Boulevard News from Lesvos
A good friend of ours, Julie Smit who lives at Eftalou, writes a very entertaining weekly newsletter about her experiences of living on the island. She has very kindly allowed us to use these on Lesvosisland.com. Julie translates the newsletter from her native Dutch and Jeff then 'tweaks' the result into more normal English usage, while hopefully retaining the feel of the original.
You can also read the news in the original Dutch on Julie's own web site Hotel Boekenlust and in German at Lesvos (Griechenland).
All the photos in this section were taken by Julie's partner, Jan van Lent. You can also see them in this Photo Gallery.
28 April 2008 - Loud Speakers
I bet there are no village criers anymore in Europe. But they still exist,
only now they are electronic criers. Here on the island, in each village they
have an electronic village crier: everywhere there are loud-speakers that
regularly announce important messages from the municipality. They
announce for example when the electricity or the water will be cut
because of repairs, they announce when there is a municipality meeting
or when and where festivities will take place. But with this system you can
also try to find your lost dog and people are even summoned to
remove their car when they are parked in the wrong place (wich makes you the
laughing stock of the town!)....read more
20 April 2008 - Tulips from Lesvos
As a child you collected cigar-bands, sugar-bags or stamps. Growing older
the collectors boxes and albums were put into a cupboard and forgotten.
Only getting much older people get to an age to restart collecting
things......read more
13 April 2008 - Under the Sahara
We live in a strange world... We don't live in the Sahara, but we live
under the Sahara! For a few days clouds of sand have covered the sun
and the blue sky. I'm not sure if the high temperatures are due to this
Sahara sand. But it's certain that I had to dig deep into my closet to find
some summer clothes. At 28°C even a light sweater is too hot....read more
6 April 2008 - It is raining...
It's a pity for the tourists that arrive on the island, but it has now been raining
for some 2 to 3 days. The first tourists are mainly birdwatchers. They will
not get wet in their cars that most of them use to watch the birds, but
the birds are hardly to be seen through the thick shower curtains of rain.
One thing is funny: it is the birds that signal the end of a shower: as
soon as the water stops falling from heaven, above the dripping sounds
comes the carols of the birds....read more
30 March 2008 - To sin during Lent
Since Lent has started the summer weather has slowly died away. Lower
temperatures, some rain and some occassional storms are somewhat more
normal for the time of year. Which you cannot say of nature, that did
its best to bring plants into flower as quickly as possible and made
all the greenery grow to great heights....read more
