To Filos Mas Yiannis

Yiannis Koutedakis is the Chair of the Sports Science department at the U Thessaly. Definitely your larger than life and very entertaining Greek! Yiannis was also Andreas's advisor during his undergraduate degree, and sent him off to the world for his graduate studies and then brought him back to Trikala. My last week in Greece, we went over to his house for dinner with his family. The food was great and Yiannis provided excellent dinner theatre in the bargain!

Saying Yiannis likes to collect is like saying ducks like water. Vintage is the critical word when it comes to describing his many collecting passions. He has an enormous collection of vintage radios of every type and style imaginable. Yiannis has even more bikes than I do, and they are all of the classic variety like the one here. All the parts are as original as possible. Some he rides and others have never rolled more than a few metres.

Another of the big prizes is his classic jukebox, which he likes to blasts at high volume. Transistors are far too modern and high tech, this one uses valves! Quite the eclectic collection of 45s, from Beatles to Greek to ABBA to Black Sabbath!

Next up on the collection front are antique books. One of his prizes is this collection of Charles Darwin second edition prints of such classics as The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.

Yiannis in his younger days from the University of Wolverhampton, where Andreas also did his first M.Sc. degree. Rowing was his sport, and on the right is a medal from Seoul Olympics in 1988.

Thanks to Yiannis, another reason we truly loved our time in Greece!