i don't like the sensation of ants crawling over my body,
nor flies.
i don't mind ladybirds
spiders are alright
there are some really funky greek spiders, bright yellow ones with long luminous legs.
yesterday there was a caterpillar with a groovy orange and black stripe crawling over my knee.
there is a rustle in the leaves and there appears an ancient tortoise with an ancient shell, long wrinkly neck which retracts as soon as i get close then timidly reappears, his little black eyes peering at me.
the squirrels are the acrobats of the trees, i have been woken up the last two mornings by their chattering in the trees above, one of them runs along the thinnest of littlest branches, stopping to sniff the air, then performs a titanic lunge (of several metres) to land claws grasping the bark of a big pine trunk, then he turns around and runs down the trunk, somehow those supergrippy claws of his allow him to stick to the bark like spiderman.
i feel pretty limited then in my human body; all i can do is cycle my bike.
when i first arrived in kalambaka it was late and i was too tired to carry out my usual search for a secluded spot so i established myself by the side of a dirt track a kilometre or so out of the village. just when i got the fire lit a pick up truck drove past and said something i didn't understand and the next vehicle to arrive was another pick up truck with a man who spoke to me in english saying that he was from the fire brigade. it was a corteous enough exchange - i apologised and he poured several bottles of water all over my little campfire (throwing away bottles into bushes, as is often the greek way) then spent about fifteen minutes stamping all over the ground - a melodramatic gesture of his. he was in his authoritative role and had to prove it. all i could do was stand there wearing but my indian lungee in the warm greek night looking up at the stars. it is true that home is where the heart is, but also, i feel, when travelling, in more material terms, home is where the hearth is. a temporary home is created anywhere a fire is lit. a camp fire is like a friend. like having a warm cat on your lap.
i am learning that i dislike authority.
the old greeks believed that Mount Olympos was the home of the Gods, whenever i got up to the ski centre there was a youth with a gun who told me that it was forbidden to enter before eight am.
that was the word he used: forbidden. he spoke pretty good english.
i asked him if he was on military service and did he like it and he replied "yes" (of course he would reply yes to somebody he has only just met). i asked him what he did and when he seemed unsure how to answer i said it in greek, which i happened to know: "ti kanete?". he consulted a nearby uniformed youth and responded simply. "i am on watch"
"we are the special military service"
i thought of what Janni had told me: "when we are nineteen we have to do nine months military service in greece - they were the worst nine months of my life. i felt ridiculous to hold the gun with no intention of using it. the most absurd thing is that at the beginning there is a priest who gives you his blessing, while you are holding the gun".
i pass through a town called Elassona. every since i saw the name on the map i felt drawn to that place.
i don't know any other name of town more beautiful than Elassona. it felt good to be spinning along the road towards Elassona, observing the gradually diminishing kilometres which were left till i got there. i think it felt good just to have the name Elassona in my head, to say it out loud to myself:
Elassona
Elassona
it produced a feeling of peace to repeat it like that.
Elassona
it turned out to be a sleepy little agricutural town. i didn't stay there long because i wanted to head on and climb mount olympos. the most memorable thing that happened was in the bakery. i said to the girl who was behind the counter "hello, yes, i would like . . . . . " then i spent about a minute looking through my little book of greek dialogues, searching for the in the bakery section, before triumphantly announcing "ena psomi olikis alesseos, parakalo" - a wholemeal loaf of bread, please. the girl, having waited patiently, gave a victory smile of comprehension i think she found it funny.
mount olympos first looked to me like cairn gormos - big and round and skilift - but the higher i climbed every peak which i thought was probably the summit turned successively into subsidiary peaks, until in the end, as i was gingerly traversing patches of snow with my sandles, the final gnarly rocky upthrust was sighted, crowded with lots of people who looked like penguins. everyone was sitting around gazing down into the titanic walls of gnarly rock, which plunged to the snow patched abyss below. the whole ethereal scene breathed an air of lofty majesty. so much space, clouds forming and floating and obscuring the deep view of the pine forest valley far below. the pine forest route is the one everyone else comes up by. i realised then that i had snuck up the lumpy backside of the mountain, its gnarly ethereal face concealed to me until the last. i later saw a map of the mountain and realised the huge sprawling arms of the mountain is ascended by many paths from all sides.
the next day i contoured the mountain on my bike. every time i tried to take a photo, it appeared as a haze of light. from every angle it seemed to be constituted by diffused light more than any material substance.
i met a very small owl standing in the middle of the road, who blinked in the early morning sunlight and gave an aura of great tranquility. i thought that he was also endowed with a great innocence. he did seem very young. i knew that he was an owl because he could turn his head round 180 degrees, and he often did. he radiated tranquility and innocence, but at the same time, i thought "poor thing. he will not survive alone in this world" i wanted to continue cycling and so had to pose him at the side of the road, and just at that moment, a van filled with young men hurtled past and beeped the horn at us. if i hadn't picked him up, that van would have hurtled right over him, poor thing. i think he must have somehow lost contact with his parents. i think he must have thought that i could be a substitute parent, he was very reluctant to leave my hand when it came to putting him down amidst the roadside plants which towered above him.
cycling cross country is the way to experience the greece of the olden rural days, entering the old villages there is a feel of stepping back in time. old people sitting in the shade responding cheerily to my call of "kalimera" (good day), ready to give me advice about which road to take. my ability to say things in greek grows slowly.
a lot of the conversations with the sheep herders go, simply:
hello
"hello"
"where are you from?
- scotland.
"i am from albania"
early morning crossing of 1,000m pass, mount olympos lost in the haze ahead of me
when i got down to katerini on the coast i hopped over the carrefour supermarket fence and there in the bins found a big bag of cherries, aubergines, cougettes, tomatoes, a big tub of feta cheese, bags and bags of ground coffee. an old man then appeared, doubtless a concerned local resident, addressing me angrily, saying something which i somehow knew meant: "do you want me to call the police?".
i could have exclaimed to him: "dude, they are throwing away good food!" i could have added as additional explanation: "and the wastage of good food offends my soul"
however, my burgeoning greek did not permit me such verbal dexterity so instead i took my time and climbed back over the fence and stood towering over the little man and said "lipame" - i'm sorry - and put my hand up to my mouth to indicate the action of eating.
rarely have i seen a change of heart occur so suddenly. his barking dog demeanour fell away and he patted me on the shoulder and put his hand in his back pocket to bring out a five euro note.
the kind-hearted legend.
he was expecting to meet a criminal, an unruly breaker of The Law, and instead he met me.
later that day i spotted a woman looking in the bins outside a supermarket an hour or so along the coast road south of thessaloniki. first she was surprised to see me then we looked for stuff together. with my longer arms i could pull out loaves of bread and bags of bananas for us to share. i also gave her some of the ground coffee i had found earlier. she gave me eyes full of gratefulness and she squeezed my arm and i squeezed her arm. it was more than my long arms she was grateful for. in this society where many people would be abhorred by the idea of eating food from a bin, my encounter was a warm embrace of solidarity for her. a brave woman looking for food in the bins in this society. she was wearing a pale coloured summer dress like many greek woman wear.
later on i thought that that encounter made my day more complete.
i pedalled a few more kilometres along the coast then found a secluded little beach spot and there lit a huge driftwood fire and over the embers roasted the aubergines and the courgettes wrapped in tin foil and made a lush tomato and pepper sauce.
i can cycle my bike and i can make food over the fire. i no longer envy the squirrels when i am cooking food. nor do i envy eating in a restaurant. every time i surprise myself by how good it tastes
rossella's words echo in my mind when i want to express how good something tastes.
"mamma mia! mmmm buono buono buono"
sometimes i think that when i have made something that tastes very good, what i am really saying is that garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil taste very good.
nor flies.
i don't mind ladybirds
spiders are alright
there are some really funky greek spiders, bright yellow ones with long luminous legs.
yesterday there was a caterpillar with a groovy orange and black stripe crawling over my knee.
there is a rustle in the leaves and there appears an ancient tortoise with an ancient shell, long wrinkly neck which retracts as soon as i get close then timidly reappears, his little black eyes peering at me.
the squirrels are the acrobats of the trees, i have been woken up the last two mornings by their chattering in the trees above, one of them runs along the thinnest of littlest branches, stopping to sniff the air, then performs a titanic lunge (of several metres) to land claws grasping the bark of a big pine trunk, then he turns around and runs down the trunk, somehow those supergrippy claws of his allow him to stick to the bark like spiderman.
i feel pretty limited then in my human body; all i can do is cycle my bike.
when i first arrived in kalambaka it was late and i was too tired to carry out my usual search for a secluded spot so i established myself by the side of a dirt track a kilometre or so out of the village. just when i got the fire lit a pick up truck drove past and said something i didn't understand and the next vehicle to arrive was another pick up truck with a man who spoke to me in english saying that he was from the fire brigade. it was a corteous enough exchange - i apologised and he poured several bottles of water all over my little campfire (throwing away bottles into bushes, as is often the greek way) then spent about fifteen minutes stamping all over the ground - a melodramatic gesture of his. he was in his authoritative role and had to prove it. all i could do was stand there wearing but my indian lungee in the warm greek night looking up at the stars. it is true that home is where the heart is, but also, i feel, when travelling, in more material terms, home is where the hearth is. a temporary home is created anywhere a fire is lit. a camp fire is like a friend. like having a warm cat on your lap.
i am learning that i dislike authority.
the old greeks believed that Mount Olympos was the home of the Gods, whenever i got up to the ski centre there was a youth with a gun who told me that it was forbidden to enter before eight am.
that was the word he used: forbidden. he spoke pretty good english.
i asked him if he was on military service and did he like it and he replied "yes" (of course he would reply yes to somebody he has only just met). i asked him what he did and when he seemed unsure how to answer i said it in greek, which i happened to know: "ti kanete?". he consulted a nearby uniformed youth and responded simply. "i am on watch"
"we are the special military service"
i thought of what Janni had told me: "when we are nineteen we have to do nine months military service in greece - they were the worst nine months of my life. i felt ridiculous to hold the gun with no intention of using it. the most absurd thing is that at the beginning there is a priest who gives you his blessing, while you are holding the gun".
i pass through a town called Elassona. every since i saw the name on the map i felt drawn to that place.
i don't know any other name of town more beautiful than Elassona. it felt good to be spinning along the road towards Elassona, observing the gradually diminishing kilometres which were left till i got there. i think it felt good just to have the name Elassona in my head, to say it out loud to myself:
Elassona
Elassona
it produced a feeling of peace to repeat it like that.
Elassona
it turned out to be a sleepy little agricutural town. i didn't stay there long because i wanted to head on and climb mount olympos. the most memorable thing that happened was in the bakery. i said to the girl who was behind the counter "hello, yes, i would like . . . . . " then i spent about a minute looking through my little book of greek dialogues, searching for the in the bakery section, before triumphantly announcing "ena psomi olikis alesseos, parakalo" - a wholemeal loaf of bread, please. the girl, having waited patiently, gave a victory smile of comprehension i think she found it funny.
mount olympos first looked to me like cairn gormos - big and round and skilift - but the higher i climbed every peak which i thought was probably the summit turned successively into subsidiary peaks, until in the end, as i was gingerly traversing patches of snow with my sandles, the final gnarly rocky upthrust was sighted, crowded with lots of people who looked like penguins. everyone was sitting around gazing down into the titanic walls of gnarly rock, which plunged to the snow patched abyss below. the whole ethereal scene breathed an air of lofty majesty. so much space, clouds forming and floating and obscuring the deep view of the pine forest valley far below. the pine forest route is the one everyone else comes up by. i realised then that i had snuck up the lumpy backside of the mountain, its gnarly ethereal face concealed to me until the last. i later saw a map of the mountain and realised the huge sprawling arms of the mountain is ascended by many paths from all sides.
the next day i contoured the mountain on my bike. every time i tried to take a photo, it appeared as a haze of light. from every angle it seemed to be constituted by diffused light more than any material substance.
i met a very small owl standing in the middle of the road, who blinked in the early morning sunlight and gave an aura of great tranquility. i thought that he was also endowed with a great innocence. he did seem very young. i knew that he was an owl because he could turn his head round 180 degrees, and he often did. he radiated tranquility and innocence, but at the same time, i thought "poor thing. he will not survive alone in this world" i wanted to continue cycling and so had to pose him at the side of the road, and just at that moment, a van filled with young men hurtled past and beeped the horn at us. if i hadn't picked him up, that van would have hurtled right over him, poor thing. i think he must have somehow lost contact with his parents. i think he must have thought that i could be a substitute parent, he was very reluctant to leave my hand when it came to putting him down amidst the roadside plants which towered above him.
cycling cross country is the way to experience the greece of the olden rural days, entering the old villages there is a feel of stepping back in time. old people sitting in the shade responding cheerily to my call of "kalimera" (good day), ready to give me advice about which road to take. my ability to say things in greek grows slowly.
a lot of the conversations with the sheep herders go, simply:
hello
"hello"
"where are you from?
- scotland.
"i am from albania"
early morning crossing of 1,000m pass, mount olympos lost in the haze ahead of me
when i got down to katerini on the coast i hopped over the carrefour supermarket fence and there in the bins found a big bag of cherries, aubergines, cougettes, tomatoes, a big tub of feta cheese, bags and bags of ground coffee. an old man then appeared, doubtless a concerned local resident, addressing me angrily, saying something which i somehow knew meant: "do you want me to call the police?".
i could have exclaimed to him: "dude, they are throwing away good food!" i could have added as additional explanation: "and the wastage of good food offends my soul"
however, my burgeoning greek did not permit me such verbal dexterity so instead i took my time and climbed back over the fence and stood towering over the little man and said "lipame" - i'm sorry - and put my hand up to my mouth to indicate the action of eating.
rarely have i seen a change of heart occur so suddenly. his barking dog demeanour fell away and he patted me on the shoulder and put his hand in his back pocket to bring out a five euro note.
the kind-hearted legend.
he was expecting to meet a criminal, an unruly breaker of The Law, and instead he met me.
later that day i spotted a woman looking in the bins outside a supermarket an hour or so along the coast road south of thessaloniki. first she was surprised to see me then we looked for stuff together. with my longer arms i could pull out loaves of bread and bags of bananas for us to share. i also gave her some of the ground coffee i had found earlier. she gave me eyes full of gratefulness and she squeezed my arm and i squeezed her arm. it was more than my long arms she was grateful for. in this society where many people would be abhorred by the idea of eating food from a bin, my encounter was a warm embrace of solidarity for her. a brave woman looking for food in the bins in this society. she was wearing a pale coloured summer dress like many greek woman wear.
later on i thought that that encounter made my day more complete.
i pedalled a few more kilometres along the coast then found a secluded little beach spot and there lit a huge driftwood fire and over the embers roasted the aubergines and the courgettes wrapped in tin foil and made a lush tomato and pepper sauce.
i can cycle my bike and i can make food over the fire. i no longer envy the squirrels when i am cooking food. nor do i envy eating in a restaurant. every time i surprise myself by how good it tastes
rossella's words echo in my mind when i want to express how good something tastes.
"mamma mia! mmmm buono buono buono"
sometimes i think that when i have made something that tastes very good, what i am really saying is that garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil taste very good.
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