After the contiki tour I went up to Dublin to meet up with Adam, Rhys and Emma (all from Contiki). After Dublin I went back to the homeland and all the following entailed:
DUBLIN 11/08/09 – 13/08/09
Australia tops
The green and gold t-shirts you see in the photos in Dublin are because we dressed up in the Aussie colours to watch Australia play Ireland in the football. It’s a good thing we beat them 3-0 otherwise we would’ve looked like right dickheads!!! During the day we went and found some cheap tops and a texta. I wrote Aus v Ire and the date on the front of all 4 of them and we each picked our favourite number for the back. We also took the texta with us to the pub we were watching the match at and well the fun we had with it speaks for itself in the photos. My actual skin also ended up getting written on by Rhys who tastefully wrote “Nice Vag” and I have no idea how long it lasted because I left the next day and forgot to check it lol.
Guinness
The first night we were there we went to a pub (an Irish pub in Ireland to be in fact) and I had my first full pint of Guinness. I’ve previously tried a small sample of it in London and I wasn’t too impressed. Now after finishing a full pint of the shit, I have no idea how people who drink it actually eat food. After one pint it felt like I had eaten a slab of cement and I was dreading taking a shit because I could so easily have pushed out enough bricks for a house haha. Now for memory the actual taste of it is quite light, it’s not bitter and it’s almost watery but man it’s thick and heavy. It looks like crude oil in a glass with a bit of froth on top :-). Cheers to that.
MTV
One of the nights we were there we were in a club (the first ones there lol) and were talking about funny covers we could use and I think it was Emma suggested we say we’re from MTV Australia and are in Dublin doing a story/show. Due to our outgoing nature and general lack of care for people’s perceptions Adam and I were the hosts of an Australian MTV show and Emma and Rhys were our producers. On the way home from the club we were talking to a few Irish chicks who actually believed us and we were talking so much bullshit it was ridiculous! They were telling us to do something or come somewhere (can't remember exactly) with them but we said no because we had to shoot a clip early in the morning. Then they were taking photos of and we were telling them not to put them on Facebook because we might get in trouble and our producers will kill us etc. Hahaha morons
Ladiessssss???
At the same club that night an extremely ugly, Asian, man-looking woman was trying to dance with Adam and telling him she would do anything he wanted for him etc hahaha. He wasn’t interested because well, he’s not really into, how can I put this... Chicks with dicks lol :-). My suspicions were confirmed when I saw her dancing with another Thai looking Asian who was pretty much a man with long hair wearing a dress pretending to be a woman. They were also dancing with their pimp. Adam’s “chick” was still trying to get him so he yells out “why don’t you suck my cock and shut up.” I can’t remember what happened next but it got the picture lol. Later on I couldn’t be bothered dancing so I was standing leaning against a bench that surrounds the dance floor and I had a look around and the chicks with dicks were a few meters behind me. The next minute I know somebody is touching my ass and I look around and it was the fkn bloke with the dress on. I turned around and grabbed her balls, look into her eyes and said “That’s a magnificent cock man.” Hahaha fuck that shit for a joke, I ran away to the dance floor as fast as I could with the rest of the crew!!! Thai lady men in Dublin, now that’s something I was definitely not expecting!!!
Flute
We went shopping in a Irish gift store and I found an Irish flute/whistle thing. Obviously it was too good not to take out with us so I tried to find random Irish people to play it for me because we had no idea how to (see video). I also walked down the street and pulled it out randomly and started playing lol.. people were rather confused. For memory I played it while we were checking out from the hostel as well hahaha.
Chicks
When leaving Dublin for Athens I was well, extremely hung over. Three nights of hard, hard Irish style drinking (not long after the 2 ½ weeks of drinking on the Contiki tour) and lack of sleep really caught up to me the morning I was leaving and I wasn’t in the most patient of moods. We all left together for the bus stop (the crew walked me there) and we were walking on the wrong side so I missed the first bus. When I got to the correct stop I was pretty much the first in line but when the bus eventually came it stopped about 10m away from me. Obviously feeling sick, tired and needing to catch a 4 ½ or so flight this was not the best place for the bus to stop. Anyway I walk up to the door and there’s a group of 5 Irish chicks fucking around with back packs right in front of the door. Not the best place to be! I said my goodbyes to Adam, Rhys and Emma hoping the chicks would move in time but nope. Now ladies you should probably skip the next 2 sentences because if you’ve been following my blog you’ll know my no holds barred writing style ;-). They were all talking, really excited about their trip, the places they were going to go blah, blah fucking blah. I look at them all and said “move cunts”. One of them turns around (who was simultaneously struggling with her back pack, most probably filled with objects she will not require like a potato peeler or some Irish shit and I then said to her, do you need a hand with that in a sweet (albeit sarcastic) manner. She smiled and said “top of the morning to ya” (well not really, she said she was ok) and moved a bit. I then barged my way through the morons collecting a backpack with me which dragged behind my suitcase for about 20cm until one of them pulled it out (obviously has no impact on me where the bag ends up so I kept walking hahaha). First lesson for those chicks on travelling, don’t dawdle in front of entrances to transport, especially in front ofme!!
XORIO (village - my mum's family) 14/8/09 – 18/8/09
(pronounced horio/chorio)
On Friday morning I went to the bus stop (Ktel Kiffisia - big bus depot in Athens) and waited around for my bus for a few hours. I of course got instructed to get the wrong bus (still going to where I need but the long way around) and it took 5½ hours to get there instead of 3½ hours. My mum’s first cousin (Thio Panayioti) and mum’s aunty (Yiayia Costandina) came and picked me up and went back to her house. We had chips and kokkinisto fasolakia (string beans in a red sauce) because I was fasting. Later on we went up into the village where the paneyiri (big celebration for a saint generally held in the middle of the village) and I saw some of mum’s family which I haven’t seen since I was there in ’06. We sat down and chatted away with everyone. Later on the traditional folk music started lead by the clarino (clarinet which is played quite differently to the gay way it is heard in orchestras etc) which got me pumped because I love that music!!! Fuck Yeah!!! :-) lol. Another one of mum’s cousins arrived with his family and had what most people do when this happens, a very pleasant surprise to see me :-). They were told to come down to the village by another family member who
knew I was coming but weren’t told why. Had a good chat with my 2nd cousins and left for bed.
Got up early on Saturday morning and went up to church with my mum’s aunty (I think in Aus terms she’s my great aunt but in Greek we call them yiayia, translating to grandma, but for all intensive purposes I will refer to her my great aunt) which sits beside the edge of a mountain and looks over a whole lot of other mountains – breathtaking! Church was on a Saturday morning because it is the Saint Day for Agia Panagia (The Virgin Mary, Jesus’ mother), a very significant day in the Greek Orthodox religion. The priest in the church is another one of my mum’s 1st cousins lol. After church had a Frappe with some more family, lunch, siesta and then back down to my great aunt’s house (she lives next door to her brother and they both live on the bottom of the mountain where the actual village is – closer to their land/micro farm. That evening I went down to the river (5mins away from the house near their micro farms) with Thio Panayioti, another uncle and a 2nd cousin to do some fishing. Thio Panayioti lay out some nets in strategic places along the river and as we were walking to each spot we started collecting snails. In the end we collected about 1 kilo of wild snails. That night went back to the paneyiri, ate roasted Pork and potatoes (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it every time, the meat in Greece is magnificent, the Pork is second to none and makes the Pork around the world smell like dirty swine).
Sunday Thio Panayioti collected the nets and had caught about 25 fish. We ate them along with kokkinsto vegetables and the fish was excellent. Simply floured and fried in Extra Virgin Olive Oil (obviously from the village and pressed as the first cultivators of Olive Oil, the Ancient Greeks, would which is on a stone mill). Being small river fish they were sweet, moist and full of flavour. The food in the village is so pure because it is all either freshly caught or freshly picked from the garden, all organic. Even the cheese is made from the sheep they have in the back. All this food is washed with either homemade wine (very similar to rose but with much more alcohol) or beer. Again I digress but quality food is important to me, as John and Karl would attest to. I quote one of them while in Mykonos together: “Dimitri would you shut the fuck up about the food and just eat it! We’re sick of you and you’re fucking food!!!” I think they got a little annoyed with my quest for perfect food lol – oh and if there’s a potential wife reading this don’t worry darling, I’m cooking :D haha. Saw more family (there’s heaps of the fuckers around there), ate and drank more and at about 12am Thio Panayioti decides we need to go to the next village over where his brother in law owns the local Kafenio (Traditional coffee house which also serves a shit load of alcohol, food and the ability to gamble against other dickheads in the village) so we can drink more wine and borrow a chainsaw – always a good combination!!! We got there and his bro in law denied owning a chainsaw lol and they were gone for about 45mins in the back, after an argument or two which also involved his sister Dimitra (another of my mum’s 1st cousins hehe) Thio Panayioti walked out the back with a big fuck off chainsaw! Job done, more wine, more laughs, 100 prayers before we drove off!!! and we were back at 2.00 ready for bed.
Monday is the day I really became a cultured village man! Monday is the day I chopped trees down with a chainsaw :-). We went down an area near the river with Thio Panayioti and my great uncle Pappou Mihali. After finding a massive tree Pappou Mihali cut it down and we proceeded to chop it up. It took about 4 hours in 35 degree heat but we chopped it up and got it ready to load it up in the ute. At about 2 we left for lunch which is where I tried the snails we caught. They were fried up and were delicious! If you haven’t tried them before grow some culinary balls and try them! We had a nap for a few hours (as you do every day in the village) and went back down to cut more trees :-D that’s my new favourite past time now, chainsawing shit (new word as well). We went out for dinner with about 10 of us and had 5 salads, 6 plates of chips, 4 plates of fried zucchini, 8 plates of Feta cheese, 4 loaves of bread and 10 beers all before the main course haha. Mains we had a few kilos of lamb chops, pork and lamb offal. I tried the fried liver and heart, was actually quite nice! Few more beers, salad and bread and we eventually left. Unfortunately the next morning it was time to leave, but only for a week luckily. I grew quite connected to the village, especially as in ’06 I was there with my grandparents and we lived in my grandmother’s childhood home for a week. My grandfather showed me around where he used to play and the mountain they had to run up (while being fired upon mind you) on the two occasions the Nazis invaded and burnt the village down. A very important part of my family history and something that will remain to my soul for as long as I live.
Chainsawing
MYKONOS Mk 2 20/08/09 – 23/08/09
On August 20-23 I returned to Mykonos to join my new friends (Adam and Rhys, Melbourne boys Tony, John and Jason, and last minute inclusion the pocket rocket Fanoula). Many memorable moments but here are a few:
Fat Italian dude wearing his M&M’s top
On the Friday evening we went to Paradise Beach Club and when we got there Adam went up on a stage and was dancing. There was some fat Italian dude dancing who was quite the wanker he looked like. I think he was the long lost brother of the yellow M&M character, quite big (hair in a pony tail) and was wearing an M&Ms t-shirt which he must have assumed looked fashionable. Now seriously why would you wear a t-shirt advertising food? Back to the story, he and his friends were sleazebags (as were 99.7% of the guys from Italy there) and general pieces of shit human beings so Adam started dancing behind him a little sexually to pay him out and the dickhead got pissed off lol. He started saying shit to Adam but Adam just laughed at him. Not long after, him and his little posse of sleazebags left and as they were leaving Adam told me what happened so I started laughing. Now this was no inconspicuous laugh because I was purposely quite loud and staring right at the pig. He kept looking but wasn’t sure if I was laughing at him, so this prompted me to point at him and laugh even louder hahaha. About 3 minutes later they all came back and were standing by the edge of stage and pig pointed at Adam to a few of his sleazebags and they were standing by the stage staring at him. We kept dancing like they were nothing to which they were a little confused and left. We learnt a valuable lesson that day. This is that dickheads around the world are all the same.... just a bunch of dickheads. That’s the pig M&Ms story.
Super Paradise Video
This next story has to be one of my dreams come true. Those of you on Facebook know what I’m talking about – the SUPER PARADIIIIISE video :-). The first time I came to Greece (2004 – and what a fkn vintage year that was for Greece, Euro 2004 winners and the return to the birthplace of the Olympic Games) I loved how the Greeks talked English with their accent. Much different to the accents Greeks in Aus speak. This prompted me to imitate the accent and while holidaying in Mykonos with family I heard somebody say Super Paradise with the awesome accent and the phrase was born. Fast forward 5 years and I returned to Mykonos (for the 4th time) and I finally made it to Super Paradise beach. From 2004 until mid August I thought Super Paradise beach was predominately for gay guys so I had no particular interest in going there but a cousin of mine in Greece showed me some videos of when he went and I was completely wrong! It was hetrosexual mayhem. The day before we left we all went there to party and the rest is history! I directed Fanoula on how I wanted her to record the video and well, enjoy........
Just one other thing from Mykonos Mk 2, at the beach cabins we were staying at we met some Aussie chicks there and we were all drinking together. I can’t remember who but someone brought up Claon Tzous (I told most of the ppl on the contiki tour the story) and the melb boys brought with them the ingredients for me to make it. Obviously it was a hit because it’s so good but I let my guard down a bit and people now know the recipe (whether they remember it or not is another story). All I have to say is this: If you are ever in a bar somewhere in the world and you drink Claon Tzous remember where it originated, Vrahati, Greece, with Karl, John, Nick and myself. Cheers to that.
The Melb boys hired quad bikes while they were there and Adam and I borrowed them for a bit to cruise around and do burnouts on the dirt roads around the place. When we returned Tony came with me on the back and I drove up some God forsaken road and got stuck. I lit up the back wheels a bit and then decided to disembark on the wrong side of the fkn bike and well you can see the rest for yourself. Although it looks like nothing, check out the photo of the resulting bruise. I also have little hard lumps in my body where I was struck lol – injuries in Mykonos are fine as long as they are small and don’t involve your sphincter/colon hahahaha. Absolute no offence intended there by the way!!
DJs seen on this trip and the previous Mykonos Trip (from what I can remember):
Erik Morillo
TV Rock
Fedde Le Grand
David Morales
Vandalism
Roger Sanchez
John Course
Mobin Master
And more but I can’t remember who lol!
SUPER PARADIIIIIIIISE
Quadbike shennanigans
Resulting injuries:
From 23/8 onwards.
After Mykonos Mk 2 I went back to the xorio (village – its near Kalavryta) and stayed there for 4 more days, simply because I loved being there. After that I’ve been travelling around Greece and staying with family. Apart from the xorio, I’ve been to Athens, Pagrati (mum’s village and surrounding area), Salamina, Kiato, Corintho, Sparti, Tripoli, Nea Makri (next to Marathon), Krestina and Pyrgo. I’ve been to about 10 different houses in 5 weeks and because I generally don’t stay too long at the one place they take me out for meals, cook massive meals etc to make sure they’ve fed me properly. The problem is I move around so much I’m eating like crazy. Amazingly I haven’t put on that much weight (about 3kgs since I left) but as you’ve seen in photos my gut is growing lol. I measured my waist/gut the other day and it has grown about 15cm!! Mainly bloating from bread, pasta, beer, cakes and eating so much that my stomach can’t handle it so I have to store food in my Oesophagus until my stomach can digest lol.
One highlight worth mentioning is from the 2 days I spent in my dad’s xorio – next to Krestina – last week (I may have found my calling as a weekend village/farm man haha). It was wine making time so I went and helped pick the grapes, load it onto the tractor, unload the tractor, carry the crates to the juicer, wash shit, pump juice from one container to another etc. Did about 15hours of work over the two days. It wasn’t too bad work actually but that’s probably the max I would do without getting paid for it :-). I’d rather drink it or market it, yet better still both lol. I’m now going to start importing wine and Extra Virgin Olive Oil (have I mentioned the first cultivators of Olive Oil were the Ancient Greeks? The Minoans in fact. If not, then learn that shit) from Dad’s cousins. No chemicals in the wine and the olives are from one of the best regions (well the Peloponnese in fact) for oil in Greece, i.e. the world hehe.
Photos with Relos
Taking the grapes back on the tractor with Thio Dimitri
Unpacking the grapes from the trailor
Grape crushing
PLANS.
As I write this (all except the Xorio 14/8/09 – 18/8/09) I’m in transit from Greece to France. The last of this piece has been finished on the train from Paris to Dijon. I got into Paris (23/9/09) at about 1.30pm and caught the train from the airport to the Paddington of Paris (Gare de Lyon) and from there to Dijon. I will be in Dijon 23/9 and leave for Beaune Thursday 24/9. Beaune is the unofficial food and wine capital of Burgundy so I will be travelling the French/Burgundian countryside wine tasting and eating good French food. I will be staying in a 16th century Chateau (Chateau de Melin to be in fact) which also produces their own wine. Saturday 26th not sure yet because haven’t found accommodation anywhere, Sunday 27th will be in Lyon – the food capital of France – and will definitely dine in a 3 star Michelin restaurant :-). Monday head off to Paris to meet up with my gorgeous little sis and her not quite as gorgeous but pretty close, boyfriend lol. Friday 2nd Oct we train it to London and on Sunday I return to the Emirates stadium to see Arsenal destroy a hapless Blackburn. Georgina and Brad leave Sunday night and I leave for the Netherlands on Monday (5/10) morning. My grandfather has a cousin who we met last year who lives there so will no doubt have a more in depth view of the area. I want to go to the Heineken factory (easily the best beer – however not that shit they brew in Aus, Melb to be exact and pass it off as Heineken – the actual beer brewed in Holland). I’m also going to try and visit the Van Gogh museum because I didn’t have a chance last time. I haven’t booked anything after that but I will definitely be going to Italy for one reason, and one reason only. That is a Ferrari and Lamborghini factory tour. I will also have the chance to hire a Ferrari F430 and drive it around the outskirts of the Ferrari factory (€100/$175 for 20mins lol). I might also go do another cooking course, we’ll see :-). After that either back to Greece or a country close, but where ever I go I will end up in Greece for the last 2 weeks before I head home so I can say goodbye to the relos there. Leave Athens for London 3rd November, London until 5th so I can send back all my shit that I left there, go to one last Arsenal match (Arsenal v Alkmaar or Standard Liege) and leave for Hong Kong. In HK from 6th until 8th, Sydney on the 9th to visit a few friends from the Contiki tour and then home TUESDAY 10th NOVEMBER at 7pm.
(P.S. I finished writing this up in France but it's taken 2.5 weeks to get it on the net! See what service I provide for you readers!!! So much work and so little appreciation haha only kidding :p)
Geisou and Au revoir vous traquez lol
With love,
Dimitri
Filakia and baisers xoxox
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