Naxos Sept 20 - It is raining

It never rains in Naxos in August or September. Today it has rained off and on since early this morning. This put a severe crimp in our plans to spend the day at the beach. Essentially, we spent the day relaxing. We walked around Naxos Town a little, we sat and had a drink and played many games of Backgammon, we enjoyed coffee and read our books, but nothing tremendously special.

Since today was nothing special, let me tell you a little bit about smoking in Greece. In Philadelphia, there is no smoking in public buildings, including restaurants (I know this has recently changed to a state law, but I am not sure what the impact is statewide). In Germany there is no Smoking in public places country wide. In Greece there is smoking everywhere. 20 years ago, I was fairly tolerant of smoking. I went out to bars and restaurants, people lit up, so what, I was out and that was that. Today, I am indignant to have to walk behind someone who is smoking because they have chosen to leak their noxious fumes and I have no right to choose not to breathe them and being asthmatic, this can be a problem.

In Greece many people smoke and they smoke everywhere, in stores, in restaurants, on streets, just about anywhere (but not on public transit). You will walk into a store and the proprietor is smoking. You sit in a restaurant and the owner is seating people and has a cigarette lit at the table where they are sitting. I woke up this morning and the cleaning person was outside smoking and her smoke came in the open window to our room.

One of the interesting things is the number of Greek people who roll their own cigarettes. When sitting at a café or restaurant you will notice someone place a little white thing between their lips, take out their paper, pour their tobacco, place the little white thing at the end of the paper (the filter), roll their cigarette and then light up.

I have to say, being suddenly thrust back into 1990’s era type smoking laws and I have come to appreciate smoke free air.