Ashtray Wednesday - The One I Never Got

There is am empty picture accompanying this post because I never got an ashtray from this person. I am sure there was a lot of travelling involved, both inland and abroad, but I was never made aware of it. There are strict rules about these things, you see, and some people are really meticulous about observing them. I, on the other hand, am not. I have a very distorted interpretation of boundaries and I always make it my mission to overstep them. If it was up to me this would have been a completely different post. But it is not. I was not able to brake this rule, trespass these boundaries.  

I've said it before, I collect ashtrays for the people who gave them to me. This is a person whom I would really love to have as part of my "collection" {maybe I'm coming across as a scary psychotic serial killer - collecting people and all - I assure you I am not...my mother had me tested :) }. For the past three years, this person has been there for me week after week, after week, come rain or snow, fog or extreme heat - we always used to joke about the insane instability of the weather here in Zagreb, one day 30 degrees and sunny and the next 15 and foggier than London in the 1800s. 

Moving on, I am not good with goodbyes and it's been  a very difficult and emotional couple of weeks having to say goodbye to many good friends I've made here in Zagreb. Hence the lack of any serious activity in my kitchen - I'm not counting tea making and cheese slicing as serious culinary activities. This ashtray-less goodbye was particularly difficult because it is somehow final. I have words, memories and lots of laughs to look back to - way better that a lifeless ashtray but still... I would prefer to have one!

This is going to be my last post from Zagreb. On November 2nd I am moving to Athens to study wine and learn how to spit it gracefully. It is a huge career change for me, considering that I've spend a considerable amount of time and money studying Political Science, International Relations, Media, Communications and Law. The only thing wine and those subjects have in common is the need to get drunk silly after a 3 hour lecture on promissory estopel, Northern Ireland and Middle East politics. 

Wine came into my life by accident and it remained there against all odds. Then, when everything seemed to spiral out of control, I tasted just a tiny sip of Xerolithia and could not stop talking about it, it's citrousy aromas, it's balanced mineral palette ..In that infinitesimal moment time stopped and I made up my mind to make the leap and run astray from my comfort zone. 

Wish me luck and bottoms up!!!

Ashtray Wednesdays - Nothing to do with Copenhagen

Copenhagen is a beautiful city. I wouldn't know, because I've never been, but my friend Ioannis, who has been there 3 times, told me that it  is really  a lovely city to spend a weekend break. This is the ashtray he bought for my collection. Just so you know, Ioannis has multiple entries in my ashtray collection, not only because he travels a lot but also because he is a really good friend who thinks about me and my crazy obsession every time he sees a souvenir shop. And I mean every time...by now I have 4 ashtrays from Brussels and 2 from Vienna with his name on them. Ashtrays are not the only things that Ioannis has given me over the years. He has been a loyal and trustworthy friend and more or less he's been the reason I am where I am today... But let me first tell you how I met Ioannis or John as his name translates in English. 

In 1999, I was studying for my MA at the University of Leicester and at the same time was working as the London correspondent of one of the biggest Greek TV networks. I had to commute almost every two days between Leicester, where I studied and lived at the University's dorms, and London, where I had appropriated the apartment of another friend, who was on a sabbatical in Greece. I was always in a hurry and so busy that I did not have time to get to know and hang out with any of my classmates. But I was young and eager to jump-start my "career" and having no friends at that time did not really matter to me. What mattered most was that I had to be able to read about 10 newspapers everyday between 7:00 and 9:00am and talk to my editor before my classes started. So every day at 7am I was the first one in the student shop, buying my newspapers and trying to balance them between books and notepads. There was a lot of talk in the university campus and especially among the Greek students about the girl with the newspapers. Who was she? What was she doing with all those newspapers everyday? Off course I was oblivious to everything other than David Beckham's fancy for Victoria's lingerie and I didn't know that people were talking about me.

One morning, as I was perusing the papers, looking for a piece that could make that days news, a guy approached me and outright asked me why was I reading so many newspapers everyday. I was a little embarrassed to tell the truth. I didn't think he immediately believed me, me being a completely unglamorous, plain looking girl, nothing like the polished, sharp looking TV personalities. That guy was John. He had finished the same MA I was studying a couple of years before and was now doing a PhD on something I cannot remember even if my life depended on it! We became friends and he introduced me to the rest of the "gang" who also became my friends making my year in Leicester the best year of my student life. 

Fast forward to 2003. I moved from London to Athens. John was among the very few people I knew there. I have to say at this point that he is the most friendly and sociable individual I've ever met and he is always surrounded by people most of whom he introduced to me. But the single most important person I met through John was Georgie who was and still is his best friend. So there you have it, since 1999, John has been a very good friend to me and has given me the most priceless present, the opportunity to meet and fall in love with my husband.

Ashtray Wednesday: Wine in April with April

I am so happy about this week's ashtray!  Since I am going on vacation in a couple of days this is going to be the only one I am going to post about in August. Georgie picked it out from my ashtray - basket yesterday night and it so fits the occasion... OK it is not from Greece but it is from Istria and you all know I fell in love with Istria back in June.

I got this cute little fishy ashtray from Porec, a lovely, picturesque, seaside town in Istria. Back in April, I went on a wine tasting tour of the greater area around Porec. The tour was organised by my American friend and sommelier, April (hence the cheesie title) and together with 3 more friends we visited 3 great Istrian wine makers, Misal, Roxanich and Meneghetti.

We arrived there late Friday afternoon and headed straight to a lovely restaurant to sample the local cuisine and off course some wine. The wild asparagus season had just began and as you can imagine, every restaurant menu in the area was dominated by their presence and taste. And what compliments wild asparagus' slightly bitter taste better than a glass of chilled Malvazija Istarska? We opened the first bottle of Malvazija at 8pm and left the restaurant having drank two more around midnight! Now you might think that this was a lot of wine even when shared between 5 people. I am not going to deny it, it was, but it was also a very aromatic and delicate wine and we just could not get enough of it! Plus we had a lot of tasty food to help us battle the alcohol.

This trip was more about the wine and food than anything else. We spent hours with the producers in their cellars sampling their wine and nibbling on prosciutto, fresh bread, olive oil and cheese. I didn't manage to see a lot of Porec but I did manage to persuade April and the rest of the gang to quickly sneak into a souvenir shop to buy a small memento of Porec, this little ashtray.

It was a wonderful weekend filled with friendship and unforgettable tastes and spring smells. April and her family left Zagreb yesterday to return back to the US. She told me that she accidentally packed three ashtrays from her travels around Croatia which she wanted to give me. They are now on their way to Minnesota, where she is from, so I am going to dedicate this one to her for the lovely times we had together drinking wine!  

Ashtray Wednesdays: Island Life

It took me two weeks to write this post. The words would simply not come. It is just an ashtray, kinda ugly too, but it blocked me up like nothing else before. I bought it last summer from Syros, a rocky peak of an island, surrounded by the deep blue waters of the Aegean.

I really don't remember buying it, but Georgie reassures me that we did buy it together. It was a trip  I would like actually to forget. Nothing serious happened, but serious is such an objective word.

I didn't want to go originally but when I called my mother to tell her that we would like to spend our summer vacation in Fourka Beach she was not very happy with the idea (off course she wasn't she was still undergoing radiation treatment - I found out a year later). I confess I was a bit angry at her but I forgot about it quickly when I remembered that Georgie's parents own a nice, big house at Kini on the island of Syros. So there and then I decided we were going to spend half of August 2011 in Syros.

When we first arrived, I was mesmerised by the abundance of life on this small rocky peak in the middle of the sea. Everything looked bigger, brighter, full of colour, overflowing with the juices of life. I remember sitting out on the porch of our house and writing in my journal that this would be the best place in the world to live for the rest of my life...

But island life is not for everyone. The idea of being confined on a floating piece of land, depended on the whims of the wind and sea gods fills me with unbearable anxiety. Last summer, amid the beautiful island scenery anxiety spiralled out of control, triggered by the the slightest change in brain chemistry and the strong August wind.

The ashtray itself, is nothing special in terms of aesthetic and artistic achievement. Plain clay and colour pigments. The memories and feelings it brought with it were strong and somewhat overwhelming. The mind is a powerful weapon. It can build the strongest of defences to protect, but it can also destroy, faster and more efficient than anyone or anything. It does not take much. A random event, a smell, an image, the slightest change of our fragile mental equilibrium and some people find themselves pulled down a bottomless, swirling abyss. Panic and depression are your only loyal friends when you enter and are never inclined to leave you find the exit on your own. I sought help and got it and after a little while I was able to distance myself from the devastating feelings that blocked my mind and impaired my rationality. Because that's what it is all about feelings and our ability and willingness to process and experience them.

This post might not make sense to a lot of people. No, strike that...this post will not make sense to anyone other than me. I apologise for the time you wasted reading it. I am sorry I cannot reimburse you for that. It was something that had to be written and published, so that it became permanent and alive, a testament to the destructiveness we all hide inside us and the power we have to turn it into a force of life and creation.  

Ashtray Wednesdays: A Stone Fort by the Sea

Given the mind-bruising, word-baffling recent events, I am not really in a wordy mood today. Still, there is a handmade, super sweet and cute ashtray from Dubrovnik waiting to be show-cased on Ashtray Wednesdays. And its been waiting for two weeks now.

This one was given to me by Georgie. He bought it for me in July '09. It is the second he brought back from Dubrovnik. The first broke while he was travelling. So in July '09, and while I was recovering from my first discus hernia operation in Zagreb he went for a business trip to Dubrovnik and was on a mission to find the exact same ashtray that broke. He even claims that he almost missed his plane home and I believe him. Because this my Georgie, sweet and considerate but really, really stubborn.

Ashtray Wednesday: Tutankhamun

No, no I did not run out of ashtrays. Ashtrays I have plenty. It is time I did not have. First Barcelona, then Belgrade, then Istria, weeks flew by so fast and even though this ashtray has been sitting on my coffee table waiting to be photographed and uploaded to eternal cyber life, for weeks now, I did not find the time to do it.

OK, OK this is not entirely accurate...the truth is that I kept averting my eyes and my camera from it. First, the light was not right (it's been raining a lot here lately and since it is an ashtray from the Land of Pyramids and Eternal Sun I think it deserves to be photographed in the sunshine). Then travelling and suitcases got in the way and new ashtrays arrived and they had to get catalogued and... ouff to be entirely honest... it is a butt ugly ashtray and I didn't know how to photograph it so that it looks even a little better.

That's OK. I can say it out loud! It is one of the ugliest, cheesiest ashtrays ever given to me and it was given to me by my mum!

So my mum and dad went to Israel and Egypt for Easter 2010 and I got  the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun to use as an ashtray. Parents, siblings and close relatives are not exempt from the "you travel somewhere, anywhere, you get Maria an ashtray" rule. If anything they are obligated to follow it! And I don't have to worry about what I say about it because, firstly my mother doesn't speak English, and secondly I have already told her that it is ugly! And heavy, really really heavy! I could probably use it to seriously wound an intruder if I was willing to keep it our in the open, which I'm not!!

Ashtray Wednesdays: Barcelona

I've been reading books and studying maps and planning routes.
In two days I will be in the amazing city that is Barcelona and I don't want to miss a thing! My suitcase is not yet packed - and it wont be until about 10 minutes before I leave home - but my brain is overflowing with street names and buildings and churches and gardens. I cannot help myself from dreaming about all the wonderful wine and scrumptious food that I'm going to have over the next few days..

But what do all these have to do with today's ashtray? Well a lot, actually.

I have talked about synchronicity before. My life seems to be ruled by it! There I am all swept up in my daydreaming about Tapas, Jamon and Tempranillo, paying no attention to the ashtray that my hands are picking up from the basketfull of bubble wrapped treasures. It is an ashtray from Barcelona!!!

And it is one made out of a soda can! I know it does not look like much and it's definitely not the most elegant nor dazzling of my collection, but it's positively one of the most unique I own! Its originality and artistic care-freeness, (but not carelessness), illustrate in an unparalleled way the characteristic idiosyncrasy of city. I can picture the artist working on it, sitting by the steps of Park Guell, cutting and bending the soft aluminium with quick, experienced moves of his fingers and knife!

When I ask my friends for their contribution to my collection I give them only one simple instruction "buy something that expresses you". Aura, the friend who bought this for me (almost 4 years ago) seems to have done just that! She is a very creative and cultured individual, who wrote poetry and speaks half a dozen languages! I have not seen her for quite a long time but seeing her ashtray will always remind me of her aesthetically unique personality.

Ashtray Wednesdays: Bridges, Castles and Kafka

What can I say about Prague, other than that I've never been. I've never seen the impressive architecture of the buildings or walked on the cobblestoned alleys. I've never crossed the bridges and had coffee along the riverbank contemplating my ascent to the castle.

But a friend went last November and that's how I came to have this small memento of her and the wonderful time she had in this dreamy city in the middle of Europe. I am not going to say many things about her because I have already mentioned her here and here (what can I do she travels a lot and as she said to me the other day "It is her obligation to bring me back an ashtray" :)!

So for the time being I have to console myself by reading Kafka's masterpieces and living his nightmares in my dreams.

Ashtray Wednesdays: Glago what?

It's about time I write something about the country that has been our host for the past 3 years, Croatia and more specifically, Zagreb since it is here that I got this special, handmade ashtray with those peculiar looking symbols.

More on the symbols later, now lets talk Zagreb...For starters it is the greenest city I've ever lived in. Apart from that, most of the northern part of the city is perched upon several densely forested hills, there is a huge park very close to the centre and tens of smaller parks and gardens dotted all over the city. It is a dog-walkers paradise and I don't exaggerate when I say that each Zagrebian has at least one dog in their household. There is also a river, the Sava, that flows through the southern part of the city but unlike other city rivers its banks have not been commercially or residentially developed. Maybe due to the fear of flooding which also led the city to invest into the creation of a series of man-made lakes, yet another source of green grass and white barked trees.

The river marks the boundary between Old Zagreb and New Zagreb (Novi Zagreb), an area that was developed during the communist years. Even if you want to forget this, the concrete square block architecture of the buildings won't let you and during the grey months of Autumn and Winter this part of the city is quite depressive. The old city is on the other hand highly reminiscend of it's Austro-Hungarian cousins, with a petite but equally gilted opera house, wide boulevards and yet more parks!

Life in Zagreb is nice and slow, sometimes too slow for my liking! It is a small city but it is slowly catching on. Zagreb's heart beats at and around the centre square, where I found this ashtray just before Easter 2010. There is always some sort of exhibition or traditional art and natural products market taking place on the square. I remember that it was an early spring day and I was heading to Georgie's office in Gorni Grad when I went past a stall with handmade earthenware decorative items. I was drown by the runic symbols on the ashtray and asked the older man behind the stall to tell me what they were. He turned to a teenage boy, his son, who told me in English that they were letters from the Glagolitic alphabet. But his English was not so good and soon he was destructed by other costumers and left me hanging with my questions.

I bought the ashtray. I think it is one of the most beautiful items in my collection and when I went home I looked this funny sounding word up. It turns out that it has nothing to do with runes. It is a Slavic script derived from the Greek cursive script around the middle of the 11th century by St. Cyril who translated the holy books from Greek into Old Slavic. The letters on the ashtray most probably mean "I Speak" nothing.

I played a bit with the colours of the picture....and created a funkier version

Ashtray Wednesdays - Sand of Wonders

This was a random pick, I swear! 

I keep all my ashtrays wrapped in bubbles in two baskets that sit on the top of my kitchen cabinets. 

For this week's ashtray, I climbed on a chair, stretched out my arm and grabbed the first one I touched. I unwrapped it and voila! Maja's ashtray from Dubai!

So what's the big deal, you ask. The deal is that Maja gave me this ashtray exactly 2 years ago! I have already written a post about her and how important her understanding and support have been to me for the past couple of years and I don't really believe in coincidences. I believe in what Carl Jung referred to as synchronicity, "events bound by synchronicity are connected by similarity, by meaning, by resonance, rather than by causality." 

To my understanding the meaning of this ashtray is that instead of talking about Maja I have to reveal a few more details about that very challenging period between April 2009 and May 2010. 

So here it goes... A few months after I turned 30, things started to fall apart. We had just moved to Zagreb and before I had the chance to learn how the public transport worked I had to pack again and head back to Athens for an intensive session of preparatory courses for an MFA exam. In the meantime the ever present back pain decided to become even more annoying and I ended up in a doctor's office hearing that I was at stage 4 of disk protrusion (stage 5 is surgical removal of the said disk). I  admit that I did not pay the required attention to his warnings and I set off for Athens, where my schedule was so hectic that within two weeks my left leg went completely numb. 

To cut the story short, the runaway disk between L5/S1 vertebrae was "successfully"  removed on 17 June 2009. After that you'd expect that I would be cautious and take care of my injured spine...Well I did take care of something but that was not my spine! 

In the first two months after the operation I went to a U2 concert (and jumped around like there was no tomorrow) and on a 7 hour (back and forth) train trip to Vienna and the subsequent museum hopping and shopping spree that a visit to Vienna entails. I went about my everyday life in my usual back surgery ignoring way until one Sunday afternoon I decided to take on the only advice I got from my doctor and go swimming! 

Now there are many styles that creatures like us who don't possess gills and fins and tails swim. Mine is more like "the frog" style. Useless to say that this is the completely wrong way to swim if you had a back operation. By August 17th, I was in such a bad shape I could not get out bed, the pain was excruciating.  There was no painkiller available that would make the pain go away. Believe me because I tried them all! Then a second operation was scheduled for the 17th of September (here's Jung's synchronicity again in all its glory!). This time the doctors were painfully explicit in their advise. I had to do everything right otherwise they would have to put screws in my spine and who wants that, not me for sure. So this is where Maja comes in. She was given the very difficult task of educating, comforting and generally standing by me and my injured body. She healed my muscles but she also helped me heal my soul. She gave me this ashtray after a trip to Dubai with her lovely husband Janko for Easter 2010 which was on April 4th!

Dubai is a truly wondrous place, the epitome of innovation, grand ideas, even grander constructions, luxury and for some, kitschness. They have the tallest building in the world, a ski centre in the middle of the dessert, two  man-made constellations of islands, lots and lots of sand and camels. Maja and Janko had a great time when they were there, as did me and Georgie, but this is another ashtray and another story!

P.S.1 This was meant to be posted yesterday 4/4/12, but I fell asleep while writing it. Anyone knows what Jung might have said about that?

P.S.2 If anyone is interested in reading about the not so shiny side of Dubai here is very informative article by Johann Hari of the Independent.

Ashtray Wednesdays - Aphrodite's Island

Cyprus is one of my favourite places. Not because I'm Greek, but because it really is a beautiful island. At the far east corner of the Mediterranean, is an almost tropical paradise of  turquoise - blue seas, long beaches, calm little inland villages and bustling sea-side resorts.


This ashtray was  given to me by my aunt Mina (short for Salome). Mina is my mother's younger sister and lives in Athens. Her voice is exactly the same as my mum's. We used to be very close. I slept in her spare bedroom for many a months when I was preparing for the MFA exams. She loves flowers and her balcony is a colourful oasis from the hassle and bustle of the big city. She is also the best cook in the world! The woman has talent! Nothing is beyond her abilities, Greek, Italian, Asian, sweet, savoury, you name it, she can make it and make it mouthwatering good! 


In the past couple of years we drifted apart. Life sometimes can be very cruel and Mina knows that very well. I'm not going to go into details. The only thing I'm going to say is that in order to overcome the difficulties, sometimes we have to bend our rules a little, become more flexible and not be afraid to ask for help from those who love us.

Belgade in March...

... is downright ugly. During the day, that is. When the sun reflects off the bear tree branches and onto the grey buildings. Even the spectacular view, from the top of the imposing Kalemegdan, for centuries presiding over the confluence of the two rivers, is not enough to dispel the sense of winter decay. 

But when the sun sets the city changes. It becomes alive under the orange glare of the lights. The cafés and the bars are full of people, young, old, it doesn't matter. They drink, eat, shout. A scenery full of energy. It's like winter is only there during the day. At night, it's summer all year round.