Yoharro~!

Stay a while and listen ... to my journey through life:

--- 2024/03/01 - Almada, Portugal ---

A very late entry! But quite a lot has happened. I changed my job and I'm currently in training for the new job. As part of the new job I also had to move to Portugal, which has been quite a positive change. The environment is quite a bit cleaner. The air is better and the people that I've interacted with have been very friendly, but to be fair most of them have been store employees. I've been here for about a week and I've already bought like five bras and a few new notebooks. Before coming to Portugal I also spent quite a bit of money, I bought four more bras and around 20 different pens, also some notebooks and two very cute pencil cases, they look like cats and pencil cases are designed in such a way that they stand vertically so that you can easly take out the pens quite easily. 

But I have re-entered saving mode, as I like to call it. Especially since I haven't even actually started with the new job! 

I did want to write more and I have already "written" in my mind what I wanted to write, but then I never actually got around to sit down at the computer and write. 

Anyways, I'm currently staying in an apartment that the company offers at a below market rate rent, which I'm sharing with two others, they're quite nice people, a bit messy for my liking, but I think we're improving that. :P

Another thing I've noticed is that here, where I'm currently living, are a lot of beauty salons! I've already had a pleasure of trying one out, as I had my nails done, nothing special just a manicure and nail polish, but it looks really nice. I chose an almost transparent pastel pink colour which with a base, looks two tone, very beautiful. 

I do live about an hour away for my office with public transport, which is why I've already asked if they have an apartment that's closer, but this is always a gamble, because my current apartment is actually in a really nice location, everything is within walking distance while still being relatively peaceful. There's a fitness right next to the aparment, next to that there's a chinese store and across the street there's a supermarket, a bit futher a library, a Doner Kebab place (I've really missed this, because I was unable to find any in Greece) and then another beauty salon. 

In my previous job, I worked as a customer support agent, the one that I'm going to start the training soon is content review, which is quite a bit different and unlike the previous job, this one will actually have work to be done. Because at the previous job, there was basically no work, because the language market that I was covering only has around 2 million people, and there was like seven or eight of us, meaning there were very few calls, chats or even emails. 

I'm really excited about Portugal. The language does seem, to me, a bit more difficult than Greek, but I'm sure that if I stick with it, that I'll be able to get a grasp of it. 

During the process of moving here, I also met a girl (who's also getting hired by the same company) who grew up in Ireland but then at age 10 moved to France, where she later opened her own beauty salon, which she said was quite profitable and allowed her to live a life free of financial worry, the only reason she moved to Portugal was because she didn't really like the country/people there, thus her plan is to work here for a year and then if she'll still like the country, she'll open a beauty salon here. 

Hearing her story and feeling her p***ion, really made me want to learn more about manicure and such. I did study, for about a year, make-up artistry, but I haven't really practiced much and it is a bit different doing make-up on yourself then when doing it on others. 

Thank you everyone for the votes, even when it seemed like I'm not here! 

I hope you had a nice week and I hope the two days that are left will be even better! 

--- 2023/10/29 - Athens, Greece ---

Somewhat of a late entry into the diary, not because I would forget about it, but because I'm lazy, to be honest, I should be doing something else right now... Anyways!

A lot has happened since September, most notably I had my vacation, on which I also went to my cousin’s wedding, which was very nice, but for me personally a bit too many people. But the bride and the groom seemed to have fun which is the most important! (Even if the music was so loud that it hurt my ears to the point that I had to go outside, but it was still nice, because soon after my father would come out and we would go for a walk and look at the stars. The after-wedding party was in a hotel on a hill so you also had a nice view of the city!). A slightly funny thing, we went to the bride’s place in the morning where they already had food for us, which meant that I ate all the fried chicken that I could and would probably eat more if we didn’t have to go to the church. But because I ate so much, it meant that I couldn’t eat anything at the feast after the wedding at the church nor at the feast at the hotel. Which did indeed feel a bit strange, I guess I shouldn’t have eaten all that chicken, but it was right there, you know… and it was really nice, they cut the meat into stripes and then fried it that way, which meant that you could very easily eat it with your hands, you didn’t even need any cutlery. 

A week before the wedding we went to a concert which I was hoping to avoid by being in Greece, but I guess I didn’t manage to. But as if the Gods are on my side, it turned out that the whole concert was on Playback, meaning no one was actually playing, which made me feel very smug. But to be fair I was actually hoping that it would at least be a real orchestra and that they would be playing for real, that way I could at least enjoy it. After the concert we talked with one of the violinists that were a part of the show and they said that it is a bit embarr***ing being an actual professional musician but having to pretend to play. This was Richard Clayderman’s concert. He plays a piano, so besides the money incentive, there isn’t really much point in not playing for real. He doesn’t jump around the stage or anything like that, which would be harder to do once people get older. He just has to sit there and play the piano, but I guess even that’s too much for him. Oh well, it is what it is.

A quick jump back to the beginning of my vacation. Somehow we managed to time my flight and my brother’s flight so well that when I arrived, me and my parents only had to wait an hour for my brother and his wife to arrive, after which my father drove us all home. While this wasn’t the first time, I’ve met my brother’s wife, it was the first time since they got married and this time we had a bit more time to actually hang out. 

Honestly the whole vacation p***ed by so quickly that it didn’t even feel like I had any vacation at all. 

Before the vacation, at work we also had A LOT of work, because the NFL season started, which meant that pretty much everyone had to also work on the US market, which was quite brutal. I was basically constantly on the phone and as soon as it ended I received another one with customers waiting for two hours or even more. But luckily all that is over now and I’m working only on the Slovenian line again, which is a lot more peaceful!

October honestly just feels like a blur. As a bonus for doing extra work at the office I received some monopoly money that can be used only at coffee shops and at a pizza place. Which basically meant that I ate pizza every day for about a week, which while delicious, probably wasn’t very good for me, but hey, free food is free, and that’s a fact! I’m back to a non-pizza diet now. Although the day before yesterday I gave into my desires and bought some potato crisps/chips… I think this must be one of the things that I regret most often, because the idea of eating potato crisps/chips is always so delicious, but once I actually eat them, it’s not that good and my tongue starts to hurt, and it’s like I never learn. Even while writing I’m thinking of going to the store and getting some, maybe they’re just that addictive or something. I have to be strong! Defeat the demons that want to trick me into walking 3 minutes to the nearby store and buying the potato crisps/chips that they have right at the entrance… Stay strong!

This week we had to work from home, because apparently somewhere at the office they found some bug infestation and they’re going to gas the whole office. From what I’ve heard the bugs are supposed to be on the floor above us, which is a slight relief for me, but honestly, I still stressed a bit about it. Because from what I’ve heard, once you get these bugs, it’s extremely difficult to get rid of them. Working from home has been quite different. I just really hoped that I wouldn't get any calls, because the neighbours are still as loud as they were before, maybe even louder. I honestly don’t get it. If you live with someone who yells at you or causes you to yell at them pretty much every day and multiple times per day, why don’t you move out to your friends or family or just somewhere where you would get peace. Back at my home, we had some disagreements, but it pretty much never escalated to yelling. I like to think that we were all quite reasonable and managed to resolve most issues just by talking. I do like the freedom that I have while working from home though, I could eat and drink right where I worked, I could also be on my phone and waste time that way, of course, this is against the company policy, but the point of the policy is that you must share and personally identifiable information, or in other words, don’t be a dummy and whatever you do, don’t take photos of the work computer and whatever is on the work computer. Let work stay at work. Which is quite a nice thing actually, I know that I always wished to be able to leave work at work at pretty much all of my previous jobs. 

Tomorrow we’re still working from home as for the day after, I don’t know and neither does my supervisor, so I guess we’re going to find out tomorrow if we’re returning back to the office the day after. I personally wouldn’t mind working from home, the only negative that I’ve found thus far (excluding the noise and call thingy) is that I might run out of the water that I take from the office, but that’s not really that big of a deal, because I’m sure I could find a solution which wouldn’t include drinking the tap water. And in the worst case scenario, if I had to drink the tap water, I’ve read that if you leave the water to stand a bit, most of the harmful stuff should drop to the bottom of the water, so I could make the water better this way, I could (which I already do from time to time) add some salt to the water. Not only for electrolytes, but I’ve also read somewhere on the internet (always a reliable source, hehe) that it could slightly disinfect the water. 

Anyways, can you believe that it’s only two months until the end of the year?! It’s almost November, but Athens are still warm enough were you can just walk around with a just a plain shirt, but towards the evening it can get a bit chilly, so it’s good to have a jumper or something to cover the shoulders, although even if you do forget it’s really not that bad. 

I don’t really have any plans for Christmas or for the New Year, I’ll probably be working, because my company doesn’t know holidays, hehe. I did have a few days left from my vacation, and since my company will probably change which company issues my contract I have to use all of my vacation. Thus I’ve had two options, either be at home for a whole week, or make it so that entire December, I’ll be working a four day work week, which actually sounds kind of fun, which is why I requested to use my vacation days that way.  

I hope you’ve had fun during these two past months, for many either school started or their vacation, so I’m sure it p***ed by just as quickly as it did for me!

See you around! ^^

--- 2023/09/07 - Athens, Greece ---

Guess what! I've moved into a new apartment! Now it's not a complete upgrade from my previous apartment, some things are better some are worse.

For starters, it's a lot bigger which is good, I could actually excercise now and it even has daylight from the balcony door which isn't facing the traffic. You can of course still hear the traffic especially the motorcycles, but the bigger noise problem are the neighbours who seems to argue with each other, very loudly, every day. Oh well, it is what it is. Maybe I'll get one of those noise cancelling headphones or something, or maybe I'll just get used to it. The other good thing is that the internet is a lot faster, so I can actually watch YouTube without stuttering now, but it stops working for no reason at all many many times per day. 

The apartment is visually in a worse condition then the previous one, but that's only because the previous one was almost newly renovated. There were also a few other issues, but the landlord has fixed them all very quickly already, although some of the fixes are a bit... hodgepodge, I think that's the correct word, the issue is fixed, but it could be MUCH better. But hey as long as the landlord is happy, I'm happy. The issues were, the button on the toilet wasn't working properly (which he fixed by dismantling the button, rotating it and putting it back in... it does work now, but now I've only got one button., the shower cabin was leaking (which he fixed with a sealent, but didn't apply enough of it, so I'm expecting small leaks in the corners, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem),  one of the wall sockets was also poking out, which he screwed back into place without an issue. Oh and the tower hanger in the bathroom had one screw loose which he also fixed.

He told me that the whole building was once a bakery that his family owned, but because the family got into debt and the business failed, they had to close, now it's a building filled with apartments and both he and his wife have to keep working to be able to pay off the debt. I'm guessing the building has like four to six apartments. I'm paying 395€ in rent for the apartment + water + internet + communal thingy, so the only thing that I'll have to pay extra is the electricity, which also includes 10€ fixed for eletrical company something something, I didn't quite understand what he meant by it, I'm guessing he meant the electricity fee that's used to maintain the grid and such, but I don't think it should be that high, at least in Slovenia it wasn't that high. All that together, my rent should be around 405€ + what I use in electricity. 

I had to do three trips back and forth from the old apartment to the new to bring everything over and while doing that I moved all of my bras into the carry-on luggage and it somehow fit! That's around 40 bras (and most of them are padded or pushup)! After moving my shoulders hurt for two days!

In about two weeks I'll be flying back home to Slovenia for my cousin's wedding! Exciting, I'm not sure what I should bring back home, if anything and what I should take back. I'll probably take my Crocs to Greece, because right now I'm using flats (ballerinas?) as my in-door footwear but the bottom part has started to fall apart so they probably won't last too long.

Oh, also the new apartment has two beds one is the two person one and the other is a single person one which I've shoved into a corner since I don't need it. And only half of the two perosn bed is usable because the other half is extremely loud and you can feel every spring, the "good" half is slightly better, you can still feel the springs but it seems that it doesn't impact my sleep too much. 

Did I mentioned that the prevous tennent was my coworker, she had two cats in here... Guess what, there's cat fur everywhere ^^, but I'm sure that if I just keep cleaning regularly it'll disappear. 

Speaking of coworker she bought a laundry machine which, when she was moving out, sold to me for 100€ (including the drying rack) so now I've got my own laundry machine! The landlord did charge my coworker additional 10€ for the extra water that it would use. But I managed to make a deal with the landlord, where I give him the machine but he doesn't charge me the extra 10€ per month, to which he agreeed, but he said that if the water costs will be too high, he'll have to reconsider.

I bought a new small black fake leather backpack that I use now instead of my handback, it can carry slightly more and makes it so that my hands are free when walking, also I just wanted a small backpack :P and it only cost 10€... so yeah... I'm not expecting much from it. But I did buy it from the local store, so there's that.

Near the new apartment there's a lingerie store which I'm doing my best to resist going to. And! There are two pizza shops, both of which have already taken over my mind, but luckily one of them has kind of bad pizzas, probably because they're basically machine made, where as the other one... Mmm! The other one uses a real brick oven to make the pizzas and the person making them will make the pizza right in-fornt of you! It is slightly more expensive (the cheepest pizza I found at the first pizza shop is 5€, the cheapest pizza at the second pizza shop is 5.4€) but it's SO worth it, it's just so delicious! Now my favourite pizza is still 'Bela Dama' which basically means 'Belladonna' aka. beautiful lady. It's a pizza with sour cream, green pepper, mushrooms, ham, tomattoe sauce, cheese and egg. It's so delicious! When I'll be back home in Slovenia, I'll have to get it again. Because here in the better pizza shop, they don't have sour cream (I did think about brinking my own...) so they couldn't make the pizza, but I'll think of something, I mean I can always just order the same pizza but without the sour cream and put it on myself at the end.

Anything else I forgot to mention? The contract to get the new apartment and the whole process was VERY expensive, the deposit was 380€, the first rent was 395€ and then the agency fee was 320€ (they lowered it for me, because I paid the physical money, that's what I'm calling it :P). I also had some other fees that I had to pay, so overall my net profits for the month of August were around -2000€... When I first was that in the bookkeeping program that I'm using (GnuCash) I thought that I must have made an error entering in all the data, and when I double checked I did indeed made an error, I put the airplane ticket to Slovenia and back under Sub ions instead of Public Transport... But that didn't change the fact that I'm down 2000€!! That's basically all the money I made since moving here... Investing will slow down a bit, because I'm planning on building an emergency fund, which I should have alerady done...

Luckily after the wedding, I'll have a year to save more money... which I'll then use to buy an even more expensive ticket to get to my brother's wedding. Hopefully no one else is getting married any time soon :D, just kidding :P.

Hope you had a great month! Lets look optimistically towards a brighter future!

--- 2023/08/24 - Athens, Greece ---

Yoharro! Just a very quick update,my brother is officially married! On the 21.08.2023 he and his now-wife signed all the required do***ents so that they're now officially, in the eyes of the law, married! Woo! The celebration with the whole family will still be next year on Costa Rica! So excitiing!

--- 2023/08/15 - Athens, Greece ---

(I just realised that I bought the recent special deal twice...)

Hello again! It’s been more than a month, almost as if every time I write more time p***es! Is it a trend or just a coincidence? 

Anyways, although my day to day life is quite monotonous and not very changing except when the work schedule changes and I work in the evening instead of in the morning. Some things have happened. I’ve finally got my vacation approved following which I bought the plane ticket, at first I was missing a few cents and as such couldn’t buy the ticket, then the price raised by about 30€, but because I’ve heard quite often that just by looking at the plane ticket prices they can increase, I decided to wait a few days and what a surprise! At first I was planning to buy the ticket for about 230€ but then I got an email from Google that the price is now around 175€, which I, of course went and immediately bought… Well not immediately, because with that ticket I can only have the carry-on but no personal items (handbag or backpack), but to upgrade the ticket to be able to have those I would have to pay about 60€ additionally. So in the end I decided to stay with the 175€ ticket and just hope for the best, worst case scenario I’ll just have to put my handbag into the carry-on…

Yesterday I also went to see the other apartment that I’m hoping I can move in, although because my neighbour has moved out my current apartment has gotten a bit more quiet, it can still be quite loud because you can hear every car and every person that’s talking outside of the apartment. But what currently bothers me the most is that when a different neighbour smokes the smell gets into my apartment which makes it quite difficult to breathe. But there’s nothing that I can do about that, because even if I close my window the smell still gets in, I’m guessing through the wall. 

The apartment I went to see yesterday doesn’t have any of these issues. It does look a bit older and some of the tiles on the floor are broken. But it’s a lot bigger than my current apartment, a lot more silent and as a bonus it’s even closer to the office. It could also help me reduce the monthly spending, because I won’t have a store so close to me. There are some stores near the new apartment, but I don’t think they accept Diners Club card, which is my preferred method of payment. Basically if I can’t pay with it, I’m looking for alternatives. I have also been thinking, that if I manage to move into the next apartment before I have to pay the rent for my current apartment, it might be better to not pay the rent, since if I pay the rent I get the deposit back, but they’ll take the money from the deposit to pay for the cleaning of the apartment, regardless of how much I clean it myself. Thus I’m actually left with more money, if I just don’t pay the rent and let the agent keep the deposit. The difference is about 50€, I think, so we’ll see, I’m not setting anything into the stone, but I do have options.

A surprising thingy happened! We got a monetary bonus for the summer vacation. If I remember correctly it was around 200€, but I’m not certain as I’m writing this at work and thus can’t check… But any additional coin helps! I was supposed to get a bonus for the work that I’ve done in June, but nothing has come my way, so I think that the company must have decided not to give me one, even though I’ve done more than enough work to earn a bonus. This is a bit sad, because it basically tells me that no matter how hard I work my bonus isn’t guaranteed, and this is quite demotivating…

Back to the positive! Somehow, the stars have aligned and both me and my brother will be arriving via plane in Slovenia on the same day and about an hour or two apart. Which means that we can both go home with our father, who said that he’ll come pick us up! Two birds with one stone as they say! We’re both returning to Slovenia for our cousin’s wedding, although my brother will stay a week or two longer in Slovenia as he is coming here with his fiancee. 

I am excited for the weddings, but I think I don’t quite like the whole flying process, it’s just so much work to get from A to B. Trains are so much simpler, you buy a ticket, you get on, get off and you’re there. You don’t have to worry about what you can take with you, if it’s too heavy or anything like that. But planes are much faster, so it is what it is.

On an unrelated note, I’ve moved my meal from morning to evening, because I’ve noticed that I’m not actually that hungry in the morning, but towards the evening I do get quite a bit hungry, thus being able to actually eat something in the evening should help with that. Although the problem where I’m hungry and not thinking straight does still persist, where I’ll wander into a store and buy a sandwich or something less healthy to silence the hunger. It’s not even that I’m that hungry, it’s just that I get an idea into my mind how nice it would be to eat some meat or eat some crisps and then suddenly I’m in a store wasting money. I’m still working on fixing this issue and I guess becoming more mentally strong, which was never my strong suit. I quite often even have difficulty telling what’s real and what’s a dream, which has led to me losing access to my computer, because I thought I changed the p***word, but in reality I didn’t, luckily at the time my brother knew my p***word and unlocked the computer for me. Speaking of computers, it seems that while I was working my personal Chromebook somehow fell and now the display has two very strong glows at the bottom of the display making it quite distracting when watching any dim or visually dark content. But luckily the computer still works as it should, so at least I didn’t lose a computer. My brother did say that if I want, I can have his laptop since he’s not using it. The laptop is about 10 years old or more, but we’ll see what can be done. Since my computer does still work. It is also tempting to buy a new laptop which would be strong enough where I could more than just browse the internet. But because I’m trying to save as much as I can, that’s only a thought or a dream.

At work, I’ve also started working for the USA market which is quite stressful and scary, especially because English isn’t my first language and some people can be quite scary. But I don’t really have much choice. I either also work on the USA market alongside the other two that were already signed to me, or I don’t have a job. The superior basically said that if I don’t also work on the USA market, he’ll make it so that it’ll be as if I’ve resigned so that I won’t get a severance package, which I would get if the company fired me, both of which are quite extreme.

To end on a positive note, I think the heat has reached its zenith (highest point, I think), so from now forwards it shouldn’t be so how any more, and I might not need to have the AC turned on as much, I’ve already been turning it off when I sleep, so we’re slowly getting there! Also in the new apartment, once I move in, I might start showering with hot water again, because the electricity is billed there a bit differently. You’re actually billed for the amount that you use and not some complex system that I currently have where the first 50kW are included in the rent the next 50kW are 0.42€ per kW and everything after that is 0.72€ per kW, first one being almost four times the average electricity cost here and the second one almost seven times… It's just very expensive. 

I’m excited to finally have a vacation and to be surrounded by nature, silence and clean air! It is still more than two months away though. 

I hope you had a great month and let’s hope that the following month is going to be even better!

--- 2023/07/04 - Athens, Greece ---

Another month is behind us. I wouldn’t say it was very eventful, but some stuff did happen!

First of all, my cousin is getting married at the end of September! Woo! But also, I hope there won’t be too many weddings, it’s kind of expensive to fly to them, but at least this one is close, much closer then where my brother will be having his wedding. Cousin’s wedding is going to be in Slovenia, which should cost me around 300€ for the airplane ticket, which is much less than how much I’ll have to pay to get to my brother’s wedding in Costa Rica. I’m not even the one getting married, but I’m already getting nervous, which just reminded me that I’ll have to get something to wear for the wedding… Meh, there’s still time for that! 😛

More good news! I’ve found an apartment which could cost me less, but is bigger, has daylight and could potentially even be more silent. I still have to see the apartment with my own eyes, of course, but thus far it’s looking good. Currently my co-worker is living in it, but she’s moving in with her boyfriend so, she’s planning on leaving the apartment by the end of August or at the start of September, which does also fit nicely with when my contract for my current apartment expires, after which I would also get my deposit back! I really hope it’ll go as smoothly as it can. Although when I first set a date with the agency to see the apartment, they were late, because of which I did start to panic a bit, because I wasn’t sure if I was at the right address and location and because I don’t have mobile data nor an active phone number, so there was nothing that I could do except hope that I’m at the right address and that they’ll come, which they did, luckily, but then it turned out that they wanted to show me the wrong apartment… So we didn’t really make much progress there and when I was leaving I fell down the stairs… But I still hope that I’ll be able to get the apartment that I’m actually looking for and that the agency won’t just give it to someone else. What I care most about the apartment is, how quiet it is, how easily I can air the apartment, what does the bathroom look like and what’s the stove like, because I do actually cook rice every day.

As both an experiment and a cost saving measure, I’ve started to shower with cold water, which is, and this is a fact, cold! I couldn’t even believe how cold the cold water can feel, but I think that now after a few weeks I’m starting to get used to it, or at least I don’t take as long to turn on the water, because before I would literally just stand there and contemplating if I should turn on the water or not and how cold will it be.

I’ve also stopped drinking the juice that’s made from multiple different fruits with added vitamins, because it felt like it was making my stomach upset and a quick web search does show that it’s possible that too much fructose (fruit sugar) can upset your stomach. I’ve also semi-stopped (I’m still in the process of stopping, I’ve got about 1.5kg (3 pounds, I guess) left of oatmeal to eat, but it seems that it doesn’t spoil quickly so I can take my time with that. 

Thus my current daily diet (if all goes as I plan) is 100g of rice with a can of fish in olive oil.

I decreased my intake, because I’d like to lose some fat before the wedding, ideally before my cousin’s wedding, but at least by the time of my brother’s wedding, which should be next year at the start of September, I should really be in a better body, as they say. 

I know that it might seem like it’s very little, but do keep in mind that I’m quite short 158 cm (about 5 feet 2), I’m not very active, my job is sitting at the computer, and in my free time, I’m either reading while laying on the bed, or doing stuff on the computer while sitting, although, I do sometimes watch videos while laying in the bed! But I do, each morning, do squats, push ups or lifting my legs until the muscles that those exercises affect start to ache. Then I do some stretches, which includes the slips, because when I was younger I was able to do a full split and I’ve decided that I’d like to be able to do that again, and it’s going quite well actually, I’ve been surprised how quickly I’m getting my flexibility back at least in regards to the splits.

I’ve also learned that unlike in my home country, here in Greece the income tax isn’t automatically taken from my salary and it’s something that I have to report to the government and then pay the tax, which I don’t like, I prefer if it’s taken from me before my salary comes into my pocket, that way it doesn’t feel that bad, because I don’t really think about it, but now that I have to pay it myself, it’s quite annoying, and from what I understand I’ll even have to pay an accountant to do it for me, because from what I’ve been told, you’re not allowed to do it yourself, because you need a licence or something… Which just means more money lost…

Let’s talk about the weather! I come from… well basically a forest, which means that while we did have hot summers, it never felt too bad, as long as you stayed in the shadows. Now the weather report says that on Friday it’s going to be 36°C (96.8°F), which just thinking about it makes my skin melt, but I’m sure it’s not going to be that bad, I think I’m starting to get used to much hotter environment, because if I turn on the A/C and set it to 21°C it’s VERY cold! And I’ve also bought some summer clothes and sandals, so it really shouldn’t be that bad. I have been thinking from time to time, if maybe I should buy an umbrella to protect myself from the sun, but I’m not sure how much it would actually help, since the concrete all around me gets hot and having an umbrella would be just another thing to worry about, as I could lose or forget it somewhere.

I got another 0.28€ from Amazon, which is quite surprising, but also kind of motivating, because if I actually wrote something worth reading, perhaps, the income from Amazon publishing could actually be noticeable in my day to day life! Even 0.28€ is noticeable, since 100g of rice that I eat per day costs me around 0.16€. 

I managed to finish more than 100 cases last month, which should mean that I could get a bonus, maybe, it all depends on how many things I did wrong and how many I did right, but we’ll see, I really do hope that I get at least something, because if I could increase my income by even just a little it could really help me get closer to my goal.

Anyways, I hope you had a good month and I hope the next month will be even better!

Have a great day~ ^^

--- 2023/06/04 - Athens, Greece ---
It’s been more than a month since my last entry. So you would think that a lot must have happened, but actually it hasn’t, which is actually according to my plan. Because to reach my goal I have to work for about 10 years, so I was planning to make every day similar to the last one so that by the end it would all merge into one day and in 10 years it would feel like it was just yesterday that I started working.

That being said, a few notable things did happen, I guess :P. For the May rent when the agent was calculating she just rounded all the numbers up and did not even say anything to me, just expecting me to pay more than I actually should, which I feel many of the other tenants here do. Now, you might say that I’m complicating for nothing, but I feel that being exact and correct is important and if you’re going to round something you don’t round it for your benefit but for the benefit of the other. The agent overcharged me for 0.23€. I know that many, if not most, would consider this nitpicking and not even worth talking about, but it’s my money, the money I worked for and if someone tells me something costs 10€ I expect to pay 10€ nothing more and nothing less. I think it’s a matter of principles. Regardless, we resolved the issue and now the agent is billing me correctly. What was also kind of odd, was that the agent didn’t want to give me the receipt.. I had to really persuade them. This and the overcharge just scream tax evasion to me. But that’s not my business so I’ll leave it as is, I pay my bills on time and usually before time.

On positive news, my brother (the one that’s getting married) said that he’s going to visit the parents in September and after that, that he might even come to Greece and visit me! Which does make me happy, I do just hope that the timing will work out and I’ll actually be able to spend a day or two with him. Hmm… Maybe I could take a vacation, but I’ll need the brother to first confirm the dates, if he’s actually going to be able to make it to Greece. 

On a more surprising note, I got 0.27€ from Amazon for the stuff that I have published on Amazon via the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Don’t worry, it’s nothing of quality or worth reading. But I do wish to write more. I am slowly writing and I do have an option to accelerate that - that option being, me actually writing at work. Because as long as I’m available for the customers, it doesn’t really matter what I’m doing on the computer and thus far I’ve been either playing internet games and watching movies, shows and cartoons. I’m currently binge watching romance-drama cartoons. I don’t know if it’s because it really plays on your emotions or something else, but they really pull me in. But yeah, instead of watching cartoons I could spend that time on writing at least a bit of it. Which I’ll probably do, I’ve already managed to move some time into learning the Japanese language, because I would really love to go and travel around Japan one day after I’ve reached my goal. The main holdback that I have, is that I know that I’ll have to write quite many books before I’ll actually write something that’s actually worth reading and not just extremely poor quality. Not a big deal, but I am writing in English, which isn’t my native language, but I do find it easier to express my thoughts in English, as I personally find it less complex then my language (Slovene), but that could just be due to me not knowing all the rules of the English language. An interesting (at least to me) thing that I’ve found is that, when I’m writing something that the character is saying, I do actually have to use language that that character would use, even though I personally would never use or say those words, a big example being swearing. I don’t swear, pretty much ever, maybe if I really hurt myself, but even then I don’t swear. Mostly just because I find those words too aggressive, but if I want to really make characters that feel real, I’ll have to write those words, if the character uses them. You probably think this is silly, but I do believe that words have power and how you use them does actually matter. 

Speaking of words and their power, I do actually want what I’m writing here to have at least some value, so let me tell you a bit of what I’ve found about words. First there’s a frequency, meaning how often you use a certain word, the more often you use it, the less powerful it is. Which is why when someone tells you for the first time that they love you, it really touches your heart, but if they were to keep saying it every day or even multiple times per day, it would start to feel much less impactful and less meaningful. Now this is just how I see words and how I experience them, for you it could be different, for you hearing “I love you” for a hundred-th time, might still feel equally impactful as it did the first time. That being said, when you say them and under which conditions does also matter and does change the impact that frequency has. Example: Pretty much whenever father would take me for lunch or would drive me home, I would thank him. 

But I think this reflects the other thing - principles - meaning rules or behaviour that you value and believe is right and that everyone should do - something that expresses more than what the words themselves actually mean. A quote from many stories: “I’m not just saying that! …”, had my father not taken me for lunch, I would either have to buy food myself or spend an hour or half to go home and then even more time to cook something. His actions had a real impact on my life and what I did afterwards - future. Same goes for when he drove me home, although here’s also the fact that I just enjoy driving around with him, even if we’re both just silent. I never minded waiting an hour or two, to be able to go home with him. 

And the third thing is complexity of the words, basically using big words. While people may use them to show superiority, those words are usually empty, especially because the listener doesn’t understand them, they’ll probably think for a few seconds, “This person knows some big words, I bet they think they’re smart”, but then they would just forget about them. If you really want to have an impact on someone you need to use the language that has the highest probability - chance that the other person will understand. I know that even in these writings, I’m using big words from time to time, but that’s mostly because I don’t actually expect anyone, besides me, to read them. Which is why, I use the words that create the most clear of an image in my mind. 

There are, of course, many more things that affect the power that the words have, like repetition, rhyme and many more that I probably haven’t even thought about, but I don’t think this is something that you should be actively thinking about, just something that you might want to keep in the back of your mind and bring it forwards when you’re thinking of talking about something that’s really important to you, or when you’ll be giving speeches. Or, of course, when you’re writing. 

Financial news, I have a bit less than 1000€ invested in various stocks and they’ve finally reached out from the negative values up to the positives, so if I were to sell, I would actually make some profit (about 30€), but it didn’t personally bother me when they were negative, because I do mostly focus on dividend stocks, meaning those companies that share some of their profits with the shareholders, which meant that if the stocks were in the negative for me and they paid out a dividend which I then used to buy the more stocks, I actually bought them at a discount, at least compared to when I initially bought them. But seeing them in positive numbers is, of course, also nice. 

Regarding work, just yesterday I had my second actual customer and this time, and it went quite better, although I still made many mistakes, like answering the phone as I would answer on my personal phone, meaning with me saying my whole name and family name, instead of just saying my name and not saying my family name, luckily I did remember to mention the company name, so that the customer didn’t think that they got the wrong number, I do hope that I won’t get negative points for incorrectly answering the phone. But all that aside, at least I didn’t start sweating and panicking when I answered the call, so I’d say that’s an improvement! Next time, I’ll try to wait a few seconds before answering and taking a couple of deep breaths.

And finally, my current diet! I’m currently eating one meal a day (or at least trying). I eat in the morning, because that’s the only way I could eat at the same time every day regardless of when I’m working. My current meal is 100g of rice with 200g of water and then one 160g can of fish in soy oil, although I have been thinking of getting cans of fish in olive oil because I think that might be healthier. I put the fish into rice after the rice is cooked. Then I also eat 100g of oatmeal with 250g of milk, which I prepare in the evening and let it rest in the fridge through the night so that it soaks all the milk and is that way much softer and easier to eat. I also drink about 350g of mixed fruit juice with added vitamins, so that I’m maintaining at least some normal levels of health. The apartment that I’m in has an induction stove, which was my first time. At home we only had a normal flame stove and resistive plates - a metal plate that gets hot using electricity. While harder to set the desired strength of heating, the induction stove does have a very cool feature and that is the ability to set a timer after which the stove turns off. Which means that I can cook the rice without having to worry that it’ll go wrong and just spend the time while the rice is cooking on getting ready. After it’s cooked, I do exercise and stretch a bit so I can try and keep my body as functional as possible, then I get dressed and finally breakfast! I said that I try to eat one meal a day, because I do fail from time to time, especially if after work I go to a store… My hungry brain takes over and I just buy bad food. I’m still looking for a healthier solution to avoid evening hunger. Current pricing for the food that I eat are as follow (I pretty much just buy the cheapest variant): 500g of rice for 0.79€, 3.34€ for two 160g cans of fish with soy oil (the two cans of fish with olive oil are around 4€, which is quite a bit more), 500g of oatmeal is 0.96€, 1 litre of milk is 1.09€ and 1 litre of juice is 1.16€. All of that basically means that per day I spend for the single meal that I have around 2.66€ or around 80€ per month (Per year: 2.6558 * 365 = 969.367€). But because sometimes my hungry brain takes over, thus far I have always spent more than that. But I’m sure I’ll find a way to lower the costs. Monthly rent is around 450€, which means that for rent and for food I already spend more than half of my salary… Which is why, it would be really good if I found additional flows of revenue… But all that is much easier to say than to actually do. 

Still, I have hope, and I’m still firmly on track to reach my goal in about 10 years!

Anyways, I hope you had a great month and a good day. Because I do try to vote daily, I do also see my diary on almost daily basis, so even if I’m not writing very often, I am thinking about it. I do aim to write more. 

See ya around ^^

--- 2023/05/02 - Athens, Greece ---
Yesterday was a holiday for most people in many countries, but my company doesn't really do any of the holidays, so we're always working. It is interesting though, because the cleaning personnel did have the day off, which also mean that when someone spilled some coffee right in front of the door to enter the office, no one cleaned it. Although to be fair, if I had spilled I would have cleaned it up myself. But people are different and from the month that I've been here, I've noticed that the mentality of the people, of the society is quite different here in Greece when compared to back home. Here people don't mind just dropping trash on the street or leaving the dogs' fecal matter on the sidewalk for everyone to step in. Such things are unthinkable back home. If you have trash you throw it into the trashbin, if you have a dog you clean-up after your dog. But people here aren't of such mentality.

As you've probably noticed, I haven't written for more then a week, almost two weeks. I'm as_suming that non-writing periods might get even longer, as I am trying to make my days as uneventful and similar to every other day as possible, with the intention of losing the track of time and feel like it was just yesterday that I moved to Greece and now I'm already retiring. Sadly I'm not yet at that point, I've still got a lot of work to do. But my hope is that in about 10 years, I should have enough saved up. I really just need 80 000€ saved up and it's be enough for me. But saying (or writing) words is easy), actually get that much money is much harder! I'm currently at around 4 000€ and in a couple of days I'll have to pay the rent so it'll be a bit less. But in a week or so, I should get my first full salary! Exciting! Oh yeah, they got back to me regarding the employment contract and they said that they will honour the pay that was told to me on pretty much every step, but I will have to talk with my supervisor a month before the contract expires, which is actually now... Since the employment contract was only for two months.

I hope there won't be any further issues and that the extension of the contract won't include a pay cut. Because to me, it is a lot of money, even though for the company it's probably just a rounding error.

In regards to things that I've brought with me, I do feel kind of silly that I brought more then 40 bras but only 10 pairs of socks...

One of the coworkers said that in a few months they'll probably be looking for a new apartment and are thinking of subletting a room, so that the cost would be split. Which sounds very interesting and I already told her to keep me in the loop with her progress. Not having a wardrobe is quite annoying. I'm storing my clothes in the kitchen's cupboards.

Also, the neighbour... the neighbour... I can't believe how loud he is and for how long, when he wakes up and past midnight he's constantly yelling and shouting. I'm guessing he's playing video games, but this is just too much, and whenever I go and knock on his door, he just ignores me. Technically speaking I could call police, since it is against the law to be loud after 23:00, but I really REALLY don't want to, not to mention the question of does the police speak English.

I still want to end this entry on a positive note so... On Monday they told us to no longer work on English cases, which would mean that I would probably have a lot of free time, since there aren't many customers from my country. But on Monday I also started another training, although this one will only last three days, meaning tomorrow is the last day. So the end is near! It's quite an interesting training, but the trainer started the training with: "This isn't in our scope of support, at least for now, and we don't know when it will me". Kind of made my brain turn off. I did still listen and participate of course. If I don't participate in clas_ses I usually just fall asleep. Hehehe~

Hope you've had a lovely day and let's all work hard, we're almost at the weekend!

--- 2023/04/19 - Athens, Greece ---
I've got big news and I've got good news!

Firstly, just few days ago my big brother proposed to his girlfriend and she said yes! Woo~! I'm very excited for the wedding and of course proud of my brother, I have met his fiancee and as far as I can tell she's a good person, I did scare her once. It was very early in the morning and I was in the kitchen sitting on the counter and just looking at sun through the window, but because she thought that she was the first one to wake up, she didn't expect me there, so when she finally noticed me she got a good fright, but it's all good. When I was back home if I woke up early enough, I would often just go and enjoy the morning sunlight and maybe drink a cup of tea or coffee while doing so. There's just something nice and magical about the morning sun, it's not too bright nor too hot, so you can let is shine on you without a problem and the addition of the morning smell of the dew is just so pleasant, anyways, yeah, I'm not worried about her. :P

They don't yet have a date for the wedding, but they are thinking some time next year on Costa Rica! Which is very very far away from me. For my bother it isn't that far away, because he lives on the Grand Cayman island, but yeah... Brother said that the plane ticket is around 1000$, which is A LOT of money! And while I do already have enough money for the plane ticket, I still have to keep saving, which isn't really a problem, since that's my long-term plan anyways!

(I'll talk about my long term plan some other time, but the very short version is, I want to save enough money to be able to have a roof above my head and be able to put food on the table even if I lose my job.)

The other good news is that yesterday was my birthday! Woo woo! I'm yet again a year younger then I was just one year ago! Quite magical how that works! I didn't do anything special, I bought a tube of Pringles potato crisps (not sponsored, lol) and a pack of something that looked like JaffaCakes but didn't have the texture nor the taste anywhere close to JaffaCakes, bad buy, is what I would say. And then I watched the last episode of The Owl House ... I'm so sad that it's over, I wish there were many more adventures to see and stories to hear. It's a really amazing show and if you haven't watched it yet and you like magic, cartoons and silly fun, then I would highly suggest it! Do note that I'm a person who loves Winx Club, so my taste is definitely not similar to the majority, I even liked Fate the Winx Saga, sure the story wasn't in anyways connected to the cartoon, but it was still magical and enjoyable, you just have to watch it as it's own thing, not as a part of the cartoon.

Also my parents video called me, as did my brother, which allowed me to congratulate to him and to the fiancee directly for their engagement. I asked my brother where's his engagement ring. :P

I thought that it could be cool that, like how in Japan they have the Valentine's Day on which the boys give chocolates to the girls that they like and then on the White day the girls give chocolate to the boys if they like them as well. So I thought a similar system could be done for engagements, while the woman would, of course, still have to say yes, because how else would she get the ring, she would then some time later give a ring to the man. I don't know, it seemed like a good idea, but now that I'm thinking about it again, it feels like extra complications for no reason, since the woman already said yes. I guess I just liked the idea of both of them having a ring, marking them both as taken. ^^

On Friday I finished my training and on Monday I started working on the production floor with other agents, I'm not sure if I've mentioned before, but I'm working or going to be working as a customer support agent! Monday was very relax, I had to finish two mock cases and then I was basically free to do whatever I wanted, because I'm working as an agent for the Slovenian market which really doesn't have a lot of people, so there isn't actually much to do, as basically no one calls or sends an email. Yesterday it was the same but I spent most of the time trying to submit the second mock case because the training environment was acting us which made it kind of impossible to do my work/training, but at the end of my shift they told us that from now on and probably for a few weeks, we'll also be taking English mails, as apparently we were getting too many of the for the English team alone to deal with. Which meant that today I started the day with a real case! :O

Then I got a mock case and until the end of the day I managed to finish the mock case and even had a meeting with Quality As_surance team to learn about what I do wrong and what I can improve, but I didn't manage to finish my real case, mostly because there were still to many questions to be answered before I could proceed correctly and not break everything. So I'm hoping I manage to finish the real case tomorrow and then move onto the next ones, as I should be doing many many more per day then what I'm currently doing.

Tomorrow I'm working the evening shift, which means that I'll start at 13:00 and end at 21:00, which would mean that I would be unable to pick up pots that I ordered in Ikea, but somehow, just an hour ago I got a call from Ikea saying that my pots are slightly delayed and that they'll probably have them on Friday, which is amazing because I'm free on Friday! So even if they weren't delayed, I would still probably get them on Friday, I'm already a bit excited to finally be able to cook food, beause until now, I've been mostly just eating cold food like cans of fish and cereal with cold milk, which I think most people (at least in USA, from what I understand) consider normal, but I grew up eating cereal with warm milk, which I really do miss. It feels good to put something warm into the body at least once a day! I think the first thing I'm going to cook is rice! Yeah... I see the ability to cook as a way to save even more money... But hey, at least I'll finally be eating some warm food!

The maintenance person for the apartment came today to fix the bed and while he wasn't completely able to fix the bed, I think he did make it so that I will no longer fall through the bed, which has been happening quite often, not because I'm over weight. I'm probably around 60kg (and 158 cm tall if you were wondering :P ) so I'm probably not even heavy enough to damage the bed, but it turnes out that the wooden planks that hold the mattress up were flipped so that they were curved towards the flood, making it very easy for them to bend and then jump out of the frame. The maintenance person fix this and the bed even feels different, it feels more sturdy so I'm really hoping that this will also improve my sleep, because ever since I've moved out of the hotel (which the company was paying for) my back started to hurt and I kept waking up during sleep. While partial fault is with the neighbour who, I'm guessing, is playing videos games very late into the night and keeps yelling and laughing loudly. Last week he started laughing extremely loudly at 1:30 AM!! And of course it woke me up, especially because the wall between me and he is very thin, today I was even able to hear his phone vibrate as someone was calling him. I am thinking of trying to sleep with ear plugs, but I'm kind of scared of not waking up when the alarm would ring, even though that usually I do wake up before the alarm, but still, I find it hard to sleep if I know that there's a posibility that I might oversleep and miss work...

Anyways, things are looking up and bright! The bed is fixed at least to the point that I care about, the maintenance person is planning to change the metal rods that were holding the bed together sideways but were bent even before I moved into the apartment. I'm getting better and better at my job, so that soon I'll be able to work without As_sistance, at least I hope so. Bother is on the path to getting married and I'm a year younger! :P

I hope you too had a great day and remember Yin-Yang is real, even if it seems like you're in a dark spot, there's always something bright, you just have to find it and focus on it!

You are not alone ^^

--- 2023//04/11 - Athens, Greece ---
Let me take a shower and then I'll catch you up on what's been happening in my life, there's a bit of bad news, a bit more of bed news and a bit of good news.

Okay, I'm done. So... I finally got the keys for the apartment on the 9th of April just in time before I had to leave the hotel room, the man that worked at the reception was even so kind as to make it as if I've signed out of the hotel the next day and that way I was still able to eat breakfast the next day.

About the apartment... My father used the words prison and cell, and in a way it kinda is. The only window that it has is facing the hallway which means that I don't get any sun light into my apartment, so when I close the door and if I don't turn on the lights in the middle of the day, it's pitch black in the room. The apartment feels slightly bigger then the apartment that she showed me originally, but furniture is oriented differently and the room is different shape. One of the notable things is that it doesn't have a wardrobe so for now I still have most of my clothing in my luggage under the bed. Secondly the apartment is incredibly tiny, the shower is so tiny that it's impossible to take a shower without the water getting everywhere and flooding the entire bathroom. Kitchen is nice, but there are no pots, plates or cutlery, so my breakfast today was a sandwich, a can of meatballs and fruit juice. I did manage to buy a bowl and cutlery today, but for the plates I'll have to wait until the 20.04. because they didn't have the one that I wanted in the store, except the exibit one, which isn't actually for sale, it's just so that you can order it if you want it. They did have other pots, but they were all either too small (1 litre) or too big (3 litre or even more). This pot which I'm getting is actually a set of three pots and it's much cheaper. Also in issue with finding the right pots was that the stove in my kitchen is an induction one, so finding pots that are compatible was quite hard, especially since I don't speak or read Greek and the Greeks that I've talked to didn't really know what I was talking about. But hey! I still managed to get it done, now I'll just have to live of of prepared food for a week and a bit more, then I can finally start cooking.

Another issue about the apartment, the walls are very very thin, I can hear every car and every motorbike, I can even hear when the neighbour gets a notification of their phone. And I don't know what they're doing at 23:00 o'clock, but they've been very loud for the past few days. Yesterday I finally decided to do something about it and went to knock on their door, but they didn't open, they did go silent though, so I guess mission success, let's hope today I'll be able to sleep without having to remind the neighbour that in Greece it's actually illegal to be loud after some time (I think it's after 22:00 to about 6:00, or there about).

And another thing... (I really don't like to focus on the negative, but sadly that has been the majority of the experience with the apartment thus far. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that at least I've got a roof over my head and a place to call home and sleep) ... but speaking of sleep, the bed doesn't feel bad, but now it's been two days in the row that I've noticed that my back is in pain, I'm guessing it's the bed's fault because I've also been waking up many times throughout the night, which wasn't the case just a few days ago when I was still sleeping the hotel. Also because the window is facing the hallway which also doesn't have windwos, there's no sun light and the room is very cold during the day, during the night it basically freezes and because the apartment came without linens, I use a bath towel as a blanket, while wearing thick thights, pajamas and a thick jumper/jacket thingy. Tonight I'm going to try with two thick thights and additional leggings. I really hope the apartment will get warmer when the summer comes, because if it's this cold now, then maybe in the summer at least I won't need to run the Air Conditioner, which consumes a lot of electricity and while the electricity is in the rent, it's actually only up to 50kW per month, after that you have to pay 0.42€ per kW and if you reach 100kW you have to pay 0.72 per kW, which is just ... expensive. 50kW per month means about 1.6kW per day, which I haven't been able to hit, thus far I've been over that. But I've adjusted the water heater settings and instead of running for 200 mintues as it was set to before, it's now going to run for 20 mintues, which while giving me less hot water, should consume less electricity and is inline with what the real estate agent told me, she said that I press the button and then after 15 minutes the light should turn off and the water should be hot. I and concerned about the safety of the water though, because I have a feeling that heating the water each day for only 20 minutes (I couldn't set it to 15 mintues) doesn't heat up the water enough to prevent things from growing inside which is just another reason to find a different apartment.

I'm don't know how long I'm going to stay in this apartment, but if I find a good replacement, I don't mind losing the deposit, I do hope that I'll get used to it and be able to find a different apartment once the contract expires after six months, but I don't want to go insane here nor do I want to get sick and I'm the kind of person that if I don't see the sunlight a lot and if my sleeping cycle gets messed up (which can easily happen when there's no day light to tell my body that it's dark outside and that I should be sleep or in the morning there's no light to actually wake me up) I get sad. And I don't like to be sad.

But with the recent events the metaphorical waves have been pushing me towards the sad side.

Next bit of news, I received an email from Human Resources requesting me to sign the contract again, because there was a system error and this way I get some extra benefits, but when I went to actually read the contract the salary was about 100€ (per month) lower then what I signed like a week or two ago... 

I did already send an email to Human Resources, where I pointed out that salary that we've always been talking about and that I've signed two contracts for is different then what they're stating in the new contract and while I don't know if I can disclose how much my salary should be, let's just say that the new contract would make my salary less then 1000€ per month, meaning that I really would spend half if not more just for the apartment and then if I add food I'm basically left with nothing and I'm stuck living from paycheck to paycheck...

But my goal has for many years now (since I sat down and calculated how much money I've spend on lingerie, especially bras) has been investing as much money as I can to build a fundation which would make sure that I would always have enough money to put food on the table and to have a roof above my head, even if it would be a "prison cell" as my father put it, like my current apartment. At least I wouldn't be under a bridge.

Now, don't worry, it's going to be okay. Even if I get fired or something like that, I luckily still have around 3800€ saved up, so I can still withstand some waves, but if my saving do drop too low, probably around 2000€ or there about, I will just leave and fly home. Luckily I have understanding parents and I think I can pretty much always return home if the world around me start to collapse.

On the bright side on the 6th of April I got my first salary of 216.73€ for the fives days that I've worked in March and today I even got the Easter Bonus (because we're working on easter) of 17.70€ which is better then nothing! That's even more then I paid for the pots!

I wanted to end on a positive note and I think I did, if you feel like it wasn't positive enough then google: "this cat stares at beautiful people" and switch to images. ^^

See you next time, as you've probably already noticed, I'm not writing daily, mostly because my days aren't that filled with interesting or noteworthy stuff, but when I feel like there's something that I should write down and tell you, I'm here!

--- 2023/04/02 - Athens, Greece ---
Not a joke, yesterday I singed the contract to get an apartment and I also paid the deposit and the first rent, although it might not seem like a lot, it was and is quite a lot of money for me, the deposit was 430€, the first rest was also 430€ and I had to pay the agent 430€ + 24% tax, but luckily my company should pay 400€ of that, so right now I only paid the agent 133.2€.

I read through the entire contract and asked the agent about pretty much everything that was written, which is probably why at the end of our interaction she said that I ask too many questions. :D

When I arrived here to Athens, Greece I noticed a big sticker above the toilet that says: "Don't throw papers into the toilet", which to mean meant that some people throw trash in the toilet, which I don't do, I throw trash in the trashbin, but okay, no problem with me. But now that the agent has showed me the room, she also explained that in Greece you're not supposed to throw TOILET paper into the toilet, because their pipes are so narrow that it might clog the pipes... Thus they throw the used toilet paper into a trashbin that's next to the toilet...

Which, in my mind created this joke:

SIGN: "Don't throw paper in the toilet"
ME: "Interesting, some people throw trash into the toilet."
GREECE: "We throw literal poop into the trashbin."

I personally find that quite disgusting and very unhygenic, and pretty much demanded that the agent approves the instalation of the toilet attachment that uses water to clean you, that way pretty much eliminating the need for toilet paper.

I must say, that I had much higher expectations for the capital city of Greece, which is probably why all of this is such a shock to me.

I mean, I come from a small village with maybe 1000 people, but I did often travel to a nearby city and we didn't have any of these issues, we don't have stray animals, which in Athens are everywhere. We have incredibly good water, which I'm aware that we're the exception, our water doesn't have any chlorine in it, the city does flush the pipe system once or twice a year the chlorine but that's something that you don't even know, if someone doesn't tell you, that's how clean the water is. It does have more minerals so when the water dries there are more noticable stains, but I've heard that such water is actually better for you, I remember Andrew Huberman citing a study done in EU, which found that the more minerals the longer the lifespan of the people.

Anyways, I'm just happy that I finally have a roof about my head, even though the apartment is very tiny, at least it isn't too expensive and that way I'll have more money for myself. If you're wondering how big is the apartment, make a T pose, take about three steps forwards, turn to your right make another three to five steps forwards and ... that's it.

But! It does have all the important things, it has an inductive stove, a fridge and a bathroom. My criteria was basically, i want to be able to cook for myself, store the food and of course take a shower.

It also has a washing machine but it's outside of my apartment and it's for the communal use. But better that then not having it.

In the 430€ rent, the cost of water, internet, communal fees and electricity is already included, so it really is about 150€ to 200€ cheaper then the other options that I was looking at. If I had more time and less stress, I might have found a different apartment, but the company extended my stay in the hotel from 1st of April to 10th of April, so I really didn't have much time.

The apartment is newly renovated and I can move is as soon as the current girl moves out and while I would love to ask her why she's moving out, I probably won't get a chance.

Now that I have a residental address I've also signed the contract for work with my company, so the only things left to do is open a greek bank account, because greek banks sometimes bounce the transactions if they're coming from outside of Greece, thus the company and the real estate agent both want and requrie a greek bank account. I also need to cancel my health insurance in my home country and the additional health insurance, since now both of those are covered by my company with a greek health insurance. And finally I need to change my permanent address that's currently on the record in my home country to the one in Greece. Oh and I'll probably need to buy some pots and cutlery, because I have a feeling that the girl that's currently in the aparment will take her's with her, if she had any to start with.

Another kinda scary thing, I wasn't shown the apartment that I'm going to be living in but an apartment that looks and is equiped almost identically as the one that I'll be living it, that's why I don't even know what it actually looks like... But if I didn't find an apartment and had to leave the hotel, I would probably quickly start losing money, which would mean that I would probably fly back home.

That's about it, I've finsihed my first week of training, which included a lot of reading, a lot of watching and a lot of listening, I just hope that I actually remembered anything, because we're not allowed to have pens and paper with us to actually take notes..

Almost forgot another important thing! Because I didn't actually see the apartment, I also didn't notice where the window is... It's facing the hallway, which isn't ideal, especially since sun light affects my mental state quite a lot, but let's hope that since it's not facing the sun directly, maybe I'll at least have cooler summers which could allow me to sleep better. But yeah... guess I'll have to go outside and see the sun, although I will be walking about 1 km to the office every work day, so I think it'll be just fine ^^

--- 2023/03/22 - Athens, Greece ---
I took all the bras... But hey, now I'm in Greece! And while I do think that it was a bit silly of me to take so many clothes with me, it is what it is.

Today I walked to Athen's Acropolis which took me a bit less then an hour, then circled around it because I didn't want to pay for the ticket and by the time I got around it they've already stopped selling the tickets. I was hoping to see the mega monoliths on top of which all of this is built but I didn't find them, at least I think I didn't, I did see some monoliths but they didn't seem as been as I've seen them in the Ancient Civilizations doc_umentary, so maybe I'll have to pay for the ticket and go inside, afterwards I went on a nearby hill and set on the bench a bit while I wrote a bit into my journal, some of which you're reading right now! Then I set back to my hotel room, which took me a bit longer so I'd guess two hours if not a bit more, because I didn't have an internet connection on my phone to get the best path back, so all I could do was to use the phone as a map. Which worked, since I'm in my hotel room right now, writing this :P

If you're wondering, the hotel room was paid for by the company that's hiring me, they've paid for two weeks and in these two weeks I need to find an apartment, a home of my own!

The city around the tourist attractions is quite clean and maintained well, but on the way towards the Acropolis, I've seen probably more then 20 stray cats, lots of fecal matter and strong urine smell. Although on my way back, when I was just walking west and looking on the map, I did see much less of both, probably because I was walking more in the residental areas. While I was walking I thought to myself that Athens look like what I imagine India would look, although that's probably just a very me thing. There are many parts of the city where I walked that the buildings are basically on a grid, which means that there are many crossroads, that being said, there are almost zero zebra crossings, so you just have to go by feeling especially because I think in the whole day of walking only two cars actually stopped to let me cross, which is quite different then in my country where usually the second or the third car will stop and let you cross.

Also! Oranges and lemons grow on trees here and they're everywhere, but it looks like the locals don't eat them, because the trees are full of them.

Tomorrow is going to be a rest day, I'm guessing that my legs will probably be quite sore, Although I was just walking and I did use good shoes so maybe I'll be just fine. ^^

--- 

I'm moving to Greece soon, I got a job offer there! 

Quite exciting, I've never lived outside of my country for an extended period of time, but now I'm moving! The biggest question is what to take with me, because I can't take everything and like here on OMD so too do I have too many clothes in real life (I'm somewhat of a lingerie addict).

I am focusing on taking more expensive stuff with me, so that I won't have to buy those again and I could package some stuff and have them shipped to the new apartment (once I find one) later, so there are plenty of options!

I'm leaving on 20th of March, just started selecting stuff that I would want to bring with me, I started with books, although I am thinking of having them sent to me later since my luggage is limited to 23kg, bigger question is which clothes to bring with me, I'm somewhat of a lingerie addict thus I have _a lot_ of it... I could probably fill the entire suitcase just with bras, but on the other hand if I take only what I need, I get to buy more once I arrive and settle in... 

So many questions~

Be kind whenever possible, it's always possible.

Anyone knows how to be rich? Asking for myself!

While it won't make me wealthy, it will be deeply appreciated, because it does actually help!