The Eagle Has Landed

Hello Family and Friends:

I have arrived safe and sound in Athens!

I am happy to be here.

I did all my pre-trip prep.

Clean the House: check
Do Laundry: check
Get hair done/did: check check
Get brows done: check
And for Candy: Pluck hair on chin/neck. Okay that is a triple check. LOL.

Things fell into place at work. The reports were done. The only missing information was outside of my control.

So the flight from Seattle to Amsterdam was 9 hours. It went by fast. I watched Back Up Plan and Grown Ups. Both made me laugh, and I had to stop myself from busting out. I love to laugh. LOL. I slept some as well. Read a little.

Note to self: While it's cheaper to book trip segments separate, it's also more of a hassle. Some weird rule that I couldn't check into my Amsterdam - Athens ticket in Seattle, which was one more thing to do in a two hour layover. My flight was 30 minutes late leaving, and I was like LAWD NO. I went to the possible worst case scenario of missing my connection and missing my cruise. Note to self: the worst case scenario never happens. I'm comforted that it is human nature to take oneself through unnecessary drama mentally. Something I am working on though.

Oh. The lady sitting next to me on the Seattle - Amsterdam portion worked for a travel magazine and she was on her way to Nairobi for a press junction. I told her about my travel blog and she suggested I submit some articles to travel magazines and see what would happen. Now that I am thinking more clearly, I should have gotten her contact info.

Which brings me to the worst part of travel. Jet lag. I did manage to sleep during both segments. It's currently 4:45 on Sunday and my tour group is meeting at 6:00. For the Greece portion, I am doing a cruise with Globus Travel. We have two days in Athens, one being today. It's too big to see in two days, so I def must come back. I do one want to see the Acropolis. Probably the day before I leave for Belgium.

Athens is large and condensed. There are about 5-6M people here. Word on the street is that there are so many undocumented workers that it's hard to tell.

Anyway, so excited to be here. On the way here, I was looking at some maps and on some maps I was excited to see that I had been to most of the place. Other maps, I was like dang, I haven't been to most of the places. I centered myself and realized that unless I hit the mega millions, or someone wants to invest in my future - I will take donation in increments of $500 - then I will just have to slowly, but surely check places off my list. If I say, go to an average of two places each year over the next 30 or 40 years, I will have seen much of the world, twice over.

Note to self: You have been blessed to travel some. You cannot quit your job, sell your condo, and travel for a year. That is not a good long-term decision. You cannot travel unless you have the money saved. Going into debt to travel is not very smart! Using the equity in your place is not smart either!

Please keep me in your prayers. Praying for fun, safe, smooth traveling. This is a good trip for me. There are things I need to "shift" in mind and get together. Life is too short. And sometimes worry and fear keeps one from stepping out and giving it 100%.

Finally, I will edit when I return. Just wanted to let everyone know I made it safe and sound!

Love You. XOXO