What's the plan?

Soooo.... what’s the big plan that'll keep me away from this...

bottom photo by marouli

and this...

photo by marouli

and, most importantly, from this: 

this summer?

While visiting the TIES conference in the States last year, M. met the manager of an amazing place. Located in St John, in the US Virgin Islands  (a tiny little place in the Carribean, somewhere near Haiti, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic – woohoo!), Maho Bay is one of the first real eco-resorts in the world. It offers accommodation in little tents/bungalows, hidden in luscious vegetation, and with only one luxury: that of going back to a simpler kind of life, where only the necessary is, well, necessary. 

Back to the plan: this amazing place is partly volunteer-run.  It offers  a work exchange program that allows people from  all over the world to work a few hours a day in exchange for  the possibility of spending a month in, well, heaven (if the pictures are anything to go by).  Obviously, it’s crazy difficult to land a spot on the volunteer program, but M. , who will be doing actual work there for some time, managed to get me in as well – I’m so excited about spending the summer together and learning new things! (so thanks again for organizing this maimoudaki – and brace yourself for an amazing summer) As I said, M. will be doing actual work, since he’ll be standing in for the manager for some time – so he’ll be sort of my boss! Hehe. Quite cool.  

So this is the main plan for the summer. I won’t bore anyone with the actual organization process, so I’ll basically start writing when I get there. I might however get back here from time to time if I can’t contain my enthusiasm – and since M. is notoriously bad at expressing his enthusiasm, as well as at reacting in a satisfactory and appropriate manner to that of other people, this blog might be my only outlet ;-) 

Let me just leave you now with a view of Maho Bay: 

source: http://www.maho.org

I can't wait! 

Kalimera!

This might be the first entry on a little blog containing this year’s summer adventures, as well as any other adventures still to come.  I’m not a big fan of exposing myself and my life on the internet  - or anywhere else for that matter. Still, I’m looking forward to giving this a try, for many reasons:  First of all, I’m realizing that there is a great chance that I won’t have particularly easy internet access for a part of this summer. This means that communication with my family and friends will be equally difficult. I’m soooo looking forward to being stranded on a tiny island on the other side of the world and having a stress free month exploring, learning new things, and of course relaxing in the sun, but I’d also like to be able to share my excitement and all these new experiences with the people I love.  If time difference and lack of technology make any direct contact hard, then I want to make sure I have at least this indirect contact. More than anything, I want to make sure I share this little adventure, and any bigger ones, with them. The second reason is that i’d like to write for other people for a change, and not just for myself. I’m not aiming for a big audience, but I’ve always loved writing and I’m very excited to do it for the people that are important to me.  I guess I’ll still be doing this for myself as well, though – putting things on paper (well, not exactly paper, but you get my point...) helps me – it forces me to express myself  in a clear and articulate way, as opposed to the jumbled mess in my head.

Neither when I first got the idea (about ten minutes ago), nor when I started writing (about five minutes ago), did I ask myself the question of the language I'd do it in. English seemed like the natural choice – strangely enough, it’s the language I write in, even when I write for myself alone. But writing all this now, and realizing that the main reason why I want to do this is for my family, I can’t help thinking about it. Shouldn't I be writing in greek? Aside from the purely practical reasons (i.e. the fact that I have a german keyboard), it somehow feels more comfortable this way, who knows why.... Anyway, my point is that it’s something I’ve always done, and for such a long time that it now feels quite natural.  My family speaks, reads and understands English perfectly, as do my friends, so I hope this won’t spoil the fun for them. Besides, writing in English would have the added perk of allowing a few other, non greek friends to follow this summer’s adventures too, which would make me very very happy.  I’ll try to give the greek versions of things as well, whenever possible or necessary...

So there you go… and here I am, day-dreaming of summer, on the tiny little toy train from Strasbourg to Offenburg. I’m heading back to Freiburg after practically cleaning out my Strasbourg flat. It feels kind of weird since that was the closest thing I had to a place of my own for such a long time, but at the same time I feel strangely relieved and exhilarated. It felt so much like a cleansing ritual. Out with the old! Now I’m just looking forward to new adventures. I’m secretly terrified (don’t tell anyone!), but I can’t wait to take the leap.

What are you guys up to? What are your big plans for the summer? I can’t wait to hear from you – I’d hate for this to be a monologue, so please don’t hesitate to write!

I’ll check in again when the big summer plans start taking shape – in the meantime, happy summer planning, people!

Filakia

PS. I do promise that any and all following entries will be shorter and containing more pictures!