Check-Out Time "All the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people... The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world." - Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) For Meg and Chris. Congratulations on your future son. And for my nephew, Robert Ford. Your world will always be filled with love and compassion. It was 3AM when the phone in my room shrilled to life. D...

Athens Survival Guide "Please make the most of it by doing as little as possible. Walk a little. Get lost a bit. Eat. Catch a breakfast buzz. Have a nap. Try and have sex if you can, just not with a mime. Eat again. Lounge around drinking coffee. Maybe read a book. Drink some wine. Walk around a bit more. Eat. Repeat. See? It's easy." - Anthony Bourdain How to enjoy yourself in Athens. After walking around here for just one day, it's easy to feel overwhelmed, o...

Athens: Making People Homicidal Since 3000BC "Feeling my way through the darkness, guided by a beating heart, I can't tell where the journey will end, but I know where to start. They tell me I'm too young to understand. They say I'm caught up in a dream. Life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes. Well that's fine by me. So wake me up when it's all over, when I'm wiser and I'm older. All this time I was finding myself and I didn't know I was lost." - Avicii...

Kalliste "Now whosoever of them did eat the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, had no more wish to bring tidings nor to come back, but there he chose to abide with the lotus-eating men, ever feeding on the lotus and forgetful of his homeward way. Therefore I led them back to the ships weeping, and sore against their will, and dragged them beneath the benches, and bound them in the hollow barques." - Homer (The Odyssey) Seductive. Intoxicating. Otherworldly. Danger...

"Look But Don't Touch" "What is it with tourists and ice cream? They had some this morning, then again after lunch, and now again with the four-dollar cones, I don't get it!" - My Life in Ruins Eventually I did go to Chania. Elena was exuberant. "Remember-" "I know, I know," I said. "Look but don't touch." Jeez, she'd all but told me to get a bucket of popcorn and set up camp on the beach with a pair of binoculars. She might not have been so excited if she kne...