The Hellenic post office is a trip. The US Postal Service could learn a few things.
There’s a take-a-number machine at the entrance, electronic, into which you say what service you need. The machine politely spits out a number.
Then, much like the DMV, you sit on a chair and wait for your number to come up on the board. They were on A104 when we got there.
Ten minutes later, they were still on A104. Five people behind the counter, wandering around. A104 left, the clerk got up and chatted with someone else. Then everyone disappeared except for the person helping A103.
A105 shrugged. Apparently this is de rigeur.
So we waited. Someone re-emerged and suddenly A105 flashed. YIPPEE!
Waited some more. A107 arrived, got her ticket, tried to ask me for an explanation. She hopefully said “Russian?” Oooh. Not a prayer, and didn’t think about Google Translate. Motioned to her ticket and the board. She looked frustrated and sat down.
The others moseyed back in and out, and finally someone sat at a chair. At a desk with a sign that read: NO PACKAGES.
DING! A106, ready for assistance!
Dammit. I was mailing something to a buddy back home, but they let me do it anyway… for a fraction of what the Kiwis charged.
I’ve found Google’s estimation of transit times is vastly different than from home. I wanted to go to the fabric district – it claimed a nine minute walk. Well, okay, it’s stinking hot but I can handle it, it’s only 10am. Girded my loins for the trek.
Yeah, it’s a nine minute walk if you’re on crutches carrying an incontinent cat. I can’t BELIEVE how close by everything is. Beloved is shocked by the number of people here, the population density is whacked… I’m not, everyone lives on top of each other and gardens seem to grow only from their roofs.
Los Angeles has a population density of 8,304/sq. mile, the third highest in North America (second in the US). By comparison, this area of Athens has 44,140/sq. mile. Yeah, there’s a LOT of people here.
Which equates to mountains of rubbish. Holy cow. With the tiny little streets all over Athens, garbage collection has been a problem for, quite literally, millennia.
To deal with it, they’ve installed bins… lots o’ enormous bins… in the most populated areas – but they’re subterranean. You take out the trash not to the curb but to one of these chutes (BIG chutes) – recycling goes here too.
Buh, byeeeeeeee… overflowing dumpsters are a thing of the past. The trash is compacted down there, and the trash trucks, removing these enormous blocks of refuse, never see the light of day until they’re well away from the city center.
I don’t envy the rubbish collectors, especially in light of their plumbing issues. Yes, thousands of years ago they figured out hygiene – like, we really need to deal with our sh… sewage. Hell, they had a flush potty 4,000 years ago. Talk about civilized.
Sadly, however, that did not include the capacity for bog paper, a deficiency that lasts to this day. Teeny weeny little pipes do not appreciate paper, let alone anything else that might get flushed.
Instead, they provide covered little trash bins (ugh, I know) into which you… yeeeeah. UGH. But, it prevents clogs, kinda critical when each square YARD contains more than 25 people. I can’t even wrap my head around that.
So those little bins encourage folks to take out the trash on a regular basis, anyway. You might have to walk a little ways, but it’s not far. Nothing is.
I would die without the air conditioning. Beloved’s more willing to put up with the heat on the balcony – the view is insane – but my delicate little self just internally moans for the cooler air. The flat in which we stayed is considered luxurious due to the mini-split they have in the bedroom.
This heat did a number on the flowering plants in the National Garden… it’s odd to walk through and see almost nothing but green. Heck, mad props to them for keeping so much alive in this blistering heat, but flowers are few and far between.
It’s still beautiful, though… and the turtle pond is a trip. That has a population density that far exceeds that of the city. I think. Not sure.
Examining Misadventures 
The um facilities sound very much like the ones in Egypt. Not fun in some areas but others are more modern like in certain hotels. But the places tourists like to see… hold it.
LikeLike
Yup!!
LikeLike