The Aegli is hooting...

Symi is hot and busy. This year’s peculiarly hectic ferry schedule has generated a tremendous amount of feverish activity. Right now the Aegli is hooting because it wants to dock and the Symi is late pulling out as a tour group leader has mislaid a few day-trippers and the space between the Panormitis which docked at one and the Symi is not quite big enough to accommodate a hydrofoil. Meanwhile the taxis are hovering… There seem to be arrivals and departures at all hours of the day and the taxi service is hard pressed to cope, particularly when people arrive on boats different to the ones on which they are expected as it is not always possible for the taxis to reschedule at short notice, particularly if the driver is half way to Panormitis!

I went to Rhodes on Saturday to collect my new reading glasses. Pity the official summer sales only start today and will undoubtedly be over by the time I next pass that way but even so it was interesting to have a look around. Something that did strike me, having been on occasional shopping trips to Rhodes over the twelve years I have lived on Symi, is that there seems to be a major effort on the part of the Rhodian shops to improve their public relations. The surly shop assistants who used to lurk in the basement of Pappou, scowling at those customers who dared to interrupt the weekend’s social arrangements, have been either replaced or sent to charm school. While one would certainly expect the assistants in branches of international shops such as BHS and Marks and Spencer to meet certain criteria and they do in terms of helpfulness and ability to speak English, even the smaller shops I went into did their best to be obliging. A shoe shop offered to put shoes on the ferry for me when my size comes in. A book shop put themselves out to order an obscure tome for me… Maybe I just struck it lucky but that is unlikely. Perhaps with potential customers in such short supply, efforts are being made to retain the ones they have! And a gyros in Mandraki is still excellent value at 1.80.

Have a good week.

Regards,

Adriana
www.symivisitor.com