Six degrees of Separation(Or Maybe Less!): Brad and Angelina...

Today we were in Crete (official name: Agios Nikolaos, Crete, Greece).  What did we find?  It was something like a Caribbean Island, with a Greek flair.  Rather than take a bus ride to Knossos Palace on the precipice of a high mountain, we decided to save our energy for two days in Cairo starting tomorrow.  So there was this cute little open air train that took tourists around the island -- sorta like those big red double decker busses in a lot of metropolitan cities.  So we decided it was an easy way to see Crete -- especially since we were only in port for 6 hours!

About Brad and Angie.  Apparently a couple of weeks ago they helicoptered to a fancy resort ($35,000 a night) on “Long Island” in Crete where there is a golf course, the ocean, pools and no way to get there but helicopter.  And, I can top that!  It used to be a leper colony for like 100 years!  And noone from Crete would go there, so the lepers were left to their own devices... BUT they kept breeding and the kids were not lepers, so finally they let them come on shore in Crete and turned the island into this stunning resort!!  So, with the Brad and Angie thing, I think it means that we are close friends now, since I SAW the island and resort they stayed at AND Brad is from Missouri and so are we.  So there... six degrees of separation at least!!

Actually,n there are vestiges of the Minoan civilization here, including the Palace at Knossos.  And Roman colonists, the Byzantines, Arab invaders, Venetian colonists and Ottoman pashas all put their marks on this not so little island.

What you see now though, is lots and lots of vacation condos, houses, villas, lots of them being built or empty.  And cobblestone streets.  And tourist stands.  And kinda high class outdoor cafes mixed in with the ones the locals go to.  The island has 7,000 people year round and in the summer the population swells to 14,000.  Which means there is still plenty of room for you guys to buy up a villa (250,000 euros) and plan to spend summers on the beaches of Crete.  One difficulty...getting here.  I didn’t see an airport and it is probably too hilly to have one anyway, so I guess you’d have to buy a yacht or at least a motor boat to have a summer vacation in Crete!!

On to Alexandria/Cairo, Egypt, where we’ve been told we need a fan in the Egyptian museum or we’ll collapse (no a/c and stagnant air inside) and watch out for the pickpockets.  But, on the other hand, I’ve been promised fresh mango ice cream and drinks at the mango stands!  Maybe that makes up for the other.

Back in Turkey for an eyeblink: Ephesus

Today we are in TUrkey again and I have to tell you, I still love Turkey the most!  People are so friendly, accommodating, the country appears so happy (maybe because they conquered the Greeks for 400 years and like to lord it over them or something).  Whatever the reason, I would return here for more exploring in a flash, if offered the opportunity!  And I do think they are in such an interesting position: a secular country that is Muslim surrounded by more warlike Muslim countries on one side and CHristian countries on the other side!

Anyway, we spent the morning in Ephesus, the place St. Paul gave the speech to the Ephesians and was booed off the stage -- so he had to write that famous letter to the Ephesians we see in the Bible.  He was speaking to the Ephesians about there being only one God and the people there worshipped lots of gods -- which meant that merchants there were selling thousands of statues and stuff to the residents.  This city, after all, had 250-300,000 residents!!  And that meant a lot of goats were sacrificed, and candles were burned and multiple statues were sold to residents who needed some special thing, like to help with childbirth or next year’s harvest or who knows.  So those darn ol’ merchants did NOT want Paul to kill their businesses.  Makes sense to me! 

Anyway, the site of ancient Ephesus is a marvelously restored open air museum.  You can see the two story library, the third biggest in the ancient world.  And there is a footprint outside the library pointing to a house of ill repute across the street -- that had a tunnel from the library to the house!  “My dear, I am just going to the library for a little reading,” says an errant husband, who promptly uses the tunnel for his nefarious visit to the prostitutes!

We see here on the marble streets little holes, which were used for carts and horses, so they didn’t slip down the steep street, but could get a grip.  And we saw 2 amphitheaters, one which help 25,000 people at once and featured gladiators, horse races, etc.  AND we saw the huge toilet room, which included 42 holes to do your job in.  Running water ran under the seats and a little bit of water ran in front as well.  And, not to get too graphic, but they used sticks to wipe themselves.  Hence, the saying:” Don’t get the wrong end of the stick!”  In the middle was a huge pool for people to bath.  While  they don’t know for sure, they think this area might have been used by both men and women, as the ROmans were not noted for modesty!

The marble streets were lined with shops where all sorts of goods were sold.  And they have started renovating terrace houses where the rich people lived.  Were there bathrooms in these houses?  Natural question.  Yes, also here.  But the houses at Pompeii were much easier to see and envision life during Roman times.

The question comes:  Why did such a large city die?  Well, it was a port city and had lots of ships coming into the port back then.  But, as time went on, the port silted up.  And each time they moved the port, it silted again.  And, surprise of surprises, the Romans couldn’t figure out how to dredge the harbors back them . Who says they were such good engineers??!!  Also true outside Rome in Ostia Antica, which also died for lack of dredging!

Oh-- Part 3 on the Turkish-Greek argument.  Our guide this morning said:  “If we are such bad people, why did we allow the Greeks to keep their own language rather than make them speak Turkish -- and why did we allow them to be Christian rather than Muslim?”   

And on to Crete tomorrow and then Cairo for two days!! 

Where Joanie Fails...

I know you are all thinking that Joanie the Greek is perfect.  I’ve known Joanie for 35 years and I thought she was also.  But now I know... she has a BIG flaw!!

Back to that tour guide again.  When I told her about my friend now named Joanie the Greek, she said that she guessed I knew then about ouzo.  I told her I knew what ouzo was, but that was all.  Well, apparently, in GREECE,  GOOD GREEKS have ouzo BEFORE the meals and the hostess makes 4 dishes of cold mezes (appetizers) and then 4 dishes of hot mezes and then 4 dishes MORE of cold mezes and 4 dishes MORE of hot appetizers and on and on.  She says it is harder to have family and friends over for ouzo than a dinner, since there are always so many mezes and sometimes it just doesn’t end -- and the hostess is stuck in the kitchen all evening.  NOW I HAVE BEEN TO JOANIE THE GREEK’S HOME MANY TIMES AND NEVER BEEN OFFERED OUZO OR MORE THAN ONE MEZE(APPETIZER).  Since I am Scandinavian, all I have to offer when we have Joanie the Greek over is one appetizer made up of herring or sardines.  So I don’t count...whew!!  See what I mean?? She is not perfect!!

Also, for breakfast Greeks do not eat at home.  They eat these pretzel-y looking things from carts that are roasted with sesame seeds on them. They also eat sweet corn roasted on the street for breakfast. THe pretzels actually looked good, but I never got to try them.  And I know Joanie the Greek does NOT serve pretzels or corn to Annie for breakfast -- so what kind of Greek Grandma is she??

So while I love Joanie the Greek like she was my sister, she does have a thing or two to learn about entertaining...

Athens Part 2: Grandmas Rule!

So, we were still riding along through Athens with our grandmotherly guide when her monologue turned to Greek Grandmas.  And I have to give it to my best friend “Joanie the Greek”, as it must be in her blood!! Truly...

See, Joanie is the perfect Grandma.  She has babysat for her granddaughter Annie from birth -- nearly everyday and even overnight!  And she ALSO babysits regularly for her two grandsons, who are 2 and 1!  She is known as Grandma Yia Yia which actually means “Grandma Grandma Grandma”, since Yia Yia means Grandma!!  And her children all live within a half mile of her, come over to her house every Sunday to watch football and eat Sunday dinner-- and if Sunday is inconvenient, they come for dinner some other day!  Joanie, a retired first grade teacher as well as a gifted teacher, teaches her grandchildren from birth everything they need to know through high school--and laughs at them and with them all the time.  The kids have bedrooms with toys piled high at Joanie’s house.  And she doesn’t mind if they get paint on something or drop clay on the carpet!  That’s the perfect Greek grandmother. And Joanie happens to be the best sister to her Greek brother as well.  He lives in Minnesota, so Joanie calls him at least once a week, and maybe more than that.  That’s definitely Greek also!

How do I know?? Well, again, our guide speaking; “ Greek grandmas love their families beyond reason.  They take care of their grandchildren from birth until marriage, while their children go to work.  THey would never hire a babysitter or let ‘foreigners’ take care of their children (and by foreigners she means anyone who is NOT family!).  So Greek grandmas take children with them shopping, never take vacations without their grandchildren--and they are never happier than when their entire families from aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, great grandmas, great grandpas are all together eating and laughing.”

To show you Joanie’s “Greekness”, she asked me to bring her dirt from Greece for her and for her brother Johnny ,last time we were in Greece.  We didn’t get dirt, but we did bring her some bottled water with a Greek label from the ship.  Apparently, the ship had picked up water from a Greek company when docked sometime.  Well, when we gave the water to Joanie, she called her family together in a circle.  They EACH got a small jigger with water, drank it all together, with a Greek flag present and danced and sang the Greek national anthem.  That’s my friend Joanie.

So this time we couldn’t stop in Greece without getting the proverbial dirt from their homeland.  We are surrepticiously sneaking two vials of dirt in our suitcases for our Greek friends.  And Joanie the Greek has a plan--of course.  She has seeds from her Grandma (another of those famous Greek Grandmas!) that she has saved for 20-30 years in a paper towel.  And she and her brother are going to plant Grandma’s seeds in the dirt to see if they will sprout.  Now she doesn’t know what kind of seeds they are.  I told her they could be “Jack in the Beanstalk” seeds and her granddaughter might climb them to the clouds and meet her great-grandmother and want to stay there.  But Joanie is willing to take the risk.

Joanie’s comment to me: “If the seeds don’t sprout, we’ll know it wa Turkish soil, not Greek.”  So just to be certain it’s Greek soil (all Greek and nothing but Greek) we are picking up dirt from 3 Greek islands as well as Athens.  Then it’s not our fault...

Athens: Greeks vs. Turks (Greek View) Pt.2

So, we were happily driving through the streets of Athens on a bus with our guide, a fiftyish beautiful Greek lady, when she started talking about Greek history.  At first, Bos and I were giggling in the back of the bus, because (and you will remember this from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”) she was recounting all the words in the world that come from Greek roots.  Just like the movie. And that includes, not just words, but also culture, philosophy, food, airplanes, cars, cats, dogs, houses, mountains, roads, rubber, fabric, basically everything!

And then she got down seriously to Greek history.  Like there is evidence of ancient settlements in Athens from the 7th millenia B.C. However, Athens was not always the most important city of Greece, because its greatest rival in antiquity was Sparta -- and the Persians.  The orator Demosthenes warned the Athenians about Macedonians back then and he was right because, in 322 B.C. Athens was conquered by them. (So you can see that the words “war” and “victory” must not have Greek roots!)

Anyway, then it started.  What do I mean?  Well, she told us the TURKS invaded Athens in 1456 and the city stayed under Turkish rule for 400 years until 1834 when the Greeks finally got it all together and beat the Turks back to Turkey and declared Athens the capital of the new country of GREECE.  But the way she put it was:

“Those 400 years were the Dark Ages for Greece.  While the rest of the world was experiencing the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, we were subjugated and in the Dark Ages. It was an awful time and now we are still trying to catch up.”  (Greek Version vs. TUrkish Version)

An aside here: In Athens guarding the tomb of the unknown soldier are military men (in Greece young men must do 2 years of military service), wearing Greek war garb.  WHat is the garb:  well, short skirts with 400 pleats (for those 400 years of domination--will they never forget?),knee socks, jaunty little berets with dangles, and pouf balls on their shoes.  And they goose step also.  They tell us these costumes were supposed to scare away the Turks.  We just thought they were “cute”.  Not really very scary.  But maybe that is why it took 400 years for them to win a war!!

And in 1923, the Turks and Greeks agreed to a “peaceful” people swap, where all the Turks in Greece were to go back to Turkey and all the Greeks in Turkey were to go back to the “Promised Land”.  Two million Greeks  “voluntarily” went back to Greece while five hundred thousand TUrks went back to Turkey.  

Our guide told us that there were 600,000 Greeks in Istanbul who stayed there, but between then and 1959, they were persecuted, their shops burned again and again, their homes burned down to the point that now there are only 2,000 Greeks left in Istanbul.  

Lesbos, No Not What You Think...

We were looking forward to wandering around Lesbos, mostly because we, like most people, were curious about the legend of Lesbians.  You guys, stop what you are thinking!  No, it is not an island full of females hungry for sex with anyone!!  Shame on you. 

FIrst of all, we never got to the island -- because the seas were too rocky.  We would have had to tender in rather than docking and the captain was not only worried about getting TO Lesbos, but worried about getting us back to the ship from Lesbos.  So we spent the afternoon looking at Lesbos as we sailed around it.

However, to answer that unasked question:  some people think the reason the lesbian legend got started was from Sappho, the Greek poetess, who apparently lived on Lesbos and wrote really racy poetry!  I, personally, like the 2nd story!   Back in 428 B.C. during the Peloponnesian War, the island revolted against Athens.  Not a smart idea.  They did surrender.  However, Athens was really angry, so the Athens assembly decided to kill all the men in Lesbos and enslave all the women and children.  Hence, they dispatched a ship to do the deed.  The next day, in a less vengeful mood, they repealed their death sentence and sent a second ship after the first ship.  The second ship pulled into the harbor just as the commander of the first ship finished reading the death sentence.  Just in time... So it would have been an island with lots of women, if  only....back in 428 B.C.!  Nicer story, huh!!  Now, on to Athens...

Did You Hear The One About the Turks?

When we were in Istanbul a week ago, we told Janset, our wonderful guide, that we would be back in Turkey in a week.  She asked where and when we told her Trabzon, she scoffed and said, "There is nothing there!  Why go there?  In fact, when we Turks in Istanbul talk about the Turks along the north shore of Turkey, we talk of them like you do about Poles in the states. You know,  how many north shore Turks does it take..."  So we promptly cancelled our planned tour of Trabzon!

As an aside, when it come to Turkey, the southern part is along the Aegean Sea and is jammed with resorts.  A couple who were traveling all over Turkey told us about a hotel called the Palace, newly opened, that was so over the top they were breathless, and it was built by a Russian oligarch.  When it was opened, lots of movie stars flew there to enjoy the opulence and over the top taste!  The west is the most cultured and cosmopolitan; the southwest is where all the Roman antiquities are located and where all the olive orchards and fruit orchards are located, and the south eastern area is where the Kurds are located.

Back to Trabzon.  there were two tours offered here.  One was to a monastery carved into the side of a hill on the top of a mountain.  It included 1400 steps up.  That's right. 1,400!  And no handrails, very narrow, and they admitted, dangerous.  No thanks.  I was a bit intimidated as some of the 70 and 80 year olds opted to climb up the hill!  Good for them!

Trabzon was founded i the 7th century b.c. and was taken over by the Ottomans in 1461.  It was noted for being an important trade port.  Suleyman the Magnificent (the one whose wife killed off her rival wives' sons!) was born here.  And Ataturk summered here also.  That's about it for Trabzon.

So now we are off to sail through the Dardanelles, also called the Hellespont in ancient literature, and back into the Aegean Sea, where we explore some of the Greek Islands before landing in Athens!

I am all prepared to get some Greek dirt for Joanie as well as her brother, so they can celebrate their heritage!  And now I'm excited because we just engaged a private guide and driver for Egypt.  We don't need to go 12 hours to Cairo -- we go there, spend a night at the Four Seasons, tour another day and they will bring us back to the ship!!  We figure we will never get an opportunity to see Egypt again, so do it right this time!!

Dinner with the Ship's Crew

A couple nights ago we got an invitation to have dinner with the Chief Safety Officer (hello, Ben) and the Ship's Concierge, Martha. Martha is a wee bit of a girl, 4'11" tall, from Ireland.  In addition, there were two couples at the table, Kay and her husband from Palm Desert, in their 80's and simply delightful, and a couple from NYC, Seymour and Phyllis.  Seymour was the vice-president of CBS Records, President of CBS toys (who knew they were in the toy business at one time!), and negotiated the sale o CBS Records to Sony, so he was vice-president of Sony for 5 years.  Mostly classical lovers and really into NYC, opera, and Broadway.  ANYWAY, it was an interesting night.  Many of you may remember our friend Gail Noble who, when we were in Anguilla, had a habit of never ordering dessert.  She would sit there and when the rest of us got dessert, she'd say, "How does that taste?"  When we would offer her a bite, she would decline and continue to say, as we ate, "How does it taste?  Is that a really strong chocolate?  DOes the whipped cream have vanilla in it?" -- never tasting any of the desserts!

Well, I figured Gail had designed a new diet that should be a hit: you just watch everyone eat and ask them what it tastes like, savoring in your BRAIN, not your mouth, the food that all your friends were eating!!

So, our new friend Martha ordered no dessert.  You know where this is going.  She started asking each of us what the dessert tasting like.  She declined to try, but kept on asking...  Then I told her about Gail and the "VICARIOUS DIET".  Now she wants to meet Gail and asks me each day, as we pass on the ship, have I heard from her friend Gail.  I do think this kind of diet could surpass "South Beach Diet."  There is a future here...

In addition, we had dinner last night with Seymour and Phyllis.  Seymour is a quiet little man, nearly 80, who, when prodded, told about his life at CBS and Sony.  He talked in billions of dollars when negotiating sales, getting 10 billion here, there and everywhere.  We sat, stunned.  Never knew anyone who talked in billions before!  And they have a 6 day a week housekeeper that does everything for them.

Phyllis is aggressive.  When her son wanted tickets to "The Producers" and she didn't want to pay for premium seats, she called the President of American Express and complained --- got the tickets and then they sent PHYLLIS flowers!  Why don't the rest of us do things like that??!!

And Then We Get to Real Russia...

After many stops in the Ukraine, we finally landed in the REAL Russia...Sochi by name.  Sochi is where the 2014 winter Olympics are supposed to be held, which means we were surrounded by the Caucasus  mountains.  It is strange to recognize that, although we had been in the former USSR in all the previous countries except Greece, the feeling here was different.  First of all, you needed a visa to get off the boat independently, not on a planned boat tour.  And to get a Russian visa is quite a feat.  We had to get one for a 3 day visit with a private guide when we were in St. Petersburg a few years ago.  They have pages and pages to fill out with your history from birth, if you had been in the military, had you worked for any company that made chemicals, weapons, makeup, baby formula (I’m exaggerating about that, but truly it was daunting!!!).  And then it cost, I think, $500 a person!  So no one wants to get off the boat without a planned boat tour!

One of the ship’s workers tried to go into town with a friend. Now, all boat personnel have a blanket boat visa at each port.  The military lady allowed one of the workers through but not the worker I talked to.  Who knows...  The climate is moderate at the shore and you see lots of people swimming on the Black Sea beaches.  I imagine, since they have lost the Ukrainian resorts, this is next best!  There are natural springs, so resorts of have popped up and it is a resort town now, with skiing in the mountains.

Sochi was inhabited by the Khazars, a group of nomads from Asia for centuries.  They worked with the Byzantine Empire, so there are remains from the Byzantine era circa the 11th century.  The land’s ownership went from the Byzantine to the Ottoman (Turkish) empire until 1829 when it officially became part of Russia.

I had the same feeling here that I had in St. Petersburg -- Russia is suspicious!  What are they suspicious of?  I would say, primarily, the West.  While they long for things like jeans and MP3 players, they scoff at Westerners behind their backs.  And this seems to be a consistent history with Russia.  So I don’t care to go back to Russia at all.  And next we are floating back to Turkey...  

If It’s Monday,,,and Tuesday...and Wednesday..It Must Be Ukraine!

Odessa in the Ukraine, with its 200,000 stray dogs, was very interesting.  You probably read about it.  But next was Sevastopol...and then Yalta.  In other words, we were getting our fill of Ukraine.  Frankly, they were so Russian-like and had all formerly been in the USSR ...and spoke Russian in addition to Ukrainian...and loved the former USSR, they all seemed the same to us!  If you’ve seen on Ukrainian port, you’ve seen them all...sorta!

So, when it came to Sevastopol, I won.  We decided to stay on board and relax a bit.  Of course, we could see the shore and the port.  But the rest of Sevastopol was all military stuff, like these shore trips:  Crimean Battlefields, Balaclava, Black Sea Navy.  See what I mean??  And the MEN, when they got back on board, were delighted with the troops coming over the hill, the battlements, the way guns were facing.  We, on the other hand, enjoyed 4 p.m. tea with delightful little sandwiches and sweet stuff!  And then we played trivia.  Unfortunately, even with Bos’s Vast File of Fairly Useless Information, we still lost.  One question, something about carrying bones of saints around, we felt was UNFAIR!  We knew reliquary (from Betsy’s love of reliquaries!), but the answer was something that began with “f”.  

Next day: Yalta.  Yalta is where Churchill, FDR and Stalin met to plan the end of WWII and how the world would be divided up.  Actually, Yalta is a seaside resort with lots of high rise hotels and apartments.  They call it the “Riviera of the Black Sea.”  It had first been a Greek colony, then a Byzantine port in the 12th century, then became a Genoese trading colony in the 14th century, when it was called Etalita or Galita.  Those warlike Ottomans took over in 1475 and the Russian Empire captured it in 1783, along with the rest of the Crimean peninsula.  This was, in fact, the spark to begin the RUsso-Turkish war in 1787-1792!

After that it became a very fashionable resort for the Russian aristocracy and gentry with writers like Leo Tolstoy (“War and Peace”)and Anton Chekhov (“The Cherry Orchard”) spending their summers here. 

We saw lots of palace -- too many palaces, if I’m honest!  Alexander III built the Massandra Palace, which was used by Stalin for his vacations,  and the last Tsar, Nicholas II, built the Livadia Palace here in 1911, right before the family was massacred. The Lividia palace is where the Yalta Conference was held in 1945.  So we saw the table and chairs used, Roosevelt’s bedroom, etc.   I was most interested in this palace, as I became fascinated with the Russian tsars after my LLI class on Catherine the Great and Peter the Great.  

BUT when it came to the third palace, Vorontsovsky Palace, I gave up. This was just a palace of a rich man who summered there. And whenever the Europeans say it is a “short walk”, beware!  That could be a mile or two and usually with steep inclines!  I got halfway up the hill to the V-Palace and could not see the end with more hills to come -- and decided to sit down on a rock wall and watch the people. I watched Mercedes after Mercedes climb that darn hill with sightseers inside.  But not us.  Our bus parked at the bottom and wanted all of us to “soldier” up “Mt Everest”. I was a little embarrassed not to struggle up, as our bus included people with canes who were struggling.  But not me -- I gave up!  The fun part was: when all our people got down the hill no one knew we hadn’t been up to the top and we talked “knowledgeably” about it to everyone!

Next up wine-tasting.  We had to try 10 glasses of Crimean wine.  Needless to say, we were quite tipsy when it was over.  Was it good?  Well, two things:  it doesn’t matter how bad it is after a half glass; it all tastes the same.  And the simple answer: NO!  But some of the guests bought bottles, which was the point, I guess!

During the 20th century Yalta was the premier vacation spot for Russia, as the Russians really could not easily go outside the USSR.  In fact, in 1920 Lenin issued a decree “On the Use of the Crimea for the Medical Treatment of the Working People” and the government would pay 70% of the vacation to this area for tired proletariats.  In addition, the government built numerous sanitariums around the area for people with lung and heart problems, which still exist today.

The area is beautiful and VERY hilly, with resorts perched on the precipices overlooking the Black Sea.  It reminded us of our drives along the Mediterranean in the south of France and Monaco.  

One thing we remembered from a previous trip to St. Petersburg: a disgruntled Russian tour guide complained that now that the Ukraine was a separate country, they needed a visa to go to the beaches on the Black Sea and that was a lot of trouble and expense!! Funny, huh!