Diary Athens: Feb 28-March 05, 2016

Mar 03
Last time running and last time doing laundry. Saturday morning I am taking the airport metro from Omonia Square. Flying with Transavia to Holland

I'll be in Holland until Mar 16, and then fly to Phoenix. Work starts Apr 15.

Mar 02
The apartment was still available, but I decided not to do  buy it. I did some calculating.
If I was 10 years younger it would be a different story......
There are furnished apartments for rent in Athens for 350-400 euros per month. The next  3 years I will only need to rent for 5 months per year (still working in the USA) and after that full time.
Until 2030 it would be about 20,000.00 euros cheaper than buying.
If I die earlier it would be even cheaper....

Mar 01
I watched on youtube some videos of music from the past:
Mikis Theodoraki, Ganto General.
With Maria Farandouri,when she was young

 and older

and another version with Giorgos Dalaras

In 1974 I saw a concert with George Dalaras, directed by Mikis Theodorakis.

Feb 28
And more running.

Diary Athens: Feb 20-27, 2016

Feb 26
In the past week the number of refugees and economic migrants have swelled in Platia Victoria.
Yesterday I was interviewed by Russian television, today by German television. Where are the Dutch journalists.....
I could detect the inherent bias of the journalists, and the Russian and the German bias were pretty much opposite of each other.

Feb 25
In the old part of Athens, the Plaka, ancient Greece lies about 6 to 10 feet below present day Athens.

 near Monastiraki

Feb 24
Athens is the only big city that I have lived in, that has apartments with big balconies. What can you do with them? Well you can sit on it, or put plants and trees on it.

Feb 23
Walked north on Oktovriou Street, away from the Akropolis. It is the part of Athens where the stores are chic....Although on the sidewalk there are guys from the Ivory coast, Pakistan and Bangladesh selling glasses and shoes. Sport shoes from Nike. Probably knock-offs because they only cost 20 euros. But I bought a pair anyway.

Feb 22
Nothing to report, so some funny pictures.

 Evil

Feb 21
Time is moving very fast. 3 weeks already in Athens.
At 07.30 I ran Route 2,  from Omonia going uphill until I made a right turn at the Parliament Gardens. Blue skies everywhere, still quiet in the streets.

Feb 20
Took the subway from Omonia to the Akropoli stop

walked around the back of the Akropolis, past the Atticus theater.

to Plaka. Millions of people at Monastiraki (well, it felt like it.)

Had tea in the Starbucks.

Diary Athens: Feb 12-19, 2016

Feb 18
Regarding house hunting: I have hired a lawyer to setup a power of attorney document so that my friend Hara can represent me when I am not in Greece. He will also check the housing registry to see if there are any liens or other negative things regarding the apartment. I found out that as a Dutch citizen, there is a non-resident Greek bank account and a resident, Greek bank account that can be opened (after jumping through lots of hoops)
I took the subway to Piraeus this morning (25 minutes from the Victoria metro station to Piraeus station), did some walking around.

Feb 16
Still warm. Went running in Aeros Park.

I added some more pictures to my Alaska blog of Jul 2015.
http://bigfoottravels.blogspot.com/2015/07/150728-arawjo-tours.html.

Feb 15
Warm day yesterday, about 24 degrees Celsius. The owners of the apartment called me back in the evening. More info. It is still very complicated. The main stumbling block is that because of Capital Controls, nobody can open a bank account, not even Greeks. Anyway, still working on it.

Feb 13
One place I had not been to yet: The Kerameikos Cemetery of ancient Athens.

The area took its name from the city square or dēmos of the Kerameis (potters), which in turn derived its name from the word kéramos, "pottery clay", from which the English word "ceramic" is derived. 

The "Inner Kerameikos" was the former "potters' quarter" within the city and the "Outer Kerameikos" covers the cemetery and also the public graveyard just outside the city walls, where Pericles delivered his funeral oration in 431 BC.

It was originally an area of marshland along the banks of the Eridanos river which was used as a cemetery as long ago as the 3rd millennium BC.

It became the site of an organised cemetery from about 1200 BC. During the Archaic period increasingly large and complex grave mounds and monuments were built along the south bank of the Eridanos, lining the Sacred Way.^[1]

The building of the new city wall in 478 BC changed the appearance of the area.

At the suggestion ofThemistocles, all of the funerary sculptures were built into the city wall and two large city gates facing north-west were erected in the Kerameikos.

The Sacred Way ran through the Sacred Gate, on the southern side, to Eleusis. On the northern side a wide road, the Dromos, ran through the double-arched Dipylon Gate.

After the construction of the city wall, the Sacred Way and a forking street known as the Street of the Tombs became lined with monuments belonging to the families of rich Athenians, dating to before the late 4th century BC.

The construction of such lavish mausolea was banned in 317 BC, following which only small columns or inscribed square marble blocks were permitted as grave stones. 

Feb 12
Me running on the ancient Olympic track

Diary Athens: Feb 04-11, 2016

Feb 11
An individualized society like Greece has its positive and negative sides.
On the positive: Most shops are owner operated, unlike for example in Holland, where it does not matter which city you go to, you will find the same franchised stores.
On the negative side: dealing with bureaucracy. Which is what I am doing now, and not successfully.

Feb 10
I met the owners in the apartment today. He is a retired professor, and they live in Greece. They need the money to pay of a mortgage loan that their daughter has on a house on a Greek island. The daughter is a doctor, living in London. Tomorrow morning I hav to go back to the Tax office and find out if the tax paid by the buyer of property can be paid only through a Greek bank account, or in cash.
I highlighted the apartment building,

Feb 09
Went to a notary lawyer today. Got some more info about the capital bank controls in Greece and she also mentioned that, if I am a Greek resident for a year, after that year I do not have to pay the 3% Tax when buying an apartment.
The bad news about opening an account in Greece at the moment is that apart of the 10,000.00 Euro to open, of  the 3 documents needed, (EU passport, tax documents, proof of income and occupation, and a document from city hall in Holland which shows proof of residency, translated in English or Greek.)
I do not have the last one. For that I have to Groningen, register in person and then be back in Athens, all before March 04. (flying to Holland).
As I will be in the States from Mar 17-Nov 04, the process of opening a Greek account will have to wait until I am back in November.
I'm meeting the owner of the apartment tomorrow, we'll see what is what....

Feb 07
I moved out of the Aristoteles Hotel this morning. The rest of my stay in Athens I'm at my friend Hara's appartment, sleeping on a roll away bed next to the couch.

I went to the archeological museum today. The first Sunday of the month is free admission.

Feb 06
It rained during the night and still raining, sort of a drizzle.I'm meeting with Hara and her brother, to talk about the banking thing. I called the owners of the apartment, but they still have flu. Agreed to call them back on Tuesday.

Feb 05
It rained during the night, but it has been dry in daytime. I went to the Tax office this morning, there were no customers, so I got my Tax number in about 10 minutes. Why do I need a Tax number?
Well, in Greece you need it for everything. Buy a house, sign up for phone service, or utilities.
Then I went to a Bank.
And the story I got, how to open a bank account in Greece, was very complicated.
The short version is that as a Common Market citizen, you can only open an account with a minimum of 10,000.00 euro deposit.
Because of the financial crisis, the Greek banks are operating under European capital control. The reasoning is, to make it impossible for Greeks to take their money out of the country.
Why that also effects money coming in (by opening a Greek account) I do not know.
It was also not clear after talking today to 2 managers from different banks, whether I can transfer money from my Dutch account into an existing Greek account.
Later in the evening I went online and logged into my Dutch account and transfered a small amount of money into my friend Hara's account. It seemed to have worked.

Feb 04
I was going to get some info about opening a bank account today. But there is a general strike. Everything closed. Except restaurants. Greeks like eating, even on strike. Cloudy, no rain though.
My video of Athens (short verion)