Leo 0° (July 21)

Our bags were outside our cabin door this morning I can hardly believe it. Weirdly, we sort of feel like meh, whatever, which is weird, considering I was so freaked out at first by their loss. I happened to have a picture of the luggage which really helped the agent find them in the chaos of where they were just strewn in the airport at Corfu. Strangely, I almost resent the amont of stuff I took as I’ve been managing fine on less. To boot, all my stuff looks so old and a bit irrelevant, almost, at this point. And I feel like I’ve had a fling with my new clothes and now my steady relationship has shown up in the form of my luggage. That aside, I had a wee omelet and I unpacked my things very quickly so that I was all finished with that bit before getting in the tender for Vouliagmeni where a Mercedes van meets us and takes us all the way to the acropolis to meet our today guide, whose name I never caught. It was very interesting and though it wasn’t overcrowded, according to the lovely guide lady, it was still packed with people who stopped on the crowded, slippery stairs, to take selfies or photos of each other, which at times felt very dangerous but, boy oh boy, was it ever spectacular and we learned quite a lot from her, as we did from the guide yesterday.

After leaving the acropolis we headed over to the natural history museum where the guide stayed with us and kind of sped us through from point to point which was great. We didn’t have to see everything. She simply pointed out the highlights of every point in the archaelogical history. At one point this girl with sort of pinky hair inserted herself into our group, the notion being she recognized the most notable of our order and wanted some kind of proximity to rub off on her in some way or other. Animalistically we all started to form a ring around our friend, edging the intruder out with subtle shifts in weight and closing up any gaps between us. But she continued to follow the guide with us until at one point I whispered to her, “we are a private tour group” and she quietly slipped away. There was another family too who did a less dramatic thing of this sort led by the recognition of the father. The museum and the whole day, and yesterday too, were truly enlightening. One thing of note today was that there was a sort of first-analog computer, with multiple gears, which may have belonged to Archimedes, found in a a shipwreck. It worked off three separate calendars, one (Babylonian?) I don’t remember and two Greek ones and it was used to create a Zodiacal dial to help, we assume, in festivals and surely the Olympics which would have to coincide with the Full Moon, specificially. The suggestion here being that these ancient folks were storing data over a long period of time and making computations with it.

So after that we hopped back into the van and headed back to the Acropolis to a fancy restaurant overlooking it. The waiters were all in uniform and we orded a bunch of starters for the table—seared scallops, olives and bread (seeded sticks—yum!), vine leaves, Greek salads—and we each had a main. I had a lamb shank that was braised? in lemon. It was light and delicious for something so typically dense. We ordered a rosé from Northern Greece which was light and minerally. And all the while I was wearing my own clothes. We decided to skip dessert and just go back and have tea on the boat and we also decided not to stay in Athens and head directly to Mykonos overnight as planned; instead we decided to sneak in another island. S. suggested Hydra which actually worked out geographically and the Captain A. made the necessary inquires to changing the itinerary which would have to be approved by some authorities. By the time we got back to Vouliagmeni to meet the tender the changes were all set, and just after tea (I didn’t have the apple strudely thing, just tea thanks) we aimed to boat for Hydra which would take about two and a half hours. I went up top to do this bit of writing. And as the island approached we realized just how much more arid the landscape was becoming as we sailed south to these islands. We gave our hosts some tee-shirt gifties we brought for them which we meant to present on arrival.

Hydra, which is where Leonard Cohen had a place, and I think where Rufus might still visit, is also the home base of a jewelry designer that S. follows on social media [name TK]. After anchoring of the island, where there are no cars but five hundred donkeys, we took a dip off the boat and wow was the current every moving quickly. It felt fairly scary I have to say and I kept very close and held onto the orange line attached for fear of drifting off to Egypt or some such. The water is absolutely navy blue and very salty and it is possible to stay afloat without so much as treading it at all. We took a quick hot tub, showered, and went down for drinks. Negroni please. And the canapés today were charcuterie and olives and these huge divine oysters from the Bay of Biscayne (I think that’s what the chef said). I was among the greedy who ate most of them. They were ever so slightly milky, and nearly muscle like, but delicious despite not being terribly ocean-y like their Wellfleet cousins….

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
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