bktheirregular

1) Turns out the rule for staying overseas on the basic visa is three months there, three months home. In other words, once I leave, that's it for the year. (And my deadline as things stand is October 21, after which I'm in-country illegally.)

2) Work permit is a hideously complicated procedure, one which I can't solve without a lot of prep work being done by the firm. It could take a long time.

3) In theory, I could become a dual citizen, but from what I saw at the Greek embassy site, it looks like I might be missing some of the crucial paperwork. And given the international climate today, I'm starting to get nervous about whether I could claim Greek citizenship and retain my US citizenship.

Or someone could just shoot me now. Granted, it would mean a lot of hassles for whoever did the deed, but somehow I don't think those hassles would include filling out paperwork.

I've got nobody to gripe to in ways that they'd find meaningful.

Today's job at the firm deals with a transaction involving what looks like five separate corporate entities across eight different legal jurisdictions. Every time I read over the documentation, I feel like I'm leaking IQ points out my ear.

Maybe someone should point out to me the complete X-books timeline. Or plot line. Or something.

It might serve as a warm-up exercise for this. Like ... uh ... running laps before doing a marathon. Or an ironman triathlon. Or something like that.

So, crossing languages and alphabets can have interesting effects. Like descriptions of a temporary order from a court, which somehow got translated as a "temporal court order", which suggests that the Greek courts have actually set up a bureaucracy to deal with time travel, and isn't that pretty much what caused the entire Star Trek franchise to implode? Seriously, it was getting to where every third week or so they were dealing with time travel, and ... this rant could go on for hours, and I'm on the clock here, so, best let it pass.

Then there's the law I've been learning on European Union business securities, which involved something called a "Committee of Wise Men".

Stipulate the groan, the face in the palm, the head thumping against the desk. Someone try and convince me that a "Committee of Wise Men" isn't a disaster just looking for a place and time to happen...

Heat wave continues in Athens. Weekend was rather quiet, taken up with relaxation and some exploring of the city - oh yeah, and one important piece of shopping.

Normally, in my 'verse, "important" and "shopping" have a kind of magnetic repulsion thing going, but in this case, necessity was the mother of expenditure, so I headed out in the blazing sun and picked up a fan for the apartment. Made a major difference.

Sunday was taken up with some generic poking around the city. The country of Greece being predominantly Greek Orthodox, most everything is shut down on Sundays - like the saying goes, the town is dead. Not so much, the port of Piraeus, though. Activity seven days a week, there, so many of the businesses that support the operation of the port remain open on the day of rest. Observation was a little interesting; many of the slips were empty, probably because their usual tenants were out on the open seas. Some boats came in and did a fairly quick turnaround, though; time on the dock is time wasted, while time in transit is time earning money.

A number of types of craft come in and out of the harbor; some light hydrofoils, a few light catamaran-hull passenger boats, and I saw at least one ferryboat that looked like the big sister of the landing craft they used in World War II and people might have seen in Saving Private Ryan. (Fun fact: a lot of the Greek shipping magnates got their starts by purchasing World War II surplus.) The majority of the traffic, though, I suspect, falls into two categories: cat-hull car ferries and monohull car ferries. Cat-hulls are the high-speed ferries, generally taking passengers in airplane-like conditions (though there's more room to move around) and passenger cars on the cargo deck; monohull ferries are the more traditional design, with lower speeds but higher cargo capacity, and they normally handle freight truck and oil tanker traffic.

Got a ticket on one of the cat-hull ferries out to the islands on Friday, to visit family for a few days over the coming weekend. In the meantime, things chug along.

Going to the telephone company to inquire about putting a telephone line into the apartment I'm renting has put me in mind of the Venus de Milo.

Which is to say, accomplishing that task is going to be a monumental stone bitch.

I'm starting to think of breaking for lunch. And most of my friends are still asleep.

Going bonkers with final throes of packing for Athens. Had to redo my suitcase and garment bag to redistribute things - came thisclose to going overweight on my suitcase, which is a first for me - and still gotta pack carryon stuff. Laptop gets packed soon, so there's a good chance this is my last entry from North America this summer. (Might be one more if I can piggyback a hotspot at JFK, but not likely.)

(Note to self: you ripped all your CDs to digital for a reason. Why did you pack the CDs themselves? Moron.)

Will update from Athens as soon as I can get a semi-reliable connection going.

Close entry.

As the saying goes, it's on.

My flight leaves July 21, and I'm there until late September, gaining experience, building up writing samples, and generally being useful. Not 100% sure yet where I'll be living, but family over there is looking into it, and I kinda made it clear that wherever it is, Internet access will not be a mere luxury.

I might pop over to the island for a weekend at some point, if the workload permits; barring that, I want to stay in touch with the gang stateside.

If anyone still wants to hear from me. But that's a post for another time.