A big trip like the one my wife and I have just returned home from makes me contemplate, for good reason, the purpose of travel. To me, it is to learn about the world and better understand one's own place in it; to make connections with people from other lands, both natives of the areas visited and fellow travelers; and to share ones' experiences with others, both in person and through venues like this. Ideally, a person will come back from a trip of this sort with new ideas, a new perspective on their old ones, and a reinvigorated sense of purpose. Suffice it to say that we accomplished with our Aegean Odyssey everything we might have expected. In the ancient world of the Mediterranean, hospitality and how people treated strangers was extremely important and was, not to put too fine a point on it, integral to the continued existence of civilization itself. Commerce with other lands could not take place if travelers were subjected to theft or violence or were not able to obtain from their journeys things commensurate in value to what they had expended on them. People like our friends Dimitri Kremmydas in Athens and Michael Townsend in Crete may just be mortal people but, in that they invited us into their homes and made our journey more fulfilling, they follow in the steps of paragons like Aeolus, who used his winds to carry travelers on their paths across the wine-dark sea.
Many other people bear mentioning here and they include friends Richard and Laura Allan, who journeyed from their home in Scotland to spend six wonderful days with us in Santorini, our fourth reunion since we met them on a Nile River cruise in 2006; my friend Brendan Cass, who made monumental efforts to come to Kos Island for just a day-and-a-half so that he could experience it with me; Nathan and Alison Richards and Toni Symonds, who along with Michael Townsend made our time in Crete much more enriching; the staff of the Atlantis Hotel in Santorini; Stamatis Patiniotis at the Asimis Kolaitou Art Gallery and Giorgia at the Lignos Folklore Museum in Santorini; Mary, Voula Mavrea, and the other staff of the Small Village resort on Kos Island; teacher and caretaker Julie, who shared her knowledge of the Hippocrates Garden with us and her friend Dora, an archaeologist who discussed history and mythology with me; and Sophia Stavrianou at the Porfyris Hotel, who provided excellent advice that helped us make the most of our time on the island of Nisyros. Thanks also to Tracie Conner for getting us to the airport on our way out and to Karen Holmes for picking us up there and to Taylor Conner for taking such good care of our cats while we were on the road. And there are undoubtedly other deserving people I may have neglected to mention in this quick recap of our trip and I beg their forgiveness and will be sure to add them as I update it!
We encountered villains in the course of our travels as well and, while their impact was much less than that of the good people we met, they bear mentioning. These scourges of the Aegean include the swine that lurk at the port of Santorini and other islands and will not answer polite questions while trying to sell overpriced shuttle rides; the many shiftless taxi drivers of Rhodes, who will drive past visitors hauling luggage up the street in favor of giving ride around town to cruise ship passengers; the gypsies who create distractions with their drugged and abused children while their compatriots pick traveler's pockets; and the restaurants that provide substandard service and food to strangers because they do not think they will have to deal with them again or prefer to deal only with those who speak particular languages. Heracles, Theseus, and the other heroes of antiquity would certainly have wreaked a terrible vengeance on them all.
Many friends followed our journey, commented on it, and provided encouragement to us during it and I would like to thank them for that. Interestingly, a number of friends commented in response to my posts during this trip about how I don't stop working even while on vacation, which points to the fact that of all the things a prolonged trip like this is to me a vacation is not really one of them. Yes, a journey like this can and ideally should have elements of fun and relaxation, but our four-week odyssey through the Aegean was often physically demanding, was expensive, and was attended by elements of uncertainty and hazard. If we just wanted a vacation we could have much more easily, inexpensively, and quickly gone to Port Aransas on the Gulf Coast of Texas, Disney World, or a hundred other places.
So this trip was much more than any mere vacation could have been, I achieved my goals with it, and, while I am physically exhausted, I have been mentally stimulated -- and am hitting the ground running with an eye to finishing up projects I set aside when we went overseas and to jumping into ones that are exciting and altogether new. And being inspired and invigorated by a trip is, I think, the most someone can expect from it.
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