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Nope, no Oktoberfest in Greece.

The only thing to commente here is that Golden Dawn remains the #3 party in Greece (not sure if they increased their percentage too...). Everything else was more or less expected. Syriza will now have to work with one or two more parties so that they'll control the majority of votes in the parliament. I can't see this lasting for long. We'll most likely have to go to elections again next year.

Nah...eyoismos loves controversial discussions and arguments. He loved butting heads with Patrick. I'm sure something else is going on, I hope he's ok.

Running out of options...

Did he work at the Tropical club? If he did I'd try contacting them first to see if they can figure out who he is.

You probably just described half the population of Polichrono in July/August 2012. If you don't know his full name it's going to be next to impossible to track him down (3 years later too!). Was he a local? Was he working there?

Why depressing? I didn't see anything different than what I saw last year or the year before that. Most people have already adjusted their lifestyles to the new reality and they continue living their lives as they used to. They're still having their coffees out, but now they don't sit a a cafe and pay 4 euros for their coffee. They take it to go and they pay 1.50 euros. They still go out to eat but they now go to small restaurants and share meze platters instead of splurging on plentiful food in tavernas and regular restaurants. Souvlaki stands are as popular as ever, in fact even more popular now, as a family of four can have a night out there and eat and drink for 10-15 euros. Life in Greece is different, but that's the new reality, and people seem to be ok with it (on the most part). What's missing is hope. Syriza let many people down. They hoped that they'd bring change but they proved to be a new "Pasok". Now, in typical Greek fashion many of those Syriza supporters, despite seeing that Syriza used them to get in power and never delivered the goods, they still cheer for them. Greeks are strange this way. When they vote for a party, even when they see that this party blatantly lies to them and makes a ton of costly mistakes, they continue supporting it just to prove to everyone else around them that they were not wrong to support this party in the first place. Typical Greek craziness... I'd be curious to see whether Syriza is going to win a clear majority in this election. It's pretty obvious in my mind that they'll receive the most votes again, but the key question is whether they'll win the majority of the seats in the Vouli. If this happens then there's no hope for Greeks. They'd be officially nuts.

Ηow did you enjoy Greece this summer?

Or maybe people are still on vacation I know that Dino is in between jobs right now, so until he settles at his new job he won't be writing much in here. Jen is writing less and less lately (Jen, we really need you to start rebuilding the recipes area with new recipes!). Eyoismos is missing in action, no idea what happened to him. I hope he's ok. ajaxmonkey hasn't been very active in the past couple of months either. Not sure if he's away on vacation. Some other regulars have disappeared, maybe because as you said they're not happy with some of the latest posts/arguments over the past few months. The only section which is flourishing is the music section which is busier than ever. I hope people will come back and start posting again. It was good fun over the past few years to be able to share opinions and experiences.

What happened to eyoismos? Haven't heard from him, or seen any posts from him in months. I hope he's not having any troubles with the police, as he was describing in an older post. Eyoismos, let us know that you're ok!

Are you staying up in the mountains or do you have a home closer to the sea? We drove by Tripoli this summer on our way back from Pyrgos, and also last summer on our way back from Kalamata. That new highway connecting Athens to Kalamata (and Tripoli) must have been a godsend for people in that area. I remember when I was a kid the drive to that part of Peloponissos was a major pain in the ass as you'd have to drive through the mountains. It now only takes around 2 - 2.5 hrs to get from Athens to Tripoli, and around 3-3.5 hrs to get to Kalamata.

Welcome back Brenda. Were you in Peloponissos? I seem to remember that your husband was from Peloponissos. We stayed in Kylini for a week in early August and it was super hot and humid. I've never experienced so much humidity before anywhere else in Greece.

There are no alternatives as it is right now. The latest poll I saw is showing that Syriza is at 23% and New Democracy is at 18%. Everybody else is in single digits and over 50% say they haven't decided yet. Some analysts are now talking about the possibility of Syriza (left wing) and New Democracy (right wing) forming a government together as none of the 2 will be able to win a majority. This will be interesting to see. As it is right now I'd rather see a government including several political parties. Maybe things can improve if everyone works together at this point.

Seems to me that Syriza believe that they can win re-election in September with an outright majority (and thus govern without relying to working with other parties). I think that they're banking at the irrational belief that Tsipras remains popular even though he messed up with the negotiations and finally imposed more austerity measures to the Greek people. Since we're talking about Greece and Greeks, I wouldn't be surprised if this proves to be true. We've proven time and again that we're stupid by electing all the wrong people to represent us (even though, truth be told, the options are limited if not non-existent...). Since there are no opinion polls posted since early summer (when Tsipras was indeed extremely popular) I won't make a prediction hoping that people have in the meantime seen Tsipras' populist facade and won't elect him again (especially with an outright majority). However, seeing that the competition is lame to say the least I'm very concerned that Tsipras may eventually win this election too. It just remains to be seen whether he'll win the majority or not. Here's a decent analysis of the September 2015 Greek elections in Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-24/greek-election-syriza-2-0-vs-what-s-left

Hi Iosif, welcome to Hellenism.Net and thanks for sharing your thoughts. I mostly agree with you and share your concerns. I honestly don't see any politician or political party in Greece able to lead Greece out of this crisis. Like many other Greeks I was also fooled by Syriza hoping that they'd come up with some fresh ideas and do something different. Unfortunately they proved to be the same shit as everyone else before them. Who knows what the future holds now. Tsipras seems to still be popular in Greece (I really don't know why...he blatantly lied to the Greek people, worse than any of his predecessors) so he may stay in power for a few more years. I guess many people still hope that he will eventually do something right and bring some much needed change. On my part, I very much doubt about this. His party has proven to be extremely ineffective so far and lacking ideas to get Greece out of this mess.

I was in Zakynthos (next to Kefalonia) in mid-July. The Ionian islands are very beautiful, Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Ithaki, Lefkada, Kerkyra, all beautiful islands with wonderful beaches. Enjoy your vacation Brenda. We just came back yesterday. Greece was as wonderful as ever.

Sorry, I'm in Greece since early July and even though I do have internet access on and off I prefer staying away from the internet and enjoying Greece. I'll be more active starting mid-August I have lots of info to share from the situation in Greece.

Well, let's wait a few days and see what's going to happen. I'm no politician myself but I'm pretty certain that there's going to be a cut and restructuring of the debt and a solution to this issue so that Greece will remain in the EU and the Euro.

You have no clue about politics and you clearly only read the publications which write things you like to hear. Here's the latest news, so that you're aware: Politics is about negotiation and finding common ground. Do you think that Merkel or anyone else will want to risk taking the blame of a possible Euro or EU blow out. I'm not saying that this will happen if Greece leaves the Euro and the EU, but even if it's a very very slight possibility no smart politician will take the risk to be the one who will sign their name under it. Merkel and the rest of the EU politicians will do everything in their power to keep Greece in the EU and the Euro. Greece may most likely receive a worse deal than before, but I'm pretty confident that they will all agree on something that will keep everyone happy and in the Euro. This is not a financial issue. It's a political issue.

There's no deal happening within 48hrs. This is stupid talk by Tsipras/Varoufakis. The next important date is July 20th, when the next larger payment is due. The Syriza government have 2 weeks to work things out with EU and get things back on track. If they won't make it then July 20th will be the date when they'll have to make the big decision around going out of the Euro and the EU. In the meantime, the Greek banks will have to survive during these 2 weeks without help from the central bank. It's going to be 2 tough weeks for the Greeks. I hope those who voted "No" realize this.

I think this was announced on Saturday. Stupid measure non the less.

Interesting article around the - technical mainly - difficulties of switching to a new currency: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-04/printing-the-drachma-the-messy-future-of-a-post-euro-greece

You know that the Germans are not the only ones to decide what's going to happen to Greece right? Nobody cares what your local politicians say about Greece. much like nobody cares about what Greek politicians say within Greece. This is all irrelevant. The EU will have to make a decision shortly, and even though Germany's opinion does hold a lot of weight, it's the EU assembly that will decide on Greece's and EU's future. We'll see what happens. This is not just a financial issue. It's a geopolitical issue.

We'll see. It's too early to say what's going to happen next. We'll know tomorrow or early next week what the real plan is moving forward. I believe that they'll all meet at least one more time in the next week or two to find out if there's anything they can agree on and continue negotiations. If the Syriza government continues its unreasonable requests then we may see the EE pushing Greece out of the Euro. We'll see...