Farewell to Athens

On my last day in Athens, I had to send out all my postcards. The stamps were so beautiful, I bought some extra and addressed a postcard to myself so I could have the cancelled stamp. I collect postcards from places I've been or from friends who sent them. This would be the first time I sent myself one. This way I'd know when everybody else got theirs. It gave me an odd sense of accomplishment. Then I was determined to find the Herakleidon Museum which had an exhibit of Degas sculptures. It was difficult to find, tucked away on a little side street near the Thissio metro station, but it was worth it. The Herakleidon is a small gem of a museum, a former private home, very intimate. There were over 70 gorgeous Degas sculptures including the famous one of the young ballet dancer. I'm not sure if it's the same one as in the Clark Institute in Williamstown. Beautiful music from the period played.

After lunch, I strolled around the Thissio square, near Monasteriki. Street vendors were selling stamps, coins, old watches, binoculars, pins from the Olympics, and various bric-a-brac. There were hordes of black men with huge bundles running from place to place from the police. They would drop their burdens which contained what appeared to be knockoffs of designer bags until they got a signal that the cops were nearby. Then they'd pick up and run off.

I wandered to the Royal Gardens and found a gallery which sported an exhibition of movie posters from various eras and countries. That was a lot of fun. Back in the hotel, I watched TV til Jerry got back from Turkey--interesting how the news media in Europe is totally to the left, there was a commentator on RT, the Russian network who suggested the Obama administration bribed the Nobel committee to get the president the Peace Prize--and then we all went out to celebrate our last night. We ate at a very good place with a view of the Acropolis. I told Jerry and his colleagues if I needed to write a doctoral thesis it would be on The Cult of the Virgin: Athena, Mary, Elizabeth I, and Doris Day. Prior to this trip, I hadn't known Athena was a virgin goddess.

The flight back to NYC was about ten hours, but I had my anti-jet pills. They showed four movies--all garbage. Four Christmases, The Time Traveller's Wife, Land of the Lost, and Post Graduate. I didn't watch any of them--that is I didn't listen to the sound on the headphones. The images were enough to tell me how stupid they were. All I could think of the films were "Wow, Carol Burnett, Robert Duvall, and Sissy Spacek must need money." Then they showed TV episodes and it was the same episode of The Simpsons I saw on the last Delta flight I took which was about a year ago!

Halloween on Bourbon Street

Exhausted after putting together a huge event for my job, my partner and I decided to get away and have some fun in the Big Easy. By coincidence, it was Halloween weekend, so our trip would be capped by a big costume party on Bourbon Street. I had been to New Orleans before--it was the starting point of a cruise I took with my friend Diane--but Jerry had never been. It really is a unique city in the US. Very relaxed and casual. These people have a party at the drop of a hat. In addition to the bacchanal known as Mardi Gras, they have parades on St. Patrick's Day and then so the Italians don't feel left out, another one a week later on St. Anthony's day.

I bought a Superman costume in New York before leaving (I had a layover in the Memphis airport which looks like a bus station). We had a wonderful time, had dinner at some great restuarants (Arnaud's, Pauline's, the Gumbo Factory), listened to jazz at the Maison Bourbon, took a walking tour of the Garden District, a bus tour of the whole city including the Ninth Ward still dealing with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, walked around the French Quarter, visited the Confederate Musuem, and dressed up for Halloween. I had my Superman outfit, complete with muscles. We bought a funny hat for Jerry which he wore with a mask and a feather boa--he was a sort of a generic Mardi Gras person. We ran into lots of costumed revellers on Bourbon Street including a group of superheroes consisting of Captain America, Batman and Robin. The photo above is of our meeting plus one non-costumed partygoer. One man was dressed as a priest with a doll of a young boy strapped to his groin. He was a big hit. There were Halloweeners as beer bottles, traffic lights, Sumo wrestlers, Jesus Christ, and lobsters.

The whole city was beautiful and fun, smelling like sweet blossoms and beer. Wonderful food of which I probably ate too much. The famous cemetries were interesting. They bury whole families in one crypt, above ground. When a new body needs to go into, they just sweep the remains of the old one to the back of the crypt. This saves lots of space. Our guide also told lots of fascinating stories including one about Edgar Degas and his brother--who lived in the city. The brother left his blind wife for the younger woman who was hired to read to her. "You can't make up a story like that for Days of Our Lives," the guide laughed.