Dusty....

Happy birthday Dusty!

Happy birthday to you, you who have become a family member, a companion in hours of joy and sorrow, a constant love in my life.

Thank you.

I miss my family.....

So much...especially during Xmas

In my home I grew up with two parents who are physicists.

My mom especially is the true form of the physicist, a person who made me first hate (because I was young and I rebelled) and then love, adore, find meaning of life in, name it what you want...in physics.

I grew up also with many books by Aristotle and Plato and Socrates.

My favourite has always bein Aristotle. A great man, a great spirit who formed the way we perceive logic and that perception has yet to be changed.

Aristotle is logic (Aristotelian philosophy depended upon the assumption that man's mind could elucidate all the laws of the universe, based on simple observation (without experimentation) through reason alone.)

and metaphysics (to know a thing's existence is to know the reason for its existence)

and ethics (In order to become "good," one could not simply study what virtue is; one must actually do virtuous deeds.

He finds happiness "by ascertaining the specific function of man, a human's function is to do what makes it human, to be good at what sets it apart from everything else: the ability to reason or Nous. A person that does this is the happiest because they are fulfilling their purpose or nature as found in the rational soul.)

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence”

“You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.”

“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion and desire.”

“Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient”

“No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.”

“Hope is a waking dream.”

“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”

“Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy.”

Today is St.Nicholas day. Still thinking of you grandfather.


<- Nikolaos Markou Chrisula Kostala-Markou ->

So, I love to travel, I've already stated that in a previous post, my dream is to see the world, learn some new things:)

However, I think that today I will write about my own country, Greece. There are many things I don't really appreciate about my country, but they all have to do with politics and economics and ...you know that sort of thing.

But today, this post is about what I love about Greece.

Where do I start?

Athens, the city I live in is the capital city of Greece.And the thousands of years of civilization have definitely left their marks. We actually live in the footprints of Aristotle and Plato and Socrates and Pericles and Hippocrates and Fidias and..so many others. We have the privilege of calling our land the birthplace of democracy.

We wake up in the morning and we're a glimpse away from the Acropolis, the sacred stone of Athens. Every summer we have the Athens Festival in the Ancient Theater of Herod Atticus and also in Epidauros. The place where the Greek tragedies by Aishilos, Sophoclis and Euripidis were performed.

Greece has been my home for 28 years, and even though things have definitely changed in the past there is still the famous Greek spirit, the spirit that makes us love to laugh and cry until our hearts burst, the spirit that makes us start singing all together just because.......the spirit that makes us fight (even at the last minute) for a cause that unites us, the spirit that makes us a bit lazy when it comes to the boring details but still first in line when it comes to innovation or creativity.

I love sunsets in Santorini, and summers well...all over our endless sandy beaches. I love Lakonia, a place in Peloponnisos, the place where my grandfather was from. I lost my grandfather when I was 17, old enough to remember him very clearly but not old enough to have said everything I now wish I had the chance to say.



My grandparents had a really adventurous and somewhat difficult life. They met and fell in love in Syros, an island where my grandmother lived with her family. She was an aristocrat and my grandfather was not, he was there serving the military. They fell in love but lost each other, my grandfather left. Later they met again in Athens where my grandmother, after a family tragedy had come to work. And upon starting their relationship the war took them apart again.

To make the long story short, they managed to survive 2 wars, be together for all their lives , have a wonderful child , my mother whom I love so very much, create a considerably admirable life and always be a role model in every aspect for me.

There are so many things I would like to tell them now. Grandpa I never got the chance to tell you how much I loved you, how much I appreciatted everything you did for me, how you were always the solid rock that my life was based on, how your quality and your mentality and your morality are for me the essence of who I am. So ......thanx.

Greece is for me my family. Everytime I go back to Lakonia I think I'm ......home. With my family.

Everyplace I go, a part of that sunny place , so tiny in the big world is in my heart and maybe a bit of that sun is in my eyes.

The whole planet is my home, our home, our heritage, that tiny blue dot, and Greece is ...well.......my heart:)

So now that I'm over the first post:-)

This is picture of one of my favourite people:-) My dog dusty, a german shepherd, 3 years old and an absolute darling!


And following 2 of my favorite places in the world...yes I love to travel......Florence and Prague :-)