I'll Take that as a Compliment

This little memory made me laugh today.

I spent a lot of time at HMC in the 3rd floor kitchen making coffee, eating yogurt, and helping Seb B make pasta dish after pasta dish.

It was probably during 3rd or 4th week and I was wearing a tan turtle neck kind of shirt and my dark maroon, brass buttoned jacket. This jacket has always made me feel cool and kind of funky elegant. It's one of those articles of clothing that always makes you feel like you look better than normal.

So by 3rd or 4th week things were pretty much going and I'd kind of gotten used to things, I at least finally had friends that I felt comfortable around. I was making coffee or something when Seb B came into the kitchen to start making dinner and I started jabbering on about this or that and after I'd quieted down and asked him if he wanted me to grate some cheese, he said, "Yes, grate some cheese, and you're looking very, mmm, mundane today with that jacket."

I think I made some noise like, "huh" or "heh." I might have made a little comment like, "Wow. Mundane."

Seb B has a delightful habit of giving compliments to girls that could be taken slightly offensively like, "You're at every meal and you're always early. You must really like to eat." Which is the first thing he said to me besides, "I think I'm your neighbor." So I thought he was trying to give me one of his Seb-esque compliments, because being able to eat a lot is a good thing to him, but I couldn't figure the compliment in saying that I looked mundane. Did he mean I looked like a normal, down to earth, friendly girl, who's easy to approach and non-pretentious? What I couldn't figure out was that he was also very good with the kinds of compliments every girl likes. For instance, the first formal dinner we had I wore a dress and we walked to dinner together and he commented on how smart I looked. Using the word "smart." And while "smart" isn't a word we use to describe a pretty girl in the States, I knew that's how it was used in England.

So I must not have given the response he expected from a girl who'd just been called mundane, because he said the word again a little questioningly. "Mundane. That's an English word right?" I confirmed and he asked me what it meant, because he knew it was a word in English, but it might not have been the word he really wanted to use.

"It means plain and boring. When something is mundane, it's repetative and there is nothing special about it."

He said, "Well that is not the word I want to use. Mondän is a word we have in German and it means sophistocated, um. A woman who is kind of, chic and feminine. You don't have this word in English?" Nope, he'd just called me boring.

We laughed about it and how confused we both were with each other for about 25 seconds.

That jacket is gone. It was lost on an over night ferry to Santorini Island. Sometimes things happen that way.

Now I cannot hear the word mundane and not think of feeling a bit chic.

Hilary Swank is Playing Amelia Earhart.

My room was once a furnace, but now it is a room again.

I generally prefer my living space to be a little warmer than cooler but being on the top floor in Aix in the middle of summer, a little warmer is an understatement. My French parents got a little air conditioner that makes my room sooooo goooood.

So my cellphone. It's dead. It really is. I was talking to Joshua on the phone last night and he said, "Lady, Lady, are you there? You're cutting out pretty bad." And then my phone made some quite strange noises and shut off completely. It rang again and I couldn't find a pen to answer it and then, kaput. Done for.

I'm gonna try and take it to a cellphone store tomorrow and try a new battery. Or just try and put my SIM card in another phone. This is a terrible time for my phone to die because I've only got 30 days left. That's too long to go without a phone, but not long enough to really feel like it's worth my money to get a new phone. Ugh. I hate that cell phone. I think I've decided it's going to end violently.

And I went swing dancing last night. What can I say except that it was good for my spirit? I need to take lessons again. I need to take private lessons on a very regular basis.

Wait. 30 days? 30 days two hours? This...can't be.

I don't know what to do.

I mean, I know what to do. Travel myself back to London. Get on a plane. Get off a plane. Greet friends and family with an immodest show of screams, hugs, tears, the usual. I'll say things like "I can't believe it! You got your hair cut? I've never seen you in a baseball cap before! Am I in Indiana for real? I'm home."

My junk will be put in a car. Someone will take me to a place to sleep. Someone will take me to Steak 'n' Shake. I wanna go to Steak 'n' Shake. We'll laugh so much. I'll be so tired.

I'll be so. Tired.

It'll be so final.

See, I can't help but do this. Think way to far ahead. Too far in advance. It's hard to stay right here, in Aix, on my bed. It's hard to make Aix my home because it feels so temporary. Oxford became my home. It was the beginning. It was the time. I feel bad for Aix because it's so much in the shadow of Oxford. I hear all the students here just die with excitement and wonder over the little things. For a lot of them, this is their first time studying abroad. For one girl this is her first time away from home. She didn't even go to summer camp.

And I can relate to them a bit in the sense that I experienced very similar things when I went to Oxford, but I cannot relate in the sense that I'm experiencing it all with them at this moment. A lot of them are traveling on the weekends to Italy, Barcelona, Geneva, other parts of France. Or they're going to spend a few weeks traveling after term ends. Me? This is the end of the line, not the beginning.

A little secret. When I first got here Vero took me and Lily on a walk around town after dinner. She showed us the school. She showed us some fountains and this and that place. And I said it reminded me a lot of Oxford. First thought. I'd already compared it to Oxford.

Forgive me, Aix. I'm trying.

Real Swing Dancing Tonight!

I've been spoiled with libraries lately. I don't think I will ever feel the same way about them after spending a term at Harris Manchester.

The library here at IAU certainly has it's charm. The IAU school is located in an old church that they created rooms in. The library is a funny shape and about a quarter the size of HMC's library. I really shouldn't compare the two. It's not right. It'd be a bit like comparing Frankie Manning to a dance instructor in Indiana. There are excellent dance instructors in Indiana. I know a lot of them and they're fantastic. But Frankie Manning had the age and wisdom that comes with just simply being Frankie Manning. His knowledge was unique and unmatched in his field.

I just feel a bit sad when I go in there because I miss the HMC library with an intensity I didn't know I could feel for a room fulla books.

I hope I can still appreciate UIndy's library when I get back.

I still think a bit like I'm traveling.
For example: my host mom wanted my laundry so she could do it and it's just weird. Someone else to do my laundry? I don't have to pay for it? And when deciding what's "clean" and "dirty" it's a little more like deciding what absolutely has to be washed that moment and what can go another week without getting rank.

And so. When traveling you have x ammount of clothes. You have x minus what you're wearing at the exact moment you will do laundry. So what can go into the wash at this point = x-w. (where w represents the clothes you're wearing). If you have to let your clothes air dry you have to be careful because sometimes it takes a full day, or a day and a half for them to dry. Towels and jeans take espeically long. So if you need to shower that day you have x-w-t = l. (where l represents laundry). Sometimes if t is dirty, but you cannot do l right away, then you must use w to dry off.

Anyway! The point is that there is a limited supply of x. So when my host mother asked for t1 (the t she gave me) to wash, I had to think: "If I give her t1, which she gave me at the beginning of the week, I won't have it for my shower. I have MY t (=t2), which is slightly less dirty, because I used it as a mat for my painting. I can use t2 for one day while t1 dries."

But this kind of math is only necessary when the supply of x is travel limited, not house limited. Lo! and behold, t3 appeared on my bed while I was eating breakfast!

And she helped me strip and make my bed. How weird is that? It was really weird.

I dropped my phone yesterday. Off a wall. It fell about 10 feet to the stone ground below. Every piece that can be taken apart came apart. I thought for sure this was the end of this terrible phone. I was wrong. It still works. But I don't have a key pad any more. That piece fell into a grate and could not be recovered. Now I have to use a pen to poke at the sensors. I have to count where the numbers are and texting a simple message will take me 10 to 15 minutes to complete.

I hate this phone but I must give it credit. It basically shattered and it still does my bidding. I can't wait to put it down for good when I get back to the states in, cringe, 31 days 7 hours 44 minutes. I'd invisioned throwing it agains a brick wall, driving over it with my car, dropping it from a 5th story window, putting it in the yard to get mowed over, or just plain taking a hammer to it. Now I might give it a proper burrial and just let it become one with the earth.

We'll see. It's kind of like a blackberry phone now, though, cuz I have to use a stylis. But it's not a blackberry. And it's only a little funny.

I Have a lot of Homework.

Have I told you that it's painfully obvious that I haven't had a French class in over a year? It's not like riding a bike. Riding a bike is muscle memory. Skydiving is like riding a bike. Speaking French is like playing the violin. I spent years in my early childhood learning it and I haven't touched one since 7th grade and I can remember one section of one song. And it sounds terrible when I play it.
I mean, it's not that bad. But it's rough and rocky.

I'm not gonna let my posts fall off the face of the Earth, like then did when I was at HMC.

In the mornings my cellphone alarm goes off at 7:25. Then I hit snooze and it goes off again at 7:30. Then I turn it off. My watch alarm beeps at 7:33 and I roll over and open my laptop. It sits on my bed all night long, kind of like a stuffed animal, but my laptop really does communicate with me, unlike Pity Penguin, who just kind of sits there and sometimes falls off the bed.

So I check my email before I get out of bed and turn on some music and this morning I looked through all the photos I took at Oxford. There are surprisingly few.

I didn't take ANY inside any building. I barely have any photos of any of the places I frequented. My memory of that place is an expansive panorama, and the actual photos I have are itty bitty tiles here and there.

I can't let that happen here. But I'm sure it will.

So I'm slowly working my way into a friendship with these three musicians who are about my age. Yesterday I saw the bassist walking down the street carrying his bass and he stopped and put his bass down and gave me the cheek greeting and we chatted and he told me when they were playing next (tonight!) and that I should come. So I will. A set of French musician friends is just what I need.

And life is right where it should be.

I Have My Knitting Again!

I'm doing a new thing or two.

I found a huge canvas in my room already mounted and painted with a base coat. It's dark brown and it's been here for a while, I can tell. There are places where the paint's been scraped off from rubbing against this or that. My room is stark white and there's a large space of wall above my bed framed by two lights. I asked Veronique, my French mother, if I could mount it above my bed. She said I could even paint on it.

That was on Sunday. Yesterday I went to the art supply store and bought red, blue, yellow, white, and black paints, and 7 brushes. And I went to town on that canvas. For three hours. What came out was a giant tree.
I can't tell if I'm done or not. But I was so excited to tell my Veronique about it. In French, of course.

And today was my first class at 8:30 a.m. and maybe I've been a bit spoiled, but that's ridiculous early. I've not had a class before 9 a.m. at UIndy. God bless the History/Poli. Sci. department.

So it's a bit of a strange life what with a crookedly shaped oblong room that's naturally got more character than than any other room I've inhabited because it's had about six or seven hundred years to shift with the earth beneath it and be reshaped and remodeled and reflexed and repainted and redecorated and re-inhabited.
I just received a suitcase I sent to myself while in Austria. Have you ever sent yourself something from the past? Its like someone knew that you wouldn't forgotten about those things, but that they were just out of mind. And they wanted them to come back into your mind when the time was right. And the time was right today.

All I want to do while here is create. I've painted. I drew today. I bought a harmonica, too. If I cannot play the bass I'll learn a more portable instrument. So it's in C and I'm gonna spend from today until June 21st learning how to play it better than poorly so that I can hopefully find people to jam with at the festival de musique! It's an entire day, starting at 4 p.m. of musicians in the streets and it lasts all night.
I'm gonna go back to that shop and try to chat with everyone there, looking for people to play with. And people to speak French to. And to befriend.

Today I had a traditional French afternoon. After class a friend and I went to a cafe and drank coffee and ate sandwiches and sat there for two hours. Which is what you're supposed to do. And then I found some Django Reindhardt players and sat and listened and drew a street lamp. And then I went to the music store and should have just stayed and chatted chatted chatted but I just wanted to get home and play. And unpack my little life that arrived in a red suitcase.

And tonight a few of us are going to Le Skat. It's a jazzy kinda club and tonight they're playing rhythm and blues.

And I caught wind of a rumor that there was swing dancing somewhere in the city. I will find it. I will wear my swing dress. I will dance. I will show these French swing dancers how an American swing dances because, after all, they can have Django cuz we have Frankie Manning.

And my French class is hard :( But! I love speaking French and my French parents are a dream.
Today my French mom and I had breakfast together and it was so delightful.

It's 11:26 p.m. here in Aix-en-Provence.

I'm currently in my incredibly comfortable room. I need to indulge in some more Aix details.

And I feel a little cheesy because whenever I listen to Eva Cassidy singing "Fields of Gold" I just break up inside. It always reminds me of Oxford.

The streets are narrow and mostly one way. There are fruit and vegetable markets every morning. There are tons of fountains, all different with different important histories. There are sidewalk cafes All over the place. Even more than Paris, I'm sure. I see old men sitting outside with serious moustaches and eating chunks of bread with cheese and a bottle of wine within arms reach.

And I've got orientation tomorrow at 9 a.m. so I'm actually going to cut this post super short. But the next one will be worth it, I promise!

Tiny Bit.

So Paris. Barcelona. Aix.

I'm in Aix-en-Provence.

This is the last stretch. 44 days till I fly home.

But this is home until then. I've got some French parents and an American sister. Those are a few things I've never had before.

Quick bulleted bits about Aix and my new life here:

- I love Aix-en-Provence.
- It's a bit like Oxford in the sense that it's Old and Beautiful.
- There are tons of fountains.
- And there are cobble stones.
- My mother is beautiful and friendly, much like my real mother. And she's got dark hair, too.
- The doors are majestic.
- My home is from the middle ages.
- I get the 4th floor room with my own bathroom.
- There are 41 spiraled stair steps to the top floor, which is my bedroom.
- And I've got a full sized bed.
- There is art throughout the whole house.
- We have a cat named Millie.
- My window looks out over the street and much like at Oxford I cannot help but gaze out of it every 45 seconds. I watch all the people walk by and they just don't know.
- I was nervous but not anymore.
- I'm living in a house older than my country.
- I have a gabled window.
- I'm happy to be settled for the next 6 weeks.


I'm so tired. PS. Salsa dancing in Barcelona is incredible.

Listen to the Song "Gypsy Melodies" by The Snake, The Cross, The Crown

June 10

What can I even begin to say? You have no idea. I have no idea. All of Santorini and Paris have no idea, either. Did we find Atlantis? Yeah, it’s that big dark spot just off of that beach somewhere that direction, Lori said as we stood on the edge of a cliff watching the sun set. Mystery solved. Everyone chill. Let’s go to the beach.

Santorini is…one of the best things about traveling. It was one of the most fun and most memorable parts of the trip so far. It’s definitely in the top 25, at least.

It’s been a while since Santorini Island, it seems. So how bout some highlights? The hostel was so cheap and so awesome. It was seven euros a night. It was 2 minutes from the beach. It was full of Australians and Canadians and some Americans. There was a 24-hour bakery just down the street where nothing was over 2 euros. There was a beach about 2 minutes from the hostel. There was beach service at a lot of the restaurants. The beach was less than a two minute walk from the hostel.

On the first day we got to the beach and Lydia looked at a mountain and said “I’m gonna climb that mountain.” And I said. “See that ship way out there? I’m gonna swim to that ship.” We laughed and said, “I’m gonna sleep on this beach for 4 days.” That was a little closer to the truth. But Lydia really did climb that mountain. I think I showered once in Greece. It was kinda useless to anyway because the water was salty. It did wonders for my hair, though. I didn’t wash it at all while I was there; I just dipped it in the sea every day and it was awesome. On the last day one of the waiters on the beach told me my hair was perfect. I laughed and he said, “Don’t you think so?” I just thought it was funny because I hadn’t washed it in a week. He might have just been trying to sell me a beer. I took the compliment and left the beer.

We rented 4 wheelers and rode all over the island. We ate lots of pastries and bread and (tatzsiki) I can’t spell it but it’s that garlic-y cucumber cream sauce.

::side note:: I love watching people wake up on trains because we all do the same thing. We fall asleep. We wake up. Look out the window. Look around at who’s still on the train. Look at the watch. Calculate where we’re supposed to be at what time. Calculate how long we’ve got till our stop. Go back to sleep in a slightly different position. By the way, I’m on a train from Paris to Barcelona. I’ll get two days to make Brent Lederle proud. Then I’m back to France. 48 days.

We met some crazy characters in Greece. Unfortunate Max from New Jersey who appreciates punctuality and fell off a bicycle and had to get stitches. Santorini Dave from Australia who hung out with us every day. “Geographical South” Brandy from Texas who studies in Mississippi and hates it because it’s the stereotypical “anthropological south.” Normal Sarah and Kathleen from New York who study in Paris. Jerk-Face Alex living in Greece who thinks girls shouldn’t play soccer. Bottle Opener Martin Powers Jameson from Ireland who always had a bottle of Jameson with him but he loves Powers Irish whiskey more so Powers and Jameson are not part of his name and he could open any bottle top with any object, including another bottle top.

Our batting average for making ferries ended up being a 500. If it were a test we would have gotten a 50/100. That’s failing. But when life is a song, not a test, it’s better that way because it lends itself to more interesting lyrics.

Speaking of Life is a Song. After Santorini Island we had an afternoon in Pareaus, Greece. We got there at 7:30 am and we went to a café and drank frappes and analyzed song lyrics for about 2 hours. Ask us if we went to the Acropolis. Go ahead. Did we go to the Acropolis? Yeah, twice. Once on Santorini Island and got delicious 2-euro gyros and once in Pareaus and got frappes! We didn’t even want to go see the real thing. Everything in Greece is named after the Acropolis.

So…what’s really on my mind is this train and feeling a little bit nauseous and sitting by myself in a dining car and only speaking to strangers in a strange language because Lydia and Lori just left and I just left and we’re all leaving Paris behind. I love goodbyes. I love saying goodbye at train stations and bus stops and airports and all those transitional places. I love it when the people you’re saying goodbye to will give you a hug and then look you in the face and then once you get on the train or they get off the train they stand there and keep looking at you and waiving a little bit and maybe make a little funny face and after the doors close they find the window that’s open and call out your name to catch your attention because they’re not done saying goodbye and after the train starts to slowly wind its gears into motion, they walk in time with it and run even if it’s crowded and they’ve got heavy packs on and say things like “I love you, Sarah K!”

I think saying goodbye at a train station is way better than saying it at an airport. You get more time to say goodbye and there’s no weird post-goodbye but pre-departure period. And the first time I rode a train, other than the SouthShore, was summer after my junior year in high school and Josh came to see me off and he gave me a hug before I got on the train and after I was on, the train slowly wound its gears into motion and he ran along side and called my name and jumped up and hit the window and I pulled ahead of him and thought that I wish I could spit off the bridge one more time with him.

I’ll have to write about the rest of Greece and Paris a little later. I just can’t do it now.

No More Ruins. Please.

June 1, 2009
If there’s one ferry we should have missed, it should have been this one.
I can’t believe it.

We got to Athens at probably 6ish and by then end of that night ferry and traveling on this terrible train, I didn’t even want to be in Athens at all. I didn’t want to see the Acropolis. I didn’t want to experience the culture. I wanted a beach and I didn’t want to move. I was a little cranky.

We got to our hostel and the reviews were right: It was the right hostel in the wrong part of town. We turned the street and literally the smell of piss and garbage was overwhelming. There was a corpse looking person lying on the sidewalk two doors down from the Easy Access Hostel with their mouth gaping and a hand down their pants. Where in God’s name were we?
The hostel was clean, friendly, brightly lit, had free wifi, and you got a free shot of ouzo when you arrived. I’m not a fan of licorice and I’m not a fan of ouzo.
We asked the girl working at the bar where a good place to eat was and she gave us directions to her favorite restaurant. She told us the salads were good and the waiters were funny. She was right on both counts. It was one of the top three meals we’ve had in Europe. Number 1: Seb B’s mom’s Weiner Schnitzel. Number 2: A restaurant in the smallest town in Austria. Number 3: This Greek place last night. I also really liked the meal we had in Bari, Italy, even though I hate that place.

So after we ate we went back to the hostel and tried finding an island we could stay at for days. One of the waiters had said Santorini was the place to go. It was calm and good for beaches. After a little research we found a really good hostel for seven euros a night, a two-minute walk from the beach. We also decided to extend our Greek adventure to accommodate for the missed day and travel time to and from the island. The only catch was all the ferries to Santorini left at 7:30 am. We’d have to get a train from Athens to the port in the next town about a 15-minute drive away. Could we get a train that early?

I went down to reception to ask about 6 am trains. There were a group of French girls, a pair of American girls, and one surfy looking Aussie guy ahead of me. The French girls were super giggly and couldn’t figure out how to work the elevator. That took forever. The two American girls were wearing Roma City pub-crawl tee shirts and had matching sandals and backpacks. We were propositioned to go on the Roma City pub-crawl and we opted No. Pub-crawls are not exactly cool. They didn’t take as long as the giggly girls. The Aussie offered to let me go first but he’d been standing there a while so I insisted he get checked in. The hostel only has one key for each room and the last person just drops the key off at the front desk. So the receptionist reached up for key 307 but it wasn’t there. Because Lori, Lyd, and I are in 307 and we had the key. I introduced myself and told him he could go up to the bar and look for a girl painting in the corner and another girl next to her on a mac. They’d have it.

And trains started running at 5:30 am! We could do it! I went back upstairs to book ferry tickets and book the hostel. Dizzy sat with us and we talked about movies, books, traveling, ukulele, and other various instruments, hostels, and islands. For some reason the ferry website wouldn’t let me access the reservation page but Dizzy said if you just showed up at port, you could get your tickets there. He’d done it. So we booked 5 nights at the hostel and decided to get up at 5:30 to give ourselves plenty of time. I set my watch alarm.
I think I was the last to fall asleep sometime after 2 am. Lydia was out like a light as soon as she hit the bed. Dizzy, whose real name is Cam but last name is Gillespie so everyone calls him Dizzy after the Jazz musician, and Lori talked about football for a while. They were both on top bunks. We also tried to get him to change his U.S. travel plans to include a bit of the Midwest and not just see NY, LA, and San Fran. We might have him convinced.

The next thing I remember I’m looking at my watch and it says 6:45. Not good. My watch is 7 minutes fast but in all honesty I thought, “We going to miss the third ferry in a row.”

I told Lydia what time it was. Can we make it, she wondered. Should we even try, I worried. “Lori. Get up!” We discussed and discussed even though time was wasting. The ferry leaves at 7:30. 10 minutes to the tram. Another 10 minute ride. Finding the place. We haven’t even got tickets. No one wrote down the name of the hostel or how to get there! I was incredibly tired and incredibly pessimistic. Lydia just kept saying we could do it. We Could. Should we try? We asked again. And then, the voice of our guardian angel came from above with an Australian accent: “Get a texi. You’ll mayke it.”
Alright, Dizzy. We’ll try.
I was still quite pessimistic. We called a taxi. Lydia looked up the name of the hostel. I had told Lori the night before that I’d make her breakfast cuz she knew she’d be cranky in the morning. When we were sitting down stairs waiting for the taxi she said she’d make me breakfast. I asked her if I should tell the taxi driver to “step on it.” We laughed a little.

Our cab driver was awesome. He drove like the wind. He asked us what gate we were leaving from. We didn’t even have tickets! He asked us what island we were going to. Santorini! Gate 7 he said. What a great guy. He knew which gate left for which island! He dropped us off at the ticket office and helped us on with our backpacks. We ran in. Three tickets to Santorini! Can we do it? Yes yes. 33.50 each. Cash only. Cards? No, cash only. We had 65 euros in cash between the 3 of us. Ok, card.
Right, cash only. Whatever. But you must run! Hurry. Run. You have seven minutes!

So we did. We got to the boat and they were pulling up the walkway. Wait! We have tickets! There were two Canadians behind us who didn’t have tickets but were gonna get on the ship anyway. We all made it.

It was exactly 7:30 am. We were on the ferry. The ferry that if the world had any order to it at all, we should have missed. But seeing as this part of the world functions on a different plane of space and time, we made it.

In the cab I remembered that the Blue Star Ferry left at 7:25, which is the one we were taking, while the Hellenic Ferry left at 7:30. I didn’t have the heart to tell Lyd and Lor. But this is Greece and much like Italy, there are no rules and things don’t happen on time. So I assumed the ferry wouldn’t leave at 7:25.

I was right about that, but gloriously wrong about not being able to make the ferry. I hugged Lydia for being a source of strength and confidence. I hugged Lori for carrying my heavy heavy pack in the interest of time when we got out of the taxi.

I still made her breakfast in the form of crunchy oatmeal cookies with nutella and strawberry jam on them.

We stole about 5 hours of sleep in second class before being forced into the economy class, which is what we really paid for. We would have gotten away with staying in the second-class seats if it weren’t for the annoying Australian women in front of us who also didn’t belong in 2nd class. We’d unnecessarily revealed to them that we didn’t have seat numbers on our tickets either and when they were asked to move by the people who’d reserved those seats, they loudly turned to us and said, “We all have to leave, cuz we don’t have seat numbers on our tickets.” No, you vindictive wretches. You have to move because someone’s reserved your seats. We don’t because no one’s reserved ours. But it was too late. Every vulturous person there with a seat number was watching, with a bit of condemnation in their eyes. They all seemed to emanate the same thing: a mood of rightful ownership. They’d paid extra. They deserved a seat with a number in front of a TV screen with a horrible Greek show on. Greek television, by the way, is complete and utter crap. Inane. Obnoxious. Ugly. Loud.
Some people just care too much about belonging to things that have a strong correlation to money.

Sooooo we found a table and got frappes and busted out the laptops and ate bread and cheese. We’re still about 2 hours from our destination: paradise. Apparently Santorini is where the Lost City of Atlantis is. Lori asked if that was the Disney movie. I just stared at her. Oh! Haha. Right. Atlantis.

May our next adventure includes finding it.