You can buy an unlocked one in Italy or Greece for Euro 569. You can use the rest of the money to get a return flight and you will be still left with spare change for a snack.
It is definitely a nuisance. Vodafone Greece sells the iPhone, and the OS doesn't (yet?) have support for Greek. So Greeks are left with greeklish (greek in latin characters). Imagine what it is to write a text with the iPhone trying to correct every single word...