Rest in peace

I left you all in July, in the midst of a very difficult year, and I have vowed to return in 2019 with a travel vengeance designed to smother the turmoil that terminal illness inflicts upon a family.  I’m not sure if the plan will work but I know for certain that my mom would approve of my efforts. I am so unbelievably saddened by the loss of my mother. The picture above is of our last breakfast – ever – in a fancy Florida resort where we gathered in October to celebrate her life as a great reader, traveler, chocolate-lover, dog charmer and classic Jewish grandma. She probably complained that her tea was not hot enough, the bagel didn’t taste right and she needed just a sip of my orange juice. I’d give a lot to hear that ornery voice complaining to the waiter as she pulled some bacon off my plate.

The picture below is us in Turkey – our last foreign journey together:

I’m gearing up for my biggest travel year ever – Greece, Japan, Israel and Jordan – spread out over the next 8 months.  It’s possible I might be axed from my law firm when that pacing appears in print and so I pre-emptively say, in my defense, that I was ACTUALLY gone more than that in 2018 – the time was spent, instead of international jet-setting, in the hallways and corridors of domestic hospitals, at the Carl’s Jr. outside the Kaiser West LA emergency room and shift sleeping at the Residence Inn in Beverly Hills.

It’s all left me tired and fearful and so it’s not without trepidation that I head out again, hoping that all of these journeys will replace the visions that 2018 left in my head – hoarding hospital chucks, sutures, chemo drips, surgeries and the slow, slow wasting away from cancer.

I start in Greece, where you’ll hear from me in March. Two weeks on a self-designed private tour around Athens, Napflio, Delphi and then up to the monasteries in Meteora, followed by two island stays – Naxos and Santorini.

Greece is a return visit for me.  It’s the site of my very first trip to Europe in 1990, where we traveled with no plans, no Internet and no travel smarts.  We spent our first night in Athens in a hotel by Omonia Square (bad choice), in a room with no locks on the door, which we addressed by sleeping with the furniture pushed up against the door, for violence safety’s sake, at the cost, I guess, of fire safety.  It was also the trip where, to save a little money, we spent one entire night awake in the Athens airport, subject to prodding by soldiers with machine guns if we nodded off.

I’ll talk to you all from Athens, Round Two, with well-reviewed hotels and no airport sleeping planned.