Athens, Greece – Bank Run 2015

When in Greece do as the Greeks do, right?

So, in this case… Join the bank run. Government shut down the banks and people are trying to get cash from ATMs – including me.

We arrived to Greece yesterday knowing there was still financial issues the country was working through with its creditors but we had no idea a bank run would happen. The day we arrived (6/27) we were able to pull a small amount of money out of an ATM at the airport figuring we’d get more money at the many ATMs spread all over the city of Athens. Early on 6/28 we were following the news and we realized we had a pretty big problem on our hands: the Greek government looked like it was going to fail to meet it’s financial obligations and we had heard people were withdrawing money at ATMs. Saturday morning I went out and tried to get as much money as possible. There’s word of bank holidays / closures and no one is sure what’s going to happen or whether we’re able to get money.

I emailed multiple people we knew in Athens asking what to do and how this will all get sorted. No one knew and stated they were in the same situation as Jac and I. The most memorable comment by far was, “good luck to us all!”. Not very reassuring.

I think we will have a very interesting time in Greece. Of all the different situations we planned encountering while traveling, a nations’ solvency was nowhere on the list. We certainly didn’t expect this.

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