Face it, it's easy to lose weight when you make your home in Athens, Greece. It can't be avoided. After you've huffed and puffed your way up to the Acropolis a couple of times, you've dropped at least three pounds.
Greeks love application forms and you get the benefit of shedding calories filling out forms for various authorities. You've completed paperwork for your residence permit and then hiked back there six months later for a renewal. You've been a regular on the work permit treadmill ever since your arrival - after finding out which address to go to. It took you two months to locate the right agency, the right building, the right department, the right desk. By the time you signed on the dotted line, not only were you entwined in red tape but you'd dropped another five pounds.
Every expatriate falls into a routine. Yours, every Friday morning since moving to the Greek capital, has been to dash over to the post office to ask if any post boxes are available yet.
The answer is always, “No. Try again later,” followed by a don't-take-it-personally shrug.
One Friday you find the post office door shut. They're on strike, the sign informs you. OK, no problem, you power-walk to your office, maintaining your cool. The work day seems endless, but finally you're set free for the weekend
You open the door to your apartment, knowing a home-cooked dinner will boost your spirits. You try to switch on the light and discover the electricity is out. Again. Forget coffee. Forget frying the lamb chops or boiling the potatoes. Another couple of pounds gone.
You amuse yourself Saturday morning by mingling with the tourists, examining the piles of rocks and rubble of the various archaeological sites around the city. As you clock in block after block, kilometer after kilometer, the inches are sliding off your thighs. The city buses are overflowing and taxis won't even slow down for red lights. You have to hike.
You're being treated to an average of 13.5 hours of sunshine every day in the Greek capital. Ouch! The sunburn keeps you awake. You pace around your bedroom and the calories continue to melt away the rest of the weekend.
When Monday arrives, you're groggy from lack of sleep. Stopping by the post office on your lunch break, you're surprised to finally be handed the key to your new post office box. Congratulations, they only kept you waiting seven months. Must be your lucky day.
You test your good fortune. After work you decide to do banking. Maybe they've finally set up the automatic debit for your telephone bill that you applied for weeks ago. The bank is not exactly a hop, skip and a jump away, but you go for it.
Oddly, you find the door locked. No sign either. A kindly passerby tells you they're striking. Does anything in this city function? You're an intelligent expat, so you don't blow your cool. With the agility of an Olympic hopeful, down the steps to the subway you fly. Exactly 341 steps, you've verified it many times. No pain, no gain.
Your jeans are starting to feel too large for your frame. You must have dropped half-a-dozen pounds just the past week. Your legs ache as if you're competing in a marathon, but still you must shop for dinner. You go into 14 grocery stores to locate the few six items on your list. One shop is sold out of butter, another has no tomatoes. In another they seem to have nothing at all. You're burning calories faster than you can possibly replace them. Your jeans start to inch their way downward.
Face it, none of your clothes fit properly anymore. By the time you raise your glass of ouzo to celebrate your first anniversary of living in Athens, you'll be half the woman you were when you arrived.
