Reflections From The Road | Vol. 3

Six months down, six to go. Or maybe not. Changes are afoot, my dears, but I don’t know enough right now to know which way the path will lead. Trusting that God will work out the details…

In the meantime, I’ve been so spoiled by all my sweet friends who I met up with in Greece & Turkey – Susan, Anita & Courtney, Lauren, Matt, Jorel and Amber. And I’ve made some absolutely lovely new friends (the USA boys living in the Middle East, the UK bunch, the crew at Katerina’s, the staff at Scandinavia bar, Nic, Ant, Brendan and all the crazies in Ios, etc.), eaten the yummiest Greek food and turned my skin a toasty golden brown. Don’t let the protests in Athens fool you – life in the Greek Isles are where it’s at!

Oh, and one more thing….

Barbara Streisand!

Highs

• Feeling an overwhelming sense of relief once my pals arrived. (And not just because of the goodies they brought from home! Thanks Susan, Lauren & Jorel for refilling my supplies!)
• Finishing my eBook, The Blogger’s Guide to Travel PR and somehow winding up on the whole front page of the Life section my hometown paper, The Florida Times-Union.
• Devouring the salmon risotto at Katerina’s… six times. Then dancing for hours night after night in the window at Scandinavia Bar. (One has to counteract the risotto somehow!)
• Feeling like a local in Mykonos, where waiters would see me walking by and say, “Are you still here?”
• Watching the sun set and then rise again more times than I can count in Greece.
• Hot-air-ballooning in Cappadocia, Turkey.

This is not supposed to happen.

Lows

• Slapping a huge creepy bug off my neck while in bed in Koh Lanta.
• Paying $40 for a trip to famous Phi Phi Island but instead spending the entire day trying not to capsize in high seas in an overloaded longtail boat.
• Getting relieved of $400 USD by a pickpocket in Athens.
• Dealing with the harassing emails & threats of an unhinged woman from back home… a long, complicated story, but the drama seems to have passed.
• Waiting with Lauren for 7 hours while our ferry from Mykonos to Santorini was repaired.
• Realizing my fat jeans are getting pretty snug. (Thanks a lot, risotto, feta cheese & tzatziki!)

Channeling my inner chipmunk in Athens

Lessons & Goals

• It’s been such a blessing spending time with close friends this month. I was in Thailand on my own for so long, eating food I didn’t particularly enjoy, being dangerously sick, petrified of massive cockroaches and trying to explain to every waitress that no one else was joining me. Table for one! It’s not that hard to understand, heh?! Ahem. So needless to say, it was a breath of fresh air to have heart-to-heart chats with some of my best friends and to enjoy Greece together.
• Ios was an eye-opening experience. If I ever have kids they won’t be allowed within 100 miles of the place, I don’t care how old they are.
• Even though I’m technically (or mentally) a ninja and sort of in the CIA, I am not immune to pick-pocketing. Lesson learned: though nerdy, just wear the stupid money belt! I’ve been lugging the thing around in my suitcase all year and haven’t touched it once. In this case, it would’ve saved me $400 and an annoying trip to the Athens Police Department.
• There are cute little churches practically built on top of one another in Greece, and yet none of them seem to actually be functional. Hoping for more opportunities to continue Church Around The World in the next 60 days. For now… podcasts & streaming sermons!
• I hemorrhaged money in Greece, and not just the $400 that the pick-pocketers made off with. I can’t even think about how much I burned through or I will have to do a little panic dance. I almost took a job as a VIP hostess at a bar to make up some cash, but then I decided I’m too old to stay up that late every night. That said… I’m taking on small PR clients & freelance writing jobs that pay, so send any takers my way.

What’s Next

I’m changing course and staying in Europe a little longer than I anticipated. First stop? I’m meeting friend Jen in Spain to check off a huge travel wish: Running of the Bulls! Then… well, it gets a bit hazy. But you’ll be the first to know once I figure it all out.

Thank you for sticking with me!

What was your favorite post so far? What do you want to read more of? Please do let me know in the comments section. (I don’t much like talking to myself!)

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