Wu Wei

Snow warning in Athens

Whilst looking for my old Murmansk writings (more later) I found this unpublished blog post from winter 2004/5:

Finally for the 3^rd time, I have learnt not to write on the weblog and disconnect the internet to save money.  It’s possible to do, but not if your ISDN connection crashes your computer like ours does.  One more Greek thing I have never got fixed.

 

The weather forecast is predicting snow for the week and the skiers are believing it.  So far it has been a very mild winter with only one hard frost, judging by the car windscreen.  Last year I ignored the warnings and came back from work in the dark at 8pm to find 3 inches of snow, the buses had stopped and mobile networks overloaded.  I found myself walking in a blizzard with just shoes and a thin coat.  Eventually I called out a neighbour to rescue me.  There were power cuts and the water froze because I felt guilty leaving the tap running.  Everything stopped, though we were lucky as the digger which parks across from our house cleared the road.  Later they said that the water consumption in Athens was 3 times normal because of the leaks when pipes thawed and the running taps.  As a result there were water shortages everywhere, as they tried to restrict consumption.

 

My friend Jennifer said to stock up with food for the week.  Difficult to know what is useful if there is no electricity or water.  Settled for matches and torch batteries, plus veggies for soup, a pannetone (reduced after Christmas) and bottled water.  Assume the minimarket one minute away will be open as usual for anything else.  We have never used the fireplace to see if it works properly so didn’t bother with firelighters and wood.  In any case we have a tiny camping gas stove for making hot drinks.  We have a power cut once a week with an overload, which means waiting to find a key to grandma who lives in the basement where the reset switch is, so we are well used to this.  I guess we can fill the kettle and the bath so we can flush the loo.  Then we will be just like the flat in Chernovtsy we stayed in one weekend, where the bath was full of water, so you couldn’t wash, and the place was full of large bottles of water.  From that we deduced that that the water was supplied only some hours a day, but we never found a problem ourselves. 

 

Parked the car in the worst possible place for snow: my “official” place in the basement of a concrete shell.  It’s great for shade in summer and to keep off the rain which always brings with it orange dust (not sure whether it is pollution or sand from the Sahara as the rumours say).  But for snow the ramp will be slippery and there are now so many cards parked that the turn out at the top of the ramp will be dangerous in snow.

 

Can’t decide what to do about the plants on the balcony, so end up merely photographing them, to prove they were there, but they are too dark to be useful and it’s too late in the day to take some more.  Last year most of them were wiped out.   The kumquats are still producing and the bad lemon has suddenly decided to flower, probably to spite the good lemon whose fruit are refusing to go yellow.  The weigela is flowering despite no leaves and the hydrangea has lots of leaf buds.  The bourgainvillea and geraniums are flowering like summer.  The “house plants” are already inside and no room for more, so I don’t know what to do.

 

I don't think the snow materialised.  But we did have snow for Christmas Day in Ljubljana.  More later.

Technorati tags: Athens, snow

New Year's Resolution

Technorati tags: pinot, Georgian alphabet, Firefox, wine

To learn 5 letters of the Georgian alphabet every day. 

I don't like not recognising any letters at all.  Although I can recognise the word on shop doors for "open" (at least I assume that's what it is), I don't think you can really make much progress that way, since the letters don't actually spell "open", but whatever the word is in Georgian, so I'm not going to learn much.

At 5 letters a day, I should be able to spell out words in a week.  Can't be too stressful, can it?

I just got the Cyrillic add-on to Firefox, which claims you can do Georgian as well, so maybe I can even demonstrate some progress.

Happy New Year to all.

Update: written under the influence of Manana's homemade wine.

It's labelled პინო (that's  pino to you).  Actually it's not that easy to type what's on the bottle label since I had to replace the "p" I typed (what I got was ფ (puh)) with a პ (that's p'uh with a glottal stop).  Only a lot of ingenuity and a Georgian (transliterated) dictionary fixed it. 

This takes me back to learning foreign languages from reading what is written on bottles. I began with learning French from HP sauce bottles. It seems hard to understand why HP (Houses of Parliament) brown sauce should have needed a bilingual labelling in the 1950s, but I read it avidly.

Since then I have always read the labels on bottles carefully. I may not remember anything about wines and vintages but I can read the bottle in most languages I have come across, and sometimes it even came in useful, especially in Hungarian. It seems I have never posted the stuff I wrote about how I got started working in Eastern Europe. So for the New Year I give you "Can I have the baby first" as a page on the righthand margin.  The baby is already 16 going on 17.

Merry Christmas to you all

Sorry for lack of posting.  I always find it difficult to write about a new place.  Just too many impressions going round my head to turn them into some sense.

Just back in Oxford for a couple of days then off for a family Christmas in Ljubljana.  The first time we have all made it there.  Then back for New Year and then on 3rd Sloph and I are back in Tbilisi for a short holiday before she goes back for the hard slog in final year and I get going again on my project.

We hope to have something to say about Georgian elections and Georgian Christmas. And perhaps I can catch up on my photos and blogging.

Fantastic time

Sorry for lack of blogging.

New job going well.  Colleagues great. Life in Georgia easy. Georgians are really friendly and helpful.  What more could you want?

If you come to Georgia you have to stay at Manana's but there won't probably be room for you, we will be there first.  Fantastic home made food, fantastic home made wine, fantastic home made cha cha (wait till you get there), fantastic welcome.  Only snag, she only has 5 rooms.

Overheard at dinner:

Irish:  I don't think I can risk bringing my husband here.  He will probably enjoy it so much that he will take you home instead of me.

Manana:  No problem, my husband kill him.

Already had dinner with the British consul "we fancied one of those evenings where we just said "sod it", so we invited you".  Heard all about the walk-in demanding political asylum, the procedures to deal with them and the final verdict: he thought he was being persecuted by aliens from Mars.  Not quite the case for political asylum.  All happens in Tbilisi.  (English degenerating fast now I can rely on Russian)

Had a hilarious evening in the Scarlet Sails bar on quiz night.  We picked a fight with the locals complaining the quiz was too British and made a reputation for ourselves (how else do you do marketing?).

Today we found the local artists' market but I forgot my camera.  Difficult to buy Christmas presents with no money.  We have 200 dollars between us and still have hotel bills today.  Georgian banks are very efficient and ATM's give you a choice of dollars and lari, surely illegal.  They seem to have extra security. Before you can get into the building, you have to pass through a sort of air lock like they have in space ships, and all the cash transactions are dealt with in the basement vault, where the cashiers are protected from bullets. 

This is going to be a great new contract. Little Miss Moi, get here as soon as you can.  I saw Carpetblogger in Betsy's lobby but we haven't caught up since. 

Technorati tags: Tbilisi, banks, hotels, money

Baltics off the map again!

Carpetblogger has a cool map on her blog today here.

However, although she warns you not to travel on the devushka lines, an even worse fate awaits you in the Baltic States: they are simply not on the map.  Shame.  We are used to Vilnius not appearing on the BBC weather maps.  In fact the Mayor of Vilnius apparently complained to BBC World.  But this is too much.

Just because there was no suitable arrangement between the Northern Line and the Jubilee line is no excuse for just ignoring them.

Technorati tags: Baltic States, maps

First impressions from Tbilisi

I was going to put my first photos on Flickr, but the internet connection in Betsy's Hotel is not the best, (the only thing to grumble about there), so I will just stick with telling about the theatre visit. 

Beate, my friend from Vilnius, who blogs here, is also working here so I have an instant friend.  She organised us to go and see Moliere's "le Medecin malgre lui" in Georgian, about which I was a bit apprehensive, having seen neither Georgian nor Moliere before.  However, quite a bit was in French, Latin and Italian, the singing was good, and it was a comedy.  Although the asides to the audience were lost on us, the action was not, and it was very funny.  Sganarelle, the hero, was played like a vocal Jacques Tati so it was funny even without the words. 

I stayed in Betsy's, in 1995/6 when I was last in Georgia, but it has since moved up the hill to just below the Television Tower with a spectacular view over the town.  There she has retained her special Turkish/Georgian decor with Turkish carpets and Georgian wrought iron furniture, together with all mod cons.  Particular welcome arriving at 4.30 in the morning was a large bottle of still water in the room.  Why can't all hotels give you water free?  Then I noticed a strange set of British square 3 pin sockets, which also take round 2-pin plugs as well.  I wonder if they do in the UK too.  I never thought to try.  Everything is very tasteful (if not cheap) and breakfast and dinner is included, as is a sauna and swimming pool (though I shan't try that this time).  Tbilisi is a small place  so it was not a surprise to be able to meet one of our contacts the first day at breakfast.

Here's a few photos from the streets round the hotel.

 

Eclectic is the word that comes to mind.

Technorati tags: Georgia, Tbilisi, Moliere, Theatre

Cat comes home

Nibbles the cat is back.  She has been living at Sloph's since August and I was beginning to think I would never get her back, after talk of petitions signed by people who had never even met her.  Then I started dreaming (I never dream) about her swimming across a lake towards me, so I  went and got her quick.   Now she is settling in, and seems to remember Bee and me.  She does have a new habit of head butting which is not so attractive.  I shall miss her even more when I go to Tbilisi. 

 

Technorati tags: Nibbles the cat

Birthday (Part I)

The good bits*.  Finally finished

This has been an extended birthday, starting in Sarajevo, passing through Ljubljana, eventually  getting to Oxford and London.  I've had lots of nice meals with friends and sisters, and bought myself some nice presents but I'm writing here about birthday at home with my kids.

Bee bought me mainly Japanese presents from her school trip.  The kimono makes a great replacement for my Vietnamese wrap bought more than 10 years ago.  The sushi mouse mat is going with me to my new office.  I was going to take my Moomin mug, but I don't want to break it on the way.  After googling for a photo, I couldn't find it on the Yamaka Shoten website, so I took some photos of it.  The illustrations are much more elaborate than the simple Arabia ones you usually see. 

Even the box is a work of art.

I also got some Buddha buns, those steamed buns with bean jam inside.  It seemed a bit sacrilegious to eat them: is it OK to bite the Buddha's head off first?  Bee says the Japanese have no worries about that.  Aren't they cute?

 

Sloph took me to the Opera to see AIDA.  Not just the local Oxford Opera, but the Royal Colosseum.   It seems that she knows the front of house manager.  I thought I had useful friends when I know the guy in Vilnius, but I suppose I must get used to my daughters upstaging me.   We "only" got the director's seats in the front stalls, as she hadn't given him enough notice.  It was weird hearing opera sung in English.  It was strange that no one used the cloakroom and hung their coats over their knees.  Very frowned on Eastern Europe.    I realised I have only ever been to the Opera in Eastern Europe before.  So I'm not really able to comment on the quality.  However the elephant was excellent, a sort of larger scale Chinese paper dragon in blue (well I don't know why, but it was fun) with a wiggly trunk just like those dragons that precede Chinese New Year processions.

*Part II follows**, not to spoil things.
** Actually it preceded as I didn't have time to finish Part I before I got complaints that I was spending too much time on Facebook and not enough time blogging.

Technorati tags: Buddha buns, moomin