http://www.stayinathens.com news, thoughts and absurdity from the StayInAthens team en-us Mon Jan 25 17:15:29 +0200 2010 custom ror generator http://www.stayinathens.com/rss/blog info@stayinathens.com panos@stayinathens.com http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/30   Dear All, The office will be open from now on, every day from 12:00 to 17:00. The Reception of second semester Students will take place from 25th of January till  25th of February. During reception days the office will expect those students from 9 a.m. till 9 p.m. That means that Second Semester students are expected to visit the Stayinathens office on their arrival day so that we guide them to their flats by car. We inform also that in order to organize Second semester Reception Days, students are all requested to fill in their arrival information until 3 days before their arrival. If there are no arrivals the office will be open from 12 to 5 p.m. and people that will not fill in their arrival information can come to our office only during these hours. Moreover, students that arrive later than 9 p.m. will have to spend the night in a hostel and come to our office the next morning. For any further question or clarification please send an email to info@stayinathens.com   Best regards, The stayinathens team Mon Jan 25 17:15:27 +0200 2010 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/29 THE STAYINATHENS SECOND SEMESTER OFFICIALLY STARTS ON 15TH OF FEBRUARY, HOWEVER, MANY FLATS WILL BE AVAILABLE EARLIER BUT WE CAN'T GIVE YOU THE EXACT INFORMATION RIGHT NOW CAUSE WE DO NOT HAVE THE DEPARTURE DATES OF THE FIRST SEMESTER STUDENTS. WE WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH THIS INFORMATION SOON AND IN CASE YOUR FLAT IS NOT AVAILABLE TILL 15TH OF FEBRUARY WE WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH OUR HOSTEL'S CONTACT NUMBER TO RESERVE Wed Nov 25 18:12:15 +0200 2009 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/28 Reservations of Accommodation online end on 5th of September for all Erasmus Students. After 5th of September 2009 reservations are allowed only to AUEB students. AUEB students who wish to make a reservation after that date (5th of September) are requested to contact us directly at info@stayinathens.com. Fri Aug 28 16:49:47 +0300 2009 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/27 It has been a long time since our first release in August 2007. There have been good and bad times, times of disappointment and also times of significant achievements. StayInAthens itself has changed drastically and tries to improve its services. So it is time to upgrade our old website as well. We hope to launch in September or October 2009. The website will be completely redesigned and new services will be added that will assist all exchange students either they are our customers or not. Fore the time, we can just give you a glimpse of our new logo. We hope you like it! Tue Jul 14 08:58:47 +0300 2009 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/26 Dear All,   We inform you that from now on you can find us in our office in Asimaki Fotila 28 every Tuesday and Thursday from 14:00 to 17:00.         Wed Mar 11 18:46:43 +0200 2009 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/24 Usually each big metropolis has its underground city. But Athens has never been actually metropolitan and her inhabitants are not so open minded that s why we do not have a great and vibrant undeground scene besides the big classy but no-fun-at-all clubs or not ? Well find out at the concert of Cast-A-Blast   NOT BE BE MISSED !!! More info: Cast-a-Blast teams up with Oxy Publications & Platform celebrating the release of “Stencil in Athens” book out now! Special pre-live screening of the Awarded Road Documentary “BOMBING” and of course the Cast-a-blast soundsystem live! 20th November at Art House Athens Free Entrance Sat Nov 08 16:59:43 +0200 2008 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/23 Most of you are already in Greece for a good 2 months period. Maybe you have managed to dive into the modern greek craziness and for sure you have absorbed by the chaos of Athens. Unfortunately you have to search to find the genuine Greece in Athens but if you are willing to you can do it. But what we call Greece nowadays is really far from the great Greek culture of Ancient Times. Maybe Athens has a glorious name and history but the contemporaty image is huge conrete jungle with people trying to survive the jungle that created For sure  Solon, Aristo, Plato did not imagine something like that and the Athenians of that time would have build something better, something the world would be starring with amazement. Greece as an organised society actually has seized to exist for centuries. It came back with the collapse of Ottoman empire. Modern Greeks consider themselved to be pure descentants of the glorious ancient greeks but actually their culture is so far from that. Actually what we are and what you see is the leftover of a multi national balkan neighbourhoud. Balkans are complicated. For almost 400-500 all over balkans greeks, turks, bulgarians, albanian and serbians lived together. Nowadays almost everyone denies that and claims its nationalistic identity. Balkans is the place where people love to dance to the music of the nation they hate. Slav macedonians dance to greek music, greeks dance to turkish rhythms and albanians party with serbian brass. So besides food, language, common herritage and so on music can be the most powerful link to all these fragmented national groups. The balkan sound has been popularized ironically by a german DJ called Shantel. Balkans being so explosive is reflected to its music. Watch the following video and you will understand.   The lyrics initially are greek, then turkish, then english. Greeks will claim it as greek song, turkish as turkish. The only thing that we can for granted is that there will be a huge party on November 18th at Fuzz Club. Come and discover the balkan soul! The StayInAthens team will be there! Sat Oct 25 14:51:37 +0300 2008 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/21 Hi everyone, most of you are already here ready to live an unforgivable experience. Maybe Athens is not so appealing at first site but it is really a vibrant city. So besides the Erasmus parties, tackling Greek bureaucrasy and settling in (we hope that we really help you in this) you can seize the opportunity to live as a citizen of Athens by attending some cool events. First of all (though it is ending now), the Athens International Film Festival. Every year in September the AIFF brings some of the latest and finest movies around the world. There are different sections in the festival as the competing one, documentaries, special tributes, music films and so on. Find more details at the official website. Like it or not the coming of MTV to Greece is a major event. MTV Greece wants to celebrate its opening in our country and organises a series of events and festival around the city. It culminates with a huge and free concert at Kallimarmaro stadium with Kaiser Chiefs and REM on October the 5th. Here is a brief outline of the events translated for you: Sunday 28/912.00 – 14.00 MTV Music Brunch @ T Palace (King George Hotel)DJ: Blend aka Mishkin16.00 – 20.00 MTV Goes South @ BALUX CAFΙ DJs: John-John & Chris Child20.00 – 23.30 Thisseio: GAD – CYANNA - MATISSE20.00 – 23.30 Keramikos: N.Τ.Π. (live), DJ Smartie breakers without fear, skaters, N.S.A. parkour, BMX, graffiti Monday 29/912.00 – 14.00 MTV Freestylin’ @ The Shop (Ermou) DJ: Nea TPermaik20.00 – 23.30 Keramikos: DJ FEEL K, DJ Theo breakers without fear, skaters, BMX, graffiti22.00 MTV Rocks@ Bourbon (Glyfada) DJ: Panayiotis Liras Tuesday 30/913.00 – 16.00 MTV City Noise @ Public DJ: Dimitris Lilis18.00 – 20.00 MTV Suburbia @ B.Bluz (Halandri)20.00 – 23.30 Thiseio:  Greek Hip - Hop20.00 – 23.30 Keramikos: cast-a-blast soundsystem (live) breakers without fear, skaters, BMX, graffiti Wednesday 1/1018.00 – 21.00 MTV Bohemia @ Circus, DJ: Dimitris Lilis20.00 – 23.30 Thiseio: Andriana Babali – Imam Baildiί  - Rallia Christidou20.00 – 23.30 Keramikos:  217 (live), MTV Search TOP 10 VJs Dead Prezz breakers, skaters, N.S.A. parkour, BMX, graffiti24.00 MTV presents Bootycall Encore by Magna @ Akrotiri Club, Special Guest DJs: Nikki Beatnik & Lauren Pope (London) Tuesday 2/1012.00 – 14.00 MTV Freestylin’@ The Shop (Ermou) DJ: Nea TPermaik18.00 – 20.00 MTV Street Buzz @ Starbucks (Korai) DJ: Playmen18.00 – 21.00 MTV Pulp Noir @ Tiki Athens (Makrigiannis) DJ: Blend aka Mishkin20.00 – 23.30 Thiseio: ABBIE GALE – RAINING PLEASURE20.00 – 23.30 Keramikos: WORMS (live), QB-MIX (DJ set), TAWFIQ (live), DJ STEVE (MAD G.Q.)Dead Prezz, skaters, N.S.A. parkour, BMX, graffiti24.00 MTV goes exclusive: VENUE pre-opening party (Peireos) SPECIAL GUEST DJ Friday 3/1018.00 – 20.00 MTV City Noise @ Public (Syntagma) DJ: Nea TPermaik20.00 – 23.30 Thiseion: PROFESSIONAL SINNERZ & Κomis Χ – Skies– STEREO MIKE & SHAYA20.00 – 23.30 Keramikos: DJ Vicky Bania, DJ Kagioulis, Battle of the Breakers, skaters, N.S.A. parkour, BMX, graffiti24.00 MTV presents Hoteling @ Galaxy (Hilton) by Alexandros Christopoulos Saturday 4/1012.00 – 14.00 MTV Music Brunch @ Eleftheroudakis (Panepistimiou 17) DJ: Blend aka Mishkin16.00 – 20.00 MTV Goes South @ BALUX CAFΙ THE HOUSE PROJECT DJs: John-John & Chris Child20.00 – 23.30 Thiseion: YOUR HAND IN MINE – MONIKA – DAVID FONSECA20.00 – 23.30 Κεραμεικός: DJs: Andrianos Papadeas, George Seragos, V-Sag, Dimi Phaze (live) skaters, BMX, graffiti24:00 MTV Final Call @ Soul (Evripidou) DJs: Kormoranos & Flying Lilis Brothers Sunday 5/10 Final BIG CONCERT at Kallimarmaron stadium with Kaiser Chiefs & REM     Another interesting festival going on bringing design based on ecological and environmental friendly art. Read more at the official website. Photos by George Veroglou Fri Oct 03 22:09:20 +0300 2008 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/22 Fri Oct 03 22:07:14 +0300 2008 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/20 Yeah, it is final! Would you like to live in an old art nouveau renovated building where only exhange students live? Plus being on top of the headquarters of StayInAthens where the coolest guys and girls work ? Would you like to be down town but next to the Park (which is being renovated and is going to be super! ) Well if this not tempting enough, our residence (owned and managed by StayInAthens) is just in next to some of the busiest students bars of Athens and very close to the Polytechnic and AUEB.   But enough with the words! Just take a look by yourself and book now!Apartment 1Apartment 2Apartment 3Apartment 4Apartment 5Apartment 6Apartment 7  We are pretty excited by the new Erasmus residence and we look forward to host the first tenants and of course we still try out best to decorate it and make it as comfortable as possible! Sat Jul 19 17:48:04 +0300 2008 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/19 Dear Erasmus Students, we are more than excited to announce that the ERASMUS POP ART Residence is hot and ready here in Athens!!This Residence is not like any other you have seen or you imagined...POP ART is everywhere!!!! The Residence building will start making new Erasmus History by the new Academic year 2008-2009.In a few days pictures will be uploaded and you will have the chance to "visit" the whole Residence within the STAYINATHENS site. In order to perform a booking you shall follow exactly the same procedure applying for the rest of the Erasmus Appartments.  Nice to have you here in Athens with us!!! You will have an amazing Erasmus period...maybe the best of your life...For me still remains the best..10 years after the end :-)   See you all soon,   On behalf of Stayinathens Team Cleopatra Wed Jul 16 14:51:00 +0300 2008 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/18 Well yes you are in Athens and you cannot say you are overall impressed with the beauty of this city. But as it is often said Athens looks ugly but has a charming character. If you just look behind the walls, the upper class neighbours and the touristic spots and just walk around the city you can find some extraordinary pieces of art. Ladies and gentlemen this is Athens Street Art !   You can locate them on the map here! Thu May 15 09:43:09 +0300 2008 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/17 Wow it seems like a century since the last time I posted on this blog but please put the blame on the Cypriot Army that keeps me away from my "duties". The new academic year will bring many exciting features to StayInAthens that although seems like hibernating a lot of things are undergoing such as new exciting apartments, many new features on our web application. new services, new offers and so on. But for the time being I want to start informing you for some of the many amazing events that happens in Athens from now until summer. Traditionally May and June are the best months to spend in Athens the weather is awesome and the city is vibrating with cool events. One of them is one that makes the fans of electronic music, video, image arts and in general new media art, proud. It is called Synch Festival and you can learn more here. This year it will take place on 13-14-15 June in Technopolis area at Gazi easily reachable by metro (Keramikos station). The festival spawns over Technopolis, Benaki museum and famous bars and clubs of this sophisticated and artistic area. The best way to experience the festival is to sign up for volunteer thus having access for free to most of the venues. More on volunteers... And here is the excellent teaser of the festival   Mon Apr 14 10:50:54 +0300 2008 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/16 Silently over the last weeks we have made quite a lot of upgrades on the core of StayInAthens. Most of them though are in the admin part of the system which may not be visible to you but it will mean a lot the service we offer you. Let 's see some of the them On the client sideOpenID login and registration. Though not popular as of time being we think OpenID is the best solution towards a unified login so we came early to support itSearch available apartments without registration. You can see in our front page a new widget called Seach Vacancies that let you find available apartments at a glanceShort term search. Are you coming to Athens for a few days or weeks? Now we have included the short stay option to let you find your house in AthensImproved personal tools. See your balance, your roomates, discover your neighborhoodLive communication thanks to the new embeded MSN messenger, find it here House owner sideWe have new tools for the management of your property and you can find more here. Admin sideNew event scheduling moduleSearch Vacancies moduleData warehouseStatistics module There have been also a lot of small usability and scalability issues solved and we hope for a new release of StayInAthens v2.0 in summer which will be Rails 2.0 compatible and will sport many new features. Please leave a comment with the features you would like to see in our new version. We will experiment on a new layout of the frontpage. P.S. Not to forget that besides the webpage we try to impove our product! So in cooperation with our house owners we try to upgrade our listed houses and try to find new great apartments (not so easy task in the center of Athens but we do try! :) ) Fri Dec 28 15:53:53 +0200 2007 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/15 What is more important  for  me while traveling is to explore the place I am and I am not referring to sites and touristical places but people, traditions and culture. Although Night On Earth is not a traditional group is a group that makes me proud of modern greek culture which I am afraid we do not have much. As most of modern greek pop music is a bad mixture of oriental rhythms and stupid lyrics there are still composers and musicians that amaze me. Of course if you just a tourist in Greece it will be difficult to discover them but if you spend a significant time in Athens and if you network with the right people you can always find the niche you fit in! So if you like trip hop, blues, stone and some bits of greek music I am happy to present you Night On Earth. If further more you would like to be introduced to some more greek like music but with a western view then just wait until February when Night on Earth will have a news album with the songs of one of the best modern greek composers named Thanasis Papakostantinou (a great song of him) but played in their own special way. You can view a teaser here: Fri Dec 28 15:11:44 +0200 2007 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/13 Sometimes we forget the beauty there is in this world and sometimes we do everything to destoy it. Well those times I agree with Agent Smith from the Matrix saying that humans are not like mammals because they live in balance with the environment although men to consume all resources, like viruses. When we were making StayInAthens, our lovely country was burning... Sometime ago I went on an excursion with a german friend. He was Erasmus student back in 2004 here and we still have very good communication. So he came to visit and made a trip to the north. The photo is from Vikos Gorge near Ioannina. I highly recommend you to go there and see the real Greece behind the business suits, the cement and the rush of Athens. To meet genuine people and an amazing land. Tue Nov 20 12:46:57 +0200 2007 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/12 Hi everyone,Though a rainy weekend it was a time of cycling action. On Saturday there was the big demonstration of cyclists asking for our rights (I am a cyclist myself) something taken for granted in most European countries. As we all see Athens is a city where car drivers rule. They are dangerous, the cars make noise, occupy space and of course pollute. The thing is that most movements are not longer than 3 kms so bikes could be used.The last years we see a rise of cyclists in Athens but the Mayor and the Ministry of Transporation do not take us seriously. One of our reactions are the big cycling demonsration with participation of over 2.000 cyclists every time. So far we have achieved to let us in the green line of metro. So on Saturday we also asked to be free to enter at every metro line and we also asked for cycle ways. There has been a study where and how to make cycle ways but the Mayor neglects to apply it. So we took paint and made them on our own.On Sunday there was the cycling tour or Athens organised by the Mayor. It is nothing more than a communication tric. The motto of the tour was "We make space for bicycles, the environmental friendly vehicle" and so on but 3 days back Mr. Kaklamanis said that is dangerous to make cycle ways in Athens. So most of us participated on Saturday and snobbed the official event on Sunday. Instead, personally I took a long and extreme ride on Ymittos, the paradise of the athenian mountain biker.Hope that some time we have more cycle ways and better attitude towards cyclists so that you can also bring your bike Mon Oct 22 14:58:15 +0300 2007 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/10 Just some stats I Found at Technorati. Posts that contain Blog Action Day per day for the last 30 days. But please note that in the above results only the blogs monitored by Technorati appear and of course if the phrase Blog Action Day is translated it is not counted and also some people may opted for a different title. Anyway the intresting part is that we see a king of reflection on world blogs. How so many people from different countries synchronize on same day. But blogs are good but real action is the question. As Ghandi said Hands that help are holier than lips that pray Wed Oct 17 13:32:51 +0300 2007 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/8 Although usually I am very sceptical about world action day that are usually inspired by Bono :) for the reason that they are usually exploited by people or corporation in order to disguise the reality or some other times we are active for a day and then think we have done what we had to do and we do not take real action.Yesterday I want mountain biking at Ymittos mountain. The mountain in the east of Athens. There is a beautiful forest there that run the danger to be burnt twice this summer. Two fires on its foothills. But the proximity to Athens brought all the fire brigade mechanism here to put the fire down. I was also there as a volunteer. What I saw was the tragic lack or organisation by the greek state and immense quantity of garbage on the sides of the highway.It is no just matter of state organisation. We all know that there is not such a thing but we just admit it. But the biggest problem is the majority of the citizens. Indifferent, self-centerted and without culture. Just throwing whatever everywhere, do not care for people with mobility problems, parking everywhere and building on burned land. Last year 1,700 houses were built illegally on forest land but the greek state does not take measure against them and nobody talks.Ymittos was safe but unfortunately beautiful Parnitha did not have the same chance. It was a protected National Park. Around 60% became ashes. After that a big movement of citizens asked from the governement to take care of environment. The result was not any great as after the destruction of Parnitha around 1,700 square kilometers burnt most of them in the Peloponese.So we only blame the state? After the Peloponese fire I went a trip to my hometown. On the way on one side there was a burnt forest on the other someone had just threw the leftovers of a house along with windows with the glass, he just prepared the next fire! The glass is still there!So what I want to say is that our indifference destroys the world. Are we too busy with pursuing profits? Are we damn by watching TV? Whatever the case we should wake up because "The roof is on fire!" Mon Oct 15 10:42:06 +0300 2007 http://www.stayinathens.com/blog/7 Yesterday I presented StayInAthens at OpenCoffee meeting. Open Coffee is an informal meeting of entrepreuners, people who want to start or are intrested in start up, looking for new cool projects or just want to be networked with intresting people.This kind of meetings are quite usual in other European countries and given the fact that that was the fourth one and the participation was approximately 70 people it seems that it is getting more dynamic. Of course in not comparable with relative actions abroad where there can be 2000 participants and some of the projects that are presented there are just enormous like Digg.com or Facebook.StayInAthens got a lot of fair reviews and some raves about the design of the website which me very happy and look forward to achieve even more.For everyone who is intrested in new hot business idea Open Coffee is the place to be, unfortunately there is the linguistic barrier but few presentations are in english (just the slideshow) and of course you can me good connections. Wed Oct 03 10:57:31 +0300 2007