Monday, February 27, 2006

10 Things I Hate About You

Does anyone remember the movie? A loose remake of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew shot in a American teen setting starring Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger; I think it sticks to the mind with the direct quote from the original "I burn, I pine, I perish", and where Pat Verona (Heath Ledger) sings Can't Take My Eyes Off of You for Kat in the school stadium. Dates from 1999, I remember watching it and hoping someone would sing it for me one day. And now...

Well no one sang it for me yet, sorry to disappoint you, most of all myself. But I fooled you there for a second, I hope. The reason I had mentioned the film at all (and ended up writing and ess-ay about it) is because I was going to mention 10 things I hate about Greece.

So, let's get to the point:

10. No good, cheap Chinese food on sight so far.
9. Postmen don't deliver boxes. And I mean even small boxes. Just your regular small package! To any Greek postmen who might be reading: I'll give you a tip if you deliver to my door, I promise.
8. No automatic payment for electricity bills.
7. Not much credit card use for that matter!
6. Siesta time. As enjoyable it might have been if I were working, it's really frustrating when people just close down after 2.30. There are people who wake up at 2.30! And what's up with closing everything down on Sundays, are we in Europe or something?
5. Traffic.
4. Bureucracy. Going from office to office and end up not achieving anything whatsoever only to start over the next day. One of these days I'm waiting for a major civil servant massacre in Greece. There's going to be a social explosion, mark my words, the whole world will stand up to civil servants who rather play solitaire or drink coffee and chat on the phone.
3. Coffee. Everyone drinks coffee. And they take 4 hours to drink one. One of the major things why things go so slow, I'm thinking.
2. Motorbikes with their exhaust pipe silencers taken out so that they make an awful lot of noise. Seriously, if there is one thing that leads me to blind rage, it's these motorbikes, or rather, the drivers. If I had my way I would consider taking these exhaust pipes and locating them elsewhere, preferably on the said driver's body.
1. Can't think of anything. Guess there's only 9 things I hate about Greece then.

So now, what about the things I love?

1. Everything else. And there's so much of it I won't be making a list.