On-the-Road Tales

Leamington Spa is a lovely little town here in the Midlands of England. Had never spent much time here so it is a nice change to London area. We explored around a bit and I got to be a ‘Tia” once again adding to my list of foreign nieces and nephews. Tomorrow I fly from Birmingham to Belfast. After yet another public bus which will bring me to Derry, I intend to meet mom somehwere in a shopping centre. yeah. Very excited to finally get home and back to the family. Travels and trips have been fun but some normalcy and a chance to view my photos is never a bad thing.

My measly 3 hours sleep was not enough as I whipped out of bed to cacth the 0400am bus to Athens Airport. Again, chaos reigned as the people in the back tried to climb over luggage to buy tickets and the people in the front climbed rearward to validate their tickets at the only machine in the back. Erg, to think they run this service every single morning like this and another 23 times a day, silly. I knew the flight was not going to be pretty when I saw all the overly hung over liverpool football club fans passed out in the waiting area ready to go home. As luck would have it a young mucker, still drunk was seated right next to me with 4 of his buddies. I knew al too well what the end of this would be but it was a full flight.

They served breakfast about 1 hour into the flight. the airplane food smell must have woke my partner next to me up and it was not long before he was regurgitating last nights fastivites. Fantastic sitting next to someone getting sick for the next 2 hours. I could not do much but hand him water and sick bags and wet wipes. I thought he was going to cry saying I was just like his mom taking care of him and I decided to bite my toungue telling him he has no business getting on a plane in the state he did. Such is life. That is my good deed for the month. In 3 hours I was in Gatwaick and got to wait 1.5 hours in the immigration line. That was fun. it was Saturday and they do not have enough staff working we were told erg…

I jumped a train to Reading, changed for Coventry and got off at Leamington Spa. A good friend of mine from Brasil, Carolina came and met me at the station. Her mum and dad were just leaving back to Brasil and I got to catch up with them. Carolina and Francisco have a lovely little one year old now, Lucas, who is a bundle of energy.

Greece may be making a lot of money off tourism but they do not seem to be too well geared for it. Their tranportation system works but pity the traveller trying to plan by it. Our bus out ... [Continue reading this entry]

After a wonderful breakfast overlooking the sea, I headed to Ammoudi Port to join a boat trip. The directions were "at the castle - descend 300 steps". Since there are hundreds of sets of steps up and down, ... [Continue reading this entry]

Spent the day exploring the oceanfront. Walking out along the seawall to the light house etc. Nice town. Next morning, I shuffled up to the bus station and boarded a coach for the "2.5" hour dirve west to Iralkio ... [Continue reading this entry]

I met up with some other backpackers and we were all hoping some people would be waiting at the dock to offer us rooms since no one had prebooked. Wrong. Guess They do not want to get up at ... [Continue reading this entry]

I spent the day exploring one of the ancient capitals of civilization. The Acropolis, ancient agora, Tower of the winds, fascinating little city. I am told, things dramatically changed for the better with the arrival of the Olympics. ... [Continue reading this entry]

Our group parted and returned again to the far corners of the world. I have no doubt I will cross paths with some of them, somewhere in the world, at some point as our love of journeying is shared. ... [Continue reading this entry]

We sailed some more up the river then grabbed a minivan to join the convoy to the city of Luxor. We checked out Karnak temple, the markets, the oil and perfume making, natural alabaster, all sorts of egyptian stuff. ... [Continue reading this entry]

This morning, the 9 of us boarded a Felucca, a traditional sail boat to cruise on for the next 24 hours. It is basically one big cushion covered overhead by a swath of fabric so there is absolutely nothing ... [Continue reading this entry]