'I know I am getting fat,' she says, as she weaves, svelte and nimble, between the tables in the breakfast room. Her hair is drawn back tightly in a bun; our chairs are drawn in swiftly to let her pass. Balanced on her tray are a pot of coffee, some toast and olives - black olives, lustrous as her eyes that dart around the room, daring anyone to agree with her statement.
'When you have a moment, we'd like to pay and be on our way,' say the English couple behind me.
'Two seconds,' she shoots back, heels clicking efficiently to the kitchen to fetch more breakfast. 'Today I am the cook, the waitress, the receptionist - everything! Everything except the owner!'
I find her presiding - tall and magisterial - behind the reception desk when I, in turn, check out.
She is in a marginally better mood.
'So today where do you go?', she asks.
'Ah - today I return to Dubai. But not before a short walk around the Plaka, to say goodbye!'
'Dubai?'
'Yes - I work in Dubai.'
'What is there in Dubai - except sand and money?'
I am not sure about the money, but there is work in the Gulf - for now.
'Here in Greece, we have history - thousands of years of history! We have sun, we have food! And yet we suffer...'
I turn my mind to the riots, fresh in the news, although the area around the historic heart of Athens has thankfully been devoid of any evidence of unrest.
'They give banks money, but the young people they shoot,' a disgruntled student had been quoted in the press.
'This year will be a difficult one for us all...' I say, pensively.
'Come back to us when you come back to Athens,' she says, and I flit out into the winter sunshine.
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