I was very lucky to get the chance of going to Athens, since this city had long been the very place I dreamt of. However, as soon as I arrived, I was shocked by the life style there.

Everyone in Greece seemed to have plenty of time to relax, and were never in a hurry.
There are many examples for that.

The first good example is my lab. Every day I got up at 8:00, and set off for work at 9:00. (This was incredible in China, for class begins at 8:00.) I arrived at the lab at about 9:30 (if only the bus came on time), but I was always the second to be in the lab-----the first one was the postdoc who opened the door every day. Other people arrive at 10:30, 11:30, or even in the afternoon!

The second example is the shops. No shop opened before 10:00 in the morning, except Everest. Nearly all shops were closed at 3:00 in the afternoon, except the bars, cafes, and restaurants. When every day I came back from work, the street looked like haunted with the dusty closed doors.

The third, but not the last example is the experience of my friend who arrived in August. He found that there was nothing on show on TV, except advertisements. When he asked the local people about this strange thing, they told him that it was because the whole nation were on holiday, including people working for TV channels.

Never I my life had I seen a country living in such a pace. However, I am not saying that people in Greece are lazy. There are also plenty of examples to prove that.

The best one is also from my lab. Although people there did not have strict time schedules, everyone was working hard. They were doing several different projects at the same time. As all projects were on molecular biology, which call for special carefulness and patience, sometimes they did not have time to eat or sleep, not to mention enjoying weekends.

During my stay there, I observed Manolis, the postdoc in the lab doing experiments. He always arrived before 9:30, drank a cup of coffee, ate a few cookies and then started his work. He cut tissues from plants, washed the tissues, extracted DNA and RNA from the cells, inserted certain DNA sequences into the target vector, checked by PCR¡­¡­ I had never seen him going to the dining hall for lunch. He only ate cookies while working, sometimes even forgot to eat. Then in the afternoon, he carried on with his work. He worked while explaining some basic thesis to me. He prepared buffers, he expressed proteins, he grew bacteria cultures¡­¡­ When every day I left at about 6:00pm, he was always still in the lab, either working or helping other people with their work.

Some Master candidates in the lab were writing their thesis. Kostas told me that he had been working on that project for six months, and had now got some results. However, he would still have three other months to work on the very project to prove and reprove his result, and then, write a paper. He was hurrying from the lab to the library, and from the library to the professor's office.

Rodica, who came all the way from Romania to Greece, was working to get her PhD. She had difficulty with communication, for she could not speak Greek. However, this did not prevent her from discussing projects and problems with others. She always worked hard, and even helped other Master candidates with their studies.

I am not going to list more. In a word, people in Greece are working hard, but at the same time, they take time to smell the rose. This was the very thing I would like to learn from them. We need to work, but enjoying the life is as important as that!