We hope you enjoyed our country Tiron! Was it your first time in Greece? Next
time if you come closer to Athens we will arrange a greek night out!
3. Northern Greece has different lifestyle (and more beautiful women) than
Athens! Maybe you were looking at younger ages but in general greek women are
not very fond of the kitsch style! Beard is a recent fashion for men and
mustache as well.
5b. represents a small shrine. This is the case for victims of car accidents
where their families build these shrines on the spot they lost their lives...
7. In Summer we always prefer to be outside because we enjoy the "atmosphere"
and it is part of our DNA to spent our Summers outdoors! 😉
8. Prices in toys are low due to a large toy shop (Jumbo) which moved all the
market prices downward in the last 15 years. Earlier the prices could be
familiar with Serbia.
Next time if you can handle the trip go for Sporades islands!
________________________________
From: eiagreek-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <eiagreek-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf
of Tiron <strategija@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2017 23:53
To: eiagreek@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [eiagreek] Notes from Greece, part 2
1. When I said everything is in Greek I was mostly thinking about
products in shops. For example we bought Pepa Pig fruit yogurt for the
kid and the only thing I could understand was a picture of a banana and
the English text "For Kids". Everything else is in Greek, and it is like
this for everything.
2. Fortunately for me Greek looks like a mixture of Latin, Cyrillic and
mathematics :-) So I can at least read and if it is a universal word I
can maybe understand what it is (like yogurt or butter). I was even
surprised to recognize words like Grisini (being Italian in origin). And
after some time you start to recognize words like Yala.
3. Women seem to like to wear strong red lipstick even during the day,
what is rather unusual here. The women fashion look a bit kitsch with
little care for color matching. They also wear a lot of jewelry. Fashion
for men is very relaxed and a lot of men wear beards, I do not know if
that is traditional or fashion?
4. What I say in home decoration shops in Nea Moudania would scare me if
I would see it at my home (although I do admit they would be fine in
most homes here)
5. I am not a typical Serb so my opinions and values not necessarily
represent what would be considered "normal" or "in average" in Serbia.
5. I have seen a lot of small church like statues the size of a small
box standing on a pedestal, sometimes next to a road and sometimes even
in home yard. What do they represent?
6. Greeks seem to be loud and when in large company even louder, like
everyone is trying to say something in the same time so everyone has to
shout. It's like everyone is arguing all the time.
7. People also seem to prefer the outside life, a little like living in
the street and not at home if you know what I mean. Everyone is out all
the time and do everything outside. Maybe it is because of a small town.
8. Prices are comparable to Serbia, some things even much cheaper -
let's not forget average salary in Serbia is around 250 euros for most
people. We found leg scooter for kid for just 25e (here the same around
60-70) and even i almost bought one for me for 35. Also found cheap
Italian shoes for kid, half price than here. Sadly this just reminded me
how actually poor people in Serbia are.
9. Beat up old scooters who look like about to fall apart any moment
everybody is driving - you will not see it in Serbia. We had a
renaissance of motor scooters until around 2008 when we had like 4-5
shops just for scooters in my town but now we have 0 and they are hard
to see on the road. One reason - politicians wanted more money so they
changed for permanent registration (you pay once and drive forever) to
yearly (like for the car). So in about 10 years you pay more for
registration than for the scooter.
10. We took back roads to wist Nea Flogita and Kalikratea, small places
on the coast. Much more tourist like places, they look like newly built
just for tourists, they even have daily newspapers from Serbia to my big
surprise. Definitely would not consider holiday in such a place. We went
for a Giros, it was fun to see two places one next to each other., one
full, all places taken, other empty. So we went to the empty, it was OK
but not great, now I know why the other place was full.
11. Now the biggest surprise of all. We tend to forget things we do not
see but when we took a walk in the Nea Moudania center we were shocked
how hard Greece seems to be hit with the crisis. I can say half of all
shops are closed and empty, like every other business was closed and
there is so much empty space it is hard not to see it must have been hard.
All in all we had a nice time and we are already looking where to go
next year :-)
