Still crazy after all these months

So life continues here without ADSL (for the record, we’ve been waiting four months). Our ISP claims that they have done everything and the ball is in OTE’s court, and for that, we could wait months more. The irony is that if we had chosen an ISDN line we would have had ADSL already, but we kept thinking that since everything was filed already, changing the line to ISDN might have screwed it all up. But ISDN has its own inconveniences (like the ability to only use one phone jack) so I guess it doesn’t matter now.

The good thing about not having ADSL is I can’t use the internet as a means of procrastination. When it was there, always on, always ready, I could say to myself “oh, I just want to look this one thing up…” and then end up spending two or three hours online instead of doing myriad tasks I needed to do. Now I look around futilely for excuses to procrastinate and find none, so things actually get done, which I suppose is a good thing when you’ve moved house and there are a million things to do.

We now have furniture in the living room, all it needs is a nice rug and a coffee table, so our house is slowly coming together. Our next big purchase will be dining room furniture – I’ve seen a few things I like already. The problem is all the boxes that are still in the dining room (ok, I mean, I can still procrastinate, obviously). These boxes contain items that moved to Greece with me that we chose to keep packed and stored up here while we gallivanted around the country for four years. To be completely honest, all these boxes probably could have disappeared and I never would have missed all the crap that is in them, aside from my grandmother’s china. Moving so often has completely cured me of my propensity towards rat packishness, and I keep unpacking boxes thinking “why the hell did I keep that?” Ah well, live and learn.

For fun, my husband and I have been playing a lot of Scrabble lately (English version, he won’t play the Greek version with me because it would take too long). He always beats me, except for once when I got the tiles of my dreams. It is ironic – for someone that loves language, I never could do very well at word scrambles. We also played Stratego – my first time – and I got all pissy when I realized I couldn’t win. I can be a sore loser sometimes.

Despite the lack of high speed internet, life up here on the mountain is pretty damn good. I spend way more time just looking at the view than I probably should, but I’ve never actually lived in a place with a real view before. We can so much of the area around us – the entire bay and all the areas of the Thessaloniki prefecture that surround it. I feel like a giant up here, but I am also greatly humbled by the sheer beauty of it. The Earth has done some good work, I just hope we don’t ruin it.

And so the wait goes on. I must apologize to all my blogging friends for not stopping by, I don’t even bother to log in but maybe once a week, and just to check email. I miss all of you and can’t wait to catch up. Here’s hoping it will be soon.

I'm dreaming of a white New Year's

Here we are toe deep in the new year and we are still without an ADSL connection. Now, I can be a patient person but I don’t have patience in unlimited quantities, and I think my husband is going to drive me insane if we don’t get high speed internet soon (he got Lord of the Rings online for Christmas, big mistake).

Christmas was uneventful but filled with family and good times, as it should be. My in-laws got us living room furniture for Christmas - a couch, loveseat, and two chairs in classic leather style. Finally, a place to sit downstairs! I found a dining room set I liked, so if the hubby likes it too we’ll be well on our way to a fully furnished house (except for the basement rooms and guest bedroom).

New Year’s Day we were greeted with a surprise snowstorm in the evening. Within a couple of hours it snowed at least two inches, maybe more (it looked like two inches on the gate, but seemed a bit deeper than that as we walked through it). Unfortunately, my brother-in-law was planning a name day party, and most of his guests had to turn back well before they reached our mountain compound. At least we live next door, so the party wasn’t a complete bust. Three days later the roads are *almost* fully cleared, but the snow still blankets everything. I guess this is what mountain winters are going to be like.

I hope that everyone had a great holiday season. Here’s to a spectacular 2008 for everyone (and hoping that we get ADSL in 2008!).


Only one picture uploaded this time. I’m not a masochist!