OTE olé

We set out for town on Friday not overly optimistic about finding anything open, it was Good Friday after all, and we know that Easter is the biggest celebration in the Orthodox Church. Although the roads were quiet, a few businesses on the way seemed open, so we were gradually encouraged on the walk into town.

Both the local government office and the OTE shop were open. After Claire's sweet-talking the day before suggested a copy of our housing contract could stand-in for our residence permit as far as OTE were concerned, we got it copied in the council office. Bizarrely on the ground floor of the government building which contains the tax office there is just a woman in a photocopying booth, but then again, she is always doing brisk business, I guess the legal demand for copies in Greece is pretty damn high. It does make you wonder how this kind of bureaucracy coped before the invention of the photocopier though.

We went next door into the OTE office, and finally they were happy to set up our line. I was given another hideous form to fill out. I did the bits I could manage, then had to keep asking really stupid questions. I managed to (almost) write our address in the Greek alphabet though, which earned a "Very good, very good" from the clerk we were dealing with, who discretely overlooked the fact that a Western 'R' had crept into my ΓΕΡΜΑΝΙΚΟ ΠΟΥΛΙ.

"I always get my Ps and PIs mixed up" I laughed, oblivious at that precise moment to how ridiculous it sounded.

Then the bombshell - "It will be twenty days"

Twenty days?

TWENTY DAYS?

And this is just to set up a simple phone-line. Once this is done I then have to apply to get the line upgraded to get ADSL broadband installed. I guess on the bright side of things at least the countdown to having dial-up internet access in the apartment has started...[shakes head]...twenty days...twenty days?...