An optimistic post about Greece, I kid you not:)

For the ones among you that are still alive since my last post and, for some perverted reason, keep visiting this blog space now and then I have to say : " You are da bombs!" whatever this massacrism of the english language truely means. When I kickstarted this blogdiocy of sorts back in the day of blo(r)gasm all around the internet, I intended for only one thing: "World Peace!". Well, not really but it seems that every leader around the globe has that somewhere in their agenda right before "free ice cream for the general public" and "taxes for taxes sake". Yeah, that sounds right about right in my book more or less.

Now, I am no leader since my number of minions is currently in the zeros and truth be told my only true future follower is currently incubating in the sexy womb of my other half (but more on that on a future post, let's not lose our focus here people!). The point of this post is that Greece isn't dead for the obvious reason that I am Greek and I am writing this excruciatingly painful for readers blog post, about my country. Contrary to what global media may have made you believe, Greeks are not tearing eachother apart for a loaf of bread (give us time we will meet your shitastic "expectations" in an alternative universe someday global bullshiters out there). Now this may come as a shock to you out there but we still proudly eat our tzatziki and consume gyros and greek salad, albeit in lesser quantities than before. So, yeah a lot of unemployment around this part of the world to which I have fallen a "proud" victim of, since a few months back. Oh well, more time for blogging till the next job I suppose:).

So yeah, we learned as a country that money do not materialize out of thin air and can suddenly become invisible from one day to the next, bummer! Oh well, nobody is perfect:).

Now in these "dark times" where every youtube video has some mentioning of the "greek tragedy" in progress, it really matters how one views the proverbial glass, half full or half empty. It does make a difference and I am not necessarily a representative greek specimen (since I obviously lack any common sense which is always a plus). The way I see it, all this crisis can really do to greeks, is force them to revaluate some things they took for granted and return to what truely matters in life: "sex and feta cheese!". Hmmm..., nah, scrub that example off the black board, it sucks and I won't have any of it.

The basic organisation of the greek state has always been "selectively objective" towards people with the right connections. Still, despite not all people having the right connections, there was never any serious "life threatening" problem of cash flowing in greek households (don't ask me where it all came from they just appeared out of thin air I tell you, LOL).Truth be told, most of greek families are not wealthy and are just getting by but there was always "an illusion of grandeur" in the citizens of this country for no apparent reason. Greeks are driven by some uncanny 'bon viveur" twist that makes them celebrate and destroy (at the same time because we are the gods of multitasking) the blessed by nature beautiful place they live on. You see Greece is one of the most beautiful places on earth with great diversity of landscape and the only ones that take it for granted and do not appreciate it enough are the Greeks, ironic eh?

This is Fyra : Santorini, beautiful place eh? And the damn country is full of such places, I love it!

But this is not a post about how Greeks do not appreciate Greece enough, since no blogspace in the world could cover this issue. This is a post about opportunity on the face of adversity. At the moment Greece is under renovation but with things being bought from places like IKEA, not using 'the other expensive stuff" that we can't afford. The country is being torn apart and is being reconstructed from the ground up, something that was long overdue and under ideal conditions would have been done progressively. Time is a luxury we don't have as a nation I am afraid, since some massive "bill shaped gilotines" are hanging over our heads threatening to cut our precious mousaka portions in half (dear god, not mousaka, anything but mousaka, you foreign gits out there, LOOOLL!!!).

Contrary to popular belief Greeks are adapting to this shity situation admirably.They don't like it, they have been falsely brought up with a golden spoon that doesn't belong to them but they are adapting. You see, greeks prevail under pressure (it took us 6 months to renovate the Olympic Stadium of Athens while it took the Brits 10 years to make the new Wembley I kid you not, lol).Maybe it is genetic, maybe we are just stupid asses that leave things till the last moment and then by using some sort of miraculous superpower we produce good results a minute before the deadline, I really don't know:).

The poster reads: "Attack of the giant moussaka". What? Shaking in your boots chickenshits? Didn't you think that we had a defensive plan B eh? LOL!!!

As with 90% of my posts I haven't thought of a single word prior to writing but I don't have to, I am Greek. In the moment of crisis my inherent superpower of "last moment triumph" kicks in so no worries there, heh. I am making this up as I type and loving every moment of it! Behind the freightened faces of greek people about 'what happens tomorrow', hides the determination of a nation that prevails under adverse conditions. If being in recession for several years means that a brighter future is being built for future generations, so be it. I am not one to shy away from a challenge and nor is the majority of the greek population. Heck, we may shed a few needed kilograms in the process which can only be a good thing:). Now back to that slice of glorious greek mousaka that I left untouched during lunch, mmm yammy!!! Come and have a taste you are going to love it!

If greek society manages to see what is happening as a challenge and a way to improve things then we will manage beautifully in good time. If not, then we will still manage but a lot of people are going to fall in the process and no opus is going to be written about their tragic tales...

Damn that was so poetic and serious I can't believe it was typed by my fingers (I never said I was modest folks, just sugar coated nutty!). If I smoked, this would be a good time to have a smoke and admire my blogging masterpiece.Then again, I can't afford smoking, so it is a good thing I don't, LOL!!!

Till next time, take care and laugh your heart out when the opportunity presents itself:)

Live your myth in Greece…6 blogtastic things about my country...

I have to be honest with you guys I did not intend to write such a post about my country, Greece, at least not at present. However, my friend Zhu asked me to do so and if there is one thing I have come to terms with in this eight month blogging adventure of mine is that there is nothing ‘blogging related’ that Zhu would ask me to do and I would say ‘no’. Yep, I like her a lot, she is just all about positive vibes so this is for her really(oh, who am I kidding I am having fun with this ,heh). Just don’t get any ideas that I would be positive on doing the chicken dance wearing my underpants on my head, post it on Youtube and embed it in the blog. So yeah , ALMOST anything goes, LOL!

The hill of Acropolis in Athens with the temple of Parthenon at the top. The eternal symbol of Greece.

1) If there is one thing that all Mediterranean nations have in common is that they have great cuisine. What I have noticed in other countries either in Europe or further away is that they base a lot of their recipes on spices and thick gravies just to make the food look cool and cover its other inadequacies. It is no secret that the basic constituent of all Mediterranean cuisine is olive oil which must surely be one of the top five essential food constituents (I would place it at the top actually) worldwide. So, yeah I wont be showering you with pictures of foodstuff or names of greek foods that rock because blogging about it just doesn’t do it justice. But trust me on this, if you are a lover of good food, you owe it to yourself to have a go at greek cuisine whether you come to the country or not. Just punch in a couple of extra holes in your belt before you do because greek food is too tasty and you will be lured into excesses because of it.

Greek ... Food...Awesome...Yep, that sums it up alright:)

2) Greeks as all people have specific characteristics which I think would be interesting to convey to you especially for the people among you that have never met one up close and personal. By default Greeks talk a lot, talk loud, laugh a lot, swear a lot and generally are very outgoing. They go out a lot regardless if it is a weekday or a weekend and their second priority after having the essentials to live is to have a good time all the time if possible. On the downside it isn’t unheard of for greek people to claim to know something just to appear knowledgeable and they whine about their daily lives more often than not. One particularly interesting trait of my race is that we are last minute people in almost everything, however it is very rare that we fail on something:). It all comes down to one little word ‘filotimo’. When a deadline approaches and not as much work as should have been done has been done, ‘filotimo’ kicks in. Under the influence of this concept, Greeks will work harder than humanly possible to meet the deadline and finish the project on time. Rarely Greeks fail when doing that but it is a more stressful way of doing things than being organised, lol. Essentially ‘filotimo’ could be translated very vaguely as the inherent need of each Greek to do the best job at what he does and take great pride in doing it being motivated by the fear of being ridiculed if not doing it at all or if doing it badly. Yep, we are suckers for a good incentive to do things you see, LOL!

The day when the Olympic Games returned back home... Shivers run down my spine just thinking about it... Can't wait to see what China, another nation with great history, has cooked up for the 2008 Olympic games, only one year to go...:)

3)Now for the heroic readers that have reached this far down this blog entry there are a couple of useful pointers that, if you are aware of, you’ ll be fully prepared to enjoy your stay in this country. Just trust me and go with the flow on this one. To begin with, one aspect that always scares the shit out of people that visit Greece is the driving mentality of the nation. No, no, no you misunderstood I am not talking about a bunch of extremely motivated people, I am talking about how one drives his car and behaves in the streets. Forget about zebra crossings and sticking to them to cross roads as a pedestrian. This just wont do the trick in Greece. In Greece cars don’t stop before them so that pedestrians can cross, therefore be careful unless your ultimate ambition in life is to become embedded on the asphalt of the road. Furthermore, car overtaking at improper road spots is not an uncommon driving skill in Greece. Hey, I am only doing you a favour here... Oh, well at least we don’t drive on pavements like Portuguese drivers do, Mark Twain said that so I believe him, lol. Another overrated commodity in Greece is making queues waiting for things to happen or some sort of service. As I have said in the past “Greeks only make queues if they are having their passports checked or ride on escalators simply because the space is too narrow not too”, LOL. Ok, ok I am exaggerating a lot here just don’t be alarmed if you don’t see a queue somewhere there was supposed to be one…it happens sometimes.

Another day driving in Greece and trying to survive to tell the tale:) Yeah, I know, I know... I am a riot sometimes:)

4)If there is one word that makes modern Greece go around , it must be the word ‘malakas’ (emphasis on ‘la’ when pronouncing). I swear to every god imaginable that if I had a Euro for every time I heard foreigners saying the word ‘malakas’ outside the greek borders or within the country, as a greeting of sorts, I would have been a bloody millionaire by now! I understand that it is really easy to pronounce and has a nice funny ring to the ear for the non-Greeks so that is why for a lot of foreigners use it. Come to think of it, it probably is the first (and sometimes the last) greek word they learn speaking in greek! So what does it really mean… hmm… the origin of the word is a bit ‘too sticky’ shall we say so I’ll just move along on coaching you about how to use this word (although not using it is more politically correct but where is the fun in that,lol). So, what does ‘malakas’ mean? Well, this must be the most multipurpose word in the history of human linguistics, I kid you not ha,ha,ha! Now, if you go around in Greece and say ‘hi malakas’ to the first person you see on the street he’ll probably punch you in the face so don’t do that unless you get a kick out of replacing all your teeth by a dentist. However, if you know someone really well and you tell him ‘hi malakas’ he wont be insulted, it would just be considered a greeting of sorts. Crazy isn’t it? Just don’t use it too often. A lot of times walking in Greece you are going to hear people talking saying : “Malakas this and malakas that… and more malakas…. And even more malakas…. And so on and so forth”. Do not indulge into the groove and start using it too much yourselves, it is more of an inbred lingo than something foreigners say to natives. So unless you are the bastard child of Bruce Lee and you are ace in martial arts stay away from using ‘malakas’ referring to people you don’t know or you’ll probably get ‘taken down with extreme prejudice’ as I say (just joking,heh). Still, I can tell you are now officially intrigued, so from now on you are going to ‘malaka’ your way harmlessly out of everything in your countries of residence, saying it out loud all the time… After all it has a nice ring to it, be warned though that a lot of foreigners that have interacted with Greeks know it, lol.

Did you just call me 'malakas'? Oh you scum, you are soooo dead, LOL!!! (Not the type of music I am fond of but this vid is so over the top I couldnt ressist, ha,ha,ha)

5)Greece has so many diverse things for a tourist to see it is beyond belief. It is not just the islands, or just the mountains, or just the forests (yep, we got plenty left,lol) , or just the nightlife. It is a really interesting and very beautiful place. The weather is absolutely amazing albeit a bit hotter during summer these past couple of years. A problem ‘us’ Greeks have when going abroad especially in northern regions is the lack of contact with the warmth of the greek sun. For Greeks the sun means life and not getting enough of it really makes us grumpy sometimes,lol. French say that ‘Greece is the country touched by God’ regarding its natural beauty and I am not going to argue with that,lol. And don’t get me started on the astonishing remnants of greek ancient civilization…

It really took me a lot of time to choose this video since there were a lot of ridiculously tacky ones on youtube. This one however has the vibe I was looking for... Nuff said, enjoy:)

6)Now time for a couple of totally unrelated random facts about the country:

Greece has the second highest accumulated seismic activity load and occurrence of earthquakes in the world second only to Japan. Yep, it is true and it has a great deal to do with its position on the map and the convergence of Europe and Asia on a subterranean level. Still, don’t tie your knickers on a knot just yet. The vast majority of the earthquakes happen at sea so no harm done really. I have to say it was really funny when I went to the London Natural History Museum and they had some sort of earthquake simulator there to show people what ‘an earthquake feels like’. It just felt so surreal to someone that comes from a country that is ‘shaking groovily’ because of earthquakes now and then to stand in front of an ‘earthquake simulator’ and watch other people interact with it in awe, lol.

When tolerably sized earthquakes hit the country from time to time our attitude towards them is depicted by the above song, LOL. We are used to them you see:). If earthquakes rank too high in the Richter scale, we piss our pants from fear like all people around the world do, LOL!

Another cool fact is that Greece is currently the European Champion in both football and basketball(it also ranks second in the world in basketball). Not bad for an 11,000,000 people country e? Heh!

Anyway, I could add more stuff to this already ‘too long’ post but I think I am tiring people out so I’ ll just stop now. I hope it shows that I tried to present various aspects of modern Greece in a fun and easy to read way. Who knows maybe I raised your interest enough to even visit the place or google it up.Above all else modern Greece is a beautiful and fun country, give it a shot, you never know, you may actually like it!

I really liked this vid for some reason, so I decided to post it here as well, enjoy:)

P.S. 1 Oh, you owe me so many cookies now Zhu it is unbelievable…Start baking like there is no tomorrow girl ha,ha,ha. Sorry, folks a little inside joke there between me and my friend Zhu.

P.S. 2 The title of this post ‘Live your myth in Greece’ is the moto of the latest advertising campaign promoting our tourism abroad. Personally, I find it a bit cheesy and tacky but at the other end of the spectrum if does have a nice cool ring to it, so that is why I used it as a header of sorts for this post.

Till next time, take care!

You got nothing on me cop… a tale of greek traffic madness (Part 2)

(There is no point in reading the following text if you haven't checked out Part 1 first! So be good sports and scroll down or click on the provided link to read Part 1 of this story. Oh, come on, you know you want to ha,ha,ha!!!)


The procedure to reclaim the number plates was quite simple, something unusual for the behemoth of bureaucracy that a greek citizen usually faces when dealing with the national public services. All we had to do was: A) Get the car to the designated KTEO control centre and be done with the malarchy of mechanically checking a car which has nothing wrong with it, B) Get the bloody KTEO certificate to the traffic control centre at Thermopylae (this is the area that you know as “Gates of Fire” where King Leonidas fought the Persian invaders in 480 BC . It is pretty close to where I live, like 15-20 mins or so by car. This place has been, for centuries now, a levelled area compared to the narrow passage among high rocks that it was in ancient times), C) Show it off cockily to some lazy ass cop in an office, pay the bloody fine and reclaim our damn licence plates back , regaining in the process ‘the driver’s dignity’ that was so savagely stripped from our bones.

As the tremendous master tactician that I am, I had formulated an appropriate battle plan...We were few against many but that never stopped the Greeks before... I guess if I took the Spartans' famous words in heart they would go something like these : "Either return back from the battle with your license plates or do not return at all". Who said the spirit of Thermopylae doesnt live on to future generations of Greeks:)

On with the show then… A day after we made the greek traffic regulatory system ‘tremble’ under the weight of our ‘serious offense’ , we went to the KTEO control centre to have our car checked and see if it was a car at its prime or a ‘late’ car mechanically speaking. According to the ‘by the book’ procedure, the personnel had to check a few hundred parameters of the car, e.g. performing some mechanical durability tests to the vehicle, meticulously observing the car seat and recording if it had a crater formed on it from our chunky drivers’ behinds (well not really, but you get the point some of those tests are pointless…). As with all things in Greece, a long story was cut short and the mechanics checked around 10 essential aspects of the car instead of hundreds meaningless ones(I guess having this check up in a private KTEO centre was a wise choice after all, compared to the madness of the public KTEO centres where it is more of a case of "survival of the fittest wallet" if you catch my drift...).

Public KTEO mechanic:
"I can see what the problem is now, pass me that 50 Euros bill... ahem... I mean that wrench and let's proceed to checking the car properly using the process of elimination. Whatever part doesnt fit we throw it away... or you can just write me a bank check instead..."

After the car had passed the tests with flying colours, the mechanics proceeded to give us a pat on the back and to stuff a KTEO certificate up our asses saying that ‘all is good with this car, don’t bother these gentlemen for the next couple of years, not unless you got some death wish or the public vaults are empty and you got to fine someone to compensate for your uncontrollable waste of public money as a government (it didn’t say that but it bloody hell could have, lol). Putting the certificate as a flag of honour on the inside surface of the windshield , we drove to the traffic control centre where some much needed mortal combat was in order.

Despite the small triumph over the technical control hurdle, I couldnt help but have this sinking feeling crawling inside me. More hardship and tears were certain to follow, when dealing with an alien species even DP is afraid of... public servants:)

As soon as we reached this lair of enforced political correctness, we witnessed the usual spectacle of public servants in uniform, constantly scratching their balls in order to make time pass by (or create sparks to make fire who knows...heh) and finish another ‘tiring day at the job’. Amused at this display of fine public service, we found the guy responsible for returning us the license plates of the car. As soon as we provided the appropriate documentation, we made the simple request to him to screw the retrieved license plates back on the car. Apparently, either his hearing ability or his deductive logic left a lot to be desired since he reacted as if we had asked him to diffuse a ticking bomb in a matter of seconds. What? You don’t believe me...? Well, judging from his apathetic reply you bloody hell should! The guy said “Here at the greek traffic service, we don’t screw license plates back on, we just unscrew them!”. Best case scenario was that this clockwise and anticlockwise screwing and unscrewing motion was a great mystery to him and he didn’t want to burn any brain cells trying to figure it out… Worst case scenario is he was just a lazy bum in a uniform (I am sure you know by now which version I am rooting for…LOL).

I was looking for sources of inspiration on how to "make a point" to this loser that was turning a blind eye to my requests. Then I remembered Mortal Kombat and it all became clear to me:) Shortly after the license plates were mine again muhahahaha!

With license plates in hand, we marched outside this place where time had stopped along with the brains of the people working there. Me and my dad went to the car and were ready to make our escape from this lair of public apathy in a blaze of glory… The only problem being that the street signs in the path leading to the major national highway were all either invisible to the human eye or just fucked up. A "U-turn" in the national highway, right in front of the traffic control centre was as death defying as rewatching Jar Jar Binks talking in the first Star Wars movie and living to tell the tale (which is impossible by the way...) . Therefore we opted to make our way using the hieroglyphics written on the few signs we encountered. As we were following this route of no return, the only intelligent life form we encountered was a cop taking a leak in some bushes (Come to think of it I should have asked the bushes for directions… since the guy was busy enjoying one of the simple pleasures in human existence and I didn’t want to ruin this defining moment of his life… ha,ha,ha,ha).

When a man has to go, he has to go! Oh, the simple joys in life, that cop was one happy trooper and I didnt want to ruin his moment... This one is a beautiful video by the way but what it represents in my wacky mind isn't:)

As we continued our quest for the highway road, the asphalt on the street gave place to some really pointy and sharp white rocks (great place to shoot Indiana Jones 4, I am sure, but no place to drive a car, not unless you get some inexplicable kick out of replacing flat tyres…). With every passing moment the car was vibrating even harder from the ever less hospitable surface of the rocky road we were browsing through.As all hope seemed lost, I started imagining pictures of me and my dad on the frontpages of newspapers with the MIA(Missing In Action) tag underneath… Suddenly, amongst the gloominess of this ominous vision of things to come, I saw something flashing at the distance… For a moment I thought it was Optimus Prime in his day job, blame the heat for this insane assumption. Then I realised it was a truck that was carrying various materials in some construction site of sorts. If there ever was a sign of ‘divine intervention’ in this little ordeal, this was it!!!

Could it possibly be true... we had recovered our license plates and escaped from the grasps of traffic warden madness all in one piece! Oh beautiful white light how much I have missed you, oh the fun we shall have together... just lead the way:)

A moment later, one of the workers at the site gave us directions on how to get to the main highway in one piece. As we entered the main road once again, heading home, we started laughing with my dad at the absurdity of it all. We had beaten the system once again and we would enjoy this little victory for the rest of the day… After all, you can never be too sure, in this country, if you will survive your next encounter with any of the tentacles of the public service monster , lol!

I hope you enjoyed this chunk of humourous take on a real life event, as much as I enjoyed writing it….

Till next time…

P.S. I'll be away for the next 10 days, maybe a bit more... Nothing too fancy, not even far from here actually, but truth be told for me it is just perfect:) Staying away from the PC and recharging my 'proverbial batteries' will be just what I need. Take care all!

You got nothing on me cop… a tale of greek traffic madness (Part 1)

As I was daydreaming the other day, I realised that it would be cool, once in a while, to use some sort of real life experience as a more direct starting point for another fun blog entry. It is always amusing to exaggerate on the reality of an actual life event and make it transcend from a miniscule fact in the finite soap opera of one’s life to a whole new level of existence using imagination and self parody as means of expression. Ok, ok, so I got a bit extra philosophical about a simple life moment (giving no doubt a bit of a mini-stroke to a couple of my readers with this sudden excessive display of multisyllabic words and implied intellectuality, heh) but it was a good way to show that I can write down other words except from ‘wacky’ and ‘madness’ (hmmm… what a wacky sentence full of madness… oh crap I just did it again didn’t I… lol).

This is where this story truly starts, fasten your seatbelts to avoid getting any unnecessary traffic tickets (heck a blog has to make some profit so don’t say I didn’t warn you…) and let the madness of my narration officially begin:

A couple of months ago I was driving with my dad, going to a place by the seaside called Rahes in central Greece. To get there faster, from the place of my permanent residence Lamia , we took the highway road instead of some other local route. Half way towards our destination, a traffic warden stopped us to check if our car documentation was ok.

As soon as the traffic cop waved us to stop, some of my money had already flown out of the window from the upcoming fine... I just didnt know it yet:)

As soon as I immobilized the vehicle, I turned to my dad to ask him if the documentation of the car was ok (I am an on/off driver of this car, since I am not around most of the time, thus I had been left in the dark on such technicalities before, what an irresponsible fool I am, lol). The following short piece of dialogue ensued among father and son (DP senior and DP jr so to speak, ha,ha,ha,):

DP: Oh crap, what the hell does this loser want? Of all the cars in the world he had to stop ours… So dad am I missing something on the paperwork front?

Dad: Well everything is pretty much in order except from the KTEO technical control thingy…(Every couple of years or thereabout, vehicles in Greece go through some technical control procedure that takes place in certified service centres. “KTEO” is the abbreviated name of these centres and the process itself).

DP: When were we supposed to do this anyway?

Dad: I think we still got time, it hasn’t been that long since we bought the car…has it?

DP: This is at least a four year old car …. Oh man we are screwed….

Where is KIT when you need him/it? The copper would have just blown a fuse or something if my car was like that:) God I loved this show as a kid, I am grinning just by watching this trailer, LOL!

The cop approached and asked us to get out of the vehicle and present him with our licence and registration (man those clichés are so last century I hate them…lol). Like sheep to the slaughter, we complied to his request while praying to every god imaginable (including Bruce Campbell, LOOL) that the KTEO control thing would pass under his radar. Yeah, right… So, the traffic cop asked for our license and registration (so far so good… ), for the car’s insurance papers (still going strong as law abiding as Wyatt Erp without the moustache and excess gun slinging to boot…) and then the KTEO technical control verification papers (bullseye at last!!! Rocky Balboa would have been proud of such a killer blow… lol). In situations like these, at least in Greece, it is an unwritten rule among public offenders(think ‘the code’ of Pirates in the Jack Sparrow movies and you get the picture…) to try to talk their way out of a situation by pleading not guilty using every conceivable or inconceivable argument in the book. Being the man of action that I am (ha,ha,ha,ha ,sorry , I couldnt resist, this is just ridiculous to even think about… ha,ha,ha) I thought of taking down the cop in a blaze of gunplay but logic prevailed (damn… not again… those social inhibitions of mine need to go ASAP…).

Hmm, always aim for the chest hair... better keep that in mind next time I have some trouble with the law:) Either that or just aim for "the crown family jewels" for a bonafide touchdown (as in US football...)! Too bad I am as law abiding as they come... bummer:)

Therefore, it was up to DP senior to fight the good fight and try to make the cop all sympathetic and puppy eyed towards us. My dad started spitting some incoherent BS about how ‘he was going to do the KTEO thing eventually’ and that ‘this is a relatively new car so he wasn’t aware it needed a certified mechanical check’. I guess those kind of arguments could have worked on a ‘sanity challenged’ individual such as myself (give DP senior an Oscar I say, if Gwyneth Paltrow was awarded one, anyone can get one really, lol). However, the cop was so “impressed” with my dad’s versatility as an actor that he proceeded to award him with the prize of ‘removing the number plates from the car’ and ‘giving a traffic check for the offense’.

Well at least he spared us the full cavity search treatment routine... LOL! I guess that was a small victory of sorts for the DP family under the circumstances ha,ha,ha,ha!

Then, this hybrid of Chuck Norris on crack and Steven Seagal with severe constipation (where did THIS analogy come from is anyone’s guess… ha,ha,ha) started explaining what had to be done to get the plates back. As he was talking, my dad had a vacant look in his eyes like a zombie in a George S. Romero flick, probably thinking to bite the policeman’s head off. Personally, I was thinking to revert to “King Leonidas in 300” theatrical tactics and kick the copper’s ass into a bottomless pit shouting at him “THIS IS SPARTA!!!”. However, my ever invisible biceps would ruin the coolness of the moment, so I hesitated to revert to such extreme measures of photogenic violence(too bad the moment is gone now...if only...oh no point in having second thoughts about it now I guess... lol) . As soon as the "Judge Dredd wannabe" stopped talking, both DPs woke up from this trance of excess envisioning of unfulfilled public violence and went back to the now ‘plateless’ car. My dad was swearing like there is no tomorrow, while I was trying to be the voice of reason of ‘the merry couple of offenders’ and plan our coordinated attack to the greek traffic service with only one thing in mind… We were either going to take our bloody number plates back or we were going to die trying!!! (Don’t you just love those macho ultimatums… ha,ha,ha).

To be continued (and concluded) in Part 2…