Assignment 3: Flight to Evzoni [text file]

[Below is the text for the design task in Assignment 3 ]

The little plane seemed to hover momentarily and almost flutter its wings like a kestrel before descending onto the old road beside the motorway on the Greek side of the border just north of Evzoni. Still warm but beginning to darken, there were few vehicles waiting. The noisy cicadas in the trees around them replaced a smooth landing and the whirr of the engines. Maria unfastened her safety harness and climbed out. Chris followed her rather clumsily. They strolled across the scrubby grass and on to the motorway. Its rough concrete surface was a yellowish grey, cracked with weeds peeping through. It showed no sign of wear, being a virtually stretch running through a half-finished gantry where bare brick shelters stood guard at a toll station that had yet to take its first drachma or dinar. Built in some more prosperous time and left when funds ran out, traffic continued to accumulate as it filtered through the dirty greys and blues of the old Customs post.
 A '62 Citroen DS model slumped nearby, tyres flat and body covered with dust and grime. Behind it a tired Volkswagen beetle perched on a trailer behind an old Datsun pick-up. These, and dozens like them, were all the victims of the tight controls on vehicle import and export. The best would have been auctioned long ago or purchased by one of the officers' friends or family. A family of French tourists sat glumly waiting for their turn to be checked, watching the car in front being virtually stripped as two hapless travellers were made to prove they were not carrying anything they shouldn't be.
 A Greek driver shouted impatiently at someone. He received a one-fingered reply and sat back silent. Strangely, huge lorries of questionable vintage lumbered through almost unnoticed. Maria went straight into the corridor-like offices of the Customs Control and approached the desk of the officer in charge. A man of about thirty-five, he wore a short-sleeved, white cotton shirt with a buttoned pocket on the right. His desk was covered in papers - a shambles of forms in triplicate and more, loosely clipped or held in ragged, brown card files. A variety of rubber stamps lay on their sides near his right hand. Two packets of Papistratos cigarettes rested on another set of papers. He stubbed out a cigarette as she reached the desk.

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