Greece, at last

I'm sitting on a comfortable park bench in Fira, Santorini, overlooking ships anchored in the caldera. It's early morning, quiet, the sun rising at my back, and two friendly dogs who have adopted me lying at my feet. The photo of our ship above is taken from my current location. Yesterday we passed by Delos and Mykanos and merely waved as we passed. I guess Apollo was not smiling upon us. A violent wind storm kept us from docking at either place, so we regretably waved goodbye and continued on to this island. It was, for me at least, a welcome break. We've been on the road for over a week and the sun and heat at Ephesus just about wore me out. We're competing with many other cruise ships, so bypassing Delos and Mykonos and making our way to Santorini allowed us to be the first to this island. I was on the first tender at 7:00 a.m. The tendering and steep cobblestoned streets of Santorini are not suited to Dwight's condition, so he stayed on the Nautica, but we have a rental car waiting in Rhodes tomorrow, so he'll do some touring then. Anyway, he had his big event yesterday with a Martini seminar in the afternoon. We'll give Apollo another chance at Delphi, but it's nice to finally be in Greece after so much anticipation.


Two hours later: I have moved back to the village. While it was cool, shuttered and quiet when I arrived, it's now hot, crowded and noisy. It's fun trying out my Greek, although people here are too tourist-oriented to care whether you speak their language. A smile is actually the more universal language and, surprisingly, the Turks had more of them. Here, they just want you to buy something, so I'm trying to accommodate them. I feel like the future of the Eurozone is resting on my shoulders. The small archeological museum of Thera was an interesting stop. They have only a few amphora, kraters and statues, but they date from about the 8th century BCE. I was looking for the other small museum when I saw the internet cafe and lit here instead. I have to communicate with our travel agent in Athens and the internet aboard ship cost something like $.60 per minute. Enjoy your connections!

Next stop, Rhodes. We're finally launched on our tour of ancient Greece.