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GreekReporter.comEuropeVictoria Hislop: 'I Was at the Party in Greece, Now I'm Sharing...

Victoria Hislop: ‘I Was at the Party in Greece, Now I’m Sharing the Hangover’

Victoria Hislop is a best-welling British author of “The Island and The Thread” books, stories of which take place in Greece.

She first visited Greece on holiday almost 30 years ago and she still remembers that summer heat upon her arrival. Her Greek is quite good. She has also bought a house on Crete, which she pays taxes on and may be the reasons why Hislop talks about the Greek crisis.

“The problems have been brewing for years, but what feels like potential meltdown arrived in Athens very suddenly,” says the writer to British telegraph.

She compares the current Greece to that some years ago and realizes that “the shops and clubs are now empty. Only the bars are still full, where people go to argue about politics and the future of the country, while the anger is growing,” continues Hislop.

She comments that she could never imagine that Greeks would stop going out. “Staying in isn’t in their DNA,” adds the British author.

In her opinion, “riots could happen at any moment…Greeks are a very proud people and feel humiliated by what has happened to them.”

And she continues, commenting on the old situation. The writer says that she was “open-mouthed” when she heard about tax evasion, bribery and many other non-flattering situations characterizing most businessmen in Greece during the past years.

But now, she stresses, the situation has changed. “Children faint due to hunger and schools don’t have money for heat during the winter, or even schoolbooks!”

“But even Greeks have very little, their generosity is humbling,” she admits.

Greece remains beautiful, according to the writer, but tourists have now to face unhappy people when they reach Athens. “They will be driven from the airport by a taxi driver who spends the journey on his mobile phone (illegal), smokes (illegal), and breaks the speed limit (illegal).”

But she concludes that she has been part of the “party” Greece once was, and now she shares their “hangover.”

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