Alef Arendsen

It’s been a while… I’ve been enjoying some fine holidays… Things all started when we finally got word about the elettricista being able to start installing electricity in our house in Italy around Queensday. Normally, I’d be at home for Queensday, ‘coz my house is located right in the district where the best (outdoor) partying is going on. Normally, I’d have arranged a few turntables, invited a few DJ friends of mine and started a party, but not this year.

Saturday, I was off to Milan. That night, we had a nice party in Plastic in Milan. Sunday, I traveled to Perloz, to start working with the electrician on Monday on the electricity. Things went quite smooth, as I had a friend over, speaking fluently Italian. This helped a lot of course.

This picture by the way shows the spring where we get our water from. The little metal tube you can see gets us water and the little whole next to it, has some shutters in it. From the spring, currently, there is no tubing to the house (well, partially, but it’s not connected). Later in the week, we also met with the tubista (plumber) to start investigating how to install hot water and to fix the tubing issue.

Margriet, this friend of mine, was invited by the Dutch consulate to join for a pre-Queensday party on Tuesday night. So Tuesday afternoon, we drove back to Milan to attend to this (quite formal) event. That was nice too… Thursday morning I drove back to Perloz, to meet with Lars and Pyke, for two more days of working at the house.

When I was there earlier in the week, the weather wasn’t very nice. This time round, it was 22 degrees, even at an altitude of 1150m (that’s where the house is). The cherry blossom was very nice…

Friday, I flew back to Amsterdam, to finish off the day at Margriet and Giorgio’s, where we had a few bottles of wine and some nasty Sicilian drink called Mirto or Nirto (I can’t exactly remember).

Saturday, I left for Greece. Only having left the airport 10 hours before, I was back at about noon, to join my sister-in-law, brother and two kids to fly to Lefkada. That’s where we met up with up with my parents, other brother and family and two friends of mine. We had rented two boats to take out on the Ionian Sea for a week.

The week flew by, unfortunately. We took the boats to Ithaka, Meganisi, Kalamos and lots of deserted nice litle bays, where the anchor settled the boat and allowed us to swim and relax. At one point, my dad (one ‘the other boat’) threw the anchor out in a place where it was very rocky. Now, if you know anything about anchoring, you shouldn’t do it in rocky places. The anchor got stuck and I had to release it at a depth of about 10 meters… Worked out fortunately, but because I forgot to clear, my ears hurt a bit after that… Traveling back, I had my little niece take my suitcase, which got me some nice pictures

Now I’m back home. I came back Saturday night, after which I had a BBQ at Margriet and Giorgio’s. Yesterday I had another BBQ at Martijn and Nicole’s so I’ve even seen some of my friends again. Tonight I’m off to Denmark for two days and today is all about preparing for that gig… Too bad, because I already got two phone calls from friends inviting me for a kite surfing session…

After having stayed at the Divani Apollon hotel for a couple of days, during my stay in Athens I moved to the President Hotel more closer to the center of town and to the office of the client I had to visit.

The President Hotel in fact (as opposed to the Divani Apollon hotel) was quite enjoyable. It wasn’t really the rooms, or the breakfast (both not the best I’ve ever seen–seriously, if you’re going for spacious rooms or for a good continental breakfast, this hotel is not for you), but the people that operated the hotel and the very enjoyable pool bar on the roof of the hotel.

If I’m going to be in town again and if it’s for business or just a very short stay in the city, it’s definitely on my list of hotels that I’ll consider again.

Last July, I visited a client in Athens and decided to stay a few days near the sea in advance of my visit. I looked for a hotel but couldn’t really find anything that I liked. I wasn’t able to book a room at Aegeon Beach Hotel, but unfortunately that was fully booked already. Finally I got a good deal at the Divani Apollon hotel in Voliagmeni, a good neighborhood, just a little South-East of Athens (technically still part of Athens I believe).

The overall experience wasn’t that good I must say. I booked a room with an view over the sea. Although I got, I thought it wasn’t really satisfactory. The overall quality of the facilities offered by the hotel were definitely good, but that’s not what I’m visiting a hotel for usually. I’d like to feel at home and that’s something this hotel definitely did not do. I can’t really put my finger on what it is that didn’t make me feel at home, but it’s definitely not a hotel I’m going back to anymore.

Later on me and a friend of mine were discussing some of the criteria that a good hotel should have but that are not so obvious from reviews oftentimes. Those included:

• Owner occupied. It’s best if the hotel is still occupied and ran by the owner. The owner usually started the hotel with a specific idea of hospitality in mind and he (or she) is probably the best to enforce that idea
• Not part of a chain. I recognize that hotel chains are an important experience for some in the sense that they offer consistent quality where ever you are, but usually it takes away all the authenticity a hotel has