Greek Fire...

Hello again. Seems like I'm blogging a lot lately. Well, it more than seems. I guess it's a fact. But really I had to write about this latest news.

A few weeks ago I posted an ad on Berlin craigslist for a tandem partner. A tandem is an English-German trade off involving getting together with a native speaker. Conversation follows: 1 hour German, 1 hour English, etc. Don't get me wrong here, there's still no way in hell I can speak for 1 hour in German, but I try and it works out that I get something out of the deal (who knows how much I remember), but really its an English fest.

So yesterday was my first tandem. I met Nina at the Intimes Cafe in Friedrichshain and we proceeded.

I ordered a 'milchkaffee' which came in a huge bowl. Sehr lecker kaffee. Nina is a stewardess...I forget the German word, something like Flugkellnerin. About an hour into conversing (again, mainly in English) Nina announces that since she has 2 weeks off from work for ostensibly being sick, we should take a cheap flight somewhere. Not in any kind of, "let's go off on a honeymoon way," but more of a "I'm bored, have time off and want to travel and you don't have a job or much to do with your days so..."

I was pretty shocked to say the least. Imagine sitting down to have coffee and learn some German, then having the entire list of Lufthansa destinations being offered up for visitation! Now that's a dilly of a pickle. I was flabbergasted and really couldn't think of where to go. Of course the initial reaction is: India! Africa! Venezuela! Something super exotic and far away. But we looked at those and Lufthansa doesn't even fly to such hot places this time of year plus it takes 20 hours. It seems like the options are basically: any part of Europe, Iceland, South Africa, or Turkey. Today I found myself waffling between Lisbon, Amsterdam and Istanbul.

And therein lies the genesis for this blog post title: Greek Fire. How crazy is Greek Fire? It's a lost technology that ensured the survival and success of Byzantium for several hundred years by acting like napalm and burning enemy ships. Damn. Millenia of History? Check. Hagia Sofia? Check. Is that the destination? Who knows. I'll be there monday night or tuesday morning if all goes as planned. In the mean time you can weigh in on where I should travel. Let me know.