Childless cat ladies left the nest first

- and there are plenty of strays in Greece

I’m in a funky mood this week, so I will start with a confession which you can freely skip if it’s too long or personal.

My brother came over to visit and brought me a few cans of pâté. The Romanian sort, that’s one step above junk food but which I really enjoy as a snack.

I was looking at them in the fridge, at how they were sitting next to the feta cheese and the olives, it looked so unnatural somehow, and I realized that it’s not so different from how I’ve sometimes felt just existing here in Greece. And that only now, after a long time, it has finally started to get easier - but only after I accepted that all the things that will forever be weird about me, as a migrant, are things that are also a part of me and that need to be accepted - just like the things that I willingly and consciously changed in order to adapt. 

I am a migrant, so I switch on a daily basis between three languages and sometimes I mix them up. I talk a lot on the phone - the phone is my lifeline to my friends and family and, while I have wonderful friends here, in Athens, and a wonderful partner, having a new home and new friends doesn’t mean you’re letting go of the old ones. It just means you have more of them. 

I eat weird food. I eat at weird times. Sometimes, my Eastern European poker face and direct manner of speaking make people feel uncomfortable. Occasionally, I like to have a beer at 6 in the afternoon, instead of a coffee. My Greek is good, but I think it will be decades until I can get all the genders right. And I like the beach so much that even just seeing it from the street makes me happy. 

And because of that, my last day of summer was perfect.

I’ve become perfectly comfortable navigating a life in which I belong to two countries, without feeling the pressure to let go of any one of them. I think that, as a migrant, as soon as you realize that you can do this, you become infinitely richer, not poorer. Your world expands and anyone who thinks they can only hang on to one of the two worlds is missing out on so, so much. 

I used to say, about moving here: you win some, you lose some. Now I know there’s no loss involved. Just change. 

Why am I writing this? Because this is a newsletter for expats, and I’m pretty sure that most of you have struggled with these conflicts at some point or the other. So maybe it helps someone. Or maybe I just needed to express these thoughts to a community who understands.

In the meantime, write back about how you feel as expats in Greece. I would love to hear about it.  

Weekly Spotlight

• A fire raged this week again, this time in Corithia. The fire is under control now, but the damage is severe and two people died. Here you can find a map of the burned areas. A potential cause was a deputy mayor in the area, who was fined €3,000 for smoking bees on September 29, the day a fire broke.

• On Friday, October 11, at the Kallimarmaro Panathenaic Stadium, the association of relatives of the victims of the train accident in Tempi - which, in fact, only represents a small part of the families who lost loved ones in Tempi, was supposed to organize a concert - a tribute to the lives that were lost on February 28, 2023. And then, a decision was made to sell 15-euro tickets to the event, which made a lot the other families understandably angry. Now, the fate of the concert is uncertain. “The names of our children will not become €15 tickets”, one of the parents says. 

News you can use

• Pieria just became Greece's first certified "Bike Friendly Destination," officially recognized by a group focused on sustainable tourism.

• How Zappeio became an illegal parking lot for the few, instead of a public space for the many.

• On October 1st, Greece implemented new quiet hours as the winter season began, adjusting the times during which noise is restricted. The novelty is that it also applies to public venues or activities and it can result in five months of prison. 

• Did you know that only 50% of the amounts that you pay for electricity actually accounts for electricity? The rest is fees and taxes. Here’s a basic breakdown of these. 

• Since the digital work card rolled out in Greece, overtime hours have shot up across most industries. The ERGANI system is seeing a big spike, with banking companies leading the charge at 14% more overtime, and supermarkets at 24.5%. Turns out, tracking work hours actually means more get logged. Ha.

• According to Eurostat, Greeks are on average 30.6 years old when they move out of their parental home, making them the third oldest in the EU to do so (after Croatia and Slovakia).

• But the even more interesting thing about Greece is the gap between men and women on this account: the average age at which women leave the parental home is 28.8 years, with men leaving considerably later, at 32.2.

• After 18 years of construction, Thessaloniki's long-awaited metro is finally set to open on November 30. There's just one little hiccup—officials missed the deadline to order ticket rolls. 

• Spending Insights. Here is a deep dive into Greek households’ expenditures on housing and food

• Almost half of Greek households spend more than they declare

• Nine Greek cheeses have landed among the ranking of the top fifty hard cheeses worldwide.

• And here’s a movie that I’d potentially like to watch: Public Enemy review – an anatomy of Greece’s economic crisis framed as epic tragedy

• Which of the 53 fish and seafood we often eat should we avoid?

• Extra: this Substack, The Greek Analyst, where you can find a lot of amazing stuff, like how much do Greeks really make?

The Long Reads

• What is desalination, how does it work and why is it essential for the Cyclades? 

• Eleftheria Zambetaki, who has total vision loss, describes feeling trapped: unable to leave her house, even for simple tasks like taking out the garbage or shopping, without help. Her experience highlights the struggle of blind individuals in Greece, especially those without access to mobility and daily living skills trainers who teach orientation and the use of a white cane. 

• And my favoruite text from this section: Women challenge the ‘childless cat lady’ cliche:

  “There have always been stereotypes about those who take care of strays: ‘They don’t have anything better to do, they do it because they don’t have a family, they’re half-crazy, dirty,’ etc. As there have always been stereotypes about childless or single women, since they cannot understand the reason why a woman did not have children. No one takes a step behind the labels to understand why a woman didn’t get married, didn’t have children and chose to have a pet for company.”

Wanderlust

• Athens International Film Festival is starting today and will last until 14th of October

• How do you make a Freddo cappuccino? 

• The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra will perform at the Athens Concert Hall on October 13

• Lakki, on the island of Leros, a village that seems to have sprung from the pages of a modern art book and invites visitors on a journey through time and aesthetics

• Goran Bregovic live on Saturday, October 5th

• And for beers, food and music, check out Athens Oktoberfest this weekend

Have a great weekend and do write back. Even if it’s just to complain. 

Ioana