I received a notice this week from my credit card company, MBNA, that they are arbitrarily and unilaterally changing my credit card terms. The alarming part of it is that they are now going to start charging a foreign currency transaction fee of 3%. Since I travel a good bit this can add up to an outrageous money grab by these greedy bastards. I ( Read more... )

Your Inner European is Italian!


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I have given up trying to figure out how to post pics on here, since you need to buy webspace to host them somewhere, or reduce the size of all of them for what limited free sites I could find. I don't have the time or the inclination to be computer literate. So, here is the link to all the digital pics ( Read more... )

So sad to have to leave Greece, I will definitely have to come back ( Read more... )

Our weather luck ran out again today. When we woke up it was cloudy and windy on Mykonos. After breakfast we packed up and left for the ferry back to Athens, not looking forward to the journey after seeing the whitecaps on the choppy sea. It took them 3 tries to dock the ferry, the wind kept blowing it away from the dock. Finally we left, and ( Read more... )

Today started out kind of overcast, but it quickly cleared up as we took a half-hour ferry ride to the sacred island of Delos, near Mykonos. This is the mythological birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. Zeus turned a mortal woman, Leto, into a swan, and seduced her. Their children were born in a lake. The lake, ringed by a low stone wall and now ( Read more... )

We rented a car on Monday and started our odyssey through the countryside of Greece. I haven't had much of a chance to update, it has been an amazing journey. We started out in the Peloponnese in Corinth, touring the ruins of the ancient city. It is quite extensive, but not much left standing. We made it down to Nafplio and got a hotel, then ( Read more... )

Today was a more relaxed day, since everything seemed to be closed. That's Sunday for you. Except it wasn't silent and gray, it was another brilliant blue sky day. But after visiting the temple of Zeus Olympia, Hadrian's Arch, and the original 1896 Olympic Stadium, we found that the National Archeological Museum and the Kerematikos both had ( Read more... )

The Acropolis really is the crowning glory of Athens. Today we roamed around it, seeing the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, the Theater of Dionysos, the deconstructed temple of Athena Nike, the Erechthion with the porch of the Karyatids, and the Parthenon itself. I felt like I was truly walking on hallowed ground. Another sparkling sunny day, another ( Read more... )

Marc and I arrived in Athens this morning following a 13 hour journey with a leg to JFK in NYC and an overnight leg to Athens, complete with an intermittently crying baby 2 seats away. In coach. Oh, and Dominique Wilkins was on our flight, for anyone who remembers basketball stars last decade. Of course he was in first class. The movies were ( Read more... )