Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

Johnathan Buell There comes a point in travellers life that he/she must just keep walking or give a "no thank you" to whoever might be trying to get your attention. Here in Greece there are many people who are dependent on tourism; the people who actually really couldn't survive without people wanting to go to their home. I don't know what the percentage is in Athens but on the islands like Rhodes, a tourist island, its economy is seventy percent tourism. I have to say that I was thinking that I was going to be invincible to anything that anyone might be selling or able to turn down everything that was offered to me. I think that I only had a few small instances that happened to me in a group where we got coralled into a restaurant or a quick look in a store, but never anything that involved me buying something I wasn't looking for. There is a reason that these folks are still in business and have the ability to sustain through slow seasons. For one, they are good salesmen, and two, there are enough tourists in Greece that I hear in the summer you can hardly breathe. Some people in our group were not so lucky... nothing terrible just something to "add to the bracelet".