Island Life:Koufonisi

The city has never felt more glum and I feel so disconnected, as if I've been gone for ages. In truth I was only gone for a week which thankfully seemed a lot longer as it was going by but suddenly feels brief and tiresome now it's passed. I wish I had stayed on the island. Time seems to work differently there or wherever summer finds you. As if it stops and starts at its own pace, languidly and hastily all at the same time. An hour feels like ages on the beach and a night feels like a minute. I'm a city girl, I grew up in the city, I adore the city. The traffic, the noise, the impurity and the beauty in the grey and murky. I mean I live in Athens so it's not so murky, actually sunny and alight most days. The murkiness perhaps draws itself from routine, from characters and from the idea that a city should be something out of comic book, dark and brooding. At least in my head. But I adore it. Summers though are really when  Greece is at it's most astonishing. Ever since I was a little girl the islands were my escape. I lived in Santorini as a baby, and later while other kids would visit their grandparent's villages I would be swimming in a different sea, discovering a new island.The water was always essential to me. I was always in the water. I guess it's where I feel most comfortable and weightless, flowing but secure. I swam and held my breath under water until I was blue in the face( I still do) and over the years I've associated the sea, the blue, the island with good things. But I always came back to the city and it always seemed different in its sameness. This time I just didn't get enough. My mind wasn't ready to quit daydreaming and my body didn't want to leave the water. I almost wanted to quit my job, not for any particular reason other than to protest coming back. To live in anarchy, not to conform, not to be told when to come back to responsibility, not to be told when to get out of the water because I'm not a child anymore..and yet isn't it funny that we get told what to do more so now that we are adults than when we were children? Not in the literal sense like when our parents told us to brush our teeth and eat our vegetables. Alas as adults we still have to sleep at a certain time to go to work, work certain hours, look a certain way, eat a certain time and in a sense those things aren't dictated by us we just enforce them on ourselves because of circumstance and routine. Many times I think part of what made me want to be a writer was that I could make my own schedule, not to have an everyday-ness that someone set for me, do it from anywhere and because I hate working with other people. Maybe next year I'll have written a book and moved to an island. Maybe I'll go back to the island we've been going to for the past two years. Speaking of which, the reason I started writing this, my vacation. Koufonisi is paradise, in no way exaggerating it is heaven on earth.

The waters are crystal clear and tirquoise, the cuisine is amazing and the people are friendly but at safe distances. There is a lot of walking involved but it is so worth it. Even this city girl found herself enamored with the blue skies and brownish green shrubs and white flowers that grew in the sand. Walking along the coastline, navigating around rocky, sharp cliffs and white, sandy shores was even more adventurous and majestic done at night, in the pitch black, when the sea looks like oil and everything seems somehow bigger. In total we must have walked about 20-25km during the 5 days we were there. We snorkeled through deep caves that led to open sea and along the rocks where my boyfriend kept collecting live seashells and I kept making him put them back in their "home". We climbed down to the most spectacular hidden beach where the water is milky white and frothy. We didn't spare any expenses or calories when it came to delicious meals and I'm so glad we didn't. I crave luxury and richness and I found all of that in the nature's colors, the sea, the food, the essense of the island life. In the end I don't know that I could live there but it is certainly hard to leave it behind.

Greeks and Retail: A guideline

You know why this country is knee-deep in shit? Well, first of all, the Germans, but also because as a folk they can be and often are, and I think this is the official, scientific term for it, bastards. Otherwise lovely people, Greeks tend to have no respect whatsoever for one another, simply put, they don't give a tiny rats ass about anyone but themselves. I'm sure there are of course exceptions to this (including myself and six people I know and actually don't hate) but I'm addressing this as a national issue. There is even a saying in Greek which is roughly translated to "as long as I'm okay, let the neighbour's goat die". His goat! I mean what kind of monster would be okay with watching the goat next-door die?
Today based on my intimate knowledge on the subject I examine one simple example of how much people here don't give a shit about their fellow human-being. Case in hand: retail. Now, I know what you're going to say. The perils of working retail are pretty much the same wherever you are. Sure, which is why the following series of guidelines should be considered not only the documentation of my personal hell but also as international rules for a better shopping experience. I do live and work in Greece, a country in a recession so bad we had to have capital controls inforced, and people are still out shopping. So let me sing you the song of my people.
Customers. Now, I'm sure that in your everyday lives some of you are most likely half-decent people, it's just that as customers, and I'm sorry to have to break it to you, you suck.
Number one: You are not always right. Never have, never will.
Number two: I'm inclined to be polite but I will not be as efficient if I'm dealing with someone who is not. Take your attitude somewhere else.
Number three: This one makes my whole case. I am here all day long, you have all day long to "swing by". Closing time is definite and non-negotiable. As someone who I assume works for a living, don't you just hate it when someone makes you stay after hours? So do I. Apparently people quite blatantly don't give a shit about this. This is not acceptable.
Number four: Neither is the excuse "I just finished work". And you have to keep me longer at mine?Why?
Number five: Using the excuse "I just got back from vacation" instead of "I just finished work" only makes the situation worse for you. I am now legally allowed to bitch slap you.
Number six: When you see me near the door, holding my purse, at 9 p.m don't ask if I'm closing. Ask how YOU can help ME close faster. The answer to this will always be: by quietly fucking off.
Number seven: If, by some cruel fate you have beaten me at my own game and got me to stay past closing time... congrats you have won this time. However I am not obligated to stay after hours. Your cunning ways may have deceived me but I am not your servant, stop acting like it. Show some goddamn respect.
Number eight: It's August. Yes, I'm tired and hot and I'd rather be at the beach or literally anywhere else, alas I am here and so are you. Stop asking.
Number nine: If you have a child keep it under control. This is a jewellery store not some futuristic, glass peting-zoo. Stop touching my windows.
Number ten: There used to be another store here, which clearly isn't here anymore. Obviously I don't know where it's moved to or if it still exists because a. I'm not the yellow pages b. my job requirements don't include keeping track of previous owners. Stop being offended by this. It's weird.

Bonus: And this is true! I cannot believe I have to say this out loud or even reiterate in my head after I've heard it but... in case it isn't obvious by all the jewellery this is NOT a flower shop and I am most definitely NOT a florist. Our flowers you were admiring outside are purely decorative and most notably fake! As in plastic. As in if I were a florist I would not be selling fake flowers. It's unfathomable that you need an explanation for this.

And there you have it! Until next time, keep your crazy at bay. x