Crime in Greece - Nothing to Worry About
The crime in Greece, especially in this area, is very low. Sitting in the local taverna one night, with some friends visiting from Norway; the car parked in front, as usual with the doors unlocked and the key in the starter. Suddenly my friend whispers: "Watch out, someone just opened the door of your car!". Christos and I just shrugged and continued talking, eating and drinking. It wasn't until later that I suddenly realized what my friend thought happened: That someone broke into our car with the intention to steal something. I've lived for so many years now with almost none existing crime, so even the thought of theft or burglary is something completely foreign to me. We hardly ever lock our front door and frequently forget the keys in the car over night. And so what? Like my husband loves to say: "Here in Eleftheres we don't have police so we don't have any crime." But it's not only in Eleftheres, it's all over Greece. Well, I do believe you lock your front door if you live in Thessaloníki, but you'll still feel safe walking alone in the street in the middle of the night. A Saturday night one winter I managed to find the only patch of ice in a Greek street, slipped on it, fell and broke my arm. Luckily a teenager living nearby heard my cries, came and helped me on my feet, and supported me back home. In another country I had probably got mugged instead of getting help. Double and even triple parking is a frequent phenomena in Kavala. Well, you only want to run an errand that takes a few minutes, so why should you leave your car in the public parking lot? Besides, the parking lot is at least a hundred meters away, and we all know that the Greeks were born with two feet to have one on the gas and the other on the brake. A Greek driver will always want to park just in front of the shop or office he's visiting. The smart solution to this is to leave the keys in the car. In case the owner of the car that you've closed in wants to leave he can just move your car himself. Steal it? I doubt it. Now, you might wonder why that person opened the door to our car if he didn't plan to steal something? It was to give us something, of course! When we left the taverna we found that he had placed a huge bottle of his home-produced olive oil in the front seat. |
