GREEK ISLES CRUISE
October 13 - 25, 1974)
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13. Up at 7:30 and through the morning until 11:20 as described on DIARY 9006, which I typed then, and I worked so long on putting stamps together to take along (a totally useless task), and filling up the totebags for the couples, and writing letters to Laird, Mom, and Bill with final information. I have lunch and continue working on stuff for the trip, reading lots of things to try to keep up with Arnold and his knowledge of the trip, and chat with John for a bit, who tells me that Tom Warner will be using my apartment while I'm gone, so there's more things added to the list: change the bedclothes, put things away so they won't bother him, and scour the tub and sink for his use. Then about 4 shower and shave and take care of my own stuff, and then there's dinner to have and dishes to wash, putting them away quite wet just to get them out of the way, and then I'm working on my own suitcase, and as usual I don't leave quite enough time, let alone time to work the puzzles, so I start racing along, taking along much too much in my own tote bag in the lines of pills and safety pins and rubber bands and suitcase cord and knife, and forget such things as my bathing suit, ties other than the one I'm wearing, and then I take along altogether too many books to read, also. Weigh in at just 30 pounds, but the red canvas bag of 14 totebags is quite heavy and MY totebag must weigh at least 10 pounds. Dash through the last-minute suitcase-shutting and hair-combing and tumble the garbage downstairs, slipping the notes under the door to John and the check for the rent to Mrs. Johnson, turn on the phone, make sure all the lights are off, and DASH down the stairs at 8:27, fearing to be late for Glenn Davis. To the corner at the DOT of 8:30 after mailing the letters, and it's windy and no sight of Glenn. No cabs, either, which panics me, so I flag the first one that comes at 8:35, and wait until 8:40 for Glenn, but he's TOLD me not to wait for him, so the obliging driver says he'll try Atlantic Avenue, and it's stop and start and stop, but he still seems to make good time, and we're there at 9:10, and the rest of the evening (no sleep, of course) I recorded in the front of "The Halloween Tree" THAT I couldn't read on the plane. see DIARY 9008.
THE FLIGHTS TO ATHENS
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13. [From "The Halloween Tree":] 10/14/74; 11:15 am Amsterdam time, at LAST at a window sweat, on time (well, the plane was supposed to leave at 11:05 but will leave at 11:45, waiting for a flight from London to connect), and EVERYONE is accounted for. INCREDIBLE hurry, as usual damn it, at the end with packing and taking out trash and leaving apartment to get to corner at EXACTLY 8:30. No Glenn. 8:35 I grab a passing Checker and wait till 8:37: no Glenn. Driver, to JFK! $8.40 on meter and $1.60 tip, he LIKES me, and in at 9:10 to INCREDIBLE Hassidic melee! People, family, friends, yarmulkes, black silk coats, beards, shouting women. Can't possibly meet anyone here. Check MY bag in and attendant says that the Wards have been in and maybe others. Up to gate to look around and put up sign and finally the Cooks and the Tovells appear. Have them watch my bag (now about 9:30) and I believe the fellow who tells me that someone in bifocals was FRANTICALLY paging me! I rather panic: go downstairs to have the announcer page all TDI people to gate 12. Up to find the Biebers and the D'Ursos, but the Cooks have gone so I can only get rid of three sets of bags, which everyone seems to want, thank goodness. Finally, about 9:45, Glenn shows up and says he forgot SUNDAY schedule was different and took a cab from Jersey to Penn Station, and another cab from Penn to JFK. He finally tells me that the travelers were instructed to check THEMSELVES in and I'll meet them on the PLANE! Wait for the incredible Jewish-only fracas with carry-ons and translations and bitchery, and then on to find the Fitzpatricks sitting across from the Tovells. Great. Flight off late at 10:40 and my watch crystal, unknown to me, pops off at 10:50, catching and severely bending the second hand. We're up, finally, and I get Purser to announce for Dr. Arnold and Mr. Ward. Arnold reports and I somehow think he's Ward. This is revealed later in the flight (after Arnold is paged AGAIN, and he waves his bag at me, and I wondered why.), and so all I'm missing is WARD. Kathy Morrissette and I talk and talk and talk about travel and career and everything, and about 11:00 I discovered my watch was broken. DAMN! Dinner about midnight to 1, getting turbulence that makes me queasy to my stomach, almost wishing she'd shut UP. Try sleeping at 2, she has to go to john, I decide to go for convenience, decide to ask Steward about when they clean the plane, and a girl standing by HAPPENS to say "Oh, my girlfriend FOUND one," and it's IT (my watch crystal). FLABBERGASTED. Borrow a penclip to press the end down and it appears to work perfectly. Set hands at 7 am, Amsterdam time (5 hours difference, 6 hour, 50 minute flight). Get in-out choice for the Grande Bretagne, number of bags, and a couple quibble about Istanbul and Dubrovnik and TRY to sleep 7-8, when sky begins brightening. Windows so placed that aisle seats see NOTHING. Incredible Jewish performance with phylacteries and shawls and torahs and arm-wrappings, and they say it's EVERY morning prayers. Breakfast is a pain with everyone bowing in the aisles with the married-shawls around their heads and the leather thongs around the arms and the box cameras on the foreheads. They say they'll land at 10:30, Purser says we'll make the 11:05, and we walk a LONG way to A14, I buying Johnny Walker, forgetting my ticket, then forgetting the BOOZE. She smiles and says "You must be in love." Wards show up to permit me to gloat over ALL my charges (through no skill of my own). Checked and CHECKED beyond gate, in handbags and along body-lines, front, back and sides. Onto plane and finish writing this at---hm---11:50 as plane begins to fill with dark-skinned people, and the route is Amsterdam-Athens, Cairo-Dubai! My window seat will be FINE if the fellow in front remains content with his NO window and keeps his seat up. FOUR seats put into THREE windowspaces. No WONDER there's no legroom. Now, at 11:55, to read THIS book. 37,000 feet for both flights. Off at 12:10 for the 3 hour flight. ASTONISHING visual angle at the window is translated to a TINY change in height of the liquid level of my vodka-tonic. [Cathedral Roof: the roof left the walls not at a right-angled 90, but a daring 93, so that the roof soared to a cathedral ceiling that sent the peak towering a full three inches above the inferior walls.] MOSTLY cloudy, but MAGNIFICENT tumble of Alps and clouds and peaks and immense snowfields changing acid green and etching red through the Polaroid of the windows. Fitzgerald tended to a shirtless heart patient.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 14. Early part of day described on DIARY 9008-9009. This continues from those notes: Biebers chatted about their trip up the fjords. Snow already sugaring peaks in Yugoslavia, but clouds get higher and higher. Two LARGE planes streak north below, quite close. Crystal falls (out of sleeve?) in bathroom as I wash at 3:05, Athens time, about an hour to go, and weather below looks stormy. But there was no trouble flying low over Athens, although I was sitting on the wrong side, so I saw nothing of the city as we dropped VERY sharply to the landing, as before, and I was relieved the flights OVER were over. Only the flights back to survive. All out onto the same huge trailer for the ride to the terminal, and I'm looking for those who are to meet us, and Yannis comes up with a plump smile on his warm face, and the younger one, Costos, is trying to get numbers of bags settled for the bus, and there's a sand-complected Cathy Grahame looking pert and eye-shadowed near one of the counters, and it turns out that Arnie's group had ALSO just gotten in, so we could all get into the bus together. I can't remember most of the names to introduce everyone, so I'm again in a panic, but all the bags seem to be gathered, most of the questions I fend off to Arnold, and then we're into the bus for the long ride into town, with Arnold making most of the announcements (a bit too much, I thought), and we drive up before the huge embarcadero building for the escalator (and elevator for Janet in her wheelchair) up to the top for the Stella Oceanis. First trouble: the Wards and the Arnolds don't like their quarters: the Wards wanted deluxe, the Arnolds don't like to be down so low, so they look at the OTHER accommodations and they SWITCH, though Arnold says that I shouldn't tell the Arnolds that they probably won't be eligible for a refund since they switched VOLUNTARILY. Arnie and I have to share a cabin, which is a pity, but we settle in quickly and get dressed for the Captain's reception at 7. I shower in the tiny room, feeling relieved to get out of the white shirt and jacket, and up for free drinks (daiquiris awful, so I switch to ouzo) and dinner, fairly good food, then Santorini's been CANCELLED for missile practice, and bed at 11-TIRED!
CRETE: KNOSSOS AND PHAESTOS
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15. Have trouble going to sleep, and then I wake up early, so I feel fairly ghastly when I wake finally at 7 to shower first and get ready for breakfast and then for the lifeboat drill at 8:30. The cameraman was taking pictures all over the place, but my gray hairs were blowing so in the breeze I wouldn't dream of buying my shot, even though it was with Arnie. On deck to watch the docking in Heraklion, bright sunny day, and a guy I figure is gay tries to get close to me, talking about his travels from Australia around the world, but later in the trip he's attached himself to two blondes, so maybe he's straight. But he's so craggily old he'll probably get anything he can. 9:30 off the ship for Knossos, onto a crowded bus, and the whole place is so rebuilt that it looks more like a movie set than like an actual ancient site. Plump guide shows us around, and people keep asking me questions until some of them get wise enough to begin asking how many times I've been here: this is my first trip. OH! And then they don't ask so many questions. Buy books from the site and two folders of postcards from the museum, and take notes in the cover of the book: 100,000 people in 1700 BC. Knossos: words ending in "os" are not Greek, but pre-Hellenic. Evans has been criticized for his extensive (personally financed) reconstructions. Frescoes are layered, they changed in style "like wallpaper." Queen bathed in asses' milk. Multi-layered stone floor. Bronze only metal: tweezers and mirrors, which were handled with ivory. In 1400 BC an 800 FOOT tidal wave from Santorini?! The queen's toilet either (1) used continuous running water or (2) flushed. And there were no toilets in Versailles. Drainage system still works. The architects were Daedelus and Icarus. 400 people lived in the palace of 1400 rooms (judged by theater capacity). Columns of upside down cypress trunks to prevent their reblooming, and for aesthetic reasons. Vases had no bottoms, removing the hand poured libations of milk, blood, and "schnapps." Boys wore beads to hold down their "kilts" since they wore nothing underneath. Sewers covered with removable flagstones for repair: better than NYC. Throne of alabaster is the most ancient in Europe. Eagle's head, lion's body, snake's tail = Griffin. Same as INDIA? Cover and facing page 33: Minoan shields, figure 8, two bulls' hides stitched; backbone indicated in yellow, spots represented. Hall 1 has incredible idols in case 13, and fabulous jewelry from Mochlos. Cocks were dressed UP. Goddess Daughter of the snakes has a multi-colored ivory skirt! Ears come off the bull. Lots of octopus jars. Phallic PAIRS of males, phallic male sucking a phallic loaf or musical instrument? The frescoes on the second floor are VERY fragmentary, but enough pieces gave enough clues that the reconstructions appear to be true. So this is another legendary site that I'm seeing at last: KNOSSOS! Back to the ship for lunch at 1:10, rush through, and out to the bus at 2 for the long trip across the island to Phaistos: there are islands of green fresh plants under the shade of slate gray olive trees. Shrines along the road. Carved buttes in some places along the road look like the Badlands or Bryce Canyon. Tall thick cypress trees. We stop in Gortys for the Basilica of St. Titus, mostly in ruins, and for the law-wall that I buy postcards of later. Guides keep bumping into each other, and their animosity is rather trying: pity that the sites will be empty all day, and then two busses traveling together will disgorge French, German, Spanish, and English guides all talking at once. Spectacular road across barren mountains, great views, and up to Phaistos to fenced-in ruins, areas still being worked on, and I draw a quick map of the area since there are no guidebooks. Buy all the postcards I can, have a soda, drink the rest of someone's beer, and Dushka is sitting morosely, saying the ruins aren't worth it, and they somehow aren't. Doze in the seat on the way back, and since we're past the time for the 5-6:30 medical lecture, it's postponed to another day. Very tired as I shower for dinner after the captain's welcome at 7, then the notes for Rhodes tomorrow, and then out to look at us sailing for a bit before down to dinner, and passengers complain that we're always so busy we can't see the ship sail. Finish eating, have a drink of wine thanks to Cathy who orders for us, and then I go immediately to bed, where I've finally gotten accustomed to the ship's movements and can sleep a full night.
LINDOS AND RHODES
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16. Through here somewhere we were both keeping track of the moneys to be paid in for the shore excursions. Travel Dynamics had come up with a certain price, but then the ship published a cut-rate price, so we had to go with that: $7 to Heraklion; $8 for Lindos; $4 for the Rhodes city tour (which was ridiculous, since it just paid for the guide and entrance fees of about 50); $3.50 for Delos; $10 for Epidaurus and Mycenae; and $20 for Volos and Meteora, for a total of $52.50, which the ship was selling at a cut-rate of $41, and so the tour was even sold to those who didn't go on the Heraklion tour (the Tovells, since they'd been to Knossos before), because even WITHOUT Heraklion the individual prices came to $45.50. We were all given passenger landing tag numbers (112 for me) so that they could tell who returned and who hadn't returned to the ship. Wake-up calls were to go to the bartender, since he was the last one to go to sleep, and it took 24 hours for washing and pressing, though I turned in nothing during the whole trip. Since the Lindos tour leaves at 8:15, we have to get up early to shower and eat breakfast, and riding through Rhodes, John, the guide that Cathy hates because he hasn't been sharing his commissions with her, said that the red trumpet flowers were hibiscus, the purple trees were bougainvillea, and the "pampas grass" was called Spanish bamboo. There were great pebble pavements in Lindos, and we essentially cover ALL the streets of the 100% tourist town. The Church of Lindos is VERY dim and dark, the center panel is pulled aside to let us see the regalia, and a woman in black shouts angrily from the doorway, and later we figure it's because some woman entered who wasn't dressed properly. The Norfolk Pine looks like a multi-fronded Monkey Tree with mock pineapples. Rhodes was a much more pleasant island than Crete, greener, lavish with trees and flowers and bushes, and the beaches on the way to Lindos were quite beautiful. The town itself was picture-book white, and the donkey ride up was great, since we went down quiet side streets where the only noise was the clip-clop of the donkey and the "HUNH" of the guide to keep the donkey going strongly uphill. We passed many jogging frantically DOWN and Madge later said she wouldn't DREAM of riding one down from Santonini. The acropolis looked down over a fabulous blue and green sea below, and it may have been so salty that swimmers were buoyed up so high it looked like they must be on surfboards or buoys, but they weren't. Boats sailing, as if for the guide, in and out of the rock-arched enclosed bay near St. Peter's chapel. Great views down, beautiful white surf breaking, and walking down we could see the large bay to the north gleaming in the bright sun. Every house appeared to be selling something, even mothers holding babies were selling lace with their free hands. Everyone shopping and shopping: sweaters, blankets, everything, everything, and I just bought books and books. Down to the church, then to the bus to wait for the last person in: Arnie, and then the dash back to the ship at 1. Leisurely lunch because the shore excursion doesn't leave until 3, and John talks too fast for some and walks too slow for others: the street of the Knights is just a tourist trap, the Master's Palace quite impressive, though you can't step on the mosaics, and he tears off pieces of laurel for a wreath for Buddy, though Heinz keeps grumbling that that would cost a $500 fine for disfiguring plants in Houston. Johnny steers us to the local Nikas and Takis, but no one seems interested in buying anything, and I herd some of the people back to the ship, passing lots of cafes and shops selling junk, and back to the ship at 5:15 in time to get up for the seminar, given by Tovell on vulvar tumors, and I'm rather surprised to see that the whole thing will be about female sex problems, with slides yet, and I can actually follow what's being said, so I'll probably go to many of them. It goes on to the Rhodian Folkloric Ballet at 6:30, and they play on the Santuri and the violin, do dances from Rhodes, Kalymnus, Peloponnesus, Karpathos for the stately Greek chain, and Rhodes again; with men's dances from Sybetico and Crete for war. 7 sees the briefing for Delos and Mykonos, 7:30 the Greek dinner in a dining room loaded with grapes, and Buddy comes in in a sheet-toga with a laurel wreath about his head, and then Anne Marie teaches Greek dances in the lounge with the crew dancing, a fake Ari Onassis, ouzo, and fun before bed.
DELOS AND MYKONOS
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17. Up before the alarm goes off to clean up and then wait for Arnie before going up to breakfast. More often than not we sit alone at our table, the others taken up with their own people: the Wards and the Arnolds together; the D'Ursos with the Cooks with the Becks to keep things lively; Arnie's four main couples stayed together all the time, two of them celebrated their "second honeymoon" by eating alone; my sixsome of the Tovells, the Biebers, and the Fitzgeralds always sat together, and poor Aurora Rivera, having to pay "for the man in my room who isn't there," finally tells me of all her frustrations of being treated as a second-class passenger at lunch in Delphi. The four-minute eggs started out perfect, but then they began to get too hard toward the end, the bacon was good, and the toast was always rock-hard. The tenders for Delos were there at 8:30, and I got onto the second one with lots of people, and then wandered through the island-covering ruins before the last boat arrived and Leda could begin to try to explain the island to about 100 people at once. From notes: "Lots of lizards, square semi-walled rooms, PIECES of things, deer turds, and a rusting fragment of a railroad track. "The sex" of the Hermes was many times insertable into a hole (to make it bigger? What happened to all the replacement parts?). "In those days the man was the nice sex; today, it's the women; then, the men." They held the Olympics nude to study the muscles; they had beauty contests for men." Marble from nearby islands: Paros, Naxos, Mykonos, etc. Fifteen lions originally. Ruins here were always VISIBLE, columns and statues still standing when excavations began; lions had to be set up. Other side of island used for sheepherding; not excavated yet! The whole ISLAND was probably covered! Stones re-piled up. "Minoan Spring" inscriptions for public cistern makes us think the Cretans had been here. Five-room hotel. Fifth century CHURCH here, too, AND a synagogue and stadium on the other side. Almost lingam-yoni "libation basin." Stones in houses covered with stucco painted in designs, lines, or so as to simulate marble. Cistern UNDER the mosaics on the floor of the open atrium. "House of Dionysus after mosaics. Three sides of atrium short, one side tall, is called the Rhodian construction." HUGE closed public cistern near an ENORMOUS amphitheater (no, a THEATER, since about 200, amphitheater is 360). Top: about 10 houses and huts---whole island demarked by rock walls---many many islands around. Museum is by far the biggest building. "Last tender at 11" they shout as we get off at 11:30. No time to see museum, no time for very much time at the top of the staired hill---would like to spend another couple hours on it. Back to boat for lunch, then off to Mykonos at 1:30. There's a seminar from 1:00 to 1:30 in the lounge, after lunch, good, taken from poolside buffet, on "Hypertension in Pregnancy," as opposed to "Hypertension OF Pregnancy." Mykonos: tiny town, tiny streets, tiny tri-wheeled trucklets zipping through streets, and lots and lots of cats. We meet Arnie's friends that he's lugged about 10 record albums to, chat with friends on the streets that seem like a Met Opera stage set with everyone knowing everyone. Watch people shopping, and then we time the bus to Ana Mera and the monastery there, going at 5, and we walk the streets until then, stopping for a cheap bottle of wine that tasted cheap, and then ride through the turning highways of the desolate island, trying very fast to keep up with construction, beaches, shops to keep the tourists happy, but the whole country is suffering with the 50% reduction of tourism that occurred this summer because of the Cyprus problems. The windmills are picturesque, but we didn't go inside. At the monastery we wandered around until a monk saw us and opened the church for us, telling us about the icons from 1000 AD from Florence, the chewed wax on the faces, etc. Out and back at 6:30, almost dark, stopping for a snack at the deli at the top of the minuscule town "square" (where the only crossroad goes up the hill), and then we try to get lost, try to get Arnie shirts and fail, see everyone carrying back their purchases, and take a tender back at 7 in time to hear the orientation on Nauplion, and I'm not interested in "Day of the Jackal" so again I have the chance to get to bed early and catch up on some of the sleep I've been missing, though I still feel GOOD throughout the trip.
EPIDAURUS, MYCENAE, NAUPLION, AND COSTUME BALL
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18. Up and breakfast and leave at 8 to get on the bus for the trip across the peninsula to Epidaurus. Rolling hills with grapes being dried in the sun, hazy weather, though cloudless, and it's only after I get there that I can see why I didn't recall much of it from the first time: we pass all the ruins of the temples and the Tholos and the stadium, and get right up to the theater, where some of the MEN go to the top, and I don't. She tells us all about it, many try the acoustics, it IS in good repair because it's used every year, and then down the small hill to the museum, which I didn't remember at all: there's almost nothing there: a small case of surgical instruments, some fragments of statues from various temples in bad light, and then enormous chunks of exhibited or reconstructed Tholos, showing ceilings and walls and rosette and patterns of the labyrinth. Buy the book that they didn't have before, and then drive out the same way. That's really all there was to it, and I didn't gain anything in particular over the first time, except the book. Then across again to Mycenae, and there's the long talk outside the beehive tomb, and I just don't seem to get interested in it, having seen it before. It's big inside, and I hadn't remembered the side tomb, and it seems that the original discovery was thought to be 600 years from Agamemnon's time, but when I was there before it was 400 years difference, and now it's only 200 years difference, so next time it WILL be the same. Arnie said that Schliemann was held to be rather a lucky fool, but Leda, our guide, seemed to give him more credit. Buy another book, listen to ALL the people talking about all the gates and tombs, and don't even get to the top of the hill as others in the group do, and again some of the older ones (even though Aurora guessed my age at 22, the most outlandish yet) outdo me in enthusiasm and walking abilities. Don't remember much of what it was at FIRST, and don't remember much of what it was even NOW, so there mustn't have been very much to it. Could it be that there's too much over-romanticization of the ruins of Greece? Back top the bus and the ship for lunch, and since the ship doesn't leave until 1:30, I'm out again into the town for a half-hour to see how close to the top I can get. Start toward the right, below which point they are in process of building huge hotels, but quickly reach a dead end in the treey, ferny, cactusy stairway, and walk toward the left to find another road that goes up to the Xenia hotel near the top, and the Pyramis is being built even closer to the top. Over the edge to look down to the people lounging on the beach and snorkeling in the clear blue and green water, and it might be nice to stay at this particular hotel. Dash down with little time to spare, see Arnie and George coming back to the ship loaded down with melons for their lunch, and then Arnie and I go to the lounge to see people working on their costumes for tonight's party. I see the rainbow of colors of crepe paper and think of "Rainbow," and Arnie says "And I'll be the pot at the end," and at last I push him away and make a large joint and staple strips for "Rainbow" on the front and "The pot at the end of the" on the back, which will be visible when I turn around, and having looked at the photos of previous contestants (some of whom were TRES gai, but no on THIS trip, no one but the beautiful Dimitri, the Chief Steward, and the even more exotic waiter with the HUGE crotch in his tight black trousers) I figure the photographer will have to take at least two of me, and he takes three, but all of the FRONT. Janet is pulling the Trojan Horse in her wheelchair, and I'm surprised when Cyclops sits next to me and starts talking to me and it's GORDON COOK! He gets third prize, Heinz Beck gets second as Neptune, tied with the hairy possibly-sexy guy with the deformed wife (she's got a knuckle for a shoulder and limps) as Aescalapius, and of course the Trojan Horse gets first, getting more shoulder bags for the women and the Stella Oceanis key chains for the men, which they wear as medals to the next dinner. Between 4:30-6 I watched Simone Signoret wincing away from Jean Gabin in "Le Chat," from the Colette story, and from 6:30 to 7:30 listen to the seminar, then at 7:30 listen to the briefing on Volos and Meteora, then to dinner, the ball at 10, more drinking, and dispose of my costume in the waste basket and get to bed about 11, more tired than usual.
VOLOS AND METEORA
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19. Disembarkation is at 7:45, so we must have been up very early to be ready for it. Arnie wasn't going, so he told me to keep good track to the times: so I took notes: Leave 8:05, arrive Varlaam 10:20, start tour 1 at 10:45, leave at 11:45, start tour 2 at 12:05, last call to bus at 12:40, look at the last rock at 1:05, to the restaurant at 1:25, everyone very hungry, leave the restaurant at 3:30, and get back at 5:30. Volos: Jason sailed from here, in the Argo, to search for the Golden Fleece. Nice warm feeling for the people on the tour, except for the odd ones like the Wards and the Arnolds (the former's wife subject to seasickness, the latter's wife a bitch, possible from her bronchitis [she smokes constantly]. Lots of new-planted trees along the "autobahn" between Athens and the north of Yugoslavia. First view of Meteores dramatically directly ahead on road. (1) Vaarlaam (WC stop). Epitaphium that covers the chalice. Museum: chalices, gospels starting at 960, volumes NUMBERED to 222 (at random), and about twice as many unnumbered, fabulous boxwood crosses, church ornaments and bibles and icons and lists of saints or monks, and what look to the CHINESE bronzes, and plates and chairs. "Church should give its riches to the STATE." St. Luke painted the Virgin from life, but every icon COPIED from that must LOOK the same or it wouldn't transmit the GRACE inherent in the FIRST view for being "true" as a representation. Thus there could be no innovation or it couldn't be religious. Very uneven walls. "Now here we have another pile of monks and hermits." During Mass (people never sit, only stand)---the door in the center of the Iconostasis is opened, the curtain pulled back and the [In the Benaki Museum: El Greco's "St. Luke Painting the Icon of the BVM] [Which I missed!] priest addressed people from the opening. (2) Transfiguration, smaller, closes at 1. Go way DOWN to go up, LARGE six-story stone construction up to the pulley. Large wine tuns in both; they make their own. This chapel one century earlier than the other, which was late 15th century. Darker, older, monk guarding (for photos?). Museum: Ms from 1336, 1348, 1366 "in favor of monasteries." 14 years to make 11" x 5" wood cross. INCREDIBLY intricate crosses, 10 TIMES 14 years! Many 12th century gospels. 9th century gospel. Liturgy scrolls of 12th century. Museum in refectory, table there. Old kitchen. George makes a good point: Orthodox saints placid versus Catholic saints in AGONY. St. Nicholas Anapophsai is quite LOW and the lovely tiny Rousanou, and the Holy Trinity on a VERY sheer rock right at the town, and St. Stephen's are all possible to visit. 150 up (with a tunnel) (they carry EGGS up in that basket as we leave!) after 90 down, with lots of slopes. Buy five necklaces for 200 Dr, later find they could be 30 each BEFORE bargaining! From the last rock we see the following fabulous vista: [diagram omitted]. Lunch with the Becks, who pay for my vodka-orange, and back to the ship for dinner, the briefing on Skiathos, and then I go out to walk around Volos. From notes: RATHER surreal: new Byzantine church with huge electric-lit clock in its tower, inside a marriage of a man in black and a woman in white with the throwing of rice and white flower petals; the sea waves reflect against the seawall and then return to throw water mountains into the air, five feet high 15 feet from shore, washing over the boardwalk MUCH as in the brochure. I fantasize cruising in the park, but no one really looks possible, and then the Greek love doesn't interest me. The sliver of a moon got fuzzed over as I sit on a concrete seat near the water, while family groups and old men in suits with their hands clasped behind their backs stroll past with jutting bellies, regretting their youth lost. Bicycles, motor scooters, baby carriages pass at 6:30 pm. Darkness, few women visible, not enough male friends; trios of guys and shy pairs on a date. Streets are idyllic: very few no parking signs, streetlights only at corners, cars drive blind with parking lights until they encounter a pedestrian, then they flash on, since pedestrians usually walk in the streets, since sidewalks are narrow, filled with construction and obstruction, and dark. Four movie houses show same format: a big Hollywood hit emblazoned above the marquee, lesser show tonight, cowboy show tomorrow, sex show during the week, and something else some other time. Lots of SEXY faces, but then I'm quite horny (waking with great stiff erections, finally jerking off in the john while Arnie's upstairs this evening, coming with almost no feeling). Streets quiet but for rattle of small cars, bells on bikes, and shouts of children. Lights of the hill towns appear far down each cross street. And lots of people outside, walking, talking, singing, angry, children playing. What a BORE. Maybe three traffic lights in town. Second street from the main promenade is for taxis, car rentals, garages, betting parlors, some houses. Seminar: he uses "cut down" (some sort of process whereby fluids and medications are administered intravenously) without definition, but says "and we monitor the output, by monitor we mean collect, observe, record, know." Interesting. Arnie says I goofed when I suggested that TDI would pay the taxi if they miss the bus to the beach (this is actually one day EARLY!). "They'll take advantage," he says. Edematous patients RETAIN barbiturates and anesthetics IN the extracellular fluids and when they begin to excrete fluids, the system mobilizes the chemicals and a delayed reaction to the chemicals occurs. Describes a FOUR-MINUTE intravenous injection of magnesium sulfate! We try to see a movie, but I don't want to resee "The Way We Were," so we're up to "Marlowe" but someone says that the movie has been dubbed into Italian with Greek subtitles, so we end up not going to the movie but stopping in a coffee shop to watch the people pass, giving them scores from 1-10 on the basis of physical beauty, and a Dimitri in civvies gets my highest score of 7, though Arnie goes up to 9 for some kid I don't care for. After his coffee and my "Fix" (which I had to have), we went into the "Canadian Pizza Parlour" and had some wine and bacony pizza for about $2, and Dushka and the other larger guide came in to have some with us, and by that time I'm practically nodding with sleep, while Arnie is just going and going and bubbling over with energy, and usually I'm in bed with my light out before he's even undressed, and I'm sure tonight was no exception. Just starting to get tired of his presence, thankfully soon over, and we DO get separate rooms in the hotel (for my peace of cock
SKIATHOS
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20. Up somewhat later since the departure to Skiathos is at 9:30, again by tender, circumventing my being right when I guessed that Skiathos was such a large island that it would undoubtedly have a pier big enough for the Oceanis. Janet is bodily lifted into the 30-passenger boat with most of the rest of our crew, and [oh, forgot that yesterday on the way back from Meteora Russ gave me the announcement that the seminar scheduled for 5 this afternoon would be re-scheduled for 9:30 tomorrow morning, so from 9:30 to 11 we were in the seminar, so we got out at 11:20, standing in the open gangway peering out for the return of the boat, annoyed that it wasn't right there when we wanted it.] we get over to find that Anne Marie has been holding the last bus for us to Koukounaries Beach, and I notice that the bus is courtesy of Mr. Takis Dervenis, who just happens to own the two hotels at either end of this beach which is like most of the other "66 belles plages sablonneuses" that the sole brochure I could find brags about. There are too many for the first bus, so we sit along the dockside and George finds candies for all of us to have, Arnie sits us down at a coffee shop, and then goes to hunt for a bakery and other food supplies, leaving the box lunches that we'd talked to Don Gordon [forgot about THAT, too: one night, maybe Wednesday or Thursday, I saw Cathy and Arnie talking to a short fat fellow who was introduced to me as an executive of the Marriot Hotels, which owns the Sun Lines, and we spent a couple of hours telling him what was wrong with the ship and the itinerary, and he promised Cathy a free stay at the Essex House and almost promised Arnie a PR job with his outfit. I just sat and tasted the Metaxa Five-Star (they didn't have any of the seven star) and it was better than the Taylor, or whatever else the bar had as the "best" cognac.] about sitting on a chair. The bus finally returned and we all got on for the long ride along the coast, in the rain, to the beach, and we trundled the wheelchair through the soft sands, and I wondered about the marines they were constructing behind it, since it seemed more like mosquito breeding-grounds than anything else, and we reached the palm-frond covered concrete platform with the few locked sheds on it that was to be our base for lunch. Arnie, Sylvia, and Buddy went into the water, but though I'd borrowed Arnie's bathing suit and had it on, I didn't care for the breeze and the sunlessness, and didn't like the idea of the salty residue until we got back to the ship. Scavenged along the shore with Betty Tovell for tiny shells and lots of the little plastic dots that we later found out were produced by BASF for some kind of shipping purposes: and lots of plastic pieces, bottle tops, and cigarette filter tips, and residue of civilization in the Aegean. Lunch was good: pieces of chicken, ham, beef, rolls, eggs, and a piece of fruit, and the wasps from all the neighborhood circled buzzingly around all the greasy papers. Many bottles of wine were passed around, as were candy, grapes, and various desserts, and then it was 2 and time to get back to the bus. Tried singing some songs along the road back, but they didn't get very far. Everyone but Betty and Arnie and I went back to the ship, Arnie and I stopping for an underdone pork shish kebab and ouzo, Betty shopping, and we watched a local steamer come in, disgorge its motley passenger-list, and accept more motley passengers, a couple of cars, and lots of cartons while everyone stood around and waved melodramatically. Again I'm impressed by the handsome young men who will all vanish from the islands and age. Raining sincerely now, the tender returns at 4 and sits until 4:30 while Arnie steams, and back to the ship for the seminar from 4:30 to 6, and then watch Arnie filling in some of the evaluation forms, and get ready for the gala dinner, which has all mention of the captain removed. The food is great, we get lots of Chateaubriand from a real filet, and the balloons popping while the baked Alaska is carried in ARE spectacular in the dark. The woman at the Wards and Arnolds table falls over backward trying to bat about a balloon, and everyone dissolves in laughter when she's found to be OK. In for the final show with Dushka, pretty good, happy to find that TDI escorts still get to sign bills though everyone else has gone onto a cash basis, and stagger off to start packing, which Arnie had done earlier while I read, and bed late.
TO PIRAEUS AND ATHENS
MONDAY, OCTOBER 21. Thought that the waves were getting higher when I went to bed at 11:30, glad that there are only 7 1/2 more hours on the ship, and wake at 2 to find the ship REALLY pitching, so I'm up, slightly hung over from ouzo, to take a Dramamine and watch the waves shushing past the side of the ship. Lay and doze, and up at 5 to flashes of lightning and REAL tossing of the ship, and some of the waves come up so high I'm sure the portholes below must be shipping water. Arnie wakes and we exchange a few words, and I look out at the lights of nearby ships moving up and down. Again look out at 6, expecting it to be dawn and it isn't, but in the gray light I can see the shore nearby, other ships bobbing up and down, and the waves are really spectacular, and I stop counting hours: obviously we're not going to be there at 7. Take another Dramamine since I'm not feeling too well, and finish packing in the rocking cabin and then up to breakfast, where some are not feeling well at ALL, and Gordon Cook gets a bit of a reputation for supplying Bonine, which works even on an upset stomach. I get down some breakfast, but then don't feel terribly well, and lie down in the cabin after looking outside. We finally seem to be going into the harbor at 9, but though the dock is right outside, suddenly we're going back, and all the way out of the harbor into the rocking waves of the sea again. Watch freighters rise their entire bow out of the water, and I can hear the rising pitch of our own propellers as they lift free of the water and increase their speed without the water's hindrance, and then the noise stops when the stern sinks back into the water. Many of the passengers have been ousted from their cabins and are in the lounge, and I sit there for a while but it's too depressing, so I'm back to the cabin, where almost everything has been removed except the mattresses and a blanket for my head, and I lay and lay as we go back in, come back out, get between the jetties, where the waves are spectacularly whipping up 50-foot hillocks of water and washing over, and back out AGAIN. Rumors had it the water was too high, the berth was occupied by a previously-scheduled ship, there was s hip beside us with engine trouble and we had to move fast. Finally about noon we're docked at last, and most people are on deck looking at everything moving around. I've collected all the plane tickets, everyone has their passports back, and there's Cathy waving from the dock (she'd left with the four-day tour people in Nauplion on Friday, since there was really nothing more she had to do on the ship). Finally she can come aboard, criticizes us for not having the baggage gathered into one spot, gives me some booze to carry through the customs people who don't stop us, and at long last we're aboard the bus, about 1, desperately hungry, and some of the guys even buy street-food to assuage their hungers. In at 2 and told we should be back at 3, and I don't even look at the room, but help Arnie handle Sunny who refuses to have her room and gets a double terrace overlooking the square at the Parthenon, and then we're out to the Delphi restaurant, simple and good, with the Cooks, and back to get on the bus with "Mina or Mynah, the talking bird." To the Acropolis at 3:40, and she says the museum closes at 4, so I dash across the uneven rocks of the Acropolis in a one-pointed drive for the museum, which has many nice pieces but MAINLY broken Kore from the past, but I'm happy to have seen it, and then out to listen to Mina and look at the mind-blasting spectacle of the dark clouds permitting rays of light to illuminate the sea, the islands, the Parthenon, and Lycabettus hill in the distance, unbelievably dramatic. Time to wander the Erectheum, which I hadn't seen before, and pass three beautiful children who hand me an acorn and say "Tee nay?" which I think to be "Have this" and I say "Thank you," and they say something that I interpret to be "Bello Nino," and when Mina says that means "What is this?" I feel a total embarrassment. Back to find a message from Arnie that we meet Richard Johnson at 8:30, he messes up the address from 2 Lissou to 22 Lissou, we look in phone book, find him up a rusting spiral ladder, talk, he's got a Greek friend who's VERY butch, and we look at restaurants before going into Ximos, crowded, and we sit until we get seats, very mediocre food, and I'm very tired, so we wander a bit more around the Plaka, then stop for cake and tea, and back to the hotel very late, exhausted, but I come with GREAT pleasure.
BENAKI MUSEUM AND LYCABETTUS HILL
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22.
[More notes:
Class 1, Wed, Tovell: Vulvar tumors
Class 2, Thu, Russell: Eclampsia in Pregnancy I
Class 3, Fri, Tovell: Missed
Class 4, SunAM, Russell: Eclampsia II
Class 5, SunPM, Tovell: Colposcopy
Class 6, Mon, Russell: Conization/Cauterization
Mon 6-7:40: Varicose veins of the vulva! Tovell is editor of "Gynecological Operations?" Double and Y-shaped uteruses! double uterus: uterus Dederphus. Imperforate vaginas leads me to think of kijras [whom Russell later said ran in families]: "Interesting sort of surgery." She WAS a female, not a testicular degeneration," and we supplied her with an artificial vagina, by skin graft, "Many made too large: 1 1/4 inch diameter appropriate." Surprising how thin the rectal-vaginal layer is---danger of pushing artificial vagina into bladder or rectum. Abscesses must be drained, "and I mean with a garden hose." "Keep the stool soft, the sort of lubrication we got in Yugoslavia." "Stick your finger up the anus and cut. If you cut your finger, you've gone too far." 8:45 am tomorrow morning to hospital, and I don't go to those.] [Then there are the restaurant notes Cathy gave us on the bus to the hotel yesterday: Lunch: Delphi or Corfu. Snacks at Zonars. Corfu is more elegant, more expensive; Zonars expensive: sundae for $1.50. Greek typical: Gerofinikas: expensive. Bazooki and guitar: one-menu Myrtha. Kostoyannis is atmospheric, cheap Greek food, to 1-2 am, with reservations required, and I thought it was the best of the lot. Hilton has buffet on Tuesday, requiring jacket and tie, and coffee was $1. The Dionysus has one on Lycabetus and one near the Acropolis; at the bottom of Lycabettus is Filippou Taverna, at 19 Xenocratus St, simple and good. Sound and light at 9 pm. Plaka: Xinos, trendy and mediocre; the night club Neriba (or something) is very expensive. In Pireaus, for fish: Turkolamno, Paragavia, and Vasilidis (quantity, not quality).] Up at 10:30 after coming again, too late for breakfast, and get right out to the Benaki: notes from it: CROWDED with jewelry, costumes, regalia (basement: costumes, jewelry) (most elaborate gold and silver filigrees and enamels and jewels, case after CASE! Earrings, embroidery; impression of looking at so many HOURS and YEARS of painstaking handiwork! Incredible wood-paneled room. Earrings suspended from HAIR (though that might be only for display purposes). Buckles, lances, laces, harem belts. Main floor: pottery, glass, embroidery, wood carving, gold, seals, plasterworks, molds. Carved bones from Egypt 1-7th Century; guns, swords, medals. Upstairs more modern, European chatchkas. POOR condition El Greco, except for ONE calf (1565), clothes, weapons, enamels, very aware sexy dark-eyed BOY. Chinese stuff, ROOMS of cloth and sewing and patterns. GOLD, icons, manuscripts. Only mediocre books." Pass people on the street, and remember Arnie's saying when there were 150 people on the tour it was impossible to go ANYWHERE without seeing someone from the ship. Out about noon to walk through the streets to Phillipou restaurant, though I'm getting tired of backtracking and searching for things he only vaguely remembers. Beans and tomatoes good, like a soup, and stew. To base of funicular, quite short, and again the skies are filled with dark clouds, and Athens is coming close to filling the entire basin, though as it gets to the encircling hills, the amount of space available is enormous. Great light and shadow, funicular down, beautiful view of the Parthenon from various streets, neat hotels, all lobby-beauty, someone says: rooms awful. Some time at the desk with dinner reservations, but I go up to re-dress for Myrtia, which we walk through the park near the Zappion, showing modern mobile homes, to get to, and the music is by dour-faced men and the food comes and comes and comes until I'm totally stuffed, and we later find that we'd missed the swordfish kebabs and some of the other things, but we're out groaning with discomfort, walk back wishing we could adventure into the dark park without worry about being ripped off, but we get back to the hotel to see others coming in and having fun, and I guess I go upstairs and jerk off again in sheer delight of being in a room away from Arnie, where I don't again have to wait seven days before an orgasm.
MUSEUM, AGORA, ZONARS, VASSELENAS
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23. Up in time for breakfast, and the ham omelet is just fabulous, and I'm reminded too late of the hot chocolate, which is good too. Chat with people and then get out with Arnie to dicker at the Flokati rug place with someone who isn't the owner, while I slowly get impatient with Arnie when I want to see the town. Walk down to the flea market, most of it for tourists, until we get past the Monastiraki square, and find that the "left" part of it on the map is the REAL flea section. Then ride the subway (from notes): outside station at Monastiraki, some OLD wooden trains, tickets easy to buy but the DIRECTION of travel has to be known, Piraeus or Thessaloniki. 6.5 Dr. for longest trip, only 20+. Monastiraki to Viktoria is only 3.5 Dr, about 12; crowded at 12:45. Real cattle car box, and few seats, all standing, and people SMOKE on it, too. Worst of the lot. Walk down to the museum and go through quickly to mark on the map in my guidebook which rooms have nudes and which (very few) have phallic exhibits). To the back to discovered the top floor with the vases, and THAT is the area I discover this time [quick-through at first, then the pre-Cycladic cultures the second time, then the vases the third time], and pay to get into the Thera section, but it's very skimpy yet, and pay all of 250 drachmas ($8.33!) for a book about the excavations, but it's almost unique. Take sketches of the Antikithera device, neat, though I'm confused by the boustrophedon to think that the impression is a NEGATIVE one. Talk to a guide who says that the one in China had been reputed to have fallen from the skies from a spaceship! Out at 4, closing time, back to the hotel, and decide I want to see the Agora, so walk out in the SAME direction and find George and Janet and Buddy and Terry with a guide, red-faced and shouting, and I look at the temples and vow to come back for the museum, and cruise two older-type dolls with a velvet-trousered gray-haired keeper, but nothing comes of it. Look at ruins not even mentioned on the map, out when it closed at sunset, 5:30, and look at tiny old church and modern big church, and get back [forgot that Arnie and I sat there for about an hour from 4-5 yesterday, having lovely cakes and tea] to Zonars at 6 to take the following notes: Zonars: 6 pm 10/23/74: 4 pm seems better for crotch-watching than 6 pm. But still the tight pants and bright dark eyes march past. "Took note of" (or "exchanged notes WITH") a gay guy of a pair escorted to the Thesion by an old fellow in blue velour trousers. Heard part of guided shout with Bud and Terry and Janet and George. Looked at cat-infested ruins not listed on map, took in the new church, where a soldier with a too-small head on a yummy big body crossed himself so many times that it looked like his right hand was bobbling from a rubber band connected to his sternum. Simpery silky modern Madonnas already have silver votaries strung before them: eyes, legs, heads, arms, bodies. Cruise tight-assed young man who guides me to a few phalluses by staring at them first in the museum. Pleasure to be able to take time to sketch the Antikithera device. Shouting political melee before Nea Demokratia building changes my idea of snacking in Syntagma. Some of the white-bruised cock-forms on blue jeans MUST be gay! And the exchanges of looks are SO sexy---GOD am I horny! Stare after cock, cock, cock, in museum, and cringe a bit as English girl glances through my notated guidebook at the museum. Betty Tovell and the Biebers and Aurora and Terry all chat with me. Oh, how I want someone to neck with for HOURS. And the LETTERS: Tzon is John of Johnson. MYENAKI is Benaki. NT is D as in MacDonnell. Forgotten others. KT = G? 6:25 I remind the girl and she shrills off in falsetto to get waiter to get what I hope is the cake I chose (it is, but a smaller piece). Watch boys standing on one hip with sweaters wrapped around their necks. So many broad muscular backs over the narrow hips, flat belly, and BULGING asses that the old Greeks immortalized in their statues. Getting a bit chilly---how I wish I had someone to TALK to so I didn't have to write. Wish my memory was perfect so I didn't need notes to remind me. How I WISH I could live forever (young) so I could REDO what I wanted! The incredible cakes of Zonars are 20 Dr! Into the hotel, cab to Cathy's apartment, drink wine, chat about future, then at 10 I coax them into another cab for Vasselinas, food described on DIARY 9030, cab to subway at 12:10, back to hotel at 1, bed exhausted at 1:30.
DELPHI
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24. Tried to remember the foods at both places, but I still lacked lots:
MYRTIA VASALENAS
Wine Wine
Hot lamb cheese patty Roquefort/feta cheese
shrimp and sauce shrimp and vegs and sauce
anchovies anchovies
salad (cuke, tomato, olive) salad (cuke, tomato, radish, olive)
minced meat rectangle liver roll
chicken and potatoes chicken, fairly dry
beef and potatoes and sauce large red mullet, eat filet
veal and potatoes tiny whole fish, eaten ENTIRE
green peppers octopus, I even eat sucker
ham and sausage sausage, too red and raw-tasting
yogurt and garlic and dill scallops, I tried one, too sweet
baked eggplant blood pudding
baked zucchini olives
tamarasalat: roe and yogurt
fish soup and roe floating in it
eggplant
pear BEAUTIFULLY sliced grapes and pear
More notes: Thesium and Agora: 7:30 am to sunset; Stoa of Attalus: 9-4 pm. Longest word I saw so far: ??G??????????????G?: Ligapolapollapoliga (19) "Delphi day: 8:35 am leave. Stop "for 15 minutes" 10:35-11! Museum 12:05-1. Lunch 1:10-2:20. Ruins 2:30-4:30. "10 minute stop" 5:20-5:40, back at 7:55!" Saw the Fitzgeralds in the lobby sometime today and they said the worst thing anyone could say about a tour escort: "Gee, we haven't seen you in a couple of days," but Arnie comforted me by saying that they haven't been going on ANY of the tours, so how could they have seen me even if I WAS doing my job? Glad that Arnie didn't come along, since the special bus that Yannis put on had a maximum capacity of 20, and we, at 19, left vacant ONLY the seat at the rear of the aisle, which Russell and I used for our stuff, and I had to sit with my feet dangling over the rear-door step-well. Mina talked and talked through the trip: language, schooling, history, Marathon, myths, jokes, legends, architectural styles, rich Athenian suburbs, and the Seven-Gated Thebes that we passed near. She wanted to stop at Arahova for Flokati buying, but I told her to wait until the afternoon, then coached the women in the front in case she should ask again to say "later"! She did and THEY did. One hour in the museum just under long enough, but I had to get away from her voice echoing in the bare rooms. Marvelous nudes again, and the eyelashes on the Charioteer were something to see. Lunch in the loud restaurant of the Xenia (hospitality) hotel, where again the people said the rooms were awful and the baths smelled of urine, and sat with an Aurora who complained more bitterly to me than she did to Arnie, and a Mina who chattered as loudly at the table as ever. Out to the ruins and her book is obviously the one to have. To the theater, watching them reconstruct a stairway, men and women, and then climb quickly up to the stadium, the uneven tiers mute evidence of the force of the local earthquakes. Then down, take a quick look at the spring, and back into the bus for AGAIN a shouting match when the people want to stop for a drink, so I suggest the compromise of the same place that we stopped on the way out, and there I broach the subject of tipping Mina, and that leads to tipping Cathy, and that sort of puts the idea into everyone's head about tipping, and Janet has been working on an epic poem to present to Arnie when they fly out tomorrow. Every so often I think of the flight, but there are so many other things happening I can hardly attend to worrying about it. Mina has a lovely pair of prayers to travelers and to guides to climax her oration, and in the dark Russell and Harold talk about the committees and committee-heads that the world of gynecology centers around, getting an obligatory anesthetist into every operating room, working with midwives again, complaining about various errors they felt TDI and Seminars and Symposia had made, and I listen and comment and feel relieved when we're back as early at 7:55. Arnie suggests a cab to Kostayannis, and it's by far the best we've had: the mushrooms wrapped in bacon on a skewer were psychedelically good, and the fish and the meats were great, too. Crowded, the Wards and Arnolds sat at another table far away, and we shared a whole bottle of wine to put the whole thing into a good climax, and I MAY have brought tears to Arnie's eyes when I call him a hard act to follow, and almost let slip the presentation to him tomorrow. Aurora's already tipped him $21, and he gave me $25 when I got back, my part of commissions on about a $600 sale at the Michaelis jewelers that no one expected. Cab back to Zonars for a sundae, very pleasant, and fall into bed and sleep without bothering to toss about the flight tomorrow.
FLIGHT TO NEW YORK
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25. But I wake at 6, unable to sleep longer, and pack all my clothes and get down at 7 to answer some questions by Arnie's group, and talk to the bell captain who's been nosing around asking about our plans for next year, and I'd almost forgotten that they'd said they wouldn't be USING the Grande Bretagne next year. Have breakfast, then up to shower for the last time and get my shoes back that I'd put out last night, having to ask for a bath towel since they're taking my room apart as they did the cabin on the ship. Arnie and his group are out at 8, shaking my hands as they go, and shortly after the Tovells go off to Paris as they'd planned, handing me nothing. The Biebers hand me an envelope at the desk, which I open to find HALF a $10, saying that the other half would arrive when they get a copy of my book. I think it's funny, BUT! Packed with my bags outside at 10:30, and then down to try to change money at the Bank of Nova Scotia: no, the Bank of Greece. Down to the National Bank of Greece: no, the STATE Bank of Greece, down three blocks, but it's better at the airport. Then to the Post Office to buy stamps, getting only new sets at the Philatelic window and having to get two of all the others at the regular window, and even then she only has one of a set of 5 that I guy two sets of at the AIRPORT. All my people have shown up, I check the tickets out of the safe, and sit around reading while Yanni and Cathy come and go. Cathy has gotten a FEW tips, but not many, and I chat with the people, conscious of the coming flight more and more. Then at 12 Vitiades writes a quick note to George of TDI, and we're out to the bus, all of us, and passing hundreds of Greek schoolgirls in their blue uniforms on our way to Piraeus, passing the US Air Force base listed as a "Meteorological Station." Yep. Into the airport and Yanni gets our boarding passes, saving there might be someone waiting for us in Amsterdam. Everyone gets their money changed, and Janet Cook hands me an envelope from "the group" and inside there's $60 and an envelope from the Biebers with the OTHER half of the $10, so it's been $10 a couple, and the Tovells obviously contributed, too. Thank Janet maybe too much, and hope I'd sufficiently thank the others to let them know I knew they gave to "the secretary." Onto the plane at 1:40, and take the following note: 10/25/74 1:50 pm, Athens time, the time flight 512 SHOULD leave, and we JUST then taxied out and DID turn and fly up, over Athens, circling around the Acropolis and Lycabetus until they dwindled to two grassy areas with rocks on top, and we flew over the blue sea and rocky islands of Greece, clear over the red-treed hills of Yugoslavia that gradually got more and more snow-dusted until with a shout of peaks (I'm obviously reading Bradbury) we flew over the drags and peaks and cwms and frozen high lakes of the Austrian Alps, huge peaks shadowed against the snow from the low October sun of 3 pm. Then, just after the Alps, the plane weaving and dipping gently, we flew over the clouds covering Germany, and I started reading p. 55 of this (The Halloween Tree) at 3:04! Only just about an hour left of THIS flight---I clutch as we turn, and I'm just not RELAXING during the flight with only one vodka tonic---and then the LAST marathon of eight awful last hours. All 13 of us! Leave ON 13 and come back with 13 after having stayed 13 days, the Tovells in Paris by now." Break through the clouds gently over Amsterdam, FABULOUS canal-views with a totally-moated castle to the west, then the clutter of the city, and land RIGHT on time at 3, Amsterdam time. Out to find a girl waiting for us, who checks us through, and I dash for the Shalimar for Alice and the Grand Marnier for me, surprised that it's as much as $7.50, and get to the plane thoroughly dizzied by the speed of everything, and count to find EVERYONE there. Off a bit late, but they say flying time is only 7 hours and 35 minutes, so we should STILL be in at 8. Drink two drinks for almost pleasure, conscious of the hugeness of the 747, still not relaxing, trying to read and not able to. Dinner is quickly followed by "The Day of the Dolphin" with rocky weather, and I fear the hatred of the villains will down the plane, and sweat through to the end of the film, talk to people, hate the music, lay across three seats to try, try, try to sleep, can't. Talk to Biebers, tell them of my liking their joke; in at 8, everyone rushes through OK, to taxi VERY weary, $12 with tip, "Fair's fair," from driver, in with relief that everything's OK, quick look through mail, and bed at 10:15, having smoked to ease exhaustion.
LAST THOUGHT ON FIRST TDI TRIP
Forgot the final note from the trip: Had gotten a $100 advance, and left with $102 cash and $400 in travelers checks, of which $100 was Arnie's. So I left with $402 and returned with $280 in travelers checks and $32 in cash, after having ADDED $27 in commission and $70 in tips (NO, $60, since $10 is still in halves), so I RETURNED with $312 which had to be DECREASED by $87 to make $225, so I spend $402 - $225, or $177. So I figured that each of the 13 days was probably $40 a day for $520, the air ticket $480, making a total of $1000 for the trip, $97 for tip, and an ESTIMATE of $103 for expenses that was OFF by $1.75, since my submitted expense account was $101.25, making a total of $1200 for the trip, and adding to that the $234 salary, it makes $1434, which Arnie says should be much higher, so say I MADE $800/week! Not bad at ALL! But since it's NOW a week after I got back and I'm STILL suffering a bit from jet-lag, I have to consider that the two weeks AWAY have to be extended by two weeks at HOME preparing and recovering from. But the experience was STILL positive enough (and the reactions from friends who would have cheerfully hated me if I weren't so nice) that I'm looking forward to the SECOND trial at being a tour escort, which at the present time looks like a stint of three trips to the Galapagos and the Yucatan, not my first choice, but I'll find out how the Stella Maris is, and will have a chance to see most of the sights in the Yucatan for free, which might be even better than REseeing Rio for three pairs of two days each. And the news that many companies are laying off editors who will become freelance editors and proofreaders is rather frightening, so I'm glad that LTS is still thinking of me, that I have some TDI trips coming up, and that NC has hired me back on a VERY part-time basis as a statistical consultant at $10 an hour! There is still enough to keep me busy, and enough on my lists still to do (when I can get out of the habit of READING so much!) that it'll be a while before I get to any creative writing, which should have the first priority, but with the general backwardness of my life is getting the LAST priority, except that I STILL get good feelings about typing up all these pages, even though some of them are full of trash at the bottom trying to GET to the bottom of the page!