James and I arrived in Athens last night. Our flight was delayed 1 hour because someone missed the plane but their bag did not. The baggage had to be unloaded and reloaded without the offending case. Such is airline travel. The British Airways’ “industrial action” with their cater also meant we had vouchers for food rather than service on the plane.

Our Athens hotel was apparently 50 m from the train station but that was not the case. Well, okay, it is probably true but there are no signs so we spent an hour wandering around, circling in really, like with prey. When we finally found Hotel Diethnes, they did not have our room. Yes, we had a reservation, but there is a conference in town and we think they double sold our room. We were transferred to Hotel Remvi, which is actually quite nice and may be better than our first choice.

James and I wanted to go to the Acropolis and the Plaka today but it is so damn hot, and we slept until 10:30 and by the time we crawled out of the hotel it was 1 pm. Now it is 2 pm and we’ve found the cool of the internet cafe.

I think I’m allergic to Greece, maybe Europe in general. There is smoking everywhere and I’m having a hard time of it, especially having come from Vancouver where it is practically a crime to even think about cigarettes. The last patron in our hotel room was clearly a smoker, it is hanging in the room. Nothing like second-second-hand smoke.

Athens reminds me a lot of Bogota, narrow streets, lots of pollution, crumbly buildings … but I like it. Friends I spoke to who had been to Athens said I’d be disappointed, but I don’t like to set travel expectations so I haven’t been disappointed yet by a city. They each hold interesting pockets. Like right now we are on Folkinos Negri, which is a tree-lined pedestrian street. There are all sorts of cool cafe/bars and it is around lunch time so lots of locals are hanging about having coffees and icy drinks.

Being somewhere without English signs is pretty cool. I now understand the saying “it’s all Greek to me.” Sefcharisto was my word of the day yesterday. No idea how to spell it in Greek, but it means thank you.

James and I arrived in London on Sept 8. It was a rather long flight but not too unpleasant. A fellow who lives in our apartment, on the same floor as us, was also on the flight, and was also taking the Picadilly Line into Central London. His family lives in London so we had a rather able guide right off the bat. Thankfully my London friend advised me of the best way to get to the Victoria Services Club because neither James or I bothered to find out the address in advance. It is an adventure afterall. I knew the general area, and again, my good fortune was that I’d written down the phone number. It is on Seymour st. right near Marble Arch.

We got off the tube at Hyde Park Corner and walked through the park to get to Marble Arch, which was also our starting point this morning. We took The Original Bus tour to the 20 or so stops that hit the West End highlights. Buckingham Palace was first. Lovely, big, and tourists aplenty. Across from the Palace is St. James Park and the entrance is Canada Gate. We rode the bus over to Westminster Abbey, which is also stunning. The Abbey is huge and it took us a very long time to go through. It is like IKEA in that you are cattle herded along a particular route. Lots of people stop and hold up the queue. My favourite part was the Quire, which is where the choir sits. It is three rows on either side of the aisle, with little red-shaded lamps. Chapter House was also interesting. It is a round room with frescos and medieval floor tiles. The images and text on the tiles are worn in many places but in Latin it says, “As the rose is the flower of flowers, so is this the house of houses.”

We went across to Big Ben, “look kids Parliament”, then got back on the bus for St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was closing as we drove by so we stayed on the bus and carried on to London Tower, which a friend told us to avoid at all costs. So much for the advice of friends. We had to get on a river boat at the London Tower Pier. It wasn’t so bad. The London Tower is where Anne was beheaded. The four towers of London Tower date back to 1078.

It started to rain while we were on the boat. It is London afterall. Now we are in an internet cafe trying to figure out how to get to Watford to watch a rugby match on Sunday.

Tomorrow, St. Paul’s Cathedral, lunch at the Old Miter, which is where James’ grandfather used to hang out during the war, then hopefully to Sadler’s Wells to see the Alvin Ailey Amercian Dance Theatre (which is sold out, but I hope they have one ticket somewhere). James is going off to the British Museum, which is open until 8 pm. I’ll meet him there after the show. I don’t think I can be in a museum for more than a couple of hours. I get artefact overload.

Now, there’s a city out there to discover. May be off to Ronnie Scott’s …

Print-on-demand publisher Trafford, based in Victoria, pledged $1.6 million on August 31 to help in the global race to document and teach endangered indigenous languages.

The donation was announced at WITFOR 2005 in Botswana, where over 800 delegates were gathered to discuss ways to give those in the developing world access to technology.

$1.6 million is a tremendous gift. The full press release is available on the Trafford website.

Trafford.com/pledge

Tomorrow is the day! I’m leaving … on a jet plane … leaving … but I’ll be back in a month.

James and I are off on an adventure. We leave for London tomorrow on the overnight flight, arriving jetlagged at 1:30 in the afternoon. We spend 3 full days in London then leave on the 4th day for Athens, spend a couple of days there.

Despite the millions of people who visit Santorini, we’ve decided to go. I was leaning to full avoidance, but then friends who had visited convinced me to go. So we’re going, and now I’m excited about the whitewash walls and marine blue skies.

On Sept 18 we fly from Athens to Leros. In Leros we get on a 55 ft sailboat and sail from Greece to Turkey. We do that for two weeks, then go from Keci Buku to Marmaris, hang out in Marmaris, ferry across to Rhodes to visit the medieval city, then travel up to Istanbul.

We spend 5 days in Istanbul and it is one of the cities I’ve always wanted to visit. I’m in complete awe of the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia, maybe there will be some belly dancing and carpet buying.

In the meantime, the shop will not be tended for the next couple of weeks, but I’ve set up the auto-blogger with the itinerary details so that my today self can write about my future self so that you can read my past self in the present. Time’s arrow.

Posts from the road are also likely but I suspect infrequent. Cheers to all and I’ll down some ouzo on your behalf.

I have been on hold for approximately 1 hour today. I have spent a maximum of 20 consecutive minutes on hold. The rest of the time has been navigating phone trees. I nearly lost my mind in the Yahoo Search phone system, now I am on hold with VISA.

First, there is no reason that I should have spent as much time as I did speaking to Yahoo. It is online advertising, why do I even need a person for this? Well, if you need a credit for clicks not authorized because the helpful representative activated your account without authorization, then you need to speak to someone. The madness of the phone system is not conducive to speaking in a friendly voice to the person who eventually answers your ring.

And VISA, need I say more. The phone options do not match what I need and yet all options force me to enter my 16 digit number relentlessly. I’m being driven to drink here.

Just so I don’t forget, and in case anyone else is interested:

Nina Smart, publishing liaison librarian at Simon Fraser University, has a blog of informatiton resources for publishing.

Blogs.lib.sfu.ca

On Slashdot there is an interesting story from CNN about some US libraries using Microsoft Media DRM to automatically return audiobooks that are overdue.

Essentially a patron borrows the title for 3 weeks or whatever the standard borrow time is. After 3 weeks, when the book is due, the patron must renew it or return it. If the book is not renewed or returned, the audiobook is unreadable because the encrypted file is no longer playable.

Here’s the CNN story.

Just yesterday James and I were talking about distribution models in a digital era and how technology is or will be used to protect copyright. (There are lots of things I’d like to say on copyright, but for the moment, let’s assume that we do want to protect copyright.)

The conversation came up in part because I came across this blog Freedom to Tinker, which had a link to a Princeton student’s thesis on the affect of filesharing on the music industry.

PDF: Music Sales in the Age of File Sharing

I haven’t had a chance to read all 73 pages, but the abstract notes that although filesharing had a negative affect on sales by the 15-24 age group, there was a positive affect on sales by older age groups, which resulted in an overall positive affect.

So what does this mean for books? Should we give away content? Should the above librarians not worry about encrypting audiobooks?

I sit on both sides of the fence at the moment.

Tonight I took Roxane Butterfly’s two workshop. She taught two classes for the West Coast Tap Dance Collective, a very fine organization.

Roxane was named Butterfly by legendary tapper Jimmy Slyde, who will be in Vancouver this weekend for the Vancouver International Tap Dance Festival. The festival weekend means hundreds of tap dancers and the best tappers in the world will be in this city. And, on Monday, they will be performing at the Playhouse.

$42 for adults and this is a 2-3 hour show, absolutely fantastic. These are the top dancers in the world, who rarely, if ever, share the stage in this way.

More photos of Roxane

Radiohead has a blog. Dead Air Space. I like the candid photos, but is that really a dog?

Amazon.com is way ahead of its fellow online book retailers. You can still buy the latest 50 Cent album, as well as cameras, phones, jewellery–bless their cotton socks–almost anything. Earlier this year you could also watch short films, and now you can buy short stories for 49 cents. Right, I forgot they also sell books.

Amazon announced this week Amazon Shorts. They are starting with 59 authors who’ve submitted short fiction, and Amazon is selling the stories for 49 cents each. You get a digital file. I haven’t bought one yet so I don’t know what it looks like.

Amazon Shorts web page

Categories include Literature and Fiction; Nonfiction and Essays; Biography and Memoirs; Maybe You Know …; Mystery and Thrillers; and Editors’ Picks.