Andrea Blander, Esq. lived in Thessaloniki for one year from 2005 to 2006.
I came home laughing and screaming today, a frequent combination when living here, I’ve been trying to think of a way to tie together all the little random stories about life here that make me laugh. But I’m not sure what it would be, other than something both profound and meaningless, like ‘it’s a place of contrasts.’ But my bus ride today was a perfect example…
I was waiting for the bus this morning, and a woman walked by and, completely unsolicited, handed me her still-valid bus ticket. (The tickets are good for 90 minutes once you validate them when you step on the bus.) Which was particularly nice because I didn’t have exact change and was therefore going to have to overpay for my ticket. The yang showed up later in the bus ride. I was reading my book, and heard this pathetic mewing noise. I looked up, and realized it was an 80-year-old woman who hadn’t been fast enough getting off the bus, trapped between the now-closed bus doors as the driver prepared to take off. I assume it was the chorus of people yelling at him to open the door that caused the driver to relent and set her free. (A few weeks ago when it was me with my arm caught hanging out the door after a slow attempted exit, I simply had to wrench my arm back in through the door and get off at the next stop.)
The word impatient comes to mind to describe life here. Too slow getting off the bus? Too bad. Or when you’re driving. First person in line at the red light? You have exactly one nanosecond after the light turns green before the people behind you lay on their horns (and sometimes, even if the light is still red they honk at you because if no one is in the oncoming lane, the red light is viewed as completely optional, and you’re blocking traffic by obeying it). Waiting in line for something? The smallest gap between you and the person ahead of you is viewed as an open invitation for someone else to slide right in ahead of you. No guilt at all. Your dirty looks will be met with puzzled stares. But the weird part is this is a culture where it’s also completely acceptable to knock off for two hours during the middle of the work day to have a cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes with a friend. So do they cut you off from the right lane while you’re making a left-hand turn to save a few extra seconds for their coffee break?
Perhaps it’s the stifling bureaucracy and procedures in everyday life that make the Greeks so impatient. We thought our run-in with our tax-free purchases at IKEA was some kind of anomaly. But that cumbersome, multi-step, system-for-everything process is far more ingrained than we originally realized. And it can get to you. Little things become annoying just because they waste your time for no apparent reason. My current pet peeve is when you go into the bigger stores, you can't enter through one of the empty checkout lines (which are usually closer to the door). Oh no. At least two security guards will swoop down on you and insist you walk over to the other end of the store where the security tag detector is (that metal doorway that beeps if your item still has the special tag on it). It's really not that big a deal to walk the extra distance (although it is the length of an entire football field at our favorite grocery store). But it's the PRINCIPLE of it. I mean, I'm walking INTO the store. Is this to catch the really greedy shoplifters who go back for seconds????
Or paying the bills. That’s a system that makes me snarl on a monthly basis. You can’t simply write a check here and mail it off; nor can you pay anything electronically unless you open a Greek bank account. All bills have to be paid in person, in cash, in the billing office of the utility in question (though for some of the utilities you can pay in the lottery office, which has much longer hours than the government-owned utilities).
My favorite bill is the rent, which we have to deposit directly into our landlord’s bank account (landlords don’t take checks either, or large sums of cash). This activity needs to be timed carefully, because it can take up to two hours, and the banks are open M-F, from 9-2 only. First, there’s the advance work to paying. Our rent costs several times our bank account’s maximum daily ATM withdrawal limit. So it takes three days of preparatory withdrawals to amass the requisite cash. This month, we needed a last €130 to make the payment (we’d dipped into the rent stash to buy groceries). So first I went into the bank and took a number (yes, those little metal machines that dispense a paper ticket with a number, and a little sign above the tellers indicating what number they’re on). Then I went back outside to the cash machine. I selected the English option. I was promptly offered the choice of withdrawing €20, €40, €80, €100, €200 or €400. No pick-your-own-amount option. No problem, I figured, I’ll do two withdrawals, one for €100, and one for €40. I got the first hundred without incident. But when I went to withdraw the €40, the machine informed me that I had to pick something that was a multiple of 20. Hmm, last time I checked, 40 was indeed just that. I asked for €20. Same error message. ’Of course 20 is a multiple of 20,’ I informed the machine. It was unmoved by my logic. €80? No dice. I looked down at my previously withdrawn funds and realized my €100 had been dispensed as two 50s. Aha! I bet the machine only has 50s….Of course there was no option to withdraw €50, so I selected the next best option -- another hundred. Success! Forget the fact that it was €70 more than I wanted…. Then I went back into the bank, took a seat in the back row of plastic chairs (yes, they have three rows set up auditorium style, facing the tellers so you can monitor the progress), and pulled out a book. Just shy of an hour later, my number came up. Two minutes later, with my transaction completed and my transaction fee paid (to add insult to injury you have to pay €1.20 for the privilege of depositing money via this convoluted system), I was freed for another month.
Even recipes seem rule-bound. I’ve acquired several Greek cookbooks during our stay. Last night the recipe I was trying informed me that the long list of vegetables I’d just prepared according to very specific instructions (i.e., the eggplant needed to be peeled so that it had alternating stripes – one inch wide mind you – skin on, skin peeled off) must be added to the stew pot in the EXACT order in which they were listed. Since the next step was to stir everything up, what on earth is the difference what order you add the veggies?
But the impatience is balanced by the famed Greek generosity, hospitality and well, just general chattiness. I’d been training for the Athens marathon on some dirt roads in the hills behind our house. One landmark on the route was a long row of bright blue wooden beehives (only 15 more minutes back to the car!!). One day when Pete (on his bike) and I got to the hives, a man was there inspecting them. Turns out he was the owner. Upon questioning, he regaled us with information about the bees and the flowers they dined on. And about life in Greece. And religion. And world peace. We didn’t have money with us to buy some honey, so he gave us a jar and his phone number so we could call to arrange to pay him, and to join him and his wife for a cup of coffee. Then there’s our landlord and his wife, who speak absolutely no English (though their son who lives with them and practices his drumming about six hours a day does, and does a fine job of translating). He shows up at our door on a fairly regular basis bearing gifts from his garden (tea leaves, pomegranates, figs), and they had us over for a pre-Christmas feast. And the owner of the local taverna that we go to on occasion. Sergio always adds a couple extra glasses of wine with our meal, and sits down with us to chat while we dine.
My theory is this desire to be generous and forthcoming has one particular drawback – namely, you get some really bad information. Nobody wants to disappoint you by not knowing the answer to your question, so with a completely straight face they will tell you things that turn out to be wholly and laughably inaccurate. To wit…
• I had an appointment at the data protection authority (DPA) in Athens last Monday. So the Saturday before, Pete and I did an advance scouting mission for the office, address Kifisias Ave #1-3. We found ourselves at an unnumbered building that by process of elimination (it was the first building on the street, and the building next door was #5) we determined must be the right one. We went in to ask the building manager and the security guard at the lobby desk if the DPA office was in the building. After consultation, both assured us that it was not. No government offices in here except the Australian embassy. I provided the name of the lawyer I was supposed to meet with. “No, I know all the people in the building, and that man does not work here,” the manager said. Monday morning, I called my appointment to confirm the location, and he described a building that sounded just like the place we’d been on Saturday. I went back there, took the elevator to the 5th floor as he’d directed, and there, as the door opened, in enormous letters (both English and Greek) were the words ‘Data Protection Authority.’ The office took up the entire 5th floor.
• We went to the telephone office to pay our bill (see tirade above about bill paying). For a number of reasons I’ll spare you, our payment was late, so our service had been cut to emergency service only. We paid the bill and asked the representative how long it would take before our phone service would resume. There was a bit of confusion on this point as we tried to explain in Greek what was going on. “Δεν μιλάω αγγλικά (I don’t speak English),” he told us. Pete tried another tack in Greek to explain the problem to him. “Oh, you can receive incoming calls but can’t make outgoing calls?” the rep said, in perfect English. Right….
• And beware of Greeks bearing directions. Pete, as a rule, has stopped asking for directions here. They are almost always wrong. A long silence ensues on the phone when Pete asks about the location of say, the business where the person he’s speaking to works. “I take the bus to work so I don’t know how to get here” is a fairly standard response. Or “it’s very close to the platea (the square)” is a good one. (There’s a square every few blocks here.) The use of cardinal directions or specifics is generally frowned upon. “Take a right after the park…”
Some of the frustration no doubt is language barriers. Most people here speak at least some English, and quite a number of them are completely fluent. Melbourne, Australia is the third largest Greek city in the world, so you frequently find yourself in conversation with a Greek who speaks flawless English with an Aussie accent (and slang). Most of the road signs have English on them. But it can be deceptive, because even though you’re reading English, you frequently have no idea what information is being conveyed. My favorite example, one that still makes me giggle when I thumb through it, is the Tourist Information Office brochure we picked up our first week here, in Edessa, a beautiful waterfalled town west of Thessaloniki. This full-color, glossy 20-page brochure touts all the wonders of the Edessa region, including skiing, shopping, local hospitality, and the local tsipouro festival. Tsipouro, as best I can learn from my Google research, is a liquor with an estimated 36- to 45-percent alcohol content that is made by further fermenting the residue from the wine-making process. The Edessa brochure provides the following illumination (all spellings and punctuation as in the original):
Tsipouro is well done ouzo version. Locals love it. From Oktober till mid December local dixies are ready for the “fresh liquid“.
If the dixies don’t entice you, there’s the pitch for the “local products:”
The geographical position and the natural beauty of the area are splendid marbles for the development of agro-tourism. Feel the country life, relax and savor the local food, enjoy the manifestations, which the village people organize through the year.
Or the Spring Music Festival:
Springtime always gives us a fresh interest and feeling for music and art. In this atmosphere was the Spring Festival born. The initial intention and purpose was a greater hearing of classical and modern music, artistic and traditional local music, to enjoy the productions of important musicians…Our aim and wish is the incessant continuation of the Spring Festival.
Of course it’s no fair to poke fun at their English translations without fessing up to my own catastrophic forays into speaking Greek. My most recent favorite was an encounter walking down the street near our house. An older gentleman stopped and asked me what time it was, a question I was able to answer flawlessly in my baby Greek. He followed up with another question completely beyond my vocabulary range. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I don’t speak very good Greek.” He got an annoyed look and walked on. Strange reaction, I thought. Was I speaking such perfect Greek that he thought I was lying to him? No, it occurred to me several steps later. I’d just told him that HE didn’t speak very good Greek.
So, it’s tricky when people ask us “How do you like living in Greece?” On one hand, of course it’s fabulous. Beautiful scenery. Friendly people. House with a view. Learning lots of history. Language classes. Window into another culture.
On the other hand, it’s disorienting. It looks a lot like home. But they make stairs out of slick marble. They park cars on the sidewalk (where there’s room --they also plant trees right in the middle of the walkways) so you have to take your life in your hands and walk in the street. The grocery store carries 25 varieties of olive oil, but spray cooking oil is unheard of. They have a longer life span than anyone else in Europe, but they smoke like absolute fiends (the highest rate of any EU country). We saw one motorcycle driver holding his helmet in his left hand so he could smoke with his right (yes, while driving!). You can sign up for language classes, but you won’t know until the first day of class what days the class will meet or who will be teaching it.
Basically, we’ve discovered, as soon as you stop expecting things to make sense, life here gets a lot easier.
So…How’s Greece? It’s great. But boy, do we miss using our checkbooks.
