83 Reasons For Greek Pride

This list of what it means to be Greek comes from an email which has been doing the rounds. We don't know who the original author was and it didn't come in the form of a numbered list, we've restructured it that way so its easier to talk about.

Why do We Fancy Ourselves For Being Greek?

1. Because we buy whole watermelons and not in slices.
2. Because we buy whole lambs and not in pieces.
3. Because nights in Greece finish in the morning.
4. Because we take our coffee slowly, while smoking and not in "shots"
5. Because flirting is our national hobby.
6. Because sex is our national sport.
7. Because we always moan about the public sector and everyone seeks to get a job in it .
8. Because we are not puritans.
9. Because we are not racists.
10. Because we cheat openly, without trying to hide it.
11. Because we go out almost every night even if we are penniless.
12. Because we know how to spend better than we know how to save.
13. Because we never visit others empty handed.
14. Because there is no way to explain to foreigners what is "kapsoura" (burning desire for someone).
15. Because in Greece family is still something valuable.
16. Because we do not share the petrol with those we take in our cars.
17. Because we always make it, albeit in the last moment.
18. Because we were slaves for 400 years yet never bring that up as an excuse for our current state.
19. Because for the sake of a woman we made war for 10 years (Trojan War).
20. Because we are everywhere around the planet.
21. Because we love and hate with passion. Because "filotimo" (friend of honor, helping someone because it is a shame not to), does not exist in any other language.
22. Because whenever foreigners cannot find a word, they use one of ours. Because we spend our bad and low times with our friends and family, not with shrinks.
23. Because Socrates, Pluto and Aristotle were Greek.
24. Because we invented theatre.
25. Because we gave birth to Democracy.
26. Because we discovered logic.
27. Because we jump started science.
28. Because we are proud of our culture, not of our wars.
29. Because when others were discovering meat, we already had cholesterol.
30. Because we gave the light to all these leaders who are "striving" for peace by making wars.
31. Because we can give anything up just to make love.
32. Because hundreds of European women travel to Greek Islands every summer just to get laid.
33. Because we have a distinction between Eros (falling in love) and Agapi (innocent love), while we feel both of them passionately.
34. Because Eros was a Greek God.
35. Because we change our cars every three years, our mobile phones every year and our lover every three days.
36. Because when others used to be clothed with wolf skin we were weaving see-through linen.
37. Because "Greeks do not fight as heroes, heroes fight like Greeks".(Winston Churchill, 1941)
38. Because we don't use ketchup with our food - it tastes good anyway.
39. Because we gave our ancient alphabet to the Romans and our Medieval alphabet to the Slavs.
40. Because we converted all of Eastern Europe into Christians.
41. Because we get angry quickly but we forget all about it even quicker.
42. Because we are not ashamed to cry.
43. Because we dance when we are sad.
44. Because we work to live and we do not live to work.
45. Because 97% of the stars' names are Greek.
46. Because although we know danger well, we dare.
47. Because when you shout "brother" in the streets everyone turns around.
48. Because we always talk about getting in a diet after we had our meal.
49. Because we speak loudly and laugh even louder.
50. Because we do not know what anxiety is.
51. Because, although we smoke more than anyone in the world and eat the most red meat in Europe, we live the longest in Europe.
52. Because we are starting with "just a coffee" early afternoon and end up off our heads in the morning.
53. Because we walk in the streets at 2:00 in the morning and there are traffic jams.
54. Because we walk in the streets at 4:00 in the morning and there are traffic jams.
55. Because girls are not scared to walk alone in the streets at 2:00 or 4:00 o'clock in the morning.
56. Because the inside of all our churches are not dark, but full of light.
57. Because we are direct.
58. Because we know how to cheat.
59. Because we never report people who cheat.
60. Because we always have a solution to problems, even if usually indirect or illegal.
61. Because we have tendencies to extremity.
62. Because our parents do not forget that we exist when we reach 18.
63. Because when we want to sunbathe, we go to the beach, we don't crawl on grass or jump into fountains.
64. Because we confront every difficulty with humour.
65. Because the Olympic Games were born here.
66. Because our sky is blue, not grey.
67. Because we have the cleanest seas on the planet.
68. Because 40% of Oxford dictionary is made up with Greek words.
69. Because we are a poor country with very rich citizens.
70. Because we know what "Kefi" (propensity to fun) means.
71. Because we like to spend money and eat fish while they are still fresh.
72. Because Homer wrote Iliad 3500 years ago and Hollywood turned it into a movie just recently.
73. Because we speak foreign languages - who learns Greek?
74. Because Tsikoudia from Crete is the strongest drink in Europe (85% alcohol)
75. Because we grow hallucinogenic weed without biological engineering!!
76. Because our "model for life" has many curves.
77. Because we wear sandals without socks.
78. Because we get paid on Friday and we end up owing money Monday morning.
79. Because we gave the oath "freedom or death".
80. Because God did not choose us as his favourite people, but we always choose our Gods.
81. Because we are European Champions in football and basketball.
82. Because we have a small, poor country full of people with big hearts.
83. Because only in Greece, the guy who prepares the Souvlaki asks the young lady: "What shall I put in?" And she happily replies "Please put everything in!''

There are some whoppers and some belters in there but overall we reckon it gives a pretty accurate insight into the Greek mind.

Our particular favourites:

• the withering disdain of foreigners in numbers 22, 32 and 63.
• the belief that its only thanks to Greece that people around the world are able to express themselves at all. (14, 21, 22, 68)
  
• the outright lies (e.g, 9, 50, 51, 64 67.)

Oh well, it gave us a laugh anyway.

Thankyou for Not Smoking (Two Fags at Once)

Greece is a place where smoking is still cool. However, there are some limits.



On the Pserimos ferry, this sign asks patrons to at least hold off smoking two cigrattes at once while they are on board.

Progress, one supposes.

How Greeks do Banks

In the UK, the bank manager lives in a wee room at the back. You never get to see her.

In Greece, the bank manager has to be a man (legally) and is always stationed on the (large) desk nearest the window so that everyone can see his status.


Generally, a large desk seems to be a highly valued accessory for any worker. We think that a large desk indicates seriousness and importance, which is heavily valued.

Learn Greek:

1. The Desk = τo θρaνio (to thra-nee-oh)
2. My Desk is the biggest = τo θρaνio μou εivai τo μεγaλητερo (to thra-neeo mou ee-nai to mega-leetero)

Hoop Dreams

The Greeks love their basketball. It's on telly as much as the football. I guess the game suits the climate - concrete is easier to maintain than grass in this heat.


But they don't always look after their hoops. This one is in the playground of one of the abandoned schools near us.

National Day of Greece 25th March

The Greek National Day was on March 25th. The protocol in Kalymnos is fairly well established having being free of Italy for over 60 years now.

First: the army walk up and down to military music, waving a flag.


Then the girls walk up and down to military music, dressed in traditional Kalymnian costume. One girl gets to carry the giant sponge.

Then its all over and everyone can have a fag.

Secret Backstreet Casino

You find stuff out all the time. Apparently this completely innocuous building in the backstreets behind the Alphabank is actually a casino and is full of blokes gambling each other into early graves, all day long.

No lights, no sign, no nothing and yet there it is, the pit of all morals. Fancy!

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's day is traditionally celebrated in Greece by buying your loved one a large cuddly mouse.

This stuffed mouse shop round the corner from us has had a great week for business. Shame it doesn't do much for the other 51 weeks of the year.

Perhaps they should diversify.

Greek Cats are Harder than Scottish Cats but Scottish Youth Would Tank Greek Youth

Greek cats would murder Scottish cats. Fat and soft, Scots pussies want for nothing as they snore by the fireplace.

Meanwhile, life is raw for their Greek counterparts. Only a spoilt minority are family pets; the rest are hard-as-nails feral street-beasts who fight for food and die in forgotten alleyways. The guy above is having a good day - he's stumbled across a random deposit of sardines near the wharf, but he'll need to eat it quick.


This one is more typical: he looks like he's been in a fight and maybe he hasn't eaten much more than the stinking remains of an abandoned souvlaki for the last few days.

Oddly enough - the story with teenagers is the exact opposite.


The kids round here are breast-fed to the age of 30. Their only worry is what time their next pizza is to be delivered, while Greek parents work themselves into the ground to pay for it.

Glasgow's wiry young teams would tear them apart, limb from fat limb...

...but their cats would kill ours and so the question remains: which country is best?

The Church of Elvis

There's this church round the corner from the town beach. It's got a blue-domed roof and all the usual palaver, but the thing that makes it stand out is it's electric cross.



If Elvis was alive today, and into preaching, and living in Greece - THIS would be his place.

Elvos, perhaps?

Philosophy Latest

Twenty five centuries after Plato's dialogues, Greece still produces key philosophies for all the world to know.

Here's the latest.

Amazing. The author has captured the essential foundation of Modern Greek thinking in just nine words that are not even his first language.

Impressively concise.

The Hanged Man

It's been a while since Easter - but we rediscovered these photos from that weekend and I don't think we mentioned them at the time.

Basically, Good Friday saw an outbreak of effigies being hanged from overhead cables all around the town. This one is outside the big church over at the West End of town, Agios Nikaloas.





There was another, better, one up by Agios Vasilios which had been dressed up with a headscarf/burka-type-thing, perhaps to look like an Arab but it had been taken down by the time we got back to it with the camera.

Anyway - we never did find out what the hanged effigies were all about. Perhaps they are supposed to represent Judas, but whoever it supposed to be it certainly adds a scary edge to the whole celebration.

Hot cross buns are tame by comparison!

Christ Has Flown - Now You May Swim

What's the dumbest thing you ever got told when you were younger?



Two days ago it was time for another religious celebration - 40 days after Easter which apparently marks the time that Jesus Christ finally went up to heaven after rising from the dead on Easter Sunday.

Anyway, Michael told us that, when they were kids, the adults told them that they had to wait for this festival for their first swim of the year.

The kids were warned that if they went in the sea before this date, they would grow a sponge in their arsehole.

We've been swimming for the last few weeks and so far I can report no sponginess. Looks like the bum-sponge might have been an old wives' tale!

Greece Ripped Off

To be honest, we didn't initally think the Greek Eurovision entry was that good.

My Secret Combination by Kalomira was a pretty standard slab of American-style pop delivered by a Britney Spears clone who even sang in English and gave her post-event interviews in an American accent.


But then, the day after the competition, we found that My Secret Combination was about the only tune we could actually remember, so at least it was catchy.

Then we remembered how we felt early on in the voting when it looked like Greece might win... a trip to Athens for the Eurovision in one year's time would be AMAZING.

And then we read that the Eurovision was a fix, that it was a Russian company running the phone votes and the whole thing was rigged. This, admittedly, is based on one forum post somewhere on the internet but hey - it might be true and if it is then we feel AGGRIEVED.

So now we're mad shit-assed angry. Greece was ripped off and Russia cheated.

Luckily the national football team have a chance to take revenge soon as they are playing Russia in the Euro 2008 football tournament which starts on Saturday.

Bravo Ellada - give them hell!

Tiny, Meaningless Cultural Difference

In the olden days, being abroad was (probably) really foreign. Distances were vastly more vast when not bridged by modern communications: the internet, etc.

In this age where brands are bigger than countries, you can get a coke anywhere and culture is flatter across the world.

We are left with things like this:



In the UK, the coffee you bought from the supermarket usually came in JARS. Here in Greece, your instant fix tends to be packaged in TINS.

Meaningless?

I don't know. You could read more into it. Maybe you could say that Greeks are more comfortable with ingredients that they cannot see whereas people from Britain are less trusting of authority and need to see the goods through transparent glass before being comfortable with a purchase.

Perhaps it means that Greeks see coffee as more of a basic commodity and Brits see coffee as something more like a treat.

Perhaps it means NOTHING AT ALL!!!

What do you think?

Busy Doing Nothing

More days off!

Today is a public holiday for May Day. No work!

We'd only just finished with Easter too and yesterday was a normal Wednesday half-day!


You gotta hand it to the Greeks, they know how to work a system. It's probably some vitally important Saint's day or Greek historical occasion next Monday resulting in more closed shops and nothing happening. I cant been bothered to check (cos I'm picking up some Greek habits now).

So, what's this got to do with the picture of the concrete blocks?

Well, special holidays or not, those concrete blocks have been sitting doing zilch for about two months now.

Construction on the new waterfront round the East side of the harbour battered ahead apace during the winter but it seems to have ground to a Greek halt for now.

The crane that lifts the blocks into the sea has gone. I guess this is our sea-view for the foreseeable future.

Still, that's what Athens looked like 24 hours before the last Olympics. So, you never know!

Back to Normal

The locals go back to work today after an explosive Easter weekend.


Easter is the number one holiday in Greece, far bigger than Xmas and the celebratory tradition in Kalymnos is for the young men to throw 3-kilo packages of dynamite off the mountainsides that surround the town.

This is thrilling for the first hour but after four days of non-stop bombardment we now know exactly how grim life was in the Flanders trenches of 1916.

As they say in Scotland, "Gies Peace!"

Last Meal for These Two

The guy from next door spent five Euros on raffle tickets and came up trumps, winning two goats for Easter.

The neighbours don't have a garden so they're staying for one night in our garden before the killer comes tomorrow to turn them into meat.

See how keenly they feed themselves on our weeds!


So this is an Easter picture of a Last Supper although the difference between these goats and Jesus is that Jesus knew what was going to happen to him.

Death Row - One Week To Live

Kalo Pascha!

That's what Greeks will be saying to each other this time next week, it means "Happy Easter".



Happy for them, as Lent comes to an end and they may eat meat again.

Not so happy for the chap above, for exactly the same reasons.

All over the town, sheep like this are waiting in gardens with rope around their legs and they don't even know why.

It's like one big oblivious death row!

Priestly Powerplay

One minute this priest is keeping a guy in his place with a subtle right hand.

And as soon as he knows he's getting snapped, there he is, looking the other way, folding his hands, whistling through his beard... pretending it never happened:

What does it mean?

Casually Taking The Sheep for a Walk

Check this scene from from the other day. Just a nomral everyday guy, acting real casual, real cool.

Just taking his sheep for a walk.

There are a lot of sheep around the town at the moment. Probably because Easter is only a few weeks away...

The sheep seem to enjoy being centre of attention. They have absolutely no idea of the fate which lies in store for them in just three weeks time.

Muaah ha ha ha ha ha!