Greece is the word
I’m sitting here looking over the photos from this trip and I don’t even have a clue as to which ones to put up here because I have never taken such a stunning set like this before.
I still can’t believe we’ve gone there and come back. It doesn’t even seem real. The entire thing was like a dreamscape.
Where to begin…
First, we went to Athens to see my friend Sophia whom I know from an online writer’s workshop. Sophia is a brilliant writer who never fails to make me laugh until I cry. It’s the strangest thing, I always knew I would end up meeting her. I’d only seen one or two photos of her, so I wasn’t sure if I would be able to spot her out from a crowd.
When we did meet, it was pouring down raining, a little chilly, and we’d just gotten off the train to her suburb. We’d forgotten our umbrellas at the hotel, but I had a cowboy hat over my head (I’d brought it as a gift for her husband) and Sophia spotted it, ran straight to me and engulfed me in one gigantic hug.
We all went to her house for the evening and her mom cooked us a big fat Greek dinner that was outrageously delicious. Her mother didn’t speak English, but she spoke French, so we were able to communicate just fine. It was the strangest thing, I felt as if I’d already met her mother a long time ago. I felt as if I’d met Sopia as well, but I’d “known” her for three years via the workshop.
Sophia’s husband speaks a lot more English than we expected and is a kind, hilarious, and amazing father. The twins were a riot, seven month-old little giggle babies! You just look at them and they explode in laughter. They are also the prettiest little girls in Greece.
One other thing we had to do in Athens was visit the Acropolis. It is beautiful at night with all the spotlights and is amazing up close during the daytime. Here are some architecture students from Germany studying the angles of one of the temples.
There are no straight lines in the columns of the Parthenon. It amazes me that the Greek architects of 2600 years ago knew that the human eye tends to warp straight lines, so they tapered the columns so that the eye would see them as straight.
Hell, I’m tired. I’ll do a Big Fat Greek post tomorrow with some pretty pictures, I swear. Blane has the flu or something and I feel as if I’m off my game as far as writing a blog post that is remotely entertaining and since Greece is so amazing, it deserves better than what I can deliver today.
Just want to let you all know I’m alive and well and back home.
I’ve got a couple of photos over on my Flickr page. Keep checking back there, I’ll try to put up a new one every day.
Dr. Lecter? Dr. Lecter?
I had a toothache that came on gradually then suddenly and had to have an emergency root canal today. My general dentist referred me out to this endodontist, an Irish guy who looks and sounds exactly like Anthony Hopkins.
Wait, no, hang on.
Anthony Hopkins.
That’s him!
Dude has to know it too. I do realize Hopkins has a beautiful Welsh accent, and Irish and Welsh are not the same, but to a scared Cajun?
I was laying there being all still for the xrays when he snuck in silently behind me. Out of nowhere his face is right there beside mine and his voice a few inches from my ear, “Hello.”
Just like Dr. Lector says it, but without the “Clarice.”
I am not exaggerating when I tell you I jumped six inches out of that chair.
Cause see, last night I tossed and turned all night trying not to think about how that guy would remind me of this once he put on his surgical mask:
Before he did that, I got them to run me a truck driver dose of Nitrous, which in the end made him seem more like a leprechaun than a liver/fava bean kinda guy (that shit is the The Shit, that laughing gas).
As I was leaving he asked me send him a post card. I asked him if he preferred Athens or Santorini and he said, “You’re not really going to send me a post card, everyone says they’re going to send me one and I never get any.”
I hardly ever send out postcards, but I will this time for one main reason. While he was working on my tooth he said, “I can see what’s causing your pain, I’m removing it right now.”
That’s magical to me.
Spring Break Neck
My kids are going to kill me for what I’ve done to their spring break.
A week from tomorrow we will be heading to Greece. A few days ago I scoured the internet looking for tickets that would get us to the Galapagos Islands and somehow ended up with tickets to Athens. Sorry, giant tortoise, maybe next time…
We wanted to go someplace warm but not a place where the spring break crowd would be (I speak for everyone but Kara who wants to be a part of that pack, but I have power over her for now). Someplace far, far, away. I was supposed to look for tickets a long time ago, but I don’t know, I don’t like planning things too far in advance. Or maybe I just don’t like committing to anything. I hope I never figure out the whys to that and remain flexible and open to stuff at the last minute until they lay my body into the ground. I thrive on that shit, new things coming at me really fast.
So hell yeah, Greece, let’s go.
I’ve got a buddy who lives there who I’ve been dying to meet, Sophia, a girl I met in Max’s online screenwriter’s group. It’s strange, I feel as if we’ve already actually met in person. It also seems as if she lives over in the next city, not on the other side of an ocean.
It’s a short trip, just one week (that is short for visiting Greece), but I am sort of looking at this thing as an intro. We’ll be in Athens for a couple of days, then head out to one of the islands. Funny thing, I didn’t book the Galapagos thing because it involved too many flights, but ended up with the same situation, too many flights. There are no straight flights to Athens from here, so we stop over in Amsterdam on the way there and back. Another flight to the islands. By the time this trip is done, we will have taken seven flights.
My kids are going to kill me.
Before that, though, we get to see this:
Man o man.
See, if I’d booked this three months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night waiting for this trip.
I love my life. Even if my kids are gonna kill me.
O la la, Shoes
I got some new scoop from Bryan Sadowski on Carolina Pagano shoes that are coming out in the fall of 2009. Bryan and his wife Carolina Sadowski, a Brazilian designer started a fashion company in 2006 which I wrote about in this post.
First, meet the lovely designer, Carolina. (all photos courtesy of Bryan)
I feel about ten times cooler now that I’ve said, “Meet the designer.” I don’t actually know Carolina, but maybe one day we’ll be in Paris at the same time and we’ll bump into each other. She’s from Sao Paulo, Brazil but currently resides in Seattle, WA.
You can find her impressive bio here.
Now. Shoes!
I’ll start with my favorite.
What a gorgeous silhouette. I love the mix of textures and colors in her fall line. The color palate, inspired by the natural beauty of Brazil include neutrals such as coffee, black, hazelnut, and cement.
She’s using materials such as hand carved leather from Brazil, best seen in this flat with a fish scale pattern.
Also in this sexy heel.
There’s even something for you boot lovers.
Again, I’m loving the mix of colors and the textures of this collection.
Next, we have another beautiful hand-carved leather, but in a zebra pattern.
Love it, love it, love it.
This patent leather heel has lovely gold leather trim that turns a classic look into extraordinary.
It is a shoe you keep for life and hand down to your grandchildren.
Another feature of this collection is the use of semi-precious stone embellishments.
The first thought I had when I saw this shoe was, wow, foot jewelry.
Then I read this quote from Carolina regarding her thoughts on the 2009 fall collection, “To each pair I added details like trims made of bronze leather, semi-precious stones and specially made leathers. Something that makes a woman look at her feet and simply smile, the way you admire a beautiful piece of jewelry.”
Also new since my last Pagano post is the ability to order these couture shoes online. Posh on Main, of Seattle carries them.
Thanks, Bryan for the lovely photos and info and best of luck at the upcoming Workshop in Paris!
