Germany + Greece

I saw this tweet recently:

Someone just used an emoji in a pretty serious work email. It was a middle aged German. Such informality! It's like they've become Greeks.

— Jorge (@ChocoLlama) April 14, 2014

It reminded me of another encounter I saw between German and Greek cultures.

While in Greece, we visited  the local travel agency to book some tickets.

A spry sprightly middle aged women worked there, Mrs Papanagiotou. She had dark brown curled hair tightly cropped and sat at her little desk with a light cardigan hanging from her shoulders.

One day when we called she was sitting outside, animatedly chatting and drinking coffee with a neighbour.

We mentioned that she seemed to be having a lovely time, an easy summer life. "But I'm a little worried," she said, would she be affected by the recent Angela Merkel led German bail out the Greek economy?

"No, no, I don't want to be a German woman, sitting in an office and never speaking!," she said as she crossed her cardigan in a certain fashion.

London to Corfu, from above

I took these great aerial photos on a flight from London to Corfu, passing over France and Italy.









And on the return night flight, we passed over Paris - spot the Eiffel Tower in the left lower middle ground.

Green Lanes: Turkish shops & cosmopolitanism

Continuing my series of London bars, cafés, shops and restaurants named after foreign places, I took a trip to Green Lanes. Given the sizeable Greek, Turkish and Cypriot communities living nearby, I expected to come away with many venues named after places in those countries.

I wasn't disappointed, with major cities counted for - Bodrum restaurant, Diyarbakir restaurant and Istanbul barbers and a closed cafe bar with the name Kibris (the Turkish name for Cyprus), but four of the many many venues bearing Turkish and Greek names.









Eastern European names also featured, with a Danube bakery and a derelict shop named after Moldova.






I was more surprised to find venues and shops named after more Western European cities - a Paris beauty salon (a place to become tres belle) and Milano restaurant.

Colours of Greece

Greece is glorious - sun, sea, sand, and almost everything is blue and white. The Greek flag has been blue and white for centuries, in a number of different designs. It's generally thought this refers to the Aegean sea surrounding Greece.

The Greeks certainly adopt the colours with a patriotic verve when designing their houses, boats, furniture, motorbikes and lots more.

But then, occasionally, you come across a house not painted blue and white, but green, or red, or purple. Are these Greek houses? Or maybe Italians, Turks, or Albanians live in them? And what do the Greek neighbours say?

Podosfairo! Football with London's Greek fans

Last night I was on Moscow Road to support the Greeks.

Initially, I went to Halepi, suggested by Time Out, but there was no TV. I asked the man in the next door restaurant (Zorba's), and ended up at Cafe Byzantium which had a TV complete with Greek commentary.

I expected the Greeks to be wild, passionate fans, so was surprised to find them all sitting around, drinking coffee and chatting.

Only one chap was wearing football colours. One fashion highlight was a t-shirt emblazoned with a technicolour lobster.

Come half-time, and down 1-0, the Greeks piled outside, had a fag or five, coming back much more animated for the second half, jumping up and getting into a right flap when their off-side goal was disallowed.

• Whenever Greece took a corner or free kick, they stuck their arms out straight ahead of them and wiggled their fingers.
• Greece's number 10 had the look of Apprentice Lee McQueen. I wonder what "that's what I'm talking about" is in Greek?
• The crowd were very excited to see Greek number 8, Stylianos Giannakopoulos - aka Stelios.
• They were laughing and loving the playful homoeroticism of a rough 'n' tumble tackle.
  

Eurovision 2008

Welcome to Eurovision Week! 

Bloggers and news site are agog with the idea that the 2008 top 3 may well be the same as the 2007 top 3: namely, Serbia, Ukraine and Russia. 

So, let's look at last year, and see what we can learn for this year...

• The name Maria - or variants of - is a success symbol with Marija Serivofic winning, and Greece's Yassou Maria in the Top 10.

So, for 2008, step forward this year's only Maria from Norway!

• Turkey came in 4th with a song all about having candy.

Step up Greece's Kalomira who's come as a Quality Street.

• Both Russia and Serbia swathed their stages in red last year - will red be the colour to watch this year?
• Bulgaria came fifth with some dated dance music - good news for this year's lovely Icelandic entry.

• And lastly, 2007 was the year of baco-foil clad drag queen Verka Serduchka. Who will take on that mantle this year? Step forward one Charlotte Perrelli!

Enjoy Eurovision!

Ireland by Deirdre, Greece by Daphne, Portugal by Mauro

I watched a TV show last week called A Song for London, which followed musician Ben Roy around London in an attempt to find a person from every nation to sing him a song.

His attempts were mildly successful - he found people from about 70% of the world's countries, an astounding figure. He was seen speaking with embassies, cultural organisations, schools and even football teams in the hope of finding foreigners.

And while Roy attempted to complete his task in a week, I was reminded of my own project. I've collected a few more maps in the past few weeks.

When I was at home in Ireland at the end of August, I asked my good friend Deirdre, who's another geography and travelling fan, to draw Ireland.

Daphne, from Athens, has a blog which I read. She very kindly sent me her map of Greece.

Mauro, from Portugal, left me a comment about his new blog and project to collect 1 Million Love Messages. I like his idea - so in exchange for my message, I asked him for a map of Portugal. He very kindly agreed.

In addition to his map, Mauro also sent me a postcard of his city - doesn't it look fantastic?!

EuroRevision: Europe squared.

I want to collect a map for every country in Europe. Get in touch if you want to help.

On conventional world maps, each country is shown with reference to their size.

EuroRevision changes this view by re-positioning each country's map on a 10cm x 10cm piece of paper.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer