Life in Hellas

Arrival
We arrived in Athens six weeks ago for our year—or, more ominously, our thirteen months—in Greece. Shortly after we arrived, a heat wave washed over the country and the temperature climbed to a high of 42 degrees (107 Fahrenheit). That day was, of course, the very day I had chosen to run errands in the center of Athens, and I had wondered why the city was so oddly quiet—the taverna operators, who have recently become so avid about flagging passers-by into their establishments, were wilted in their chairs beneath their awnings, and the narrow streets of Plaka were deserted except for a few small groups of tourists stumbling about like sun-struck zombies with maps. With true Anglo resolve I persisted until a friend called to tell me that they had closed the Acropolis early (this virtually never happens) because several tourists and a guard had fainted from the heat. I surrendered and returned home to my friend's apartment, but got little relief. The economic crisis has her so worried that she only runs the air conditioner on low in a single room, so we all clustered there, dripping sweat and drinking volumes of water until even that gave out—some non–heat related problem caused the shutdown of the water to that entire area of Athens.