Workarounds should serve the purpose of being a provisional measure before a more structured problem solving practice is applied, however one of the country’s most widely applied proverbs refutes this: ‘Ουδέν μονιμότερο του προσωρινού’ (“nothing is more permanent than the temporary”). And proverbs are rarely wrong.

The most recent quick fix that I came across was actually in the wine industry and made me smile warmly:

It seems that the word has arrived in Greece that there is a shift in trend taking place towards lower alcohol wines.  The EU requires by law that the alcohol content needs to be printed on the label, offering a 0.5% alcohol statement tolerance. The final percentage needs to be rounded up or down to the next half percent increment. For example, a wine containing 12.3% alcohol may be labeled at 12% or 12.5%. If the trend of the consumer shifts towards lower alcohol wines, it makes sense to opt for the lower percentage option. But what can be done with wines that are already labeled with the higher option of 12.5%? The answer for the Greek branch of the giant German discounter Lidl seems simple: Identify and use a shortcut. As can be seen in the picture, their shortcut certainly involved true outside the box thinking! I for one am quite sure that no German was involved in the creation . Let’s see when the “new” print label will be introduced.

For more in tongue in cheek posts about everyday life in Greece look here.

Last year in August we were due to leave for our family summer vacation. On a Saturday evening, I checked the air pressure of the tyres of my car; everything was fine. We had planned to leave at 8 am next morning. This was the exact time I discovered that one of the tyres was only 2/3 full. Somehow the tyre got damaged when I drove back from the petrol station the evening before.

I was desperate – in August, it is hard to find a garage that is open for business on a normal workday. Athens is deserted, as everyone is on vacation. How could I get help on a Sunday morning? We started making phone calls to friends to see if anyone had a suggestion. This was when I learned that one business exists in the heart of Athens that works on 24-hour basis for every single day of the year. The business they are in is the repair of damaged tyres!

Our car was packed with our 4 children and our luggage (yes, of course we own a 7-seater). We slowly made our way to the centre of Athens. When we arrived at this small garage, I drove inside. Before I even had a chance to open the door, our car was lifted 1 meter high in the air via a platform. By the time I had opened the window, the worker had already identified the troubled tyre and proceeded to take it off. My kids loved the experience – honestly, it felt like we just made a pit stop at a Formula One race.

The whole tyre was placed into a large bucket filled with water to detect the bubbles betraying the exact trouble spot. I used this method as a child when the tyre of my bicycle had a hole, but we are talking cars here! After the spot was identified, some kind of rubber material was inserted into it, the tyre was again placed into the bucket – and no bubbles made their way to the surface. A minute later all work was completed. The whole process took less then 10 minutes and the charge for this was Euro 8. We drove the 300 km to the Peloponnese without any trouble, and that very same tyre is still in use today.

I am still amazed by the efficiency of this small garage. They do not do any other repair works and cater only for damaged tyres, operating 24 hours every day of the year. Only in Greece…

According to Eurostat, Athens is the 5th most populated capital city in the EU. Approximately 40% of the total Greek population lives in Athens. The average temperature during the months of July and August is 27.8 degrees Celsius with over 11 hours of sunshine per day.

When it is that hot, the inhabitants use their air-conditioning systems at home and in the offices. The electricity grid becomes overloaded, which in turn leads to power-cuts. The unfortunate part is that these power-failures quite often last for between 1 and 2 hours.

Last year, in order to prevent large power-outages, the Greek state controlled electric power company implemented a programme that was well intended, but badly thought through. They rotated controlled power-blackouts throughout the different municipals of Athens. Every outage lasted for 2 hours and every municipal was hit every couple of days. This programme lasted for several weeks. The result was that during these view weeks, I was longer without electricity than in the combined three years before.

The initiative was well planned – every evening the power company updated their website and showed at what time which area would be without electricity over the next 24 hour period. There was just one day when they mixed up the times: We had invited nearly 20 friends for dinner. We started preparing the food three hours before our friends were due to arrive. An hour later the power in our area was cut. It went back on when we greeted our first guests. I have never opened that many bottles of wine before dinner was served

I might add that power outages will increase again during February and March. In these 2 months, heavy snowfalls can occur. In most countries, you use a shovel to get rid of the snow. Greeks don’t like to waste energy for jobs that can be accomplished in a more relaxing way: They use hot water as a remedy…

I live in a northern suburb of Athens, and the mail is not delivered on a daily basis. The postman checks how much mail he has for delivery, and if it is not enough to fill the little basket on his motorcycle, he waits until it is. I somehow doubt that the reason for this is of environmental nature. I can expect deliveries maybe twice a week, even if letters and magazines are mailed to my address on a daily basis. During August, I can count myself lucky if I get my mail once per week. August is vacation time in Greece, and the postman wants to go away. Trouble is, so do his colleagues.

Parcels are never delivered to my home. There is an obvious reason for this, as they do not fit into that little basket. I order all books through Amazon, and with 4 kids we get parcels quite often. I always had to drive 30 minutes to the Post Office to collect them. In Greece, many people use the Post Office to pay their bills, as Internet banking is fairly new. In my case, the Post Office is the main office for an area called Acharnes. It is the most populous municipality in East Attica, as it is so close to Athens. There are always queues, and I now have all parcels delivered to my mother-in-law, who lives more central. She also does not get any parcel deliveries, but her Post Office is close to her house, and serves only a small community. Of course she lives about a half an hour drive away, but in Greece you see a lot of your mother-in-law. Parcel pick-ups add another reason for visiting.

Organisation is not one of the strengths of this country, and house numbers can be quite tricky. Do not expect nice continuous house numbers: I live in number 19, and somehow 5 houses down the road you can find number 95. There is also a house that does not have a number at all; the owner simply sprayed an in-between-number in a bright red colour on his outside wall, how about 23? I guess the postman noticed him, because this neighbour has never complained about the postal services.

To be fair, I am honestly very happy with my postman. He knows me and actually does ring the bell if he has a letter I need to sign for. The standard procedure seems to be to just leave a note stating that you have to go to your Post Office to sign for the letter. He has saved me many trips and a lot of time.