Difficult to meet new people…No more company coming until Friday…

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When they returned to the property on Saturday night, holiday home renters in Marloth Park found this genet (wild cat) sleeping on their bed. This photo was posted on Facebook’s Marloth Park Sighting Page.

We’ve had a great time seeing so many friends since we arrived in The Villages seven weeks ago. With only a little over five weeks to go until we leave, we hope to see more friends and, if possible, make new friends while we’re here. We anticipated it would be easy to meet people when we go out to dinner on our own, but we’ve found it’s not as easy as you’d think.

Using Jabula Lodge and Restaurant as a reference for meeting people hasn’t served us well. There, it’s so easy to approach and be approached by other guests at bars and restaurants to engage in lively conversation. The commonality of loving nature and wildlife is an easy segue to initiate conversation and lively banter.

But, here, many locals are part of well-established groups and don’t seem to initiate or respond to communication from strangers like us. This was the same when we lived in the US almost 12 years ago. We could go out for years and never meet new people.

If we ask a question in an attempt to initiate a conversation, the response is usually a one-sentence answer, and the respondent goes back to what they were doing or otherwise private conversation.

Wildlife…in The Villages…a giant snail.

We still have many people we could contact to get together, but time is going by so quickly we may not get to everyone. Plus, we are enjoying free time for just the two of us with the easy pace of daily life. In the last two weeks, before we leave on July 28, we’ll be busy sorting and packing since we’re sending a suitcase to Minnesota to lighten our load for upcoming domestic flights we’ll be on in the next few months.

Once the two cruises are over, with the final cruise disembarking in Boston, we’ll see my cousin Phyllis for dinner one night, and then we’ll fly to Nevada and Minnesota. Tom is checking costs for baggage right now as I write this to determine if shipping the bag makes financial sense.

As it turns out, the excess baggage fee for multiple flights is $374. If we ship one bag to our upcoming hotel in Minnesota by a company called “Luggage Free,” we can save $186.

We brought one extra bag to accommodate the almost one year we’ll spend in South America, including warm weather clothes and safari clothes we’ll need for our various wildlife adventures.

Also, we needed to bring warm clothes for our time in Norway, Greenland, Iceland, and Canada, where it will be cold even in the summer months. Then, when we get to Nevada, it will be sweltering in the summer months, as high as 110F, 43C. Most of the time, we’ll be indoors at the Green Valley Ranch Spa and Casino in air-conditioned comfort, but we’ll be heading out to dinner with son Richard, and to the DMV to renew our driver’s license.

Fortunately, we could now book appointments for our driver’s license renewals. Several years ago, we couldn’t do that, and we had to get in a long queue outdoors for over an hour. This time, with an appointment, we should be able to enter the building upon arrival.

Tonight, we’re staying in for dinner and a quiet evening of streaming our new fantastic binge-worthy drama series on Apple TV, The Morning Show. If you haven’t seen this series, I assure you, it’s well worth watching.

Have a great day, and be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, June 20, 2013:

See the two blue chase lounges at a distance at the house in Boveglio, Italy? That is another patio for our sunning time every few days. Due to the dense vegetation, there are lots of bees. Tom and I both have allergies to bees, thus limiting our time in that spot. For more photos, please click here.

More fun times with friends in The Villages…

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We’ve had a great time with friends Lea Ann and Chuck.

Lea Ann and Chuck arrived at the house exactly at 3:00 pm as planned. It was wonderful to see them. Although we’ve talked and stayed in touch via social media over the years, we haven’t seen them in six years. How time has flown! As mentioned in yesterday’s post, we met them on a cruise in 2017 on a cruise from Sydney to Seattle.

We’d only spent a few hours with them since the cruise was about to end, but the four of us hit it off and stayed in touch. When they arrived yesterday, we picked up right where we left off, and the conversation flowed easily and enthusiastically.

Us, last night at the Blue Fin while waiting for an indoor table with Lea Ann and Chuck.

As frequent world travelers, they both had similar stories to ours, although they have a home in Florida. They thanked us for encouraging them to embark on their travel journey and have spent a lot of time in places we’ve visited in the past. They even stayed in the house next door to the holiday home we rented in a remote area of Bali in 2016, loving the experience we had as well.

We’ll be anxious to hear about their nine-month world cruise beginning in December, which we discussed in yesterday’s post. They are very excited about this unique opportunity.

We get a kick out of customized golf carts.

We sat in the living room and chatted for an hour or so and then headed to Brownwood, where we once again went to the Blue Fin for dinner, a repeat after Friday night when Karen and Rich were here. Since it was Father’s Day and the restaurant was packed, we had a long wait to get a table but sat outdoors on their veranda, having a great time, and each had a drink while we waited for a table indoors.

We were finally seated indoors. It was hot and humid outdoors after the previous day’s rainstorm, and we all agreed that dining indoors would be more comfortable, and it certainly was.

My dinner was a shrimp salad. It was ok. I don’t like curly lettuce like this.

Back at the house by 8:30 pm, we served dessert, and again, the four of us lounged in the living room, telling endless stories of our travels, including some outrageous experiences that are unavoidable during long travels. It was interesting to hear their similar ups and downs, knowing we weren’t alone in the challenges one meets traveling long term.

By 11:30, I started fading and headed to bed, and Tom joined me about an hour later while the three of them continued the lively conversation. I wished I could have stayed up longer. As I write here at almost 10:00 am, Lea Ann and Chuck are still sleeping. As soon as they awaken, we’ll make breakfast.

Lea Ann and Chuck both had the grouper topped with crab and a white sauce.

This afternoon, they’ll be back on the road to return to their home in Dunedin, which is a two-hour drive from here. Once again, we’ve had a fantastic time with friends. In the past 24 hours, I heard from my dear friend Lisa whom we haven’t seen since 2017. On Friday, she and her friend Vicki are heading here for a visit.

Lisa and I have been friends for about 35 years, meeting in the late 1980s. Over the years, we, too, have stayed in touch, and it will be wonderful to see her again and meet her friend Vicki.

We haven’t had much of an opportunity to get together with all of the readers who contacted us. We apologize for this. We assumed we’d have plenty of time to do so, but time has slipped away as it often does. In only 39 days, we’ll be on our way to Scotland. How wonderful that we’re so enjoying our time here and yet, have so much awaiting us in the future.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, June 19, 2013:

My bathroom in the 300-year-old stone house in Boveglio, Italy, where we stayed for three months. Tom took the smaller bathroom in our bedroom. There’s no tub, and the shower is small, but it serves its purpose. For more photos, please click here.

Happy Father’s Day to Tom, our sons, family members and friends…

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Today, Father’s Day is celebrated around the world in many countries. I wish I could have made this day special for Tom, but we decided not to fuss over our birthdays and holidays long ago. We don’t have room in our bags for gifts, and spending money on cards and decorations makes no sense.

Usually, I make a special meal and dessert for Father’s Day, but today, our friends Lea Ann and Chuck are arriving at 3:00 pm, and a few hours later, we’ll be heading out for dinner to one of the town squares. Since Lea Ann is a pescatarian, returning to the Blue Fin in Brownwood Paddock Square makes sense; where we dined with Karen and Rich on Friday night and enjoyed an excellent dinner.

What is a pescatarian (for those who don’t know), it is the following:

“The pescatarian diet is a vegetarian diet that includes fish or other aquatic animals. The word “pesce” means fish in Italian, so those that emphasize fish in their plant-based diets have come to be called by this term. Sometimes these healthy eaters are also called pes-co-vegetarians or pescetarians.”

Pescatarians eat the following:

Pescatarians Do Eat

  • Whole grains and grain products
  • Legumes and their products, including beans, lentils, tofu, and hummus
  • Nuts and nut butter, peanuts, and seeds
  • Seeds, including hemp, chia, and flaxseeds
  • Dairy, including yogurt, milk, and cheese
  • Fruits
  • Vegetables
  • Fish and shellfish
  • Eggs

Nowadays, it is essential to ask what type of diet works for guests coming for a meal. They’ll have dessert with us tonight when we return from the restaurant and breakfast in the morning. Depending on when they’d like to go out, I may make a cheese, vegetable, chip, and dip platter at the last minute. I have plenty of items that will suit Lea Ann’s way of eating.

Tom, in the archway at the 300 year old stone house we rented in 2013. See the post here.

They, too, have been traveling the world extensively over the past few years, and although they have a home in Florida, they are frequently on the move. We met them on a cruise in 2017 and have stayed in touch since then. Early on, they picked our brains for world travel tips.

In no time at all, they had it all figured out. It’s been fun to see their countless excellent posts and photos on Facebook and their website, found here. They’ll sail on a world cruise from December 2023 to September 2024. It will be fun to follow along with them. What an adventure this will be for them!

We’ve often thought about doing a world cruise for many months (in their case, nine months), but both of us feel that for us, such a long cruise will detract from the enjoyment of shorter cruises which still are a novelty to us. Being on a ship for so long doesn’t appeal to us, but someday I may eat my words.

Many of these world cruises sail to many locations where we already sailed, so there would be a lot of redundancy. It will be fun to hear Lea Ann and Chuck’s feedback when it’s over, which I am sure we will.

This morning we walked, had a lovely breakfast of mushroom, cheese, and onion omelet with bacon, and laundered our bedding. Yesterday, we did the guest room bedding and cleaned the bathroom, and everything is ready for our next round of guests.

Since we don’t have a house cleaner more than once a month, each morning after breakfast, I clean the kitchen. The only issue I have with doing so is the front of the refrigerator which is stainless steel, and every little smudge or fingerprint shows. I can’t stand for it to look dirty, and cleaning it without streaks is a real challenge.

The best solution I’ve found so far is using a stone and steel cleaner the owner has available here and spraying only a tiny amount, and then wiping gently with paper towels applying only a small amount of pressure. If I rub too hard, it streaks. Go figure. Please let me know if any of our readers know of a better solution. We’ve never experienced this issue.

That’s it for today, folks. To all the dads, have a special day with your loved ones.

Be well.

Photos from ten years ago today, June 18, 2013:

This is the 300 year old stone house we rented in Boveglio, Italy, for three months beginning on this date ten years ago. For more photos, please click here.

Fantastic time with Karen and Rich…

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Last night, Tom enjoyed his fish and chips at Blue Fin Restaurant at Brownwood Paddock Square. I had tuna steak, Brussels sprouts, and asparagus.

Last night was probably our best meal since we arrived in The Villages. We’d eaten at the Blue Fin Restaurant with friends Carol and Mark when they visited about a month ago, and Tom and I hadn’t tried it again since. It was good that time but last night, it was even better.

The Villages are not known for having the best restaurants in Florida, perhaps due to the slightly lower prices than in other parts of the state. With 90% of the population over 60 years old and many on fixed incomes, a restaurant wouldn’t survive in this area at higher prices.

Many of the establishments are chain restaurants, which we weren’t familiar with since most are in the southern part of the US. After spending so much time outside the US this past almost 11 years, we are unfamiliar with many businesses, shops, and restaurants.

Karen had grilled trout, Brussels sprouts, and mashed potatoes.

It was wonderful to be with Karen and Rich again, for the second time since we arrived here almost seven weeks ago. Gosh, how time flies. The four of us are working on deciding on dates for us to stay with them for a few nights at their new home sometime in July.

Since we don’t have a car, they’ve offered to come to pick us up after they visit Karen’s mom Donna, who we visited a few weeks. Ago, Donna lives in Leesburg, only a 15-minute drive from us. Karen explained she’d be happy to pick us up when she leaves her mom’s after an overnight stay and bring us back a few days later.

We hesitated to let them do all the driving. It’s a two-hour drive each way. But, after being with them this past day and evening, we’ve decided we’d love to accept their generous offer. We’d love to be with them again and see their new home.

Karen and I have been friends for almost 20 years and have always been very close. The more time we can spend together, the better. And Tom and Rich have become good friends. Last night, after we returned from dinner, the “boys” sat on the lanai while Karen and I had much treasured “girl talk” in the living room.

Rich had fried calamari, sea bass, and Brussels sprouts.

Later, everyone had the apple crisp I’d made (not me) topped with ice and whipping cream. We all stayed up until after 1:00 am, which was late for us. Somehow, we all managed to get enough sleep. I didn’t doze off until 2:00 am and awoke at 4:00 am but returned to sleep, awakening around 8:00 am. I stayed in bed, playing with my phone, until Tom finally awoke at 9:45.

We bolted out of bed, and I showered dressed and rushed to the kitchen to make breakfast for our guests. After breakfast and a short chat, they needed to head out to see Donna, who was looking forward to their arrival. Once they left, we did a load of laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, and did a little planning for tonight’s dinner.

We won’t go out tonight since our next guests, Lea Ann and Chuck, who arrive tomorrow, and we’ll all be heading out to dinner tomorrow night. It’s a fun and busy weekend.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, June 17, 2013:

It was fun seeing the canals in Venice. For more photos, please click here.

Tom remembers everything…Guests arriving tonight…

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An excellent spot for relaxation.

It always makes me laugh when I prepare the “Photo from ten years ago today…” and ask Tom, “Where were we ten years ago today?”

Ninety percent of the time, his answer is correct. That amazes me. It’s odd how he recalls dates and locations and always leaves me with a smile on my face. On the other hand, I remember the names of small towns, people, and expenses. We can remember many aspects of our almost 11 years of world travel.

Sure, at some point, as we age further, we may not be able to recall as well. But, when we forget, we’ll only need to bring up a post from the date((s) of our experiences, and everything will be there for us to read, peruse photos and instantly return to a series of memories from any specific date and time in our lives.

If that were the only reason we did this each day, it would be sufficient enough for us to be grateful for our efforts. But, add to that the joy of sharing it with readers, family, and friends worldwide. The love and support we’ve received from readers has been indescribable.

When I try to explain this in conversation, I always add how grateful we are that we don’t have haters writing to us with toxic vitriol. Then, of course, the fact that our readers are so tolerant of typos, spacing issues, and writing flaws that I am not exempt from making on a daily basis. All of this means the world to us.

If someone had asked me 12 years ago if I would be willing to write an essay with photos every day of my life, I would have laughed, saying it was impossible. Sure, reporters and business and entertainment writers write the equivalent of an essay(s) each day when they prepare stories. But that is a job, and although some may love their job, nonetheless, it’s a job.

For us, we don’t look at it as a job. We look at it as a labor of love. Our love for traveling the world and living a home-free life has only been enhanced by sharing stories and photos with all of you. No, it’s not perfect, nor will it ever be. We don’t strive for perfection. If we did so, preparing posts would be a source of stress. In part, we chose this life to avoid stress.

The countless golf courses in The Villages create a beautiful ambiance in the area.

The only times we feel stressed is when something happens beyond our control, and we’re helpless to change it. But, even if we can’t change a particular scenario, we certainly can and do come up with plans to adapt (and accept) the situation. We have been tested over and over again, and yet, somehow, we maintain a sense of commitment and dedication to our lifestyle.

There are many bonuses besides the enrichment and pleasure of seeing new places worldwide, which generally revolve around people and wildlife, as most of our readers know so well.

This weekend will illustrate how enjoyable being with friends is when tonight, Karen and Rich arrive, and on Sunday, Lea Ann and Chuck. We are grateful for all our friends, whether we knew them from our old lives, like Karen and Rich, or we met them in our travels, like Lea and Chuck.

This morning we’re busy cleaning the house. Tom does the floors and his bathroom while I do the kitchen, dust, and clean our ensuite bathroom in our bedroom. This morning after breakfast, I got busy with laundry and baking a dessert for both evenings that our friends will be here. In a matter of minutes, we will finish the cleaning and laundry, and the desserts will come out of the oven. I made two separate pans of gluten-free apple crisp, and we have plenty of vanilla ice cream to go with it.

Have a fantastic weekend. We’ll be back with you soon.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, June 16, 2013:

As our ship made its way to the port of Venice, our mouths were agape in surprise as a feast before our eyes. For more photos, please click here.

Remembering Marloth Park’s treasures…Stunning photos posted by locals…Upcoming busy weekend with houseguests….

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Photo by Hanlie de Wit. Bushbabies were checking out the action.

Every morning, before beginning the post, I check out Marloth Park’s Sighting Page on Facebook for any new wildlife sightings, not so much to post them but to see what’s happening in our absence. Today, June 15, is the date we’ll return in 2024, twelve months from today.

It’s not that I wish the time to pass quickly while we’re away. We’re enjoying our time in Florida and will surely enjoy the three upcoming cruises. But, no doubt, I think about it often and miss our human and animal friends in the bush. Life is easier here, and the heat, humidity, insects, and other annoyances in the bush.

But, when we are there, all of that is incidental, and we find ways to stay comfortable and adapt to the surroundings since the benefits and joys are many. The weather here in Florida is as hot and humid as in South Africa. The dew point has been higher here many days than we’d ever experienced in Marloth Park in the summer months. The difference here is the whole-house aircon that stays on 24/7, keeping us cool and comfortable.

Photo by Meryl Venter. Lions in our old neighborhood.

It’s impossible to have a whole-house aircon in the bush with all the load-shedding issues and the unaffordable cost of electricity. It’s just not affordable for homeowners providing holiday homes with reasonably priced holiday rentals. Plus, it’s not practical with doors open and no bug screens.

When I checked Facebook this morning, I was thrilled to find the three new photos we posted today, giving credit to the photographers for such fine and unique shots. Taking pictures in The Villages is challenging. The houses are somewhat cookie-cutter from the exterior.

Next week, we plan to look at some houses for sale and prepare a post sharing what we’ve found. No, we aren’t looking for ourselves, but we thought sharing photos and pricing with our readers in a post would be fun. We’ve looked at some houses for sale at different points during our years-long travel journey since it’s interesting to both of us.

Photo by Meryl Venter. A leopard in Marloth Park, one of several.

On another note, we have a busy weekend coming up with two visits from separate couples, friends Karen and Rich on Friday and friends Lea Ann and Chuck on Sunday. No sooner than one couple leaves, we’ll hurry and wash the sheets and remake the guest room bed and clean the bathroom for the next visit.

In both cases, for these one-night stays, we plan to dine out for dinner to show our guests the fun squares we’ve visited in the past. We’ll most likely go to Spanish Springs Town Square and Sumter Landing on each of the two nights and have breakfast here in the mornings.

Soon our Kroger grocery store online order will arrive. We’ve included bread, fruit, and juice for our guests (which we don’t eat), along with eggs and bacon, sufficient for both mornings. Seeing our friends again and enjoying quality time together in this lovely place will be fun.

As for today, we have excellent leftovers from ordering Chinese food last night that was enough for two nights. We’re really enjoying the delicious food from Sunrise Asian Restaurant. It’s too far to pick up the food driving in the golf cart, so we’re taking advantage of the Grubhub free delivery we receive by being Amazon Prime members.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, June 15, 2013:

No photos were posted on this date, ten years ago. For the story posted, please click here.

Tom’s recent change…He’s a new man…Dinner with cruise friends from 2022…

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Nancy and Bill, whom we met on our last cruise in 2022 and happen to live in The Villages. It was fun to see them again.

After spending 42½ working on the railroad and constantly exposed to loud sounds, Tom’s hearing was impacted to such a degree that over the past decade, it’s diminished to the point of my having to talk very loud for him to hear me. He often misses out on group conversation, although he’s very good at reading lips.

Some of our friends and family members have noticed this and encouraged him to get hearing aids. Still, he adamantly opposed paying $3000 to $6000 for the devices, often easily visible and clunky looking. Over the years, we’ve done a lot of research on hearing aids and discovered that the high prices were totally unnecessary, and hearing aid companies have been getting rich, charging such high fees.

Tom decided to wait and see if technology would eventually result in reasonably priced hearing aids, inspiring him to try it finally. That happened in the past few weeks when we discovered a company, MD Hearing, that possibly could fill the bill.

This was my steak salad. The meat was tough but had a good flavor.

He ordered the hearing aids and began wearing them a few days ago. There was a day or so adjustment period for him to get comfortable with the tiny devices in each ear and adjust the sound to suit the differences in each ear. So far, so good.

Last night for the first time since he started wearing the devices, we were with another couple, Nancy and Bill, whom we met on our last cruise in 2022. As mentioned in yesterday’s post, we had dinner with them the night before we both tested positive for Omicron in April, with only two days left on the cruise. We were very concerned that Nancy and Bill got Covid from dining with us on that last evening.

Nancy only ate a quarter of her pizza and took the remainder home in a styrofoam container.

When they so kindly invited us to happy hour at their home late yesterday afternoon, the first question we asked was if they got Covid from us that night. They did not. We were so relieved to know this.

It was delightful spending time with Nancy and Bill last evening. Nancy had put out a lovely spread of snacks which we thoroughly enjoyed. As a reader of our posts, Nancy was aware of my way of eating and had some items that worked for me, nuts and cheese. That was so thoughtful.

This was Bill’s wiener schnitzel with red cabbage and spaetzel.. They had lived in Germany at one time, and this was a pleasant reminder for him.

After a lively conversation at their beautiful home in The Villages, a 20-minute golf cart ride from here, the four of us headed to their local golf club, Mallory Hill Country Club Restaurant, for a delicious, affordable dinner. My one glass of wine was only $4.50, and Tom’s beer was $3.50, a steal for drinks in the US. Our total dinner bill was $44.54. I had a steak salad, and Tom had a Reuben sandwich with fries.

But, besides the delightful time we spent with Nancy and Bill, the special treat of the evening was seeing Tom able to hear the conversation among the four of us, the waiter, and voice directions from Maps on his phone when we made our way to their home.

When looking straight at Tom, you don’t see the hearing aids.
They are neatly placed in the ear and barely noticeable.

It’s a new day when I don’t have to constantly have to speak loud, listen to loud streamed shows, and frequently have to repeat myself. It opens up a new avenue to easier conversation between us and when we are with others. It will take him a week or two to get used to the feel of the tiny buds in his ears, but I have no doubt he will accomplish this in no time.

That’s all for today. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Photo from ten years ago today, June 14, 2013:

There’s Tom, happy as a clam as we made our way in a lifeboat to the shore of Dubrovnik, Croatia. For more photos, please click here.

Part 2…Ten year ago as we headed to Izmir, Turkey to see the ancient city of Ephasus…Oh, the crowd!

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We tried not to miss a photo op at the ruins. See the post here.

The main reason we dislike visiting popular tourist sites is the crowds. It is uncomfortable to squeeze through amongst the people and challenging to take photos when everyone is crowded around for the best possible shots.

A well-preserved work of art.

No offense intended to other tourists. This is just us. We’ve enjoyed the freedom of doing exactly what we want to do over the past almost 11 years. Being in crowds is not one of them. However, over the years, we’ve visited many venues which wouldn’t have been safe for us to visit on our own, depending on the country and circumstances.

This piece was one of the most appealing, having survived for centuries.

When our ship was docked in Turkey, we received the following letter from the ship’s captain warning all passengers of demonstrations in various cities in Turkey occurring at the time of our arrival. Here is the letter from this post:

This letter was posted here on our bed the previous night that we returned from dinner.

Under these circumstances, we had no choice but to book the tour through the cruise line, resulting in traveling on a bus with 40 to 60 passengers. As it turned out, the bus stopped running in the middle of the desert, and we had to wait until someone came with another bus. Weird. We remember it well.

Decorative pillars and structures.

We also recall how after the tour of Ephesus, the bus took us to a leather factory/store; on the way back to the city, where we were unloaded and entered the building, herded like cattle, to a showroom where we had no choice but to watch a runway fashion show.

Good grief! We were all upset about being “forced” to attend the fashion show and then, afterward, herded, once again, through the actual store where the items we’d seen on the runway were on racks for sale. None of us purchased a thing. Besides, the pricing was no bargain.

Such an ornate design.

We certainly appreciate and understand the need for vendors to make a living selling their wares. But, to include such an event where we were a captive audience was asking too much, especially after we paid dearly for the tour.  After that, we asked the cruise line staff if any such events were included. Knowing ahead of time would allow passengers to decide if they want to participate in touring a venue on their own.

It was hard to believe how many people were there.

Undoubtedly, we were glad we had an opportunity to see Ephesus with many good photos, some of which are shown here today. For the balance of the photos, please click the ten-year-ago post here. This will be the last post about Ephesus.

Yes, these are toilets without much privacy!

Tomorrow, we’ll return with a new and highly relevant story with photos of a major change in Tom’s life that ultimately impacts me. Please check back to read that story.

As for tonight, we are going to dinner at the Mallory Country Club for dinner with cruise friends Nancy and Bill, whom we haven’t seen since our last cruise in April 2022. We went to dinner with them on the night before we tested positive for Omicron (and continued to suffer for months from the illness) on the second to last night on the cruise. We’re curious to ask them if they got Covid from us after sitting with us across the table that night.

Lots of tourists.

We will also take photos tonight of our friends and the food. I feel bad that we didn’t take photos of Tracy and Nancy this past week when we met them for dinner at City Fire in Brownwood Paddock Square on Wednesday evening.

The view of the Great Theatre.

Tonight, we’ll drive the golf cart to meet them at their home, 23 minutes from here, and then follow them to the nearby country club for dinner. This way, we can return to our house to watch game five of the Stanley Cup (hockey) playoffs, which starts at 8:00 pm. Our team, the Las Vegas Golden Knights (three wins), plays the Florida Panthers (one win).

Once a team wins four games, the championship is over. and they receive the enormous silver trophy.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, June 13, 2013:

The Ephesus crowd in Izmir, Turkey, was so dense at times that it was hard to walk. For more photos, please click here.

Part 1…Ten year ago as we headed to Izmir, Turkey to see the ancient city of Ephasus…

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Here we are, in front of more historic ruins, Ephesus, as shown in the artist’s rendition below. This photo is from our post on June 13, 2013.
Artist rendition of Ephesus. From this site.

Gosh, it’s hard to believe it was ten years ago that we sailed to Izmir, Turkey, for a tour of the ancient city of Ephesus, as described here at this site:

“Ephesus, Greek Ephesos, the most important Greek city in Ionian Asia Minor, the ruins of which lie near the modern village of Selƈuk in western Turkey.

In Roman times it was situated on the northern slopes of the hills Coressus and Pion and south of the Cayster (Küçükmenderes) River, the silt from which has since formed a fertile plain but has caused the coastline to move ever farther west. The Temple of Artemis, or Diana, to which Ephesus owed much of its fame and which seems to mark the site of the classical Greek city, was probably on the seaboard when it was founded (about 600 BCE), one mile east by northeast of Pion (modern Panayir Daǧ). In Roman times a sea channel was maintained with difficulty to a harbor well west of Pion. By late Byzantine times, this channel had become useless, and the coast by the mid-20th century was three miles farther west. Ephesus commanded the west end of one great trade route into Asia, along the Cayster Valley, and had easy access to the other two, along the Hermus (Gediz) and the Maeander (Büyükmenderes) rivers.

Take a walk through the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus, once a foremost centre of the arts, science, and religion
The well-done drawing illustrates the magnitude of Ephesus.

History

Ephesus enters history in the mid-7th century BCE when it was attacked by the Cimmerians. Unlike its neighbor, Magnesia, it survived the attacks. For part of the early 6th century, the city was under tyrants. Though allied by marriage to the kings of Lydia, its people could not hold back the Lydian Croesus, who asserted a general suzerainty over the city. He did, however, present many columns and some golden cows for a new and splendid rebuilding of the Artemiseum (Temple of Artemis). According to Strabo, the Ephesians began to live in the plain, and to this period, too, should be allotted the redrafting of the laws, said to have been the work of an Athenian, Aristarchus. Ephesus soon submitted to Cyrus of Persia. Early in the Ionian revolt (499–493 BCE) against the Persians, Ephesus served as a base for an Ionian attack on Sardis, but it is not mentioned again until 494 when the Ephesians massacred the Chiot survivors of the Battle of Lade. The massacre may have occurred because Ephesus was a commercial rival of the chief rebels, Chios and Miletus. Ephesus maintained friendly relations with Persia for about 50 years: in 478, Xerxes, returning from his failure in Greece, honored Artemis of Ephesus, although he sacked other Ionian shrines and left his children for safety in Ephesus, and Themistocles landed there in the 460s on his flight to Persia. But after 454, Ephesus appears as a regular tributary of Athens. Great Ephesians up to this time had been Callinus, the earliest Greek elegist (mid-7th century BCE), the satirist Hipponax, and the famous philosopher Heracleitus, one of the Basilids.

Ephesus shared in a general revolt of 412 BCE against Athens, siding with Sparta in the Second Peloponnesian War, and remained an effective ally of Sparta down to the end of the war. Threatened by Persia after 403, Ephesus served in 396 as the headquarters of King Agesilaus of Sparta. In 394, the Ephesians deserted to Conon’s anti-Spartan maritime league, but by 387, the city was again in Spartan hands and was handed by Antalcidas to Persia. There followed the pro-Persian tyranny of Syrphax and his family, who were stoned to death in 333 on Alexander the Great’s taking the city. After 50 years of fluctuating fortune, Ephesus was conquered by the Macedonian general Lysimachus and resettled around Coressus and Pion (286–281 BCE). Lysimachus introduced colonists from Lebedus and Colophon and renamed the city after his wife, Arsinoo—a name soon dropped. This was the beginning of Ephesus’s Hellenistic prosperity. It became conspicuous for the abundance of its coinage.

After the defeat of Antiochus the Great, king of Syria, by the Romans in 189 BCE, Ephesus was handed over by the conquerors to the king of Pergamum. Attalus III of Pergamum bequeathed Ephesus with the rest of his possessions to the Roman people (133 BCE). Thenceforth, Ephesus remained subject to Rome, except for a brief time beginning in 88 BCE, when, at the instigation of Mithridates the Great of Pontus, the cities of Asia Minor revolted and killed their Roman residents. The Ephesians even killed those Romans who had fled for refuge to the Artemiseum, notwithstanding which they returned in 86 BCE to their former masters. Their claim, preserved on an extant inscription that in admitting Mithradates, they had merely yielded to superior force was rudely brushed aside by Sulla, who inflicted a very heavy fine. Although it twice chose the losing side in the Roman civil wars and although it was stoutly opposed by Pergamum and Smyrna, Ephesus became, under Augustus, the first city of the Roman province of Asia. The geographer Strabo wrote of its importance as a commercial center in the 1st century BCE. The triumphal arch of 3 BCE and the aqueduct of 4–14 CE initiated that long series of public buildings, ornamental and useful, that make Ephesus the most-impressive example in Greek lands of a city of imperial times.”

The remainder of this story will be posted tomorrow with more photos.

By the way, yesterday afternoon, it was fun getting together on a video chat with our readers, Mindy and Howard, experienced travelers who are considering a gentle foray into long-term world travel. They had many questions for us, which we were happy to answer. We send them our love and best wishes for their future travels.

Be well.

Photo from ten years ago today, June 12, 2013:

Last evening, our ship, the Norwegian Spirit, pulled away from the pier in Istanbul, Turkey. For more photos, please click here.

Rained out…Photos of Istanbul…Ten years ago…

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Note: Due to some unknown WiFi issue today, I cannot properly format captions and spacing in the text. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Last night, we’d planned to go to dinner at Havana Country Club, but when it was raining with lightning and high winds, we realized it wouldn’t be safe to make the 15-minute golf cart ride in such awful conditions. Instead, we decided to order takeaway from the Chinese restaurant we love, Sunrise Asian.

Yesterday, I received a  coupon as an Amazon Prime member for free delivery from Grubhub for the next 12 months. What a deal! I’d signed up for the coupon but didn’t realize we’d be using it so soon. After placing the order, as shown below:

Roast Pork Fried Rice Quart $8.70+

Sweet and Sour Pork Quart $10.85+

Shrimp Egg Foo Young Omelet with shellfish. $13.95+

Steamed Shrimp with Mixed Vegetables $16.95

Total cost: $64.03

This seemed expensive for getting takeaway, but we’d ordered enough to last two nights. My steamed dish was small, so I ate all the prawns and left half of the vegetables. This morning I cooked eight jumbo prawns that I had in the freezer and added them to the leftover vegetables to have plenty of that dish with the other half of the egg foo young (I don’t use the sauce). Tom eats pork fried rice and sweet and sour pork.
 Today is easy when I only have to wash and dry the bedding. Tom always helps re-making the bed. We didn’t walk this morning since Tom likes to watch CBS “Sunday Morning,” it was sweltering outside after the show ended. The temperature is only about 88F, but the dew point is 80, higher than we’d experienced in South Africa, and the pollen count is high today.
Yes, the Covid headache returned after I stopped taking that drug that caused me to have Afib, only days before we left South Africa and ended up in hospital. After another incident on the plane, lasting six hours of sheer terror on the 17-hour flight, I went on a rampage trying to figure out what caused the Afib.
What a view of Istanbul! For more photos, please click here.