I moved to Greece 4 years ago. I've learned that there are downsides to Mediterranean living.

I love my life in Greece, but living here is very different from visiting.

Kathleen O'Donnell I moved to Greece in 2022 after falling in love with Athens on my first visit.

I love my life here, but there are downsides to slow living that I didn't expect.

It can be tough to plan around frequent store closures and adjust to the laid-back energy.

After a week of vacation in Greece spent sipping freddo espressos in little cafés, lingering for hours over taverna dinners, and seeing locals enjoy a seemingly leisurely lifestyle, you might start to wonder: Could I live here? This happened to me, too.

I grew up in Boston, but fell in love with Athens the first time I visited.

I'd quit my job to travel for a year — and I liked Greece so much that, after that year ended, I moved here.

In 2022, I became a resident, and I bought an apartment here a few years later.

I adore my life in Athens, but I've learned that the reality of a slow life is very different from the fantasy.

So many things shut down in early August In my central Athens neighborhood, almost every shop and most cafés and restaurants close for at least two weeks in August as Athenians leave en masse for islands and villages to enjoy time off.

To many Americans, the idea of taking at least two consecutive weeks off sounds romantic.

I can understand the appeal; I'd never been able to take this much vacation time while living in the US.

But with so many people on vacation at the same time, life can get tricky.

I need to tackle any bureaucratic tasks well in advance, plan my grocery shopping carefully, and deal with longer public-transit wait times because of reduced summer schedules.