Tag Archives: Jim

This Will Get Your “Kotor” Running!

I am not a dedicated student of history or geography, although I like to believe I have a little knowledge of the world.  I recently exposed my own ignorance on the recent affairs of eastern Europe and I am embarrassed to admit the depths of it to you now.  Let this paragraph serve as my confession booth when I tell you that just over a year ago, I had never heard of the country of Montenegro.  Allow me to further confess that as recently as six months ago, I didn’t know  that Yugoslavia was no longer a country, but rather a former Socialist Republic that had been divided into what stands today as seven independent countries (Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Slovenia) .img216

Of course, I knew that this entire Slavic area of the European continent was [very recently] rife with political tension and civil unrest. The result of which sparked years of bloody wars culminating in both great losses for many of the citizens and great victories for each independent nation.  I knew this because when I was younger, my sister and father each had friends from the area.  But eleven-year old Greg was more interested in tuning in to see how MacGyver was going to use a pocketknife to escape from a flooding submarine than he was to tuning into C-SPAN.macgyver

Continue reading This Will Get Your “Kotor” Running!

Let’s Set Sail Together Again (Corfu, Greece)!

It’s been nearly a month and a half since my last meaningful post and I am once again faced with the monumental task of getting caught back up.  I’m not sure how or why I allowed myself to get so far behind, but I do know that I have left myself a lot of work.  The wine, cheese and salami will just have to wait (well, I suppose it can’t hurt to have a little wine while I write).  I would like to apologize to my readers for this delay and I would like to acknowledge one loyal reader in particular;  Helen  actually reached out to me through our Contact Us page and basically said, “what the hell, Greg – where’ve you been?!”  Helen and everyone – even though it can’t excuse the lack of content, we  just got back from a two-week trip to the States where, in my capacity as Best Man, I roasted my good buddy Josh and toasted his beautiful bride, Abby (read about Josh and Abby’s trip to visit us here and here).

While we were home, I rediscovered some magical things – burritos, quality customer service and Netflix.  We haven’t watched as much TV over the past year as we did over the past two weeks.  I became obsessed with the Netflix original series, House of Cards – an amazing drama starring, Kevin Spacey as Frank Underwood, a cagey and politically ambitious congressman who is constantly scheming and conniving to reach the next rung of the political ladder.  If Frank Underwood can work through all hours of the night and stay ten moves ahead of his opposition, surely I can bang out a few extra blog posts in the next couple weeks.

You and me both, Frank
You and me both, Frank

We still have tons of travel left to do together – I’ve only written about the very first part of our cruise late last year and so much has happened since.  So put on your boating shoes and let’s get going… Continue reading Let’s Set Sail Together Again (Corfu, Greece)!