I have been slacking on this journal a lot this year... but for good reason. I haven't had much to report in my external world, and my internal world has been in some chaos with things that I prefer not to report.
First a status update. My "garage sale" was a success, and sparkylibrarian can now in fact get her car in the garage. Yayy me!
The ohmygodI'minmy40s angst continues, with ebbs and flows. I still have urges to get rid of all my stuff and join a monestary, but these have greatly lessened recently.
I have a doctor's appointment this Friday where he'll proabably tell me I can't drink coffee... but we'll see.
What have I been doing this last year? Writing. You can find the status of my writing projects at my Simreal Journal. Progress has been mostly steady, but with some fits and starts, and not nearly the productivity I want... but then, I've also had other distractions, plus the usual exercise events throughout the week.
And the big thing from last week is my trip to Greece, a trip that events conspired to bring to me... I won't go into the base details, really, because they were just the excuse, the annoying little technicality, that led me to some time away from _everything_.
A real escape from the ordinary.
Imagine that?
I spent my free time in the Athen's Plaka area, the old district, stomping along the quaint and crowded cobbled streets, wrestling with traffic that is just on this side of complete chaos, stepping around shops whose contents were not satisfied with their cramped inner quarters, but instead spilled across the sidewalks in an avalanche of consumer goods.
I ate real Greek food prepared by Greek hands in Greece.
I saw ruins, and marveled at the size and immensity of what remains.
I even went to a public concert and heard Greek rap, Greek cover songs of music I knew, traditional Greek music sung in falsetto (or something) on electric instruments, everything. It was amazing!
I elbowed through throngs of tourists and stared at the infinitely repeating collections of tourist shops. I even bought something to bring home, doing my part for the tourist economy of Athens.
Over the weekend, I took about 200 pictures. I may even put some up somday.
I was scammed, though not too badly, by a very nice Greek man. I had stopped in Syntagma square to look at my map, to orient myself to the Acropolis, for a visit. The nice fellow comes over, "Hi. You speak english?"
"Yeah."
"Are you looking for something?"
"Oh, I'm just at loose ends, going to head to the Acropolis and walk around some."
"Ahh! I have a shop near there, come I'll show you where it is!"
We walk a bit, and I interrupt his babble of relatives in the US and how his cafe is a cute little place called "New York"... "you don't have to walk all the way, just point me, I'm fine."
"No no, I'm going to my shop anyway."
So we walk and get there, a tiny little wedge of a tavern amongst many other little wedges of stores in a small street, like any other small street.
"Here we are! The Acropolis is just over there."
"Thank you."
"Oh, why don't you come in, have a beer!"
What a nice man! "Okay."
I sit in the cool, and the nice bar lady opens a beer for me, set in in front of me with an iced mug. Mmmmm, beer.
Next to the nice serving lady appeared another. "Hey, buy us a gin, we'll drink with you." Oooh, I know the answer to this one! I was delighted, I had never been in a scam before.
I stared at 'em a bit, smiled. "How much?"
The bar lady paused a moment, "20 euro."
"No, thanks though."
"Just while you drink your beer."
"That's an expensive way to pass the time."
"Not so much," the lady shrugged.
So I finished my beer quickly and paid... far too much.
What's truly funny is that same day, another guy approached me as I looked at the map. "My brother, he has a nice club, here I'll show you..."
And the next day, even while I wasn't looking at the map...
I guess I look like a sucker. Of course, the cats could have told me that ages ago.