I have arrived safely in Rome. This was no small feat. The airport security services in Greece were on strike yesterday. There were literally five people working one gate for all of Athens, domestic and international.
So I spent an hour in a crowd of Europeans (who don't all believe in a shower a day) moving our way through security. The area wasn't engineered to have that many people for that duration. It was hot. Air Quality suffered.
But don't worry, after India, my queuing skills are supurb.
But the experience did drive home one of my American cultural biases. I couldn't help cursing, "socialist county" while I was waiting. The right to strike is highly protected and respected. And there's something to be said for that.
But coming from America, this was odd. Just that now familiar feeling that it wouldn't happen like this at home. Lots of budding captialists would be quick to cross the picket and pick up the high wages. Or any group with such a strong impact on society would be fired for striking, àla the air traffic controllers in the early 1980's.
I think we've come to accept the pursuit of money as a goal on par with any other objective. If you can get a worker to accept lower wages and longer hours, more power to you. We don't have federally mandated vacation time. I've met several Europeans who wouldn't work for anyone offering less than six weeks of vacation time. But our situation is what we find acceptable, or else we wouldn't be taking part in it...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
a reply to all three new posts. first and foremost, congratulations on your departure from the tourist world and welcome to the travelers' world. woo woo! as far as the OCD'ness, it's not all bad. i've discovered it usually keeps me out of trouble. in as far as the floss, here i thought it was a matter of oral hygiene ... alas, backpack repair, which, in itself quite an innovative move. albeit i'd prolly just go and buy a new backpack :D (seeing as i have as many packs as certain people w/ purses and shoes)
enjoy europe, the adventurous part is seeing if you can top my time record for stumbling back to the hostel after a night with two aussies. let's see how many times you have to walk around the block before ya realize ya need to cross the street in order to get to the hostel doors (;
oh yeah, follow up to the whole traveler vs. tourist bit ...
it's somewhat disheartening to cross over (as you have expressed from the lack of sense of adventure) as i sat on the outbound flight this last time i popped over the ireland and basically considered it a long commute on par with driving between Champaign and Chicago.
get off the plane, go "woo woo" at the irish accents, take bus 747 to Bus Aras with stops at O'Connell street, check in and go hang at Messr Maguires and have 2-3 pints before noon until the room is ready. if i had forgotten my toothbrush, right down Talbot Street, there's a little variety store akin to Walgreens. didn't really need to think too much (:
let's see if i can recognize the hairy highland coo that i petted years ago when we head up there ... then it'll be really scary!
Post a Comment