Vangelia and I have two kids: Dimitris is 18 and he wants to study mathematics at the university. Michael is 14 and is very handy. He wants to be a cargo boats’ mechanic. They are very different, but both follow what they love. I often remind them how lucky they are to grow up here on Poros. As a kid, you can run outside, free, not worry about anything, everybody knows you and will look out for you. The sense of security for children and parents is fantastic.
When I was younger, before I met Vangelia, I used to travel quite a lot. I’ve been to Egypt, Spain, Italy, Austria, Holland, France, Germany. Every country you visit is nice and there are plenty things to do. The most important for me though are the people. You can walk the streets, visit the museums, eat in the restaurants, but if you don’t visit the local people in their homes to see how they actually live, in my view you don’t know anything about the country. It’s about living like a local. My dream is to have more free time! I’m now 30 years in the business (shop) and I honestly feel tired. I would love to have more time to spend it with my family and friends. And to travel more as well. I would like to visit South America very much: Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay. Also New Zealand, Australia and maybe New York, just so see how is life in the big city.
I enjoy reading very much. I particularly love poetry. My favourite poet is Seferis. I also enjoy reading diaries because they are full of emotions and they show another side of a writer, a human side. I have thousands of books at home. I have a very special relationship with them. In recent years we stopped watching TV. We only watch movies every now and then, we listen to music and we read books. We never get bored in winter, we always find things to do. We also realised with Vangelia (after the boat restoration project) that we work really well together. We were thinking of restoring other old things like bicycles perhaps, like the postman’s ones from the 1950’s. This will be our next project!
One of my dreams is to have a sailing boat to be able to visit various islands and approach places only reachable by sea. I have seen Ionian islands, Cyclades, I still would love to visit Sporades and Dodecanies islands. This is what’s nice about Greece: each island is different and worthwhile to be discovered. Or I could travel with a camper van and explore the mainland of Greece. This is actually our plan with Vangelia for when we retire!