Back from Syros

What a trip? I’m not even sure where to begin. It was simply wonderful…

The view from my wonderful hotel room

As I mentioned in the past, my brother’s wedding took place last weekend in the Greek island called Syros. Guests, including us, started to arrive a couple of days earlier. I think there were around 120 to 150 of them in total. We didn't know all of them, but it was really nice walking around the main town of the island and running into familiar faces here and there. My brother organised gatherings the nights before the wedding, where alcohol was running freely and guests got to know one another.

walking around Ermoupoli's center 

A restaurant by the 'Kini' beach 

 During the day, I stayed mostly with my parents and the closest relatives. I didn't have any guests to call my own, but I knew my brother’s friends quite well. JJ was invited to the wedding as I mentioned earlier, but we decided it would be better if he didn't turn up. It would create quite a stir and we didn't want to steal my brother’s thunder. However, I talked, mostly, to my mother about him and the plans we have for the near future.  She seems fine listening to my stories.

a common site in Ermoupoli, lot's of stairs everywhere

a local shop

So, in general, I spent my days with my parents. We would explore the island, go to the sea, have lunch next to the waves and just relax. During the evenings, I would join my brother and wife-to-be in a local bar. The discussion there was mostly about the wedding preparations. Choosing the island for their wedding was a wonderful idea. Making the preparations however, proved a little bit challenging. As in every event of that scale, making sure that everything is ready is not easy and especially in an unfamiliar small island. For example, the best man was supposed to sail to the island. However, the strong winds delayed him considerably. He almost didn't make it. There were relatives with problems in their hotel bookings and the groom was rushing the night before the wedding to sort them out. This list of issues, some trivial and some more serious, is almost endless.

Everything turned up exactly as planned though. The wedding was in a small picturesque church on a hill, overlooking the town and the bay of the island. The bride was so beautiful in her wedding dress.  The ceremony was planned for 12:30pm. Everybody was informed however, that afterwards, the reception would take place in a restaurant and a bar by the sea. So the guests changed to their bathing suits and met in the designated taverna. After a lovely lunch, we moved to the beach bar for the party.

the lovely couple exciting the church

the wedding beach bar

Alcohol was running freely and people were really enjoying themselves. They were going in and out of the sea, enjoying their drinks and dancing till late. I was of course thrown into the sea a couple of times and enjoyed lots of tequila shots with the groom, the bride and the best man. Apparently, the coldness of the sea helps you stay sober. I managed to maintain my decency and have a great time. Even my parents were dancing to the latest r&b and mainstream sounds.

Inspiration

Mark from behrblather asked me, not so long ago, where do I find the motivation and go and do my runs. Although I mentioned something on my reply then, I’d like to elaborate a bit more.

Recently, I’ve been having a newfound interest in getting fitter and doing beneficial physical things, for me. It hasn’t always been easy and I definitely have a long way to go still. However, I believe that I’m in a good place at the moment with a good momentum, which I hope to keep for some time yet. I try to get motivation on things I read and check online. I managed to find some inspirational videos and blogs online close to the period of time I retrieved my running shoes and I haven’t looked back since.

Finding very good looking and fit people, who might or might not be celebrities, does nothing to me. It’s not inspiring. Jason Stratham for example shows off his 6pack on the cover of ‘Men’s Health’. That photo to me might be really nice but it remains so alien. It will not make me do more core exercises to look similar. I know it can never happen. He lives a very different life to mine and gets paid just to look like he does. I can’t compare myself to him. So, reading about his exercise regime and diet is really and utterly irrelevant.

On the other hand, there are lots of people online who share their stories which I can relate to. They are people with everyday jobs, social life, ups and downs, like every other normal human being. These (mostly) success stories are truly inspirational and help me get through tough periods.


The first one I’ll mention is BendoesLife. Ben has been writing a blog for some years now. He started off as an obese youngster, depressed and miserable. At the beginning he couldn’t run almost at all, but through the years he managed to complete marathons, a triathlon and an Ironman. Recently he got married and looks so happy. Going through his blog, you can see the before and after pictures, respect his honesty, enjoy his humour and even see some of the mistakes he made and his lows. I accept the fact that he’s trying to commercialise his blog success with ‘doeslife’ merchandise and book, but I still like what he stands for. There is optimism in what he says. I think there's also a youtube video with his story.

Through the people commenting on his blog, I read some more success stories of everyday people who managed to turn their lives around for the better. If you really look for them in tumlr, wordpress or blogger, you will be able to find them, in lots of places like here or here or here.

Looking for better ways to jog and to find local running events, I joined runnersforum.co.uk. One of the threads published there is titled: ‘Before and after weightloss pics’. That thread contains so many inspirational stories from people of various background, sex or age. Take a look at a random example:

 andydw before

after
 

In the same forum, there are lots of beginners. It’s not that hard to start and there is lots of advice on offer. You can simply start by doing brisk walks and then advance to short runs and see how it goes. Lots of people also used apps like C25k, or even the new ones where zombies try to catch you.

I went for a run yesterday evening. I’ve been listening to Stephen King’s ‘The shinning’. That was one of his books I hadn’t read, but always liked to. It’s been an interesting read while running.

End of an era... an act against democreacy and freedom of speech?

On Tuesday, Greek government decided to shut down the national Greek radio and television broadcasting. So, at around 11pm on Tuesday night, 3 state television channels (ERT, Ελληνική Ραδιοφωνία Τηλεόραση, “Greek Radio-Television”) stopped working.

According to the news, the decision was taken extremely quickly. The PM met with his ministers who signed the document and in 3 hours the act was done. The other two parties of the coalition strongly object to this. The opposition is furious, since there was no law approved by the Parliament and they talk about the PM being a dictator. According to the decision, more than 2600 employees are immediately laid off and all state broadcasting ceased.

At the moment, there is uprising in the streets of the Greek capital. There are lots of former ERT employees still in the company’s buildings, occupying them, refusing to leave and still trying to broadcast. Lots of people have also gathered outside the main ERT building showing their support. The government is using riot police to take down state antennas to stop the transmissions and make people evacuate the areas. The journalist association has declared a running 48 hours strike to protest against the closure.

People outside ERT

ERT began radio transmitting in 1938. Television channels followed from 1966. Compared to the private TV channels it always tried to maintain a level of quality. There were very interesting documentaries, older movies and state programmes. Showing things like theatrical ancient tragedies and the philharmonic orchestra didn’t make ERT the most popular channel to the masses. That meant that the TV and radio channels weren’t profitable. The government had to subsidize it, apart from a little bit of money every household had to pay to ERT as part of their electric bill. In addition, ERT was used by previous politicians as a mean to get more voters. Lots of people were hired in ERT in the 80s and 90s for no apparent reason or qualifications.

The last news read from ERT

So, I agree that there should have been some kind of purification of the organisation. They could reorganise its structure, do some pay cuts or some layoffs. That would require a level of unwanted organisation and probably a little bit of money that the government didn’t want to spend. So, they instead decided on pulling the plug completely. TROIKA (European Commission, European Central Bank and IMF inspectors) are visiting Greece and the moment and had demanded fewer public sector employees, so the government made that stupid decision to please them…

ERT is part of the county’s history. And I can’t stress enough how important ERT’s archives are. The country’s modern history is recorded by them. Even during the military coup d’état in 1967, ERT wasn’t silenced. Think about the government shutting down BBC from one day to the next! And all these people made redundant…