A Distracting Getaway

The tumultuous atmosphere around the U.S. election made me decide a getaway was needed to save my sanity, and the more distracting the better. Luckily, there are safe, easy places to travel where I can’t speak or read the language, saving me from constant “breaking news” that merely adds stress.

Since romance languages are familiar to me, we chose Greece and Turkey, where I literally can’t even read the alphabet. All I had to do was lock my phone in the hotel room, then focus on not falling down the hundreds of stone stairs we climbed in the ancient towns of Rhodes, Lindos, Istanbul and Napflio. Uneven and cracked, yet slippery and worn smooth from thousands of feet over centuries, the stairs required concentration all the time. Some of them even had bannisters.  Part of the way. Those were mostly the spiral staircases…  Good thing it was all so beautiful!

Then there was the plumbing. I had to remember that toilet paper can’t go in the toilet. And then do gymnastics to use the foot pedal to raise the lid of the adjacent wastebasket. While simultaneously holding said toilet paper, flushing the toilet, and attempting to reassemble my clothing. While washing hands. I needed to be an octopus. Again, a great distraction.

Another little challenge was ordering meals. I forgot the fish would likely arrive whole, and I don’t care to befriend my food before eating it. There was also the matter of reading lights, which are amazingly scarce in quaint hotel rooms. And time wasted trying to get through airport baggage claim and security taught us that ferries would’ve been the wiser choice for moving between locations. Athens was our last stop. Here’s a painting of the fountain in its main plaza, Syntagma Square.