Greeks are extremely generous people. Sometimes when two different cultures come together, the outcome can be surprising. I am of German heritage, and before we settled down in Greece my family and me lived for 18 months in a small German village called Oberjosbach. It is not easy for newcomers to make contact in such a [...]
It is always an experience to travel with Greeks; my personal highlight is to travel with lots of Greeks on a plane. For most people, “chaotic” would be the single best fittingly term to describe this. I just returned from 3-day trip to Hamburg via Zurich. I applaud the airlines that do their best to [...]
This is a very special post for the Only in Greece column, as it is written by the most important person in my life – my wife Alexandra. She gives a great insight into how the “southern” cultures work. Simply read and enjoy – I am so proud of her! Photo by Ramazan Sahin I [...]
Greeks are often temperamental people. It is nearly impossible to drive through Athens without someone yelling at you or gesturing wildly at you. For me, this is in fact a valuable learning experience for slang words, and it works wonders if I put up a friendly smile and ask the aggressor with my German dialect to [...]
Greeks interpret even basic traffic regulations differently than most of us. Somehow the relaxed way of enjoying life does not extend to driving. Even worse, it is replaced with the passionate temperament only Greeks seem to be capable of. Life on the roads is fast and furious. Where in most countries the normal [...]
Greeks are enormously generous when inviting others or being invited themselves. It is polite to always bring gifts to friends and considered to be quite normal to bring along a cake and a bottle of wine when being invited to someone else’s home. If you plan on hosting a dinner party, do not ever prepare [...]
The average Greek citizen is very opinionated about politics. Seriously, people are genuinely interested in politics; it is a part of the Greek culture. So is drama; citizens here just love it. If a scandal breaks lose, everyone knows about it and discusses it at great length. This is one of the reasons why it [...]
When I am in need for urgent help that requires some kind of service, my expectations in Greece are low. If that need arises on a Sunday morning, I know better than to even hope for a solution. I learned that one exception exists: Last year in August we were due to leave for our [...]
The summer season is slowly coming to an end, so I should be able to become more productive again. The reason for this is not what you might expect – it is simply that power outages are less frequent when temperatures start cooling down. According to Eurostat, Athens is the 5th most populated capital city [...]
In Greece, things work different. How do most of you get your mail and parcels delivered to your home? Probably not in the way I do. The image above is a photo of my postman. He is a great guy, and whenever I see him, we have a quick friendly chat. I just do not [...]
