While the last couple of days have been spent primarily on work, I have nonetheless had some opportunities to get out and experience a bit of Greece.
For potential visitors, let me begin with a warning: don’t cross the street unless you absolutely have to. In stark contrast to drivers in Switzerland – who yield to pedestrians if they even remotely look like they intend to cross the street – drivers in Greece seem to place no value on the lives of those brave enough to attempt a crossing.
I grabbed lunch with some colleagues in a suburb of Athens called Glyfada, which is pretty lively and showed no indication of the broader economic turmoil that is currently affecting the nation. The food itself wasn’t particularly notable (basically international cuisine rather that any sort of Greek specialty), but the lunch nonetheless provided the opportunity to get some locals’ perspectives on what was currently going on in Greece.
It was particularly interesting to discuss the many parallels between the underlying causes of the economic malaise within both Greece the U.S. As I heard the stories of excessive consumer borrowing, property bubbles, house prices that “would never go down”, it became readily apparent that the U.S. wasn’t alone in its economic naiveté over the past couple of years.
After lunch I had an interesting experience. It began with a common occurrence that I had already observed multiple times during my time in Greece – someone double parking. As a quick aside, it was pretty interesting to witness the parking protocol in place given the limited availability of public parking spots and the excessive cost of private parking lots. Basically, people park wherever they can (spot or no spot), simply throw on their hazard lights, and then hope to return before receiving a ticket.
So back to my story…While I was standing on the sidewalk after lunch, a driver returned to his car to find that it had been blocked in by a rogue double parker. To remedy the situation, he decided to start honking his horn until the other driver returned. Unfortunately, this went on for a good five minutes with no success. And then all of a sudden an enormous Greek guy who resembled Rick Rubin and was wearing a Hard Rock Munich t-shirt yelled “SHUT THE F*CK UP!!!” at the top of his lungs. I’m pretty sure we have that saying in English too…
For potential visitors, let me begin with a warning: don’t cross the street unless you absolutely have to. In stark contrast to drivers in Switzerland – who yield to pedestrians if they even remotely look like they intend to cross the street – drivers in Greece seem to place no value on the lives of those brave enough to attempt a crossing.
I grabbed lunch with some colleagues in a suburb of Athens called Glyfada, which is pretty lively and showed no indication of the broader economic turmoil that is currently affecting the nation. The food itself wasn’t particularly notable (basically international cuisine rather that any sort of Greek specialty), but the lunch nonetheless provided the opportunity to get some locals’ perspectives on what was currently going on in Greece.
It was particularly interesting to discuss the many parallels between the underlying causes of the economic malaise within both Greece the U.S. As I heard the stories of excessive consumer borrowing, property bubbles, house prices that “would never go down”, it became readily apparent that the U.S. wasn’t alone in its economic naiveté over the past couple of years.
After lunch I had an interesting experience. It began with a common occurrence that I had already observed multiple times during my time in Greece – someone double parking. As a quick aside, it was pretty interesting to witness the parking protocol in place given the limited availability of public parking spots and the excessive cost of private parking lots. Basically, people park wherever they can (spot or no spot), simply throw on their hazard lights, and then hope to return before receiving a ticket.
So back to my story…While I was standing on the sidewalk after lunch, a driver returned to his car to find that it had been blocked in by a rogue double parker. To remedy the situation, he decided to start honking his horn until the other driver returned. Unfortunately, this went on for a good five minutes with no success. And then all of a sudden an enormous Greek guy who resembled Rick Rubin and was wearing a Hard Rock Munich t-shirt yelled “SHUT THE F*CK UP!!!” at the top of his lungs. I’m pretty sure we have that saying in English too…
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