I can honestly say I love going to work.
Not necessarily because I have a job I enjoy (although that’s partly to do with it), and not necessarily because that job is in my chosen country to live – Greece (although that is a huge part of it), but because my journey’s so nice. I leave my house, situated on quite a busy main road in Athens and I proceed to walk to a metro station not to get the train, but to wait for a colleague who picks me up in her car and we drive together.
The added bonus is that I don’t start work until 2:30pm, so I don’t have to be up at the crack of dawn…I can potter around, check my emails, Twitter and maybe write a blog post, then meander through my local neighbourhood to the rendezvous point.
And the sights, sounds and smells I get to experience are all part of this favourite time of day…the simple things in life are underrated.
I get to wander through the local Square where locals meet and sit to enjoy the sunshine (of which it is plentiful in Greece, even in Autumn/Winter) and although I am not a church goer, I cannot help but admire the local church I must walk past every day!
Then it’s down some more side streets and past a piece of waste ground where one day I spied a huge tortoise!
He must have been living there for years – unfortunately my iPhone can’t capture him…but trust me, he lies there in the sun, basking most days.
I often stop at the same Kiosk to buy water and yes, chocolate for my ‘journey’ and am greeted by the guy who works there with an enthusiastic “Kaimera kokla mou” (Good morning my doll). This is not offensive in Greece, to call a young woman a doll – it’s a nice thing to do, a term of endearment.
So there you have it – my day starts off nicely even before I get to work. And if it’s raining, well, this is Greece so you know it won’t be raining for long.
Kalo vradi everyone!
So nice to read your “simple” tale, which is not really simple at all. It is wonderful when we learn to enjoy the simple things in our daily life, rather than take them for granted or be blind to them.
Of course, when in a new, foreign, environment everything is new, which makes it easier to appreciate even the smallest things, see the beauty, the quirkiness or the humor of them.
Keep keeping your eyes and ears open 😉
Thanks for your comment Miss Footloose. I’ve been in Greece for 4.5 yrs now and still like the sights and sounds I hear/see. I never tire of seeing old men playing with worry beads in the Square, or hearing the church bells ring (unless it’s at 8am on a Sunday morning!)
Living life abroad is great. Like you said, we never tire of simple things.
Ha! Kifissia is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY out of my price range!
Thanks for sharing the simple pleasures of your daily routine? Which suburb do you live in? Judging by all the trees I wonder if it’s around Kifissia