My Big Fat Greek Charter

Greece is one of those places that I always knew that I would get to. Like Russia, I had this serendipitous feeling that someday, somehow, I would have the opportunity to go to a country that had been immortalized in so many images that I’d seen. Globalization is making the world ever smaller however visiting places like this make you realize once again how big it really is with a population of 3.7 million in Athens and every Greek island having it’s own personality, culture and story. Last night pulling away from Mykonos at 1am, I finished my long shift on the top deck, trying to track down all the guests to make sure that they had really gone to sleep and it hit me, I’m here. Looking up, the twinkling stars caught my eye and the quaint city lights and dwindling music from beach disco as we made our departure, brought me directly to that moment. I’m here. I’m right where I’m supposed to be. After 2 long years of struggling against myself, knowing that my life in Florida was not in the direction that I wanted to be going, I finally feel right. That I have finally turned around and instead of going against the current, I am letting it take me with its natural flow and that in this space and time, I feel good. I knew that I would always make it to Greece, and although this is a whirlwind tour with a smorgasbord sampling of this mythical nation, it is more than I could have dreamed. Picturesque white washed walls, bright blue trims, bursting pink bougainvillea scattered with a few old men playing chess and a stray cat curling around the foot of their chair, I’m here. Catching snapshot images where I could in our miniscule time off, I absolutely know that I want to come back, when I can lounge on a lazy café window seat, sipping a cool drinking on warm day and wait for the sun to dip, casting orange and pink shadows on the canvas white walls. With a too short break in Athens today I was unable to visit the city, but I grabbed the binoculars and wow, there it was, the Acropolis perched on top of the hills above the city. All I could say was… “it’s sooo…Greek!” With perfectly defined columns this picture that I had burned into my brain my entire life was sitting right in front of me! I couldn’t take my eyes off it for a while. Yes, hopefully one day I can come back here and get my fill of ancient Greece, olives and ouzo….ok maybe not the ouzo but I’d like to come back here all the same.