Greeks ignore stop signs, but masks? Not on your life.

It’s always interesting to see how people drive in other countries, and my recent trip to Greece was no exception.

I didn’t feel like renting a car and driving myself, although the roads are good and many people do. So I hired a nice man named Nikolai to drive us around in a Mercedes sedan owned by his fatherin-law, proprietor of Michael’s Taxi Service.

According to Nikolai, we always had to wear our masks in the front seat — even though we were in a private car — because the cops could stop and give you a ticket for not wearing one. In your car. That was a new one on me, though I will tell you that people in Greece were ferocious about indoor mask-wearing. Some of you folks would probably be beaten to a pulp if you tried to explain how it was your right as a human being to infect everyone else.

The other thing I learned from watching Nikolai in Greece is that stop signs are optional. Yeah, yeah, if you’re in the city and there’s traffic, you’ll stop. But elsewhere, the meaning of a stop sign is actually “look and go.” If no one’s in sight, you just breeze on through it, although you do slow down long enough to take a good look at the intersection.

I explained to Nikolai that most everyone here is careful to stop at stop signs, because if you don’t, a police car will suddenly materialize out of nowhere and give you a ticket, even if you are the only people left alive on earth after the zombie apocalypse. In fact, they’ll cite you if you stop but don’t come to a complete stop, where the car rolls back on its haunches. He found this mystifying.

He just shook his head and said that, in Greece, the cops there are too busy enforcing the mask mandates to worry about petty details like stopping at intersections.

Despite the casual attitude toward stop signs, Nikolai was a very good driver and we felt safe with him as we cruised around central Greece. Yes, it cost a lot of money to hire him, in case you’re wondering. But, since the state of California has officially classified me as a gimp (see my blue placard), it was worth not having to try to get around on public transportation or in a car we were driving ourselves.

I’ve driven many rental cars in many countries, and one thing I absolutely despise is being forced to say, “Wait, I think that was our exit back there and we missed it.” And then having to drive 26 miles in the wrong direction before being able to turn around, just to discover that, actually, that wasn’t our exit after all. But it was hard to tell, since the top part of the sign was written in Greek. Fortunately, the signs nearly always also had an English translation on them, since so many people there speak English. However, sometimes the names of the towns are completely different than what’s listed on your map and your guidebook.

So I paid Nikolai a sum that ended up being about $100 per person, per day, to drive us around Greece. And it was well worth it. He’s an interesting guy, too. Originally from Bulgaria when it was behind the Iron Curtain, his family moved to Siberia when he was a child, then returned. He moved to Greece and met his wife and lived happily ever after, at least until he lost his job in the economic crisis. So now he drives a taxi. If I hadn’t hired Nikolai, I might have gone my entire life without ever meeting anyone who’d lived in Siberia. So there’s that.

This decision to hire a driver is a fairly new one for me, although I have done it in the past. We hired Anwar to drive us around Guadalajara recently, and he was lots of fun and knew everything we wanted to see. Anwar is usually an Uber driver, but I found him on Facebook and hit him up, and he drove us around for several days. Since he’s actually from Texas, he speaks perfect English. And he definitely knew the best Italian restaurant in town.

I don’t know if I’d even want to drive in Italy, since the Italians all drive like they’re in a road race, even when they’re just going to pick up their dry cleaning. One reason I’ve never been back to Rome is that the mere act of trying to cross the street was terrifying. And even the sidewalks aren’t safe, as someone may lurch in front of you to park there. I had a friend from Italy who asked to borrow my car. After I finished laughing, I explained that I had been to Italy, so no, that would be impossible.

And I only drove once in England, because I found driving on the wrong side of the road to be fraught with peril. Luckily, both of those countries have great public transportation.

I’ll see you there.