We count....you don't.

When I title this "We count....you don't.", I mean it, but CHILL first. I am not saying you aren't important. I'm saying that when we are counting people....like 1, 2, 3, and so on? YOU DO NOT! You don't say 14, 37, 9, it's ANNOYING, aggravating, there's one (sometimes two) of you on every tour, and honestly? IT WASTES TIME!!!!!! Now, there is the occasional old man who can't help himself, he's just trying to get your attention, well intended perhaps, annoying still? YEP!

We GET that it's the "thing" to do. I find that even I want to do it sometimes, but the difference? I DON'T!!! Seriously, we have limited time, chances are you were late on the bus anyway, having been given 2 hours for lunch, yet having to go to the bathroom upon meet time. REALLY? (Side blog...when you get free time? It's yours, but be smart and listen to your OWN BLADDER! GO, in the time given. We don't set "meet time", and then the "after meet time" for "bathroom time", we quit doing that once you were over the age of 7.)

So I try to count fast and so we can go, making up for the lateness, and when you jack my counts? It takes longer. Duh. ALSO? It JACKS MY COUNTS! And that's when we leave people, or wait LONGER for people that aren't coming!

So, bottom line, when you hear counting, resist the 12 year old boy in you and do NOT throw out meaningless numbers. Don't do it. We'll instantly like you better.

ATH-LHR-EWR-BED

Well, my trip home is ALWAYS an adventure!

When I was standing at the base of the Acropolis....there was a wind....a movie moment of silence, and that was the exact moment when the cold hit me. I was standing there listening to Daniel and his guide....zoning....and it hit me....from there, my nose ran continuously until I could start to really mix meds. THANKFULLY...I keep all sorts of drugs, just short of the "good stuff" in my "Mary Poppins" bag. We rock out Greek Night, well, my dancing left a little to be desired, but we had a good time, and I loved my group-every last one of them.

Anyway, so then of course we get to the hotel, I finish up the address list after a dose or two of Nyquil...and woozy is my middle name...I'm not sure how I took a shower, or if in fact I did use hand lotion as shampoo. 3am rolled around too quick, I got up, gave myself a pep talk, had 3 cups of coffee, and made my way downstairs to drop off the Florida crew. Check in actually worked out well, our driver, Babbis, didn't speak a lick of English, but he also didn't smile either, so I obviously had a task ahead of me. Not smiling is not an option. I head back to the hotel, jam with Daniel, pack a little, have more coffee, set 3 more alarms, and fall into bed for another 1.5 hours. Up, again, more coffee, some more drugs, downstairs, to drop off the remaining bits of my fabulous group. Airport, all is well, of course it's so sad to say goodbye, but I like knowing that all the rest of my peeps are together at least for the big leg of their trip home-warms my heart. And they are all smiling. I hop back on the coach, and head back to the hotel.

BREAKFAST! Fresh OJ-yum...and? MORE COFFEE!? In a normal world? I'd be WIRED-pinging-and highly entertaining...though in the sick, on drugs, not enough sleep world...I'm barely functioning. So I head back up....must...pack...for...real....now. (Sidenote...I can't remember if I've blogged about it yet or not, but the word EXPLOSION is very common in the tour guide world. We get to a hotel room, and it's literally like a bomb goes off...it's how we appear to be put together, but it's also why we don't let people see behind closed doors...we can't explain how THAT got THERE either!) Anyway, packing, and of course going down to say farewell to sweet Daniel. Au Revoir. I'm standing there at the front desk, and Babbis comes in, and so I pretend to fall asleep at the counter, a simple snore out loud, and the man giggles. He. Giggled. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!! HA!! Daniel comes running over, and says...HOW DID YOU DO THAT!? "I've been trying to make him laugh since 2am!" He says! lol He had the same mind set, only he tried walking like a zombie, the "snore" was apparently the way to Babbis' heart. We then proceeded to "have a conversation" about how I was headed home to see Momma, and we were bff's from then on. I think he hugged me somewhere in there. Cracked him. :-) It's the little things people.

Daniel goes on his way, I'm the sole survivor at the hotel, I have 45 minutes till nice looking Greek man takes me to the airport. I pack. My bag weighs like 65lbs at least. Hmmm....I'll deal with that later. I get to the airport....cute Greek never lets me tip him-he's another blog....he's sweet, adorable, and told me to calm down once because I was fretting about something needlessly-total strangers know that I need to chill. lol. At the airport...reunited with Daniel, and I "babysit" his bag, translation, HIDE it from silly Alitalia and their silly little "policies". See prior blog-I've nothing nice to say about Alitalia. He meets up with me at my counter when I'm deep in funny distracting conversation about the weight of my bag, I mean I was comparing his ticket machine to old movie reels....it was a good time, I had to take out about 4lbs, but in the end, I checked a 59lb bag with a smile, and a genuine smile. And he specifically said, "normally it's only 50lbs, but for you, since you are so nice...." :-) Ahhh.

Daniel then treated me to lunch at McDonalds....oooh! YUM! And he was walking away to catch his flight home, turned to say "I'll miss you"....and? Guess what? THAT is when the cold hit him!!! UGH!!! Poor guy.

My flight, I am saving my very last Nyquil for the London leg, but I've got some Sudafed for this leg. I sleep the whole time, well, as much as I can, as I am an aisle seater-another blog-but my middle seater had her elbows full on out, like IN my side. She's lucky I was sick, but getting tossed between her and the carts going by, it's a good thing I was also heavily drugged. London-played fair. Shocking I know. I even had time for a stop at the "Giraffe" in Terminal 5. Over priced place to sit, which has now become a joke with my brother and I, as he'd never noticed it, and for a while and he was flying to Deathrow monthly? Well, he didn't notice it because he was in the "lounge". Turn your noses up people. I, am not lounge worthy, so I go to the Giraffe. So when I send him the picture of where I am, he asks me if I'm slumming it. Yes, yes I am. I'm also having some sort of smoothie, pretending it's $8 is worth it because it's got some magic healing property to it. It doesn't/didn't, but don't tell me that.

I head to my flight, board, sit down, next to Greek woman, who, before I sit? Asks me if I'll help her with her customs form. Really? I put my stuff up, sit down, and she asks again, in great English. I say yes? But I don't trust this because I only really know mine, not visa's/visitors/aliens/etc. And she says "Do you know how to read?"? I should have said no. I say yes, she says good, because I can't. I don't know what this means. Like you can't read English? Or you can't read. At all. Okay, well, I say yes anyway, as she picks up an English newspaper and proceeds to read...hmmm...suspect. In the mean time, lanky feminine boy with bad boots gets on in a fret and late, and I help him find room for his bag, move mine for his, and he plops down, turns to me, and gives me the "most considerate neighbor award!" AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! YAYA!!!!!!!!! I'm a WINNER!! lol It made me laugh, and smile (later he gives me a cookie-true story)

I pop my precious Nyquil, break out my neck pillow, insert ear plugs, and eye mask, I'm gone. I wake for dinner, eat a little, and she's already asked the flight attendant for help on her customs form....I go back to bed....to be woken by the flight attendant over me...helping her. AT LEAST an hour she spent on the form that takes 3 minutes. She filled out every form, and then when I did pull up my eye mask, she saw, and made me look at her forms. LOL! And the best part is she didn't know what "livestock" was. So I say "animals". She looks more confused. I say, "This question asks if you have been around animals"....NO! I HAVE NOT NOT NOT been around animals!!! As though I was accusing her. Oh boy. And so for the next 15 minutes, we go over it, I repeat the question, she gets defensive about the answer, and I say I'm just repeating the question, she calms down till the next translation. I can imagine she makes her daughter roll her eyes often! Anyway, back to the eye mask. We land, in SLUSH! WHAT THE HECK!? And we SAT on the run way for a solid 2 hours, waiting for our gate, since the plane that was there was de-icing. Seriously, get me a staircase, and get me to my mother....the drug medley I'd fashioned is fading, and I've just taken my last Sudafed. Finally, the fasten seat belt sign goes off, Greek mama BOLTS OVER ME, to get her bags and stand there, awkwardly, so that I can't do anything, but wait. I get off the plane, surely I'm in slow motion, the drug fog, tired fog, sleepy fog. Greek mama is lost in passport control land, I'm okay with not being near her for that-I can only imagine. I make it through, pay $5 for a cart, if for no other reason, than to keep me upright. I wait one hour for my luggage, I mean, there is slush on the ground after all. HELLO, it's NEW JERSEY! It snows all the time! Whatever. I grab my luggage-heave it onto the overpriced cart and roll out. Roll out to Momma Bear. It's snowing out. That's right...SNOWING! And I have to drive home. I'm not sure that was safe or legal, but it was the right decision, my poor mother, waiting for me for WAY too long.

We get home, I fell asleep on the porch. Ha-no, I made it into my bed somehow, and forced myself to keep sleeping. Skipped church. Got up, had some cereal-told my mom I was disappointed in the breakfast that this establishment had, and where was the coffee.

She didn't slap me.

She should have.

Then, after having been up for 2 hours, I needed a nap. I had to be at work by 7pm. I work at Bath & Body Works part time when I'm home, and like a goofball, I said I'd do the Christmas Floor Set. Well, I had new drugs that I'd tapped, so I'm feeling okay, but I'd still rather be sleeping, and this floor set is a hot mess. At 3:50am I was done, and drove home, and fell into bed. Now, I didn't fall into bed and then SLEEP!? I LAID THERE! Till 7:30am. Then slept for an HOUR!!!! Then, LAID THERE! And was USELESS! Until 3pm when I got up, finally showered, put mascara on, donned my Halloween colors and decided I'd be awake to the world and rocked out the "rainstick" craft at the "Harvest Party". And now, here I am, I got up at 7:30 this morning...and I've sort of been productive, I've put off paperwork all day, I did some shopping, I got coffee, and I took a conference call. I've also not taken a nap-I'm proud of that. And? I wrote this giant run on paragraph, in response to the email sent my way by some of my fabulous pax. Intended as a response, turned into a blog. HA! But? I LOVE THE QUOTE! I'm sharing it here. Isn't that the truth!? Especially coming from our "Footsteps of Paul" tour through Greece, and a drop of Turkey.

"Trying to follow in the footsteps of the masters, but it's a lot harder than it looks because even though they had the same size feet as us, they weren't looking down the whole time while they walked to make sure they were doing it right."

My amendment to that of course is...."OR FALLING"! They had it good, things weren't RUINED when they lived there, just when we visit...how is that!?

I miss you friends. Thank you again, for a great great trip. And --------------->

is my "Halloween" outfit. Own orange? Wear it. DONE! And of course....Darian...the nerd....DariaNerd. NerDarian.