Monday, April 24, 2017

Sun in the Sunless City!


I took a walk through Ioannina today; maybe my last meander here for a while.  We've had TWO continguous days of sunshine, unusual for this silvery place.

A few impressions. . .

Wild Lavender, pretty much everywhere... 


Blooming Horse Chestnut tree (thanks, Sarah!) 











'Cava Cafe' the first coffee cave I visited in 2014. 



Bee Disco ("Live")
OK, the real 'Bee Disco'...


Visiting Scholars

Need anything amputated?  

...or disinterred?

Moi, bathroom selfie (serious) 

Macedonia, thataway... 

Yia Dodoni

Philopygic Parking 

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Wednesday is the New Monday

...this week, at least.

On Monday I was rambling around the country, and as I have written elsewhen, traditional Greek road-space requires a certain happy attentiveness.  But I discovered the Greek government has committed to a new set of 'Etnikas' -- interstate feeways -- that are as soulless as anything we have in the States, and much, much more expensive.   My GPS kept rerouting to these gargantuæ - much to my irritated surprise. And as the tolls mounted (one pays about 4€ every 30 kilometers in Attica), I finally stopped and fiddled with the settings until SIRI dumped the tollroad defaults. Whew!

The last (unexasperated) stretch was a tiny road that twists between the Sanctuary just west of here and Ioannina, which finally gave me  a view I have been chasing down for the last three years:


This is two of three villages perched on the side of Mt. Tomaris which forms the western flank of Dodonopoulos, home of some of the most amazing feta and yogurt in the Cosmos... among other things.   
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
But what I really wanted to discuss today are eggs.   And not just because we are coming up on Easter Sunday, but because this little apartment came with some charmingly perverse decor. 




Behold,  the giant, nine-inch ceramic egg on the credenza... 


When we discovered this a few days ago, we opened  it up to find, what? 
Oh, right ... eggs within the egg. 

Well, okay,  if the egg is too big to fit into a nest, it might make sense to put the nest inside the egg.  I could go along with that up to a point, but then a closer look revealed. . . 

Yes, that is a feathered egg {shudder}
inside a nest
inside an egg.
Has the entire world gone tweeting mad? Or is this perhaps some kind of sly allusion to President Featherhead twittering away in his Oval Office.   And yes, the Oval is supposed to suggest the Orphic Egg and its divine potentials, now utterly wasted on this superannuated golden Goose.  A goose who indeed migrates weekly to his Florida habitat, but instead of the noble cacophony of his breed, prefers to Twitter like a drunken sparrow.

Maybe we should start a campaign to get the Donald to honk rather than tweet.  What did my old bumpersticker say?  "Ankh if you love Isis"?  

And speaking of Osiris... There is an Easter on the horizon,  common this year to both Orthodox and Catholic calendars, so perhaps all that Rising will have a salutary effect.

Zoes Theá, y'all...


Tuesday, April 11, 2017

1800 kilometers...

What is that in Olympian inches?   One million?   Something like that. Anyway, I have every single one of them lodged somewhere in my (still lovely) derriére.   So please forgive the delay, EE-seekers, as I roll a few hundred thousand of these off of me.
A dip in the tiny tub and a nap (maybe simultaneously) should do it.

See you on the other side. . .

Monday, April 3, 2017

Tiny Tubs and Sausage Situations

Last week's Mondaypost went missing as the Goddessdaughter and I were frantically preparing to head for Athens.   The four days we spent in Attika was something of a wash for me; I may report on the grossness later, or I may leave it to sleep with the fishies.   But Hannah seemed to be having a good time and made lots of new friends.   As usual.  

Returning to Epirus was divine, as always, but I was too busy watergazing from the bus window to take any photos. I do wish you could have seen the sun slipping down behind the mountains to echo light across the bay of Corinth.   The sea was perfectly stippled with the most gorgeous pink/blue/silver meld, a color I've only seen fleetingly on rainbow trout as they flashed away from the nets.

Once I figure out how to write in it,
this may turn out to be my office.  
We are now back in Northern Greece, and settling in for a sweet visit.

The apartment here is small, but super-cute; we went to this area's IKEA last week, and upon arriving to the studio, realized it is basically an Ikea showroom, complete with Klimt prints and what would have been a Lisa-approved salmon-colored accent wall. But the best of our über-tiny studio is the bathroom's doll-tub. I couldn't find anything to show the scale, but trust me when I say it is rather womblike.  Or maybe a birth canal, being narrow AND deep.

Last night we wandered out to eat, found ourselves at a restaurant fairly removed from the tourist path.   I do my best *not* to be an Asshole American (though my native Texanity does pose an extra challenge), but the menu of this place earned some laughter at Greek expense.

First, the dinner page which leads with "Frying Chicken."  Foghorn Leghorn flashes before my mind's eye, hunched over the fryer with a basketful of human fingers.

Then another look reveals the Frying Chicken is served with what?  estragon.  But in the interest of gender balance, further down the page we have 'Sausage Situation' -- though confusingly, it is not served with 'rise.'







By this time, I have given up any mask of decorum. Hannah is shooshing me, I am snorting shamelessly behind the menu,  but then we turn the page...














. . .  to the housewares section?   No wait, that 'LAMP' is LAMB... Lamb LEAVERS & TONGUES.  Or livers. And tongues.  Talk about* your Silence of the Lambs.

(*go ahead, I'll wait here...)




Finally,  someone must have spent a day or two at le Cordon Bleu because now we move on to Coq au Vin, but translated for Yankee Brits  as ::

And yes, that unfortunate entrée above it is Stuffed Bunny (or Stiffed, if you please).

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Today we had a small wave of Weather, temperatures dropping into the Threes.   I took a walk in the late afternoon, as the sky was clearing.  Here are a few images:
First greengold light through a silvery afternoon...

 "Main" street, with mountain guardians. 


Personal Protection.  

Greekffiti (note the "no parking" OVER the tag).