Come Sail Away

OK, the first thing you think of, well if you're close to my age...or addicted to your parents music, is the classic song from the Chicago band, STYX.

This time the title refers to a classic journey through classical history aboard the Norwegian Jade.

Beginning our journey this Saturday in Barcelona, Spain...my first order of business is to pop open a bottle of Spanish Red Wine, dance the Flamingo and try to get the rabid Barcelona football (read:  Soccer) fans to get their sets ready for real American Football during the AFC & NFC Championships.

Next stop Rome...the Eternal City beckons to me once again.  Eleven years after my first visit in 2000, I look forward to once again embracing the phrase, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do!"

Sailing away for the first time to the land where the legend of the "River Styx" flowed in classical mythology...Athens, the most powerful of the ancient Greek City States, is the birth place of western civilization.  I haven't gone "Greek" since my Alpha Tau Omega frat days at Murray State University in the late 70's.

Next stop, Turkey, where East meets West since the first century A.D., and where I enter, albeit a more civilized and tolerant form, the Muslim world for the first time.  I will say that since I was a kid looking into the eventide sky, the Crescent Moon and One Star has been a powerful sign for me in my life.  Smoking a hookah with a strong coffee is high on my list.

Egypt is the birthplace of civilization.  Since a child of eight browsing through the history books of my public library, up to the television series Stargate, I have avidly devoured ancient Egyptian history and culture.  To realize that I'll be standing where Pharaohs once tread in Cairo, and where Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Cleopatra roamed in Alexandria is truly a dream come true!

Finally this errant Knight wraps up his seafaring journey of discovery in the Island of Malta, ancient home of the Knights of St. John.

Channeling the spirit of Humphrey Bogart's character Sam Spade in the 1941 movie, "The Maltese Falcon", when he responded to Brigid O'Shaughnessy's statement of how she wasn't really as good as people thought, he said...and I echo..."You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere."

Here's to living life, chasing dreams, partaking in journey's of discovery and to not pretending to be innocent!

Sir Hook the Mediterranean Pirate of Warrick