What don't you like about Greece

[xenos]

Originally Posted by IrinaP

There are no proper side walks in Greece.. or if they are they are dangerous to walk on due to either the one you mentioned or stepping on dog poo poo

...

Irina,

We agree on something!!!

Dont forget the idiots that ride their motorcycles on the pavement, including the dear old Policemen going for their coffee!!!

[IrinaP]

Originally Posted by xenos

...

Irina,

We agree on something!!!

Dont forget the idiots that ride their motorcycles on the pavement, including the dear old Policemen going for their coffee!!!

Finally

[Haraki]

Has anybody been affected by the rain in Rhodes or elsewhere?

[KathyK]

I don't live on Rodos, but do live in the Dodecanese islands. This is our fourth January in Greece and by far the wettest, and much cooler than last January. Roads flooded and covered in debris in parts (though not "flooding" when compared to Queensland in Aus of course).

[pellasgos]

Originally Posted by astro-kopp

I work at a cheese store, have been working there since nearly the day I arrived here. And the first thing to struck me as a wee bit extra-ordinarily odd was the way all and sundry champ their mouths while eating. Sometimes when a costumer inquires about a certain type of cheese and if a long protracted rabbit and pork don't pander to inquisitiveness of a given punter I simply slice a little chunk of the prospective cheese for their degustation, but every time I do so I have to put up with these loud chompings. What kind of code of ethics is this? How can this be so widespread? Obviously, I thought that this particular type of foible is considered as unsavoury, something that's not pleasant to regard or hearken no matter which country you reside in
But there you go, go into any café (you should consider yourself lucky if you have an iPod with you in that case you can simply plug your ears and get along with your nosh)

I went through 7 rings of hell when I applied for a food hygiene certificate. No one at the hospital was able to pinpoint with the slightest precision where I could make an appointment or lodge a request. The thing I got was a series of referring me to a doctor which ,respectively, referred me to another and another and so on until I gave in and left the hospital vanquished and in high dudgeon. It's not only me as an expat that whinges about this, Greeks themselves are appalled. Civil Services in this country are in execrable condition.

And there's this moment of their being overly impolitic towards time. They don't care in the least if someone they are holding up are short of time or simply want to get along with their businesses. I think I'll move to Sweden, the country that's obverse when it comes to contrasting these two.

wow! astro kop! Pretty fancy words you use for a guy that works in a cheese store!!

[micdhack]

hey everybody,

i have to admit is kind of harsh to hear the things posted in this topic and knowing that i was born and grew up there. But, i have to admit that the things that you mentioned are 100% accurate!

Many of these things bothered me when i was growing up, but especially when i first visited other countries(civilized countries), things didn't just bother me anymore but i couldn't get them out of my mind. The funny thing is that most Greek don't notice these things and cannot make a simple cause and effect association for the problems that they encounter everyday. One reason may be something that i heard from my mom(and not only) over and over again..."what can you do, that's life, that happens everywhere". It is ignorance at it's highest level.

What i would like to ask though is, how are Greeks towards foreigners. I've been living in the Czech Republic for the past 2 years and i have to admit that the majority of the population is racist/xenophobic towards foreigners. When i say racist i mean in many ways such as, "i hate you and i don't wanna see you" to "you can live here, but i dont want to socialize with you". In any case, thinking that a foreigner is an Alien and somehow behaves different. Now i know for a fact that is not the case for Canada but having experienced Greece as a local i am biased when it comes to rating how Greeks feel and behave towards foreigners.

[wka]

micdhack - I imagine it varies very widely. As an American, I am regularly shocked by things that seem - to me - to be blatantly and unacceptably racist, but Greeks will often say "oh that's not racism," - I'm thinking of (I swear I have seen this within the last 2 months with my own eyes) TV presenters pulling their eyes into slits and making "chee-chaw" sounds to pretend to be Chinese or Japanese (or just using words like "kinezoeidis" when referring to an Asian person. If an American used an English translation of that word they would lose 90% of their social circle instantaneously. We have a VERY strong knee-jerk reaction to anything like that. I've heard racist slurs and jokes that literally made me go white - and the people saying them don't see that as racist, just as funny. The Greek explanation (I've heard many many times) is that "racism" in Greece is not about saying something pointless that makes someone else feel like sh*t or humiliates them publicly (apparently that's okay to do!), it's about more "essential" things like not hiring someone because of their skin color. My culture says BOTH are racist.

A Greek woman told me that she's frightened of black people. Not two specific black people that did something bad to her (she doesn't know a single black person). Black people, period. I like to think that this particular woman is just an idiot, not representative of Greeks or women from Thessaloniki or even women that live on her particular city block.

I personally have been the recipient of racial racism (I specify because Greeks use the term ratsismos to refer to everything from discrimination against old people to discrimination against gay people, not just race), a handful of times, and almost always from people who had NO idea of my racial background (it's not "visible") - to his credit, one person was told by a third party that he had unknowingly said "I hate your people" to my face - I had nothing to do with this and would have preferred nothing be said, but it was - and he sought me out and apologized at length. Separately from that, as an American I've heard a LOT of crap from Greeks, especially my father in law, about America(ns) but I always expected that and it doesn't bother me.

I will admit that the only time Greek anti-Americanism bothered me was among Greeks living in NYC who told me that they hated the US and were only there "to milk the cow". That kind of got under my skin, apparently, since it happened over 10 yrs ago and I still remember. In Greece, it doesn't bother me, after all, they have a point. The US has a bad record in Greece.

As a FOREIGNER living in Greece - mainly it is just ignorance, but not hateful or "you should leave". I'm sure I'm pretty ignorant of the challenges facing immigrants in my country too. I shouldn't expect Greeks to know that getting married doesn't solve all problems, or that being American doesn't count for sh*t - two misconceptions I am soooo tired of hearing parroted at me constantly. "But that doesn't matter! Your husband is Greek! And you're American!" I've also gotten so sick and tired of trying to convince people that I'm not actually Greek, just because I speak Greek fluently. Speaking Greek is not some sort of secret club, or something you have to be born with a particular gene to be able to do. The language isn't even that hard if you take classes, live here, and speak it all day and at home, so stop congratulating me (no one congratulates you in the US if you speak English, no matter where you're from. I live in Greece, therefore I don't deserve congrats for speaking Greek, end of story). "Where in Greece are you from? No, I mean your family? No, I mean, what part of Greece did they come from before they went to the US? No, I mean..." Sorry, LOTS of people who aren't Greek speak your language... they're called immigrants... and YES that is what I am, even though I'm from the USA, and I made more money i the US than I'll ever make here LOL!!

[wka]

oh and welcome to the forum!!!

[micdhack]

wka - thanks for the long detailed answer. Most of the things are as i ve seen them myself as a native Greek. Imagine i was 22 years old when i actually held a long conversation with a black person. So i can see why would somebody be xenophobic but it depends on the education of that person and the intelligence.

For me it is kind of weird that people in the States are allowed to say i'm a Greek-American and in Greece that is non existent. You either Greek or you're a foreigner, which is sad if you are a believer in multicultural societies like i am.

And, you are also right about the pride that Greek people have which is kind of irrational since no major achievements have been made by the country in the past century! Maybe thats why the give you congrats about the language. But, having being stuck at an intermediate level in Czech, it is quite an achievement to master any language.

Since i understand you re a woman, if you dont mind me asking, how are the women towards you? The reason that i am asking is that my girlfriend is Canadian and we are at the stage of serious planning, so many times in our conversations the case of us moving to Greece has been thrown to the table mainly from her. Aside from the many reasons in a long list that i have about why we should never move to Greece, one of them is that i suspect (from what i ve seen when i was living there), that the women are not welcoming to female foreigners and they are kind of b*****s.

[wka]

I have found myself saying that too - I think in depends on age. As I've gotten older (I'm 30 now), I've found it much easier to find Greek women to be friends with. When I was in my low and mid 20s, the other women my age seemed much more "closed" - they had their parea and they were "full" socially. I've heard from at least 3 or 4 Greeks that "I don't consider a person a friend if we haven't been friends since age 8 or 10. Someone you meet when you're in high school or college or work is just not ever going to be a FRIEND." That's total BS and shows a total lack of understanding of how human relationships evolve. But aside from that, I've noticed that around age 28 or so, women seem to be a little more open to making friends (including with foreigners). I'm guessing it's in part because they're starting to LOSE some of their old parea - maybe some of them have children now and have different lifestyles/interests, may some of them moved away, and they need new friends. My best "source" of new friends has been my husband's colleagues at work - people the same age and educational level as us who have similar interests and life experiences, all of whom are open to making new friends because we live on a small island in the middle of freaking nowhere.

It's also very obvious to me that speaking Greek has been essential in being able to develop close friendships. Despite the fact that they've all taken YEARS of English in school, and must come into contact with English (movies, internet) in live, I literally cannot think of a single person that I have met through my husband here in Greece who speaks English well enough to have a real conversation. My best friend (she's American) is very similar to me in that she's lived off and on for several years in Greece, and has now been here for 2 years straight - she speaks Greek well enough to get by but not well enough to be an active participant in a a conversation with two Greek speakers. Despite living here for 2 years, she doesn't have any really good Greek girlfriends. I have another good friend who lived 18 months in Greece, never really learned Greek beyond the basics, but is the most friendly person you can imagine, has TONS of friends in Greece, but none of them are Greek - they are from Denmark, Norway, UK, Australia, USA, Germany, etc etc.

I've been lucky that my husband is very sociable and makes friends very easily and I have a "free pass" as his wife, from which it's much easier for me to develop friendships. Even so, I can count on the fingers of one hand the women here in Greece who I could call crying at 3am if I were upset about something.

Incidentally if you do decide to move to Greece with your GF, she won't be able to work or even stay in Greece for longer than 3 months unless she marries you. If you make it that stage, I have a long and detailed thread on this forum about how to go through all the (hellish) paperwork. The bureaucracy is extraordinary.