Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Samos, greek and green

Here is a version of my presentation "Samos 2007, greek and green",
thanks to the video platform "veoh" in relatively good online quality (Mike gave me the advice to try this one!)
The 87 fotos used for this presentation I took during several stays on the island in the years 2004 to 2006.
Music is played "live" by a good friend of mine, the bouzouki player and singer Yannis Loulourgas from Pithagorio. I met Yannis in his shop in Pithagorio, then a musical instruments workshop solely, on the second day of my very first visit to Samos way back in 1999.
The music you hear comes from a performance of him together with some of his friends and music collegues from the island at the ancient theatre of Pithagorio, I think this was 3 years ago.

If you want to see the full size (540x438 pixel), please go to:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1337966RTsBdwMa


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Monday, October 22, 2007

Leaving on a jet plane / cheese or chicken

Everything comes to an end, so did my stay on Samos for this year.
This summer I really missed the typical blue aegean sky most of the time during my stay on Samos, only on a few days we had it. Most of the time it was hot and hazy with south or east winds. Beginning of September was nice, I already reported on this. But that didn't last for very long.
The last morning in Pithagorio on Samos, a beautiful morning! After a cool weekend in mid October with several rain showers finally the sky was clear again. Perfect for shooting landscape photos. And I had to leave Samos!


Almost 11 o'clock on monday morning, here I stand on the platform looking back on Samos before entering the door of the aircraft.




German reality had me within half an hour when I realized, that the service on the LTU flight back to Frankfurt had been "right-sized" to Air Berlin standards as it seems (LTU belongs to Air Berlin now).
A quick change back to "Guten Appetit" after a long time of "Kali Orexi" on Samos. The announcement "After we have reached our cruising altitude, we will serve you a sandwich. You have the choice between cheese or chicken" came almost as a shock. In comparison to last years flights with LTU, what a mediocre breakfast!
I ordered the cheese variation of this sandwich and - according to the label on the box - this is what I got: "Sandwich Landbrot Gouda".


Faced with such a splendid meal I couldn't resist and took a photo of that well contained and quality asured small piece of bread with cheese before I ingested it with the help of tea and orange juice.


I tried to talk about this with a highly sun-tanned elderly woman sitting next to me. She replied dry and cool: "for me such a sandwich is enough! If you have the impression that the quality of service has gone down over the years when flying to Samos, why don't you try a different island next time! Hmmm....

For the next 7 or 8 month, I hope that Mike will put some photos of Samos during fall, winter and early spring on this blog from time to time.