Το φιτρί αγόρι (colourful life)

If you decide to live abroad some things you enjoy in your home country won’t be available. You change a bit your clothes, the food you buy and prepare and even the coffee and tea you drink. But even if you do change you still miss some things.

Sascha likes to buy Swiss cheese and prepare delicious pasta. Me, being from Spain, there is something that I miss a lot: Jamón. I also miss Spanish cheese and other “embutidos” (sorry, I can’t find a translation for it). So here is the question: What can you find in Greece?

Chorizo: you can find chorizo in Carrefour supermarkets as Τσοριθο. The quality is not very good but is edible.

Embutido: In AB supermarkets and form a Spanish company (Iglesias) you can find a tray with salchichón, lomo, chorizo and jamón. Good quality and around 6.5 euros per tray (250 grams).

Jamón: Also in AB supermarkets you can find a tray with jamón in slices from the same spanish brand. You can also buy a clean leg without bones and fat. The price in this case goes from 25 euro/kilo for jamón serrano to 58 euro/kilo for jamón ibérico.

I believe this is only a small part of all things you can find. If you, reader, know where to get any other typical Spanish products (wine, cheese, restaurants) feel free to comment

“Que aproveche”

In this blurry picture you’re watching a guy installing the first christmas lights. Ergo, Christmas is here. This is the signal shops need to start changing their windows. Adding fake snow, and fixing prices because “In Christms everybody buys”.

I like the “smell” of winter and therefore the “smell” of Christmas. You can see Christmas as some kind of game where people change a bit his attitude about others and everybody tries to be a bit more friendly because “it’s Christmas time”.

Presents, celebrations, meeting old friends. In Spain I like the “food” part of Christmas. Have dinner with typical spanish products. Yeah! I love it. (Yes, this means jamon :P). This year I’ll miss that part because I’ll stay in Greece. It’s gonna be my first Christmas here.

I hope it snows a little bit

September the 16th, 2008. One would think that in 2008, in the city centre of a big urban area, you won’t be attacked by men handling tables and chairs and covered with motorbike helmets. But add in a mix Athens, Greece, University and Brainless people and everything is possible (with the consent of people, police and government).

Let’s go to the juicy story. 16/09/2008 around 7 o’clock in the afternoon, I witnessed a brutal attack with chairs and tables against a car with diplomatic plate parked in Stournari St. (in front of Papasotiriou bookshop). There was at least a woman inside shouting loudly and asking for help while the assailants were attacking her car. But a second one (her daughter) appeared seconds after. I don’t know if she was inside or she just arrived.

After the aggression the attackers hid inside the university because Greek laws don’t allow police to get inside the university and it doesn’t matter what you do: you’re safe there. I did not try to stop the attack (sorry 4 vs 1 ), I only checked that the woman wasn’t injured (then I saw the second girl calling the police). I left after I checked on them.

Some minutes latter I returned and saw some young people provoking and addressing both women in a really rude way to both women. They were saying things like:

• “I didn’t know that Cyprus had diplomats now”.
• “Don’t worry your government will buy you a new (car) one”.
• “Let’s go for some gas to burn it all, HAHAHAHAHA”.
• “Look at the poor woman, HAHAHAHAHA” (yes the same guy).
• “That’s because you put your diplomatic car near the university”.

I couldn’t stop myself and I asked what happened. But I didn’t receive a clear answer. It was something related to a “diplomatic car”, and I don’t remember more. Perhaps my mind couldn’t assimilate such spoon of irrational behaviour.

It happened that ther car had a diplomatic plate from Cyprus. And the woman was waiting for her daughter to come out from the university. Also the woman and her daughter were Greeks. The mother claimed that she also studied when she was trying to get an explanation for what happened.

My opinion.

-1 point rate to:

• People who didn’t move a finger to help. Or even just to check if the woman was right. You can die in the middle of Athens and these ones will not help you.
• The police for his fast reaction times. I saw a car latter when I was arriving to Omonia square, it was running towards the place of the incident. I also found 4 policeman in Omonia with their motorbikes having a talk about the weather.
• The government, because policemen are not guilty for the bad organization in their systems.
• The students, because they protect these violent people. They do not kick them from the university, but at the same time they fight against anyone who dares to say about removing the “no police in the university”. Hey folks!, or you clean your house, or the “cleaning lady” will come inside and will make a mess (I prefer to my business and do not wait for others).
• The passivity of the typical Athens citizen. Shame on you who didn’t even check if the woman was bleeding or needed medical assistance.

I can understand a guy who needs money for drugs and asks/steals the money from me. Buy drugs -> money. But my mind cannot understand how 4 young guys can attack a woman, a mother, in front of her daughter. And I cannot understand how people can make fun of that latter.

I felt powerless, and I still have some anger inside me after that incident.

Notes

• The rear glass and rear left car windows were broken. The picture doesn’t show that.
• Perhaps it better for you to hear the poor woman shouting because the panic while I was approaching to car to check on her. Here it is

If you’re a European citizen and you want to stay in Greece for more than 3 months you’ll need a residence permit (άδεια παραμονής). In theory (take a look here and here), if you stay more than 3 months you should request a residence permit. And remember that it’s not mandatory in order to work: you have the same rights as a Greek citizen in a job opening (yes, in theory).

The real facts are that in Greece you don’t need the residence permit unless you start dealing with high level bureaucracy. You can work, have insurance and pay your taxes without the need of a residence permit. Even in some police stations they will tell you what I state here. But bureaucracy is sacred in Greece, so let’s get started to obtain our white/yellow card.

Prerequisites (or what you need):

These are the papers that you need to prepare:

• If you work: a certificate from your employer stating that you are working. This certificate must be signed in a police station or in a ΚΕΠ. It’s called  Η γνησιότητα της υπογραφής.
• If you don’t work you must have sufficient financial resource (Don’t know exactly how you can demonstrate that, I believe that a paper from the bank stating your savings will be enough).
• Insurance: any proof that you’re insured. If you have IKA: your IKA number and your Health Book.
• Passport: with your ID is supposed to work but a passport is always more trusted than a card with “strange words”.
• A copy of the contract of your house, apartment, … . You need to prove that you’re living somewhere.
• 3 passport pictures.

And remember to carry at least TWO copies of these papers. Bureaucracy is bureaucracy.

Where to go:

Go to your nearest police station and ask for a residence permit. Usually they will send you to the right main police station, but perhaps you live near the right one!.

Also ask for the phone number of that police station. You should call them before you go in order to know exactly what papers are needed and when you can go there.

How long it takes:

Usually the same day after you wait the queue and stand the bureaucracy show.

Remember that is automatically renewed. So you do it once and then forget about it

My personal experience in Athens

I had to get the permission because I needed it to get a Greek driving license (why do I need a Greek driving license is a matter of another post). I visited 3 ΚΕΠ (bureocracy offices) before they could point me to a police station. Also I visited my local police station and they pointed me to the nearest place where I could go to do the papers (+1 to Psixiko police station).

The two police stations I know you can go to do this paper are: (But remember to go to your local police station first!)

• Marousi. Behind Ygeias Hospital. (I went there).
• Petrou Ralli. I was directed there first, but then I asked in my local police station and they sent me to Marousi.

I required the help of my gf to deal with the papers. So if you have a Greek friend, well, you’ll have to invite him to frappes during all the month

They day I went there the first person was waiting since 6:55. I arrived at 7:30 and I was the 4th in the queue. Because the holidays it took them a while to warm up (50 minutes the first person). So prepare to wake up early.

My gf called the police station to obtain a list of papers to prepare. They only told us one copy (you need two) and two pictures (they asked me for 3). Lucky me I always carry a huge pack of passport pictures when I do bureocracy .

Remember that they don’t do photocopies! So bring your copies if you don’t want to look for a place with a photocopy machine near the police station (they’re going to milk you). Also bring enough pictures.

The most annoying/funny thing was when I needed “a stamp and a signature” from the office director. We went to the place he/she should be, and of course nobody there. We asked his secretary, and she “kicked us out” like “not here! not here! ask there!”. Thanks god a male secretary in the same room shouted while we were leaving “wait! wait! wait! It’s here!” and kindly he took the stamp from the table of the woman (Incredible, she said “it’s not here”) and he put his signature. By the way, the woman was making crosswords: so the scene was a woman with a magazine and a stamp in her table, scaring people out of her eyesight.

That’s all. Good luck with your permit.

More Information:

• Visit kat’s blog, she’s has lot’s of really good posts for non-european citizens.
• European union website.

Today is my first day in a small internet travel agency in Greece. I left my job in a big ISP saving the world and some manager’s arses. Small company, quiet environment, small PC, and everything is done with windows and Microsoft tools.

Visual Studio, as always, impressed me with new tools that help a lot. But as always too, I could see the the not so good way it has to organize the code. Even I got scared when I saw the code for the automatic templates generated for asp web pages. Nothing is perfect.

Also I started to suffer the first windows problmes. In this case “I couldn’t open a .chm file”. So if you see in your windows a message like the one in the pic when you open a .chm file. Just modiy or create the following registry keys:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\HTMLHelp\1.x\HHRestrictions]
“MaxAllowedZone”=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\HTMLHelp\1.x\ItssRestrictions]
“MaxAllowedZone”=dword:00000001

All credits for this go to Ken.

So I hope I found a good place to work, and not another ISP chaos place.

Easter holidays are totally over. They started (for me) on April 23th, but using the official calendar on April 25th (my birthday). I decided to stay away from the office, starting on 23 till 29th, and go to a small village in the north. A nice green place where you can sit outside in the morning and see green hills. Also you eat fresh food and some times vegetables from the house garden. In there I found myself again. I also found a turtle eating a whole lettuce in the garden. I guess it found itself too, eating healthy food.

These holidays are mainly used by people to return to their home places. Reunite again the family and have some relaxing time. I shared my time with Stella’s family. Mostly they get on really well, and all the family is like a group. I enjoyed a lot going with the “young” generation for coffee or for a walk.

But in order to reunite the lovely family… a long trip. Usually everybody travels, and in a big place like Athens, is an exodus. There are not so many highways in Greece, and the 1 lane per way national roads don’t help much during Eastern. I left early (in the week) so I arrived safe and on time

The traditions here are a bit different from Spain. There are no religious parades carrying huge sacred figures. But there are important events where people gather. One is the “death of Jesus Christ” where in the end there is a small parade around the church.

The other is “The holy light” after sundown on Holy Saturday. Here after mass, the priest lights a candle that is supposed to carry the holy light. Then, people lights their candles using that one or other people’s. After that you get one boiled egg painted in red and “play” with other people to break it. If your egg survives you’re supposed to have good luck.

And on Sunday after the Holy Saturday: meat. Meat in huge quantities. The tradition is to roast a goat, and prepare other meals with parts of the goat. The bad it’s that i don’t like liver, and some of these foods are based on it But tzatziki can fix almost everything

Appart from that, only relaxing in a small village. About the village I’d like to point that a lot of people returned there, so it was quite full. Full of people and cars, but not only normal cars also expensive ones. The most expensive was an Aston Martin parked in the Kafenio (sorry no pic, I was so astonished I forgot to take one). But others where:

• Really new Mercedes.
• Beautiful Audi TT.
• Big Mercedes.
• Some young guys with their Easter Present.
• Mercedes cabrio.

Do people spend all their money in cars? Or in petrol for their cars?

It’s the first hour of the Saturday and I’m still awake listening to the rain beating on the floor of my alley.

It’s late but I’m still finishing some “job” tasks. This happens when you go commando in programming (but with underwear), and if everything goes well you´ll only make another 4 extra hours, but if something fails you´ll be doomed. A 7 instead of a four made me to stay until now connected (The good and the bad of the Virtual Private Networks).

As always I leave my Blog a bit abandoned. Some times it’s because the lack of free time, but other times it’s because I’m lazy. Not in the mood these days to do much.

I’m still in Athens and still working for that marvellous company who helps me to pay the bills every month. The good of working in a big IT company is that:

• You learn how to move between multiple manager levels.
• You can play the hot potato game with the problems. There is always someone to forward the email.
• You improve your skills in how to solve problems quickly.
• Your definition of dirty coding changes.
• Yeah, it’s my first job here, so it’s experience for my résumé.
• I have in the office 2×20″ screens, making a total resolution of 3200×1200 pixel.
• You save the company with your skills.

The bad:

• You learn how it feels to arrive home at 2:30am after all the day working.
• You receive hot potatoes and you run out of addresses to forward them to.
• You improve your skills to solve problems quickly and in a dirty way.
• You forget about good coding.
• You realize that your résumé needs the experience, not you.
• It tooks 3 months to get a computer.
• After you saved the company. You don’t see a part of the profit.

About friends and life. From time to time I meet the “International Pizza” to go for ouzo and food. The “International Pizza” is a mix of greeks and foreigners who meet to have good time

As objectives to accomplish:

• To learn Greek. C’mon! One year here and I cannot speak it. It’s not so difficult.
• To go to the gym. And also add an excuse to escape from the office.
• To continue some personal projects/ideas. Not only talk about them when going for beers.

And from here send greetings to:

• Sascha, Panos and the International Pizza.
• Kat, her mac, and her 1001 stories. Life is long but I guess she lived twice or three times more experiences than anyone.
• Nazgul2, from Palencia but working and living in another two different places.
• Graci, and his amazing adventures in Belgium.
• Alberto, and his never ending PhD problems.
• Seattle and Andoni, or the two guys who got the job they were waiting for.
• And you, who are reading this.

Note: Believe me if I tell you that I pressed the publish button like 5 times, and 5 times the post appeared in the front page. Then I leave, check the next day and It’s not there. Grrrrr.

The weather changed a lot during the week. Last weekend I took pictures from Katehaki bridge full of snow and talked about sliding cars. But this weekend the sun shines and you can feel it warming your face while you are walking in the street. Today was a beautiful day. I enjoyed it playing music, preparing a tasty lunch (with a stolen recipe), and fixing an ill powerbook.

The winter seems to come to and end, and the weather forecast talks about 17º/18º C here. It’s gonna be better until the burning summer arrives.

The image speaks by itself. 3 o’clock and 6 people in our floor. Using the snow as an excuse, almost nobody came to the office today.

The good of this massive absence is that the office is quiet. No phones ringing, no people speaking loud or interrupting your work. Only the noise of CPU fans and some people teetering their fingers on the keyboard.

Enjoy your snow day off

If you have seen the news or you are right now in Greece. Yes, it’s cold.

This weekend has been one of the coldest I my life in Greece. This time it was snowing (not like my last post) a lot. I started to feel the cold and the first snow flakes on Saturday when I was leaving for Markopoulo to spend the night with some () friends. We arrived and the wind was really cold. The weather was “shouting” snow!

Hours later it started. In the beginning it didn’t stay, but after all the night snowing we woke up with a white landscape and thinking on staying there (Panos, I love your place, but I have to go to work ). We moved with a car to the nearest Proastiakos station, and after some time waiting in the car (to avoid to die frozen) we were on the way to Athens.

I didn’t expect what you can see on the pictures. But when I got to the top of the bridge to with the elevator, the image was that (bad quality picture, I know). I couldn’t believe it. Snow everywhere. And not a bit… enough to organize a nice snow battle.

The return trip to home was a bit difficult. Without the right shoes I was walking using small steps to avoid to eat snow But even with that weather, there is always someone who believes that his/her 4WD car can do miracles and drive over 20cm of snow without chains (or similar device for ice/snow) or even good wheels. So a crazy driver almost killed me. I saw the reflection of a yellow light in the snow, and I thought: In this street that goes down the hill… I’m almost sliding, therefore a 1 ton car should be like a huge sledge. Of course, the car just slid down the “hill”. I had time to jump between two cars and see the car following the way of the road (even its wheels were saying otherwise).

At least I’m alive. It’s cold. It’s late, and tomorrow nobody will go to the office. I’ll be the only stupid there because I live 1 minute from my place.

Have a nice freezing week