Feta! Olives! Yogurt! Wine! Greece!

I am currently on Naxos Island, in Greece. It’s the definition of idyllic here, and I have to admit that blogging feels a bit wrong in this environment. I have a little place at Despina’s Rooms, which is run by the aged and unbelievably kind Despina, who keeps the place charming, spotless, and cheap. I can see the Aegean Sea from my window, write on the roof, and walk to the beach. It’s steps from the old, crumbling castle perched over the island. My days here are simple: I get up early to run along the beach, eat creamy yogurt for breakfast, have a cup of the strongest coffee (until now, I thought “so thick you can stand a spoon in it” was just hyperbole), work through the hottest part of the day, have a Greek salad with fresh veggies and the best feta, read on the beach for a bit, have some sort of just-caught fish for dinner, work more, sleep. Rinse and repeat. This morning as I was walking back from my run along the turquoise water, sweaty and happy, a very large fish startled me by jumping up out of the water several times, as if it were just so ecstatic with its own bewildering existence it needed a way to express its joy. Regardless of its true reasons (even bigger fish in pursuit?), I thought, “That! Is exactly how I feel!” and I started running again at a clip, splashing through the water and yelling all by myself on the beach.

The last couple months I’ve felt sort of dazed (will get to that shortly in my monthly recaps), but I’ve had a great week and a half in Greece—with the one notable exception of putting up with all the honeymooners smooching freaking everywhere, when the BF is so far away in New York. My mom met me here, appropriately, on Mother’s Day, May 8^th. Her luggage was lost, as it is on every trip and, to her utter dismay, returned to her sans packs of Newports. I absolutely love traveling with my mom; we have terrific fun together! We’ve had the opportunity to do quite a few little mother-daughter getaways over the years, and she’s my ideal traveling companion in that she wants to see a few sights, but is content to mostly just wander around a new place, exploring tiny streets and unexpected corners, and most importantly, reserves plenty of time for relaxation. We always play a lot of Scrabble, read for hours side by side, eat very well, and drink gallons of red wine.

On this particular trip, we spent two days in Athens visiting the Acropolis with its impressive Parthenon, milling about the National Gardens, witnessing the changing of the guard, and just walking around, where we were constantly stumbling upon things that were thousands and thousands of years old. The mind boggles. There was also plenty of time spent rebuffing the advances of men—the Greek men LOVE them some Bobbie D, let me tell you. After Athens, we hopped on a ferry to Mykonos (okay, let’s be honest, here, in a classic Mom-and-Jill moment, we MISSED our ferry by two minutes—picture us running wildly with luggage…there were tears—and hopped on a different, longer ferry with a detour), accepted a very entertaining ride from a toothless man, who stuck us in the back of his pick-up with Victor, an excitable German Shepherd with an unfortunately poopy butt he was eager to wipe on me, and caught another boat to finally arrive at the justifiably gushed-over Santorini.

Santorini…wow. The jagged, imposing cliffs rising out of the sea (caused by a major volcanic explosion), the extraordinary sunsets, the elegant white and blue buildings perched along the Caldera…it all creates quite a dramatic impression. It was very windy and more than a little chilly when we were there, so we didn’t have the days of hanging out on black sand beaches that we were imagining, but we still had a fantastic time. We stayed in the incomparable Aroma Suites, which included cave-like rooms built right into the Caldera cliff front, a hot pink princess bed with a gauzy wraparound veil, and over-the-top welcoming service. It was a bit out of my normal budget, but worth the splurge for just a few days. We rented a car and zipped around the island one day, and, after a 20-year break, Mom rediscovered her talents for driving a stick shift, channeling Speed Racer as she handled the tight curves on roads with no shoulder and 500 foot drops to the sea. Highlights included a monastery and the small town of Oia at the northern tip. On the last day, we walked down the many steps from Fira to the Old Port, and then hiked back up the cliff side in mid-day heat past the procession of “the donks.” Luckily, wine awaited us at the top.
After Santorini, we headed for Naxos, where the sun finally made its glorious appearance. There we had two days of classic Greek Island beach lounging, complete with thatched umbrellas, lapping waves, and the occasional Pina Colada. And, a bit begrudgingly, some buckling down to work. It was a great week, but, too soon, my mom had to return home. Now I’m here for another two weeks, with three goals: get an insane amount of work done, consume as much feta as possible, and run every day. And then…Tanzania.

* Oh, also: I did not win the lottery for the NYC Marathon this year, but decided to run a different one anyway. Hopefully this fall, and hopefully with the very impressive Suzi. More on that later, I’m sure, but for now, let the training begin.

** And! My toenails have almost completely grown back already, getting progressively less Hobbit-like every day. I know you’ve been on the edge of your seats awaiting that news.

L'Chaim!

I feel a bit sad about the way I treated Israel, in retrospect. I neglected her many treasures, there’s no doubt about it. The problem was, I was deeply homesick when I first arrived, and while watching all the families strolling around together in the sunshine during Passover and hearing more New York accents than I’d encountered in my entire journey, all I could think about was my fast-approaching weekend trip home. I didn’t do any sightseeing whatsoever my first week there, and since much of the city was closed on and off for the holidays, I spent most of my time on the beach, reading and working. There were endless amounts of people batting balls back and forth with paddles—clearly the hip thing to do. Also in: quirkily mismatched bikinis for teen girls, and Speedos for old men.

I did get to see Jaffa one night with new friend Elad, who was extremely pleasant, informative, and fun, and thought it his duty as an Israeli to promote tourism. Having no phone during my stay in Israel (I continue to live in the 90s with my broken, prehistoric cell), and spotty internet, I didn’t get to meet up with everyone else I’d hoped to, but such is life…Also I will say that reality lives up to the legend; I had THE best hummus of my life in Tel Aviv. (I realize I may be misspelling hummus according to Israelis—there seem to be a zillion different spellings and I am ambivalent.) I made it a personal goal to try hummus at as many places as possible during my time in Israel. All were reliably garlicky, always included lemon, and often had a nice little pool of tahini in the center. My hostel (Gordon Inn) was also most notable for its ENORMOUS free breakfast every morning, which included not only shakshuka, but about five different kinds of freshly prepared hummus. I could eat hummus all day, and I often did. I also had my fair share of gelato, falafel, and sabich—a roadside delicacy (that I believe is originally Iraqi) of eggplant, egg, and salad, bursting out of a warm pita. Yum!

After five days in Tel Aviv, I embarked on my overseas jaunt to New York—on a redeye flight that was, straight from the captain’s mouth, “more than 50% children”…imagine how that went. After my weekend at home (more on that later), I returned to Israel much refreshed—albeit now much more suspicious to Israeli passport control (“Why did you come back to Israel? Why would you go home for such a short while? What is your budget for this trip? Do you have friends in Israel? What are their full names and where do they live?” and on and on). They searched my bag over and over, but eventually I got both back in and then out of the country. (“I just wanted to see my boyfriend!” I cried, quite honestly.)

Apart from more beach time, I took a trip to the desert and Masada to see the ruins of Herod the Great's fortress, where the Sicarii faced off against the Romans in the year 72, eventually committing mass suicide rather than be defeated. The system for getting and storing water was genius, and I loved seeing the foundations for the floor and wall heating of the steam room, but most impressive was just the fact that it’s all still there after all these years, laid out under the desert sun. Straining your ears, you could almost hear the ram thudding against the wall as the Romans laid siege. On the way back, we took a detour to Ein Gedi Spa for some skin-rejuvenating mud baths, sulfurous swims, and blissfully buoyant but dangerously sun-beckoning floating in the very salty Dead Sea. It was definitely cool (as Kelly told me “It’s like your butt and the sand are opposite magnets repelling one another”), but also made my contacts totally freak out and my eyes get all squinty and red. My skin was baby’s ass smooth, though, that’s for sure.

I spent the rest of the week getting in some great runs along the beach. Tel Aviv is seriously my kind of city—lots of young people, lots to do, plenty of good food. It almost reminded me of Brooklyn, but with a better, more convenient beach. Very hot, but it was a place I could live, for sure. I had planned to finally go to Jerusalem on Saturday, but because it was Shabbat and I am an idiot, the buses weren’t running, so apart from driving through on the bus on the way to Masada, I totally missed out. Kind of an epic fail, to have gone to Israel and not seen Jerusalem, but hopefully I’ll get another chance…providing customs lets me back in the country.

Christmas in Wanaka

On Christmas morning, I got up super early to climb Mt. Roy in Wanaka with my friend, Adrian. It was an excellent idea, but we didn't go about it the best way. To put it plainly, we were really, really stupid.

I can only attribute our stupidity to some lingering fuzziness from Sam's birthday bar bonanza the night before, because now when I remember that I set out on a seven hour hike, two and a half hours of which involved summitting a 1600 meter mountain in the blistering ozone-less sun without any sunscreen or much water but with a nalgene full of Jameson hot toddy while in a state of supreme dehydration, I'm still kind of dumbfounded.

The tramp up was BRUTAL. Over two hours of switchbacks that seemed to go straight up and never end. The-top-is-just-around-the-bend syndrome. My calves were screaming, my throat was parched, and I whined the whole way that it was worse than the marathon. It really was. But...

The top had this view:

And the way up and down had these sheep, everywhere:

Totally worth it, and a pretty top-notch way to spend Christmas morning.

When we got back, after making Christmas phone calls home, everyone feasted at our giant hostel barbeque, a bunch of orphans huddled together around sausages, crepes, enchiladas, and fritters. The pie, though slightly undercooked on the bottom because I have yet to truly understand conversions to celsius paired with ovens with settings in Italian, was still quite tasty.

Before leaving Wanaka, I did make it out to Puzzling world. Which was, indeed, puzzling. Got stuck in the maze for over an hour and sprained my brain on all the enigmas, but that's another story...

Regardless, Merry Christmas to all (and to all a good night...)!

Down to the Wire

Wow. So much to do, so precious* little time.

I am trying to get as much work done as possible before I go, but my head is a-jumble with a screeching that can only be described as a high-alert stress sound reminiscent of a rape whistle (included in my headlamp, BTW), and it is blocking out all other coherent thoughts. Since no one is home, I thought it would help to just scream for a minute to sort of, you know, clear out my system and start fresh. It didn't, but I did succeed in scaring the crap out of the cat. Stella is not amused.



In short, I'm starting to panic a bit.


Tonight will be spent with the sisters, tomorrow morning Ad arrives, the weekend is wedding and friend-tastic, and then I'm back in New York for two days until departure. Which means I have to do last minute errands, complete all necessary work, do laundry and have all of my things of value squirreled away where the sisters won't be able to locate them for eight months...by this afternoon.


I've been going to bed late and getting up at 5:30a for many days to squeeze it all in, which I guess will help me avoid jet lag on Wednesday as I sleep through the whole 5+13 hour flight. (Who am I kidding? I can sleep anywhere, anytime anyway. I am a sleep champ.)


But! I'm already completely packed, and it all fits into a carry-on-sized backpack and a small messenger bag. Behold:





My hiking boots are even in there! So are my jeans! And my lightweight cooking pot! Osprey bags coupled with Eagle Creek stuff sacks are a truly magical combo. It also helped that, due to your suggestions, I cut the number of clothes in half and left out a few other things, like the stove and bug spray (list has been updated, as such). Honestly, I haven't been bitten by a mosquito in YEARS, and I've got $700 worth of anti-malarials stashed, anyway. Shudder.



I've started saying goodbyes, which has been strange because it doesn't feel real at all. How will I not see Gina until her wedding in September? I can't believe when I hug my grandmother and say "See you next August," that that can possibly be the case. Or my parents. I'm already getting weepy. I know... me, weepy? Ha.


I am almost 28-years-old, but my family is super big on traditions, and this is the first time in my life I won't be with them on Christmas. That means no How the Grinch Stole Christmas read-aloud ("Dahoo Doris, fahoo Forest, welcome Christmas, Christmas cheeeer!"); none of Dad's famous hors d'oeuvres, wine, blaring Christmas tunes, and ornament hoarding while we decorate the tree (drunk Santa must be positioned to look as pathetic as possible, while the hanged baby needs a prominent position); and no new shot at finding the hidden pickle. Not to mention Christmas Eve dinner and the elaborate who-can-open-presents-slowest competition. Mom gave me my yearly supply of peppermint bark already since I won't be around. I usually wolf down the entire tin as soon as it's out of my stocking, but I'm trying to ration it out so I can have some Christmas morning and feel a little closer to the fam (even though Santa will come a day ahead of time in New Zealand).


Okay, I guess I can't complain too much, though. I still can't believe it's even possible for me to do something like this--something a lot of people wait their whole lives for. And despite the vague melancholy at leaving everyone I love to go so far and for so long, despite the daunting task of tackling so many new places alone and navigating through cultures in which I don't speak the language, more than anything, really, I'm so freaking pumped! Six days! Ahhhhhhh!






*Note: whenever I use the word "precious"--which is rarely, mind you--I think of Gollum. Every. Single. Time. Damn you, Tolkien.