Greece: The Good, the Bad, and the Amusing

The Good:

I have a whole separate post on the good things about Greece. Here’s a recap: The islands, the food, the color of the ocean, siestas, tavernas, open-air cinemas, sunsets, beautiful flowers, frappes, kids running around at night, etc.

The Bad:
As with every country, you have to take the bad along with the good.  I always feel that an outsider has no right to criticise a country.  After all, if you don't like it, go home!  However, since my mother-in-law lives here, my husband is half-Greek, and I have spent every summer and every other Christmas here for the past 10 years; I feel I have earned the right to mention a few things I don't like.  (If you are Greek, please don't take offense,  I think the good outweighs the bad, and I am the first person to criticise things I don't like about my own country.)  Here are some things I really find hard to take when I come here:

-Athens - NOT my favorite place! It has all the problems of a big city without any of the convenience. I only liked Greece once I got out of Athens. By all means - go to Athens to see all the old stuff (Parthenon, etc.). I was really glad to see all that. The first time. After you’ve seen it all though, Athens is just a big, dirty city.

-Rude people - Admittedly, not all Greeks are rude. I find them to very rude in Athens, but really very friendly once you get outside of Athens.  Once, in Athens, an old Greek lady literally pushed me out of the way saying "op op op op op!"  I think that's the Greek for,"Get out of my way you dumb tourist!  I'm trying to get that taxi!"

- NO ONE waits in line. Ever. When you go anywhere, instead of lining up, the Greeks will push into a chaotic mob and elbow you out of their way. (Little old Greek ladies are the WORST!) I have been conditioned to wait my turn. If you try to do this, you’ll never get anywhere because everyone pushes ahead of you. Once the crowd begins to thin out, then a whole fresh mob of people will push in front of you. I have culture shock over this every time.

-Rules are for someone else - Most Greeks seem to have this mentality. Rules (even traffic rules) are for someone else. We once got totally yelled at by a man who had a red light, but he wanted to run it. We were walking across the street at the time (obeying the signal), and prevented him from doing this. (This is just one, small example. People create traffic lanes where there are no lanes, etc.) I always have underlying anxiety because I feel like anyone could do anything at anytime.

-Speaking of traffic - When driving in Athens, if you don’t go immediately, the person behind you will honk and curse at you. If you do go, then the car on street you just went in front of will honk and curse at you. Either way, you’re screwed.

The Amusing:
(I was going to call this “the ugly”, but I decided to think of it as amusing.)

- There is still smoking inside of buildings. When we went to the bank, (another thing I don’t like: things take FOREVER. Even simple things like going to the bank can take hours.) Anyway, we were at the bank, and the woman at the desk lit up and started smoking! I couldn’t believe it. Okay, though. It was a bank. Fair enough, I guess. What really shocked me was when we visited my mother-in-law in the hospital a few years back when she had a minor operation. People were smoking IN the hospital! Even the doctors and nurses smoked, right in front of the patients! (WTF?)

- Sidewalks are not for walking. Anywhere there is a sidewalk, people have planted trees in the middle of them. They cut holes in the concrete and plant trees in them every few feet. Of course, this makes walking on the sidewalk impossible. So then, everyone walks in the street while the angry drivers honk at everyone to get out of the way. To me, this is crazy.

-Gum - On the trunks of the above mentioned trees, there is tons of gum. Apparently, this is where youngsters put their used gum instead of throwing it away. Yuck.

- Ancient Plumbing - Most places have old plumbing with very narrow pipes. This means that you cannot flush toilet paper. Next to every toilet, they have a small trash can where you’re supposed to put used toilet paper and things you normally would flush. Ick. (This is another thing I find it hard to get used to.)

-Cats - They seem to be everywhere! Apparently, the Greeks won’t put down animals. This is nice in theory, but what do you do when the stray cats take over and there are packs of dogs which terrorize children? Sometimes, putting down strays is for the best.

A Leap of Faith

It's a busy week so I'm going to cop out and post another picture.

Do you see this bridge?  We actually had to walk across it in order to get to a monastery in the Meteora when we were there this past Christmas.  Can you believe my husband, who is terrified of heights, went across it too?  It took a leap of faith that the bridge wouldn't collapse while we were on it!

Old (but fun) Stories: Crazy Daisy Got Busted!

The following is a story about my feisty Greek mother-in-law from when we visited her last summer:

     Daisy is full of contradictions. An example of this is her attitude about walking to the shops (3 blocks form her house).  She is afraid of leaving her house.  “What if I get really tired and have to sit down?”, “What if I get swine flu?”, “What if the cats get hungry and I’m not there to feed them?”, etc.  So yesterday evening, we convinced her to walk to the store with us, and stop for gelato.  After much ado, we walked the 3 blocks....at about the same pace as you do when standing in line at the bank.  Seriously.  It took about 20 minutes to do a 2 minute walk.  Anyway, when she was crossing the road, we were urging her to hurry because cars were coming.  “No! I’ll not be rushed! They can very well slow down!” Also, she would walk in the middle of the road saying, “Let the cars go around me!”  So ---- all this fear about ridiculous things, and the one thing that really could kill her was of no concern to her.  Hmmmmm.
By the way----in case you were wondering, there is no medical reason as to why Daisy should walk so slowly.  My 90 year old grandmother walks a mile everyday, and could run rings around her!  Daisy did have an operation on her leg though.  A year ago.  (It was a simple, outpatient procedure.)  She has been capitalizing on that ever since.

     A few days later, my husband and I were returning from a short excursion.  We thought we might stop at the shops near Daisy’s house to get some lunch.  While we were looking for a parking place, who do you think we saw turbo-charging down the street?  That’s right---none other than Miss Daisy! She was briskly walking, head held high, skirt swaying back and forth, chin jutted out in determination, and eyes focused forward!  (It took us a while to even recognize her!)  She didn’t even see us as we pulled up.  She jumped as soon as she saw us and switched to her “slow, wobble-walk” as I like to call it.  She is SO busted!  Apparently, she walks to the shops down the street all the time.  This makes the above story extra funny.  She had led us to believe that the time above was her first time walking down the street since her operation a year ago.  We’re on to her now.  The good thing about this is that my husband doesn’t worry about her as much now.  There’s always a silver lining.

Old (but fun) Stories: The Good Wife of the Megalo Monastery

 
This past Christmas, when we we visiting my mother-in-law, my husband and I took a little trip to the Meteora.  (without her!)  At the Megalo Monastery, I was blessed by a Greek monk!  Well, not really. Here's how it went down:

My husband (I'll call him Ted) was buying a book in the shop of the Megalo Monastery in the Meteora.  The monk that sold it looked at me, pointed, and said something in Greek to Ted.  Apparently, he said "She isn't Greek, is she?"  (Well duh! I can't think of many people who look less Greek than I do.)  He then said some more stuff in Greek, followed by "gut frau" (good wife).  Maybe he thought I was German?  Anyway, he thought I was a good wife because I was "so quiet and docile".  Yeah.  He doesn't know me well does he?  I plan to get lots of mileadge out of that "good wife" comment! ;-)

Crazy Greek Mother-in-Law

My Greek mother-in-law, Daisy, has some odd ideas.  She can be very entertaining so I thought I'd post some of my favorite stories about her.  Here are some of her crazy ideas about nutrition.

Health Advice:
According to her, you shouldn't eat watermelon because it is "pure sugar".  Also, the most fattening thing you can have on the planet is a potato.  However, cake isn't fattening because it is light and full of air. She refuses to throw away bread since she lived through the German occupation. Bread is like gold!  Even if it is moldy. She says that eating moldy bread is actually good for you because all mold is like Penicillin and will kill whatever germs are in your body. ! We have to sneak and throw the moldy bread away and buy more when she isn't looking.  They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Daisy lives dangerously.

The Butter Cookie Diet:
My husband and I were going to visit a friend of the family, and we were going to bring her a tsoureki.  Daisy said, "But she is too fat! Don't bring her a tsoureki! She shouldn't eat such things."  (Blatant honesty can be so entertaining.)  So, we thought, "okay--let's bring her some fruit".  But Daisy shot that down as well.  "Fruit is full of sugar!  Fat people should not eat too much of it."  So we asked her what we should bring then.  What do you think?  Danish butter-cookies!  Daisy says they're small so they can't have be too fattening.  So--eat up the Danish butter cookies and avoid bread and fruit! (I'm SO liking this diet!)

Protein:
Daisy's nutritional tip of the day: chicken has no protein in it, beef does! - One day (while we were visiting), Daisy said she was cooking beef patties for us because "we had had no protein since we had gotten there".  When I replied that we had been eating chicken, she said, "but chicken doesn't have protein!  All of the protein goes into their eggs!"  So there you have it.  All the protein from chickens go into their eggs.  I guess you have to eat eggs to get chicken protein.  By this logic, I guess beef does have protein because cows don't lay eggs!  You gotta love the reasoning here.