Watching my life from a distance

 It is very strange to work on an island. It is a serene and beautiful place, yet I have to get up at 8.00, have coffee and breakfast and run to work by 10.15. The moped has saved my life, because it takes me to the next village in 10 minutes. Then work by 2.30 and back home for: swimming, cooking, eating, resting, getiing ready for the night. In 3 hours I have to do all this and maybe skip the swimming part... Every afternoon I feel I have to catch a train that will leave without me... And then I have to be really well dressed and smiling, whatever the circumstances. Work starts again at 19.00 till 1.30 in the morning.

Believe it or not, it's a hectic schedule and you have little time to rest and be yourself.

On the other hand, Sifnos is a funny little place. Every night, the small street I work at, is full of people who are too overdressed, women who wear high heels and are having trouble walking the paved streets! Lots of tv celebrities I do not know because I don''t have a tv... I laugh a lot at this vanity that passes before my eyes... It is so far away from the tomboy I am and I do wonder why people have to behave like this...

Sifnos is a sociological wonder. In the midst of crisis, ladies are buying expencive clothes and gentelmen drive expensive cars. For the past years Sifnos has been a wedding island because of all these little churces by the sea... And a wedding in Greece is still a big, expensive thing to do!

I am thinking that I am here to experience the abundance of the sea and sun, to get out of the "crisis mentality" that some are trying to pass.

Sometimes I compare my summer in Skyros last year and I realise how happy I was, mucking the horse fields. The horses did not judje me from my clothes, they judged me from my soul. In fact they did not judge me at all. I was so happy hugging them and looking at them and I had so much to write about them... Same with the olive harvest in Italy... Now, I don't have anything meaningful to write...

I promise myself I will work hard here in Sifnos. I promise I will take the money and keep travelling in places that speak to my soul. I promise I will enjoy this strange and unfamiliar environment.

Have a nice day!