How do you know you are in Greece (without looking at the street signs)? Balconies everywhere and lots of marble. In quite ordinary houses or office buildings, you'll find marble stairs, marble entranceways, and even marble walls! For that matter, sometimes there's marble paving on the sidewalk.
Also, it takes five times as long to accomplish a task--partly because we are on foot and using public transportation. But there's also a lot of bureaucracy, some of it stunningly obtuse.
For example, the first full day we were here, Saturday, Ken tried to get money out of an ATM. We were still entirely jet-lagged, and he didn't realize until after he got two "wrong PIN" warnings that he had put in the wrong card--a credit card instead of a bank card. He hit "cancel" to retrieve his card. Then the message said "sorry, card has been retained." (And and the ATM stopped working entirely--the man behind us on line was not amused.)
So first thing Monday morning we went to the bank, explained the mistake, and asked for the card back. "No," the woman at the desk said, "we only return captured cards to customers of the bank." "OK, I'll open an account," I said. "No," she said, "we will not open an account for only 6 months." "But it's MY card," Ken said. "Yes," she said, "but that is our policy." There was actually more dialog, but that's what it boiled down to.
We have had charming interactions as well, but it's dinner-time, so I'll save that for another post.
Also, it takes five times as long to accomplish a task--partly because we are on foot and using public transportation. But there's also a lot of bureaucracy, some of it stunningly obtuse.
For example, the first full day we were here, Saturday, Ken tried to get money out of an ATM. We were still entirely jet-lagged, and he didn't realize until after he got two "wrong PIN" warnings that he had put in the wrong card--a credit card instead of a bank card. He hit "cancel" to retrieve his card. Then the message said "sorry, card has been retained." (And and the ATM stopped working entirely--the man behind us on line was not amused.)
So first thing Monday morning we went to the bank, explained the mistake, and asked for the card back. "No," the woman at the desk said, "we only return captured cards to customers of the bank." "OK, I'll open an account," I said. "No," she said, "we will not open an account for only 6 months." "But it's MY card," Ken said. "Yes," she said, "but that is our policy." There was actually more dialog, but that's what it boiled down to.
We have had charming interactions as well, but it's dinner-time, so I'll save that for another post.
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