Ten Years of Greece, How do I Love Thee?

 

For the past ten years I've been going to Greece every summer. Except that year when no one was allowed to travel, I spend weeks to months packing, planning, and plotting my journey. Then a few days travel there, followed by a few weeks being there, and wrap it up with a few days traveling back home. 

The odd thing is that every year I go to the exact same place. Most years I go to write with Women Reading Aloud. Though I arrive early and stay long after. I've never been to Santorini, or any of the popular islands. Often I'll check out places or sights on the mainland during my journey, Athens, Kalamata, Meteora. My favorite museum—The Acropolis Museum—my favorite hotel in Athens—the Airport Sofitel—my favorite Greek Salad.

Usually the only islands I see are Skiathos and Skopelos in the Northern Sporades and only those because I need to pass them on my way to Alonissos, my favorite island. Maybe it's indicative that I don't need to see all of the islands in Greece to pick a favorite. I've been married to the same man for forty years. I didn't have to meet them all to know he was the one for me. I know when something works for me. This man. This island. Dark chocolate. I'm happy. Sure, I like to try different trips, different places at times. This place, however, doesn't change. As long as I can get myself through the long and arduous journey, that's where I'm going. 

Know what I do there? Other than write with WRA, I mean? Nothing. I go to my favorite beaches, drift in the sea, lay under an umbrella or right on top of the stones on the beaches. Sometimes I sit by the sea in a taverna with a cup of cappuccino, fresh watermelon juice, or water and I don't even think. I'm just there. Once, a particularly annoying person kept saying, "Oh, you go there to meet a man." Please, girlfriend, I have a man. I'm not in love with another man. I'm in love with an entire ISLAND, with an entire PLACE, COUNTRY, SEA. Some people do not understand love at all. Greece is very easy to love. 

     

FOMO Has No Power Here—Happy in My Now

Once a newly graduated student admitted to me in a near-whisper, I have no interest in travel. Is that weird? It's amazing I said. Being content is highly underrated in the marketing world.

A cup of tea right where you are is perfection. 

Yesterday I fell into a hole on YouTube. I'm a solo traveler and I watched video after video of the adventures of other solo travelers. One that really got me was a young woman who planned an empowering and romantic trip to Paris all by herself. By day three she missed her cat and teared up when she talked. Trying to talk herself into the beauty of the city wasn't working. It made her sad. The old mom in me wanted to hug her, wanted to whisper, you're still seeing the fantasy you've been sold. You're seeing what you're missing and not what you have. 

I left no comment. There are things we all have to figure out for ourselves.

My solo travel is a choice. I have a perfectly good husband who has no interest in seeing the places I like to go to. After our centuries of marriage I began traveling solo so I could see the places that always called to me. I've no desire to see the whole world. Every year I go to the same islands in Greece. I write with the same group of women. I lay on the same beaches and float in the same sea as last year. 

Once I stayed longer in Rome, forfeiting Venice—which I've yet to see. I've never seen Santorini, Sifnos, Paros, or Crete. Over the accumulating years I've willfully missed much. To again lay on hot stones at Leftos Gialos or the Port Beach on my favorite island. Again, this year, I didn't take the ferry to Skopelos, preferring to stay afloat in the Aegean off Alonissos longer. Didn't make the snorkel trip. Didn't hit other beaches I've yet to see.

Instead to be quiet where I am.

Making quiet choices to sit or float in moments—lingering longer and longer—letting go of more and knowing enough. 

Why? I don't contemplate as I slide into now. Living in my moments. Not needing or truly wanting more. Filling myself with now's. Todays. Enough. Shhh, don't ask me why. It's something we figure out for ourselves.

Ten Ways Travel Has Changed Since Covid

Hey, I'm back from my long trip to Greece. It was great. How can it be anything but great? I went to Greece for almost a month, but it was tough. It took me four days to get to my destination and on the return trip it took another four days to get home.

On top of that my wimpy constitution reacted to all the travel stress with several days of vestibular migraine. Upon my arrival on Alonissos, my migraine brain celebrated with three days of vertigo. And the same thing happened once I finally got home. So I spent almost a week out of the month trying not to move my head. 

In fact, when vertigo hit again after arriving home I actually thought maybe I shouldn't take this trip. Maybe it's just too much for my wienie body. Then, about two seconds after my vestibular migraine ended I did what I always do. I started booking next year's trip because if I let my big baby body dictate what I do and don't do then I've given up. So maybe that means I'm an optimist. Or maybe that means I'm just stupid. 

Whatever. I do want to weigh in on travel changes I noticed. 

1. People talk less when they wear masks. That's okay because most of the time when they do talk, you can't tell what the heck they are saying anyway. I never realized how much communication is facial or watching someone's mouth. With half of everyone's face covered by a mask forget about it. Especially if there is a big plastic shield at the check-in counter. Now, we all know what it's like to be hard of hearing. Anyone who does have to talk ends up repeating their muffled, garbled words several times. It doesn't help, but they try. You know how when there are announcements on a flight and they finish, people used to ask each other, "What did they say?" Nobody even bothered. I couldn't even tell if they were speaking English or Greek. 
2. For the most part nothing was on time. I had three connections to Athens. Flying has always been hurry up and wait but with the employee shortage, bring a book. You'll be waiting at the gate for the crew or for technicians to check something. In the airplane you'll be waiting for a gate to open up or for the person who drives the gate to the plane to show up. I have to say that on my flights nobody complained. We're resigned. Pack your patience and a book. At least we can go somewhere! My tip would be not to book short layovers, and save yourself some stress.
3. Covid paperwork. Every country requires different paperwork. And if you're flying to say Greece via Amsterdam, you have to follow Amsterdam's Covid restrictions and do their paperwork too. It's probably best to check the embassy's website for the countries you're passing through/going to to find their requirements, rather than say some chick's YouTube channel. But I actually checked both. Requirements change constantly. Do your best. Read through all of the requirements before you react. For instance I started reading the Greek Embassy's rules for incoming travelers. The first part was all about what kind of testing was MANDATORY FOR ALL TRAVELERS. It was long. Part of my brain was already planning how to get this testing done so it wouldn't be older than 72 hours even though it's taking me four days to get there! But the next paragraph read something along the lines of this, IF YOU ARE VACCINATED THAT PARAGRAPH DOESN'T APPLY TO YOU. Sheesh. 
4. You have to wear your mask from the time you arrive at the airport of your departure and you will continue to have to wear that mask through every connecting flight and airport. On the way to Athens I wore an N95 (I can breathe better in them and they don't fog your glasses like most masks). I left here on August 25th and arrived in Athens on August 26th. I had to keep wearing my mask until I checked into my hotel and got to my room. It was almost thirty hours. My nose burned badly. It also bled off and on for days, but then I had to continue to wear it on the next day's flight and then ferries until the 28th of August. My tip would be to bring a lot of masks and change it every four hours. It makes a huge difference. I did that on my return trip and it was much less painful. You will also be asked if you're willing to wear your mask the entire trip before you're allowed to board the flight. 
5. Eating on the flight. We were allowed to pull our masks down to eat on the international flights row by row, but were told to pull them up after every bite. 
6. In the airports that I passed through in the US I'd guesstimate that half of the shops/restaurants/coffee shops were closed. It's probably not a bad time to finagle a way to spend your long layovers in a sky lounge or such.
7. For Greece I took paper copies for my proof of vaccination, their locator forms, all travel info, and pre-registered and pre-paid for Covid testing I'd need to have done within Greece for my return trip. But I also had all that paperwork in my phone. In August there were so many people arriving in Athens and lines to stand in going through Customs, that it's simpler to have a few papers in your hand than being able to pull up whatever paperwork is requested from your phone. Otherwise I'm trying to wake my phone up, make sure it's not losing the charge, and it's downloading so many messages since my arrival that it tends to stroke out. Factor in how fast your phone will figure out where you're at and if you set up a compatible international plan. 
8. Everyone is over-worked and under-staffed. People are trying to do multiple jobs. Travelers are stressed too. They probably paid more for their trip than ever before and likely nothing has gone according to plan. Being kind will go a long way rather than demanding special treatment. Losing your temper should not be an option. Absolutely everyone is tired and stressed. Be kind. Be kind. Be kind. 
9. Hand sanitizer is available everywhere. In airports and in Greece I saw it on every table and there were free-standing dispensers in every spot imaginable. Many times there were free masks too. On planes one of the first things they do is pass out anti-bacterial wipes. In many restaurants half the tables can't be used in order to space people out. It was like that on ferries too. There are also markings on the floors reminding everyone to keep their distance from others and announcements reminding you to do so. 
10. When I finally got to the jet bridge for my flight to Athens, and saw that big plane outside I wanted to dance. I was so thrilled to be able to go somewhere again. I'm one of those people who wanted to travel even as a little kid. I had a mental list of all the places I wanted to go and write about. Why everyone on that plane wasn't cheering was a mystery to me. We were the luckiest. Sure, it's tough to travel right now. It's scary and frustrating and expensive. You have to ask yourself if you really want it and if it's worth it to you. It's okay not to travel. You can have an exciting and thrilling life without traveling. Don't take risks if your gut is telling you not to! But if your gut is telling you to go, that the need outweighs the risk, pack your patience and a good book.

Here I am Sneaking Off to Greece (I hope) —Travel 2021

 

By the time this blog posts, I should be well on my way to New York-Detroit-Athens-Skiathos-Alonissos, Greece. Should. If you've so much as tried to buy plywood or gone out to eat, you probably know that things aren't running smoothly yet. 

The first week after I booked my flight I received two cancellation notices as flights were cancelled and everything needed rescheduled. That's a sticky game when you have connections. So my expectations are modest.

If I get there sometime in August, everything's good!

It'll take me four planes, one ferry, and three entire days before I step off the ferry in Patatiri on the island of Alonissos in the Northern Sporades. It should be an adventure and like with anything we do this year, patience is required. It's never an easy trip, but it's always worth it. I'll sleep in Athens on my way, and Skiathos, and when I hit Alonissos, I'll likely sleep for an entire day. 

Hopefully some of that sleep will be on a beach covered in salty white stones with a monk seal stealing a nap nearby.

The domino effect of this virus and the lockdowns hasn't been easy on any of us. We've lost so many people and so many are hurting. I hope that all of you can find a place that feeds your soul and where you can rest. That's why I decided to pack up and head out into the wild world again. I had to weigh the risk. I've been vaccinated. I've been on lockdown for a good part of all of this. In the end I decided it's better, healthier, for me to go. 

It's a risk. There are no guarantees. But when have there ever been?

Nobody Wants to Hear About My Upcoming Trip to Greece—But I Can't STFU About It

The Glitter Globe/S.R. Karfelt 

Sometimes dolphins follow the ferry.

In a bit more than two weeks I leave for my annual trip to Alonissos. Currently I'm annoying the stuffing out of my husband with it. Since I stay a month, everything that I won't be here to do must be done NOW. Right. Now. 

When I return we're having much-needed work done on our house. That means getting all of that organized and ready NOW too.

With vacation approaching like the ping of an ice-cream truck, you can probably imagine how organized and together I am with preparations and scheduling. I can imagine it too. If only it were anywhere near the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants truth. 

At night I can hear the sound of free-range cats and dance parties drifting up from the port. 

My office now looks like the inside of a fairly clean dumpster that's been stuffed with the contents of a library. To expect that to ever change is delusional. It's my method (she says with a straight face without blinking), but I need to organize all the books I'm writing, update everything and get it all in portable and travel mode. Chargers and adapters and flash drives need fished out and readied. Bills paid. Contractors contracted. Schedules prepped. Flights, hotels, and ferries arranged. All the things in order NOW.

I never even knew I liked olives in a seaside cafe beneath a full moon.

It's quite a journey from here in the shire to that quiet island in the Aegean. Each click of the mouse prepping travel plans brings back memories of the place. The race to prep for vacation always makes me long to be there and done with hectic preparations. 

Do you ever stop in the middle of vacation prep and wonder if it is even worth the effort? Alonissos is. 

Sometimes I dream I'm floating around the island. In the air.

Vacation float is why we all go through the hassle of going. It takes time to achieve vacation float. I wish everybody could feel it. The world would be a better place. All the hassle and prep to get to Alonissos is why I stay so long. It takes me three days of travel to get there, but keep in mind I live in the shire and we don't have high-tech things like direct flights. It once took me three days to fly home from Nashville. I think I can drive there in half a day. 

Most people here will decide between flying and driving based on which is faster. DC, Portland, Boston, heck—Orlando, you weigh flying time against driving effort. Driving often wins. There are always connecting flights here. Connections are uncooperative slippery bastards. 

Retsina is an insidious Greek wine with a pine flavor that will bind you to this land. 

There are usually only two airports that connect to the shire's. When you get to your gate coming home, you often know half the people there. It's a small town. Not only do I recognize faces but I could make an educated guess whether they've been to China on business or visiting a grown child in Colorado. I adore that about living here, and I'm a transplant. But when it comes to travel, small town life requires patience.

I'll leave here on a Friday morning and get to Athens on Saturday morning more than twenty-four hours later. That's if all goes according to plan, best case scenario. I spend that Saturday in Athens because I'll be exhausted and I can't get a flight to Skiathos until late anyway. 

In Athens I can walk up to the Acropolis and visit the Caryatids.

Sunday I'll catch a flight to Skiathos. It's a short flight on Olympic Air. I saw Skiathos listed on one of those scariest airports to fly into sites. By scary what they mean is awesome. 

Watch planes land from the rooftop seating of Sofia's Family Restaurant in Skiathos, as the sun sets.

You can eat anything you like at Sofia's because you burned all those calories climbing the steep winding steps of the alleys to get there. Sometimes I don't linger in Skiathos until after my workshop ends. If I'm running behind schedule I share a taxi with strangers from the Skiathos airport and we race straight for the port to catch a ferry. 

There are different kinds of ferries. The hydrofoil skims over the water and the trip is fast. I prefer to take the giant slow one. Its so big the hull is full of trucks and cars. There are several decks. It takes hours of gliding through the sea and stops on Skopelos first. 

Skopelos is where the Mama Mia island is located. It's absolutely gorgeous. The first time I went to my workshop in Greece I couldn't believe my luck. Skopelos makes a cameo appearance in my book HEARTLESS. What were the odds that I'd be next door to it at a writing workshop the year it came out?

Water foams white and arctic blue like peppermint breath mints as the ferry slices the Aegean. I sip cherry juice wearing a straw hat.

The reason I like my slow approach is it's my transition time from busy me to human being. Sometimes I'll meet other writers with the same destination on the ferry. We'll know each other even if we're strangers. A few times I've made friends with other solo female travelers also shunning the more popular islands, in search of the stillness of the Old World that lingers in hidden lavender patches and olive groves of Alonissos.

If I'm very lucky I'll find my float somewhere in the long hours of introspective writing time that's coming. Occasionally I'll sense its approach as my shoulders relax, my breath deepens, and words evaporate from my lips to nest in my fingertips. 

Sure I write all the time, but on Alonissos I write with paper, pencils and magic. It's delicious.

This will be my fourth year attending the WRA workshop. I know the shape of the island from a distance. The ferry will curve outward before turning to approach the big dock. Around me people will hurry to gather their belongings. We'll all lumber down two or three floors into the bowels of the ferry to gather bigger luggage. 

Docking is quick. Trucks and cars disembark alongside people, flooding the Hellenic Seaways dock with chaos. The woman who runs the pansion I stay at meets me at the ferry. She's clever and quick and looks like movie star. Her voice is accented with the strong undertones of hard Greek, "Kali-sperra, Steph-an-ie. Welcome, welcome home." Beside her is the powerhouse who runs WRA. It feels like coming home, and in a way it is—it's my writer home. Like a turtle I carry my writer home on my back at all times, but also like a turtle I remember where I discovered it and long to return every year. 

The beaches are white with salty stones from the sea. I melt into them.  

I get why nobody wants to hear about my trip. Life isn't fair. Holidays are a luxury, especially Greek holidays. My husband has to stay here and work. My kids have nothing to say about a trip their mother takes that is more epic than their young adult vacations. That just goes against the natural order doesn't it? Even writing friends who've attended the workshop in the past don't want to hear about it. No one can go every year. Eventually the pilgrimage ends. 

We pack up our float and hope the airline doesn't ruin it before we get home. I strongly suspect I harbor quite a bit of float within. It just takes quiet to find, and I can't quite find quiet in the chaos of my busy home life. 

Cicadas blast eardrums as we lean knee to knee reading aloud. We talk faster, racing the ferry before it docks and drowns all other sound.

S.R. Karfelt

Yet I've had the privilege of being in this place and the honor of meeting some of the most amazing women I've ever known as we write together. Each year we raise each other up. Each year my writing voice grows stronger. Bitch Witch. Nobody Told Me. Each year my speaking voice grows stronger too. 

Perhaps I've now given you a glimpse of why I can't shut up about my amazing float story. Perhaps you have one of your own? I hope you do. If so I don't think you should STFU about it. I think you should share it too, don't you? As a wise woman once told me, don't be afraid to speak even if your voice shakes.

On The Road Again...the not-so-glamorous-truth about travel

The Glitter Globe by S.R. Karfelt

Travel has romantic connotations it doesn't deserve.

In some ways it's like marriage. It's great, but you work for results and there is pain involved. 

In that way travel and marriage are like a fitness plan too. You pay for shortcuts and bad choices.

This morning Microsoft put a lovely green hillside covered in steppes on my screen. I took the click-bait and asked for more information. Where was this lovely place? Vietnam. 

Now I grew up seeing movies and soldiers from Vietnam. Never once did I think hey, I wanna go there! But the war is long over and it's a gorgeous country. If I do someday go, I'll bet that the insects are brutal and the rain miserable—not to mention the flights and getting around.

But the photos would be epic!

Travel photos lie so hard. You'll see the Alamo without seeing San Antonio is crowded right up to the walls. You see the perfectly centered Colosseum without seeing the traffic or the masses of tourists melting in brutal Roman heat—not to mention the pickpockets. You'll see the Parthenon without seeing it took me three hours lost with google maps (or the cost of my phone bill for all my data usage), as I slipped and slid over smooth-as-ice ancient marble walkways to get there. You also won't see that the wind on top the Acropolis blew so hard that my dress flew up around my ears. Mind you nobody should see that, but it probably made a show on somebody's Snapchat somewhere.

Pictures might show you a thousand words, but there are a billion words you're not seeing. 

We see pictures from other people's trips without seeing that their seven day trip included 1.5 days of travel-heck each way. Not first-class private plane travel like in the movies. It's usually the flying equivalent of sitting on a seat of nails inside a chicken bus next to hygiene-impaired travelers who want to talk politics. 

You don't see the traveler's credit card bill after they get home. You don't see if they ended up having to buy another ticket to fly home because weather cancellation wasn't covered by the crappy trip insurance they bought. 

Looking at travel photos we don't see that the traveler got dust-induced bronchitis or some version of what they so elegantly call that travel stomach ailment in Egypt—Pharaoh's Revenge. Don't drink the water is an excellent warning, but it's like trying not to get a contact high during a Motley Crue concert. Sooner or later you have to inhale. Sooner or later the water and bacteria in your environment will infiltrate that sack of water and protein that constitutes your body.

Travelers rarely take photos of the ugly bits!

Who wants to remember the bad stuff? Maybe that's the secret to success in travel, marriage, and life. Embrace the beauty. It's something I try to do. 

That time the flight got cancelled and the airline put me into a concrete room with shutters opening onto an alley freaked me out. There was no glass. I could see feet walking by at one in the morning. Shoot, I could have reached out and grabbed an ankle. Likewise they could have slipped inside my room. People would have seen them, but they could said my solo-travel-mind.

It took me an hour or two to realize the alley was dotted with many rooms like mine. The night air kept the old rooms cool in the hot climate with no air-conditioning. Come morning I woke to sunshine and flowers draping the windowsill. The feet never stopped.

In the end it became a good memory, but you never know how things will turn out. It's a fact when you travel, but it's a fact in life. The secret about travel is a secret about life in general. You find the joy by setting your sights on being positive. You roll with it. You plan the best you can and endure or embrace the changes that come your way. 

Travel does change you. But so does life. The thing is, a pretty picture of your trip or your life isn't the part that changes you. It's the squat toilets that change you. It's finding the inner strength to keep walking. It's getting lost and finding your way that changes you. It's when you choose to remember the beautiful parts and that you got yourself there that makes travel wonderful. 

S.R. Karfelt

Is change always painful? I'm still learning, still traveling, and still changing. There's definitely pain involved.

This picture is me manning the rudder of a faluka going down the Nile in Egypt. That trip was magic. I fell madly in love with the place. I also had Pharoah's Revenge a couple of times. Breathed dust for three weeks. Had severe culture shock. The traffic scared the living shite out of me. So did all the heavily armed police at first. Couldn't walk outside without getting swarmed by strange men. That last bit probably sounds way better than it is. It was a growing experience. I can't wait to go back.

This trip, the one I'm heading out on now, is going to involve a concert to see The Struts at last and glamping. They tell me glamping is glamorous camping. Experience has taught me that camping is always painful, but I'll bet I get some excellent photos.

Twenty Ways Travel Can Change You

The Glitter Globe/Twenty Ways Travel Can Change You!

Once I read that travel is the best investment you can make in yourself. I appreciated the legitimizing justification for what at the time felt like a purely fun and selfish thing to do.

My husband and I used to work together. Sometimes after a week spent at an engineering conference we'd manage to stay the weekend. Occasionally we'd even arrange a layover somewhere like Tucson in March, Portland in Summer, or drive from Vegas to the Grand Canyon while winter snows melted.

It felt like the supreme indulgence. Running your own business is often a dream many people have. The reality of doing it can be a nightmare. It is often seven day workweeks and sixteen hour days. Those trips we once took together were desperately needed and reminded us that, Hey, I remember you! You can be fun! 

• Perspective is everything. If you've become a Human Doing instead of a Human Being, escaping your everyday can save a relationship, or possibly your sanity. 1. Travel can help you remember that your job isn't your entire life!
• After a particularly brutal conference in San Francisco we decided to make the long drive to see the Sequoia trees down south. It was a bit of a hike to the Sierra Nevada from Northern California, but I had a map. (It was the olden days like ten years ago.) After about a couple hours it hit me that if I'm headed south, shouldn't the Pacific Ocean be on my right instead of my left? 2. Travel makes you better at geography. I now know exactly where the ocean should be at all times. I can drive from Tucson to Nogales Mexico in an hour. I know which countries border Egypt. Travel helps you know the world. I know I can walk from the Roman Colosseum to the Forum in about two minutes, and where the best pizza is at a gay bar because I got lost and hungry and wandered in, with my husband. 3. Travel makes you patient because you will mess up or someone else will and, 4. You can still have a good time when things don't go as planned, and you learn so much. (Hey, the pizza is fabulous, we should come back here! Look at that, redwoods are big trees too! They are also a lot closer than the Sequoias. Once you've seen the world you spot inconsistencies like not even James Bond can drive from Palatine Hill to the Spanish Steps that fast.)
• Many people cautioned me about my trip to Egypt. None of them had been there. 
• You will be in Africa!
• Egypt is a Muslim country!
• Traveling to those places isn't safe!
• 5. Travel can teach you that 1.2 billion people survive just fine in Africa and you can manage it too.
• 6. Travel can teach you that Muslims are peace-loving people. (And that there are plenty of Coptic Christians in Egypt too.)
• 7. Travel can annihilate pre-conceived notions.
• 8. Travel can make you question opinion and demand fact!
• 9. Travel can make you braver. 
• The last few years I've attended a workshop in Greece. I go out early so I can do some book research, see sites, and lay on the beach before the real work begins. I go by myself.
• Things go wrong. Flights are cancelled. Ferries too. I've found myself scrambling for a hotel room at midnight and unable to make connecting flights.
• Dammit. Looks like I'll have to be here in Greece an extra few days. Life is hard. YAS! *jumping up and down* 10. Wonderful things will happen back-to-back with the complications! (I've been stuck in Detroit too.) (It was fun.)
• Just because you miss a flight or don't have a hotel, I promise you will not have to live there forevermore. 11. For one moment just fantasize that you've missed your flight and will now have to live on this island in Greece. Hot damn! Suddenly your fear has become pretty much a dream. 12. Travel will make you more self-sufficient. 13. Travel will make you more capable of taking care of yourself and more confident about doing it. 14. Travel will help you learn to roll with the punches because travel, like life itself, isn't perfect.
• You will see things that surprise you. You could see things that might even shock you. 
• Athens is the birthplace of democracy. Every time I go there are demonstrations. I've been in Syntagma Square to see the changing of the guard while television cameras focus on protesters there and tourists eat gyros, drink Mythos beer (the beer of unicorns), and take pictures in the same square. 15. News should be renamed Bad News. For all the bad things you see on the news, way more good stuff happened in the world today. Possibly on the other side of the news cameras. Obviously not always, but protesters are not inherently evil just because they're protesting.
• Was it last year when we were all getting our tighty-whiteys into a twist over same sex bathrooms? Many countries have same sex bathrooms. You know how sometimes you stop for gas somewhere and they have a single bathroom for men and women? Sometimes it's just like that. Some places have a shared sink area. Most everywhere has actual walls and doors around the toilets. This is a huge improvement over the open-top open-bottom and wide-crack stalls we usually have in the US. 16. Travel can teach you that different isn't necessarily bad or frightening.
• Bathrooms are different in different countries. Sometimes you can't flush any toilet paper—the ancient pipes can't take it, Greece, Egypt, Turkey, Bulgaria. 17. Travel can teach you how spoiled and lucky you are. Sometimes there isn't any toilet paper or a way to dry your hands or even soap. Paper and soap is a luxury you can't always count on having in some places, Egypt, Mexico. 18. Have you ever noticed how fortunate you are? Travel can show you that. If you can drink the water out of your pipes without getting sick and you can afford paper to flush down the toilet, you have it better than a whole lot of people.
• It's a vague memory now, but flying used to scare me. I

  

  Riding a camel to my beautiful life.

  remember wishing that the pilot wouldn't dip the plane to give me a better view of New York City. At some point I became the person sitting next to little kids explaining that roads in the air can be bumpy just like the ones your car drives over. Now I nab my drink when the propeller plane drops suddenly, and I chuckle if I caught it. Now I'll jump out of a perfectly good airplane because I love the way terminal velocity feels when I skydive. 19. Travel can help you realize you don't have to live in fear or worry. 20. Travel can help you find your beautiful life exists just outside your comfort zone. Go get it.

Alonissos, Greece and the Weird Writer Who Goes There

S.R. Karfelt/The Glitter Globe
My Favorite Beach

Nobody wants to hear about my trip to Greece. For the last few years I've been going there to attend a writing workshop. At first I tried to tell people about it. Here's the thing though, there is nobody who wants to hear about anyone's magical multiple week long vacation to Greece. 

Nobody.

Shut up. Some people have to work for a living. The kind of work that doesn't give you weeks to travel.

Do not make us kill you.

Do not ruin our time at the beach by a lake with your amaze-balls Greek photos.

I totally get this. 

So I stopped talking about it. After posting a freak ton of photos to Instagram I mean. But that's showing, not telling. Nope. I tuck it all up inside the magical olive tree growing beside my favorite beach, and set it just under my heart. I hope with all my wishful dreams that I can return again next year, and I know how fortunate I am to have gone at all. During the year I look at that secret wonderful and can barely believe it happened. I often wear a silver ring from Alonissos, and I don't wear rings. But it's beautiful and lightweight, and doesn't bother me as much as most rings do. 

Writing events are difficult to explain to non-writers. The best I can say is this. Writers are weird. We know we're weird. People like to joke about how weird they are, or how weird other people are. But writers are no-joke, to the bone, weirdos. 

When you're a genuine weirdo, being weird isn't fun. It got old somewhere around grade school. When you see the world differently, and take in overwhelming amounts of data every waking moment, and process your thoughts on paper to even get them into some type of order, well, it can be a deeply lonely experience.

At least until you start making up imaginary characters and having a blast with them.

Controlling your own universe is way cool. 

I digress.

Getting together with other writers is how I imagine most people feel when they truly connect with other people. I don't mean loving people. We love people. I adore my hot husband. I think my kids are the coolest. My friends put up with my crap and have fun with me.

But my writerly peeps understand my weird ass. They don't just tolerate my shit. They have the exact same weird shit. It's like being an alien and finding your people. I wish it for all writerly types.

You should see a writer conference. Everyone is talking at once. Like freaking extroverts or something. (Although there are plenty of writers who ARE extroverts. Talk about weirdos.) 

At writer gatherings I can hardly sleep I'm so excited and wired. Afterwards I really need a vacation to recover. Writers don't make me tired like most social interaction. Lack of sleep does. The magic of the gathering is that I can plug the cord to my freak flag in and be as weird as I can (it's a lot of weird). They don't even notice.

This shouldn't make those who love writers envious in any way. As much fun and connection as we have when we gather together, if it lasted too long we'd probably go cannibal or something. It's like a matter anti-matter thing. At first it's a blast, and then the universe is imploding.

We don't love each other more. We just share our weird. It's a relief. If you love a writer, I highly recommend getting them with other writers. It's like sending them to therapy. Everyone benefits.

Still. Nobody wants to hear about my kick-ass Greek vacation. I can probably tell you about the bus tour I took before the writing workshop started. I spent a couple days in Athens and went up to Meteora to see those monasteries in the clouds. But if I launch into the real reason my house looks like this and how I use my money on a trip that takes me nearly three days of travel just to arrive at the destination, and how I end up spending days on end huddled knee to knee with a bunch of other women writers, barely looking up, and just writing and then reading it aloud, well, that'd just be weird wouldn't it?




  

Caryatids at The Acropolis in Athens, Greece—Women Holding Up Their Little Bit of the World

Caryatid Porch at the Erechtheion, Acropolis
Athens, Greece

Caryatid. It's pronounced, "Carry-ah-did".

The definition of caryatid is a stone carving of a draped female figure, used as a pillar to support the entablature of a Greek or Greek-style building.

These ladies speak to me.

     Don't mind us, just a bunch of anonymous chicks holding all the shit together. Nothing to see here. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Hey, ladies. I'm crushing on you. You're functional and lovely, with strong legs. Bet the TSA would double check those big calves too. You're just looking good and keeping things from falling apart. I feel you. I've met your descendants. 

Those Greek women are pulling double plus shifts during tourist season. I see them there at seven in the morning, and still working at two a.m. too. They're cooking the food, making it look beautiful, serving it, cleaning it up. They're running a business, raising a family, and looking fine the whole time. The economy is sucking out loud all around them. But they're smiling, nay, they're laughing. 

Caryatid women are everywhere. They're working two jobs, working at places that need them but make no financial sense—but someone has to do it. So they do it. They don't complain. Wait. Sure they do. But no one listens, so it doesn't count. They'll just keep doing all the things, and holding up the world. 

Don't make them come over there. Because if they drop all this weight they're carrying, the whole world's gonna come crashing down. 

The light changes, and the colors of the stones seem to change with it.

Back at home writing books, blogs, and juggling Gummy/dementia stuff I sometimes feel like a Caryatid. This week Rescue Kitty dragged a full-grown rabbit through the cat door. I didn't know this for a few days, but I kept scrubbing everything in the workshop thinking Oh, man, cat food smells. 

It wasn't the cat food. Rescue Kitty had wedged him an out of the way spot. I thought it was a eagle when I spotted it, that's how big it was. The reason I thought it was an eagle is I thought those were feathers covering it. They weren't feathers. They were maggots. 

I immediately went after hubby.

     You need to clean a dead thing out of the workshop.

      It's your cat.

      It's not my cat!

      You feed it.

      It's your mom's cat! That makes it yours.

      It's your cat now.

This went on for a time. We argued over who had legal responsibility of the cat in our marriage. If feeding something denotes ownership, I own him and I guess the kids are mine too. 

In the end I relented. My friend said that makes me an amateur marital negotiator. Not true. I am, after all, caryatid strong. I submit the fact that I write novels, tend to Gummy, and have a chronically agitated neck as proof of my qualifications. The reason I gave in is there's a big problem with the kitchen drains that now he has to snake and clean and fix, in exchange for my body removing services. I can negotiate.

Yet when I went into the workshop with a Pirates of the Caribbean bandanna over my mouth and nose with a shovel in hand, I remembered that I'm a smart woman too. So I negotiated with the neighbor boys. They said they like to watch Bones. I said, "Let's make a deal." They cleaned all evidence of bunny death for a few dollars and a box of cookies. I think they'd have done it for free.

Back to the caryatids. The ones in the above pictures are at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. The Acropolis is a citadel above the city. It's a rise with cliffs, and on top of it are many ancient ruins like the Parthenon and the Erechtheion where you find the porch of the Caryatids.

The Acropolis was built at a time when Athena and Poseidon were part of Greek religion. There are temples and statues on top or along the walk up. 

The Acropolis at night!

Above is a picture of the Acropolis at night. It's lit up and you can see it from all around Athens. Just below it on this side is the Acropolis Museum. It's my favorite museum. One of the things I love most about it is that inside it has the feel and even the look of the Acropolis. The bottom floor is glass and you can see a dig beneath it. Also there's a cafe on a large porch upstairs. You can sit outside and have a coffee and see the Acropolis during the day. 

The photo below is the Parthenon. Isn't it formidable? Imagine standing there thousands of years ago? No television. No internet. Just this impressive building to stir your imagination. Something about being on top the Acropolis that always strikes me, is that there are columns and ruins littered all over the place. Ruins are everywhere in Athens. But it's strange to see so many ancient treasures laying about and exposed to the elements. 

The Parthenon has been under construction every time I've gone, but it doesn't detract from the magnificence at all!

All the buildings on the Acropolis are impressive ruins. They're unexpectedly large and imposing. It takes a while just to hike the Acropolis and get to the top. So many feet have walked over the marble paths for centuries, in some places it's as smooth and slippery as ice. Like here just at the entrance on top.

No, seriously. 

Stairs. Yep. Not an optical illusion.
You can go around.
But where's the fun in that?

This was my second trip to the top, so I planned my sandals more wisely than last time. I ordered well over a dozen pair online and returned all but the Mephisto's and Teva's. The Teva's are what I wore for this hike. There was no slipping and now I'm a fan for life.

This time I also hiked up in the late afternoon to avoid the heat and

Dionysus

the blinding sun. I took the entrance by the Theater of Dionysus. A ticket to the Acropolis is 20€. There are discounts for students and such, but it's worth it even if you have to pay full price. The Acropolis museum is just below the Acropolis, and it contains many of the artifacts that have been removed. It's worth a visit too, plus air-conditioning and blank journals with caryatids on the cover can be had there.

The Theater of Dionysus at the base of the Acropolis
I like to walk up this side.

Journals are my weakness, and museum shops.

My haul from the Acropolis Museum

I easily pass by all the souvenir shops surrounding the Acropolis, and they seem endless, but I buy several of these for writing, and a couple books at the Acropolis Museum Shop. They're not online yet. You and I both wish. Then I spend a month hauling all my loot around Greece. 

It's so worth it. What more could a solo traveler want?

A Greek salad and a Mythos in Plaka is pretty excellent too. 

I wish I could share it with you.
The best tomatoes, cukes, onion, pepper, olive oil, oregano,
and a block of feta. That's it.

Now I want to go back. I love traveling Greece. The people are wonderful. The food is spectacular. And obviously the scenery is legendary. You in?

My Solo Trip to Meteora Greece—Monasteries in the Clouds

S.R. Karfelt/The Glitter Globe

This year I went to my writing workshop early so I could play tourist a bit. 

It's astonishing how much travel happens without really seeing a place.

My guy just returned from Asia and I peppered him with questions.
     How was Taipei?
     Did you do anything new in Japan?
Other than the nice hotel and the interior of conference room five he had nothing man.

I cannot travel vicariously through this guy.

So I go myself, and yes I have details for you.

I flew into Athens (big, short white buildings, hot, lots of ruins and graffiti, perfectly imperfect, but that's another blog post), and spent a day there visiting the Acropolis and Parthenon. The next day I took a bus tour. (Key Tours.) It went to Ancient Delphi and Kalambaka/Meteora. It's a two-day tour, one night, very reasonably priced and included accommodations/travel/site tickets/dinner and breakfast.

The drive from Athens to Kalambaka is long, but we visited ruins and monuments to break up the day. Plus just seeing the lay of the land was interesting. Who knew growing cotton was such a big thing in Greece? The tour bus stopped at a place that was basically a Greek Cracker Barrel. I bought a pen and a bar of a type of divinity candy. Because sugar crack ho. 

I'm going to quit.

We arrived at our hotel just before twilight. I was thrilled to see formations right outside my room. I knew they were behind the hotel, and walked down the hall dragging my suitcase over carpet, and talking to myself about my room.
     Please be on the left.
     Please be on the left.
And it was! How lucky is that? Half the rooms face the road and town, but I'd seen roads and town. So I was thrilled. The room was spacious even by American standards. A bit austere, but spotless, with a wide balcony and chairs. There was a monastery on one of the formations, and you could hear church bells from time to time. 

That night I sat on my balcony and watched bats flying around, feeling like the luckiest person on earth. I mean really. I kept tearing up. 

It reminded me of a college professor who'd read haiku's like that one about the frog (it might be Matsuo Basho), where the frog jumps in a pond...PLOP, and he'd cry. I mean tears cry. We were all like nineteen and looking at each other like TF man? 

I get it now.

And this was no frog. 

But there were bats, and these amazing otherworldly formations.

The next morning we were up early. On vacation I can wake up before daylight with zero effort. I don't drink coffee either. I'm just like, I AM ON VACATION OH MY GAAAAAH.

See another reason why solo travel is my thing? 

It's for the best.

Some of the monasteries are impossible or near impossible to get to, and women aren't allowed at all of them. We visited the Grand Meteoron Monastery and a Nunnery. The bus ride there can make your stomach drop a bit. I thought the one up to Mount Vesuvius was dodgy. That was nothing. 

But I have this mantra for when things get dicey and I really want to do it anyway.

     You've had a good run.
     You've had a good run.

It works for me.

Women have to wear dresses and have their shoulders covered. I'd brought a long t-shirt dress to wear. In orange. It may be the ugliest thing I've ever worn. If you show up without a dress, they have wraps made out of a lightweight parachute-like material you can borrow.

Grand Meteoron Monastery 

Both sites I visited were approachable by stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. All the stairs. 

Way more stairs than this.

Supplies are brought in by cables stretched from the mainland. I saw people of all ages and fitness levels huffing up those stairs. (I've heard that Agios Stefanos is wheelchair accessible and the easiest to get to for those with limited mobility.) 

Monastery Meteora

There are no photos allowed inside the churches. Greek Orthodox churches are shaped the same inside, with shallow domed ceilings. From the smaller ones to the larger ones I've seen, there are usually four domes surrounding the main altar. The difference is sheer size and decor. The Grand Meteoron Monastery interior is decorated with exquisite biblical scenes. The purpose was so those who couldn't read could still know the stories.

Relics are also popular in this religion, usually the bones of a saint. It might seem odd, but this is a culture that holds tightly to loved ones and onto the past. I found it beautiful and reverent. 

The most enjoyable travel is done when expectation and judgement are left behind. 

Greek Orthodox art is unique. There's often a lot of gold gilding, and the paintings of saints and bible stories cover the walls and ceilings in the more ornate churches. The smaller simpler island churches of Greece often have bare walls with maybe a few icons hung here and there.

They're different than Roman Catholic churches. While they can be decorated with gilding and functional chandeliers, and they're unique and opulent in their own way, they aren't as extravagant as the churches you see in Rome. 

What struck me was the lack of seating. You stand. There will be a few seats around the walls, but most people stand. They're smaller than churches I'm used to. People come and go, say a prayer and light a candle. I'd wondered the last few times I was in Greece and wandered in and out of churches on the islands, how everybody fit in there.

This view!

Aren't the formations spectacular? Early holy men simply climbed them and lived in caves. It kept them safe from invaders. Eventually, around the 14th Century, they began to build the monasteries. They're beautiful, with terra cotta roofs and elaborate gardens.

A Garden from a Meteora Monastery

This area was once under the sea, and that's why the formations are so other-worldly. I could easily imagine them under water. They're dotted with caves, and I'm immensely curious about them but I didn't get to see any this trip.

These formations look over Kalambaka

You can probably imagine the amount of photographs I took on this trip. Photos are my favorite souvenirs. After we'd visited both sites, the tour bus stopped at a shop that sells icons. Artisans were there painting them. They still train in the same way Byzantine artists have for ages. I don't take many tours, and I'm not wild about stopping at souvenir shops. This one was different though. Maybe because of Greek hospitality. We were met at the door with a bowl of loukoumi. It's Greek turkish delight, sweet but not overly so, and the flavors range from lemon to rose. Then they offered juice or wine to drink. All complimentary. Plus they gifted a painting to someone on the tour bus.

Greece is a very hospitable country to visit, and I did my part to help the economy.

By the time I left I had a bag of worry beads, two wooden rosaries, and paintings of icons. All gifts. And that was only the second day of my trip. It's a wonder my arms didn't just rip out of my shoulders from the weight of my suitcase by the time I got home a month later.

A far away shot of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity or the James Bond Monastery

We didn't visit the "James Bond" monastery you see in the pictures above and below. It's quite a challenge to get there, and there isn't time with a tour group. I'd like to take on one of the more challenging hikes someday, but maybe not in the heat of summer in a dress. 

Visiting the monasteries of Meteora and Kalambaka was an amazing experience. I'm glad I had the opportunity, and still feel like the luckiest. Before I left home I'd watched the weather obsessively, hoping it would all work out. One cancelled flight and my well laid plans would have been irretrievable. My journey from this chaotic office here in the shire to my writing retreat in the Northern Sporades of the Aegean Sea, is more like a quest than a trip. Fortunately everything worked out as planned. What a treat. I enjoyed the tour, met interesting people, and gathered oceans of story fodder and information for my writing. 

Close up of the "James Bond" Monastery.
For Your Eyes Only

Normally I make all of my own travel plans and book everything myself, but within Greece I use Aegean Thesaurus Travel. I'm slowly learning some Greek from a conversational perspective. But it's no use when I'm trying to tackle a website in Greek. So far I've mastered critical traveler things, like asking for no onion on my gyro, and the usual polite niceties of an introverted solo traveler. 

It wasn't until I got home and picked up my language lessons where I'd left off, that I realized just how many things I'd said incorrectly this trip. Including no onion. 

But I've got it for next year!

I like to make an effort to pick up some basic words when I'm traveling. Plus language is fun, and it builds character when you get it all wrong. That's pretty much my modus operandi. I had wondered at the looks I'd get sometimes. I figured it was my accent. Don't stress if you're going though. It's tough enough to get time away to travel, and to find ways to make it affordable, toss learning a language in there and forget about it. It's not at all mandatory to learn any Greek. 

S.R. Karfelt Travels

Within Greece most of the people in the cities and islands speak English perfectly.

I hope you can go, or have gone, but if not, I hope I've provided enough details for you. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer to the best of my ability.


Cheers. Because of all the time I've spent in Greece, I've yet to hear anyone say opa!