rainy days and Mondays

A dreary weekend of promised rain finally delivered in full this evening. It's dismal outside, and the rain that's falling isn't a gentle rain; it's a hard, cold rain that has turned the roads into rivers. It wouldn't be that bad to walk in if there were sidewalks in Athens, but the city has deemed sidewalks the perfect place to plant short trees at a shallow depth so their roots buckle the sidewalks and their branches make walking upright an impossibility. Truly a feat of civil engineering.

We were at a friend's apartment when it started, and I spent over an hour dialing different taxi companies to no avail. Their lines were so busy that it finally said the network was busy, not just the phone number. Finally, Miah and I decided to walk home. If she weren't in a long skirt, and if I weren't wearing black leather shoes, there might have been a cathartic joy in walking through the cleansing rain. Instead, we sludged along through the streetrivers which are cleansing the city of its filth. At one point I was so deep in water that it was brimming over into my shoes.

We got our tax IDs today! That is, we got the number. The paperwork itself still has 32 levels of bureaucracy and 6 shades of red stamps to pass through, but at least we have the number. I think the bureaucracy had actually begun to wear on the people at the school, quite ironic considering the tongue lashing we received last week about living by the laws of the land and being patient.