Ramble On

Seems to me, the last week or two of August is a big time vaca week for all. I get it -- kiddles aren’t quite back to school, the weather’s still grand and business is slow-ish since everyone else is off in far flung places -- having fun and being annoyed with famiglia too.

Where am I? Work. Fantasizing about far flung places.

I used to dream of taking the Trans-Siberian from Moscow all the way to Vladivostok  with a week long stop at Lake Baikal along the way. Maybe another stop in Ulan Bator in Mongolia.

Why haven’t I? Jesus that’s, at bare minimum, a month long trip and I’ve never gotten more than two weeks per year (tops) off from the day job -- ever. What’s that you say? Save the time off -- build it up until I’ve got a full month? Ah, if only life were so simple.

And I want to go to Turkey. Why? Minerets, the baths/hamman, megalithic ruins -- Apollonia, Alexandria Troas, Magnesia on the Maeander. The names alone send me off into imagination
orgasms.

It’s nirvana for ancient civilization geeks and, boy howdy, that’d be me. In another lifetime, I was a serious archeologist -- I just know it!

Another long held dream -- Macchu Picchu. I used to imagine hiking the Inca Trail from start to glorious finish. Sendero Luminoso must be credited for me not doing something so abjectly dimwitted. You see, I like the idea, the concept of big, week long hikes -- seems all kinda sweatily romantic. The actuality? Hell, 20 minutes into it and I'm full on despising the uphill trek. And camping? In a tent? Oh please. I imagine I’ve said this before -- my idea of camping is a B&B with the bathroom down the hall.
So yeah, the Macchu Picchu dream is gonna have to wait until I either find a way to afford to go without hiking and camping OR I become a different person who actually enjoys that shit.

One year Cindy and Giovanni, my buds in Sarteano (Southern Tuscany) had hoped to book a beach house in Sicily for the month of August. Their thought was that they’d get a big place -- friends and family could come and go. We could stay the full month or just a few days. A week of reading on a sunny foreign beach? Sipping chianti with chums, new and old? Taking long strolls down sandy stretches? This, THIS, seemed utterly fab and right up my alley.

And then the global economy hit an iceberg and went all Titanic thus ruling out Sicilian beach rentals.

I’ve got a week off coming to me at the beginning of October. At this point Jen and I are planning to meet our buddy Brenda, from Slane -- just north of Dublin, in Reykjavik. Why Iceland? We’ve never been (apart for a layover in the airport and that SO doesn’t count) and it’s a relatively short flight so we can go for a long weekend. Also, hello, Penis Museum! Besides that, why not?