2nd day in Vienna

Ok, I had no time to do day 1 in Vienna (yet) but hopefully it will suffice to say that we had a great time - although it stirred up a lot - and that I felt right at home nearly as if I had never left.
The afternoon was spent at Kutschkermarkt parc with a bunch of Emma's old kindergarden mates and their Mums and a bottle of Prosecco. Perfect.

So today, as planned by the weather forecast, it rained. A lot. And luckily the kids were all geared up for it.

Steph and Will walking in the rain

 But it did mean that playing in the park was out. So, also as planned, we headed over to Emma and Will's old kindergarden, (leaving Will out of it due to an outbreak of chicken pox which he has not been vaccinated against) and Emma and I even managed a quick coffee and juice at the new Kutschkermarkt café; the Himmelblau.

Coffee and orange juice with Emma

Since the beginning of the trip, Emma had asked about when we would go to her kindergarden to see Lisa (her teacher) and her friends and where her school bag was... I was beginning to fear that she really thought we were back to stay. ;-( 

As we neared the Kindergarden (we took the tram) Emma recognized the area more and more and started asking where her coat hanger was and telling me she needed to leave her shoes on the shelf (not the case at her school in Athens). Again, I explained we would just be visiting for the morning and that her "school" was now in Athens. Oh. 

Also, she occasionally mentioned she did not remember "Deutsch".

As soon as we rang the bell we heard a resounding "EMMMA!!!" and as the door opened many voices and hands reached out for Emma's hand and hair and as we tried to remove her coat and shoes Emma yelled at me that she could do it alone and then broke into tears. Luckily within 2 minutes she calmed down and we entered her old class-room.  (**On a personal note: 1) it was so nice to see kids dressed in all different colours and styles - I really dislike uniforms!!! 2) it was wonderful to see her play so hard. At her new kindergarten in Athens, it is much more like a school and playtime is restricted to recess and end of the day. She has learned a lot, but she is only still 4 and I have found that she is much happier after a day of play than after a day of work - who isn't?! 3) Despite the overwhelming nature of this whole trip I found Emma handled her emotions really well.)

Emma and her friend Carrie in the doll's corner

After a few minutes during which she clung to me and stared wide eyed around her, she  ate her muffin (the special breakfast the children had prepared in honor of her visit) and started playing with her old friend Carrie (who speaks English fluently) and others. At the end of the morning she was totally at home prancing around the class-room giving orders and laughing and absolutely refusing to leave.

 Emma placing the drawings she received from her friends in her plastic bag

The only way I managed to get her out of there was by telling her that we would meet them again in the park tomorrow (weather permitting) and reminding her that we would be visiting Isabella at her home in the afternoon. 

After a good nap at the hotel, off we went. Emma and Isa played as they had only six months ago despite Emma not saying much in German but the friendship, yelps of joy, easter eggs, dressing up and gummi bärli's made it a magical moment for her.  

I can't tell you how I wished we could stay. 

Anyway,  tomorrow is another day, and right now I am determined to live each one intensely and I'll think more about our country of residence when the holiday is over.

First hols of the year...

After a lovely long week-end visit from our youngest Grand-parents for Catholic Easter we are now heading off to Vienna for a short week with the kids.

the four of them testing our new sand-bench

Emma and Pata taking a break in the shade at the bicycle park

It was great; I loved watching the kids enjoy every second of having their grand-parents here - I wish it was something that expat life allowed more of - and the change of schedule to the sunny summer rhythm with drinks, food, restaurants, beach walks, bike rides and visits to the touristy side of Athens means we got an early start to our first holidays (this year) too.

I cannot believe it has been 6 months since we left Vienna. I am eager to be there again, to walk down its streets, taste the food at our habitual market, a coffee at our usual coffee shops and see familiar faces. I am also interested to see how it makes us feel vis à vis to living in Greece. Will we feel saddened? or on the contrary will our visits highlight the positive sides to our life here now ? or both? 

I am glad we stuck to our expat rule of plunging into the new life for the first six months but now I am eager to catch the plane and go. 

I am also eager to see how traveling and staying in a hotel goes with nearly 5 year old Emma and nearly 2 year old William (his last flights without a seat!) ... after a week-end stint to Budapest with a nearly 2 year old Emma we totally dropped the idea as it was far more exhausting and frustrating than staying home!

More soon...

Emma's new bike

Last week-end we bought Emma her first bike with pedals (until now she has been using a balance bike, like the one Will is on in the pics). It was a bit scary for her to actually pedal instead of having her feet on the ground...

She made progress quite quickly once she stopped freaking out every second. The hardest thing about Emma and novelty is her negative approach to things (even things she is clearly good at!). It's really hard to keep praising and encouraging someone who is constantly saying they can't, will not, aren't able, don't know, etc. I wonder if there is another way to encourage her while feeling less annoyed at her attitude. When she was the only child, it was feasible to stop the activity at hand of sit down, talk it out and have an ice-cream or whatever but now that she is no longer an only child, it's unjust to stop everybody's fun because of her -and sometimes simply impossible of dangerous because William is too small to be left alone and I can't carry two bikes and two kids.  :-(

Emma is a bit of a diesel, when she gets the hang of things, nothing can stop her, but until she gets there... wow, the cows have come home. I find it hard as a parent to want to give her the extra time and attention when she has ruined 4 meals in a row because she won't eat or has taken ages to finish when I have to get William to bed. Also, and it's unfortunate, but the praise and encouragements don't always work - in fact sometimes shouting or a threat are much more effective with her but they make me feel like crap. I just don't understand why we have to get to the shouting/punishing/sending her away from table for her to react. And when others are around she sometimes is just another person; full of beans, positive and not the least bit whiny. I guess she's testing me and looking for boundaries but, but, but BUTTT ... AGHHH! 

Guess I just need to hang on to the idea that it's a phase and that it will pass. Soon I hope.

Will the gardener loves water

Emma's portrait of Will and herself

Love it!

Emma and Will chilling out before dinner

While I was preparing dinner tonight, Emma, joined by William, sat by the window and chilled out by creatively singing her way around pictures in a book .

I'm beginning to think that William is going to be quite a chatterbox too!! Oh dear!

Joy pockets

Walking on the beach, writing in the sand with sticks and gathering shells with Steph and the kids

watching William discover the waves and the way they erase letters in the sand

 watching Emma and Will make shell cakes

planting flowers in front of our house to welcome Spring and decorating the garbage bin

Enjoying some pleasant meals when the kids actually ate eagerly -no whining or complaining! Note to self: we had Tacos, Spaghetti carbonara, green-bean, tomato-potato and minced meat stew, fish and rice as well as snacks of fruit, biscuits, popcorn and jello-o which they loved. Only thing that they did not love was the broccoli and ham quiche. Of course.

 Emma having some "pink milk" like Lola

 William eating his spaghetti carbonara

I have been enjoying some solo time with Will - I spent so much time playing with Emma, reading to her, making puzzles, eating her pretend cakes whereas with William it's been and still is a rare thing. This week, after nearly a month of bronchitis, he had diarrhea so again we played emptying the kitchen cupboards, cooked together, read some books, cuddled and played hide and seek just the two of us. Tomorrow he comes off bronchitis meds and hopefully his tummy will settle soon. His trousers are falling down!

Some sunny weather after all that snow and rain and wind!

Sick William playing in the kitchen

Cycling on Sunday

Carnival time!

 Emma was a princess today and William looked great as a cheeky monkey

 Steph the Mexican with the kids who headed right for the food table as usual as soon as we got to the party!

 and yours truly as... Pippi Longstockings!

We had a great time!

Emma the cat

So what's it like living in Athens at the mo'?

 So what's it like living in Athens at the mo'?

Well, first of all we are expats, we live in the northern suburbs in a very residential and privileged area so we don't see much poverty around here and we have not been caught up in demonstrations as long as we have kept out of the centre of town.

We have been mildly affected by the strikes - mainly the post office, public transport but the worst by far was when the garbage was not picked up for weeks last autumn. We do see the odd person going through garbage bins (but I had seen that in Vienna too although usually it was the close bins people dug through) and at many traffic lights there are people playing violins, selling bananas, tissues or flowers, begging with a newborn in one had, or offering to wash your car's wind-screen for a couple of coins. On the other hand, these people at traffic lights are either black, gypsy, Pakistani or Indian I have never seen one that looks mildly Greek.

In the supermarket:

• some products have been missing and after asking about the kids' favorite organic Greek yogurt I was told that it was "on order but that the producer was having some problems... " - Lucky for us it is back again -after a couple of weeks - and I have stocked up on it.
• a Greek woman once asked me where a yogurt was from and when I said I thought it was Greek she winced at the label and asked me if I was sure it was not made in Germany! I checked and answered her that it did not seem to be the case and when I asked her why she replied that she would no longer buy any German products. Why? for political reasons and more she replied. If I have to buy foreign I would rather buy Italian, she said, they are more like us. 
• it is rumored that Carrefour owes money left, right and centre and that they might close soon. In fact, new expats coming to work for them here have been refused a house they wanted to rent due to these "rumors"...
• all in all I still find the shelves are full of whatever one might desire.

talk with locals here:

• I have been told by a local that the Greeks only understood that the country was bankrupt this past week-end. As a result, they rushed to stock up on foods and took as much cash as possible out of their bank accounts. 
• Locals have said they are frightened that the people will rebel against the politicians and come to "bomb" them (I don't think this was meant literally!) here in the northern suburbs

talk with expats: 

• An expat Mum who was trying to pay her bills was unable to get enough large bills from the cash machine or the bank counter and it was apparently because people had emptied their bank accounts fearing their money would be taken by the bankrupt government.
• quite a few of them have already stocked up on foods and have some cash ready at home in case they have to leave and the banks stop distributing cash. This I find quite alarming
• A couple of expat families have told me that they now transfer all their local cash (we all receive at least part of our salaries here in local banks for tax purposes) the minute it hits the Greek account back home to their other bank account for fear of losing money.

tax issues: 

• because nobody (not the politicians, not the middle class not the poor) have been paying taxes here for ages (why would they as it was indeed not put to good use but just contributed to making the corrupt politicians richer) tax is directly added on to electricity/heating bills (as it has been to fuel, tobacco, alcohol in many other countries) so as to ensure taxes are paid. In our case, the tax on electricity more than triples the bill!  A result of this is that people who cannot pay the electricity bill (tax included) are having their electricity or heating cut off. Another result of this is that people are hiring men who can "fiddle with the electricity meter" for a couple of hundred euro so that the electricity bill (and added tax) is much lower than actual consumption. 
• It seems to me that whereas before people were not paying tax because they felt they were just being ripped off by a corrupt state and not contributing to roads, transport, hospitals schools etc. nowdays the vast majority of people are not paying because they cannot afford to.

An anecdote:

I have been told there is a road here (a big national highway like road) that was build with EU money. One of the conditions was that it was to have 4 lanes. To verify the road was indeed being built the way the agreement stipulated, the EU relied on pictures. PHOTOS. Indeed the Greeks sent satellite pics of a portion of the road to the EU who ticked the box and sent in more cash. It turns out that only a couple of kilometers of the road have the required 4 lanes. The rest is a 2 lane. It could have been worse - they could have only built a couple of km of the road...

As often, it looks worse on the news than in my reality but again, we are the privileged expats...

Potatoes anyone???

Emma at the Olympics swimming pool

At the end of November Emma started swimming lessons during art and crafts time at kindergarten on Thursday mornings. Today I went to watch Emma during her lesson at the Olympics swimming pool. She has had 8 lessons so far and is really enjoying her time in the water.

Here are some pics of today's lesson.

 

I wish I hadn't worked so hard

or the top five regrets of the dying

The Guardian published an article about the top five regrets of the dying recorded by a palliative nurse. Among the top ones is 'I wish I hadn't worked so hard'. For my Dad, his older brother's death was a wake-up call and when he firmly decided that he would not work himself into the grave but rather do everything he could to ensure more time to spend enjoying life. And I think he succeeded pretty well. I guess I was not that surprised at this being number one. Regret number 3 ("I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings") also makes a lot of sense - I can totally relate to that. It's in our culture to be polite, restrained... It takes courage to express ones' feelings and face disapproval or hurting someone's feelings or even rejection or isolation but I think bottled up/ non-digested  emotions do damage us physically in the long run.

I am sure a lot of people regret not telling close ones they love them despite all the day to day hassle. And also taking it slow, taking the time to pause and savor the moment.

But regret number 5 is what hit home the most; "I wish that I had let myself be happier" - or perhaps I wish I had made it a priority to be happy.

Anyway, what would be your regret if you were dying right now?

I especially like the fact that happiness is a choice. In my opinion, we don't stress this enough when teaching children. I think teaching them that it is important to be happy, to listen to your gut, to go after your dreams (and support them in getting there) is paramount. I think it's important to actually TELL them that true happiness is the most important thing in life.  It's important to teach them that happiness is a choice and something to go after just as much as, if not more,  good grades or a good job.

I make it a point to ask Emma what makes her happy or if she is happy and now she sometimes spontaneously just tells me she is feeling happy before saying nightie-night. Even if she tells me because she senses it is important to me, she is learning that it is important in itself.  I think that's just the bees-knees!