Cyber-attack, Curmudgeons, Critters and Covid

Our trip began with a cyberattack so we probably shouldn't have been surprised that it ended with Covid.

Such was the start and end of our trip to America.  A trip that will go down in our travel memories as one of 'those' (roll of the eyes) trips. The kind that had a mind of its own and no amount of planning could have anticipated its unexpected twists and turns.

Not this trip to Manson!

Admittedly, the challenges could have been far worse. On the flip side, it could have been far more pleasant as well. We know that you travelers among us can probably relate to 'those' trips; the kind that adds little or nothing to life's happiness quotient. 

The Scout now describes ours as one in which 'our expectations were low, and they were met or exceeded.'  

On the home stretch: heading to Seattle

As expats living most of the year in Greece, but with a home base in the Pacific Northwest, our travel back to the States isn't what we think of as a vacation or holiday. House repairs/projects and health appointments are scheduled months in advance of our return and then we fit the good times in around them. 

Our calendar was filled with 'must do' items and interspersed with the 'want to do' fun things. We'd find a balance between them, or so we thought as we set forth. . .

The Cyber Attack

Seattle, Washington

Our US gateway airport is SeaTac, just outside Seattle, Washington.  Our noon arrival some 24 hours after we'd left Kalamata, was on a warm mid-August Sunday - a time when the airport is normally pleasantly empty and getting through baggage claim and immigration is a snap.

That is unless you arrive the day after a cyber-attack on SeaTac brought down its internet systems, disrupting travel for thousands. 

Luggage carousels sat idle at SeaTac thanks to a cyber attack

Surprisingly the airport's international terminal was indeed empty. Very empty.  Our British Airways flight was the only arrival. While we hadn't been caught up in the initial cyber strike, we got a dose of its continuing fallout. Those impacts made headline news for days as travel disruptions and inconveniences continued.

The Scout waits at SeaTac for our luggage

Even with just one arriving flight, the wait for checked luggage was very long. A wait so long, I called the rental car company to assure them we would still be picking up the car sometime that afternoon. 

Those who've made that trip between Europe and Seattle know how brain- and body-numbing it can be. We'd entered a new degree of numb by the time the bags arrived - but we were among the lucky ones because they did arrive!   

Aftermath of cyber-attack took days to clear up

A month later SeaTac was still dealing with the hackers. In mid-September the low-life criminals demanded six million in bitcoin be paid to them in exchange for the information stolen from the airport.  I am happy to report that SeaTac hasn't given in to the demands and the FBI continues to investigate.

The taxi driver just didn't understand my excitement

Late arriving luggage seemed a hallmark of our trip. Those same two checked bags didn't make it on to our Kalamata flight before it left London on our return to Greece in September. We arrived on a late Saturday night and the bags arrived the next day. They were delivered by taxi to our village.  Because we have no house numbers or street names, we met the taxi at the beach cafe near our house to pick up those bags.

The Crank and The Curmudgeon 

                                      Crank - an annoying, ill-tempered person                           

                         Curmudgeon - ill-tempered person, often stubborn and grouchy.

The fence saga that I wrote about while in the states really did end up being a saga. Suffice to say the planned three-day project sucked up three weeks of our month in the States. Its price doubled, sucking up a few thousand more dollars than it should have. 

We worked on the fence as well to get it done by the time we left

While our 'concerned neighbor' (that I likened to Gladys Kravitz, in my last piece), will likely continue in her role as the roaming neighborhood crank, she will meet her match should she focus again on our place. An unintended consequence of her meddling was my transformation from once-good-intentioned-neighbor to curmudgeon:

Should the crank resurface the curmudgeon is ready

Shakespeare, I believe, describes the new me well!

Critters

HiHo Silver was away for a week

A few weeks into our stay in America we got a message from our house/kitty sitter in Greece asking about a warning light that had come on in 'Hi Ho Silver,' our Toyota RAV. that she was driving in our absence. 

Believing that electrical wires might have gotten damp in a storm, she took the car to the local repair shop and after three days of test driving and checking, they couldn't find the source of the problem but pronounced it safe to drive until we could get to the dealership in Kalamata.  The headlights and brakes worked, even if nothing else on the dashboard did: no speedometer, no gas gauge no temperature indicator. 

The car went to the dealership a week ago. It took the mechanics but a minute to diagnose the problem - one all too common in rural areas: 

'Rats!' they said, showing us an air filter full of dark brown droppings the size of grains of rice. 

The rat did it!   (Photo credit: Axleaddict.com 2008)

 'Leave the car - it could take days to isolate the damage and order parts,' they added.  

We rented a car from company run by a FB friend of mine. It pays to have FB friends especially when you tell them you have no idea when you'll return their car.  Living here, he understood our problem.

Happily, I report that within four days the wires eaten by the little critters were located and replaced.  'Hi Ho ' is home again with moth balls and critter repellant lining the engine. 

Covid: The Climax

It is Covid!

So why not end the fun fest with Covid?  It seemed a fitting climax. 

We give little thought to Covid these days. Seldom do we see anyone, especially travelers, wearing masks. I no longer pack them when we travel. But Covid is still out there. Our house sitter reported that it had struck her down two days after her return to New Mexico.

 Although it knocked us flat for a couple of days, in reality it was no worse than those colds and flu we used to get. And my new motto is: it could have been worse! 

Now three weeks later we are back in the saddle at our Stone House on the Hill. Our area is gearing up for olive harvest which will kick off the end of October.  

Thanks for your time. Good travel wishes to you and yours.  And how have your trips gone this year?  Have you had one of 'those' trips as well?  Tell us about it in the comments or shoot us an email. Always good to hear from you~

 

A Decade Later: Dwelling in Possibility

 Dwell in possibility! 

I recall wanting to shout it from the rooftops. It was my mantra, my motto, my mojo for a time, that summer a decade ago.  

The dream catcher journal of 2014

The phrase, 'Dwell in possibility' is excerpted from a poem by Emily Dickenson. It was imprinted on the journal cover I chose to record our adventures related to the purchase of The Stone House on the Hill in Greece; an adventure that was to take place in July 2014.  

Had we not dared to dwell in possibility. . .

Journal's opening, June 8, written in Kirkland, Washington, our U.S. home after our offer to purchase was accepted:

'We are older, 65 and soon to be 61. Too old? Perhaps, but I doubt it, 'We've met hikers and backpackers in Greece older than we are and they talk of the next hike, not their aches and pains.

We'd actually decided during our trip [earlier that spring] to give up the house in Greece idea for all the conservative reasons we could list: ages, health, security, work, time to travel and then we'd counter with all the reasons we should: price, value for what you pay, having a base in Europe from which to explore further and finally - it would be the 'final fling' -

Now, who in their right mind, would pass on a final fling, right?' 

Olive harvest at the Stone House on the Hill

My other favorite phrase of that summer was 'catching the daydream' because in many ways buying a house in the middle of an olive grove in the Greek countryside was a 'daydream' - a metaphor for taking a vacation from the life we had lived for years in a Seattle suburb. 

Sunday, June 22 - Aboard Delta flight from Seattle to Athens:

'And when we lift off, we will be enroute to that daydream - the last adventure, if you will. We've reached an age when putting off until tomorrow isn't the best option if we want to also have time to enjoy the adventure after catching that daydream.'

The week before that departure I had noted in the journal all the steps we'd taken to be able to buy a home in Greece including, the wiring of an appropriate number of US dollars to convert to the euro amount required to purchase, and the gathering of required documents. Purchasing a home could be done with only a tourist visa but Greece likes documents!

Kalamata, the second largest city in the Peloponnese

We hit the deck running our first morning in Kalamata with a visit to an accountant who accompanied us to the tax office where we each obtained a tax identification number. Then off to the bank to open an account. In order to do that we presented our passports, a U.S. utility bill to prove our address, a letter from the Mayor of Kirkland, Washington assuring we were citizens in good standing there, our federal income tax form, and our retirement pension documents. 

From the Notary's Office where closing would take place you could see 'our' house

Then we met an attorney, obtained for us by our realtor, who would review all documents related to the sale; property ownership, registration, tax incumbrances, property sale documents etc.  He assured us as he puffed on his cigarette, that everything was proceeding well. We were just waiting for 'one more document'. Closing would likely be July 10th or 12th.

The Stone House on the Hill, far right

Thursday, June 26 - after visiting' the house': 

'We visited 'the house' and its owners [unlike the U.S. owners and buyers often meet each other] I took copious notes on sewers, storage, meters, water, olives and ovens just to name a few. I was overwhelmed - far too overwhelmed at oven temperatures (in Celsius) and washing machines and the work that needs to be done in the garden and the grove.'

'They don't have wi-fi! And to have wi-fi we need a land line which requires as the name implies a line, which will require a pole - a big pole as in 500 euros or so! Should we buy a house in Greece in a future life, we will ask about the nearest telephone pole!'

Journal entries remind me that we filled our days searching for furniture stores, household goods and the like. Evenings were spent at local cafes and tavernas where we were to meet other expats and locals as we started creating a world for ourselves here.

Off to explore what would be our new world. . .

And with everything proceeding as it should be, or so we thought, we took a short trip road trip. But upon our return to our hotel base in neighboring Kardamyli village, we got our first taste of doing business in Greece - 'that piece of paper' hadn't yet been received.

Monday, July 7 - Kardamyli:

'We are now saying, 'if we get into the house' and 'if this deal falls through. . .'

The next day we learned 'that document' was actually a packet of documents still not filed by the seller's civil engineer. Once filed, they would be sent to Athens where it would take two weeks to review them and if approved, we could proceed with the purchase. The sellers were scheduled to fly out July 17 and we were leaving the 22nd. It wasn't looking very hopeful at that point.

The daydream went up in smoke. . .

Friday, July 11 - Kardamyli:

'And so, the daydreaming ends. We pulled out of the deal after learning the civil engineer had filed the paperwork but now there are tax returns that haven't been filed and the owners can't produce a proof of purchase either. . .The Stone House on the Hill is now an interesting, but very short chapter, in the Smith family history.'

We spent a couple days doing a breakneck search of properties to see if anything else in the area might be of interest. After walking untold numbers of plots of undeveloped land, seeing homes partially built and those that had been lived in and loved, we concluded there was nothing in the Mani for us. 

Our last couple days were spent wiring money back to the U.S. and saying goodbyes to people that we had met along the way.

A Decade Later

The Stone House on the Hill a decade later

Yet here I am in our Stone House on the Hill writing this on a July day ten years after that disappointing summer. That fickle hand of fate ultimately took us in the direction we were meant to take, but it forced us to take a most circuitous route to get there. We returned to Greece six months later and purchased the house after all the required paperwork had been obtained by the sellers. 

My too-blue-to-be-true view

When I look up from the computer screen my view is over the parched olive groves, the small villages that we consider home and the almost too-blue-to-be-true Messinian Bay. And I am glad I concluded my July journal by writing, 'I guess as doors open and close - even at this old age - we should be open to new adventures.'

Our Greek adventure continues. . .at even older ages! We continue to dwell in the possibilities it holds for us, perhaps these days, a bit tempered with time, however. We know many of you are currently pursuing your daydreams and are dwelling in the possibilities they hold. We hope that you will ultimately catch them and feel as we do, that they were worth the effort.  

As always to all of you, our wishes for safe travels and thanks for the time you spent with us today~ 

Losing Touch

It was a copy of People Magazine left by our recent houseguests that brought the point home: 

Living in the laidback Greek countryside, I've lost touch.  

Summer in an olive grove

People Magazine tells all there is to tell about America's celebrities and public figures. Problem was, that aside from 79-year-old Tom Selleck, most recently of television's Blue Bloods, and the recently deceased O.J. Simpson, I didn't recognize many of the names of those famous folks.

People Magazine - who is doing what and where

I've lost touch. It is as simple as that.

 And what I found most amazing about that realization was that I didn't care who these people were, nor did I care what they were doing when the paparazzi photographed them, even if it was while they grocery shopped or frolicked on some exotic holiday. 

Losing touch with the other world

Being an expat and losing touch with the everyday world you left behind, to a certain degree, go hand-in-hand.  

As American expats we've lost touch with the familiarity of doctors, dentists, and hairdressers we had visited for years. We've lost touch with routines of shopping at the corner supermarket, visiting the dry cleaner and filling the car with gas at the regular service station. But with each of those has come the challenge and exhilaration of creating new familiar and favorite routines in the Greek world.

What has been tough is losing touch with friends and family. 

We knew it could happen.  We'd read the articles about expat life and knew that losing connections with friends back home and loneliness can bring down the most enthused expat. Yet, as with all unpleasant possibilities, one reasons that it couldn't possibly happen in your world. 

Losing Touch

'Losing touch' with friends is quite a widespread phenomenon apparently experienced by many of the 230 million expats worldwide.  And with 18 percent of those expats being more than 61 years of age, they likely have a good number of friends and family with whom they want to keep in touch.

Loneliness is often cited as one of the most difficult aspects of expat life. The inability to make new friends and the absence of family and longtime friends are often the reason expats choose to return to their home country. 

Friends at Your Fingertips

So, when you look at the speed and ease of communication afforded by today's technology, there is really no excuse for losing touch, is there? 

With a scroll through Facebook and Instagram postings we are able to celebrate birthdays and holidays, graduations and weddings. We can share in the sorrow of loss and send well-wishes to those who are ill.  

US, Canada and Greece - we talk face-to-face twice a month on WhatsApp

WhatsApp, Facetime, Messenger and other such programs allow us to visit face-to-face with friends no matter where in the world they are living. And doing so is always a day-brightener!

 

Weekly email 'coffee klatches' keep us in touch

Even writing emails - now thought of by young people as a somewhat old-fashioned communications tool-- keeps us up-to-date with the comings and goings of friends.

Luckily, we have a cadre of dear friends who are committed to keeping in touch while we are in Greece. Several of us write emails as if we were visiting regularly together over coffee. We chat face-to-face with others. Skype has made texting together was easy as if we were just across town. 

Emails, photos and Skype keep these childhood friends together

Staying in touch is done both with precision regularity as well as at random out-of-the-blue contacts. Now, despite being thousands of miles apart, we are up to date with each other's lives, everyday activities, travel, health, even weather. 

As the years have passed my definition of 'staying in touch' has become so relaxed that it includes writing a comment on a FB or blog post. 

Poof! Just like that, they are not heard from again

Yet it has been with some incredulity that we've realized there are some -- thankfully, not a lot of --friends with whom we have simply lost touch.  Poof. Gone. No communication from them and no response to attempts to reach them.

Moving On

An article in Expatica.com, a website 'by expats for expats', offered an interesting take on losing touch: 

 'Don't be afraid of losing friends who won't or can't commit to keeping the connection. . .it gives you more time to invest in those who are willing to make the effort,' it offered.  

Reasoned one expat about the topic of lost friendships on Reddit, an American social news website, 'People's lives go on and you've moved a different direction. Many friendships are based on common experience and close proximity.'

'It's hard to stay in touch with all the friends we make through life. Scientific studies show we maintain 150 relationships at any given time in life,' wrote another.

One of the most obvious bits of advice offered to expats is to quit fretting over those who've dropped out of sight and make new friends.

Friends in the expat world

A meet up of multinational expats on Easter afternoon in the village

 

As of last year, according to the World Population Review, there were 23,297 American expats living in Greece.  The number pales in comparison to the 799,248 living in Mexico, but still, it seems like quite a few to those of us who are a part of that statistic.  

Morning coffee at the beach cafe with friends

In our slice of Greece, we have a diverse blend of expats friends including Americans who hail from the Pacific Northwest, California, the Southwest and Northeast.  Those from further afield hail from Canada, Belgium, Turkey, England and elsewhere.

Thankfully our expat life in the rural Peloponnese has been filled with new friends, both expats and Greeks. Although making friends takes time, just like it did back in the old world.  

We find that the lifestyle here probably has us socializing more with friends here than we did back in the States as logistics of getting together are so simple. 

An evening spent with neighbors is always a great evening

Our Stone House on the Hill is set amid eight other homes on a short stretch of road just outside the village. Our neighborhood is an international one with France, Britain, Peru, Germany, Greece, Switzerland and America represented. We are blessed that we are surrounded by kind and caring people and that we have all become friends.

 Silver and Gold

A toast to lasting friendships - old and new

Back in the 1960's Girl Scouts in America had a song they'd sing around a campfire that was a simple ditty with a powerful message:

 'Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.'  

It could be the theme song for expats. 

And with that thought we close for this week and send wishes for safe travels to you and yours.  We are heading off on an adventure. . .one that we said we'd 'never do' and yet here we are doing it! We will tell you about it next time!

Olive Grove Lessons ~Life, Love, Loss

 A stiff breeze rustling the branches of the olive trees and making the terrace grasses sway, was enough to pause our stroll in the grove. Sometimes, it was the raucous cry of birds swooping to nests high atop nearby cedar trees that stopped us mid-step. 

Each new noise or movement, they taught me, was a wonderment. We had to pause, listen and watch.  Every time . . .because it might just signify something new and exciting.  

In the grove at The Stone House on the Hill

In the spring, the grove beckoned for a game of hide and seek at the rosemary bush. Sometimes on hot summer afternoons, it was where we watched ants at labor marching across the soil cracked by the intense Mediterranean sun. In the fall, it was games of chase using olive twigs cut during olive harvest that filled our time in the grove. 

Olive grove games

For several years now, I have spent a portion of nearly every day in our olive grove, simply for the purpose of enjoying it. 

It wasn't easy to do that at first. I thought I needed to be pulling weeds, trimming, doing something. That is, until my two feline mentors, Princess and Maggie Mae, decided it was time that I understood the concept best defined by Italians as, dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing. 

Dolce far niente in the olive grove

One can't help but notice the proliferation of self-help tips that fill social media these days. There are mantras, memes, and meditations, all offering ways to improve one's life/outlook/happiness by slowing down, simply calming oneself. Indulging in sweet nothingness. I guess the teachings of my fur girls were much in the same vein - they just taught by example. Peace and happiness could be had just by watching a bug crawl past or a butterfly flutter above.  

The key, I learned from them, is taking time to notice, then allowing oneself the time to enjoy it. 

My grove getaway at the Stone House on the Hill

I honestly can't recall when our trips to the grove became a daily ritual.  I was doing it 'for the cats' in an effort to keep them interested in something far away from the road that passes by the other side of our home, I reasoned.  

Princess, left, and Maggie, right, explore the grove.

In truth, I was getting as much out of those grove hours as were the two felines who accompanied me there.  

Life and Love in Greece

The two - Princess and Maggie Mae -- as we named them after they each had made clear upon arrival -- one year apart and nearly a decade ago -- that they would be making their home with us. While not related to each other, after their initial skepticism at sharing our attention, they were to become inseparable sidekicks.  

Dolce far niente at the Stone House on the Hill

The lessons in the grove took on new intensity back in January as the spread of Maggie's skin cancer was clearly bringing her to the end of her life. During these last three months, our trips to the grove increased and each time we lost ourselves in the sweetness of doing nothing . . .together. 

Savoring those last days. Maggie continued to find wonder in sniffing the air to catch its scents as she sat, watched and listened.  

Maggie Mae Smith

We buried Maggie 10 days ago next to the rosemary where she had spent so many hours enjoying life. Princess and I haven't resumed our trips to the grove. We are both adjusting to Maggie's absence, but we continue to indulge in dolce far niente. 

Maggie was not a fan of our travels!

I've taken a break from the blog in recent weeks to experience that sweetness of doing nothing with my fur girls.  As Maggie's health deteriorated, The Scout and I cancelled all travel we'd planned for the first months of this year. (cat people do those things) With Maggie's recent passing, we have a small window of opportunity to travel in Schengen countries before our residency permits expire the end of April and we are no longer allowed to travel (pending the new permits).  We are ready for some travel adventures again. And he's scouted out a good one - I'll tell you about it in the next post.

Maggie 

Thanks for being with us today - and our wishes for safe travels to you and yours. 

And a big welcome to our new subscribers!!

A Winter's Walk on the Wild Side

February's departure and March's arrival made it clear that winter's wild side is still with us in our slice of the Greek Peloponnese where we make our expat home.

Windblown lamp post on the way to the village

When we decided to move from the U.S. Pacific Northwest among the factors that helped drive the decision was getting away from ice, snow, cold and the long dreary winter that seemed to stretch from November until April.  

The highest waves we've seen here. This is Agios Dimitrios below us.

We succeeded in leaving the snow and cold behind. But we still have winter.  And while winter storms in our area don't strike often or stay long, they are wild. 

Our signature storms bring near gale-force howling wind, thunder so loud it reverberates as if bombs were falling in the grove and lightning strikes that turns the sky into an electrified kaleidoscope.  The sea becomes a boiling cauldron of angry waves. And sometimes we even get a blanket of African dust! 

This is dust - from Africa - heading our way

Even though the storms are often short-lived, they are so ferocious that we understand how ancient ones developed beliefs in mythological gods.  Some days we are certain that Poseidon, god of the sea, and Zeus, commonly thought of as, the god of the sky and weather, are having one grand war between their respective worlds.

Our municipal parking lot flooded from waves and weather

The storm that came with February's end hit with such power and force that it left many of us newcomers shaking our heads in wonder at the destruction left in its wake.  In our village, Agios Nikolaos, waves flooded the municipal parking lot - a lot where fishing boats had been moved to from the harbor to keep them safe from the storm.  One boat was washed from its trailer and still sits on its side in the lot.  

Municipal garbage bins scattered by the storm

Municipal garbage bins that normal line the street like soldiers were tossed about by the wind as if they were leaves. Rocks and downed limbs were strewn about the roadway making it impossible to drive on in places.   

Walkway closed in town due to high waves in the harbor

The walkway at harborside (the one we've been using since road construction closed the road above it) was also closed by waves crashing into it.  

The good news about winter storms is that we have pretty accurate weather warning systems in place these days and we know when a storm is coming and approximately what its strength and duration will be.  Advisories are posted on FB by emergency service and government pages.  

The African dust that covered us recently

We also use a weather app called Poseidon, which shows not only wind and rain but dust storms as well.  Our Peloponnese in the map above is under that red circle. And did we have dust!

Garbage crews had bins uprighted the next day

The other good thing about these winter storms is that local folks know how to deal with them. Cleanup was underway as soon as the waves and the wind gusts lessened.

The morning after. . .

Dimos, as our municipality is called, had bulldozers out clearing roads and parking lots. Business owners were also at the ready to clear up storm debris.  Our Pantazi Beach Bar's outdoor terrace - a favorite place of ours for coffee . . .

A February morning before the storm - Pantazi Beach Bar

. . .was hit hard by the storm as show in the photo below. I took it from nearly the same spot.  But within days debris was cleared, and we are again able to sit on the beachside terrace.

Pantazi Beach Bar terrace the morning after the storm.

Road construction has resumed in the village, and we are again using the harborside walkway as a bypass.

Harborside bypass is open again

Winter storm watching is popular on the Pacific Northwest West Coast (United States and Canada). I can tell you that it is much warmer watching storms here than there!  The tourism folks in Greece are missing a bet by not promoting winter storm watching. Maybe those of you who like to storm watch should take advantage of the off-season lower airfares and hotel rates and head to our part of Greece and do some storm watching here next winter! 

We hope that whatever season you are in while reading this that the weather gods have been good to you!  Thanks so much for being with us on this walk on the wild side of winter in Greece.