After the Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Memoir of Greece by John Walters

Author:John Walters
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Travel, History
ISBN: 9781475175745
Published: 2012-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Heading for the Hills, and, Observations on Greek Life

With seven of us living all together in what was supposed to be a one-bedroom apartment the space was beginning to look insufficient. Soon we would have a small army of growing teen boys on our hands; eventually they would all surpass us in height and weight. There was another factor too: creditors were on the warpath and the apartment might not belong to Soula's father for much longer.

It was time to make a move. But this time, we were determined to buy our own house. Due to special concessions for big families and the circumstances of Soula's employment we were eligible for a very low interest loan. For a long time we had been contemplating moving out of the city, away from the exhaust fumes, apartment blocks stacked next to each other like teetering dominos, and dog-shit covered sidewalks. We wanted to breathe fresh air and see some flowers, greenery, sunrises and sunsets.

We were already on the eastern side of the city and it seemed but a short step to move on out to the eastern hills. They beckoned to us from afar, emerald green havens dotted with white flecks that were houses. Several villages in that area had become like suburbs of the city; they were only a twenty-minute to half-an-hour drive away.

We searched the newspapers but in vain. People do place ads from time to time, but most rely on housing agents, and we soon realized that we would have to do so too. So, with trepidation, knowing the cost, we approached one and made an appointment. After we explained our needs, he took us around to three or four places. One was too small: a glorified dollhouse. One was squashed in between two other buildings which lent it a darkness and air of claustrophobia. The last one we saw was part of a tri-plex. There were two two-storey apartments, more or less mirror-identical, on the ground floor, and a one-floor apartment upstairs. Two of the homes were already taken. No matter. The third, still available, was, for various reasons, the cheapest, the only one we could afford.

You entered a common front door and turned right, and there was our door. Inside was a vast room, plenty big enough for living room and dining room, and at the far end, around the corner to the left, was an open kitchen. On the front side, next to the fireplace, a sliding window-door opened onto a balcony facing the road; in the back, off the kitchen, was a smaller balcony with a beautiful view all the way across the valley to the far hills. Ah, and there was a water closet upstairs: what luxury! No waiting in line anymore. One of us could be singing in the shower in the bathroom while another was having his daily sit with a magazine in the WC. Well, in my case I seldom read magazines while sitting - it is on the commode that I delve into great works of literature.

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