Police

It can only be summarises as "That was the week that was" - but here's a list of things NOT to do on your holidays.

1.. Don't visit the greek island called Paros. "Small and quiet" is Greek for "Ghost Town". Try not to get trapped there for too long when the weather gets bad and the ferries stop running.

2.. When on a small dead Greek island called Paros - Don't loose your only ATM Card and hence only access to cash by leaving it in the ATM machine because you are too busy looking at your reciept (which said machine issued first) which for the first time in 4 months of travel shows your account balance.

3.. Don't go back to bank owning ATM Machine 15 minutes later (when you realise you left card in said ATM Machine) expect staff to do anything. It is Greece after all.

4.. When you call American Express asking about Cash Advance, dont be silly. You should already know that your American Express card doesnt automatically have Cash Advance facilities - without having to PERSONALLY fill in forms (in SYDNEY), wait 14 days and proivide samples of DNA.

So what next - I though..... Luckily I had a ticket out of dead town for the next day but only limited cash and travellers cheqs left. A bit of a mad panic and a nightless sleep later I decided I'd had enough but then..... woke up in Italy.

Julie had left Greece the week before and was somewhere in Naples. I Managed to get hold of her and got back to Athens, got the train to Athens airport and then bought a plane ticket to Rome and got the train the next day to Naples to meet up with her. Thanks to her help (and the fact we're both with the same credit union) I am now financial again.

And so (we) continued on. The last few days have been a tour some architectural ruins in some of the most BORING places on the planet. After the man sitting on the table in front of us at lunch was mugged and had his ROLEX stoled off his wrist, we left Naples and made our way to Paestum which has some amazing greek temples but not much else (unless you include the beggars whe drove off in thier mercedes).

From Paestum we visited Matera. Amazing place and world heritage listed, but REALLY Italian. This place is shut even when its open. I think we might have been the only tourists in town. Come to think of it, we might have been the only PEOPLE in town. Finding a restaurant would have been easier on the moon and you could have fired a cannon down the main street and only wounded a lost pigeon.

We hired a car to travel around (read - hired a car for Julie to drive and me to navigate). I had spent 2 days training Julie to say "Mi Dispiace Molto senior polzzia, Come si functionari il commande" which translates into something like "I'm very sorry officer, can you show me how to operate the car".

This would have been great, especially when the ONLY time we came across police, they pulled us over. Julie stalls the car about two feet behind the police car and it bunny hops nearly impaling senior polizzia against his Alfa Romeo.

Senior Polizzia comes to window and Julie (we're both laughiung and panicking at the same time at this stage) asks if he speaks english. Before we had a chance to use our line on him, senior Polizzia looks at Julie and asks in Italian "do you know how to drive the car".

All very funny until the three of them stand at the windscreen and start pointing at Me. Fortunatley I hadn't done anything besides get a tattoo on my arm which they were all fascinated by. One last laugh at the fact that I have the same last name as Inspector "Dirty Harry" Callaghan and we're off.

I'm now in Amalfi in Italy and back to Pompeii today. Rome tomorrow and Miami on Friday. There for three days before Mexico and then home on schedule 28th October.