark stone accent walls intermixed with plaster walls in its main living area:

The furniture we'd chosen

We were ready! Our funds were in the bank and all our paperwork completed except for ‘that document’ that I mentioned last week. So we set off to explore the Peloponnese peninsula’s most western tip during the few days we had before closing.

~ Waking from the Midsummer’s Daydream ~

Upon our return from the road trip we learned the closing date was going to be delayed a few days. The owner’s civil engineer hadn’t yet filed necessary paperwork for the property’s registration – it would ‘surely be done’ by the following week. Then ‘that document’ we’d been waiting for could be prepared and closing could still take place before the owners left for England.  (Perhaps on my July 16th birthday? Now, that would be memorable!)

Scene on island of Kefalonia

So with more days to fill while we waited we set off on a second road trip, this one took us to the Ionian Island of Kefalonia – an amazingly beautiful land mass in the Ionian Sea. I’ll feature it in an upcoming post.

Town square in Argostoli, Kefalonia

On our second evening on the island, as we were settling in on the town square to sip some wine, we received what shall forever be known as the daydream ‘wake-up’ call (that’s The Scout on the phone in the upper right hand corner) from our realtor:

New problems had just surfaced. . . other paperwork – several years worth of income tax reports, necessary for the sale of the house, hadn’t been filed by the owners.

(Note: If you own property in Greece you must file annual income tax returns whether you generate income there or not – in fact, you must file documentation each year to show from where your funds do come. You must file other income tax forms reporting the ownership of property.)

The owners -- who’d lived there for years apparently hadn’t known that—they’d never filed a report. It would delay the closing a minimum of another 10 days to 2 weeks. The owners would search for those documents after they returned to England as that’s where they believed the documents were.

And they also needed to find proof of their purchase of the house. . .it, too, was believed to be in England.

Bougainvillea blooms and blue skies on Kefalonia

Our flight back to the U.S. was July 22nd.

If found, none of their new documentation would even be submitted for review until the first of August. If approved. . .

So, it was that lovely warm evening on Kefalonia that our daydream got away from us. As we calculated the growing list of “if’s” that loomed ahead and the mounting costs of this already pricey trip, we called the deal off.

We had been so concerned about bringing all the appropriate paperwork we needed for the sale, it hadn’t occurred to us to ask if the sellers had all the paperwork in place that they needed – after all, the house had been on the market for more than two years. . .

Instead of closing in on that daydream, we spent a portion of my birthday at our Greek bank completing paperwork to return our money for the house purchase back to the U.S.  (It arrived a few hours before we did the following week.)

The owners left for England on their scheduled July 17th.

The freeway between Athens and The Mani

We left The Mani, drove to Athens and flew home on our scheduled date.

Instead of the decade or so we’d envisioned, our daydream ended up lasting only a month. But had we not acted on it, we’d have always wondered if we would have had the courage to do it.

This trip proved we could . . .

We came so very close.

And so ends the daydream tales from Greece – for now. We will get back to reality travel tales with our next post.  Thanks for joining us today ~ it always is fun to have friends along on the journey; especially when they don’t go as expected!

Linking up:
Budget Travelers Sandbox – Travel Photo Thursday
Sunday’s Weekend Travel Inspirations and Sunday Traveler
Mosaic Monday