You must learn to surrender your definition of efficiency

I have spent forty years watching people arrive in this country. I sit here in my usual corner at this old kafeneio, the one with the peeling blue paint and the wobbly metal tables that have held more coffees than the Aegean holds fish, and I watch. I see the tourists disembark from the ferries or wander out of the air-conditioned lobbies of Athens hotels. They are beautiful, eager, and prepared. They have their guidebooks, their digital maps, and their itineraries color-coded by the hour. But looking at them, I often feel a gentle pang of sympathy, because I know that for the first few days, they will be fighting a silent war against the very thing they came here to enjoy. They bring the rhythm of London, New York, or Berlin into a land that has not worn a watch since the time of Pericles.

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