A short walk with lots to see

A mix of photos today. I took some as we walked up our lane and around the back of the Castro. This walk gives you views down over the back of the harbour where I could see the Opera House, still in recovery, and the basketball court, now in need of repair.

You also pass a couple of rubbish collection points on this lane, where the stray cats hang out looking for food. It then takes you around the back, above the kataraktis (the original path from Horio to Yialos) and past several churches, a couple of which is being done up and painted.

You then come into the back of the village and can turn right for the kataraktis, or left to enter the village, then right to head towards Stavros or left to head towards Haritomeni, both village parishes, of which, I believe, there are thirteen. Is that right? I read somewhere there were 13 main churches in the village, not counting the smaller chapels, but I am not sure if each one is a parish as such or just an area known by that name. A bit more research is needed there.

We were on this short walk to go and visit Jenine and the boys for Sunday lunch, where we had a great time and where Neil, being Neil, managed to get himself involved in festive activities. And there I will leave it; that’s quite enough for one day.

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Girl Gone Greek – The Movie

Today, I have an interview with Rebecca Hall, author of ‘Girl Gone Greek’ a best-selling novel of one woman’s experience of teaching in Greece and… Well, read the interview to discover the rest.

Armed with a degree in International Relations and Sociology, obtained as a ‘Mature Student’ when she was in her 30’s, Rebecca Hall decided after her course that she wanted to travel, to understand the world beyond her own front door (and her own wet, terribly polite Britishness). It was inherent in her nature to realise that in order to better understand a culture, then the only way, really, was to immerse herself in it. What better way to do that than to learn to teach English?
After a one month, incredibly difficult CELTA course (Cambridge Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults), she secured a job teaching English in a small Greek village on the mainland.

With such an interesting start to her Greek life in 2008, culminating in the creating of her blog Life Beyond Borders in 2010, she slowly but surely came to fall in love with not a Greek (as many people dismissively assume), but with a whole nation — many Greeks if you like — and she feels blessed to have cultivated a whole new ‘family’ for herself.

To this end, as Greece increasingly started to hit the headlines for its economic crisis and be blamed as the ‘poor man of Europe, pulling the other countries down,’ this was not Rebecca’s reality of Greece. So, she set about trying to put the record straight by showcasing her reality of Greece and the characters/people she experienced. “Girl Gone Greek” – the novel was born.

From start to finish, it was six years in gestation and eventually self-published in June 2015.

Says Rebecca: “It was a difficult process, having never written before. And I didn’t want to get all political or on my high horse… I just wanted people to experience Greece through my eyes: to see it for what it was – see the beauty and quirky characters. Countries are, after all, made up of the individuals within it and in times of crisis, we tend to forget that.”

“It was also an exciting process, but exhausting! I had moved to Athens by this time and would work in the evenings teaching, come home, write some more, then bed in the early hours (having been incorporated into Greek time!)”
“I had to also dig deep and examine my past; give the story some tension and depth. So I looked at the reasons why the character went to Greece (it’s a semi-fictional book) and had to really go through some self-analysis.”
“Self-publishing meant I could choose my graphic designer and book cover – and what a book cover it is! I am so happy with it…and I believe it attracts people to want to read it too.”

After two years of it making steady sales through Amazon, talking at local Literary Festivals and schools in her hometown in the UK plus presenting on a Mediterranean cruise, Rebecca felt it time to take this one step further. BREXIT had become a reality, spreading yet more uncertainty throughout not just Europe, but the globe.
Rebecca saw this as yet another opportunity to prove that we seem to have lost our way in aiming to understand, not criticise other cultures and Greece, once again, seemed to bear the brunt of Europe’s wrath.

Says Rebecca: “I felt the time had come to try to take this one step further. Why not look at a ‘feel good’ film and try to see if it’s possible to make ‘Girl Gone Greek’ into a movie?”

Not knowing anything about the movie industry and, indeed, where to start, she was lucky enough to at least know people – one of them being James Collins.

Together, with James’s extensive know how, they collaborated on working the book into a relatable and realistic screenplay, something Rebecca says she felt nervous about initially because “I really did not want the essence of the film to be lost… To turn into a cheesy ‘girl meets boy and has a foreign fling.’ Luckily James really captured the book’s essence, introducing new elements that are great.”

Rebecca wears many hats, and when not chewing her pen, trying to change the world through her quirky, self-deprecating style of writing, she’s a guidebook writer for Rough Guides and writes for various online publications, as well as still maintaining her site Life Beyond Borders.

You can find Rebecca on:
Facebook
Facebook Author page
Pinterest
Instagram
Twitter

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A Symi storm update from my point of view. (I.e., may not be 100% accurate but it’s what I see.) Well, I can’t speak for everyone but… We were in Yialos on Friday, and parts of the harbour appear to be back to normal. The road, in places, is almost clean of mud again, shops are open, and businesses are running. But it’s not the case everywhere. At the back of the harbour and around the square there is still a lot of mud to be washed away, either by rain or with hoses. Guys were hosing down the individual tiles from the children’s playground, for example, so work is still going on.

Some businesses were open along the west end of the harbour (the ‘flat’ end where the taxi boats are), Eva’s Café and the one affectionately known as ‘Comfy Chairs’ were back to work, but Pacho’s is still closed. They have been putting down a new floor there, and the Symi Corner Café was still closed. I’m pretty sure this was open last winter with new surround and heaters. The bridge Pharmacy was open again having lost ALL of its stock apart from what was on a high shelf or two. The shelves were half empty as they await replacement stock. Other business in the bridge area were not open yet and still need work.

One of the things that’s holding people back is the Government relief scheme, and it’s a tricky one. For anyone not insured, the Government have a scheme where they help you out, but they won’t replace anything older than five years. Even if your equipment is under five years old you still have to prove it was there, working and needs replacing and there are, I hear, forms to fill out and of course, lots of bureaucracy to deal with. I do wonder, though, if you know the Government has a scheme for those not insured, what’s the point of paying for expensive insurance? Especially when the insurance companies tell you, after the catastrophic event that has ruined your life, that the storm, flood and mudslide was an act of God. I always dispute this term anyway as not everyone believes in God, and why should, for example, a Humanist accept an insurance policy where something he/she doesn’t believe in has a say over it? The legal term ‘Force Majeure’ (the legal term) or ‘Casus Fortuitus’ in Latin would be more appropriate. But that’s another matter.

The point is, the harbour appears to be slowly recovering and getting back to normal but I am sure there are individual stories that would tell you the opposite. In other parts, like up in Upper Horio and Stavros, there is still much work to do in rebuilding paths and even putting back on some basics, like the water pipes. Symi is not out of the woods yet, though in places it may be out of the mud.

The photos today were taken a week or so ago and yesterday morning – I am still more or less housebound with this cold/flu thing and, frankly, not even up to writing well, let alone doing anything else.

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Symi Saturday Photos

As I’ve been inside and under the covers/weather most of the week, there aren’t that many new photos to share today, but I’ve found what I have left of November. Hopefully I’ll be back to normal next week and may even venture out of the house. Meanwhile, have a good weekend and enjoy the photos.

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Girl Gone Greek

Kalo mina! I’m not going to witter on for long today, I just have one piece of news to share with you. I have completed the screenplay, and can now let you know about it. It’s an adaptation of the book, ‘Girl Gone Greek’ by Rebecca Hall.

The book is Rebecca’s true account of studying to be a TEFL teacher and then coming to Greece for a year to teach. It’s funny, insightful, tells you a lot about Greece and its culture and has one or two… Well, I’m not going to tell you too much. You can pick up a copy of the book, or its Kindle version, through this link: Girl Gone Greek

I tried to keep the screenplay as close to the book as possible but, as usual, there is more time in a book than there is in a film. Rebecca is happy with the work and tells me that it encapsulates all that the book is about. It shows, through her humorous time spent in Greece, that the main character grows as a person and how the country and its people helped her realise her potential – and Greece’s potential –  to shape those around her.

I hope to have an interview with Rebecca on the blog in due course.

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