Sadly, this isn’t the kind of adventure where you go in a sewer and laundry attacks you but you kill it with your flashlight.

When I got this apartment in Athens, it came with a washing machine in it which I assumed would make it easier for laundry. Unfortunately for me, all the buttons and switches on the machine are labeled in Greek so I had to make my best guesses and feel lucky. The wash cycles for European machines are much longer than the American ones, so the machine was carrying on and making all kinds of noises for almost an hour and a half while the whole time I was wondering what I had done wrong and whether the machine was about to explode.

Thankfully it did not explode and an hour and half later the cycle was done. It seems that the designers of this machine neglected to implement two relatively important features: the ability to dry your clothes and the ability to open the machine door once the cycle was finished. I spent almost 20 minutes sitting there banging on the door trying to get it to open so I could get the clothes out. It finally did give, but it wasn’t an easy battle.

Since there’s no dryer in the machine, you have to hang your clothes up to dry. I initially tried hanging them out on the balcony of the apartment, but it’s a little cool here right now and two days later they were still not completely dry. Finally I had to bring them inside and put them next to the heater to get them dry. Next came ironing, which I had been able to avoid stateside by using the dryer. I pulled out the iron and found all the buttons labeled in Greek again. I poured some water into one of the holes that I really hoped was the right now, which caused all kinds of hissing and groaning from the iron but it too neglected to explode and I managed to iron some of my shirts without destroying anything.