Kalamata

With a lift from our friends we were able to visit Kalamata today. The journey is about 40km and takes roughly an hour by car. As we passed through Kardamyli we stopped at the police station to see if the residency permit was now signed. As I walked into the police station I was greeted by a smiling police officer who quickly searched his desk and presented me with my document. Bureaucracy, not a problem!

We continued our journey to Kalamata where we were shown various places that might be of help to us in the coming months. A tile shop, a shop that sells kitchen worktops, another that sells door handles and so on.

As we walked into the bank we saw the under manager, a young lady who we had seen last October and again in May this year, she speaks very good English. We wanted to know if a transfer from England had been received, so many foreign banks having a reputation for ‘loosing’ a transfer for weeks on end. She recognised us immediately and as we sat down to speak to her, she told us that there had been a transfer of funds into our account at the end of last month. This was without reference to any documents, computers or any papers from us. She then proceeded to answer the questions we had and assisted us with the use of the account. If you walked into an English bank for the third time would you be able to see anyone senior without an appointment? Would they recognise you and without reference be able to tell you information about your account?

Next priority for us was to get a Greek SIM card for our mobile phone, now we are able to communicate again. Lunch was in the main square outside one of the many modern restaurants, a quick and very tasty sandwich.

Now a visit to a couple of the large but cheap stores out of the main town, one similar to B&Q, Homebase, Focus but with a more diverse range of goods, the other a low cost supermarket. The majority of people here seem to shop in Kalamata as most things you are able to get at a fraction of the price they are locally.

Arriving home around 5pm and unloading the bags from our friends’ car our builder arrived and joined us for a cup of tea. We intended to go to his house later in the evening, to go over the plans of our house, but just after he left a storm brewed. The electric went off and all we could do was sit tight as the wind played havoc with the outside world.

There is an emergency exit light in the apartment that gives a dim light when the electricity goes off, so Ashley decided to give me the job of entering all our friends’ numbers into the phone to stop me being bored. Having done so, the mobile quickly ran out of credit as I sent text messages to our friends with our new mobile number.

Here the reality kicks in, the house is cold and draughty, even in bed we are cold and I am missing home comforts. How could I forget and of course there is now no hot water, Such Fun!