At least I'm not leading a boring life...

I am writing this blog bed-ridden with a cold, waiting for my boiling hot Neo Citran to cool. The past few weeks have been the most turbulently eventful weeks that I've experienced in a long long time. If I were to blog about every one of these events, I'm afraid that no one would have the patience to read them. So here's a digest version of what has happened in the past 3 weeks.

9/25 - Our agent sent us a house listing that just went online. It was so new that it had no photo at all. Usually we'd ignore listings with no more than one photo, but since we hadn't seen a house in a while (having been away on vacation), we decided to book an appointment.

9/26 - We saw the house in morning. It turned out to be the same model that we'd previously seen a few months ago from a builder. This was the model that prompted our house search in the first place. It meets almost all of our requirements. We went back for a second viewing in the evening. After some thoughts we decided to place an offer against another bidder, and won.

9/27 - During a walk in the evening, Bonbon suddenly stopped walking and had a hard time walking back home. We noticed laboured breathing and immediately brought her to the ER. X-ray showed a mass obstructing her chest. Her gum was pale suggesting internal bleeding. A splenectomy was performed to remove the mass. During the operation the vet did not see any spread to the liver, so we were hopeful that it was only hemangioma (benign tumor). A sample was sent to Guelph for biopsy.

9/28 - I took a day off to clean up the house and to take photos in preparation for selling my house.

9/30 - We received the devastating news that Bonbon has hemangiosarcoma (tumor was malignant). Our vet gave us an overly optimistic estimate of 1 to 1.5 years for Bonbon.

10/1 - On the night before our appointment with a canine oncologist, I did further research on hemangiosarcoma and found out that a more realistic life expectancy after surgery is only 3 months, which can be extended to 6 months with chemotherapy.

Our house was listed on the MLS tonight. We decided to show the house throughout the weekend and accept offers on Monday night.

10/2 - I prepared Chris for the bad news that we should expect to hear from the specialist today. And it did come as expected. We decided to give Bonbon her first chemotherapy treatment on the spot. We met another miniature schnauzer at the clinic who was having her last chemo treatment. She was diagnosed with cancer in April. When Bonbon came out of her treatment she was acting just like herself, barking the place up. We had to take her outside because she was making every dog bark in the clinic.

10/3 - We started reading up on holistic treatment of cancer and became more optimistic. In one case we read of a dog who survived cancer for 4+ years after diagnosis. We are convinced that the 6-month figure is simply an average, and are hopeful that Bonbon will beat that average.

10/5 - Our house was sold.

10/11 - I got bitten by Oliver for the Nth time and was extremely angry at him. We already gave him to my sister Emily temporarily because we were convinced that he was stressing Bonbon out. I would have no qualm giving him up tonight.

10/12 - Despite my canine-induced hand injury (left hand too!) I decided to bowl for the first

time in 5 weeks. I'd missed all those weeks because of my vacation, bad back, and time needed to clean and sell my house. Luckily I bowled 3 decent games. I had been in a pretty bad slump in the previous weeks.

I hadn't driven my car during the long weekend and noticed that the handling wasn't normal. I meant to check the tire pressure but forgot since I got home so late after bowling.

10/13 - On my way to work on the 401, I heard a noise and pulled over. The rear passenger tire was almost flat. I got Chris to deliver my portable pump but it failed to get the air pressure up. I jacked up the car and noticed two small nails. I got the car towed to a garage planning to have the tire repaired, but was told and shown that the inside wall of the tire was actually

shredded. Luckily my tires were at the end of their lives anyway so I just had my winter tires put on at a pretty reasonable price.

Thanks go to Chris, Emily, Dom and Marga. Between Chris, Emily and me, we made 5 round trips from the east end to the west end in one day (to get me the pump, get the winter tires from home, and to drive 2 cars back home). Thanks to Marga for recommending her friend Clayton who helped me get my car towed at a fair price. Thanks to Dom for being my voice-activated GPS in locating a garage.

10/14 - I drove my dad to York Central for a prostate exam in the morning. I went to a Long Term Care facility (for work purposes) before going to the office. In the afternoon I started feeling something in my sinus. By the time I went home I got a full-blown cold. I've never had a cold hit me so fast without warning. I had no chance to pop any echinacea like I usually do to give myself a fighting chance.

10/16 - I went to a hospital/clinic (human + dog) for the 5th time in 3 weeks. My dad already had to go back to the hospital the day before due to complications from the procedure. He had to go back again today since his condition wasn't improving.

Two New Personal Highs

To say that I am extremely happy with my performance tonight would be an understatement. Not only did I bowl a personal high game of 277 scratch (308 with handicap) in my first game, I kept it up all through the night to end up with a 3-game total of 643!

Last day in Greece

Today is the last full day of our trip. We were debating whether to make this a day trip to Cape Sounion, famous for its well-preserved temple and its sunset. However we decided against it - we've seen enough temples, and the weather may not cooperate to allow for a sunset view. And even if it did, it'd be very tight for us to catch the last bus back. So we decided to spend a relaxing day in the city instead.

We woke up relatively late, arriving at the Parliament building across Syntagma Square before 11am to catch the changing of the guards. It was not crowded at all, so I was able to take some pretty nice photos. Next we walked to the Plaka neighbourhood to have a quick visit at the Museum of Popular Musical Instruments, followed by an outdoor lunch right by the Roman Agora. And naturally, we just had to visit the Roman Agora afterwards since we were right there anyway.

The walk to the Keramikos neighbourhood felt tiring under the heat of the sun, even though it was no longer than 30 minutes. This was a quarter bordering the ancient city wall, containing a cemetery and funerary sculptures along the Sacred Way. The museum showcased many original tomb steles, some of which were quite elaborate and impressive.

On our way back to the hotel, we would visit a gelataria for the second time since we arrived at the city. It was a delicious ending to our relaxing day... well, at least for Chris. We were back at the hotel after 3pm to take an afternoon nap. I woke up before 5pm to get ready for my hike up Philopappos Hill, where the view of the Acropolis was supposedlly unbeatable. This was one of the reasons I opted to stay in town instead of going on a day trip - to have a chance at getting some good photographs of the iconic Parthenon. Since the temple is in what seems to be a permanent state of restoration, taking photos of it during the hours of falling light would probably help mask away the numerous construction cranes surrounding it.

The view of the Acropolis from the top of Philopappos Hill did not disappoint. However, I definitely made the trip at least one hour too early. I was at the top just after 5pm and the sun did not start to set until after 6pm. If I had charged every person 10 euros to take a picture of them at the spot while I was waiting, I'd be.... well, about 50 euros richer :) It was actually quite windy at the top and I'd forgotten to bring my windbreaker (among other things as I remember later), so I was starting to worry about catching a cold as it was wide open at the top with nowhere to hide. It wasn't until after 7pm that the light that I wanted started to come. The photo shooting only lasted about 15 minutes before it became totally dark. As I packed up and started to head down the hill, I realized that I'd left my wallet, flashlight, and passport all in Chris' bag! In near total darkness I could only let gravity be my guide as I descended the hill. Once I was "out of the woods" I decided to take the long way home, as the small alleys from which I came would have been impossible to navigate in the dark.

I finally arrived back at the hotel around 8:30pm. We had a late dinner in Plaka around 9:30pm. By the time we were back from dinner, it was 10:30pm. Chris immediately went to sleep as we would have to get up at around 3 in the morning to catch our early flight back home.

I was a little worried about walking to the bus station in the middle of the night. But as soon as we stepped out of the hotel, we were completely surprised by how busy the streets were! Looking at the crowds and traffic on the road, one would never have guessed that it was 4 o'clock in the morning! There were so many cars on the road that we actually had to wait at a traffic light to cross the street! We arrived at the airport shuttle bus stop and got onto an almost empty bus. But before long it was filled and there were only standing room left.

So just like that our two weeks in Greece came to an end. It was fun, and a lot more adventurous than I'd expected, especially for a honeymoon :)

Delphi

We took a 10-minute walk this morning to a bus station near Syntagma to get to coach Terminal B for our day trip to Delphi. We didn't research much on this part of our trip. The terminal was tucked inside a small side street that we almost missed. And by the time we arrived at the terminal, we'd just missed a bus. At the same time, Chris wasn't feeling well, and as we waited for the next bus in the terminal, she decided that it'd be best for her to take a day off. After I found someone to buy the extra bus ticket off me, I accompanied Chris back to the bus stop as she went back to the hotel. Our day could have had a better start to say the least.

I arrived at the bus stop in Delphi around 2pm. At this point I wanted to buy the return bus ticket back to Athens instead of doing it after the visit, lest they be sold out leaving me stuck in Delphi. The 4:30pm bus would be the earliest one that makes sense, giving me around 2 hours of visit time. The 5:30pm bus may be better depending on how much there is to see. I decided on the former since I didn't want to leave Chris alone for too long, and also to be able to have dinner in Athens at a reasonable time.

I started to regret that choice as I walked towards the site. The walk from the bus station to the site was long. It took me about 15 minutes to speed-walk there. Luckily by this time the sun had started to break through the clouds. Along the walk I saw many tourist buses parked outside, so it was a bit of a surprise to see the place relatively quiet when I entered. I guess most of the tourists must have been visiting the museum nearby.

The site was not as big as I'd imagined, which allowed me to have a rather leisurely visit. However, I had to skip the museum nearby, as well as the ancient gymnasium which is probably another 30-minute walk away. I started heading back to the bus stop after 4pm and the town was completely dead by then. I arrived back at Athens around 8pm, and got back to the hotel just in time to catch Chris leaving for dinner. We went out to buy 2 take-out subs for dinner. We must be subconsciously preparing for our return home :(

Athens: first full day

Dark clouds, very dark clouds. That's what we saw when we woke up this morning. By the time we stepped out of the hotel we had to bring out the umbrella, thankfully for only the second time of the trip. We walked and arrived at the National Archeological Museum at around 9am, and it was already teeming with tourists. The museum was relatively small for a "national" museum, which was good since it meant less foot work for us :) We spent 3 hours walking around, and we were quite tired by the time we left.

We decided to have lunch at Goody's, a local fast food restaurant, because we have just had enough "proper" Greek food. Let's just say that that was not a good decision.

We took the metro line 2 for 3 stops to the Acropolis. By this time the sun had come out, and we felt tired and hot. After reaching the top, we took a long rest on the stairs by the Temple of Nike before entering the Acropolis. The sheer amount of restoration going on at the site can't help but make it feel like a big construction site. It was not pretty. The Acropolis museum being closed as part of the restoration didn't help. I don't know if we would've wanted to visit it anyway since we had so much information crammed into our brains in the morning at the National museum already.

We toured the site slowly and finished seeing everything within 2 hours. With a couple of hours left before dinner time, we decided to visit the ancient agora close by. At this point, things were starting to look the same. We blew by the agora museum pretty quickly, followed by a leisurely stroll through the flea markets in Monastiraki before having a quick dinner.

We were lucky that the rain came while we were indoor today. We'll be outdoor for the most of tomorrow so we're hoping for better weather.

Athens

This morning we woke up early, skipped the hotel breakfast again, and went to the Palamidi Fortress thinking that we'd be there for 2+ hours We had to return the rental car before 11am, and wanted to make maximum use of it to drive up to the fortress, saving us from walking up the 999 steps. We arrived at the fortress at 7:45am, before it opened. It was cloudy and windy. Soon after we went in, Chris was already feeling too cold. We walked around most of the fortress before she returned to the car. I continued exploring the rest of it, in particular looking for the steps leading up to the fortress. I quit after a while realizing that the steps would be near the bottom end of the fortress, and I did not feel like climbing back up to the car :)

We left the fortress after 9am, a lot sooner than planned. We drove to the port and fed some fish and pigeons with the bread that we'd been saving from our meals. After we returned the car and walked back to our hotel, the hostess asked us if we still wanted breakfast. That was perfect as the hotel breakfast was pretty hearty - we had to fill up before our 3-hour bus ride to Athens anyway.

We checked out before noon, bought bus tickets for 1pm and had a final walk around the beautiful town before we left. For the last 2 days, Chris had been debating whether to buy a 170-euro clock from an artsy store. We'd already visited the store twice, and we would do it again one last time today. At the end we decided not to buy it since the colour does not exactly match the newly-painted wall of our office.

The bus ride to Athens actually felt quick. We were in the city in a little more than 2 hours. If we knew the city better we could've gotten off at the Metaxourghio metro station. Instead, the traffic to Terminal A was terrible and we didn’t get there until after 4pm. By the time we took bus 051 to Omonoia, it was well after 5pm. The walk through Omonoia to our hotel was not very pleasant, as it was full of some rather shady characters.

When we finally arrived at our hotel, we were a little disappointed . It was rather old, and Chris thought it was relatively expensive. Compared to our last 3 hotels, it is probably not good value. But this is Athens and the hotel is right at the middle of Monastiraki, so it's probably not too outrageous. Plus it boasts a view of the Acropolis.

After we settled down, we set out to follow a guidebook walk around town, starting at Syntagma. We knew we wouldn't have time to finish the walk, and headed for the Plaka neighbourhood for dinner around 7:30pm. We went to bed relatively early in preparation for a full day of sightseeing the next day.

Olympia

This morning we skipped the hotel breakfast to get an early start on our day. Olympia is a 3-hr drive away and we wanted to be there as early as possible to avoid the crowds.

It was so early when we started driving that it was still dark. To go to Olympia we had to pass through Tripoli. Being a relatively big city, we had no problem finding it. We arrived there after 8am, encountering some pretty crazy traffic in rush hour. As the lady at the rental warned us, getting out of the city could pose some difficulties, and it did. We approached the city from the east and we knew we had to get out of it heading north, so once in the heart of the city, I made an arbitrary right turn. Luckily we did eventually see a big sign with 15 destinations marked on it, some of which were towns that should be on our way. So away we went.

The drive from this point on should have been easy, and it was. We never got lost. Except that we were running dangerously low on gas, to the point where I tried to coast on neutral as much as possible. I was now regretting not getting gas when Chris pointed out a gas station to me earlier. That gas station was on the left side, plus we did see plenty of them along the way, so I thought we could wait. But now we were on a rather small local road, and gas stations were hard to come by. We were heading towards a major highway and I was constantly checking the map to see how far away we were. This was a total deja vu for me as I was in the exact same situation when I drove my Miata to the east coast 8 years ago. I was prepared for the worst and was imagining what we would do if we became stranded. Chris was praying the whole time, which must have felt like eternity.

We did eventually see a sign pointing to a gas station, but the stress had not ended yet as we could not see it anywhere on the road! We made a turn and stopped by a bakery to ask. It turned out that the gas station was only a little bit further down the road. I guess our anxiety had made us impatient.

We were overcome by a great feeling of relief after we filled up the tank. We could now at last enjoy some pretty rare sights (at least to us) on the local highway, which included... a guy who slowed down traffic to tell the drivers to stay on the right side of the road. "Hmm... why would I need a guy to tell me that?" I wondered, until I saw further down the road a slow moving truck approaching us in the opposite direction that was painting the lane dividing markers. I guess on these winding and twisting roads, one could easily cross the center and mess up their paint job, especially on many of the hairpin turns. Later on, we caught a glimpse of an old lady by the side of the road holding out a basket of fruits to cars that were whipping by her! I'm assuming that she was trying to sell her fruits, and not expecting us to stick out our hands and grab one of them on our way :) And on multiple occurrences we saw shepherds herding sheeps right in the middle of the road.

It was almost noon by the time we arrived at Olympia. After lunch we entered the ancient site to see it already crowded with tourists. We visited the museum first and tried to listen in on many of the guided tours inside. The ancient site was quite a walk away from the museum, and was equally crowded. At the far end of the site was the barren looking stadium for foot races, complete with the original starting line marker stones. We found a quiet a spot on the small grassy hill to relax. Entertainment was provided by a group of students who decided to have a mock race. Another race followed shortly by two guys who did it au naturel - ie. with bare feet, not naked like the ancient athletes :)

By the time we left the site, the scene had become even more chaotic with tourist groups. We could barely find the space to squeeze through them to exit the site! We walked along the main street in the town to arrive at a hill where the Museum of the History of the Olympic Games in Antiquity was located. Surprisingly, the museum was almost completely empty. We were the only visitors during our half-hour visit. The small museum was informative and much more enjoyable to visit due to the lack of crowds.

Our drive back to Nafplio was smooth and uneventful, especially compared to this morning's drive. We made a short stop at Langadia to take some photos, and were greeted by a carpenter named Ignatio who invited us to his workshop and of course, eventually tried to sell us some of his crafts, which consist mostly of walking canes.

Back at Nafplio, we ended our night with a fast dinner that included an order of "fried onions". We were unfortunately wrong to assume that they meant onion rings, because they were literally just plain fried onions :)

Scare of the day: almost running out of gas in the middle of nowhere