Paris, au revoir. Kalimera, Greece!

And the real estate search resumes

We gave Paris a shot. It didn’t work out.

I mean, sure, it’s Paris, City of Love, ooh la la, yada yada yada. Which is great if you’re in the position to do all of the ooh la la-ing a la some independently wealthy freewheeling expat. We weren’t, in part because we’re Ausländer, not expats, and we had two large country dogs and full-time jobs.

Dogs need to run, so every day we woke up to take them on a four mile jaunt through the 16th (our hoity toity district). I know it’s pathetic to whine about running, especially in a beautiful park in Paris. Thing is, we had to leave the apartment by 7 a.m., in full darkness and cold, and navigate concrete and pavement and Parisians going to work with one neurotic dog (Lada), who is always trying to run out into traffic to escape an awning or adoring child, and one tenacious scavenger dog (Molly), who can sniff out the tiniest bread crumb and will yank her minder’s arm off to get at it. We had to run a gantlet of older Parisian women and their miniature schnauzers who were always waiting in the path to the park. Those dogs may have been small, but they were vicious and could smell Lada’s fear. When she approached, they’d snarl and yap and bark, which would send Lada into paroxysms of terror. That upset the women, who then began screeching of their own, hollering “Arrete! Arrete!” at their dogs, which would spur Molly begin her own howling and barking and it was one big noisy way to wake up, especially before coffee.

Watching the World Cup in local bars was pretty cool, especially when Morocco beat Portugal.

We’d arrive back at our 300-square-foot apartment when it was still dark. Wendy would head off to work and I’d plop down at my desk and get to my work while the dogs lazed around, bored out of their minds, for the next eight hours. The size of the apartment didn’t bother me, it was the disconnect that was a problem. It was on the first floor (second American story) of a seven or eight story building and the windows faced into an enclosed courtyard. That meant I couldn’t see the sky nor did I get any sense of what the day was like: warm or cold, sunny or gray, blustery or calm. Often it was dark again by the time I got back outside, leaving me to feel like I lived in the land of night.

Sometimes on weekends I’d supplement the morning run with laps (in daylight!) at the tourist-clogged Trocadero, the only place near our house where I could run a hill (sorta). I like topography. Flat places, especially flat cities, leave me anxious and disoriented, so it was nice to have this little bit of relief, even if it did mean dodging beret-wearing, Emily in Paris wannabes taking their glamour selfies.

Our apartment building’s foyer as we search for a taxi to take us to the airport.

But once the dog-walking and work was done, we had little time left over for exploring or doing Paris.

We attended just one art event, an exhibit and talk by American artist Zoe Leonard on the Rio Grande. We didn’t find a decent baguette near our house until the last couple weeks we were there. (I’ll save my treatise on Parisian boulangeries for another time). It was in a little area we had missed before, that also had an amazing fromagerie, with a proprietor who loved our dogs, and a decent organic grocery. We watched the World Cup final in a bar in the same area (bars showing the game were rare in our neighborhood, believe it or not), and the Morocco vs. Portugal quarterfinal in a couscous restaurant across town, after which we had to pack onto the Metro like sardines, literally, as Moroccan fans shouted and chanted in celebration. And on our second to last day we ate brunch at a beautiful little Lebanese restaurant and discovered a across-the-board-delicious boulangerie and patisserie. It’s always like that, no?

We thought maybe moving to a bigger, less expensive apartment with views of the world rather than a brick wall might help. So we looked around in a suburb where our friend Marine lives, which is very hilly, right next to a forest, and has a much more amenable, village-like feel. We found a great place but were rejected because we hadn’t been in Paris long enough. That pretty much did it (Wendy can tell you about her job and her reasons for not wanting to stay in a separate post). So we packed up our belongings (not much) and the dogs (a lot), flew back to Athens (sure, for a terrifying few moments, that we had killed Lada in transit) and drove back up to the Pelion and our little house among the olive trees, where we all sighed and barked a big growl of relief.

Kalimera, Greece!

Greece has its drawbacks, too. The little house we rent isn’t much bigger than the Parisian apartment and we’re down in a shady, damp valley and the windows mostly face north so we don’t get any solar gain and have no insulation, so it’s cold and kind of dark inside. We have to drive to get groceries or go out to eat. My grasp of the Greek language is even worse than my French, so I can’t communicate with the nice woman who walks by to tend to her orchard. She’s been trying to tell us something important and we don’t know what. The feta—and its cousin cheeses—are great, but we have yet to find anything here resembling a chabechou or bouton de culotte. And bread? I have to bake my own or just eat the tiropita (cheese pies).

But the sun shines here, and I can step out of my front door and sit in its rays. The olives still hang heavy on some of the trees and the oranges are ripe and the lemons on are tree will be ready soon. The dogs bark ecstatically and run through the olive grooves and eat the olives right off the ground. We stopped at the gas station/olive oil mill to buy a big jug of local oil. Lydia came for the holidays and picked oranges from trees around our houses and pomegranates from a tree that fills the entrance to the Centaur’s cave and baked a cake. Orestes called to let us know he had gone out fishing that morning and caught a few tuna. Did we want any? Hell, yes! I baked them and used the meat for a pasta sauce. On Christmas Day we hiked to the top of Mt. Tisseo and a couple of days later we drove up the peninsula to the eastern side, which is like an entirely different world: Steep, densely wooded slopes, huge limestone cliffs and gorges, apple trees instead of olives, even the slopes at the ski area have snow, though not enough yet for skiing. Though you can see the sea, the tavernas in these places don’t serve fish at all. Instead it’s wild boar, goat, stuffed cabbage, mushrooms, and mountain greens.

The Greek Real Estate Search Resumes

Now that we’re back in Greece, we’re resuming our search for a house to buy. We like our rental, and that may be an option, but it’s small (we want to have a place for guests) and cold in the winter, and renovation options are limited by building codes. So we’re considering other places, too, from the ready-to-move-in but is kind of boring level to the needs-a-ton-of-work but has a lot of charm type.

We’re going to go check out this place (needs serious work, but the price is right!) in a few days. It’s a big (1,700 sf + a 420 sf outbuilding), stone mansion built in 1901 in Agios Laurentios, a little village on the south facing slope of Mt. Pelion at the end of the road. Click on the links and scroll through the pics to see a typical old Greek house kitchen, which is tiny and not all that functional, probably because most cooking was done outdoors (and the outbuilding has a wood-burning oven! Bonus!) And check out the thickness of those walls! I love that. Oh, and the price? $50,000.

This one, in Drakeia (right next to the above village), is a far more practical choice. It’s smaller—at 720 sf or so + an attached “warehouse”—but has two bedrooms and appears ready to move into. I like the way the kitchen looks, with the windows and light and the wood stove. The long and skinny layout—common around here—is a bit of a drawback because to get from, say, the kitchen to the bedroom on the other side of the house you have to walk through the living room and a bedroom. But, still, at $57,000, not too shabby.

Here’s another one for the sensible column: Ready to move into (though definitely could use some updating); stone house; indoor plumbing (!!); in Argalasti, the commercial center of the South Pelion with a farmers market—no driving necessary; the price is right ($49,000) and enough space for guests. Drawbacks: No land aside from the small patio and the primary view is the big wall of the neighbor’s house to the south, blocking winter sun.

And then there’s the least practical choice, perhaps? This mansion is right on the square of Promyri, another village perched up on a hillside a couple miles above the sea (to stay safe from sea-going pirates). It’s huge (about 2,800 sf) with three stories; stone; old; has some nice architectural features; the kitchen is funky but workable and there’s indoor plumbing (!!); and, from what I can tell from the cursory description, it also includes a 250 square foot building next door that is currently a coffee shop and could house our homemade ice cream and pizza joint and martini bar. Drawbacks: No yard to speak of; it’s a lot of square footage to heat; it’s a bit more expensive than other options; it’s on the shadier, cooler side of the peninsula; and I don’t know what kind of trails are in the area. Still, it’s only $115,000. What can you get in America for that price?

Let us know which one you like the best! And better yet, come on over and join us.