Below are the following things you should know.

By now you've made a fortune and are thinking of buying an apartment or land in Greece which you've fallen in love with. Your fiance or wife is thrilled with the idea and even King Cobra and Arnold have made friends. What now? Looking for something to buy is much the same as looking to rent; however there are many more pitfalls and quite serious ones if you're not careful. 

By law, Anyone of any nationality can by property in Greece providing it's not on any insensitive areas, as the Greek govt. refers to them. For EU citizens this does not apply but for the rest of the world these areas are: eastern Aegean, Dodecanese islands, northern Greece, Crete, Rhodes, and Dorian's home in Athens. Of course these restrictions are old and take it all with a grain of sea salt. 

Notice that these areas are bordering Greece's mortal enemies: the Albanians, communists, and Tito's malevolent empire. No one has taken these laws off the books mainly because the govt. can't afford to hire anyone to find them. One has to slither through dusty, yellow old books in some forgotten cellar of some ministry. Now here's a job for our old friend King Cobra.

Ourhouse is a very very very fine house

With paperwork so grand  

And taxmen on our landÖÖ..

http://www.athensguide.com/dorian/buying-property.htm

looking for the body

i stand in the rain,

i cry under a ruined concrete construction,

i shake in anxiety, 

i hold my belly in menstruation pain,

i kiss a stranger,

i drink too much,

i squat in a puddle on a rooftop,
i hug wonderful people,

i don't feel my weight,

i let go in a rhythm

Questions (but no answers)

How do I position myself? 

What are my motifs?

How should I cope with the confusion?

Who exploits?

What are the power structures I build on?

Why do I feel like an alien?

What do my body gestures tell?

How should I cope with the frustration?

What is solidarity?

How should I cope with the insomnia?

What narratives should I follow?

These are the questions I have been dealing with during our second trip to Athens. It's good to be back, it's confusing to be back. 

Hills of Athens

I like to take long walks and today I took one to see the Acropolis. It costed 20€ to get in so I decided I would rather walk around the area. After a while, I ended up on the Hill of Muses. There were no people and it was very peaceful. While walking among old trees, colorful butterflies and beautiful views, my soul was at ease.

On the top of this sacred hill there is the Philopappos Monument built around 114-116 A.D which can be seen from all over the city, just like the Acropolis. I later learned that back then it was described as a monument built for a Syrian man.

Rooftop culture

Paris Legakis did it. Vasiliki and Claire from Yellow Brick did it. In February Maria and Skafte did it. They took us to the rooftop. Why? And why does it feel so damn good every time?

Spiral staircase, unstable ladder.

+ EFFORT / SECRET / EXCLUSIVITY / ADVENTURE / EXCITEMENT

Secret cubes surrounded by white walls or no walls or railings at all.

+ SAFETY / DANGER

Seeing up, down and to the infinity.

+ POWER POSITION / HOPE / SUBLIME / PERSPECTIVE / EMPOWERMENT

Hiding or exposing: podiums or nests.  

+ PUBLIC / PRIVATE / US / THE OTHERS / COMMUNITY / UNIVERSE

Silent, timeless. All the time in the world. Free time, free mind.  

+ FOCUS / MOMENT

=

Open air, open atmosphere. Easy talk, easy breathe, easy feel.

Take me high!

Pork lunch.

Rasheed Araeen, Shamiyaana–
Food for Thought: Thought for Change
Athens, 16-21.05. Kotzia Square, 1–2:30 pm and 3–4:30 pm

Under colorful canopies inspired by the shamiana (a traditional Pakistani wedding tent), Araeen Rasheed invites people to sit together and enjoy a meal based on recipes from around the Mediterranean, which have been cooked in collaboration with Organization Earth....The description of the project is inclusive and according to invigilators, everyone is able to participate (so long as they are not being hateful). Actually I should say that anyone is able to participate, so long as you are one of the first 100 to get tickets. The tickets are free but already that sets up an invisible barrier to the project; if someone cannot speak English or Greek then it is likely that they will assume that the tickets cost something or may just be inhibited based on the language barrier. Personally, I was sitting at a table with three Syrian refugees who did not speak English or Greek but only Arabic. Also at the table was one Kurdish man from the Ararat mountains in Turkey, one Greek man, and one Polish girl. The other tables seemed to mostly have middle class families as well as some older couples (mostly non-Greek, tourists, if I had to guess). We sat together under the custom, professionally made, expensive structure of the "tents" which were loosely encircled by security attendants. Water was brought to our table, then bread, followed by the main dish and after everyone had finished there was a sweet, cinnamon bread for dessert. The main dish was yellow rice, roasted pork, salad and tzatziki which was reasonably good. The food itself presented another barrier to the project, excluding half of our table from sharing the same meal as the pork could not be eaten by the three Syrians because of their religion and the one vegetarian, instead they were given everything else but no substitute for the pork. Thous I am personally not a vegetarian I had (wrongly) assumed that the food would be vegetarian for ease and inclusivity. The meal was nice enough with some small talk between the strangers in as much as we could communicate. I tried to ask everyone how they knew about the project that we all were participating in; The Greek man was friends with another man who was working there, the Syrians knew nothing of Documenta14 but instead thought it was a government subsidized program, Two of us knew about the Documenta14 program and unfortunately I did not find out how the Kurdish man knew about it but also seemed aware of Documenta as well as being well traveled so I suppose he was visiting some of the other events/exhibitions.  Overall it was a nice experience which provided the opportunity to sit with strangers for a meal but, like other Documenta14 programming, it seems to me that the outcome of this project was more focused on the appearance of making a political act rather than actually achieving results or achieving the best results possible.

The project itself presented a slew of positive and negative attributes: locked bathrooms, a perimeter of security guards, menu choices, language issues and a ticket kiosk all present invisible barriers to accessing the work for potential participants. The staff presenting the work were helpful and friendly, as far as I could tell. The actual structure that contained the work was way over built and that money could have been distributed in a more effective fashion. If coming alone or with one other person, it was so that you would sit and eat with a bunch of strangers, possibly from different backgrounds which was initially awkward, sometimes confusing, but overall nice while being at the same time too simple, trite and wasteful. 

Rasheed Araeen's Shamiyaana project was supported by the British Council