We go hiking....again

Today was the day that we had signed up for a tour of the Acropolis, the Acropolis museum, and a whole bunch of other stuff that we hadn't already done the day before. You may remember that Concetta and I climbed the Acropolis and saw the nearby museum yesterday. Even though we knew we'd be doing it again today, we figured that you can't possible see it all in one day. Plus today we we're going to have a guide who came complete with a sound system for each of us so we could tune into a running narrative on what she was describing. The crowds were bigger today for some reason, but it was worth the second attempt to get our guide's input. These new sound systems they have for tours are really great. You can stand thirty feet away and still hear what the guide is saying. Very cool. In the afternoon the group was treated to a visit to the National Archaeology Museum where we got to see a great many of the artifacts that Heinrich Schliemann looted from Greece and Turkey in the late 1800s. Schliemann was the man who first dug at the site of Troy, which is one of the stops on our upcoming voyage. The boat leaves Pireaus, Greece, tonight between 10:00 p.m. and midnight (I don't plan on being awake to see it happen) and tomorrow we're going to be visiting Mycenae located about 90 kilometers southwest of Athens. In the second millennium BC Mycenae was one of the major centres of Greek civilization, a military stronghold which dominated much of southern Greece. The period of Greek history from about 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is called Mycenaean in reference to Mycenae. I've been trying to add to my Greek vocabulary. Today I learned that katalaveno means "I understand," a handy word sometimes when dealing with non-english speakers. Hopefully you actually DO understand. I also learned how to say excuse me, which is signome with the emphasis on the "no" part. Only problem is most of the crew on the ship are from the Phillipeans and don't speak a word of Greek. So you only get to practice on the shop keepers and restaurant people out in the community. The weirdest thing is the written Greek language. If you want the "p" sound you use a figure that looks like an upside down "U." If you want an "r" sound, you use a p. Upside down "y"s have an "L" sound and an "s" uses a figure that looks like a backward "3." I figure it may take me awhile to get the concept. Concetta and I enjoyed a great dinner on the fantail of the boat tonight, the scene bathed in the glow of the lights of passing ships. I told her that John Riise and I had sat very near that same spot back in 1973 and drank ouzo with a couple of chaps name Amed and Mohammed when we were just youngsters. Seems a world away now, but no less real. The summer breeze on the fantail was intoxicating, just as it was all those years ago. So, for now I wish you 'καλή νύχτα', good night. It's pronounced cahlee-neet-ah.

Our first full day in Athens

Today was our first full day in Athens and it started out great. Our Hotel, the Lotus, is just nothing short of terrific. Everything is new and clean and bright, from the all-marble bathroom, to the crisp new bed linens. We didn't have much luck with the internet, but I suspect that it had something to do with my using an American DNS rather than a Greek DNS. In other words, if I put in www.google.com it would usually never load. But if I put in www.google.gr it would load pretty quickly. Of course, knowing that didn't help me when my web site and blog site are solidly U.S. One of the best things about the Hotel is the breakfast. My goodness, it was a banquet! They literally had something for everyone and every taste. Naturally I went right for the Greek yoghurt and honey, something I've missed since I was here over three decades ago. But they also had all manner of hot dishes like eggs and bacon and potatoes. They had baked tomotoes to keep the Brits happy, too. After my double helping of yoghurt and peaches I also tried the custard, which was excellent, a cheese pie, and some sort of coffee cake which I would have eaten more of but just didn't have room. After breakfast, the Hotel staff kindly voluteered to babysit our bags while we went exploring. The concierge promised that it would be easy to find the nearby metro station and ride it into the old part of the city. Well, he turned out to be right on. Within minutes we had found the metro station, bought our tickets, located the right train, and were on our way. Four stops later we emerged into the sunlight percisely at our destination, the new Acropolis museum. Wow! What a place. Four floors devoted to all the artifacts from the Parthenon and surrounding digs. The museum itself is perched atop an ongoing dig. To keep from disturbing the site, the building was erected on concrete stilts. They've provided glass floors in some spots so you can view the archeaologists going about their work. Terrific, terrific place! After strolling the museum all morning, we had a very nice lunch in the museum cafeteria. The lunch was made even nicer by a Greek woman and her young daughter who invited us to sit with them and talk about life in Greece. After lunch, Concetta and I climbed the long stone path to the top of the Acropolis to see the Parthenon. Though much abused over the twenty-five centuries it has perched atop that rock, the temple is still nothing short of magnificent! Though we strolled completely around the perimeter of the Acropolis, the best thing we discovered was to find a resting place and just gaze at it. But all too soon we noticed the day waning. It was time to jump on the metro and retrace our steps to the Lotus Hotel, grab our bags, hail a cab, and make the afternoon dash down to the sea and our home for the next two weeks, the cruise ship Aegean Odyssey. Of that, more later.

Tonight, as I sit here in the ship's computer room, I have encountered a bit of a problem concerning the blog. Though this shipboard machine on which I am typing this account works much better than I experienced with the Lotus Hotel's connection, the IT folks have locked out the USB ports making it impossible for me to add photos. I'm not sure how I'm going to remedy this problem. Maybe come down here at midnight with the laptop and disconnect their machine. Arrrrr, matey. Me thinks this calls for treachery. What think ye?

We reach Athens

My goodness those trans-Atlantic flights are looooooonnnnng! We got up occasionally and walked to the very rear of the plane just to stretch our legs, but you still go just about bonkers when you spend nine hours in a space about the size of an average bath mat. Once again, our Air Canada flight took off right on time and arrived just when they told us it would. The service was pretty darn nice, though the food wasn't anything you'll see written up in Travel and Leisure. The plane's layout consisted of seats in 2-5-2 configuration and I reserved one of the two-seat setups, which meant we didn't have anyone seated with us. Even better, our flight had almost no babies. In fact, I only saw one woman with a baby and she sat way in the back of the plane and I don't think the baby ever made a sound. The biggest disappointment was finding out that our Boeing 767 did not come equipped with the latest seat-back computer screens. There was only one big screen in our immediate area and it was playing a many-years-old Will Smith movie about rampaging robots or something. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning they played Russel Crow's rendition of Robin Hood, but I slept through most of that one, which didn't matter since I'd seen it anyway. So, the bottom line was, the flight was boring in comparison to our first two legs, but we had each brought along our reading books so we stayed entertained. We arrived in Athens about 11:20 their time. We sailed right through customs, baggage claim, and the cab hailing ritual and were soon on our way to central Athens. We were told it could take an hour and were advised by an Canadian-born Athens school teacher on our flight that we should pay about forty Euros for the ride to our hotel. So, when we got to the hotel that's just what I gave him. He murmured something about the cost of the toll bridge so I gave him another five (also to be expected according to the teacher)and he went happily on his way. I always hold my breath when dealing with cab drivers in foreign countries, especially ones who don't run the meter (I didn't even see a meter in our cab today), but our experience was totally positive. He didn't seem to speak a word of English so I tried out my limited Greek, which he may or may not have understood. I couldn't really tell. I did do something smart on a whim yesterday. I printed out the name of our hotel and the address on a small piece of paper which I just handed the driver today. He stared at it for several long moments, then got out of the car and went to consult a fellow driver. When he came back he said he knew where to take us(I guess that what he said, anyway). I'm sure glad I had the paper to give him as explaining where I wanted to go would have been completely useless in this instance. I chose the Lotus Hotel in Athens because it received good write-ups on the web. Some of the downtown hotels can be in fairly rough neighborhoods. The room here at the Lotus turned out to be beautiful with everything looking pretty new and modern. The elevator actually held ALL our bags plus us, which is something I never saw in Italy. Elevators tend to be sort of phone-booth sized in Europe and you have to make multiple trips to ferry your luggage to your room. The WiFi works here in the room sometimes, which is about all I can say for it. For some reason the blog refuses to load unless I try over and over again. Still, I'm on the site now so if it lets me save this entry, I'll be happy. This evening, I'm hoping for some real Greek food and music. This is where it all begins.

We arrive in Toronto

For those of you who are quite accustomed to bashing the airlines for poor service and such, I have to tell you that our United Airlines flight from Reno to Denver took off on time, provided us great service, and arrived in Denver fifteen minutes early. For the Denver to Toronto leg, I booked Air Canada. Once again the flight took off on time, provided us with excellent service, and landed early. So far the only thing I can think to complain about is the youngster in the seat ahead of me from Denver to Toronto who wanted to test the very limits of the construction of his particular seat. He bounced against the seat back so regularly that had I been prone to seasickness, I might have needed a barf bag. It truly made typing on the laptop an adventure in accurate keying. So, anyway, here we are in Toronto. We breezed through customs, at least we would have if I had properly filled out the customs form declaring that I was not transporting firearms and vast sums of cash. But once through that minor snafu, Concetta and I easily found our gate, the WiFi hot spot, and now we're just deciding whether to get something to eat or wait the two+ hours until our flight takes off for Athens. I'm sort of hungry, but then I'm always hungry. I tried calling Athens yesterday to confirm with our B&B that we were still coming, but, as the kind gentleman I reached at the answering service was quick to point out, it was close to midnight and there was no one around to talk to. So, we're just going to show up there tomorrow morning and see what happens. Our next hot spot after Toronto may be the back of Zorba's cab or something. But wherever, I'm sure it will be challenging. Ciao for now, or should I say, καλησπέρα, φίλοι.

Typing my way to Toronto

The 21st century has definitely arrived. How do I know that? Well, other than the obvious, it’s because I’m sitting here in seat 26C on an Air Canada Airbus typing on my laptop. No big deal you say? Well, yes, you’ve been able to do that for years. But wait, I’m not only typing on my laptop at 30,000 feet, but I’m also charging the battery at the same time. And, in addition to that amazing feat, I’m simultaneously charging my world phone battery. All this while watching a business piece about Walmart on my seat-back TV. Is this any way to travel? Is George Bush an awful public speaker? Of course, they don’t let you do any sending or receiving of signals from the ether so connecting to my Facebook account or blog is still not possible. But hey, at this point I’m willing to wait.

Okay, I’m tired of the business news about Walmart, I’m switching to Jazz. In the mean time a word about the world phone. On our first trip to Italy in 2006 we learned right away that having no way to communicate with anyone in the U.S. or in Italy was a big mistake. We couldn’t call ahead to the hotels where we had reservations, nor could be field calls from home should an emergency arise. And trying to figure out the Italy’s weird and not so wonderful phone system was just too mind boggling. In Italy, some phone systems won’t talk directly to other phone systems. Granted, each of these systems has their own phone cards that you can prepay for and then insert in the proper public pay phone, but we found figuring all that out a big pain. So, when we went to the U.K. in 2008, we signed up with a company named “Brightroam.” With Brightroam you purchase an unlocked world phone, any number of prepaid minutes for your intended length of stay, and the necessary computer chip to make it communicate in the given area where you’re headed. And that’s it. The only other charge is a tiny fee that they charge you every year to keep you as a client. But that’s it. No monthly charges and nothing more to buy unless you travel to a country where your computer chip doesn’t work. In that case, you just go online and order the proper chip, it comes by courier, and you’re off and traveling again. For the trip this year I found that our U.K. chip did not work in Greece and Italy. So, I just ordered the proper chip, put some more money on the prepaid account, and when the chip arrived I just switched out the U.K. one and inserted the Greece/Italy one. Then, to tie up all the loose ends, I forwarded our U.S. cell phones to the world phone U.S. connection number and I was all set. Brightroam provides you with both an international phone number and a 866 number in the U.S., which makes it easy for you to leave your phone number with family for emergencies. On the horizon, Brightroam tells me, is a plug-in for your laptop that will allow it to connect to the internet using your Brightroam phone. I’m absolutely going to be interested in that 21st century bit of wizardry.

Trip to Greece and Italy -- we reach Denver

The day began to day at exactly 2:31 a.m. for me, shortly after for Concetta. Although my son Rob makes fun of us for wanting to be at the airport two hours early, we like the comfortable space of time just in case anything goes wrong. So Rob agreed to stay over night and drive us to the airport. We were on the road by 3:30 a.m. and reached the Reno airport thirty-seven minutes later. The new check-in facility is just wonderful. We walked right up the United counter, a very pleasant man met us, took our passport and flight information sheet, and did all the touch-screening for us to accomplish our check-in. Almost before we knew it, we were on our way to the gate.
The flight was far from full this time, though we did have a neighbor in our three-seat combo. I worked pretty hard in the planning stage of this vacation to make sure I had assigned seats, which put us near the front of the plane. Concetta and I always observe the "one carry-on, one personal item" airline mandate, which they were very vocal about enforcing as we neared boarding time. Once again, almost before we knew it we were on the plane and airborne. If you intend to be an air traveler sometime in the future, think seriously about investing in some expensive ear phones for listening to the in-flight movies and TV shows. Even if you don't intend to watch that sort of visual drivel, you can tune into the airplane's sound system while you read your latest Tom Clancy novel. We have found that they're well worth the money, especially if you need to drown out any screaming infants. The flight to Denver was smooth and pleasant. We took advantage of the free coffee and water, but did not buy any snacks. I always pack a granola bar in what my buddy Victor Anderson would have called a "purse" that I keep at my seat so I was good for calories for this shortest leg of our journey. The coffee here at the Caribou Coffee place is pretty good, should you have occasion to be strolling the Denver airport anytime soon. In just over an hour we will be boarding for our flight to Toronto. I always-always-always schedule two hours between flights. Most of the time you can get by with less, but when you need those two hours you really need them. Last year on our trip to the U.K., we sat for over an hour on the tarmac at the Reno airport while they figured out how to "boot up" the airplane's electrical system. Had we not had the two hour layover in Salt Lake City, our who trip to Edinburgh airport would have been scuttled. So, for now, I'll say adieu. I'll try and connect again in Toronto.

New Site

I added a new site to the Greece/Italy links on the left. It's called The Art of Non-Conformity, unconventional strategies for Life, Work, and Travel. Check it out. It's a hoot.

Finished Packing

Today we finished our packing. Concetta and I use a rolling duffel bag as our main piece of luggage. These soft-sided carriers, we think, are best because they compress easily when the Schwarzenegger-like guys loading the bags on the plane throw eleven tons of luggage on top of them. The have a number of side pockets for easy access, double zippers for locking said zippers closed, and a rhinoceros-like canvas hide that stands up pretty well to abuse. Our particular bags have a lower zipper compartment for things you want to keep basically flat like sport coats or slacks. The compartment is about four inches deep which accommodates lots of stuff. The upper duffel part easily holds all the shirts and pants you need. I put my socks and underwear in the zippered side compartments. For our carry-on luggage we use a small case that measures about eighteen inches square and eight inches deep. In mine I can easily put the laptop, the camera equipment, and all of the various power cords and related electronic wires, gadgets, and gizmos for the phones, etc. This little bag also has rollers and a handle to make them easy to move them down the jetway. We both also carry a purse-like bag for our reading books, ear phones, and other important items that you'll always need on the plane. So, there you have it. We're all packed and ready to roll, literally.

Packing at LAST!

I wanted to start packing ages ago, but for some reason today is the day it actually happened. My target weight for checked luggage is 50 pounds, no more. I know that U.S. airlines tend to allow you 60 pounds, but some European carriers only allow 50. To keep from having to feverishly throw things away in some airport lounge, I stay with 50. That also keeps me from bringing home souvenirs which will ultimately end up in next year's garage sale. For the first time on this trip I'm trying out vacuum bags, which are the plastic bags in which you stuff your clothes and then vacuum out all the air to make them take up less space. They require a little patience (which I lack when dealing with such things) but do seem to save space. You only have to worry about them getting an air leak, expanding to their original size, and causing your bag to explode in the cargo hold of the plane! Just kidding. No, if you can stand the irritation of trying to squirrel four or five shirts into one of these skinny plastic bags, then rolling them up to force out the air, it's probably worth your time. So, as we speak, I've got everything in my bag except for a couple of small items and it weighs in at 46 pounds. Right on! Now to tackle the carry-on luggage.

Trip Book

A number one requirement for me when I go traveling abroad is having a Trip Book along. This is a stiff cardboard folder full of plastic page protectors into which I put things like airline flight schedules, B&B confirmations, and car rental reservations. It's always proven to be extremely handy to have these materials available in my carry-on luggage when frustration sets in, when some clerk declares they don't know what I'm talking about when I tell them I've had a car reserved for six months. In essence, every piece of important paper where someone has confirmed something in writing or by email, I include. Naturally, you'll want to digitize most of this stuff and put it up on the web as well (see the post below for information on web storage).

Paperwork

One of the toughest aspects of world travel as I see it is trying to anticipate what paperwork might be required of you on the best days as well as the worst. In other words, having the confirmation of your flights, your various hotels, and your rental car is just common sense. But the need for paperwork doesn't stop there. For instance, you'll need an international driver's license if you intend to drive a car. They're only good for a year, so you will need a new one nearly every time you go abroad. And if you were to lose it, what would you do? Well, I make a digital image of mine and store it on the web so it can be accessed from any computer worldwide. I'll explain what I mean by, "on the web." I have signed up with a company called "Filesanywhere.com." If you don't exceed one gigabyte of information, you can securely store anything you like on their site and they make it accessible only to you -- FOR FREE. So, not only is a copy of my international driver's license stored there, but digital images of just about any piece of paper I think might be useful while on vacation is stored there as well. Things like passports, medical prescriptions, and credit card emergency numbers are up there as well. I also have proof of purchase documents for my laptop and my camera equipment. And how about birth certificates? I bet you can think of a need for one of those should you have to replace your lost passport while vacationing. So, there you have it. Think about establishing your own secure file storage for use in emergencies. Filesanywhere is not the only game in town. I've heard that "Dropbox" is good, too. Happy traveling, as Rick Steves would say.

The Cruise Packet Arrives

Yesterday the packet arrived from the cruise company. Though the envelope was pretty beat up and half open, it appears as though everything that was supposed to be inside is actually inside, including the e-tickets, the baggage tags, and a list of our fellow passengers. Counting down now as there is less than two weeks to go.