Greek service at its best

I went down to lunch with wet hair, and by the time I got a menu, it was dry. Yes, I said menu, not food. The entire lunch experience took an hour and a half and all I ordered was a salad. I can’t complain too much, though, because this was my view (please excuse the crappy iTouch quality):

I like to think it wasn’t typical — there is a Panhellenic strike today, which means there was one waiter at the entire restaurant and my bed has not been made up. At least the manager brought me free watermelon at the end of my meal to apologize.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m in Greece. London was just too hot — 30 degrees! (86 F) — so we came to Greece, where it’s also 30 degrees. The key difference, though, is air conditioning. Athens is used to sweat-your-face-off temperatures, but London is not. I’m typing this while gazing out onto the sea from the comforts of my air-conditioned room, like Mother Nature intended. (No, we didn’t really come here just to escape the London heat wave, Stephen is doing some business and I got to tag along.)

My big fat not-Greek-related news: I completed the Couch to 5K program! My first 30-minute run was rather unceremonious. I thought week 8’s program was three runs of 28 minutes, but they made the last one 30 minutes, which I didn’t realize until I reached the end of my 28-minute playlist and saw I still had two minutes to go. It’s still hard to believe that I can run for 30 minutes, although I do take a quick walking break or two, if anything just to wipe the sweat off my face. (Freaking London heat wave!) I attempted to go for a run outside today, but I had a hard time finding a path. I followed the beach until I stumbled upon the hotel next door’s better fitness room, which I took as a sign, and got on the treadmill. It’s been ages since I’ve used a treadmill, I never realized how different it is from running outside. For one, it’s so boring!! I had a view of the ocean and a little TV playing a documentary about baklava (torture or motivation?), but I still felt like time was dragging. I’m not used to pressing buttons when I want to take a walking break or speed up during a fast song. The only thing nice was seeing approximately how many calories I was burning, how fast I was going and how far. I’m so glad I live near a park in London where running outside is easy. I may have to screen up and work out a course for tomorrow, I’m not sure the treadmill is for me.