Friday 17 August 2012

Back from Messinia!

That's down in south-western Peloponnese for all you non-Greeks. My mother's side comes from a small village over there and my uncle has a house near Messini, so I visit there like once a year or once every two years.

It's nothing really exciting though. Sure it's better than being stuck in Athens, but other than that you just have access to beaches and good sea waters, relatively cheap food/coffee and all that and lots of sun during spring/summer. Personally I don't mind that all. On a typical day I'll have coffee/lunch at the house sit at the computer for a while, then grab the bus to Kalamata, walk around (maybe grab coffee or some snack) head to the beach, read a book, swim, sunbathe, walk back to the terminal, grab the last bus, eat dinner at home. From there it's either go out for a drink with cousin Takis or watch some tv / sit at the computer and sleep late. Rinse and repeat.

Days can go by pretty fast like that. So after around 15 days of rest and relaxation, lots of walking, lots of swimming (kickass cardio btw), a finished book and some nice tan I'm back in Athens. Which means I have to transition from vacation mindset into back-to-real-world mindset and pick up a couple of things where I left them off. Most importantly job-hunting and working on my final project so I can graduate (eventually).

There are of course some side-goals / interests like preparing for the 10km race in Athens Classic Marathon, starting A Song of Fire and Ice series and catching up on the books before season 3 on HBO, study some German, try my luck dating etc. Most of all these open up a small or large sub-tree of things to do, so I have to tackle a little every day lest I be overwhelmed and fail to do at least half of that before the end of the year.