The Best of GRReporter
flag_bg flag_gr flag_gb

Street stories: “My childhood dream was to come back in Greece”

02 April 2010 / 12:04:14  GRReporter
4975 reads

“Greece was the dream of us all. In Germany when we were listening to the national anthem we were crying. When we had a parade in school we were crying again. Here may be I am not such a big patriot as I was over there”.

About the café and his future dreams:

“I stared the café from an area of 20 sq. m and it is currently 80 sq. m. I would be happy if I could expand it a little more and finish some details. I want my clients to leave happy. I only have one café, but I want it to be good.”

About the coffee and the Germans:

“In Germany you can only see the pensioners drinking coffee in the morning in the cafes”.

About the Greek as a phenomenon:

“Look, we the Greeks can not be easily put in a pattern. Recently various attempts are made to do this, however with no success. The Greek does not enter in a pattern. He has a special character. He wants to progress, to learn things, but also to have a good time. He wants a bit of everything. I also do not want to live like the Germans. They know that they will have dinner at 20:00 and at 20:30 they will go to bed and at 20:45 they will already be sleeping… In the morning they will wake up at 6:00 o’clock, at 6:25 they will be walking towards the bus and go somewhere… I wouldn’t like to live like this. Here everyday is different from the previous one, while there all days are the same”.

About the crisis:

“The crime bothers me most of all. About the crisis I am not worried, the Greek will be fine. He is tough. We also have a slight decrease of the turnover here, however I don’t think that this is related to the crisis… I believe that the moment came to make the difference who is a professional and who is not. The ones who are not professionals will close down and the ones who have build their businesses on lies and with other people’s money as well. The crisis definitely does not scare me. It is just not giving me the chance to develop my business further… And the secret of the trade is in the supply and demand – what you offer, at what price you are offering it and with what quality. What is very important is also the attitude towards the client – something we have forgotten a bit in Greece. The client wants you to pay attention to him, to spoil him. He wants you to tell him a word, to tell him “Good day” and “Good bye”. And here we cannot see this any more. The Greek believes he is doing you a favor by serving you. And it is not like this. In Germany even if you had only purchased something for 10 cents they will tell you “thank you”. Here however this is considered to be humiliating”.

Tags: Destinies Athens immigrants Germany
SUPPORT US!
GRReporter’s content is brought to you for free 7 days a week by a team of highly professional journalists, translators, photographers, operators, software developers, designers. If you like and follow our work, consider whether you could support us financially with an amount at your choice.
Subscription
You can support us only once as well.
blog comments powered by Disqus