Living in Crete: Plastic fantastic

I'm going to spread the good word!

If you haven't already heard of The Plastiki Expedition, shame on you, and go have a look now (http://www.theplastiki.com). The brain child of one the Rothschild clan, one of these guys you want to hate, but annoyingly he's doing good things with his privileged position, so fair play.

A brief run-down for those who can't be arsed clicking on the link: said Rothschild clan member headed up a team which designed a boat made from 12500 plastic bottles. These made up most of the boat but the superstructure was made of newly designed, completely biodegradable next generation fibreglass. The other main structures were made from recycled aluminium and additional recyclable plastics. They even invented their own glue from cashew nuts and sugar. Anyway, the point is the whole boat was completely recyclable and used naturally produced materials or reused others. The link is there, check it out for yourself, it's fascinating stuff.

The idea behind all of this is to increase awareness about human waste in general, but particularly plastic. If you read the Plastiki website it contains some scary marine pollution to plastic ratio statistics. The Plastiki undertook a voyage across the Pacific retracing the steps of an old voyage in the 1940's, the main reason for this was to raise awareness of the 'plastic soup': an approximately 200km square garbage patch of microscopic bits of plastic floating just below the surface. Their journey took them from San Francisco to Sydney right through the garbage patch. This phenomenon of human stupidity and disregard is a result of the ocean's currents all converging at this point, thus collecting all our waste in one big floating garbage pile.

The reason I'm saying all this is because I live next to the sea and walk along it every day. I would love to say that this particular part of Crete is a paradise. I understand it is a relatively big town with a working port and isn't a beach clad shore line of palm trees and bronzed bodies, but it brought home the Plastiki message for me.

In general this society seem wasteful and relatively short sited, I've often witnessed rubbish being tossed on the street, supermarkets throwing perfectly good plastic baskets in the general waste, and just not a lot of care for outside spaces. The traffic cutting measures are laughable, everywhere you go there are no parking signs yet you struggle to see them for the mountain of cars. We recently got a ticket on our car, I'm astonished the system actually worked that well to be able to issue a ticket. It was a justified ticket; the car was parked in a disabled spot. I could accept this were it not for the fact the disabled parking space is on an obscure back alley near no shops, doctors, physiotherapists, in fact anything of any note at all. And it is placed on a corner of a very narrow road on a steep incline. I would love to, without laughing of course, see a wheelchair user get into their chair from their car in this situation - another thing that stinks of box ticking, bureaucratic corruption.

I digress. Back to the walking along the sea front; the shore has been recently redeveloped, the seawall redone, a couple of park benches, some suspect landscaping (mostly using concrete or brick) and a few palm trees (which i learned recently the mayor got done for; he was buying them through his son's company. A very profitable business on a windy island where people can't drive properly.) Overall this face lift lacks something, there's no care, no maintenance, no usefulness, in short it's rubbish. Bringing me nicely on to my main point; all along the sea front on the rocks the result of human wastefulness and disregard is all too obvious. It's such a shame that somewhere so beautiful is treated in such a way. To be fair the other places on the island I have visited are beautiful and clean, but why then not keep your capital in the same way? For an island seemingly trapped in the past in many ways I hope this is one attitude they can drag into the future along with the rest of the world.

Living in Crete: Top Driving Tips in Crete

I apologise in advance, for this may very well be my first proper rant.

While being on Crete I have taken the decision to drive, more through necessity than a driving urge...sorry. I started driving pretty early on and have since driven continuously. Having experienced the roads many a time from the passenger seat I had some confidence regarding the 'rules' and directions before taking to the wheel. Over the past few weeks I have been thinking about writing about it, but after my experience at the weekend I've been angered into writing something.

I drive the road between Heraklion and Rethymno every weekend. It's called The National Road, I would describe it as a main road. It's somewhere between an A road and a dual carriageway without the bit in the middle, but definitely not a motorway. If you are still with me, well done. Anyway, the main reason for this not being a motorway is that it winds through the mountainous landscape along the North coast of Crete, therefore space is of a premium and corners and bends are of a maximum. It is wide enough for two lanes with something akin to a hardshoulder on either side but the road surface doesn't change unlike the UK. This allows cars to use it as an over-taking lane - the slower cars move over to the right to let other cars over-take them. So more often than not most people drive half in and half out both lanes, you are essentially following a racing line. The result of this is you have to drive with one eye in your side mirror. The over-taking technique is, shall we say, not very British-like. It would appear people think it is the slower car's responsibility to move when the faster car comes up behind them. If this doesn't happen they are bullied to the side, a combination of flashing lights and blasting horns follow while they drive literally 30cm from your rear bumper at speeds of 60-70 mph. That in itself is idiotic enough, but what I witnessed at the weekend and have done so several other times is moronic and worthy of a slow painful death. My biggest driving tip to any foreigners, infact, anybody driving on the roads in Crete is to keep as far to the outside of corners and bends as possible because they feel it is absolutely acceptable to over-take on corners. Although there are two lanes they aren't quite wide enough to accomodate two cars comfortably, this results in cars coming over into the other lane. I have twice had to swerve while going round bends to avoid cars over-taking, at ridiculous speeds. There are rules that are supposed to keep people right, but when you witness the police breaking them regularly (that is, when you actually see any police) it doesn't give you much hope.

You might think I'm over reacting a bit, but two weeks ago a Russian family were killed on this very road, a Grandmother, Mother and two children. Whilst, on, literally, every corner, you can see small memorials that look like bird houses. These represent the people who have died on the road.  I am being absolutely truthful when I say every corner. Not all of these will have been caused by other people, there certainly will have been cases of speeding and misjudgement.

Anyway, for what it's worth here are my top driving tips in Crete:

Give yourself plenty of time to slow down before corners and bends, some of them are very deceiving, especially going down hill.

When driving round corners stay as far to the outside (the righ-hand side) as possible, stay away from the centre.

Drive slightly to the right at all times and be vigilant of your wing mirrors at all times. Let idiots pass. The biggest mistake foreigners tend to make is not doing this. It is ok to drive in the hardshoulder here.

Give yourself plenty of breaking distance from other cars, native drives apparantly don't believe in this. They are happy to drive at two feet intervals from each other at 70 mph. And people tend to indicate very late if at all.

When the lines in the middle of the road are solid you can't over take, when they are dotted on your side you can.

There endth the rant. Now, where's my soap box?

Living in Crete: High Seas Drama

I went for a walk the other day and thought I'd take my camera to see what I could see and try and implement some of the skills I had learned on my first day at my new photography seminar. My regular walk takes me and the dog along the sea front of Heraklion. When I saw the following scene I thought it would make a really artistic, dramatic picture. You know, 'oh, I bet nobody has ever thought of taking this picture before', in reality 150 tourists a day take the exact same picture and are, at this very moment, sucking the life from various friends and family explaining the setting and meaning. So, I took the pic and was all chuffed with myself. The seas splashing over the sea barrier, 'How dramatic!'.

Fast forward a couple of days and things are becoming a bit more 'wintery' shall we say. Same walk, same scene, the sea and my enthusiasm firmly put into perspective. Brilliant.

Living in Crete: Cretan cuisine

I read an article recently ( http://ow.ly/2WoPM @ http://twitter.com/#!/livingincrete) regarding the Cretan diet and it hit on a few things I fancied talking about, so…

The mythical Mediterranean diet has, it seems, often been the cure for death itself. I’m always seeing reports of people in their nineties and hundreds with the biology of a twelve year old. Ok, I’m exaggerating a little, but these reports talk of the lowest heart disease and cancer rates in the world. (If I were a proper, paid up journalist I’d insert some evidence here.) The fresh fruit and vegetables and copious amounts of olive oil are always given the credit for this. Let’s face it you can’t argue with that. Although I did discover recently (from a qualified dietician) that once olive oil is heated the good fats that it contains turn to terribly bad ones. That will become significant later. So, what’s my point? This is true, when the diet is at its best it’s fantastic, fresh, often locally produced produce. And yes, it is often layered with a gallon or six of olive oil – not always. However, it’s not cooked so it’s perfectly healthy. There are some amazing traditional dishes in Crete that are so simple and tasty; dakos (fresh grated tomato, feta and herbs on a bed of paxamathi – a hard bread), fava (split peas with onions and oil – basically strained lentil soup but better!), numerous different kinds of salad, all sorts of beans in all sorts of sauce – I’ve mostly come across tomato based sauces, steamed greens with olive oil and lemon – lemon is used in a lot of dishes, stuffed peppers and tomatoes, the list goes on.

Meat also plays a large part on the dinner table. The problem is, as far as I can see, it’s often cooked in olive oil. On top of that there are popular meat dishes such as apaki which is fried chunks of smoked pork (ruddy nice). When you witness a regular taverna table there tends to be a fair amount of meat, especially if there is a majority of males. In addition to this, on almost every occasion I’ve dined out, which in Cretan culture is pretty much every night if you’re not careful, there is always a potato or two. Oven cooked potatoes you would think would be the healthy choice, if it were not for the oil they are cooked in, this would be true. The other popular dish, that is always on the table somewhere, is the ‘fried potato’ – to me and you ‘fries’ or ‘chips’.

The other alarming thing that I’ve noticed – when I say alarming I’m talking with a heavy dose of relativity – is that the traditional meat dish appears to be souvlaki. In its pure form it’s not too bad – basically a kebab of flame grilled chicken or pork chunks and a slab of bread. In its commercial form it’s been transformed into something akin to the ‘British’ post club kebab – a choice of pork or chicken has been joined by the, often seen, reformed meat on a rotating vertical prong in front of what looks like a 1980’s electric heater a la UK kebab shop. This is then joined by a healthy portion of fries and yogurt and then wrapped in oil soaked pitta. I’ve actually witnessed mothers ordering this from the local shop and delivered as a treat for the kids, it makes me chuckle imagining the typical UK mother calling up the local 4-in-one – ‘donner with salad and sauce please’. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not atop my lofty horse, I’m the first one to enjoy a souvlaki…on occasion.

So, unfortunately the Mediterranean diet may well be in danger, in this part of the world anyway, but the healthy food still far outweighs the unhealthy, however it doesn’t take much of the unhealthy stuff to make an impression. If you walk down the street in Heraklion there does tend to be quiet a lot of young guys with a pearish look about them and a lot of them are very young. Most old guys carry a few extra bellies, but you expect that in most cultures, when you see a lot of the younger generation like that it does make you think. Of course, it may just be the result of Greek mothers, you never go hungry in a Greek house, you’re not allowed.

Living in Crete: What is Cretan music?

A main part of living in crete so far has been Cretan music…and wine. The music in Crete takes some getting used to. The music’s good, don’t get me wrong. These guys can play, it took me a while to get into it, but now I have the sound, it is pretty hair raising stuff. If they had a bigger stage they’d be haled as talented lads. The vocal power of the singers could rival the best of the celtic and all other scenes, as could the skill of the musicians. If you took these guys and dumped them in Salsa Celtica or the Shooglenifty’s of this world they’d blend right in. If their stage were international and their music a little more immediately accessible or their fan base a bit more spread out over the continent and not just Crete then perhaps they would be appreciated further afield, by those outside the culture too. However, that’s a lot of ifs.

In reality these guys are ‘famous’ on Crete. I say ‘famous’ because that is the word that is used to describe their popularity to me. I tend to insert ‘popular’ or ‘well known’ here, a slight, but significant difference. They have their regular followers and they know them well. One or two names are mentioned continuously in Crete with as much excitement and admiration as any indie band or popular western band might be. The habits are similar; plenty of booze, fags and late nights. When I say booze, I mean a bottle of whisky on stage consumed throughout the evening. And when I say evening, I mean the whole evening, a good 2, 3, 4 hours. Name the last band you saw that played for anywhere near that amount of time, and when you see them play there’s no playing, it makes me tired watching these guys. The amount of staying power in the incremental rhythms is quite incredible, made all the more astonishing when you take into account the fingers in between the strings, on the fretless fret board, technique of the Lyra – an upright fiddle-type instrument used outside Crete also.

It is also important to note that the music they play is very rarely their own, if ever. The genres they play are either rebetiko or traditional Cretan music with roots in the turn of the 19^th century. A time of extreme poverty and hardship where a music rose, that I like to think, was akin to many other kinds of folk music around the word, from Irish to Scottish to their many influenced American cousins to the more present day blues, Cretan music has the same sole. Rebetiko, as suggested, is all about the hard times and finding the chinks of light, the love of a woman, the wine, the food, but mostly the love a woman…as far as I can gather. With this in mind they play most nights, the best ones can make upwards of 2 or 3 hundred a night, not a bad living even outside Crete. It goes beyond that though, if you’re sitting in a nice little cafeneion in the smaller towns and villages around Crete it’s not uncommon to find instruments appearing from nowhere, and sometimes, it’s astonishing how many people know how to play, and apparently the standard tends to be pretty good. I say apparently, because quite frankly, I could be talking a lot of shite. This is the view of a music fan not a music expert.

Although I wax lyrical about music on Crete it is not a widely loved genre in Greece. It belongs to Crete but within that, as in all regions, there are pockets of fans of particular music. As far as I can tell the majority of the ‘younger’ generation prefers the typical bad European dance/ballad type affair. However, the Cretan Music fan base is pretty fanatical and consists of mainly students and the like from the younger generation, and, of course, the oldies love it. It’s easy to forget what the older generation (the parents, not the grandparents) went through. If you are familiar with the recent history of Greece (I wisnae) you will be aware they were under a dictatorial government till as late as 1974, when the students revolted in what was to be a tragic (a number of them were killed) and penultimate act in the final breathes of the ruling government, when it eventually fell the underground revolution parties rose and with them came the music of a similar ilk. This is also a popular genre among these musicians in the music scene in Crete.

So, these are talented boys and girls, and to reinforce this, I was told the other day that one of them lived in London for a couple of years and to make a penny or two he played with some bands including Nick Cave and the bad seeds. They are true stars in their own right but unfortunately they don’t quite have the exposure they perhaps deserve. Don’t get me wrong; they aren’t people who care for this kind of attention, music and entertaining is the motivation and passion, but of  course they have the same trappings; whisky, wine, beer, and late nights. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of groupies, but if there were it would, no doubt, be risky…their mother, father, aunt, uncle, godchild and grandmother would probably be there too.

Living in Crete: Heraklion close to Koules Fortress

A quick run down of my exact location in Crete.
I live in the town of Heraklion in Crete which is almost in the middle of the island on the north coast. To the east are the towns of Malia, some of the younger ilke might be familiar with this destination, Malia is about a 40 minute drive from Heraklio. About half way between them is the small town of Hersonisos, not quite as lively but similar to Malia, plenty of beach hotels and tourist bars, not far from another favoured tourist destination; Gouves. To the west, an hours drive, is Rethymno, the third biggest town on the island and arguably the nicest of the large towns in Crete. Heraklio is a working town, shall we say, it has a very large working port, mainly for ferries and cruise liners servicing the Mediterranean, although there is still a small fleet of fishing boats.
There is a fair tourist trade, mostly German and Dutch, but I’m told the fastest growing sector is the Russians. The centre offers a few little gems for the tourists. Amongst some of the main attractions are Koules Fortress in the harbour, Heraklion Archaeological Museum and many churches including; Agios Minas, St. Marks Basilica and St. Catherine church.
My flat is located two roads from the harbour in a really nice little square literally two minutes walk from all these attractions, lucky me. Still haven’t been to any of them yet, I’m saving them for when I get some visitors. Anyone?