You snooze, you lose

Every culture has unspoken rules by which everyone abides. Take, for instance, the rule that tells you to move to the right on an escalator so people walking past can get by. Or, the rule that says you should allow passengers getting off a bus to get off before you try to get on. In Greece, these rules don’t seem to exist. Surely, they have their own set of unspoken rules, but these don’t seem to be among them. The only rule I can discern is this: you snooze, you lose. Here’s an example of the rule’s application: if you’re in line to get on a bus and you pause to let a passenger get off first, you lose. The swarm of people behind you are now in front of you. Similarly, if in any line you allow some ‘personal space’ to come between you and the person standing in front of you; once again, you lose. That ‘personal space’ is now some other person’s space. So, a note to future travelers: if you want to get somewhere in these big cities, you must do as the locals do—just plow ahead.