Safety and Electricity

I'm a decent risk-taker.  On a scale of one to ten....I'd probably rate near seven.  But I always have this thing in my mind.....what if.....and this keeps me focused on doing things which aren't death-defying.

On this trip to Athens, Greece of the past week....I took the hop-on/hop-off bus, and rode it around Athens.

It's a marvelous way to see scenic landscapes, the old city, people on the go, and metropolitan Athens.

But on the top deck of the bus.....you tend to notice these electrical cables all over the city.  At best.....they are maybe six feet above my head.  And yes, they are loaded with a significant amount of voltage.  Probably enough.....to kill me.

For the first thirty minutes.....this was a continual thing that I observed.  Over, and over, and over.

As a kid growing up on the farm.....I was keenly aware by age ten of the remarkable listing of ways that you could accidentally get yourself killed (probably over a 1,000 methods).  Electrical methods were a weekly thing and you'd start to notice bad patch cables or hanging cables....commenting to the old man about this and that.  Sometimes he'd agree.....sometimes he'd just suggest to stay back a bit.  I was probably too safety focused at this early age.....to amount to a first-class farmer.  To be honest, I'm probably still too safety focused.....and worry too much about this for trips to foreign countries.

Folks around Athens apparently don't have too many worries about this kind of situation.  Maybe they've observed a good safe trend over forty years.  It's hard to say.

So, if you ever get around to Athens, and you have this safety fear (like me)......maybe you ought to skip the hop-on/hop-off bus.  Just a suggestion.