RE: November 10, 1938

All I’m saying is, go and find your friendly neighbourhood
Kurdish immigrant and ask him. He may have a different and
more in depth ‘opinion’ than yours Arthur. There is a
reason Turkey has that reputation.

I have spoken with Kurdish refugees, and in no way do i want to belittle what the Turks are doing there. It is highly unsound, brutal and violent. However, if you think this is evidence that all Turkish policemen or soldiers are brutal and violent and behave disgustingly all the time, i don´t agree with you.

That’s odd. I always felt like cattle stewing in my own
filth in the tourist areas. I swear, those Scandanavians
aren’t as clean as they seem.

Tell me about it… same goes with most tourists by the way.

From a man who has spent many months in the villages of
Greece, I can’t say I’ve seen what you’re talking about.
I’ve seen the odd dead animal, but they were road kill (yes,
road kill-deer anyone?).

Perhaps the difference is that i made a lot of kilometres in Greece moving from airfield to airfield. Most of the carcasses are definately roadkill, but if a dead sheep looks like a prop from a horror movie i think it should have been removed some time ago. I saw it a lot.

Well, I don’t think the cops are there to be ‘nice’ if
that’s what your talking about.
They don´t have to be nice, they just have to be correct. To protect and to serve.

And no Arthur, I’m afraid Turkey is still a country where people are jailed for political reasons.

Sorry Icarus, but i can´t restrain myself here: you yourself claimed that Greece is a country where people are acquitted for political reasons 😀

Sometimes, kids will be kids. The fact that by far the most
accidents happen in the mountain roads IMHO shows something.

Then why is the accident rate in other mountainous, motorised countries like Switzerland and Norway so much lower? Driving discipline is the answer that comes to my mind.

Also, when a motorbike slams into an Alpha Romeo head on on
a winding hill road, trust me, I’ve seen the aftermath.

Oh yes, i know how such accidents look. The last time i threw up for seeing something like that was in Russia, also a frontal accident where at least one of the vehicles was driving in the wrong lane with excessive speed…

Though Greek drivers have the well deserved reputation of
being very aggresive.
…well, you can´t deny this agression makes a lot of victims.

>>>>Very good. Hope it helps, but in spring 2000 it still took longer to drive a car from Marathon (yes, Kotroni ) to Athens than a certain runner did a few millenia ago.

Funny. Seriosuly though, things are much better and getting
even better.

I am serious, it took more than three hours to drive from Kotroni to just outside Pireas (after doing the airbases North of Athens, we were then to move on to the Peloponessos). I don´t know where the historical marathon ended exactly, but i presume it was somewhere near the Parthenon. I don´t think we could have driven there in less time. But i´m glad things are moving in the right direction.

Soon you will be able to go from Araxos and Andravidia to
Nea Anhialos without going near Athens Arthur.

I don´t deny there is progress in Greece logistics, and i´m seriously happy about it. When i was there, the highway was half finished between Korinte and Patras, and there was not much to see of the bridge itself except for the huge signs showing wat was going to be built. And which supranational organisation pays for it, of course. Although the armada of mini-ferries crossing at that point is an experience which i can recommend to many people. Although it was slowly and cumbersome, i had great fun on those ferries (the last Friday of the trip, we left the Peloponessos and drove relaxed to Agrinion for the F-104 storage. Fridays are relaxed planespotting days in Greece since the EPA doesn´t fly on Fridays, except for QRA missions).

Please don´t think i´m anti-Greek because i am not. Just because i liked other countries better doesn´t mean anything – for me, Greece is more or less on the same level as far as countries can be rated fr their fun-level as France.