Dateline – Mykonos, Greece

That’s not exactly truthful.  Mykonos was yesterday and today we’re busy pitching and rolling and yawing as we steam across the Ionian Sea back to Italy.  (Naples, Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast tomorrow).  Therefore, it’s another relaxing sea day.  I am seated in the Solarium listening to the water in the swimming pool slosh as we are buffeted by sea swells and occasional wind gusts of up to thirty knots.  Fortunately, I am a good sailor.  The only time I have ever been seasick was my first night out in the Bering Sea on the oceanographic research vessel I spent a summer on while in college.  (I ran the water sampling equipment on the overnight shift).  I was queasy and threw up the first night and was fine for the rest of the eight weeks or so I was out there. 

So, back to Mykonos.  When I was a young gayling, back in the 80s, Mykonos held a certain mythic status as being the place on the globe for where all the chicest, most elegant gay men would hang out in the summer, parading in Speedos during the day, and dancing in clubs at the waters edge to all hours of the night.  Being a poor student in various degrees of higher education at the time, Mykonos was far beyond my grasp.  Heck, even Ensenada was beyond my grasp. I was also not the physical type who was going to attract the attentions of a wealthy patron who was going to offer me a Pretty Woman makeover and jet me across the globe.  The world has moved on from Mykonos over the years, Gran Canaria seems to have taken its place as the sun and fun destination for rising gay Eurotrash but the name still resonates in the back of my brain.

We arrived in the morning to the first not great weather of the vacation.  There were lowering clouds, it was cool and all day it alternated between the sun breaking through for awhile (but not really raising the temperature) and cool misty rains that were very Seattle in nature.  The ship was tied up at the cruise pier, a few miles outside of the main town and we had not booked any sort of organized tour as our time in port was limited and there was nothing we felt was a must so we had a leisurely breakfast and headed for the shuttle bus into town.  On arriving, we found the town itself charming, if a bit artificial.  It’s obvious that the HOA requires everything be kept to a certain standard which involves white paint, colored trim (originally the colors meant something but now it’s a hodge-podge) and bougainvillea, oleander, and geraniums.  Lots of cafes, art galleries, souvenir stores, resort clothing shops, and the like.  All very lovely but, given the dreariness of the day and the fact that this is the last week of the season with much already in shut down mode, a bit sad.  I might have been more taken with it had I not just come from Santorini and its dramatic clifftop setting.  The geography here was just rolling hills.

We wandered the narrow streets and passageways, climbed the hill for the view, descended to the point with the famous collection of windmills (meeting Petros the pelican in residence and busy preening to the oohs and ahs of the assembled crowd), and found a waterfront café for lunch and cocktails.  (If you think cocktails have played a large part in this trip, you would be correct – I don’t drink a lot in my usual life but I make an exception on vacation.  And, as the child of parents who kept the cocktail hour, I have a reasonable capacity and generally remain quite functional). 

The weather was too iffy and the seas seemed to be a bit rough so we opted not to take a small boat to Delos.  (And there were plenty of the ubiquitous Aegean cats in town for us to make the acquaintance of.  We discovered they are quite fond of fried calamari).  Instead, we completed our shopping for the trip and returned to the boat a bit early for a lie down, more cocktails, an early dinner, and All About Eve, another film Thomas had never seen.  I really have to get busy with his education. I had gnocchi quattro formaggio for dinner that was really quite good.  The food in general on board has been more than passable.  Even the cafeteria has had some items that have been exceptional, especially in the Indian/Thai section which makes me assume that much of the kitchen staff are South and Southeast Asian. 

I, of course, spent some time going over the political headlines from back home.  Most of them are giving me a little bit of hope for the state of the world.  The ouster of Vucic in Serbia (and as on my original itinerary, we would have been passing through Serbia and Belgrade in the days immediately prior to the election, I cannot help but wonder if some political instability behind the scenes was the real reason for the scotched trip), the sound defeat of Bolsonaro in Brazil (and of course the Trump administration is sheltering him), and it looks like Bibi may be down for the count.  We’ll see what happens in our elections this coming week.  I arrive home on Saturday and am off until Wednesday and will be at my polling place with bells on first thing Tuesday morning.  Will the administration try some shenanigans with the results, almost certainly, but from what I can tell the American public is seeing through the lies and the obfuscations and the Republican party is starting to understand that the same old BS is no longer working. Hope springs eternal, or at least from the seas of Mykonos and Delos.

Dateline – Santorini, Greece

Yesterday was a sea day.  We woke up and opened the blinds to find our ship steaming down the Dardanelles and under the massive 1915 Canakkale suspension bridge, the world’s longest which connects Europe with Asia.  From there, we slid past the cliffs of Gallipoli with its monuments to both the Allied dead and the Turkish dead in the botched campaign of World War I.  I don’t know much about the Ottomans in World War I other than they chose the losing side and most of what I know about Gallipoli comes from the 1980s Australian film of the same name which was far too depressing for me to watch again since seeing it in its original run.  It stars a young and dreamy Mel Gibson prior to international stardom and revealing just what an unpleasant ass he truly is. 

From there we sailed off into the Aegean Sea and past various famous Greek islands including Lesbos, Chios, and Naxos.  The day was somewhat cool, but sunny so there was much deck time and I spent a while with my script working on my lines.  Later, after lunch, cocktails were consumed and so much for continuing with memorization.  Thomas went off for a massage in the spa, but that’s not really my thing and so I spent some time writing before dinner.  After dinner, I went to the show in the theatre.  The theatre is gorgeous, they spent a gazillion dollars on an amazing technical set up, and about $1.95 on the writing.  It was about an hour of cut rate Cirque de Soleil choreography to various 80s and 90s pop hits delivered by singers who had some of the worst technique I’ve heard.  Vocal nodes are in their future… probably by next week. It was enough to send me to bed early.

This morning, when we awoke, we were at anchor in Santorini, a small archipelago in the Cyclades formed when the ancient volcano of Thera blew its top and the caldera filled with sea water.  It’s still an active volcano, having last erupted in 1950, but fortunately it was nice and quiet today.  The main island of Thera is about 2/3 of the caldera rim and a steep cliff facing the old crater and a gentler slope on the other side.  We were anchored on the Western cliff side and, after breakfast, the two of us took a tender into the dock.  There is very little at the water’s edge, the main towns perched at the top of the cliff some thousand feet above.  To access, there are three choices, a gondola, walking up some five hundred and fifty steps or, the most traditional, on donkey back.  We chose to be traditionalists, were soon mounted on a pair of plodding donkeys, and up we went.  The weather report had said we were in for rain today and it had rained a tad earlier in the morning so the lovely smell of wet donkey was an accompaniment.  Fortunately, the clouds lessened over the morning and the rest of the day was quite lovely.

Once up top in the town of Fira, we were able to marvel at the views out over the caldera and take in all of the picturesque white Greek towns with their domes and blue roofs clinging to the edge of the cliff.  We decided to just walk and explore on foot, first doing some shopping (I bought a shirt with a pattern of the Greek mati – the omnipresent talisman against the evil eye) and then taking a footpath for a mile or so along the caldera rim, stopping along the way for a lunch of salad and smoked octopus (really quite good) and additional cocktails.  It ended up being a picture postcard perfect day. (Pictures available on Instagram and other posts).  There were a lot of stairs, a lot of hill walking, and it did make the legs somewhat tired but in a good way.  It is the last week of the season so a lot of the tourist accommodations and shops were getting ready to go into off season mode and the towns and paths were not crowded making it even nicer.  We kept ourselves occupied until late afternoon when, as the sun was beginning to set, we took the gondola down the hill and tendered back to the boat for dinner.  We decided to skip tonight’s show (someone impersonating great singers of the past) so as to get some sleep for tomorrow’s shore leave in Mykonos.  But first, we watched Die Hard as Thomas had never seen it.  He gave it a thumbs up. 

Dateline – Istanbul, Turkey

After sailing up the Turkish coast overnight, we awoke to the ship passing through the Dardanelles and into the Sea of Marmara with European Turkey on our port and Asian Turkey on our starboard. We weren’t due to dock for some hours, so it was a nice lazy morning with me working on my lines for Arsenic and Old Lace and Thomas taking a nap. We approached Istanbul shortly after noon, inching our way towards the Bosporus River as it flows out of the Black Sea. We eventually were docked at the cruise ship terminal at Galataport, at the base of the hill along the Golden Horn River which forms the European New City (not all that new as most of it was built in the 19th century). Galataport is a new development as the Turkish government tries to get more and more of the cruise industry to make Istanbul a standard stop. Not only is it the dock for the large ocean liners, it is also an underground bus transfer point and a modern shopping and entertainment district. In fact, it is the very model of a modern major terminal. (Complete with Turkish cats who act as fluffy antiverminal. And passages which could fit your tank or other autos Shermanal…)

We left the boat and headed out on our first shore excursion, a walking tour of the New City under the aegis of our guide Ada (who was something like an Istanbul feral kitten after one too many Turkish coffees). A walk along the waterfront, a ride up the hill in an underground funicular to Taksim Square, a stop for a trial of a local burger specialty (I suspect a member of Ada’s family was behind the burger joint) and then down the main thoroughfare of Istiklal Caddesi lined with boutiques, cafes, bars and other places of upscale entertainment, all with an early 20th century streetcar running up and down the middle threatening to pick off passers by who weren’t paying attention. It was very reminiscent of other major European cities to which I have been over the years with a lot of 19th century European architecture of the Beaux Arts school but with occasional Ottoman flourishes. We stopped for Turkish coffee and, after finishing it, attempted to tell our fortunes in the grounds. I thought I saw two monkeys enacting Shakespeare on the deck of a ship. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to symbolize. Further down the thoroughfare and onto another underground funicular dating back to the 1870s to get back down the hill and then past the bridge over the Golden Horn and back to the ship. We thought about going out for the evening and then decided against as we were a bit tired and knew we had a big day on the morrow beginning early in the morning.

The next morning we had an all day tour exploring the historical Old City with its Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman monuments so we got ourselves up, hurriedly consumed some coffee and left the boat in order to meet up with today’s tour guide, Donkan, who was much more laid back than Ada the day before. He was knowledgeable, had a good sense of the history and the meaning behind most of the sites, but didn’t intrude too much and spent most of his time making sure no one wandered off too far and could not be corralled back into line. Sort of an English Sheep Dog making sure his charges behaved. It was a relatively short bus ride from the port across the Golden Horn River and to the peninsula which was the historic heart of the Empire of the East. We were let out on the open area on top of the hill that was the site of the old hippodrome, site of the famous chariot races. The foundations and catacombs remain beneath the pavements, but the building itself has long been lost. Earthquakes, sacking by the 4th crusade in the 13th century and then the fall and sacking of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century will do that. There are some monumental obelisks remaining and a serpentine column that the Romans brought back from Greece and which was supposedly made from the Greeks melting down the armor of the Persians in one of their 4th century BC victories. My favorite Hippodrome story is that of the Emperor Justinian putting down rebellion and cementing the powers of the Byzantine Emperors for nearly a millennium by blocking the doors on the crowd in the Hippodrome and having his soldiers massacre those trapped inside, an estimated 30,000 casualties.

Byzantine history is incredibly rich but not much studied in the US. Most of which I have picked up comes from reading historical fiction set in the medieval world. I highly recommend the novels of Dorothy Dunnett. Book IV of her Lymond Chronicles, Pawn in Frankincense ends up in Constantinople at the time of Suleiman the Magnificent with much of the last part of the book taking place in the Topkapi Palace. Her House of Niccolo also touches on Constantinople in the years immediately following the fall of the city to the Turks and Book II, The Spring of the Ram, going into great detail about the fall of the last Byzantine Emperor, David Comenos, as the Turks, took Trebizond, the last remaining outpost of the Empire. Guy Gavriel Kay’s Sarantine Mosaic books offer a look at the time of Justinian and the construction of the Hagia Sophia but in a sort of fantasy alternative reality way.

Next to the Hippodrome Square is the famous Blue Mosque built by Sultan Ahmed in the early 17th century and so called for the blue tilework throughout the interior. From the outside, it’s a lovely piece of classical Ottoman architecture, perched high on the hill and looking out over the city and the Sea of Marmara. Inside is absolutely breathtaking with acres of tilework and decorative motifs all in the non-figurative styles consistent with Islamic Art. Every time I looked up into the dome, I saw some new detail. I would have had to lie on my back on the floor for hours to take everything in. From there, a walk around the side of the Hagia Sophia to the Topkapi palace. The palace, seat of the Sultans from the 15th through the mid 19th centuries, is a large complex in parkland built around terraced courtyards descending the hill towards the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara. It’s now a museum, a bit reminiscent of The Tower of London in that there are various wings which you can wander in and out of depending on your fancy. It was a bit of an odd stop on this day as it was the grand opening of a newly renovated wing and exhibition and Erdogan was present to do the ribbon cutting. I did not see him but there was a good deal of police and military presence and certain areas were off limits and we had to leave, when we left, by the back gate and then make our way round and back up the hill on foot. The Ottoman Sultans, like certain other chief executives, seem to have become very enamored of shiny things. (That seems to have been one of the things that led to the collapse of the Sultanate and the establishment of modern Republican Turkey – overspending on gee-gaws and palaces in which to display them). There was a lot of ostentatious jeweled things on display, most of which was impractical. I did like the palace and grounds very much though.

After reascending the hill, it was time for lunch. Lunch on these kinds of tours usually isn’t much. The backroom of a tired old tourist restaurant putting out a watered down version of some famous national dish. This, however, was quite good, a lovely buffet in an upscale hotel’s restaurant and as we were now about 14,000 steps into the day, we ate heartily. After lunch, it was time for Hagia Sophia. It was a bit of a let down. Given that the building is about 1500 years old, it’s in constant need of maintenance. They are in the midst of a huge renovation currently. The outside is surrounded by scaffolding and the green netting familiar to anyone who has traveled in Europe for any length of time. The interior of the sanctuary is filled with enormous steel support columns while everything is shored up. The building began as a church, the seat of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The Ottomans, after taking possession, remade it into a mosque covering over much of the famous mosaic work. The Turkish government made it into a museum a century ago so that it could be enjoyed and marveled at by all faiths. The Erdogan administration turned it back into a mosque in 2020 confining non-Muslim visitors to the upper gallery floor. While I am glad to have seen the space having heard of it forever, I can’t say it currently lives up to its reputation. The surviving mosaics are lovely. One wonders what it must have looked like when it was in its original form.

The last stop, another short walk away, was The Grand Bazaar. This area, begun in the 15th century, now consists of dozens of pedestrian-only covered streets and covers about 7 ½ acres. There are some four thousand shops, 3,900 of which sell cheap jewelry. It was fun to wander through and avoid the overly aggressive sellers but in the end, it’s basically a medieval shopping mall where most of the stores are Claire’s. I will admit I did buy some things to take home, including tchotchkes for my colleagues. Anytime I go some place interesting, I try to bring a little something back as a thank you for having my back while I am away. Then it was back on the bus and back to the cruise port and dinner and a couple of much needed cocktails as we both had sore feet from two days of city walking. We went to bed relatively early. Tomorrow is a sea day, and then on to more Greek Islands. The weather report is not good for the next couple of days so that may change our plans. I’ll check back in from Santorini.

Dateline – Ephesus, Turkey

We woke up this morning to another gorgeous sunny day on the Aegean sea and the Celebrity Ascent was soon sailing into the Turkish port of Kudasai, which is a major resort town on the Southern coast of Turkiye.  The name translates as ‘bird island’ but there were not a lot of birds in evidence other than the inevitable urban pigeons, perhaps due to the large population of feral, but friendly cats.  There is a deep cultural bond between the Turkish population and their cats which are regarded as beloved members of the community and are therefore looked after by everyone.  They’re everywhere but, unlike American strays, are all clean and well fed.  I have heard that this is particularly true in Istanbul but cannot give a firsthand accounting as of yet.  I’ll get back to that one in a day or two. 

We were one of three cruise ships in port, all arriving at roughly the same time so the debarkation and sorting of people into proper tour groups was a bit of a free for all, but we eventually found the sign with our name on it and, following Sude, our twenty-something guide with a Gen Z blasé attitude toward life, we threaded our way through the usual tourist shops and into our van for the forty minute drive up the coast to the ruins of the ancient port of Ephesus.  Ephesus, under the benevolent protection of Artemis of the Ephesians, a mother earth goddess of fertility and nature incorporated into the Graeco-Roman pantheon, has been inhabited since neolithic times but came into its own in the Classical Greek and Hellenistic periods when the Temple of Artemis, rebuilt after being destroyed by fire set by the arsonist Herostratus in 356 BC into one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and remaining relatively intact for the next five centuries when earthquakes, the silting of the harbor and retreat of the sea, and Roman Imperial politics all combined to lead to the decline and eventual abandonment of the city.

Arriving at the upper entrance to the Ephesus archeological site, we were able to spend the next couple of hours descending the ancient processional way through the remains of temples, baths, theatres, storehouses, and the great multistory façade of the library of Celsus which was third only to those at Alexandria and Pergamon in the Graeco-Roman world.  I was fascinated with the geography of the city, confined between two steeply rising hills which made it into a ribbon of civilization along its valley and which also contributed to its success by making sure its water and sewer systems, with miles of terra cotta piping, kept the citizenry hygienic and healthy.  Thomas, with his archeological experiences, was able to provide running commentary on the preservation and excavations. 

At the bottom of the hill, we were treated to something called ‘The Ephesus Experience’ which is a sort of lesser Disney attraction with multimedia surround imagery trying to make you feel you were in ancient times and utterly failing.  Fortunately, it’s included with your admission to the ruins and does not cost extra.  If you ever go, feel free to skip it.  Then it was back on the van to the actual site of the Temple of Artemis which is a little distance away.  Nothing remains but the foundation and a single column reconstructed from pieces to give a sense of scale and, of course, more cats.

Our other stops were at a market offering samples of various traditional Turkish foods.  We both did our best Edmund Pevensie impressions by over indulging in Turkish Delight, even buying more to take with us.  Fortunately, there were no dwarves or White Witches in view.  Then on to a rug manufacturer for a demonstration on weaving techniques and showing off of various carpets (of course available for purchase and worldwide shipping).  The ones I most admired were silk on silk and far out of budget so I politely declined giving them my credit card number and shipping address.  Besides, my two bad cats at home would likely make short work of it.  That concluded our formal tour so we headed back to the bazaar in Kudasai for a lunch of deliciously spiced gyros, feeding of cats from the table, and a dessert of the traditional Turkish ice cream, dondurma, which has tuber flour and mastic in it which makes it much more resistant to melting, but which is sort of like trying to eat Silly Putty.  We both decided that it was a ‘OK, we tried it’ type thing.

The boat sailed out of the harbor, we took a nap, and then had a relaxing dinner.  We decided to skip the show (some sort of Irish singer-songwriter) in favor of turning in early and watching the original Star Wars Trilogy on the entertainment system.  I fell asleep somewhere during The Empire Strikes Back.  It wasn’t a big issue, I know how it ends. While Luke Skywalker and Yoda were lifting fighters out of a swamp and Han and Leia were escaping Imperial Forces through an asteroid field, I took some time to catch up on the most recent political news.  I rather wish I hadn’t.

What stuck out for me?  A president who announced that if you wore a MAGA hat to the polls and voted a straight Republican Ticket, he would send you thousands of dollars.  And people of a certain political leaning were believing this.  Last I checked, what happened in the voting booth was uniquely personal and how would anyone know how you cast your ballot?  Not to mention all the various laws which are supposed to protect polling places from undo political pressure.  A Secretary of Defense whose wish for personal vainglory outweighs common sense leading to the damage of a priceless historical artifact (not to mention the hiding of the actual damage to American interests the misguided Iraqi war has caused).  An Attorney General who refuses to say he will not interfere in election processes despite an oath to the constitution and explicit constitutional language that elections are the province of the states.  A Secretary of State who is making foreign service officials reveal their voting history and refusing to promote those who vote ‘the wrong way’.  A private individual (who violated US immigration law but does not appear to have caught the interest of the Department of Homeland Security and ICE) who appears to be pursuing his own private foreign interventions contrary to the interests of the US through his control of Starlink.  Things will change with the midterms.  How they will change, I cannot predict. I think I will go back to playing with Turkish cats.

Dateline – Chania, Crete

I awoke this morning to a beautiful blue sky and sea and the Celebrity Ascent docking at the port of Souda on the island of Crete.  There’s not much in Souda, it’s mainly a commercial port for the loading and unloading of ships involved in Aegean trade so, when we disembarked after breakfast, we boarded a bus into the town of Chania, a few miles away.  Chania has been inhabited since the days of the Minoans, having been a trading port for the Minoans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Ottomans, the Venetians, and a few other groups along the way, each leaving their mark on the landscape  What currently exists is a charming little waterfront city where the people mainly live and work in the new town of the 19^th and 20^th centuries and the tourists flock to the old town, built and rebuilt around a Venetian era harbor framed by old fortifications and a lighthouse reconstructed by the Ottomans.  We walked the town, did some shopping, admired the views and stopped at a harbor front restaurant for a lunch of salad, gyros, and some of the best calamari I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting.  So as to go full Shirley Valentine, we also downed a small bottle of Raki between us. 

After our perfectly lovely time ashore, we meandered back to the bus and the ship and spent a few hours sunning and in the pool.  I must admit I have turned slightly pink but I’m not seriously burnt.  Must remember to pick up some more sunblock tomorrow.  It may be late October, but I am in a sunnier clime and more outdoors than is usual for me.  If this weather holds, it will help me decide that October is the perfect time to visit Mediterranean countries when making future travel plans.  There are rumors of some rains ahead.  We shall see.  I’m sure I’ll enjoy it whatever happens. 

After pool time, a brief nap and then to tonight’s show, a British magician who was pretty darn good at slight of hand and who did a number of illusions of the switch places with the glamorous assistant in the blink of an eye variety.  I could spot the general way in which tricks were done but not the specifics.  I opted for Indian for dinner.  Thought about hitting the casino and then decided to save my money so I retired to write this missive and an MNM column while I was at it.  We’re sailing onwards tonight and are due to dock outside of Ephesus in the morning.  More on my introduction to Turkyie later.

Yes, I am keeping up on the political news which seems to consist, as long predicted, of various parts of the administration doing their best to shape the midterm election results in their image.  Much is being made of non-existent voting by non-citizen voters, there continue to be unconstitutional power grabs of election machinery away from the states, propaganda continues to spew from outlets that should know better.  It’s going to take decades to unsnarl the Gordian knots this administration is laying for the future.  Will we get an Alexander the Great somewhere down the pike?  I certainly hope not.  The last thing we need is a military dictator, even if he wields a terrible swift sword.

Dateline – Someplace in the Aegean Sea

We got up Monday morning, breakfasted, and got ourselves packed.  We could have spent 150 euros on a taxi direct to the cruise port at Civitavecchia, some fifty miles away from central Rome but we decided 5 euro train tickets would be a better use of money so we schlepped our suitcases the few blocks from the hotel to Roma Termini station and found the train we needed.  Most at line at the ticket machine were on the same cruise so we managed to help each other get to the correct platform and off at the correct stop. 

Once we hit Civitavecchia, we all piled into taxis for the quick trip to the pier and into the boarding process.  I’ve been on a number of cruises in my day, but this is my first time with Celebrity and they seem to have gotten the process down to an exact science.  I have never boarded so quickly and seamlessly.  No hurry up and wait.  The usual mob scene of lifeboat drill replaced by some videos and a brief check in so we were in our stateroom within the hour of having hit the dock.  We spent some time exploring the public area of the ship, found the location of the important things, like the bars, had lunch followed by a couple of drinks and settled in for a nap.  Then some time on deck to enjoy the sunset, the dusk and the sea breeze, and the Italian coastline slipping by before dinner at a grill on the top deck. Early to bed.  Both of us are unwinding into true vacation mode.

This morning up for breakfast and time on deck watching us pass through the Straits of Messina with the toe of the boot of Italy on the port side and the Sicilian coast line on the starboard.  The weather continues to hold.  Sunny but not too hot.  I don’t find it sunbathing or pool weather but it’s perfectly acceptable book in a deck chair weather.  It’s a sea day so nothing much to do.  I don’t feel much like participating in the organized activities (although I did come in second in the trivia contest) so it’s strolling, people watching, eating, and the occasional cocktail.  Dinner tonight was lentil soup, roast duck, and crème brulee.  All rather good.  There was a show in the theatre tonight but there were no decent seats available by the time we finished eating and it looked like the sort of Las Vegas revue that I could easily miss so we declined and returned to the cabin early to watch some movies.  MNM needs to get cracking this week.  Tomorrow is our first port call at Chania, Crete.  More about that later.  We plan to explore on our own.

I caught up with the political news earlier today.  As the midterms approach and it looks like the Republicans are likely to be routed, the actions of the administration appear to have been turned up to eleven with defiance of court orders, overriding of laws duly passed by congress, and a rapid attempt to tear down NATO so that Trump can continue to show fealty to Putin.  Then there’s all the usual threats against the social institutions that continue to stand up against him including higher education, the press, and the judiciary.  When the current regime is gone, I still wonder how the enablers are going to try to explain themselves to friends, family and posterity.  ‘I didn’t know’ isn’t going to work as everybody knows what’s going on and ‘I was just following orders’ went out as a valid defense with World War II.  I would like to take a deep dive into some of what’s going on but I’m on vacation and trying to reset my brain, not overload it with things about which I can do nothing.   Be safe everyone.  Anything is possible and nothing makes sense.

Dateline – Rome, Italy

Today was a free day in Rome with minimal structure. This is my fourth trip over the years and therefore I have done most of the tourists sights over time so didn’t feel a particular need to repeat any of them After the usual hotel breakfast buffet (the pastries were good, the eggs were not), we headed out into another day of perfect walking/touring weather. Maybe a little cloudier than yesterday but still mainly in the low 70s with no humidity to speak of. Our first stop was to poke around the ruins of the baths of Diocletian as they are only a few blocks from the hotel. Then a few more blocks to the National Museum of Rome near the Piazza Republica where we spent some time with statuary, frescoes, and mosaics left over from Imperial Rome. A very good copy of the famous discus thrower statue and the garden frescoes from the house of Livia Augusta on the Palatine hill were among the highlights.

The next stop was down Via Nazionale and at the Forum Romanum. Last time I was here in May it was difficult to get anywhere due to many of the roads being blocked in preparation for the Italian national holiday. Today, a funny thing happened and many roads were blocked due to a major foot race through the city. Everywhere I turned there was a surly carabinieri officiously directing the crowd in some direction I did not wish to go. It may be October but tourist season is still going strong. Of the eight billion people on the planet, I believe fully two thirds were out for a Sunday stroll in down town Rome. I did fight the mob around the Fontana di Trevi in order to throw my coin ensuring a future visit but otherwise, I tried to stay out of high tourist areas.

The afternoon stop was a visit to the Palazzo Doria Pamphilij, a museum I had not yet encountered (and booking a visit in advance was helpful in securing a deal on the hotel). The Doria Pamphilij clan, Genoese in origin, came to the height of their powers in the 16th through 18th centuries and built an enormous baroque palazzo to show off their wealth and position. Famous members of the family included Andrea Doria (known to most of us for giving his name to an unfortunate ocean liner) and Pope Innocent X. The grand public rooms are given over to a remarkable collection of Italian paintings of the Renaissance and post-Renaissance period, some original, some copies. What isn’t covered in art is given to baroque excess. Down below the salons and ballrooms are what is known as the Secret Apartment. It’s not terribly secret as it faces one of the grand interior courtyards. It is a suite of much more human sized rooms which the family actually lived in rather than the drafty ornate public spaces upstairs. It was interesting to see the contrast. Then it was back to the hotel and dinner (herb chicken and mashed potatoes) before a walk to settle the stomach to the Quirinal hill and back with a stop for gelato. There is always room for gelato.

Tomorrow is a travel day. We have to get ourselves and our suitcases from central Rome to the cruise port at Cittavecchia by two pm. I think I am going to let Thomas figure that one out. As mentioned earlier, he has some Italian and can puzzle out the train schedules a good deal easier than I can. There hasn’t been much call for his archeological and evolutionary biology skills this trip. I first learned of them when he was visiting my place and picked the human skull that lives in my curio cabinet up and correctly identified its origins. We have been watching old episodes of Bones together and he offers a running commentary on what they get correct and what the writers are making up out of whole cloth for dramatic purposes. He’s sort of a real life Zack Addy (how about that Eric Millegan?)

I’m falling asleep after putting in nearly 30,000 steps today according to my pedometer so I’m going to end this entry here. More tomorrow.

Dateline – Rome, Italy

If you had asked me ten days ago where I would be this week, I would have told you all about my trip to the Balkans and Mittel Europa which I had booked some eighteen months ago.  That was before that trip was cancelled five days prior to departure (and checking the tour company’s website shows that they are not offering that itinerary again in the next few years, so I have a feeling that there were multiple factors at work there).  My travel agent, working overtime, found a replacement trip to Turkyie which fit my dates and that was quickly booked, only to be cancelled two days prior to departure.   My travel agent pulled another rabbit out of a hat and found a cruise to Greece and Turkyie, quickly rebooked everything and so here I am in the Eternal City, with plans to board the Celebrity Ascent at Cittavecchia on Monday.  It wasn’t the trip I had planned, but it is taking me to places I have not yet visited and, as a double stateroom was only a little more than a single stateroom with single supplement, it allowed me to bring my young friend, Thomas, the budding archeologist/evolutionary biologist along.  Those who keep up remember that I met him in Rome six months ago prior to his spending part of his summer digging away at Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli.  I recall us having a conversation that trip, as we discovered that we are fairly compatible travel companions, that we should just chuck responsibilities and head east to Greece and Istanbul.  Well, here we are doing just that so perhaps this is what was meant to be and we’re doing our part in completing some grand design for the universe.

Given the craziness of this past week, it would be too much to ask for an uneventful trans-Atlantic crossing.  We left Birmingham late afternoon yesterday without incident and arrived in Atlanta.  There was a layover of a few hours so we had a meal, found our departure gate for our Rome flight, and boarded without incident.  The plane being full and the appointed hour reached, we pushed back from the gate and headed down the taxiway.  Ding ding ding… ‘This is your captain speaking’… never a good thing to hear over the PA system at this point in a journey.  Some mechanical problem which needed attention so reverse course and back to the gate.  Mechanics and maintenance swarm the plane.  What ever the issue is, it’s not a quick fix.  Everybody up and off the plane and over to the next terminal as our plane isn’t going anywhere.  Fortunately, we are in Atlanta, the Delta hub, so an alternate plane is found and brought into service within an hour.  Everyone back on the new plane and off we go, three or so hours late.  The rest of the flight was without incident although I’m pretty sure Delta has shaved another four inches off each row in economy as I had to take on some rather creative yoga poses to get myself into my seat.  I did get some sleep.  The delay meant we were taking off past my bedtime in terms of my internal body clock. 

We touched down in Rome late afternoon Rome time to find clear skies, and absolutely gorgeous weather in the mid 70s without a trace of humidity.  The usual hurry up and wait for baggage claim, passport control (which is now pretty much automated – I do miss that satisfying thunk of a bored border control agent bringing down the stamp on your passport booklet letting you know you have truly arrived), and a taxi into town.  Our hotel, near the main train station, is clean, comfortable, and has a lovely private terrace overlooking the quiet street below.  We cleaned up, changed clothes, and headed out into the gorgeous late afternoon light of golden hour in search of a decent meal, ending up dining on pasta and prosecco at a little trattoria close to Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele II.  A walk to settle the digestion, and then off to bed at a relatively early hour as we try to get rid of the jet lag so we can have a nice full day tomorrow.  We went most places in Rome together back in May so we’re looking for some off the beaten track options.  I’m letting him be the logistics coordinator.  He actually speaks some Italian not gleaned from the operas of Verdi and Puccini.

I am trying to leave the rest of the crazy stateside for the next couple of weeks.  I don’t know if I shall succeed.  The latest doings in Trump World have penetrated the local news cycles and in these days of electronic reminders of the state of the world everywhere, I’m fairly abreast of the rapid career rise and fall of the newest press secretary, the threats of Kimberly Guilfoyle against the Trump family (and she, more than most will know exactly where the bodies are buried having been courtesan to Don Junior for years), and the president and Elon Musk trying to help Putin and Russia through manipulation of Starlink and related systems (potentially treasonable actions).  Then there’s his attempts to overturn duly passed and signed legislation through executive orders which strikes me as a major violation of separation of powers.  If it all collapses in the next few weeks, I’ll just stay abroad until the dust settles.  Someone please adopt the cats.

Word of the events of todays No Kings demonstrations and rallies has not yet reached Italian shores.  I’ll have to look and do some digging to see if anything of real interest came of those.  Not a lot of pictures today as I wasn’t out and about all that much and photographs of the interior of airports is not what y’all want to see.  I plan to report in every day while traveling so expect continued travelogue for the next two weeks. I’m due back in Birmingham Halloween night.

Someone up there is really enjoying messing with my life this week. The issues I have had with travel are making me double check the calendar to see if we have gone back to 2020-21 and the height of Covid. That was the last time things got so screwed up. Fir those of you who are not caught up, my Eastern European/Lower Danube river cruise, which I booked a year and a half ago, was cancelled five days prior to departure. Emergency meeting with my travel agent and we found a trip to Turkey which fit into the same slot. That was cancelled earlier this evening, two days prior to departure. Another emergency meeting with travel agent tonight. (I’m very much in need of a vacation). Found an Eastern Mediterranean cruise on Celebrity that fits around fixed arrival and departure dates. Best thing about this is that cruise for two was roughly the same price as cruise for one with single supplements so I issued a last minute invitation to a friend whom I knew had a pretty clear schedule. New Departure is Friday. New Destination is Rome with cruise through the Greek islands and still catching Istanbul and the Turkish coast. So that’s where things stand tonight. If this one falls through, plan D involves loading up the car and foregoing trying to leave the continent. I cannot recommend John Martin and Travel Designers highly enough for holding my hand through the last few days.

The saga of the continually changing travel plans is really only a minor stressor but it’s arrived on top of a number of other challenges. Some of them are related to work and my attempts to get everything settled for orderly transitions as I slowly back out of clinical medicine over the next year. A major one is something I cannot really write about at this time as it is someone else’s story but when the time comes, the whole tale may come flowing out of me as a novel, if not an opera, as the central character (not me) is truly an operatic force of nature. Then there’s all of the various projects around here that are left undone and which I feel I should be applying myself to as my departure date keeps getting pushed back. But what do I do? I watch old seasons of American Horror Story in honor of Halloween. A week and a half on a cruise ship may be a good thing for me. Some enforced relaxation might be a good thing all around.

The word is spreading through Birmingham that I am retiring and it’s making its way back to me with some rather odd conclusions attached. One story I heard has it that I’m retiring to a beach house in Florida (untrue), another that I have really accepted a position in California (also untrue), and a third that I’m not really retiring, just testing the waters (definitely untrue). I am stepping down from day to day involvement in clinical medicine at UAB as of the first of March. I am not working past this date as that is the day the electronic medical record switches from Cerner to Epic and I have no interest in going through another one of those changes. I am old enough to go back to a time when all health records were pen on paper and have been through four or five major shifts in record keeping over the years and just have no desire to go through yet another. Even though I am leaving the clinic for day to to day care, I will still be around in an advisory role as I remain full time faculty through at least the first of July. At that time, I plan to transition to an emeritus position. I will also likely step down from the VA house call program at that time as well.

I am not leaving Birmingham. My life is here. I hope for another good ten to fifteen years where I can travel, do my theatre work, write, and be involved in various civic causes before I will have to reevaluate again as my physical and cognitive capacity changes in whatever way it is going to. I don’t have a whole lot of say in that. I take reasonable care of myself, can usually keep up with those decades younger but I know full well that nothing last for ever and that robust good health is promised to no one and we all end up more frail than we might expect.

I’m looking forward to getting out again into the world later this week and gaining some outside perspective on the insanity of our current politics. The closer we get to the date of the midterms, the more out there it seems to get. I keep scanning political ads for ideas of substance that could address the real problems we face as a society but all I tend to find are vituperative attacks on political opponents. This has been going on since time immemorial, but our current chief executive has moved the bar so far on what sort of language is permissible that the whole thing seems to have devolved into a particularly noisy middle school cafeteria table. I keep expecting candidates to lob meat loaf and mac and cheese at their opponents.

We’ve had our first adult measles case in Alabama – someone in the Huntsville area who may have brought it back from overseas. Measles is one of the most contagious viruses so I’m watching to see if it seeds into any of the antivaccination communities of northern Alabama and if numbers start to grow. Covid remains relatively low but seems to be spreading. Flu hasn’t really started up yet. Get your vaccinations while you can. I remain a firm believer in annual Covid revaccination due to its great success in cutting the chances for long covid, a disease with which I want no intimate acquaintance. To bed, to bed. Who knows what the morrow may bring. Hopefully the next time I sit down to write, it will be

I’m going to take a minute and whine about my very first world problem that arose today.  It was an ordinary Thursday, which means I was doing VA house calls in my south territory around Sylacauga.  After visits, the team went to lunch at Good Old Boys Barbecue in Childersburg, one of our usual lunch stops (Childersburg is not known for its food scene).  I was halfway through my hamburger steak with gravy and onions, fried okra and baked beans when my phone rang.  It was my travel agent telling me that five days prior to my departure, the tour company had cancelled my Eastern European trip.  ‘Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to offer a program of the quality that our guests expect’ etc. etc. I’m a bit miffed.  On the scale of life disasters that I have suffered over time, this one is relatively minor, but I was looking forward to the trip which I booked eighteen months ago.  Romania, Bulgaria and the Balkans will just have to wait for another day.

Given the very short nature of the notice, I trust that Tauck will give me a generous credit towards a future trip along with refunding what I already paid.  We shall see.  My travel agent and I got together this evening for an emergency meeting to figure out a plan B. My dates are set in stone at this point due to patient care responsibilities and theatrical commitments so whatever it is has a relatively narrow window.  This will be less of an issue post-retirement.  The locked in clinical schedules I have had for the last fifteen years or so have been the bane of my existence, and I am looking forward to jettisoning those.  We looked at various options, but many had to be discarded due to dates not lining up quite right or airline schedules being impossible. We think there is an acceptable alternative, and I will know more tomorrow after he’s able to confirm with the tour company.  When it’s set I’ll let everyone know what it is.  I even have a plan C up my sleeve if nothing works out quite right.   I’m tired and my brain feels fried after all of that.  I had plans for some constructive things this evening, but I think it’s going to be bad television instead.

Just like Mongo, I am appalled at Pete Hegseth’s announcement today that the army’s firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan is to be livestreamed to the public.  First off, in a country as rich and supposedly civilized as ours, there’s truly no excuse for the death penalty over life imprisonment, especially as it’s been proven over and over again that death row inmates are innocent of their supposed crimes.  Second, I can think of no reason whatsoever for any execution to be public, a practice pretty much abandoned by the Western world in the first part of the 20^th century (the last public execution in the US having taken place in 1936).  Extrajudicial mob executions, of course, occurred much later than this.  Publicly executing Dr. Hasan puts us on the same moral plane as Al-Qaeda with their videotaped murder of Daniel Pearl.  (Full disclosure, I knew Danny slightly at Stanford as an undergraduate and I will never go looking for that video).  Only someone as morally bankrupt and dimwitted as Secretary Hegseth could even begin to think that this is a good idea.  All of those around him not raising their voices in condemnation are just as compromised as far as I am concerned.  I’m not saying that Dr. Hasan did not commit evil acts.  A VA colleague of mine was at Fort Hood and in that building that day and provided first responder assistance to the victims and remains distressed about her experiences to this day.  But this Old Testament thinking of blood for blood should be condemned to the ash heap of history. 

The Trump administration has a very narrow view of what masculinity is and should be.  Hegseth and Trump seem to buy in to a version which is all about conflict and competition and victory at all costs.  We’re seeing it here.  We’re seeing it in Trump’s need for a military parade and in the UFC cage match that destroyed the South Lawn of the White House.  They choose Sparta over Athens.  Sparta was victorious in the Peloponnesian War of the 5^th century BC but when we look at which of those fabled city states left a lasting mark on our civilization, Athens wins hands down.  From Athens we get philosophy through Socrates and Plato, the ideals of democratic leadership through Pericles and Solon, the drama through Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, oration through Demosthenes, and historical analysis through Thucydides.   In general, the only Spartan most of us can come up with is King Leonidas and that mainly through his recent portrayal in the cartoonish 300 – a film that I’m sure is near and dear to Secretary Hegseth’s heart with its depiction of well oiled, well-muscled soldiers in leather bondage outfits.

We need to celebrate the whole of masculinity. What makes a good father is not just the strong man with the gun but also the deep thinker, the nurturer, the artistic visionary and creator, the empath willing to walk around in another’s skin learning his life and experiences.  Perhaps our ideal masculine role model needs to be more Atticus Finch and less John Rambo.  Atticus proved to be a hell of a shot when it was necessary, but only when it was necessary and did not make his ability to kill the center of his life.  In a little over three weeks, we as a people have some stark choices about what we want to be and where we want to go in the future.  I am willing to abide by governance of a majority with whom I disagree if it is actually a majority. The thing is, voter turnout is significantly lower than it should be which allows noisy politically active minorities to win elections and impose their will.  It’s best fought by just showing up at the polls.

Because I am a gay man, my masculinity is often called into question.  I’m just as much of a man as any other.  I tend to express it in non-physical and competitive ways.  Some of that is due to my upbringing.  Some of that is due to my lack of physical prowess and kinetic skill, driven by the fact that I was such a tiny child.  Some of that is due to intellectual gifts and my figuring out at a very early age that I would be better served solving life’s challenges with brain rather than with brawn.  Some of that is due to my chosen profession which has honed certain skills with decade after decade of practice.  I have a feminine side and traits.  We all are capable of expressing and understanding all the complexities of gender behavior, traditional or non.  But I don’t feel my need to form intense intimate relationships with other men rather than with women makes me more female than male at all.  It just makes me more comfortable with people in general and gives me an ability to relate to all people in a more honest fashion.  It certainly kept me from having any interest in the Greek system in college which is coming under scrutiny again due to heinous behavior at Cornell.  Another example of the negative consequences of celebration of certain kinds of masculine traits above others.  I would, however, caution everyone from jumping on the outrage bandwagon.  I always regard those with trepidation, no matter from which direction they may come, right or left.  When emotion takes the place of fact and reason, very bad things can happen.   And there’s been way too much of this infecting our political discourse over the last few decades – it’s one of the reasons we’re in the pickle we are in.