Climate change (Κλιματική αλλαγή)

I haven't been to the Omalos plateau for a long time. In the summer we usually spend our time by the coast, and in the winter, I personally prefer to avoid Omalos because I don't really like snow. (It's nice to look at it, but not to have to wade through it. I'm sure most of North-East America agrees with me.) But the spring weather seemed nice enough yesterday for a daytrip to Omalos, so off we set on a clear fine day, making a quick trip to (one of) our orange orchards on the way, ...


... enjoying the sights of the yellow and white carpets of clover and daisies that had magically sprung up under the olive groves...

... only to find fog as thick as soup while we were driving up the mountain.


We've had a very strange winter this year: from last year's summer drought, we had not one, not two, but at least three huge thunderstorms, so big that they blew up our internet routers (twice) and my mother-in-law ended up with no phone for a whole month. Neither of these things have ever happened to us before. It's little things like this that remind us how difficult it is to live in harsh weather and terrain conditions. We all treasure our creature comforts.

While we were at Omalos, my daughter met up with her friend who often complains about the time she has to spend away from home at the weekend.


Her parents work in a restaurant that is open all year round on the Omalos plateau, which receives visitors from all over the world: during the summer season, avid walkers come to walk through the Samaria Gorge, while in the winter, the area becomes a favoured day trip for locals wishing to get away from urban life, especially when it snows, as the area gets covered in the white stuff.

Seasonal pond on the Omalos plateau

This year, during the Christmas period when Omalos is transformed into a winter wonderland, the snow was fell so often and so thickly that her friend was stuck at Omalos until the roads were cleared. And just think: they only live 30 minutes away from the plateau on lower ground just a few kilometres away from the main town!

Life at Omalos

I've been following the Guardian series on climate change, and there's a lot of interesting talk about developed nations' governments getting together and talking about how their economic policies can be tailored for a sustainable environment, but what all discussions about climate change lack (and Naomi Klein is seriously guilty of this too, as she enjoys her first-class globalised lifestyle) is the desire by the individual to turn back their own pace of life. Living in developed countries means living a more artificial life, whether you like this or not. Changing your lifestyle to a more sustainable one when you live in a developed country will ostracise you from mainstream society.

People never really lived all year round on the Omalos plateau. If they did, they were nomadic. Olives do not grow at this height, but apples and pears do. There are also lots of horta (stamnagathi - Chicorium spinosum). A lot of meat is raised here, and this is reflected in the restaurants of the area (see my food photos below).

And anyway: Who really wants to grow their own food? Most people can't be bothered growing herbs in small pots on their windowsill, and they prefer see floral inedibles to 'victory gardens'. Who really wants to go to the lengths - and the expense! - required to use natural energy sources? Greeks know this better than most others in the developed world - they can tell you how much they miss the simple act of pushing a button to heat themselves. How likely is it that 'New World' citizens will stop travelling abroad and just holiday in their own countries to save on fossil fuel? Also ask the Greeks about "getting less and less in the public sphere... defended in the name of austerity": the Greeks want more and more in the public sphere, without any austerity and no real plan about who is going to fund this (except that they will not pay for it themselves - it will always be someone else).

Tsigariasto (goat slow-cooked in olive oil and herbs)

Braised lamb with stamnagathi

Staka (a cream-based dip)

Pancetta

Lamb chops

Grape hyancinth bulbs, cured in vinegar (they aren't poisonous - plain hyancinth bulbs are!)

Kalitsounia fried in olive oil and topped with honey

If you were to try to sell, to the Greeks, the idea of a more sustainable lifestyle while making even more sacrifices, I'm sure they would reply in words to the effect of: "Γύρνα πίσω στο χωριό σου" (Go back to your village"). If you still have one, you are very lucky. But in the name of progress, you can't even do that. If you do stay in your village, to a certain extent you need to forget the progressive lifestyle. No amount of money will change that, even in present-day Greece. In Crete's relatively medieval past, living in mountain villages was a clear sign of a life under threat (of invasions by  foreigners). Once that threat subsided, people slowly left the mountains and fearlessly moved (back) to the lower coastal regions, where the weather is better, the terrain is easier to conquer and life is more social.

We enjoyed the Omalos plateau as much as we could that day. I know I won't be coming back too soon, even if my home is located just half an hour away. I covet the rural lifestyle, but I also like to living close to a town, like my daughter's friend. Isn't it better to live near more people than more animals?!

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki

Interlude

I've been away from blogging for a bit, due to our London holiday. We always prefer cooler weather for vacationing due to our own climate which is generally too hot. From our first day there, we felt very lucky with the weather, which was generally fine and sunny, not too hot, and no rain or even wind, perfect for enjoying the outdoor London life.

I'd like very much to blog about what I saw and what we ate, but we came back to our busy life, and have only just managed to catch up with our home life this weekend. So I'll leave my travel stories for later, when I have gathered and organised my thoughts a little. In the meantime, you can enjoy my photos here.

If I were to pick the one photo that summarised our trip for me, it would be this one. It may look very insignificant to most people, but put yourselves in my shoes (ie my red sandals): the last time I walked on grass and could feel it on my legs was when I was last in NZ (over a decade ago). All my subsequent visits to London have taken place in cold weather so my legs were always shoed-and-socked. This is the first time I have visited in September. The feeling of cool grass blades cooling my toes took me right back to my childhood. In Hania, you cannot find grass long or thick enough to do this. If you sit on it, you'll get a brown bum.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Wet and cold

The weather yesterday, when I picked up the kids from school:

More of the same today.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Cold (Κρύο)

I wouldn't say we put it off - the house simply didn't feel that cold to us all this time. Last night, despite the warm clothes we were wearing and the fleece blankets we covered ourselves with, we still felt cold. It's the damp air that remains in the atmosphere which causes this sensation, and it doesn't go away without turning on some form of heating; insulating your house well doesn't mean that you will never need to use heating.

Winter's arrival in our house was a cause for celebration We even got our souvlaki delivered. Lighting a fire keeps the family together. We have all created our own little corner in the living room, so's we don't tread on each other's toes as we huddle together in the warmest part of the house. Even the location of the Christmas tree has been planned for; that's Greece for you: completely seasonal (as we await Persephone's arrival once again, να μας τα κάνει όλα καλοκαιρινά πάλι). 

Having not felt the full brunt of the cold so far this winter in our house, I asked my colleagues at work this morning if they had started using any form of heating in their homes so far. They were surprised to hear that we had only started heating our home so late in November.

I am slightly relieved to hear this. Climate change may play some role in experiencing delayed winter weather, but so does good insulation.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Evening sky

Today, 5.00pm

Wet

1.30pm, today

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Grey skies

A quick photo post today...

... showing the rainy sky.

Most people would find this an uninspiring photo, generally speaking, but since it hardly ever rains from May until September in Hania, you could say we are treating it as an event. Last winter was very cold and the spring was wet, in contrast to this year's warm winter and hot spring. It's rained twice in downpour fashion so far this month, while there was no rain throughout April and hardly any in March.

Apologies to the tourists who were hoping to warm up their bones while holidaying here - better to take a walking trip instead.

 ©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Sun

Even though I couldn't really see what I was photographing due to the very bright light,



the photo seemed to turn out quite well in the end.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Christmas at Easter (Χριστούγεννα το Πάσχα)

The weather is an important topic of conversation in many countries, often in the form of a complaint. In Greece, we often complain about the sun because it gets too hot. Even in the middle of winter, when the sun comes out, it sits on your back and soaks through your clothing into your skin, giving you a damp humid feeling. In rural Crete, we make the sign of the cross when we see rain because of its relative absence and its great importance for our agriculture. Our prolonged dry spells are another cause of chagrin: dust accumulation. Even when it rains after a long dry spell with southern winds, the rain will fall together with the dust, causing what is known in Greece as the 'red rain' phenomenon.

I often read about how much the Brits moan about their rainy cold weather. Now that I spent a week in London during one of the coldest ever Marches, I can understand why they moan so much. In the seven days we were there, I can actually recall the moments I saw the sun. The first time lasted for about half an hour. We saw it from the train window during the trip from Stansted Airport to central London, at about sunset. As we passed through picturesque countryside, where we saw hundreds of carefree-looking bunny rabbits enjoying the sunshine (and to think, I was carrying rabbit meat in my suitcase - how easy it must be to cook up a stifado in this country!), a few scurrying squirrels, some ducks wading through streams and a quick glimpse of an allotment that was enjoying the sun's rays, that little bit of sun made the bare flat English fields look quite enticing.

By the time we arrived at my friend's house in southeast London, the sun had disappeared, giving way to the evening darkness, which looked very Dickensian as we walked past the pretty red-brick terraced houses of Brockley. They had a Christmas look about them: a faint light could be seen from the opaque window pane of the main entrance, and one room would also be lit up with the curtain drawn, so you could see the interior, where someone was often working at a desk on a computer. One house even had red fairy lights around one of the windows. That was the only yellow light we would see for the next seven days, except for one brief moment when the sun suddenly appeared from the sky like a lightning bolt, lasting all of three minutes - in between the light snow and the gritty hail - in Hendon. We felt its warmth through the windows from inside a shop where we were buying my son's fencing equipment. And that was basically it. We never saw the sun in its round yellow form while in London, and we didn't get any other glimpse of the until we returned to Crete.

Instead of spring this year, Britain is going through a prolonged winter, which seems rather unfair, given that summer hardly appeared last year. I can still see snow from the windows of our Cretan home - but it's sitting on the top of the mountain, out of harm's way, not under my feet. Our weekend in London was spent watching the snow flakes falling onto the ground, and amassing into ice on our hosts' potted herbs and flowers, the black soil in the miniscule garden, and the wooden fencework. All the surfaces seemed to be gradually getting covered in the white stuff, all except for the footpaths and the roads; our hosts told us that this was a good sign because it meant that you won't be wading through snow and the public transport will continue to run, although the cold will turn to frost and everything will freeze as the snow turns to ice - if that is any consolation!

The snow fell in tiny ice drops, like confetti. As we walked from the house to the shops (according to my self-styled itinerary, it was Primark shopping morning), we did not feel cold. The slight wind kept the snow moving, which stopped it from settling, melting it and generating a slight sense of heat from the humidity. Luckily we got back home early enough to watch the snow turn into a blizzard at about 2pm; suddenly, the snowflakes were moving around as fast as a swarm of buzzing bees in a hive that had just been upset. Visibility dropped, the atmosphere fogged up, and it carried on like this for about an hour. That put the remaining day's itinerary out of whack - we would have to miss the concert we had booked to attend at the Hellenic Centre in Paddington St. The snow did not have to stop us from going - but it might have stopped us from coming back home.

Still, I only have good memories of my time spent in snowy London. It was an interesting experience. We took no risks, therefore we didn't fear it. The cold was bitter, but we kept ourselves wrapped up warm. Travelling further out of the concreted part of London and into the snowy countryside in the northwesternmost part of greater London, we experienced the eerie beauty of the snow-capped landscape. The snowy surroundings reminded me of a Dickensian Christmas, even though we were fast approaching Easter, albeit calendar, not Greek! Any part of our body that was not covered in clothing (lips, nose, fingertips) simply froze. The children's biggest disappointment was when our hosts told us that the snow we were seeing wasn't the type you could play in or make snowballs with - and if you stepped off the concrete and onto the snowy fields, your shoes would be trashed because they would become muddy (you needed gumboots).

The weather plays a significant role in our life. I'm a homebody; this weather would suit me to a tee. Not so my husband - it would drive him crazy to be stuck indoors most of the time. Cold snowy weather - it isn't everyone's cup of tea.

Speaking of tea, something I rarely drink in Crete, I ended up drinking gallons of the stuff in London. The cold weather makes it go down more easily. And you want to eat a lot. We did not have any difficulties scoffing down roast meat and floury potatoes, with crackling, Yorkshire pudding and thick gravy, followed by stodgy pudding and scones for tea.

This was the best meal I had during my stay in London. The cook must have been a good one to make it so tasty, but I think it was the love factor that she added when preparing this special meal, specially for us. Not only did the wine pair well with this feast - so did the weather.

(And if you want the recipes, here they are:)


 ©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Pop up restaurant

While I'm in London, while my hosts graciously offered to take the kids to the Kensington museums, while it's freezing (one degree Celsius)...

... I'm cooking up a little surprise for them.

You can follow it all here.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes

I now have the chance to watch UK TV shows which are normally not available to us when we try to view them from Greece, through a website which allows you to view a range of channels from all over the world without paying a subscription fee. Watching UK TV channels from my own home computer is, I must admit, quite an eye-opener. For instance, female chat shows hosts (on BBC and ITV) don't wear slutty dresses or dye their hair peroxide blonde like ours do, and there are no παραθυράκια on the news programmes. I've also got a whiff of "Wanted Down Under Revisited" which deals, somewhat unsurprisingly, with Brits' desire to live in a 'better' place in the world (it should better be called "Moaners and Groaners"). Such shows give you an idea of British identity (they generally love their family, friends and the local pub, but they hate their weather and they wish they could afford to live in bigger houses).  It's also amusing to watch those 'antique' shows where junk is auctioned off for ridiculous prices.

Even though I generally don't watch TV cookery shows, I must admit that I have fallen in love with Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes. The best food shows in my opinion are those that present the food of different regions, like Rick's show. It's interesting to see what people eat in different homes. I'm not so interested in restaurant menus - they require ingredients that are not necessarily cheap or easy to source, and the techniques sometimes require specialised equipment that I most likely don't have in my house. But ordinary home cooking with local ingredients always intrigues me and TV shows of this nature give me a chance to see how other people combine many of the same ingredients that I use in my own home to make a fantastic, interesting, tasty and complete meal for a family.

When I caught Rick on the program, he was in Puglia, Italy, eating mainly vegetarian food. He noted how everything was cooked simply and that most food looked as though it came from only 2-3 miles away. He was eating at a local restaurant which didn't deal with many tourists because it was off the beaten track, despite being by the sea. In fact, he commented that the Mediterranean landscape where he was at the time was kind of unimpressive, not at all what a tourist would expect to see when they visit a restaurant that is supposed to be famed for its magnificent food. But that was it really - people do not make demands on the landscape when they go there to eat - they go there because of the food, which they pay great respect to, because they have a relationship with it. He was surprised to see both young and old people enjoying timeless dishes that, in his own admission, a young Brit would not dream of eating - it was a world far away from chips, burgers and curries.

Rick doesn't make an effort to show you just beautiful food - he accentuates the relationship Mediterranean people have with their food. While an Italian woman cooked up a plate of mashed broad beans served with boiled broccoli rabe greens, he asked her where she first learnt to cook this food. The woman answered that she cooks these dishes because she remembers her mother in her kitchen cooking these dishes when she was a young girl, and she knows that her grnadmother cooked these dishes too, so she feels compelled to cook these dishes because she doesn't want to break the chain. She said that it was an integral part of her life to do this, and even though her children grimace when they see what's on the table, they eat it, possibly moaning and groaning at the same time. But I bet they will remember this food in the same way when they are older, or living away from home, when they have children - they will remember their mother, and the memories associated with the extended family that such dishes arouses.

It was also interesting to see the Puglians pouring olive oil into their pots, as if the stuff came from a free-flowing tap, which of course, in places like this, it does, if I compare it to my own situation. There is no scrimping anywhere in cooking of this sort: whole heads of crushed garlic are thrown into the pan, sea urchins are poured into the oil, and in five minutes, a very al dente pasta is cooked for this sauce. In another pasta sauce, truffles are shaved in such quantities as to suggest that they are commonplace - yes, you may need to be a truffle hunter to enjoy such a dish, but it is a habit of such people that goes back centuries. They cook like their mothers did, as their grandmothers did for their mothers, and the chain is not broken.

Truffles and olive oil may sound like luxury items to the Brits, but they are not treated as such by the Puglians. In fact, most Mediterranean cooking involves sparse use of fresh - and few - ingredients. And most of the best dishes started out as poor people's food; parmesan for example was unknown in the Puglia region until it was mass produced: before that, the parmesan of the poor was fried breadcrumbs.

When Rick leaves Puglia, he goes to the Greek island of Kerkira, otherwise known to Brits as Corfu, popularised in the novel "My Family and other Animals" by Gerald Durrell who lived there as a child when his mother took him along with his brothers and sisters to the island for a change in lifestyle back in the 1930s. I was all excited when Rick said he was going to Greece, but I did feel a little disappointed when he said he couldn't wait to sip ouzo and eat stuffed tomateos with rice - oh my God, I thought, is he still there?

But I shouldn't be too hasty in jusging him. I think I know where he is coming from. Ask the average British tourist in Kerkira (where's that? you ask - sorry, it's Corfu to you) what s/he thinks of the food in the popular Mediterranean resorts, and they will tell you about the best fish and chip shops and where they had a good burger. As a restaurant owner on the island told Rick, as he was dining on artichokes and peas in dill and lemon sauce cooked by the man's mother, tourists don't like this kind of food, they don't know what it is, they can't imagine what they may get when they ask for it, even if it is written in English, so they just order a pizza or a steak. They can't appreciate this kind of food because they are unwilling to try it. The restaurant was located in a tourist area but the customers were mainly Greek. Brits don't generally go to the Mediterranean for the food - they go for the sun, the sea and the cold beer. It's moments like these when we have to admit that the food is simply not that important, and the Greek tourism sector is going to have to get to grips with this if it wants to secure a good market share. Making the food the centrepiece is simply not going to work at times. As an example, take the Greek hotel breakfast. That's a global concept, and for that reason, globally recognisable breakfast food is served there - bring out a rusk with grated tomato and freshly crumbled goat's cheese, and you've lost the package tourist...

Rick made a very wise observation about Greek vegetarian food: he said that the dishes weren't really made for vegetarians - they were simply delicious dishes that don't contain any meat. That sums up my vegetarian cooking. The dishes I cook are usually vegetarian, and often vegan at that, but not on purpose: meat and other forms of protein, notably cheese, accompanies my dishes in small quantities. The protein is a supplement rather the main part of the meal. Take today's meal of chickpeas and rice: the kids practically fell into the pot when they saw what was for lunch. They didn't even ask for any cheese! They just wanted to savour a dish that they associate with "good food". They didn't notice it didn't contain protein. And if it did, they would have complained: "That's not revithia, mum! Next time, make it in the real way."

*** *** ***

I keep UK TV on in the background as I work on my computer. My family are amused as I shout out to them: "Quick! get a look at this!" each time I find something worth sharing with them. On another note, I was also quite shocked to find out that Britain has many beneficiary claimants who are defrauding the system: as the host of  "Saints and Scroungers" points out, wherever money is being given away, there are always corrupt people, cheats, liars, "single" parents, families with more children than they can afford to raise, and a host of other lazy sods trying to cheat the system to get their hands on it. (It makes Greeks look tame when you see benefit fraudsters loading up their garden shed with caskets of wine and champagne, and building summer homes in Spain, all on UK taxpayers' money.)

The order of the news items give you a clue as to what is important to Brits: the Pistorius case is getting a lot of (ie too much) attention at the moment, seconding the Birmingham terrorists' story (men with Asian origins who were born and brought up in the UK but hated the country and went to Pakistan to train to be suicide bombers). There's also lot of ado about Adele's success in the US (another sign of British identity - always wanting to please their cross-Atlantic neighbours). The economic crisis seems to have caught up quite quickly with the UK with the crash of the 4G sale (implying that 3G seems good enough for the time being). And did you know that railway tracks fetch high prices in the UK? (Just like they do here - it ain't much different).

Watching other countries' television programs makes me feel a little smug about where I find myself. But I know how the BBC feels about non-UK residents seeing their programs without paying the exorbitant subscription fees demanded for cable TV (personally, I think €15-20 per month is far too much). It's been only a few days since I discovered this little gem of a website. Before anyone blows the whistle on filmon, and the BBC blocks my access to its vertitable little empire, I will continue to savour Rick's Mediterranean escapes and maybe chuckle a little as I hear the weather forecast announcer when he s/he tells us how frosty, cold and rather miserable the weather is at the moment; it's 16 degreees Celsius here in the middle of the Mediterranean, and for the last three nights, we haven't lit a fire (OK, maybe I am getting a little too smug).

Thanks to my potentially short glimpse into UK life, I had a chance to enjoy Rick's down-to-earth honest approach to the food he tries in the Meditrerraenan. He is not pretentious. And above all, he treats my Mediterranean food with respect. And if Rick chances to read this, I invite him to my Mediterranean table too.

(BTW, the Brits really do have a weight problem, judging from the many overweight people that fare quite prominently on the various shows I am watching; it's definitely got something to do with the food...)

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Snow

Hania's snowy peaks at the Lefka Ori are a very pretty sight at the moment, especially since we are having a run of good weather right now, so that the view from the lowlands to the highlands is very clear. While Crete is experiencing temperatures of 21 degrees Celsius, the UK seems to be covered in snow, with freezing temperatures, zero visibility and treacherous driving conditions.  

The heavy snowfall in Northern Europe has shed light on the fears of a culture rooted in the Protestant work ethic: the havoc of snowy conditions has pitted this work ethic against common sense. Flights, trains and even horse races have been cancelled - but people are insisting on getting to work. I'd hate to be a parent in this position: wouldn't it be better to keep my children and myself safe at home on a day like this, than to put on an act of bravery battling with the forces of nature? Do you really need to have an official authority tell you whether to go to work/school? Are schools really 'slacking off' just because of the snow? And why do walkers need to be officially warned not to venture up mountains during heavy snowfall? Can't they see it would be foolish to try this?

What happens when one person braved the weather and got to work (albeit in a disheveled state) while the others didn't? Should the 'snow holiday' be treated as annual leave? Should teachers and children make up for lost lessons by going in to school on Saturdays? And what's the litmus test in this case? how much snow there is at your front door? 

'Perish the thought that a bus crashed in the bad weather carrying children to school' wrote a reader to the BBC's live snow updates. But that's just what happened anyway. I feel sorry for the parents who put their kids on that bus, placing trust in the social system, instead of taking heed of their own misapprehensions; I feel sorry for the bus driver who did what he thought was being expected of him, instead of listening to his instincts;  I feel sorry for those children who will now have nightmares of a possible bad end to that bus ride. But all this could have been avoided. At times like this, Europe's northwestern extremity could take lessons from her southeastern extremity: If you don't need to be out, then don't go out. It may feel like a small challenge getting to work/school - but that return journey home might end up being a nightmare. 

It's an identity thing, isn't it? It's the fear of being branded a slacker in a Keep-Calm-and-Carry-On culture. 

One thing is certain: Northern Europeans need to warm up their bones. Time to book a holiday to Crete.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Light in the darkness

While I was on a sports group visit in Athens over the weekend, I shared a hotel room with another mother whose son was competing in the games. Like me, she has travelled to a number of European countries, and she is also a great reader, devouring any books she can get hold of. She had brought with her the third of Stieg Larsson's trilogy, a story I was fascinated by, even though I found it very difficult to read because it was packed with violence. I asked her what she thought of the book, and she said much the same thing: a very gripping story that has extremely off-putting scenes, but it is so well-written that you can't put it down until you get to the end, which makes you willing to bear the pain of the heroine which you can't prevent.

One thing we talked about concerning this aspect of the book was how Stieg Larsson was able to write such a 'dark' story. At the very end of the trilogy, I remember reading about a girl near the clutches of death, saved by the bell, so to speak. Even when she is saved by her journalist friend who is obvsiously in love with her, there is only what seems like a glimmer of hope in the lightless world of the girl with the dragon tattoo. The ending is not bright and the light we see, when it finally comes on, is very dim. 

"How can these people write such dark stories?" my friend asked me. 

"Well, you've seen the countries they come from," I replied, reminding her of her travels in Northern Europe. "They come from very dark cultures, and light is often missing in their life. In the winter, they get up in the dark, children go to school in the dark, sometimes they leave school when darkness is about to set, and their parents don't even see the light of day when they leave work. In Greece, there is a lot of light everywhere. We are rarely enveloped in darkness. When darkness is your constant companion, your thoughts are often filled with dark images, and I suppose it's easier to conjure up dark images in your mind."

It's the same with sorcery and magic. Such worlds are led by people wearing black Gothic attire and the atmosphere is often dark and bleak. When Greeks see a black-garbed man, they will most probably put it in their mind that he is a priest, as our priests dress in a similar way to a magician. Priests are looked up to and trusted, not feared. So we can't write stories like those about harry Potter. Nor can we write something like Fifty Shades of Grey. To buy your magazine or newspaper, you will probably pass the pornography section of a newsstand; so will your kids when they want to buy some chewing gum. And this will all happen on a bright sunny day at a kiosk on a busy central street. Sex is not treated as a dark sport in Greece.

"But Greeks are living in darkness too," she said. "The financial crisis is a period of darkness for us now." 

She is right: Greece is now living through a period of darkness, just like in the ancient Hellenic world which saw one deathly battle fought after another. But even in our darker moments, all we need to do is to draw the curtains, or open the shutters, and our homes are flooded with light. Our minds may be completely clouded, but our climate, the colours of our atmosphere, the early sunrise and later sunset, they all help to dampen the murkiness. The light of day is never too far away in a Greek day. 

While in Athens, my spirit was quashed as I came face to face with certain sights that I had, up until then, before my visit, seen only on television: vandalism, homelessness, desolation and despair. But in such moments, I remind myself of things tourists have said when walking around the Acropolis: "Greece is in the coffee cups, the sun that blinds us, the blue and white flag that waves to us on the balconies. You live Greece with all your senses."   And I recall something Dimitris Mytaras (famous Greek artist) once said about our country: "Greece is a very hot country... The people here are very warm... If Greece were a painting, she would be an ancient (white) statue, standing in front of a deep (dark) background. We have an enormous, vast culture backing us and a terrifying past." 

Some worlds are full of darkness, but that doesn't apply to Greece at all. Despite the despair, the Greek world leads with a radiance of its own, quite unmatched and never able to copied anywhere else by anyone. 

All photos taken at OAKA, the site of the 2004 Olympic Games this past weekend.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.