Living in Greece, Part 01

Monday, 30 August
Our last week in England…

…was, as predicted, a whirl of teas and dinners and goodbyes.

We dined one evening with the doctor and his wife, the man who may or may not have specialized in abortions; I’ve realized that for practical purposes, it makes no difference to us. They were telling us about the mansion they lived in until recently, with 8 bedrooms and three baths – for a family of 4. It was because their daughters wanted horses, and the acreage was needed, they said. Both daughters became serious equestrians, apparently, but then they grew up and moved away, taking their horses with them. So the doctor and his wife have now downsized. To what, they didn’t say. Five bedrooms, I imagine.

They also enthused quite a bit about vacationing, often, in Dubai. They stay at the Atlantis Hotel on Palm Island. Okay, the island is man-made, in the shape of a palm tree, the trunk of which is a causeway joining the island to the mainland. The Atlantis Hotel has a whole series of (presumably interconnected) walls which are in fact huge aquariums. There is glass flooring, too, at the bottom level. So you can watch sharks glide by as you eat your breakfast. All this, for a mere thousand or twelve hundred pounds per night. Pounds, not dollars and not euros.

In Dubai, they told us, there is also an entire little alpine village, all enclosed, complete with chalets, skiing, falling snow and a ceiling that would never believe wasn’t the real sky.

Oh, the things you can do when you are staggeringly rich, as people are in Dubai.

We had tea and dinner with a couple of nurses from ‘way back when. One of them, Sister Joy Gauntliff, brought with her some photos of the nurses in those days, one photo showing ‘Dr. Theo’ with them.

Sr. Margaret Goodwill is a real livewire, bodily and mentally, highly entertaining, completely dedicated, shrewd. As she was reminiscing, she let this phrase drop: ‘And then, of course, came all those wounded soldiers from Dunkirk…”

Imagine that – meeting someone who nursed soldiers from Dunkirk!

(I was schooled to think of Dunkirk as a glorious episode in the history of World War II, but in fact it was ignominious and horrible in more than one respect.)

We said goodbye to all the Bates – David, Julia, James, with Kim, and Nick – on Friday night, and on Saturday night we took the book by St. Dorotheos to Stuart and Angela. We hope they will find it as delightful and enriching as we have.

Our time in England has been fabulous, thanks largely to the Bates and to Elias and his family, and so many others. We enjoyed every single hour of every single day. And here are the main rules of Life in England, just to recap:

1.) Never leave home without an umbrella, one per person

2.) Remember, when crossing streets, that traffic comes from unexpected directions!

3.) See #1 above.

4.) See # 2 above.

Greece, at Last!
Tuesday, 31 August

The trip from London to here yesterday was uneventful but the trip to London was a nightmare. David and Julia tried to tell us it would be. We are very grateful to have followed their advice NOT to try to get to London the same day as our flight to Thessaloniki.

The first problem was that it was a Bank Holiday weekend. Things weren’t operating normally. The express train to London we had planned to take wasn’t in service that day. Instead, we had to travel to three different places along the route, changing trains each time, and taking a bus instead for one leg, as the rail tracks along that segment were being worked on.

The next problem was delays. One train was delayed because the train ahead of us was late. Another train was delayed because the train ahead of us had broken down, about a quarter of a mile short of the station, and all the passengers had to be evacuated, together with their baggage.

We missed the bus. We did arrive in time for another, but it wouldn’t hold us all, so we had to wait, in freezing wind, for another. (Could’ve been worse; it could have been raining.)

Finally we caught the underground train for the airport, only to find it only went halfway; we had to lug our luggage again to catch the train that went the rest of the way. We boarded that train, and I was still standing up, arranging my things, when the train started up with a jerk and down I went, falling all over people’s feet and bags and everything. A dozen hands reached down to help me. Fortunately, I was not hurt. Rather to my amazement, I’m not even sore or bruised.

At the airport, it took us an hour to find and board the shuttle bus to our hotel.

The woman in reception frowned as she saw our last name and asked, “Is that Greek, or Greek Cypriot?”

“Greek,” I said, “Why?”

“Just wondering.”

Her name tag suggested it was because she was Turkish. She clearly found it distasteful to deal with us, and the room she assigned us was at the very end of a series of long corridors, as long a walk from Reception as possible. At least it was very quiet, that wing being otherwise unoccupied.

We arrived in Thessaloniki around 11:00 p.m., only 9:00 English time, and Christos, my brother-in-law, picked us up and drove us home.