Live Your Best Life! 6e1a1s

© 2021 Mark Ozog. All rights reserved. First Edition

BOOKBABY, INC Pennsauken, NJ First originally published by BookBaby, Inc, 2021

ISBN (Paperback) 978-1-09837-783-0 ISBN (Digital) 978-1-09837-784-7

Printed in the United States of America

“I have known Mark and his family for over 20 years. Their stories fascinate me. Enjoy Mark’s adventures!”

Malgorzata Kot, Managing Director of the Polish Museum of American, Chicago, IL

“Mark has been a great friend to me. He has inspired me a lot. We both have been traveling a lot in this last decade. There have been times that he travels thousands of miles to see a friend, which inspires me and teaches me what a good friend is. He sets a goal, closes his eyes, and goes for it. Nothing stops him. I ire his ion for his values. My life before and after knowing this amazing person has been different. I recommend reading this book!

Benjamin Isaacie, CEO, Persisca Technologies, Vancouver, BC, Canada

“Mark has amplified the meaning of what we stand for- IF WE SAVE ONE LIFE, WE HAVE SERVED OUR PURPOSE!”

Lisa Mayo, Founder of They WILL Know, West Covina, CA

Photo credits based on their ordered placement in the book-

Wallace Ozog: 1

Audra Potz Holtz: 2

Danielle Siembieda-Gribben: 3

Rhonda McCaughey: 4

Unknown photographer(s): 5, 15, 18, 25, 31, 35, 36, 38, Back cover swimming photo

Susan Carruthers: Back cover Mark Ozog photo

Martin Gesikowski: 6

Nathan Smythe: 7

Mark Ozog: Front Cover, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 37

Joshua Kash: 8, 9

Christopher Ozog: 20

Lukas Suter: 29

Kai Lau: 39

Marcus J. Thomas: 40

Roberto Arreola: Front and Back Cover Design

Sometimes life may not go as planned, but if you roll with the punches and focus on YOUR true path, it will eventually become bittersweet and in turn be your best life.

To all those who read this book, I hope you will be inspired to live your best life and still believe, too.

In Memory

Those who ed too young, this book is dedicated to you:

Karen Czarnecki Majano

Brooke Butler Copher

Tricia Howard

Tina Tracy

Kristelle Smith

Joanie, ‘Chyna,’ Lauer

Jake Pennar

Amir Teymouri

James Bateman

Eugene Sotela

Kenneth Johnson

Stellios of FlyArt Travel of Drios, Paros, Greece

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To my family for providing me life and my friends from all over the world for providing me with more life- thank you!

To my first editors: Torie Currier Gawel, Lori Ann Keisic, Marcia Pilkiewicz, and Michael Eister, thanks for letting me introduce my first version to you while I was still on the Greek isle and for providing your assistance to get this story up and running and off the ground.

To Book Baby Publishing: thank you for making my second published book a reality.

To Roberto Arreola of Robert Art and Design: thank you for the front and back cover design.

To all the people who put me up for a night or two or more, thanks for ing this artist: Marie and Krister Fritz, Martin Gesikowski, Maria Hellstrom, Bruce and Marlene Haney, Bill and Kathleen Hunter, Mara Margaillan, Mario Ballesteros, John Cupp, Lisa Slade, Lisa Mayo, Greg and Maya Rogers, Candice Anderson, Julio Correa, Nick Capous, Peter Filipakis, Denis Benojarto, Max Imilian, Cindy and Bob Ozog, Maryam Mamdouth, Kevin Haranczak, and Brad Ravish.

It is difficult to thank so many, but here are those who have an impact on this

story.

THANK YOU

Wallace and Joann Ozog Michael, Deanna, Ryan, and Grace Ozog Ian, Jack, and Jonathon Regnier Christopher, Barb, Olivia, and Cassidy Ozog Taylor and Madison Withers All my Ozog, Klein, Basta, Roden, Chorzepa, Berman, Grubb, Mikus, Shelton, Stock, Lijana, Dreifus, Honigman, Nickels, Nalodka, English, Kushel, Godlewski, Martin,White, Zoltowski, Rytlewski, Romzek, Zito, Fry,Van Jaarsveld, & Gilley cousins. Alice Ozog Johnson Adam Mientkiewicz Aunt Ginny Kushel Sr. Ann Ozog Agnes, Lorraine, and Camille Ozog Joe and Nina Ozog Dorothy and Thomas Carson Shirley Zoltowski Barbara VanJaarsveld Chris Martin

Robert and Cindy Ozog Kevin Haranczak and Family Brian Palencik and Family Ann Marie Mickel and Family Maria Polsinelli Cherie’ Rader Michelle Agosta Judy Gianino Beth Polonis Diedrich Ryan Jaron Jim Looman Sonia Cannon Myra Salapare Donna Krolczyk Randy Lagrou Kim Connell Ann Marie Tayor Jim Cherpes Ryan Pohl Jason Mass Walter Christian Moralde and Family

Bill and Kathleen Hunter Grayson Berry Glenn Scarpelli Jerry Gilden Brian Perry David Turner Greg and Maya Rogers George, Elaine, Candice, Stephen, Kelly Anderson and Family Terri and Chris Franks Janet, Bruce, and Marlene Haney Diego Garcia and Carina Chadwick Krister, Marie, Melissa, and Amanda Fritz Martin, Isak, Anna, Anton Gesikowski and Maria Hellstrom Simon and Clara Baczkowski and Tina Jussila Mathias Lunneryd Goran, Pia, Felicia, and Fabbe Wafors and Phillip Rooth Kaiko Veiga and John (Johny) Fernandez Soage of Vigo, Spain Tina Pamboukdjian Obi Obadike Greg Plitt Nick Myre

Gary and Larry Lane William and Katherine Aguirre and FitnessX.com Robert Castro Dave Cope Denis Benojarto Minna Tran Brad Ravish Donna Carrier Mazena Lecka Barbara Galczynska John Cupp Lisa Slade Colleen McGonigle Nikki Russo Michelle Russo Lisa Mayo Liliana Montenegro David Sifling Cyndie Nava Dani Dmitreff-Nivar Gregg Oppenheimer

Michael Stern Lance Ovist Laura Yvette Miscioni Todd Rundstrom Scot Stecher Tyler and Jessica Kamerman Cindy Vhall Miguel Tocado and Sara Martin Peter Rate and Family Paul Minassian Kaleo Hui Corey Barnes Dean Fernando Cooper Barnes Johan Beckles My FIDM family (you all know who you are) VMS, LA Lianne Jones Danielle Siembieda-Gribben Summer O’Brien SAG-AFTRA, Los Angeles, California, USA

Michael Anthony, Jr. Matthew Campbell Marcus Thomas Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA DeLaSalle Collegiate, Warren, Michigan, USA Vicki Granger Brother Joseph Jozwiak St. Anne Catholic Community, Warren, Michigan, USA Cheryl Shalagan Carmen Norkiewicz Karen Raczkowski PRCUA (Polish Roman Catholic Union of America) All my Polonia Family and Friends especially from Polish dancing through the years! Polish Museum of America, Chicago, Illinois, USA Malgorzata Kot Angloville, Poland (Sarah, Rebecca, Tomasz, Martyna, Kamil, Arvind, Zdzislaw, Mairead, Anna, Verity, Jody, Hamish, Patrycja, Kamila, Olga, and Zaneta) Robert and Eleanor Bielenda and Family Barbara Raczynski Toboy and Family Marsha Pilkiewicz Karen Zakrzewski

Taylor Baugh Arsineh and Alen Alenkin Benjamin, Cassandra, and Nicola Isaacie Persisca Network, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Can Kizildereli Cansu Mishal Luca Bosurgi Fish Olmos and Julie Bolton Igor Jablonski, Agnieszka Gwiazdon, and Nikola Jablonska Luis Mario Salazar Noriega, Pola Wojcicka, alnd Maite Salazar Betty Jones and Family Daphne Mendizabal Ed and Lori Abate and Family Amy and Brian Gwizdz and Family Christian Costea Lori and Maria Miesek Alok, Soniya, and Sita Mishra Shane, Laura, and Lily Vorster JC (Julio) Correa Joshua Kash Robert Siegel

Dennis Maynard Coope Diem (Ryan Cooper) Blaine Vedros Glo Hawa Keiko Benson Mina Gibson Jason Sleisinger Luciano Iannone KMK (Rosemary, Silvia, Miriam, Flor, Karina, zca,Tami) Spiro Markou Annie Markou-Alexopoulou Jessica Parker Rosario Yu JJ Vallarta (Jeff Albert) Kendra Brothers Abe Ruiz Amanda Marquez Nick and Roy Capous and Bridge2Paradise sca Ardesi Anna Tzioti Peter Filipakis

Giannis, Maria, Margarita, Giorgos, Dmitris, and Panagiota Kudwniews and Family Kostas Patelis Marina Kudwniews and Family Lewnidas Perrakis and Family Voula and Hraklhs Gemeiliari Alasdair (Ali) Boyle and Parosaccommodation.net Michelle Sawyer Maria and Bella Tzanakopoulou and Family Eva and Kostas of Mylos of Marpissa, Paros, Greece Cecila Vecchioli Nikolas Sarris Arethousa and Anna Restaurants and the Green Project of Drios, Paros, Greece Remezzo of Piso Livadi, Paros, Greece Giannis and Sophia of Bar Romantica Sophia Spiliotopoulou Vasso, John, and Eleni Foka Alexandra Fotiadou Afroditi Afendaki, Aris, Stratus, Nikos, and the best thespian group on Paros, Greece Constantina Karageorge and Family Aegean Eye of Sifnos, Greece

Sea House of Amorgos, Greece Jenny Crissey Ashley Saluga Eva Sciuba Orilea Chase Chhou Samnang (Happy) Oscar Puglisevich Miranda Lukas Suter Ema Rankovic Helena Basaric Andreas Tsak Jerry Supiran Mario and Nico Ballesteros Mara Margaillan and of course, GOD!

Contents

Introduction

Where the Dream Began!

A Different Light…

Expect the Unexpected

Time Out for Turkey

Committed to Recover through the Eyes of the World

Time to Say Goodbye, Hollywood

East Coast, USA to Europe!

Arrival in Greece

Surfin’ Costa Rica Way with the Hateful Eight

Welcome to Paros-dise

Naxos-Land of Zeus and Big Brother to Paros

The Beach and East Side of Paros-dise

Antiparos

A Much Different World on this Side of the Pond in Paros-dise

Cuba for Free Americans

White Village/ Aspro Chorio

Cambodia’s “Insect” Cuisine

A Quieter Winter than Expected

Let the Greek Tours Begin: My First Victims: Family!

Santorini—Thirteen Years Later

America, Brazil, and Austria All Come to Paros

Paros Pandemic 2020

Cyclades Island Hopping: Mykonos

Cyclades Island Hopping: Ios

Cyclades Island Hopping: Sifnos

And Now a Word from Our Sponsor-Coronavirus

Cyclades Island Hopping: Milos

Live Your Best Life!

Cyclades Island Hopping: Amorgos

More Adventures Await

Conclusion

Bibliography

About The Author

Introduction

Make a wish, make a goal, let it happen! You only have one life to live. To anyone who has lost hope in an uncertain world, may this book inspire you to live your best life. It took me a lifetime to get where I am, but I have only just begun. Life is a marathon, not a sprint, so enjoy the ride.

My late grandmother lived to be ninety-seven-years-old. I often asked her, what was her secret to longevity. She told me to stay active, never hold a grudge, look at the humor in life, and have a beer and shot of whiskey now and then. Her spirit was always youthful as well. She would still flirt like a teenager with her eighty-five-year-old younger widowed male neighbor. I guess that is where the humor is, too.

I once had the opportunity to meet veteran television actress Betty White, best known for her character Rose Nyland from the 1980s and 1990s situation comedy The Golden Girls. She was a lot like my grandmother, too. As I held Betty’s hand, I said, “Betty, you are a blessing from above!” She responded by saying, “No, Mark, you are a blessing from above!” We both then smiled at each other and laughed. To be honest, we are all blessings from above, so if you look at life this way, you will be full of bliss.

With my grandmother Victoria and mother Joann

Meeting actress Betty White at the Emmy Awards 2009

There are two sides to my story: my message and how I was dealing with my own anxiety and depression, in particular in my last few years living and struggling as an artist in Hollywood, California. I had to seek the world in a certain way as my therapy, so I traveled it. I then ultimately came to Greece to live and experience this culture which goes back centuries. The second side of my story focuses on how I traveled to over fifty countries to see humanity and that we are all human and we are on this earth together. I chose to live in a country like Greece because this ancient land ultimately is where Western civilization began with democracy, politics, science, art, architecture, religion, mythology, language, philosophy, as well as live theater. It took my time in Greece to rediscover myself and understand that I am a blessing from above. I chose the Hollywood dream-making machine as a struggling actor for over twenty years, but now I had to take myself away from the media, Hollywood, a society based on money and material gains to a soulful way of what really matters in life. By changing your thinking patterns and focusing on what you really want to do, you will become a winner every time and in turn, be there for others to help this world as we are all in this together. Each of us has our own journeys and stories that help us open ourselves even more to others.

Thank you for taking the time to read this book about my travel through fourteen different US states from California on my way to Greece. I have also traveled to places like Sweden, Turkey, Israel, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Thailand, and Cambodia, just to name a few, plus various travels to over a dozen Greek islands to help me get over anxiety and depression while discovering how to live my best life. Thank you to all the various people I have encountered along the way and have written about them in a journal-like fashion in this book, Live Your Best Life!, as a follow-up to my first book, I Still Believe! This time I overcame anxiety by traveling the world. Now I hope, by reading this book, you will be able to still believe, too. Live every moment to the fullest—carpe diem!

1

Where the Dream Began!

When a person has had a dream their entire life and they never wanted to give up on it since they could , life can eventually take its toll. As with everything, life does have its obstacles, but to learn from it is most important. Ever since I was about four years old, I wanted to move to Hollywood, California, and become a television actor. Those were the days of the 1970s. Life was simpler and television was the most significant medium. Shows like Happy Days, Three’s Company, Dallas, The Dukes of Hazard were all the “in thing” while computer technology was just beginning to advance. This all went hand in hand with the up-and-coming cable networks like MTV and CNN.

Coming from a large family and being brought up Polish and Roman Catholic, competition and finding oneself went hand in hand. I had a disease called tuberous sclerosis, which I did not find out I had until I was twenty-two years old and a week away from graduating from college. Growing up, I had many lesions on my face, which many (including myself), thought was just acne. I had it on my lower face and all around my nose. I looked like a young W.C. Fields at times. Eventually, it was predicted that I had rosacea, which is what the classic actor had, so I was not going to be any different. When I went to see a skin doctor in Arizona for laser surgery, it was discovered that it was tuberous sclerosis, a multi-organ disease which has mutants showing up in several different organs besides the skin, like kidney, liver, heart, and the brain. After being tested, I had none of the symptoms in any of these organs, except for my skin. The most extreme case of the disease is mental retardation. I was told this by someone who I met after just completing college in four years and making it to the Dean’s List, too. I had the mildest form of this disease and was glad for it, but it still affected me.

In addition to this skin problem, I had bad coordination and was clumsy and

could not show any agility for active sports. Imagine not having a clear face and being weak in this environment. So much to knock a kid’s self-esteem down a few notches. I often looked up to heroes like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Incredible Hulk, and Rocky Balboa in film and television as I wished I could be like them—strong, powerful, and with many muscles and a great physique.

My lack of confidence led me to watch a lot of television growing up, using this as my escape. I just could not wait till I turned eighteen. I could then move from Michigan to California and pursue a career as one of these heroes. And, even if I could not be one of these heroes, because I did not physically look like them, I could possibly end up on a situation comedy instead. I often made many family and friends laugh at my antics, so I thought I was the perfect candidate for that and looked up to television actor John Ritter for all his antics on the popular show Three’s Company.

Years later, I would find out that most people would not even care about Hollywood unless they lived there or were a part of the entertainment industry. They gave me the “you are going to move to La-La Land all for four seconds of fame?” attitude. This I did not understand at the time when I was a youngster. I set in my heart, soul, and being to fulfill my purpose in life, and I was not going to let anything stop me. I held onto this dream for many decades. Deep down inside, I loved performing, so this just added to the mix.

The most difficult part was realizing how cruel and insignificant the industry would be once I moved into it at age twenty-four. My whole life I wanted this more than anything. I gave up on girls, so I was not “trapped” as I called it in Michigan when speaking of settling down there. I did not want to become a lawyer, doctor, teacher, priest, but an actor. Not that Michigan was a bad place, but with so many cold winters and limitations with creative careers, especially in the entertainment industry, it would hold me back. I also wanted year-round summer and was not a fan of snow. As a child, I saw others who were my age perform. I often thought, I could do that! Why not me?

Between my junior and senior years of high school, I visited California for the first time. My lifelong dream was now coming true. I was amazed by the diversity of the terrain and scenery from the mountains, ocean, and desert landscape this state offered. The year was 1989 and California had thirty million people—three times as many as my home state of Michigan. Fast forward thirty years, add ten million more people plus higher real estate, more traffic, and people living on top of one another. Whatever happened to “California Dreamin’” as the Mamas & the Papas sang about in the 1960s? In those days, the population of the Golden State was barely fifteen million, and not so many people were running the rat race. The industry that I wanted to be in was not the same as it was when I was a child. Maybe it was because I was older and more mature than in the previous decades when I looked at television from a child’s eyes not an adult’s eyes?

The internet was going to be available to the masses later in the 1990s followed by social media in the first decade of the 21st century. The internet and social media were both going to affect the industry as well. I still went for my dream in 1996 when I moved to Los Angeles. I wanted to be a full-fledged actor. Many acting professionals and critics would say if you wanted real acting, go to New York or London. I wanted to be on the small screen, not on stage if I strictly went there. Television had always been my goal. Was this my goal because I really had the acting love or was it just “ego” in reference to what I was experiencing as a child with low self-esteem and constantly hearing “you throw like a girl” and people name-calling me “Pizza Face” and a weakling? I was bullied in my early years of grade school for this. As I began growing rapidly, I became one of the tallest boys in my class, then the bullying had stopped.

When I first arrived in LA, I just wanted to be on every film and television set, studio, audition, and performance. I was like a kid in a candy store and just so ecstatic. I dreamt my whole life for this, and now I had the freedom to do what I really wanted to do. From 1996 through 2004, I made sure I worked on my craft with acting classes, meetup groups, and being on sets. I met and/or worked with the most established people in the Hollywood industry—Steven Spielberg,

George Lucas, Tom Hanks, Betty White, Gloria Estefan, Quincy Jones, and Emilio Estevez, just to name a few. Even though I did not obtain my ultimate dream with my own sitcom or other television series, I did work as an actor and obtained my SAG (Screen Actors Guild) card so I could be taken more seriously and make union wages when I worked.

To counterbalance my income, I was a video editor as well as a public speaker and presenter. Both of these positions changed my life in different ways. They gave me an understanding of public relations and how the average consumer relies on television, film, radio, and the rest of the media. In my work outside the entertainment industry, particularly interacting with young audiences, I was regularly reminded what people value most in their lives.

In 2004, something was happening that changed my view on the Hollywood industry. It was my eighth year in Hollywood, and I was still struggling. I was thirty-two years old, and I needed to look seriously at what I wanted to do for a full-time career, as opposed to what amounts more as a hobby. Not that people go into acting thinking it’s only going to be a hobby. How to make acting a career is the question especially when only the top people really can make it their only income. I was a really good actor, too. I still am. It’s just that you had to be in the right place at the right time, and obviously, I wasn’t. With a trip that year to , Monaco, England, and Sweden, my Hollywood view now turned into a world view.

Over the next decade and a half, I continued to act. I just did less of it as I wanted to make money and travel the world at the same time. I managed to travel to over forty different countries and six different continents from 2004 through 2019. As of the writing of this book, I just need my seventh continent, Antarctica, then I will be on all continents. On the presentation front, I managed to give over 5,000 different presentations to over 100,000 different youth from across the USA. After so many travels, did all these people from all over the world and those I spoke to in my presentations really care about Hollywood or my quest for it?

One of the first movies I watching as a child was The Wizard of Oz back in the late 1970s. I recall Dorothy not being happy with her life in Kansas and wishing she could be someplace else. When she went to the land of Oz, she met the scarecrow, the tin man, and the lion, all of whom she cherished, but not the wicked witch. She needed to get the broom from the witch so she could give it to the wizard who told her she could go back to Kansas if she obtained it. In the end, the wizard failed her, but Glenda, the good witch, appeared and told her she had it in her the whole time to believe that there was no place like home as she clicked those red ruby slippers together while saying, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” (Fleming, 1939) Maybe this was similar to my journey? The land of Oz being Hollywood while home being reality or the real world. When someone has traveled extensively throughout the world and has experienced so much and has encountered so many different people from different lifestyles, cultures, and even religions, it does put Hollywood in a small perspective. By no means am I bashing anyone who lives for this industry today, but in my opinion, it is not like it was in the good old days of the twentieth century when there were only three major networks and there were more scripted shows, not reality or unreality like Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

As a ten-year-old, I just wanted one successful television show, then I could have been able to relax in life and start to finally enjoy and accept it for what it was. Tackling so many auditions with rejection upon rejection plus financial woes through the years, I had to look deep down into my soul to find out what truly mattered and what would save me.

2

A Different Light…

One of my non-Hollywood inspirations was Pope John Paul II or Saint John Paul the Great, who I met at the Vatican along with my entire immediate family in 1999. Five seconds of this man’s life was on me. He was the most traveled Pope who was of Polish background just like I am. My grandparents and greatgrandparents all immigrated from Poland to the US in the early twentieth century to escape economic and political turmoil in Europe. This pope would eventually become a saint. I shook his hand and kissed his ring as he was sitting down, and he looked me straight in the eyes. I was nervous, and all I could say to him was dziekuje or “thank you” in Polish. He did not say anything to me, but he gave me a vibe or a message that I felt neither good nor bad about. To a twenty-sevenyear-old, the message I received was “keep working at it!” A few minutes before he met us individually, he walked over to a man who was perhaps in his nineties and was in a wheelchair in front of us. He prayed over him and held his head. I thought this was amazing as this man was near the end of his life and the pope was interacting with God for him. My constructive criticism seems very minor to this elderly man. My ego was put into place and had to be left at the door. No matter who we are in this world, we will be judged in the end. What we do with our lives is up to us, but we must have faith and trust in God. To those who do not believe in God, I always hope that you have some faith to get you through the day and give you purpose in life. My purpose is unique to me, like yours is to you.

People often ask me since I have been to so many different countries, whether I have a favorite? To a world traveler, this could be a difficult question to answer. I had the opportunity to live in Sweden for three months in 2008 and in Turkey for two months in 2016, so this added to the mix. Visiting a place is different than living there, and every place is different and unique. Growing up on the Great Lakes of Michigan, I always preferred being by the water. I always loved this, but I was not a fan of snow nor cold, and Michigan has plenty of both. I preferred a Mediterranean climate, which could be found all over California

especially along the coast—an added incentive (temperate weather) while being able to live and work in the industry I loved so much. Since I had been to Europe many times, I loved the actual Mediterranean climate there. Countries like Spain, , Italy, and Greece catered to this. In 2007, the company I was working for awarded us with an incentive trip to this region—a cruise along the Mediterranean. This was my first cruise ever, so I was even more excited to visit many new places. We departed Venice, Italy, and went to ports of call in Dubrovnik, Croatia, Kusadasi, Turkey, as well as Santorini and Corfu, Greece.

I as a kid watching the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only with Roger Moore which largely took place in Greece. There was a scene where the elderly Greek parents of the female lead, Melina Havelock, played by French actress Carole Bouquet were on a boat in the sea and their daughter goes to visit them. The serene turquoise tranquil waters were so precious and unique to me. That image stayed with me and I wanted to see those crystal blue waters all the time. Unfortunately, as the daughter was walking into the living quarters of the boat, evil Hector, played by Stefan Kalipha, flew his plane, that just dropped off Melina down to the elders, shooting and killing them. This I wish to forget unlike the water. The movie came out in 1981, but this was twenty-six years later.

Santorini was the first time I ever stepped on Greek soil. It really was a unique day spent with Lianne and Danielle. We rented a car and drove all over the island, where the cities are built on top with such picturesque views all around from Red Beach, Black Beach, Oia, Fira, and more. Initially, we took the cable car up and the donkeys down.

For lunch, we went to a family-run restaurant right on the sea where we had an authentic Greek salad (which does not contain lettuce like in the US), moussaka (Greek lasagna with eggplant, potatoes, and crème fresh), gyros, wine for the girls, beer for me, and a shot of ouzo compliments of the owner. We sat on the veranda overlooking the azure waters. There was a street that separated the physical restaurant from the seating area. The owner’s wife cooked all the food,

while their three daughters served it to us as they were trying to dodge all the cars driving between us and them. It was a family affair, especially when the owner wanted to marry off his seventeen-year-old daughter and have a big fat Greek wedding, but actually in Greece, not Chicago like in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Lunch in Santorini, Greece 2007

On our way back to returning the rental car, the girls wanted to stop for this hitchhiker who ended up being a Canadian journalist who was in Greece on his way to Syria. I thought this was cool and interesting at the same time. For the first time in my life, I thought I was becoming very international and a far cry from TV land of Hollywood. It seemed the girls wanted to pick the Canadian up for his pretty-boy good looks, but I am sure they will not it that to me today. The day on Santorini was so special to me with a combination of the views, sea, mountains, beaches, food, culture, the girls, and just being in a magical place similar to the 1980s James Bond movie. With all this in mind, my favorite place has been Santorini, Greece, and just Greece in general. I thought to myself if I could possibly live there, that would be even sweeter. Many people from all over the world have dreams of living on a Greek island or just an island in general, so why not me? Anything is possible. I was apart of the Hollywood dream for so long, so why not a Greek isle one, too?

How could a struggling artist from Hollywood survive or conquer any feat like this? Focus, faith, and friends are key. How does one go from a stressful environment like a big city, Los Angeles, to a calmer, serene environment, a Greek island in the middle of the Aegean Sea? It seemed like a never-ending cycle and some people dismissed that I could even pull it off, but my goal was to overcome anxiety and built-up stress after so many years.

3

Expect the Unexpected

Auditions, rejections, low pay, no pay, traffic, traffic, traffic, high rent, earthquakes, wildfires, crazy and sometimes self-centered people, and more traffic were all part of this madness which led to my anxiety and maybe depression, to begin with. I never wanted to give up on the Hollywood dream, but when things took a toll on me, especially on my health, I had no choice but to reassess my goals.

It was the year 2015, and I had just turned forty-three, and I was coming up on nineteen years in Hollywood. I was still single, living paycheck to paycheck while I worked for a college, a movie marketing company, some acting gigs here and there, and I also was an apartment manager to top it all off. At this point in my life, I thought I would have been married, had a couple of kids, and a house in the hills.

I had been writing for my friends’—Billy and Katherine’s—online fitness magazine, FitnessX.com, where I mainly wrote articles about preparing for triathlons while traveling the world. At age forty, I was the most physically fit in my life. I was on top of the world as many would say. I ran alongside monstrous Mount Vesuvius in Italy as well as the flowery fields of Ekerö, Sweden, just outside of Stockholm, continued biking on the horrendous hills of Wellington, New Zealand, and through the sassy streets of Porto, Portugal, while finishing off swimming alongside the coastal cliffs of Cinque Terre, Italy, on the Tyrrhenian Sea. I was all set and had it made. This was until tragedy hit when one of the models and associates of the online magazine, Greg Plitt, was hit by a train while shooting a YouTube video in Burbank, California. He had no clearance to shoot on the train tracks but was so ionate about staying in shape while helping others do the same that he took a risk. While recording, he got caught up in the tracks and did not escape in time and was hit and died

almost immediately. He was only thirty-seven years old.

About to swim in Cinque Terre, Italy

Cycling in Porto, Portugal

Running in Sweden

At the finish line at the LA Triathlon (swim, bike, run) in 2012

A few days later, I was going through a set of interviews for a marketing job at Universal Studios. The interviews were on Skype, and I was on my second interview. I was stressed out about everything that was going on. My friend Summer, who was a high school educator, asked me to chaperone her students to Northern California for a virtual enterprise competition. In order for me to be approved to do so, I had to get a tuberculosis test. My forearm was poked on a Tuesday afternoon, and I had forty-eight hours to return to the same facility to have it looked at. If it was flat and had no surface, I ed. Otherwise, I would have failed. This facility was over thirty minutes away from my house. I wish one was closer is all I thought. On the evening of that Tuesday, I was distraught about Greg’s ing, my interviews, and just where my life was headed. I went to Trader Joe’s to get a bottle of vodka, some club soda as well as lemonade and drank by myself. As I drank, I was watching classic television shows from the 1970s and 80s as well as doing research on YouTube on current roles I could possibly play. I could not put my head down about the past. It was so much on my mind. On the other hand, I could not focus on the future as this was in my head as well.

The next morning, I had planned on going to get my tuberculosis test read by LAX airport where I had been the previous day. I was so dehydrated and hungover. I had two cups of coffee, a diet Monster energy drink, and diet pills (because I thought I needed these to lose weight to be in better shape for these auditions and roles)—all of this to get my energy flowing. I was so fatigued and just wanted to wake up, but I wanted to get to the clinic. I was level-headed and somewhat dizzy. I did not want to take the freeway for fear I would out in traffic or worse—get into an accident on the road. The thing about a TB test is you have to return within forty-eight-hours. If not, the results will be null and void, so I was now dealing with deadline pressure. I had until the following morning, but I just wanted to get it over with. When I was at a light at an intersection about halfway into my journey, my heart started beating very fast. I continued to drive as my heart started beating faster and faster as I was driving. I

never had this happen before, and it just seemed to get worse and worse. Eventually, I turned into a subdivision for fear I was going to out. I ed my friend Lisa, who told me to just call 9-1-1 emergency immediately. I told her I would call her back after the 9-1-1 call. Within three minutes of the call to 9-1-1, I started to hear sirens coming closer and closer. I was standing next to my Jeep and felt like my world was closing in on me like a relapse from a Men in Black movie. I did feel like I was going to out just as the ambulance was arriving. This was going to be the first time I had ever been in an ambulance traveling to the hospital in my life. I thought this could never happen to me. I was a three-time triathlete. What was going on?

The doctor in the ER said I was dehydrated. I had so many different chemicals in my system. I should have been lucky to be alive. She said I was under a lot of stress and that I should go home and rest and have no alcohol or caffeine for a long time. I believe it was for two weeks that I avoided all this. This was a wakeup call for sure on how I would have to reshape my things to come for the future.

For the next few months, I had panic attacks here and there especially when driving in traffic and was always fearful that I was going to out, but I never did. It got so bad that I had to go and see several therapists—one to give me hypnotherapy, one for meditation, and one for my antidepressant drug. I so did not want to come to being on depressants, but I had no choice. I had to if I was going to get better and be able to at least maneuver the LA freeways and not lose control. One doctor at UCLA put me on citalopram, which I took once a day usually before I went to sleep as it did make me tired and I did get full night’s rests quite frequently after taking it. Later I would find out that twenty-four million prescriptions of this drug are issued in the US, so about seven percent of the population is on it. Years and years of psychological abuse from what I perceived as real life of which I wanted to achieve finally crept up on me. There were some side effects of PTSD or post-traumatic stress syndrome as well. I know mostly PTSD happens to military and those who go off to war, but this could affect others who are already sensitive and emotionally drained. In my mind, I could not settle down until I had a successful television show, and that was my philosophy for almost forty years. This is all I knew.

Success and fame have a price to pay especially when you look at the reality of the situation as I looked at all the successful celebrities in television, film, and music who had come and gone through that time. Take Whitney Houston. She started out a music career in her twenties, a stint on the TV show Silver Spoons, and then in the 1990s, ended up in movies. She turned to drinking and drugs to counter any emotional distress she was having and in 2012, succumbed to her demons in her hotel room at the Beverly Hilton. The day she ed, I heard so many helicopters flying over my house living less than three miles from the hotel. I went on Facebook and found out that she had ed. She had it all, then lost it all as she sang about it in one of her songs, “Didn’t We Almost Have It All.”

I had a dream that did not happen the way I wanted so I freaked out and put my body in the “fight or flight” response mode. This would be apart for the next five years. I could not figure out why I was always so fatigued, depressed, not motivated to get out of bed at times, and I did not have the direction I had before. Some call it a midlife crisis, but for me, it was more a case of choosing the artist’s way, and it sucked the life out of me. As a child, Robin Williams often was alone in his room acting out characters which then led to his success as a comedian and later as an Oscar-winning ing actor. Situations had led to his demise and eventually his suicide. The same thing was going on with Anthony Bourdain. Having too much stress on oneself to succeed while living up to everyone’s expectations is absurd. Try this when you have to go on a casting call or an audition. You are not attractive enough, too good looking, too weak, not plain enough, too tall, too short, just not what we are looking for. F--you then! I was created by God, so I am good enough and I have a purpose.

In order for me to change my health, I had to change my thinking. I could no longer rely on Hollywood or what I perceived was the industry from the past with all my research. I was almost forty-four years old, not four. Such a contrast between fantasy and reality. Overall, I had a loving home growing up, a bonding community, and family and friends who I could rely on, so that was never the problem. It was one hundred percent self-acceptance that I could finally be my

own self, not someone else. Something that I was doing for so long was looking up to someone else who had a clear face, great physique, and someone who was getting all the girls. I had to look at what I already had instead—wit, personality, a knowledge of the world through my experiences, my acting projects, the foreign languages I knew, and a whole lot more. Why was I still yearning for the other things, though? As a child, Walt Disney had a fear of mice, and look what he did to combat that by creating Mickey Mouse. Maybe my childhood fears could be turned around this way to help others.

Creative people are always so critical of themselves. In fact, they are just the opposite—exceptional, giving, and inspirational. One of my favorite films is the 1993 Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning film Schindler’s List, starring Liam Neeson. Spielberg purposely shot the film in black and white to depict the gloominess of the situation of the Nazis taking control of the Jews in Poland during World War II. The one exception was the little girl who roamed around Kraków as she was the only one in color. The color being red and signifying the one glitter of hope for the Jews until she was presumed dead later on in the film. One of the ending scenes of the film was when the war ended, and the Russians were going to come to the camp to liberate the Jews. Oskar and his wife were leaving in their car. Itzhak Stern presented Oskar with a letter explaining what Oskar did for the Jews during the war as each of the camp signed it. They also gave him an emblem with a saying in Hebrew, “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” (Spielberg, 1993) Oskar then looked all around at material possessions like the car, a Nazi pin, etc. and said he could have exchanged them in order to save so many more people. Oskar just broke down and cried. This is how I felt. Maybe Hollywood is just my lesson to publicize but not to work as an artist for material gain or fame, but to touch, make a difference, and help others throughout the world. I would often go to sleep at night praying to God, “Why me?” And why did he present this to me at an early age, focusing on it for my whole life, and now I was depressed and on a daily drug. There were many times I just cried myself to sleep this way. For over three years, I was on the drug citalopram and was ashamed about it because it meant that I was weak.

4

Time Out for Turkey

There was a point in early 2016 when my doctor put me on medical leave because I could not drive and my job required driving all over California. My friend Benjamin, who was in LA for sometime, had been living in Turkey where he was working a web development and marketing business based out of Las Vegas, Nevada, but he was located in Turkey.His company, Persisca, was eager to grow, and Benjamin told me to come to Alanya on the Mediterranean for a couple months and just chill while marketing and giving speeches for his company over there.

The city of Alanya is on the Mediterranean Sea and for a few decades, was growing into a tourist city. There is Kleopatra Beach, where supposedly Cleopatra and Marc Antony had been centuries previously, as well as Alanya Castle embedded on the mountains over the sea and the opposite side of this beach. I spent late February through late April in Alanya, so it was basically late winter/early spring there. Many northern Europeans have winter homes in Alanya like Midwesterners and East Coasters have winter homes in Florida. I came across many Finn, Danish, German, and Russian transplants as well as many Persians. There are many college students who live in Alanya as they have a major university there. At this university, I would be giving several presentations.

It was interesting living in a Muslim country where the call to prayer is five times a day starting at sunrise and ending at sunset. Most Muslims living in Alanya would go to the temple and pray. They would not kneel nor face Mecca in Saudi Arabia as most do in other Muslim countries. I knew I was not going to stay in Turkey beyond the two months like I thought I was going to stay in Sweden indefinitely eight years previously. This was just another experience in a foreign land for me.

I visited the holy Muslim city of Konya, where Jalal ad-Din Muammad is buried. He was a Persian Sufi mystic or prophet who went by the name of Mevlana for short. He was born in Afghanistan in 1207 and died in Konya on December 17, 1273—the day before my birthday, but almost 700 years earlier. There is a side of me that believes that when one person es, their soul will protect the person who is born immediately after they . It was almost 700 years, but it was around the anniversary dates of when I was going to be born. Even though I was born and raised Christian and Catholic, I still pray with people from other faiths. The shrine dedicated to him has his grave or casket looking like a ski slope. This is how they celebrated prophets in those days. Benjamin and I were just ing through Konya to see the temple and then make our way to Ankara for some business.

We wanted to have a beer as we waited for our train, but it was hard to find in this city, especially with how religious it was. We found an underground bar with a nice host, who was about thirty years old, who had the longest beard in history. It was like he hadn’t shaved since puberty started. His girlfriend arrived, and they were all talking, and they had to request for no videography and no tagging of their place on social media. Could this have been their version of a speakeasy then? We eventually made it to Ankara for an overnight and then back to Alanya.

During my time in Turkey, there was much terrorism with many bombs going off especially in the capital of Ankara. Of course, my family and friends were concerned for me. There were even national days of mourning. I was not worried for my life at all and had no anxiety over this. Yes, I was cautious, though. Amazing that this happened to me, but I still had the anxiety driving, especially in southern California, but not living in Turkey.

I could not leave this region of the world without visiting the Holy Land, so I went to Israel on Easter weekend 2016. I went on tour to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem right at noon followed by Bethlehem, which is in

Palestine and not Israel, right after. Just like meeting St. John Paul II back in 1999 at the Vatican, now I was on another significant spiritual mission, this time in the Holy Land. Both situations putting life in Hollywood into a minuscule perspective in hindsight.

5

Committed to Recover through the Eyes of the World

What weaned me off the antidepressant was a regular workout schedule, thanks in part to Nick Myre who I met up with a couple times a week at a gym in Santa Monica, California. Nick was a fellow actor who was also a fitness trainer who catered to actors. I had been previously trained by fitness great, Obi Obadike, who taught me that when working out, “supersetting” is key. You interchange between two different exercises or weights in between the other. Nick did the same. Both workouts were thirty minutes, and that was it. This increased my endorphins and testosterone and in turn, was giving me more energy, and my fatigue was diminishing tremendously. My doctor was upset that I was slowly reducing my use of citalopram, but I told her I was going little by little to diminish the use. All in all, I was on the antidepressant for about three years. Since 2018, I have not been back on it. If I feel fatigued, I just jump up, go for a walk, exercise, do some simple workouts, be kind to my body followed by meditating my soul. I went to see my friend Luca, creator of the Bosurgi Mind Fitness Method, for a few months when he helped me with hypnotherapy in order to heal my mind even more. As a result, I started transcendental meditation, which has helped a lot as well.

In the interim of this recovery period, I was diagnosed by two doctors with generalized anxiety disorder. It was difficult to accept at first, but my goal was to break through this anxiety and depression full force. Some people get the news that they have cancer and only have a few months to live. This type of news was tame compared to cancer, but it carries a bad stigma in society when it should not as so many people have been suffering from this. The brain needs therapy just like any of the other organs in our bodies.

Something had to change in my environment. I had just lost my job due to budget cuts, was forty-four years old, had no consistent acting work, and had this

mental disease to deal with. It was not like I wanted the “poor me” syndrome. I guess I was over it, but I was not over my life as some in my shoes could have been. My brother Mike would always say, “If you could not handle it, God would have not presented it to you.” Now, every day I wake up, I thank God that I am still alive, and he is not done with me, yet.

Over the next couple years, I continued to travel to places like Cuba, Thailand, and Cambodia. I had to make an important decision in 2019 to move out of Los Angeles after twenty-three years of living there. Toward the end of my LA days, I went on several drinking binges to combat my anxiety and depression which did not help me with getting over it. Instead, it made it worse. I used it as an escape and put on a lot of weight in the process. I was off the antidepressants as many panic attacks were lessening to me, but the fatigue was coming back the more I drank, so I had to stop. I was at a point when a dear friend of mine ed away from something related to depression and alcohol abuse, but I was not sure. I spoke to her a few times in her final month alive, and this is what I was sensing. I had so much focus on the prize of Hollywood, and now I was leaving it. She was always the workaholic and best friend to many, and in the end, she lost her life at only forty-nine years old. I was devasted to hear of her ing but got to see her one last time before she was taken from this planet. We went to have some food and a couple beers in North Hollywood on a Wednesday afternoon; we were catching up on old times and had tantalizing chicken wings as well as artichoke dip. Afterward she walked back with me to the train station, but we made a couple of pit stops along the way. She stopped at Panda Express to pick up some orange chicken and rice for her boyfriend followed by buying hot tamales from the elderly lady by the station who was selling them outside. She spoke to her in Spanish. I kept on looking at the elderly lady and sensed some angel around my friend. I then bid her adieu, and we both smiled at each other and went about our separate ways. That was the last time I saw her, and I will always her smile that day. One week before she ed, she wanted to see me again, but I was working on the #1 American TV show at the time, NCIS, on that day she wanted to meet up. Her last worlds to me were, “ Glad you have followed your ions and continue succeeding. Say HI to Mark Harmon for me. All the best, my brother, Marky!”

While I was on my book tour for my first book I Still Believe! in Europe, I traveled to many countries. On the tour, I was thinking very diligently for a relocation effort to one of these countries. I flew from Los Angeles to Copenhagen, Denmark, where I spent the day touring the Nyhavn (water canal) with musicians and pedestrians as well as visiting the Little Mermaid and harbor areas. Then I was on a late flight to Barcelona, Spain, to visit my friend JC or Julio. My brother Michael was on his honeymoon with his new wife Deanna on a Mediterranean cruise, and they made a stop for the day in Barcelona, so we all ventured to La Sagrada Familia or Sacred Family Church created by Antoni Gaudi which has been under construction for almost 140 years. When Gaudi himself died in 1926, the church was barely twenty-five percent completed. Once you walk in, it seems just like a huge Catholic church as many churches in other parts of the world are even older than this church. I had been to Barcelona two other times, but I was never able to go inside due to lack of time and the long lines to get in, but I figured with a part of my family this would be key. We also made reservations weeks ahead of time.

I ventured down the famous street Las Ramblas and then met up with Julio for paella on the sea after Mike and Deana went back to the ship. Julio introduced me to sweet vermouth drinks that are very popular in Barcelona and often served with a cherry or orange slice with ice. They serve some tapas on the side, which consists of bread, cheeses, and fish. I did not realize Spain had such an extensive wine industry. Dating as far back as the nineteenth century, vermouth has been imported from Italy to many places in Spain and even . Vermouth is basically wine with added herbs, spices, and sugars, then fermented and lastly fortified with additional distilled alcohol and often other flavors in the finishing process. The paella we had was filled with mussels, chicken, and many unique spices. It was muy delicioso. Julio was giving me advice on how to move to Europe since he had been a transplant in Barcelona from New York for close to three years.

Now it was onto my next destination: Vienna, Austria. This was a first for me. Growing up on the Great Lakes and living in California for so long, I was never really a fan of being in a landlocked country. I know Austria has the Alps and many lakes, and Vienna is filled with the finest of world history, especially with

anything musical of Mozart and what have you. I was going to visit my Brazilian friend Denis, who I met in Buenos Aires, Argentina, nine years previously. He came to visit me in LA once, and he relocated first to London for his master’s degree and then to Vienna to be a PhD candidate for the University of Applied Arts there. We had a great time touring Schönbrunn and Belvedere Palaces among Austrian schnitzel, beer, and Viennese coffees and rich pastries for dessert. Vienna is a beautiful city that is easy to get around and has an active nightlife.

After Vienna, I was on my way to Athens, then eventually Paros, Greece. There was a stopover in Belgrade, Serbia, for a bit where I did not realize there was special security between flights as I left the European Union and the Schengen Area for the layover. The European Union is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states formed in 1993. Traveling from one European country to another is like traveling from one US state to another as in port is not needed. It is like there is no border between any of these countries—a far cry from the communist days when the Eastern Bloc countries were separated from the rest of Europe. Now many of these countries were free and had opened borders. The Schengen countries are a little less in number, but basically, when you go to these countries, you do not have to show your port to travel within the zone. After Greece, I was going to continue on to Poland, Estonia, and Sweden, so my port would not be stamped until I would have left Europe altogether to go back to the US.

From the airplane, Serbia looked like one major farmland. My American friend John Cupp, who is of Serbian descent, would have been glad to know this fact, so I made sure to tell him this observation. Upon entering the airport priority lounge, you are greeted with a shot of their famous plum moonshine called rakija. It ranges anywhere from 40–60 percent alcohol by volume. I could only have one.

All of this made me sleep well on the ninety-minute flight to Athens. This would be my first time in one of the world’s oldest cities with a recorded history dating

back almost 3,500 years. Named for the goddess Athena, Athens served as a cultural and political mecca for centuries on the European continent. Athens was also the birthplace of modern democracy with the Acropolis at its height and helm. Today it is a major tourist, historical, and governmental center. Of course, it is a city, and a city has much traffic, and Athens is no exception. You can hear many spirits especially around Plaka and the major historical sites. Athens also was a center of live theater, which I would have enjoyed tremendously especially if I lived in ancient times.

After two days, I came to Paros and fell in love with it immediately. Flying over the Greek islands, a person could get a sense of the serenity and heaven with all the hues of blue from the sea and the brown from the mountain-capped islands scattered throughout. Upon my arrival in Paros, I went to Aliki Beach first, which is on the south side of the island and near the airport. There was a bar there, which had been operating for decades, named Romantica which was right on the sea in Aliki. The original owners’ son, Giannis, was one of the first locals I met on the island—a man perhaps in his early seventies who was very physically fit for his age and swam out to his little boat when I first met him. He had a much younger wife, Sophia, who met Giannis while she was a waitress at the club. He taught me my first Greek swear word, “malaka,” which means a-hole!

My lunch on Paros was one chicken and one pork gyro. Back in the States, it is usually a choice of chicken and lamb, not pork. I guess due to the lack of supply of lamb, pork is more abundant. Even though it was just one night, I was at peace in the possibility of relocating to Paros at least for some time if not forever.

My friend Nick, who I met back in Los Angeles years ago, had relocated to Paros and was living on the island for some time as his family was from there. He encouraged me to check it out and possibly relocate. Unlike Santorini and Mykonos, Paros is the third tier in the Cyclades islands, and it was up and coming. It has less expensive real estate compared to LA, no traffic lights, and

easily accessible water everywhere. This would be quite different from Los Angeles. Would I be able to make this move after twenty-three years of living in La-La Land? I always wanted to live in Europe. I always thought it would be Poland, Spain, or Italy before Greece, but I chose my university out of a college catalog without even visiting the school. My first day in the state of Arizona was my first day on the campus of Arizona State University, now my alma mater. I was interested in attending the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication as the famed American broadcaster had his name associated with the school at Arizona State. What did I have to lose by moving to Paros after doing this?

With four years of panic attacks and the exhaustion due to the overwhelming stress of driving in LA, I was now more than ready for a change. Now mind you I had to take citalopram to help with my driving in Los Angeles. Sometimes as little as two miles would trigger a panic attack. Now, I did the unthinkable. How does one reverse or at least try to reverse the psychology of panic attacks when driving? You drive across the country. That is how you do it. I first drove from Los Angeles to Detroit, where I spent about a week visiting family and friends. I continued on to New York City to have my Jeep transported from New York to Athens by way of the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, and every waterway in between.

6

Time to Say Goodbye, Hollywood

Lisa, Liliana, Christian, and Taylor, all did not want me to go. Cyndie told me to not move to Europe just for a girl. I told her that was not the case. While Kelly, another brother from another mother, encouraged it. He told me that I could always come back if all else fails. We were both supposed to go to Iceland the previous December, but due to unpredictable snow and the possibility of being stuck in a possible landslide, we opted to go some other time probably during the summer months. He also said that I am an adventurer and could see how ionate I was about this before anything else and that this would never make me depressed. We both talked about excavating Antarctica together, so I will hold him to this one day as we both can travel there. He came to see me on my second to last night in California. We went to my favorite city in Los Angeles county, Malibu, where we had fish at Reel Inn. It sunk in that I was going to leave this place I had built up in my mind for so long.

I finally left Los Angeles on Tuesday night, July 30, 2019, after having a sendoff dinner with Taylor in the valley. I had most of my life packed away in my Jeep, so not only was it going to be an adventure across the US, but an adventure taking me ten time zones away—almost halfway around the world with my life and my belongings. The first evening, I was going to stop at the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains where I would spend my last night in California with my friends John and Lisa. John, my Serbian friend who I have already mentioned, has a vast knowledge of auto care and was checking my car out for any possibilities of problems that I might have on the road. Originally, I met John in the 1990s at Arizona State University. I find it interesting that my first day in California back in the 1990s was spent with another old friend from Arizona State as well, Bob, and now this was my last day with another fellow Sun Devil. It was like what goes around comes around again as the pendulum swings. I was a little delayed getting to John as there was a traffic jam even in the mountains at 11:30 p.m. on a Tuesday. I could not get out of Los Angeles any sooner.

Anxiety was setting in a little bit from the start of my cross-country journey, but I just kept my mind on the road while listening to music and focusing on all the American scenery I was going to see all the way to Michigan. There was even traffic from San Bernardino to Las Vegas for three hours from the start. Once I got north of Vegas, I was Arizona and Utah bound seeing so many more mountains and buttes which were all part of the discovery of road tripping.

In Utah, the speed limit is officially eighty miles per hour, so you could go ninety without risking a major ticket. The biggest challenge was pas semi-trucks along the way. The disadvantage of driving back East in the US is that you lose an hour every little step as I lost my first hour going from Arizona into Utah. It didn’t matter as the sun was setting behind me and it looked so beautiful looking out my rearview mirror. At this point, the sunset behind me meant I was going to have a nourishing sunrise in the morning in Colorado.

As I entered Colorado, it started to rain. I was happy as I got to use the new windshield wipers that I had purchased earlier in the day in San Bernardino. I had come a long way already and was still pumped, but I had many more states to go.

I exited the freeway in the town of Glenwood Springs. I was looking for a hotel so that I could put my head down on a pillow for at least six hours before I would make an even longer trek the next day to Des Moines, Iowa, to Tyler and Jess’s home. I was going to lose another hour though. Most of the hotels had full parking lots on the side of the freeway, so I moved to the other. The same thing happened on that side, too. I thought, I am going to spend eighty dollars to put my head down for six hours? I might as well sleep in my Jeep. The neighborhood did not seem so promising, and all my possessions were in the car with me, so I just slept in my car and took a nice, tranquil three-hour rest with no worries of anyone breaking into my car.

It was about 5 a.m. when I awoke as it was still completely dark, but I knew the sun was going to rise soon. I thought this would be an excellent time to start my day to see the full sunrise toward Denver, but I was a good five hours from the city. I was on Interstate 80 at elevations over 7,000 feet driving mostly along the Colorado River. Streams of water amid brown and green mountaintops with hues of yellow and orange shining from the east. I had the perfect vehicle to do this drive—a 2013 Jeep Wrangler Sahara. Singer John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” was ringing in my ears as I was driving through lush Glenwood Springs, Vail, and more. Coming down off the hill into the city of Denver was disappointing as I would only be traveling through flat land for the rest of my trip. It was a city that I was in—crowded, traffic, and congestion. I just wanted to get to Iowa, but I knew I had a long trek through eastern Colorado and Nebraska ahead of me. I was also going to lose another hour going from Mountain to Central time in the US. I had the goal of getting to Tyler and Jessica’s by 9 p.m., but there was still so much more land to cover.

No offense to anyone from Nebraska, but with 400 miles of flat land you better have your music cranking up. One of my college roommate’s, Todd, was from Kearney, Nebraska, and I was going to stop and see him, but he was out of town working in San Francisco when I was there. Normally, I would be taking my time driving, but I had to get to Michigan by Friday, August 2, 2019, for my brother Mike’s fiftieth birthday party, so this compounded the urgency and added the stress of driving as much as I could. I did gas up in Kearney and had to decide on where I was going to stay that evening. I had another friend, Cindy, who lived just south of Des Moines, plus there were Jess and Tyler. There was no way I was going to make either of these locations by even 1 a.m. As soon as I got on the freeway, there was a standstill of cars that were backed up for miles. Wait. I am in the middle of Nebraska amid corn fields, and I am in traffic? I thought I left LA a few days ago. The world just does not seem like the world we grew up in anymore. So many changes, and not all for the better. I guess there was some accident.

My friend Janet knew I was in her home state, so she ed me when I was

driving. I asked her about any good places in Omaha that I could go to for a good steak dinner. She said most of them would be closed by the time I would get there. “They close nine o’clock on a Thursday night?” I guess things are not open there later like in LA. The sun was going to set soon, and I was getting a little exhausted. Janet called her parents in Omaha to see if I could crash there for the night. It was still a long way to Omaha. There were many semis on the flatlands that were speeding and ing me by. I had been on the road for fourteen hours now since my short three-hour rest and still had two more hours of driving to go. I started to have a mini panic attack in Lincoln, so I pulled to an exit looking for a hotel in case I decided to rest and not go to Omaha that evening. I bought some prepared eggs, string cheese, lunch meat, and mineral water at the mini mart. Coffee, energy drinks, and anything with sugar was out of the question. I went back to the car and just rested for ten minutes, then called Taylor hoping she could talk to me while I was driving for the hour trek to Omaha. It did the trick!

Once I made it to Omaha, I found Janet’s parents’ home, and they ironically had steak soup for me which was divine. We had not seen each other in a few years, and they wanted to catch up, but I was so exhausted. I knew I had to be gone by 7 or 8 a.m. at the latest because I needed to get to Michigan at a decent hour for Mike’s party, and I was going to lose yet another hour going into the eastern time zone. The bed at Marlene and Bruce’s was perfect after almost twenty-seven hours of driving since I left John and Lisa’s house in San Bernardino.

The next morning, I was able to make time for a meetup for coffee with Tyler in Des Moines. I hadn’t seen him nor his wife in years since they moved back to Iowa from California. We always connected with our Midwestern roots, family, and God. I did Cindy and told her to come visit me in Greece as I would have to see her some other time. I was now in the home stretch, but I had one more obstacle—Friday afternoon traffic on the south side of Chicago.

Cousin Alice was calling me saying that she had just arrived at the house to surprise Mike for his birthday. I told her I was barely in Indiana and I had at least

four hours ahead of me and I was losing one more hour. I had been on this trek many times between Chicago and Detroit. Many Americans who have never been to Michigan think that Michigan is on the same time zone as Chicago. I have to explain to them that it is in the same time zone as New York. Lake Michigan is the dividing line. There is a small part of the upper peninsula that borders Wisconsin that is on the Central time, otherwise Eastern for the rest of the state.

Alas, though I saw the “Welcome to Pure Michigan” sign, I had over three more hours to go. Also, I saw many orange pylons which meant construction everywhere. I was speeding, and I felt if I was going to be stopped by the Michigan police, I would say, “You know how many miles I drove to get here?” Construction in Kalamazoo, construction in Battle Creek, construction in… All of this was too much. It was like a neverending battle to get to Mike’s house, but I drove up to his driveway and arrived like I was reaching the finish line at 10 p.m. EST. It was like the times I finished the triathlons. I was exhausted, excited, yet hungry at the same time. I defeated my worst fear of the previous four and a half years- driving!!!! No more medication, no major panic attacks, and I did it —60 hours, 10 US states, and 2,000 miles later! Was I fully going to be done with anxiety? Only time was going to tell. Was Greece going to be a permanent move? How long was I going to stay? Three months? Six months? A year? Five years? Forever? I knew I was a born adventurer, so what was the worst that could happen? No matter what, I had to keep in the back of my mind that my main focus was to get over anxiety. Like many goals in life, this one was important as I wanted to have a full life for myself, not one based on the Hollywood dream makers, the capitalistic money makers, or even the religious in the church.

My father comes from a family of thirteen children, while my mother only had one sibling, but she has always been close to all her cousins, so family gatherings were always so big. My brother’s fiftieth birthday was no exception. There was going to be a week’s stay in Michigan before I would continue to drive to New York, where I would ship my car to Europe. Of course, I slept very soundly that evening and told everyone in the house that I would wake up when I would wake up, so please do not disturb me.

7

East Coast, USA to Europe!

I had to unpack, then repack. I felt like my whole life was changing, but it was. I was moving overseas to Greece. After a week of visiting Michigan, it was time to get my Jeep going to the East Coast. Alice sent me off at McDonald’s south of Detroit (nothing was open that early on Sunday as I tried for Tim Horton’s coffee instead). I was going to stop off in Pittsburgh to meet my friend Colleen who used to live in LA. I had never been to Pittsburgh before, so a first for me. I met Colleen in the downtown area, and we took the Duquesne Incline up to see the three rivers and the Pittsburgh skyline. It looked like a miniature Manhattan to me, which I was going to be in the next day, but I was not excited about being in New York for just such a short time. I was going to be rushed like most things on the trip to get my Jeep checked in, then myself to the airport so I could fly to Athens. Driving through Ohio and Pennsylvania, there is a turnpike and so you really do not get off the freeway until your final stop. I had to make it to Morristown, New Jersey, with at least some time to catch up with Bill. This would be my last night in America. Just like in the middle of Nebraska, there was a traffic jam in the middle of Pennsylvania. I was on the outskirts of the famous chocolate city of Hershey but had no time to even take a sampling and have a chocolate fix. I was not going to make it to Bill until after the sun had set, but there was no time change between Michigan and New Jersey like the other states that I had traveled through.

Once I got to Bill’s, he gave me a little tour of Morristown and he explained to me how George Washington had spent some time there fighting for independence. In 1777, George Washington set up camp in the city as the city was a halfway point between New York and Philadelphia, so it was a very strategic location during the Revolutionary War. I was amazed at how everything was with so many trees the further you left the city center. It was like a major forest, almost like the forests back home in Michigan. I wish I could have spent more time there, but I had to get up early to beat New York traffic into Manhattan. My last dinner in the US was a chicken burrito as I was not going to

have much Mexican food in Europe. I had to make sure I was going to get a good night’s sleep.

The alarm clock went off at 6 a.m. This was my last morning in the US. Driving into New York City on a Monday morning at rush hour was going to be something else. I could see the Manhattan skyline as I was fast approaching it. I ed when I was fifteen years old, I was in New York with my family on the way to Boston from Detroit. We entered Manhattan through New Jersey as well. The first thing I seeing was the World Trade Center. Even when I went to Poland for the first time two years later when I was seventeen, I saw these twin towers again. As our plane was landing, I could see the World Trade Center out of my window on that trip. Now almost thirty years later, it was only a memory of that skyline. It just wasn’t the same. With my family, we entered through the Lincoln Tunnel. I was entering by way of the George Washington bridge this time. Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, all in a matter of minutes as well as $20 in tolls were ahead of me.

I drove past Yankee Stadium and had to make a stop to see this cultural landmark which has represented the US in so many ways to so many people. Even though this was not the original stadium, you could not help but be nostalgic over this place as I saw it in my final hours in the US. I dropped my Jeep off in Astoria with most of my life’s belongings, and I thought to myself What am I doing? The guy at the transport place looked at my California plates and said, “You drove here all the way from California?” I replied, “Yes, and now it is going to Greece!”

I knew I had to get out of Los Angeles because of all my anxiety, panic attacks, and sometimes depression. Was I making the right decision by moving to Greece? I always wanted to live in Europe, so why not on a Greek island which would be a low-key place compared to Los Angeles. If all else was going to fail, I was going to live in an ancient land where theater, democracy, and the Olympics all began, but this was 2019 and not BC. Greece had filed for bankruptcy and had gone through one of the worst economic crises in modern

times a little over ten years earlier. I wasn’t going to Greece to make a lot of money, but to focus on health and getting a different perspective on life. I was moving to an island in the middle of the Aegean Sea, which is part of the Greek Cyclades island group. I had been a risk taker for much of my life, so I thought, Let’s do this already and get to Greece! After I parted ways with my Jeep, I thought I may never see it again. Sometimes you just get this feeling when something of importance is removed from you. I didn’t know when I was going to see the vehicle next and what if the ship it was on sunk at sea and all my valuables went down along with it. I could only imagine what my grandparents, uncles, and great-grandparents went through when they came by boat from Poland to New York decades earlier. They risked it all and probably didn’t have many possessions. Since I always loved Santorini and Greece, I thought Paros would be a great representation at a lower cost while also having friends there.

I then proceeded to get an Uber to LaGuardia Airport, then called my parents from there to thank them for everything and told them I loved them and would see them when I would see them. I was nervous, yet positive at the same time. The flight was not direct to Athens as we flew to Chicago O’Hare first. I found it interesting that I flew over Michigan twice on my way to Greece and waved to it from the plane. I called my cousin Shirley from Chicago and told her about this and said my goodbyes to her as well. Throughout this whole process, all that was going on in the back of my head was to defeat anxiety and live a happy, healthy life again. I had put on over forty pounds since my triathlon days and could not believe what a mess I had become. What would lie ahead would not be that easy, but I was then ready for this lifestyle change especially on an island named Paros, which I would later call “Parosdise.”

8

Arrival in Greece

I arrived at the Athens airport on August 13, 2019. I had my port stamped with that date. I arrived around 10 a.m. local time, but the next boat to Paros from the Athenian port of Pireus was not departing until 5 p.m. Hurry up and wait was my theme since I left California two weeks earlier, and I was so exhausted. My first meal in Greece was a gyro pizza with pork and a draft of Alpha beer to wash it all down. Not the healthiest, but I was starving as I was waiting for the boat, and this was all on my mind. This happened to be two days preceding the biggest Greek summer holiday—the feast of the Assumption for Catholics or the Dormition of the Virgin Mary or St. Mary’s Day, mother of Jesus. Nevertheless, it is a huge holiday with church processions, music, dancing, with much food and drinks to feast. Could five o’clock get here any sooner? I was off on an island adventure on a fully packed boat. I believe that living somewhere is different than when you just visit. I knew this from living in LA, and I knew I would have to tell my family and friends back home that this would be the same with Greece.

9

Surfin’ Costa Rica Way with the Hateful Eight

The whole time I lived in California, I never surfed as the waves are so popular in Southern California. Being a Midwest boy, I would bodyboard instead and quite frequently because my coordination was not the greatest. I was always resistant to standing up properly on a surfboard while trying to maintain my balance correctly. The Pacific Ocean by California is very similar to the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas in Europe—not bath water whatsoever like some places in the world, but always the sun beating down on them as you entered the shivering waters. Naturally, I thought the waves would be similar in the seas of Greece compared to the ocean in SoCal, which was not the case. What I failed to realize is that the Pacific Ocean is the largest body of water on earth and the seas in Europe are much smaller by comparison. Paros does get a lot of wind (in my opinion too much sometimes), so windsurfing is a major sport on the island, not the wave surfing that was popular in California that became even more popular thanks to the Beach Boys in the 1960’s with their “Surfin’ USA,” “Surfer Girl,” and “California Girls” hit songs.

I only surfed twice in my life, and both times were in Costa Rica at Witch’s Rock in Tamarindo which is in the northwest part of the country on the Pacific Ocean. The first time was at Alok’s bachelor party weekend in 2016. The Hateful Eight, as we referred to our group, went south on a particular January weekend. The original Hateful Eight was from the Quentin Tarantino film. We had the bachelor, Alok (who was going to get married to Soniya), Shane (already married to Laura aka Pixi), and the bachelors, JC or Julio, Rob, Josh, and two new friends, Coope Diem aka Ryan and Dennis. I never was in a fraternity in college, so this Hateful Eight was going to be the closest I would ever come to being a part of a fraternity. It was a high energy weekend with a lot of activity, yet we chilled and bonded at the same time. Surfing, swimming, sunbathing, being on a catamaran, eating the local fish, mingling with ladies, and drinking plenty of rum drinks called “Miami Vice” (a strawberry daiquiri mixed with a pina colada) were all a part of our agenda. We had some great times with a Top

Gun music-themed weekend as the soundtrack of the 1980s film was constantly being played for us.

When it came to surfing, JC and I were first-time surfers, so we took our lesson together. It was winter, yet the Costa Rican Pacific was like bathwater, so a wet suit was not required. I rarely would have a problem acclimating to cold water having been raised on the frigid Great Lakes water. I one time in high school when I was on the swim team, our coach opened the doors while we were swimming inside. He did not want us to stop swimming; “Keep your body and muscles going,” he told us. This was winter, and it must have been 25ºF (−4ºC), so we had no choice but to stay moving in the pool being that it was so cold with the doors to the outside wide open.

When I visited Sweden for the first time in 2004, I went into the Baltic Sea while I was in the archipelago east of Stockholm. I went in practically naked, and it was the middle of summer at the time. My native Swedish friends did not even follow me as it was too cold for even them, and they called me “Viking Boy” as they laughed from the distance. No temperature of the water, cold or warm, could stop me.

In Costa Rica, I knew I could do this. If I fell off the board, I fell off. As long as I didn’t have to seek medical attention and get stitches or have some broken bones, it would be worth it. My instructor was very patient with me, and I listened attentively to him as he coached from behind yelling instructions of when to stand up and how to position my whole body and feet on the board with my hands in a certain position. The first time I stayed on the board and I was following the wave, I felt like a kid discovering he had the golden ticket in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. WOW—I was amazed and in my realm! This was the complete opposite of being trapped in anxiety, depression, and a fatigued frame of mind! Can I have more moments like this? I fell a few times as I attempted some more waves, but I just got back up and tried again. I had moments of catching that perfect wave and moments of falling down, but such is life. I was proud of myself regardless. I returned to Tamarindo four months later

on my last incentive work trip and tried it again, this time without an instructor. It was a little more difficult, but I did get up on the board a few times. It was a great time for all. For myself, I will just stick to boarding, swimming, scuba diving, and triathlons. I knew I could do this on Paros.

The Costa Rican Surfer Boys ( Six of the Hateful Eight)

Focusing on the waves with JC and my instructor watching

10

Welcome to Paros-dise

The boat was now pulling up to an unfamiliar place. It was an island full of buildings, churches, hills, but I did not recognize it. It was not Paros, but Syros —the governmental center of the Cyclades and the place where you would find the closest hospital to Paros as Paros only has a medical/urgent care center. I thought to myself, what I would do if there was any dire need for a hospital? I later came to learn that one could either be airlifted by helicopter or take a highspeed boat. In worst-case scenarios, you would just take a flight straight to Athens depending on the severity of the problem.

Excitement was now filling the air as the sun had already set on the sea as I was looking at the island of Syros with amazement with all the buildings in the hills, full of lights and the energy of the coming holiday season. The next stop was Paros finally! 3,000 US miles, four days, fourteen US States, then a 5,000 mile (nine-hour flight), followed by a one-hour train ride to the port, then a four-hour boat ride through the Greek islands, and I finally arrived! WOW!

When you arrive in Paros by boat, you arrive at the port city of Parikia. As you exit the boat, you are in the capital of Paros. There is one windmill at the intersection of the port and where the city starts. You see the very typical Greekcolored buildings of white with light blue everywhere as these are required by law in the Cyclades islands. If you want a house not in white and blue, you would be out of luck. These are also the colors of the Greek flag, light blue and white, which symbolize the wisdom of God and freedom of the country. Also, the blue azure sea surrounding the land amid the white clouds. I later learned that from a scientific perspective, the white on the buildings would help with the heat and the humidity and of course, the blue goes along with the sea and in turn the scenery. Cast the light or sun on this and you have some of the most breathtaking views on earth. I always said when God wanted to create a heaven

on earth, he created Greece.

Mythology, modern religion, and many fables and tales have been written about this special land named Hellas or Greece. Crete which lies to the south of the Cyclades is its own unique island and not a part of the Cycladic chain, just like Rhodes Island which is east of the Cyclades and borders Turkey and is part of the Dodecanese islands. Cyclades means “circle” as the group of thirty-three major islands form a circle or even a cyclone like spiral shape in the center of these islands. In the port city of Parikia, there is the 100 Doors church, also known as the Church Panagia Ekatontapiliani, which consists of a main church surrounded by two chapels. The church dates back to about 326 AD and was under the jurisdiction of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great. No one knows why it is called 100 Doors. There is no record of one hundred doors being found anywhere. It follows the Byzantine right in of architecture and is under the current jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Church. Names’ days, Easter, and Mary’s days are full of worshipers with only standing room available inside and outside. Also featured in Parikia are the Hellenic trail and the Frankish Castle, which is known for its stonework and was built in the 1200s by Venetian Sanoudos. It is believed to have been made from a series of vestiges from various sanctuaries around the island. The castle has very intricate stonework throughout and stands out compared to the rest of the buildings in Parikia which date back to more recent centuries with the white and light blue hues that are so typical of the Cyclades. If you look at the bay in Parikia from east to west, you will see that it looks like a heart. Once departing Paros by boat, I am sure many have said, “I have left my heart in Paros, but it will be there on my next return.”

100 Doors Church, Parikia, Paros, Greece

Overall, Paros is known for fine white marble as well as mountains, over thirty distinct beaches and over 120 kilometers of coastline, as well as souma. Souma is a form of raki which is the typical alcoholic beverage in the Middle East, the Balkan countries, and Greece. It is moonshine typically distilled from grapes. I always call souma the Parian grappa. The Greeks are most famous for ouzo, which has anise or licorice in it, and once mixed with water, it turns into a very cloudy color. I was never a fan of ouzo as I am not a fan of licorice. Throughout Greece, you can find the non-anise type of liquor known as tsipouro, which is a clear version of the ouzo and is often served with ice and water. Depending on how strong your drink is, you can add ice, water, or both to it. In most places, meze, or little appetizers, are included with the tsipouro or souma order (due to its high alcohol content, the food helps you with the decrease of a hangover and possibly being able to function the next day or later the same day). The meze often includes bread, tomatoes, olives, cheese, cucumbers, sometimes meat and cheese pies and fish like sardines and octopus, also sausages, and ham. You rarely have to pay for this meze with your order, be it tsipouro or souma. I look at it as an encouragement of an enjoyable drinking experience complimented with food.

My original intent was to come to Paros to get over my anxiety which I acquired over time in California, but I was hoping for opportunities to work in tourism and real estate. What surprised me after my first winter on Paros is that it is really only a four to five month out of the year tourist active island as most of the islands are in the Cyclades. I could not go back to the US now, especially with my Jeep somewhere in the middle of some body of water. When I dropped it off in New York, I thought I would see it within a month. It took over seven weeks to get to me. As in most things in life, I just go with the flow. I found a winter home on the southeast side of the island in a village called Aspro Chorio or “White Village” translated from Greek. The owner was going to be in Athens for the winter, so I could only be there through spring. At the time, I still did not have a way to live in Greece permanently, but I was working toward establishing

dual citizenship with Poland through my grandparents. Unfortunately, this process was going to take some time. If I had citizenship through Poland, I could stay in the European Union as Poland is one of the eligible countries. I could be like a Greek resident because of being a European resident via Poland. This would just open so many more opportunities to live in so many different places if I decided not to return to the US. Dick Clark once asked an up-and-coming Madonna on TV’s American Bandstand in 1984 “What are your dreams?” Her response was “To rule the world!” (Madonna, 1984) If he asked me the same question, I would say, “To be a citizen of the world!” I was not particular to Paros as my home for life, but I was there for then. My old friend from Hollywood introduced me to it, so I decided to move there.

“Paros was inhabited as early as 8000 BC. By the Neolithic period (6000–2800 BC), Man on Paros had begun to make marble and clay objects that formed the artistic background for the heights of creativity reached by the High Expectation of the Island of Paros.” (Beaubier, 1976) Paros is known for its white marble and other minerals. There are even some mines underneath the island, but nowadays it is better known for its beaches, scenic routes, restaurants, shops, and quaint villages.

To give a tour of the island starting from Parikia, we would go northeast in the direction of Naousa, which could also be written as Naoussa or even in the Greek lettering as well. There is a fork in the road to go to the village of Lefkes, but we will mention this a little later. You will be traveling to the northeast side of the island which would be closer to the island of Naxos, which is to the east, while in the distance to the northwest you would be able to see Mykonos. It is about a fifteen-minute ride through what seems like a rustic valley with mountains on both sides. You leave the sea views for a bit but will be reunited with them as you move to a northeast direction.

As you approach the bay of Naousa, you can turn left and venture to Paros Park, which hosts many cultural and tourism shows from music to live theater as it is an outdoor amphitheater. There is even an outdoor movie theater, where you can

watch your favorite flicks with the sea as your backdrop. The 800-acre park has many hiking paths as well. There are the Tourkou Ammos and Kalamia beaches that have been looking down upon the centuries old Naousa town for your enjoyment. Be sure you stop in Kolimpithres on the way back to experience the bedrocks of the area. I sensed encountering Fred, Barney, Wilma, and Betty along the way with teenaged Pebbles and Bam Bam making out while swimming in the sea. It really puts you into a Flintstone or Bedrock City mood among the natural landscape. A few tavernas and Airbnbs you would encounter along the way, but no Dinos, but roaming baby pusses or cats at every track along the path. If you venture back to the main road which you originally came from, you will turn left to go to the town of Naousa.

Naousa, Paros (not to be confused with Naousa, Imathia, in the north of Greece near the North Macedonian border), is a small fishing village dating well back to the fifteenth century. Many different cultures have put their imprint on Naousa with the Italian pirates invading it over 500 years ago. You will see that many of the alleyways, as well as doorways, are very small, so the locals were able to hide more easily from their invaders. There are remains of a Venetian castle on the beach as well as a small castle called “Kasteli.” The castle looks more like a fort to me, and you can walk out from the northern part of the village to it as it is on a little island. Only those with an adventurous climbing ambition should climb all the way to the top of the fort or castle from where you can look to the north and see the sea or to the south to see many boats, yachts, and of course, the town full of restaurants, bars, and shops filled with many tourists. With my observations, this would only be from April through November because in the winter months, many of those establishments are closed and it looks like a ghost town except for the fishermen and the locals. The castle is still open year-round. Make sure you do not go on a windy day (as there are many), or you will be carried out to sea and maybe implanted onto Mykonos.

The water can be rough, but as you look at the waves coming in on the centuriesold buildings, you do feel a sense of being under the rule of the Barbarossa or red-bearded pirates of the times. It is magical during the day with the deep blue sea mixed with the white and blue mystical buildings and during the night with the lights reflecting off the buildings. If you look to the east, these buildings are

all on a hill with the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin at the highest spot of the village. Nine days after the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (August 15), there are great celebrations in Naousa with fireworks. Dancing, eating, and drinking continues as well as reenactments of pirate raids on the village during this time. There is so much to say about Naousa, but be aware August is the village’s busiest month. I saw many tourists there well into October. And for some reason, when I was there in October, there was a large concentration of American tourists. I often joke about this, but it can be funny as many Americans have not traveled outside the US and may feel uncomfortable about what is different for them. From the port of Parikia, you see the sign—Naousa or Naoussa. Look at the last three letters of the first way the village is spelled. Ha Ha! Maybe that is why so many Americans like to spend their time here. It reminds them of home. In the 1770s during the Russo-Turkish War, Naousa was a Russian naval base, but their influence was only temporary on the island. Nevertheless, Naousa is an enjoyable fishermen’s village full of mystique, culture, and excitement.

As we leave Naousa, we will venture to the furthest northeast sections of the island—Santa Maria and Lageri beaches. They are both about a ten-minute drive from Naousa, and there is bus accessibility in the high season. Santa Maria faces Naxos to the east and is a place for families and young adults. I felt like I was at a club resort in Cancun or Puerto Vallarta when visiting there. It is very commercialized, but you would be well taken care of at the bar and at the beach. There is also a lot of loud music that could give you a sense of being on spring break.

11

Naxos-Land of Zeus and Big Brother to Paros

You do get a nice view of the largest island in area of the Cyclades, Naxos, which is about eight kilometers or five miles from Paros. Being an active swimmer, I thought about becoming a dolphin and braving it to swim across the sea, but I opted to take the ferry from Parikia instead, which is about forty to forty-five minutes on the Blue Star and probably about twenty minutes on the high speed so about the same time it would take for me to swim from Santa Maria. Of course, it would only work in a perfect world. Just like the port of Paros being on the west side, so is the port of Naxos on the west side of its island. The port of Naxos is called the Chora (Greek word for town) or just Naxos City. There are some ancient structures that you see as you pull into the port, and the city is very industrial and governmental as well with some museums and churches.

I spent the day with my friend Roy, who was visiting from California. We were on a motorcycle together. Our day there could have been chronicles of something along the lines of The Motorcycle Diaries: Quest for Zeus as our main objective was to get to the highest peak on the island—Mount Zas or Zeus. Legend has it that Zeus was born on Crete and not Naxos, so this may or may not have been true for the sake of discussion, but no matter what, Mount Zeus would give some sense of where this legendary Greek God was born—here, there, or nowhere at all. Zeus was born in a cave at Mount Ida in Crete and was the offspring of his parents, Cronus and Rhea. According to Greek mythology, young Zeus was raised on Mount Zas or Zeus, which is where we were headed, whether it was true or not. Many legendary stories have come out of the Cycladic region. Homer even mentioned “Dia” as the sacred island of the Goddess. Dia means “heavenly” or “divine” as applied to many of the small islands in the middle of the Aegean lying close to large islands like Crete or Naxos. It may have even been the island of Naxos itself and the nuptial island of Dionysus, son of Zeus. Dionysus being the God of grape harvesting, wine making, fertility, religious ecstasy, festivity, and theater in ancient Greek

religion.

Driving up to Mount Zeus or Mount Zas on a motorcycle had its challenges. Stopping off in so many quaint local villages along the way as our elevation was just getting higher and higher as we looked at the sea behind us was just breathtaking. As soon as you leave Naxos City, you can find yourself weaving in and out of perched villages with many locals and not as many tourists like back in Paros. Goats and sheep out number humans as well as any other wildlife. When you get near the Mount Zeus area, the paths to find the cave are not clearly marked. Initially, we went behind the cave where we found a path, but it appeared to be a five-hour hike down to the actual cave, and we did not have the time to do it that late in the day. We met a French couple who were coming up from the cave and told us to go back down another way. There were only sheep to guide us back. I felt like I was in a scene of Moses on the mountain asking for assistance from God, especially as the clouds were settling in at the 3,300 feet elevation.

Eventually, we did find the entrance, and it was clearly marked, but there was still more hiking to do. I was so physically sore from the tandem ride up on the bike. I was up for this as I wanted to feel like baby Zeus opening to the world. There was a spout which you could turn, and water would come from it and you could drink it. I felt like this would give me some energy before the hike up. Naxos is the most fertile of the Cycladic islands, but we will discuss more on that in a bit.

There were so many bushes and rocks up the hill, even going into the cave. We both entered exhausted, hot, yet like a Greek God because we made it. The further you walked into the cave, the less light you would have. The area inside was about half the size of the inside of the ride of Space Mountain at Disneyland. I took my moments to reflect and pray on centuries of time, archaeologically as well as spiritually. I walked out of the cave with my shirt off, only shorts and my tennis shoes, embracing the light and the rebirth of the day shouting, “I am Zeus!” Kind of like He-Man did back on the 1980s animated

television show: “By the power of Grayskull, I have the power!” (Mattel, 1983) What would be this power? To finally conquer anxiety, to defeat lifelong insecurities, to put Hollywood and the US behind me, to finally be free and just me? All of this was going to come into play. Deep down inside, Jesus was with me as well as many of my deceased family and friends. Coming out of the cave could have been like a rebirth for me, like Jesus coming out of the tomb and being resurrected. My friend back in California, Yvette, had lost her only daughter quite young in her twenties. She had health problems from when she was a little girl and was always in and out of the children’s hospital. Yvette and I used to work together, and we lost touch for a while even though we hung out together when we were working. Yvette ed me after her daughter, Kristelle, had ed away to tell me what happened. Yvette told me that she could not understand why someone so young es away while others older continue to live on this earth. I told her that it is all in God’s plan. We do not know why things happen the way they do. I felt like for many years I was dying in LA, but now I was having a rebirth in a cave that was giving me power and restoring faith in me to live. I told her we should all be resurrected like this. Maybe Kristelle wanted us to have after all those years after she ed for this specific reason. I was hoping Zeus would continue to give me the power.

Coming out of the cave where Zeus was supposedly born

Now going back to Naxos City was going to be all downhill on the way back to the port. Roy and I wanted to make sure we were both at the port by sunset. It was a fight to get there as we were losing sun at so many moments. I told Roy to just keep his eye on the road and we would get there. “We are like Zeus now, so we can conquer anything.” Unfortunately, we had hoped to see some of the beaches on Naxos, but time was against us. Never try to conquer Naxos in just a day. It will defeat you. I guessed I would have to go back to experience that side of the island, which I ultimately did the following year.

It was a good thing I went back to the beaches in the summer of 2020. There is an inexpensive bus that takes you from the harbor to the beaches in a southerly direction. It is about a fifteen-minute ride and stops along the main beaches from Agios Prokopios, Agia Anna, and Plaka. It is like beach row, one right after another. It gave me a Kona, Hawaii, feeling as both are on the west side of these particular islands. It is full of sailboats, white sand beaches, views of Paros to the west and the mountains to the southeast. There are also many tavernas, hotels, some camping sites, and ouzeries. Unlike many of the Cycladic islands, many of these places are open year-round on Naxos. I wish I knew that the first winter I was there. Naxos is also famous for its fine gastronomy, and you will see signs of it at various butcheries and restaurants from lamb to goat to poultry and a whole lot more throughout the island.

Roy and I could not finish our trip to Naxos without one of these typical meals. With some of the most fertile land and a great irrigation system, you can find the freshest of ingredients in any meal on the island. We ordered lamb with lemon in a pot with potatoes and melted Naxos cheese, which for this dish is like a white cheddar. Naxos is known for their variety of cheeses that are unique to their island based on centuries-old techniques. Overall, Greece is known for a variety of cheeses. Outsiders automatically think feta cheese, but there are hundreds of

others, including some made with red wine, vegetables, and even sweet cheeses, too. Most are white in color. The dish with a mixture of all this was divine. We had it served with local white wine and calamari, which were also to die for. The Greeks love their wine—white (chilled or on ice), red, and even rose. The most common is white due to the climate of the islands. In northern Greece along the Macedonian and Bulgarian borders and in the mountains, red wine could be more of the staple like in Italy, , Spain, or Portugal due to the hot, dry days and cool nights. All wine is great according to the Greeks, especially when made by your friends.

I did have the opportunity to pick grapes a couple times in the mountains on Paros at my friends’ vineyard. Eighty percent were white grapes (more challenging to cut), while 20 percent were purple (which were easier to cut). Most of these grapes would be picked in late September for the harvest and made into wine, while the bad grapes or the last ones (if you want to call them that) would be distilled into the raki or souma. Usually in November, there are many festivals on the islands incorporating wine making and raki development.

In the US, tap water and bread is always free when you sit down for a meal at a restaurant. This would not be the case in Greece. In fact, often a server will bring you the bread without asking and yet charge you for it anyway. I would not mind paying if they told me ahead of time. After experiencing this several times, I knew better. If you do not want to pay for bread, then have them take it back. But with a meal like lamb in the pot, bread would be a necessity, so pay the extra euro. The cost of water would be on the menu, so there are no excuses for that one. At the end of the meal, the owner of the restaurant brought us each a shot of ouzo with some local dessert. No souma here on Naxos, but you will find plenty of that on Paros. Naxos, the giant of the Cyclades, also the big brother to Paros, protects it along the way.

12

The Beach and East Side of Paros-dise

Back on Paros, there is still one more beach to visit on the northeast side of the island, Lageri. There are two entrances: you can walk from the same street that you came in from Naousa or you can drive through north from Santa Maria. The north entrance has more scattered parking the closer you get to the north end of the island. People would come in with tents, chairs, parasails. This is more of the friendly side of Lageri. The beach is closer to the drop off here. You could also launch off little boats here if you wanted to. Along the path between the beach and the road you came in on, you would discover several homes, some complete and some not complete. The incomplete ones were often gated off for people. It is like you could pretend house, but it is probably too dangerous. It was like the unfinished homes were unfinished due to financial reasons. The other entrance is closer to the city but has a longer walk along the little islet of which you would be on the east side of the bay from Naousa as you would see the centuries-old Venetian type city with the church on the hill across the way. You would be walking through sand dunes to get to the actual beach part of Lageri.

The south side is known as the naked beachside, but the whole beach is naked (if you want to be). For the most part, you could be naked on most beaches in Greece as long as you are discreet and mind your own business. Single men and women, children, families, couples—straight, gay, and mixed, all mingle at this beach, but it is done with taste. Not everyone is naked, but many are, especially families where parents are teaching their children how to appreciate their gift from God. I find it interesting that the United States is so conservative in many ways compared to Europe, public nudity being one of them. For many Europeans, it is about health, appreciation of one’s body, self-confidence, and getting that full body bronzed tan. In Ancient Greece, public nudity was the norm, especially when one was near water and even competing in the Olympics. But be careful with throwing the javelin or disc if it would end up in the wrong place. In the US, public nudity can be misunderstood with sexual abuse, pornography, pedophiles, among other bad connotations. The media and

Hollywood often set the bad example for these connotations that they may lead to these unfortunate situations, while in other countries there are fewer of these unfortunate situations. If one can be free of all possessions including clothes, then one could be free of prejudice, material things, greed, and even egoism. Just because it is there, doesn’t mean that you have to follow it, but enjoy your life in all ways. And for those that judge you, c’est la vie. It is your life. Once you get over this idea, your anxiety will be lessened for sure. There are many nude or secluded beaches all over Paros. Lageri is just the most well-known one.

As we continue our journey down the east side of Paros, which I consider the beachside because of its many wonders, we will discover many smaller beaches like Marmara and Molos. At Molos, you can do some hiking, too, but this beach is really known for the rock formations surrounding it. You can apply water to your fingertips and make all kinds of faces with the clay consistency. I felt like I was in Hawaii here, just not as many tourists, but I did come across a wedding party taking pictures above the rocks with a view of Naxos in the foreground.

Not a beach village, but the highest (elevation-wise) place on Paros is Lefkes, which is about three miles inland from the sea. It was the original capital of Paros. These days, you have several roads from Parikia that can bring you from the port to Lefkes. Imagine only having a donkey and a dirt road back in the day to do this. Today, it can take you about ten to fifteen minutes between both places, but in the olden days, it took about four hours, so you had to plan your day accordingly. Lefkes has a city which you will find on the outskirts and above the village. In the village, you can find an amphitheater as well as two major parking lots for moving vehicles. The homes, businesses, and churches are all inlined with each other, with most of the structures dating back to the 1600s. Lefkes is Paros’s answer to that medieval/Middle Ages village so common in central and northern Europe. Just like Naousa, the alleyways and byways are very tight and so are the entrances (very small doorways) again to fend off invaders like the pirates. The city is built under a pine-covered hill. Its main street which includes many shops, restaurants, the grade school, community center, a theater, and the House of Literature is on Ramnos. There is a main church named Agia Triada dating back to 1830, which is not white but is the main focus of Lefkes as a whole. From the top roads of Lefkes, you have a view

of Naxos in the distance, the village below you, as well as the church whose bells ring every hour from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day plus once on the half hours.

There are almost 10,000 churches that belong to parishes in the whole country of Greece, plus over 600 monasteries in addition to small chapels scattered throughout. It is a Greek person’s tradition to make the sign of the cross the Orthodox way (left side to the right side with only the first three fingers as a sign of the trinity) every time they a church or chapel. This is more common among the elderly, but you do see it from some youth as well.

At the end of every summer, the village of Lefkes celebrates Karavolas where dancing, food, and music are bountiful from early evening all the way until dawn or till the last human is standing. The traditional Greek line dancing is constant as well as wine, beer, and souma. At this festival, snails are served as well as full chickpeas fried in oil and baked with various spices. The end of the summer brings on the fall harvesting, especially on Paros which moves from tourism in the summer months to farming/construction in the winter months. If you want an even more scenic route on your way out of Lefkes, you can take the 1,000-yearold Byzantine trail which starts at one of the lowest parts in the village and takes you southeast toward Prodromos. The trail eventually goes to the south side of the village and upward along a similar path which will take you south on Paros. The trail has a unique marble-paved path.

Prodromos has the main bakery on the road named O Fournos Tis Geitonias. Maria, Bella, and the whole family will make you feel at home especially with their freddo espresso sketo (cold coffee plain). Across the street is a nice mini taverna named Tavern “Thrakia” which has great gyros for takeaway. I prefer the spicy cheese on them instead of tzatziki. Directly behind the bakery is a little bigger village named Marmara. You can find some small Airbnbs, tavernas, and even a windmill in the middle of the street with which you can navigate thoroughly around when driving. If you continue east past the city, you will be headed in the direction of the Molos and Marmara beaches.

If we are traveling back on the main road in a southern direction, we come to the largest town on the east side named Marpissa. Not a beach place, but a place where you can go to the community center, watch live theater on a stage on the hill, go grocery shopping at a place named Sklavenitis, and have progressive souvlaki, gyro plates, freshly made salads with barley rusks, sundried tomatoes, and feta cheese mixed with the freshest herbs and other ingredients, too. They have beer, wine, liquor, and of course, souma. It’s my friends’, Eva and Kostas’, Mylos, which actually means windmill. There is even a windmill in the parking lot nearby. Make sure you set your parking brake when you park there. The mini taverna looks like it is on the outside of a shopping mall that is a part of one main building all around the upper part of the city. From the main hill, you will be able to see the sea as well as the St. Antonios Monastery high on the hill. There are well over twenty different churches and chapels within Mylos’s reach, so I know they are well protected by God. There are many restaurants, tavernas, and shops to check out in the area as well.

For a short period of time, I was consulting Afrodite and her fellow thespians at the local theater on the top of the hill in Marpissa. The play was all in Greek of which I did not understand the words, but I knew they were doing a good job because good acting is not about the words but the emotion you get from watching the performance. It was a comedy called “Fousta-mblouza” or “Skirt and Top.” Unfortunately, a week before they were going to start having performances, the coronavirus of 2020 hit, and the play was canceled for this season’s performances.

If we go back to the main road and we are traveling south, we want to turn right where the small pinewoods are and go to the quaint little fishing village named Piso Livadi. There is a small little dock for boats here with some daily excursions to many nearby islands including Naxos, Koufonisia, Delos, Mykonos, and more. There are about a dozen tavernas serving fresh fish and other Aegean delights. Do not be surprised if you see many fishermen catching their daily dose of octopus right in front of you in and around the pier as this is a major area for those eight-legged sea creatures. There is also a mini beach. I like

to visit my friend Angel at DePezzo for some souma with meze (appetizers), which could include cheeses, tomatoes, bread, octopus, and even mini sausages. Remezzo often has Greek music playing, especially on Saturday nights, so you can meet many locals here as well, as this place is open year-round while most of the establishments in the village close in winter. In my opinion, south from Piso Livadi all the way to Farrangas Beach is the most beautiful part of the island if you want beaches. We then will continue on the east side or beach side of Paros in a southern direction.

Even though we are off the main road, we will eventually meet up with it again. Logaras beach shares the same bay and is adjacent to Piso Livadi with more swimming and tavernas. These beach areas can get touristy, but I think because the area is spread out, it does not seem as crowded and many of the places are modern, too. Continuing past Logaras, we have the Punda Beach to Golden Beach stretch, which covers about two miles with over twenty-five different restaurants, most with sea views. Punda beach is known for its windsurfing and kitesurfing as the wind can be very gregarious due to the northern summer winds that blow over the Cyclades. They say this is one of the best spots in the world to do this as there are often international competitions that happen here. There are a few major resorts overlooking the sea from Punda to New Golden Beach and even Golden Beach, but there is a walking path that you can take through all of them. Leave your car behind or back on the main road, as you won’t be able to navigate it anywhere here. There are many rocks that lie along the sea that help you with the majestic and picturesque views of the sea and the nearby islands. Surf and swim rentals are available along these beaches. You can also rent chairs by the day in Golden Beach, but they can be costly. You see people of all ages on the beach swimming, socializing, playing volleyball, and others learning how to windsurf. There is no board surfing, kayaking, and scuba in this area though. Walking past the end of Golden Beach is Dryos or Drios (which can lead you back to the local road). More tavernas like Hotel Julia have sea views. You can go inland to Arethousa Beer House, The Green Project, or Anna’s Restaurant. Anna brings her recipes to you directly. She brings you into her actual kitchen, and you can see all her daily cuisine prepared nicely from rabbit, pork, chicken, sea bream, octopus, and of course, lamb.

Many more Airbnbs and summer homes align Drios proper, but now it is back on the main road to Aspro Chorio or White Village in English. There will be more of a discussion later on White Village in a bit. You find the Greek Orthodox Church with the bells going off on Sunday mornings followed by the road to Lolantonis where you would turn left when driving south. It is about a mile road down as you farmland and many houses. There is a restaurant/bar on the beach named Cliff House, which plays music in summer, and you can sip your beverage of choice while watching and hearing the waves crash your way or just look at the many beachgoers there. I prefer to walk past all this to the big rock formation to the left jutting out to the sea. You can climb it or enter it from the other side. You can bask in the sun on it or look straight ahead at the islands of Iraklia, Ios, and Sikinos. I often come here to meditate while taking morning swims when the water temperature is cool and the sun is not so hot. Lolantonis is great if you want to mingle and at the same time be alone. There are other beaches to follow south after Lolantonis, Glyfa and Faragas, but be prepared to do some walking. They are very desolate, yet picturesque, among rocks and coves with easy places to sunbathe and swim.

Praying for both sides of my family at the rocks at Lolantonis Beach

At this point, you would be on the south side of Paros and almost in the village of Aliki or Alyki which is another fishermen’s village and seaport and as of the writing of this book, is in the process of being turned into the second port of Paros after Parikia. Yet through all these changes, it still maintains a unique small village charm with its locals who provide nothing but charm, heart, and openness. There are many fish tavernas and a clear sandy beach. Now it is time to head back to Parikia. We continue in a northwestern direction where we the airport which has many flights throughout Greece and even back to Athens. As we continue to go west, we see more little islands in the distance and one about a mile away from Pounta Beach where you can take a ten-minute ferry to Antiparos.

13

Antiparos

Antiparos is really like a newborn baby to Paros in its size and population as it is about 11 km or 6.8 miles north to south or is about 45 km² or 17 square miles with a population of about 1,200, while Paros is 75 square miles with a population fluctuating between 6,000 and 14,000 residents. The Cave of the Agios Ioannis Church is the most popular attraction on the small island. It is on the southeastern part of Antiparos. It is full of stalactites and stalagmites. It was initially used as a refuge dating as far back as the fourth century BC with Macedonian generals who were against Alexander the Great. In more recent history, a Christmas mass was celebrated on one of the stalagmites which was named Holy Table back in 1673 by a French ambassador who said mass. The oldest known stalagmite can be found at the entrance of the cave which is believed to date back forty-five million years. The cave is 100 meters deep with forty-one steps to reach the heart of it. It is the only vertical cave in Europe. There is a white chapel built in the eighteenth century, Agios Ioannis Spiliotis, at the beginning of the cave as well.

Initially, I was calling the island, Anti-paros (an-tE-par-Os). Like it was against Paros or something. “Oliaros” was the ancient name of the island coming from a Phoenician word meaning “wooded mountain.” Later it was renamed Antiparos as it was opposite of Paros, not against it. The correct way to say the name is “auntie parose.” Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have a home on the island as Rita is of Greek descent, and they have both become citizens of Greece now. They are very secluded citizens but often have other Hollywood elite visit them from Matthew McConaughey to Scarlett Johannsen, just to name a few. It is really not disclosed where Tom and Rita live, but they do frequent a nice Italian restaurant on the main street in town named Margarita Cafe. I went there, but they were not there that day. Pasta with truffle sauce and chicken were a delight along with a Greek salad and a tuna appetizer. There are little beaches throughout the island, but they are small in comparison to Paros. There is no airport on the island (you would have to go to Paros), but there is a heliport, which I am sure has been used

by many elite Hollywood stars visiting the island.

What is noticed about European restaurants and service compared to American ones and their service is that in Europe the servers do not work for tips, unlike back home. Instead, they are given a set wage, which is so much higher than that in the US. I back in California, in particular in Santa Monica, many servers were getting stiffed by European tourists who would not tip. Many establishments then started writing: “Tip not included on the receipts.” In some places, they added a special kind of service fee, which to a local could be confusing. You already have the tax which could be like 9 percent to 10.5 percent depending on where you were at in the city, plus this extra fee, and then a tip on top of it. For the most part, the tax is already included in the bill in Europe. In the US, it is typically 15–20 percent tip for the service, but in Greece, pocket change or 10 percent if it was a simple meal is considered enough. Unless service was extraordinary, then you should give more. One time I was sitting on the outside patio for service from a waitress. She walked past me three times and did not say anything in that time to me, so I got up and left. My friend had been shopping for his girlfriend on the streets and told me to just go back and he would me momentarily, so I did. This time I only waited five minutes, but only because I got up and asked the waitress for a menu. There wasn’t much tip after this situation. Besides this particular situation, sometimes I feel some servers in Europe expect an even bigger tip because I am an American.

It is too bad the full summer I spent in Greece was the COVID-19 year as every year Tom Hanks has a public swim between Antiparos and Paros as I would have been so much there to participate and exchange stories about Hollywood especially my two days working on Catch Me If You Can.

14

A Much Different World on this Side of the Pond in Paros-dise

On the western side of Paros, you will see majestic sunsets on the sea while looking at Antiparos and even Sifnos in the distance. The land is pretty barren on this side with plenty of farmland and sparsely placed homes along the western side. There are some small beaches to discover, but more are on the eastern side. There is a butterfly sanctuary named Butterflies Valley on the way back to Parikia, but it is open for limited hours and is closed in the winter. You can find it in the mountains southeast of the city’s entrance.

While Paros has been third in line in the Cyclades after Mykonos and Santorini, it has a unique sense of its own. I call it the San Diego of Greece due to its laidback attitude, family friendliness, and variety of beaches similar to San Diego. Whichever direction you look on the island, there always seems to be a beach and a view of some other island as well. Also, this was the first time I ever lived on an island. Many people can only dream of it, but I was doing it. I was making the dream a reality. I was also saying to many people that I had found PAROSdise with my new claim on life mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and culturally. Being a world traveler, I know there are so many more islands in the world, but I was willing to stay on Paros for the time being.

I did not grow up on an island, but I did grow up on a peninsula in the great state of Michigan and the outlying areas of one of the toughest cities in the US— Detroit. In high school, I would hear from my parents that if you go into the city and you Eight Mile, you better lock all your doors. I one time when my grandparents, who had lived in the same house for over forty-five years, were held up outside their front door in broad daylight, and my grandfather tried to fend off the burglar but was hit with the gun. My grandmother called 9-1-1 and my grandfather was then sent to the hospital.

Thank God he survived that day, but the city of Detroit was always a crime city to me. There are some shady areas in Athens, Greece, but I guess big city problems are not there like in Detroit.

On Paros, I never felt threatened by living in a dangerous place. There are gypsies on Paros, but they keep to themselves. You do hear them driving around trying to sell, barter, or exchange goods while yelling through loudspeakers coming from their moving vans. In Parikia, you could see some gypsies set up tents where they would live, if not in their vans, but nothing major like in the big cities in the US. I noticed that in my last few years on the westside of Los Angeles, I encountered more and more homeless people usually on some kind of drug, alcohol, or with some hidden agenda. Most of them demanding money or something else. I never experienced this in Paros or even in my short visits to Athens. It is unfortunate that so many millionaires live around the homeless especially in west Los Angeles and Santa Monica. Even in the two months I lived in Alanya, Turkey, I did not encounter one homeless person. I was more impressed seeing little places along the street where cats and dogs could sip water from bowls and even little boxes where they could go to the bathroom. Interesting to see how humans cannot be sheltered and taken care of in the second-largest city in the US, but in a resort city in southern Turkey, they take it a step further and provide such services for the four-legged friends.

15

Cuba for Free Americans

In November 2017, my college friend, Brad, was turning fifty. In celebration, he wanted a group of his friends from college to fly to Cuba to celebrate it with him. I guess I was attracted to islands even before Paros. This was at a time when Americans could fly to Cuba after such a long embargo or hiatus since the early 1960s. We had to say we were going for educational purposes and to the Cuban people. We could not say we were going there on vacation or holiday, then we would not be itted on the plane.

There were originally five of us who were supposed to go, but due to logistics and port situations, it ended up only being the three of us—Brad, myself, and Donna (also from college, who I hadn’t seen in over twenty years). Donna was a Spanish teacher in Arizona, so she was excited to be exploring another Spanish speaking country. This would be the ninth Spanish speaking country I would visit. I had some friends that had been to Cuba in years past, and one flew from Jamaica to get there and the other from Cancun, Mexico, but now it was different. We could have free access as Americans finally. Many Cubans that had fled the island in the last fifty years have not been back, nor do they care to go back. They had a tough enough time getting on a boat and making the ninetymile journey north to Florida or any other place that would take them in. My friend Rob left Cuba when he was four years old by boat. He went first to Puerto Rico for a few years before he spent the rest of his childhood in the Miami, Florida, area. Forty years later, he has yet to return.

Some people did condemn us for going, especially when there was such hostility that Fidel Castro had for his people and the way he treated them. Decades of revolutions and strife for the Cuban people, but we wanted to see something unique, humble, and humanistic by so many means. “How can you go there and the dictatorship and its economy? It’s communist!” I had already visited

communist Poland and China. So how is it different with Cuba? Because only ninety miles separates Cuba from the US and a threat still exist? As Americans, don’t we have one of the strongest ports in the world with which we can travel to so many places and experience so much? Of course, our ports would only be looked at in Cuba just like in Israel. They would not be stamped in either country. Reason being because of this embargo for so long between the US and Cuba. If you have your port stamped in Israel, you won’t be able to travel to any Muslim country in the area because you entered a Jewish state. One can think of how many wars have started because of religious and cultural differences as well as monetary gains. It makes you wonder how the British Empire got so huge setting up home all over the world and giving the world the third most widely spoken language among native speakers after Mandarin and Spanish today. The focus here is on what new experiences one will encounter, not other people’s opinions on what you do or don’t do. The focus away from other’s judgments on you will only help eliminate anxiety as fast as a speeding bullet can come your way.

At the time, Brad was still working for American Airlines (now he is retired and living in Mexico). We were flying standby on his employee benefit. Donna and himself were flying from Phoenix, while I was flying from Los Angeles, of course. I first had to fly to Miami, then to Havana. The disadvantage of choosing this time for the trip was that American Thanksgiving was a week away and many Cubans who lived in Miami wanted to fly at this time, so my chances were slim to get on a flight. In order to have a beneficial exchange rate, American dollars would not be accepted in Cuba at all. We had to exchange US dollars for euros in the States and then to pesos on arrival in Havana. There are two types of Cuban pesos: one for the people—a lesser value, and one for tourists. Of course, you are going to exchange for the tourist ones. American credit or debit cards do not work in Cuba, so the cash you come with is all that you have to use, so spend your money wisely. It was a good thing our Airbnbs were already prepaid and on American credit cards anyway. As Americans, we could not stay in hotels as most were government-owned, so only Airbnbs or we could stay with locals if families would take us in. Like I already stated, we were going to Cuba for the people. It has always amazed me that the distance from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, is the same as LA to Santa Barbara or even Athens to Paros, but Cuba is such a different world from the US, that is for sure.

Before I boarded the plane in Los Angeles, I had to pay $100 for a tourist visa to Cuba, then was drilled the famous question: “Why are you going to Cuba?” Five hours later, I would arrive in Miami but had an even longer wait there. There was no chance in the world that I was going to make it on the plane from Miami to Havana, and it was barely a thirty-minute flight. Now I know why people have swam it the other way, but I could swim it this way. Just like many immigrants who came from Europe to America, I did the opposite. I was told by the airline to just fly back to Los Angeles. “Then I want my $100 back for the visa that I will not be able to use in Cuba.”

I desperately needed to get in touch with Brad and was glad he was back at the Airbnb in Havana and had wifi. Brad had a clever plan to have American fly me to Charlotte, North Carolina, and then from Charlotte to Havana. This was a no brainer for them to do. The only thing was that the flight from Charlotte was not due out till the next day. I had never been to North Carolina before, so why not? I could have some tasty barbeque and see what kind of sites I could encounter overnight, and North Carolina is where the Wright brothers tested their planes on the beach in 1903—First in Aviation, First in Flight, North Carolina! Of course, there would be no time to go to the beach in North Carolina, but downtown Charlotte would fit my schedule. I was not prepared for the chilly autumn weather when I stepped outside the airport terminal as I was supposed to go from California to Florida to Cuba, and this was November. I just hoped it would not snow. Nothing was really open late, but I did get to see the downtown area and have spareribs and a few local brews. There was no sense in me getting a hotel room for the night, since the flight the next day was at 9 a.m. and it was already past 2 a.m., so I went back to the airport and hoped that I could sleep on some beach as soon as I would arrive in Havana, but Brad and Donna had different plans. I was the last one on the plane, and I noticed there were only people sitting in the middle two rows and the front two rows, so basically only about twenty-four people were on the plane. This was much better than waiting until Tuesday in order to travel from Miami. It was actually, Friday. Always being the adventurous type, I never know what to expect flying into a country that the US has been boycotting for so many decades since it was communist, under a dictator named Fidel, and so much more.

Flying over the eastern side of Florida and the various keys that followed, we were making our descent into Cuba. All you then see is the gregarious Caribbean followed by an island full of trees and mountains, but no towns or people. It was almost like flying into the fictitous “Fantasy Island” in the popular 1970s and 80s television show of the same name. I would then be hoping Mr. Roarke and Tatoo would be greeting me while offering me a daiquiri or mai tai while saying those famous words: “My dear guests! My name is Mr. Roarke, your host. Welcome to Fantasy Island!” (Television, 1977) I would most likely be greeted by a military general who s Fidel and Che, asking, “Why am I visiting Cuba?” Of course, I know the answer now: “For the people!” Once I enter this communist state, would I be able to go back home eventually or be stuck on the island forever unless I swam off.

The Havana airport is something out of a 1950s Soviet communist film. Nothing had changed in Cuba for the past sixty years. It was like stepping back in time. The terminal was full of hues of dark brown with dirty painted walls that have not been painted or even cleaned in decades. Immigration was done in Charlotte as my port was not stamped. Since I was a day and a half delayed coming from California, Brad and Donna were waiting for me at the Airbnb in the city. Wifi or internet was nonexistent on my phone, and I was hoping to get to the city with ease.

As soon as I walked outside the terminal, I saw an array of Cadillacs. These were the taxis of the island. Oh boy, the smell of the exhaust from all these classic cars was just that exhausting. “Hola, Señor! Donde quiere que ir?” “Cerca del centro. Aqui!” I said as I showed him the paper with the address. “Hello, sir! Where do you want to go?” “Near the center. Here!” is how I responded. The driver then turned on the radio and started to drive off with the open-aired vehicle roaming through the streets of Havana. We ed a billboard in of Castro followed by a mural of Che and then more messages advertising beer among children playing football (or soccer) and then decrepit building upon building as nothing had been built in the last sixty years. It was like really stepping back in time. The driver then pulled out a cigar and started to

smoke. Between the engine exhaust and the smell from the cigar, I was smelling something distinctively Cuban. Now the music was playing in the car louder and louder as the rhythm of the drums coincided with the beat of the trumpet and the piano. Wait for it! Wait for it! A lovely lady starts singing, and all I could do was sit back and visualize beautiful women dancing on stage. They needed a partner and that would be me. We would then sip our rum drinks and then go back to the dance floor sweating up a storm. Then I was back to the barrio, where the driver halted and said to me, “Bienvenidos a Habana!” There were so many people on the streets as I was yelling for Brad and Donna, who were in an upstairs apartment. I was equally ecstatic to see my compadres from the States as well as to be in a new foreign land.

After I freshened up at the Airbnb for a bit, we were off to a tour of the city. We went to the Museum of the Revolution first, located in Old Havana and was about a fifteen-minute walk from our place. The original building was for the Presidential Palace for the various presidents from 1920 up to 1959. There was an attack on the palace in 1957 where there was an attempt to kill the president at the time, Fulgencio Baptista. The museum largely displays Cuban history from the revolutionary period of the 1950’s as well. As you step into the backyard in the museum, you will find remnants of airplanes and even motor vehicles from this period. Besides wearing my modern clothes, I felt like I was living in that time period of the revolution. Afterward, we walked around the Paseo del Prado, taking in some of the native people’s daily lives. We then went to a little cafe and had some empañadas with mojitos. Donna had made some local friends who were telling us which sites to see and one of those was a live musical performance at a performance center adjacent to El Capitolio or the capital. The music featured was along the lines of Cuban and Latin songs, which were popular at the Buena Vista Social Club in the 1940s. There was also a documentary in the late 1990s called The Buena Vista Social Club as well, which centered around this type of live performances. Many of these artists whom we were going to see started performing way before any of us were even born, dating back to the 1950s which had its own unique style. These performances were put on by El Proyecto de Musica Cubana. Even though the Cuban people do not have much in the way of material possessions, they have a love for music, dancing, people, rum, and just having a good time.

Before we headed to the performance, we had an authentic meal at one of the local eateries not that far from our place. It was located among many that were situated in the same area. I was forewarned the Cuban food was not that great due to the lack of availability of spices. I ordered “Ropa Vieja,” which is shredded flank steak marinated in wine and tomatoes and mixed with peppers and onions. It looks like old clothes, hence the name ropa vieja, which means “old clothes” in Spanish. The meal was served with a salad, rice, and yucca. I was hoping for plantains, but that is all they had that day. I washed it down with a glass of beer. It was very satisfying. I hoped to burn the calories off by dancing the night away.

The building was in pre-1880s style, and as you walked up the stairs, you could sense a poignant time in history for the Cubans as they had just obtained their independence from Spain. It was a grandiose setting filled with various tables and chairs and at the center was the central performance area among all the pillars attached to the ceiling. There were times that I thought the dance floor was going to cave in from all the thumping and tapping. The walls were literally forcefully shaking as the rhythm of the music intensified.

The next day, we walked along the waterfront to the Malecon, which is on the water and part of the break in it. We also all toured El Castillo de Los Tres Reyes Morros (or the castle of the three kings). The castle and fort were built in the late 1500s to early 1600s. It was built for protection from pirates and nearby invaders in Renaissance style as ordered by the king of Spain at the time. Unlike the structures for protection built in Paros, this one was more elaborate and parceled on so much land which is more available here than on a Greek island. It is built on a natural enclave among several descending terraces built around the rocks. We came across several performers reenacting what life was like in the 1600s and 1700s there in military fashion as if the place was actually going to be invaded.

As we continued to walk back to the city, we could see a dramatic, yet lively, undertone of centuries-old Havana as we looked at the colonial skyline in the

distance. We stumbled upon a Russian restaurant and could not resist checking it out. The food was similar to Polish food and the upstairs had a terrace right on the water, so it was a win-win situation anyway. The restaurant was called Restaurante Sovietico with a sign out front with the word “Nazdrarovie!” on it. We ordered a plate of pierogi (dumplings), sausages, and some other interesting things. It broke up the Latin food eating binges, but with all these Russian speaking people around us and their ties to Cuba, I felt like I was Patrick Swayze in the 1980s film Red Dawn where the Russians and Cubans invaded this middle American town, and I had to become one of them, escape and try to survive on my own, or die. It hit me then, “Am I really ing the communist by being here and paying for food in a place like this?” I was in communist Poland in 1989 and communist China in 1999. It did not matter then. Why would it matter now? I was there for the people.

We did take a little tour of the city in a pink Cadillac. Like I already stated, Cadillacs are the taxis in Cuba. Again, I could feel the energy of the people driving around, the rhythm of the Cuban music, and the exhaust everywhere like I was choking on Fidel and all his communist political upheaval at the same time.

Since we were impressed with Cuban food, we had the night before in the barrio, we decided to go back to the same restaurant. I ordered the same as the previous night, ropa vieja. Donna did the same as I did. For a Saturday night, it was very desolate, unlike the previous evening. The ropa vieja did not look the same, nor taste the same. To our surprise, when you go to a restaurant in Cuba, just because something is on the menu does not mean that they will have it or that it would be the same depending on who the cook or chef is. Some places in Greece are like this, but it is mostly at the seasonal restaurants that are not opened all yearround. In the middle of our meal, the power went out in the whole neighborhood. At least we already had our food. All three of us did not like where this was headed. We hurriedly ate our food, paid the bill, and left. Then the lights went on. The meal was a disappointment compared to the previous night. The best meals in Cuba are in people’s homes. We had breakfast every morning at our Airbnb with coffee, fresh fruits, bread and jam, and hard-boiled eggs. Sometimes even rice and beans were on the side.

Afterward, we walked to La Floridita, a place made famous by American author Ernest Hemingway, back in the 1930s. Hemingway and his wife were known to drive from their house on the outskirts of Havana in the 1940s just to have drinks there. The place is known for its daiquiris and seafood as well. There still remains the 1950s charm there today with the attire of the bartenders and the classic food that is available. There is a statue of Hemingway at the end of the bar as well as a small plaque hanging inside of the place with a signed quote: “My mojito in the Bodeguita del Medio and my daiquiri in the Floridita.” La Piña de Plata was the original name of the place which opened in 1817. Over one hundred years later, many American tourists convinced the then owner to change the place to El Florida which eventually became El Floridita. Since this is located in Old Havana, you would see many hotels, but as Americans, we were not allowed to stay there.

First Breakfast in Havana

El Floridita- Ernest Hemingway’s Hangout

With Brad and Donna in a pink Cadillac

The next day we hired a driver, who of course had a Cadillac, to drive us to Cienfuegos on the south side of the island about three hours away from Havana. Unfortunately, Donna was shivering all night and had flu-like symptoms all night. I had diarrhea throughout the night and woke up with my stomach in shambles. Both of us ate the ropa vieja. We had been food poisoned! There was going to be a delay to get to Cienfuegos due to our conditions. The coordinators had to find another driver who would pick us up at the halfway point between Havana and Cienfuegos as the driver from Havana needed to be back before it got dark as there was limited light on the road and for security purposes. Sure enough, we left one vehicle for another about halfway into the trip. Not sure if what they were doing was legal by Cuban standards. As long as they got the money from us, they were happy. When I was in Poland in 1989 toward the end of communism being the system in place, I knew there were hush-hush scenarios especially when I had to sleep with my money belt around me with my port in it. Even though I was on the third floor of my uncle’s friend’s house, they could still kidnap me, a seventeen-year-old, and take my money. You always had to be protected and watch your back no matter what. To the Cuban couple who arranged all this, we were their major income for the day. The average Cuban supposedly makes about $50 a month, while everything else gets subsidized by the government, especially housing. I guess this is the reason Cubans are not allowed to leave Cuba—to stop them from breaking free of this governmental control. Driving along the water, all I could think of was that the Florida Keys were ninety miles in the distance and there we were in such a remote land. There was not really anyone on the road, and the nature amid the water was very peaceful, calming, and memorable as it was a rarity.

Once we got to Cienfuegos, we checked into our Airbnb, which was a little away from the city center. The next day, we went to a waterfall in the morning followed by the rest of the day at the beach, where we met two girls originally from Poland, Barb and Marzena. They told us about places to go at night in the city center which were closer to where we were staying. This was our last night

in Cuba, and it was Brad’s fiftieth birthday, so we had to go out with a bang. Donna and I had to make sure we were not going to get food poisoning, especially with our flight back to the US the next day. We all had ordered fish and everyone’s order showed up except birthday boy Brad’s. Their service was not the best, and they seemed to have forgotten about his order or did not have what Brad requested. Since he didn’t want to keep us up, we just shared some of our food with him and went into the city. He ordered a Cuban sandwich from a lady on the street who invited us into her home. I took a bite of the sandwich and said it was better than what we had at the seafood restaurant. If I ever return to Cuba, I will only have food on the street and in people’s homes. The night brought on more dancing, music, mojitos, daiquiris, and a group of Polish people all on the dance floor. I think Donna was the only one who was not Polish. Who would have thought all the way in Cuba?

The next day, all three of us were flying from Cienfuegos back to Miami. Since we were flying standby, we could not check in our bags. The Cuban airport security lady stopped me in my tracks for having razors in my bag. She looked at me like I had stuffed a dead body in there. She took the razors and put them aside. What was she going to do with them? Sell them on the black market. This was such a unique experience rich in history, ion in people who live among limited conditions, but seem happy. Cuba took my heart away. Unless you do not love water, any island would take your breath away, even a Greek island.

Now Greece is not communist like Cuba and is also a part of the European Union, but you definitely can find islands there like Cuba. In about 2004, Greece was going through one of the worst financial situations in modern times and eventually went bankrupt. Communist Cuba would not have any situation similar to this. Before the euro was incorporated as the currency of many, but not all EU countries, Greece used the drachma. Once it was full-fledged euro, it was difficult for many Greeks to transition, unlike the German Deutsche mark, French franc, Spanish peso, or even Italian lira. Many times, Germans would be upset at the Greeks for having to bail them out of this economic crunch, but what can you do. Knowing this situation with Greece, many American friends and family were asking me how I was going to survive financially in Greece. The average wages are about 700 euro per month (sixteen times more than Cuba). I

figured I struggled for decades in Hollywood so this could not be much worse. I was moving to a Greek island in the middle of the sea, not the big city of Athens, so I was moving there for the natural beauty, the views, and the biggest gift I wanted to receive at the end of it—to defeat anxiety!

16

White Village/ Aspro Chorio

Welcome to Aspro Chorio, Paros, Greece!

Sophia was gone for the winter and was looking for someone to watch over her place through these months. I knew come May, I would have to find a new home, but that was ok. I loved the uniqueness of Aspro Chorio, which translates to “white village” in English, not because of the people, but because of the color of the homes. In the Cyclades, one must adhere to ordinances about having your home in white and light blue only. I believe at one time, singer Madonna wanted to build on one of the Greek islands, but she wanted to paint her home a different color scheme. Maybe this is why she lives in Portugal, as there she could paint her home any color she chooses.

If you enter Aspro Chorio by way of Naousa or Lefkes, there is a sign welcoming you that reads: “Aspro Chorio: The Biggest Little Village in Greece.” There is even an International Drive with people from many places all over the world—Scotland, Israel, , Italy, Hungary, and soon to be me, the American. There is a modern Orthodox church called Church of Life, a restaurant owned by Canadians named The Canadian, and Cliff House on the beach opened seasonally. I came in at the end of the high season as many homeowners were moving back to Athens or other parts of Europe for the winter. When Sophia said to me, “Have a nice winter and good luck,” I truly did not know what she meant until after spending a winter there. I was trying to get over anxiety, and she forewarned me to stay active. She was right. There were days ahead of depression, especially when so many places are closed for the winter while Parikia was a thirty-minute car ride away, but many things were closed there as well. I guess this is kind of what life is like in Alaska during the winter months. I had been there once in June, but most of the people who lived in the ports of Alaska were only there for the tourists in the summer. At least on Paros, I would have more temperate weather and views of the islands of Ios and Sikinos in the distance. I was going to miss American Thanksgiving for the first time in my life, and Christmas would just not be the same being away from family.

I escaped to Athens a few times during the winter where I got to experience more culture and see more people than Paros. Now I knew why many Athenians had summer homes on the islands and spent winter in the city. It would have been great to have this lifestyle: summers on the islands and winters in the city. What was I going to do now that I found Paros-dise? Was it deserving enough for me to give it this name or not? I guess I was going to find out.

I went to the big city of Athens a few times to see a little more culture in my early life living in Greece. I even witnessed my friends, Mario and Pola’s, marriage proposal at the Acropolis on one of my visits to the city. I did leave Greece in the fall of 2019 to go to Poland to see family near Rzeszow as well as locate my grandfather’s birth certificate. I then followed it with a trip to Spain to visit friends, Miguel and Sara, in Toledo as well as Kaiko and Johny in Vigo. Otherwise, I remained on the quiet Greek isle.

I was about to experience something which was unique and rewarding at the same time. I was going to see how the local villagers lived. And for many of them, going back generations from celebrating name days to other festivities. One would go to church followed by attending mini parties full of meats, bread, cheeses, vegetables, coffee, wine, souma, and more. They often have kokoretsi when roasting on the spit as this is a lamb meat mixture of kidneys, liver, and a whole lot more. I was not a fan of it as I took one bite and had to wash it down with wine. Throwing in fresh vegetables into the mix—potatoes, lentils, and even chickpeas—was a better option for me. Wandering musicians like Giannis and his family could play for you as well. Giannis’s family originally came from northern Greece and Asia Minor, but generations had lived on Paros. He played the clarinet along with his son-in-law, Kostos, playing the lute among other instruments. Bring on his youngest son, Dmitris, who I ended up teaching English, as well as his older son, Giorgios, and his only daughter, Margarita, and you would have a whole string quartet. And we cannot forget his wife, Maria, who ed them all with her excellent cooking and motherly . Giannis and many of his family are blond and blue-eyed, while Maria’s family was of a darker complexion. Someone said Giannis and his family were

more German looking than Greek.

The town of Aspro Chorio did not get electricity until 1977 and the road that went all the way to Aliki did not exist yet. The situation of Aspro Chorio and Aliki probably would have been the same today if tourism did not boost the economy of the island. I was not looking at my time in Paros to get economically ahead. Instead, it was to get spiritually, emotionally, psychologically, and culturally ahead, which I could then convey into my works and overall life. In the US, there are only the native Americans who carry the history of being the dwellers of the original land, while in Greece, it has many centuries of so many different ethnic groups mixed together. In Greece, it has been the language, culture, religion, government, architecture, health, and theater that many Americans would not have today if it was not for this culture.

I was throwing a winter solstice party on December 22, 2019, in Aspro Chorio, which was also four days after my birthday. My attempt was to combine my Polish and American heritages into Greek and Parian ones. I made dill pickle soup—a Polish favorite. I had Polish vodka of which I had to tell my new Greek friends that the Polish word for water is ‘woda,’ while the Polish word for vodka is spelled ‘wódka’ as the word’s roots are very similar. When one is drinking vodka, they are really drinking ‘Polish’ water. They brought many Greek dishes like cheese and meat pies as well as sausages to the party. Since this was going to be my first Christmas outside of the US, I wanted to be in a special place and show others different heritages and cultures through modern technology. This technology being social media, in particular Facebook Live. Giannis and his musical clan showed up unexpectedly like Christmas carolers at my door playing Greek music for my birthday and wishing me “Xronia Polla!”

Representing both (Polish and Detroit) heritages in Greece: my homemade Polish dill pickle soup with Polish wódka (vodka) served in a Detroit Tiger Baseball glass

One of Giannis’s friends, who was living in Parikia, saw the feed and asked him later who this person from Detroit was. One of Giannis’s friends was a painter and sculptor who was based out of Athens, but was staying temporarily on Paros. He was a Greek American who was from out of all places, Detroit, Michigan. His name was Spiro Markou. I only knew of one Spiro in my life, and it was Vice President Spiro Agnew who was in office during President Nixon’s term. He was before my time anyway. The modern Spiro I would be introduced to was from Riverview, Michigan, which is downriver or south of Detroit, while I am from north of Detroit. A few days later, we actually did meet, when he came to Aspro Chorio. It is interesting that almost halfway around the world you meet someone from the same place as you. Small world that he grew up not even two miles from my cousins, Bob and Cindy, in Trenton, Michigan.

During the month of January, Christmas does really continue on Paros at many different churches and social halls. Usually, a mayor or some dignitary makes an announcement or some encouragement for the new year. The priest then blesses everyone followed by a children’s choir singing songs of the season. All of this is followed by food, food, and more food—various cheeses, spinach and meat pies, and a variety of other appetizers as well. Local homemade wines, souma, water, and coffee are served as well. One has to be careful of how much is consumed overall as the Greek diet consists of vegetables, fish, bread, cheeses, and sometimes chicken and pork, and on special occasions, lamb. Sometimes there are other meats as well from goat, liver, intestines, pheasants, which I was not brave enough to conquer, or if I did, I had to immediately wash it down with a drink. I had something similar when I was in Turkey a few years earlier and did not care for it.

17

Cambodia’s “Insect” Cuisine

In 2018, I went to Thailand and Cambodia with my friend Taylor, and we tried new things to eat there, but considering Taylor was a pescatarian at the time, I was the meat eater of our duo. We went to a seafood restaurant in Bangkok, and she ordered the shrimp curry, but in Thailand, it is called prawns. Little did we both know that the dish had the whole shrimp alright, but the whole shrimp and nothing but the whole shrimp including the head, brain, eyes, and all that. Forget the veggies and rice on the plate. Both of us lost our appetites after looking at it and asked for the check immediately. We stuck with iced coffee and watermelon and mango slushes for the rest of the night.

A few days later, we went a step further when we were in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and went to the Bug’s Cafe. Aside from the insect eatery, we were both impressed with Cambodian cuisine. I enjoyed the Amok trey, which is a curry steamed inside of banana leaves. I had beef fillet slices amid different spices and rice and vegetables. Taylor enjoyed the fresh vegetables with rice. Our host was Happy, and I am sure Happy is happy to be mentioned in this book. His real name is Chhou Samnang, and he is the host with the most. He even set us up with nice massages among the song of birds and nature.

We could not leave Cambodia without going to the insect eatery, which we tried on our last night. The place is called Bug’s Cafe. We had ant spring rolls (which were my favorite) with sweet and sour dipping sauce, crickets and silkworm stir fry (the crickets’ texture was too rough going down the throat), and a skewer of grasshoppers and vegetables, followed by a tarantula tempura. On the tarantula, I ate the legs, but I refused to eat the head. If I would not touch the head on a shrimp, why would I touch the head on a tarantula? We both had beers which were good to cleanse our palette. There was even a Cambodian liqueur with a scorpion in the bottle, almost like the worm you might find in a tequila bottle,

but you would dare not eat the scorpion unless you wanted some sting in your mouth. I felt like I was in a scene of the 1980s film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I was not a fan of this liqueur, so I just went back to my beer and bugs. All the food prepared in this cafe had some kind of spices or bread coating added to it so you did not taste only the taste of the insect. I can only imagine if I were a Cambodian or Khmer, as they are called, living centuries ago in the rainforests and eating these insects pure and as is. I felt so energetic and powerful after eating these insects and had no stomach problems like I did back in Old Havana, Cuba. In fact, the only time I had any problems on this trip was in Bangkok when I ordered street curry (and even though what I ordered did not have peanuts in it, the residue from the pot had peanut oil or something). I am allergic to peanuts, and I know immediately if something has peanuts in it. I just took my Benadryl and had some dairy, and I was fine in an hour. I probably would have a higher chance of getting food poisoning at a fast-food restaurant than any of these establishments in Cuba, Thailand, or even Cambodia. I ate these insects, no problem, but why would I have a problem eating the Greek kokoretsi, which is popular not only in Greece but throughout the Balkan countries like Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia? The one time I ate it, it tasted like liver to me, and I never did like liver, so does this go back to my childhood and just not liking it? Whereas, having the insects in Bug’s Cafe was something new and was authentically awesome.

18

A Quieter Winter than Expected

Going to a Greek village where the locals have lived their whole lives, it is apparent to a visitor that they are proud of their dishes, beverages, and culture. I am always willing to try new things like sea urchins, goat, sheep, etc. I also hoped locals would be willing to try new things as well like the time I made my Polish dill pickle soup. I always encourage others to look and think outside the box and their own world. I have always hoped that I could educate others throughout the world where I come from while bringing new life experiences to others as well as myself. I can only encourage others to also find their own paths and not let anything or anybody let them down and stop them. The more people you know, the more people will like you, while some will not like you. I have found this out the hard way, but I know the top people in their fields had some resistance earlier on as well. You just have to keep your chin up. In my time, I have been influenced, trained by, and worked with the best from actors, directors, leaders, religious and sports figures, models, to teachers and have learned to always stay on this positive path.

In my last years in Los Angeles, I was on this positive bandwagon, but then something snapped when I had that initial panic attack back in 2015. I knew at that point that I had to take what I had learned and put my focus elsewhere. I had to shift gears from being inspired to being inspirational. Some may call it ego, but I call it destiny and fulfillment and sharing knowledge and experience with others, especially those who are less fortunate. So much in Western and modern society is dictated by the media and what others have materialistically, but what about those people in Cuba living on $50 a day who are happy to have life and share it, while an Oscar winner may not be as happy, but they superficially share it while making millions of dollars. Who has more of a successful life? Should we even weigh success? What about satisfaction? Shouldn’t this outweigh success? Because I did not have that “successful” television show in Hollywood and I was not a success, I was a loser to many because I never “made it.” But what gives people the right to call others, losers, when they haven’t even tried

what the person who they are calling a loser has been pursuing in their lives?

Speaking of television shows, I often think of the 1950s classic sitcom I Love Lucy and the chocolate factory episode where Lucy and Ethel think it is easy to have a job than to be housewives slaving, cleaning, and cooking all the time. Both their husbands believe it would be easier to do housework than go to a job every day. The girls go to an employment agency that finds them a job in a chocolate factory. Both Lucy and Ethel bounce from department to department before they end up at the conveyor belt where they both had to individually wrap each piece of candy and place them back on the belt. At first, they have limited problems, even though mayhem is upon them as they start eating the pieces and even placing them under their hats and down their blouses as they do not want one piece of chocolate without a wrapper to them and thus be fired. Lucy says to Ethel, “I think we are fighting a losing game!” (Productions, 1952) These words can sum up how I felt in my final days in Hollywood. After Lucy’s exclamation of dismay, their supervisor walks in and sees that they appear to be doing a fine job, so she screams to the operator, “Speed it up a little!” (Productions, 1952) Meanwhile back at home, their husbands, Ricky and Fred, weren’t doing so hot either, not knowing how to iron clothes as well as making a mess in the kitchen. They felt bad for accusing the girls about what is easier and not, so they go out and buy their wives a gift saying they were both sorry for not understanding their positions. The girls come home exhausted while their husbands present to them each a box of chocolate.

Was Greece going to be a recovery for me after my decades in LA? There are so many northern places like Alaska and Scandinavia where many can go into depression during the winter months, not necessarily because of the cold, but because of the lack of sunlight. Many times on the Greek islands, in particular the Cyclades, there could be something similar during the winter months as many establishments are closed for the season, the tourists go away, and there is much rain, so one cannot really do much but stay home. This is something that I did not realize before I moved to Paros. It was not going to be like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, or even Phoenix in the winter as those places experience a lot of winter visitors due to their mild weather, and activities never stop. For me, I got to again see the local people, and some of these local people were northern

Europeans who wanted to escape winters like Midwesterners and East Coasters who go to Florida, Arizona, or California back in the States.

One of them I met is Ali, who lives in Aspro Chorio. He was retired from working in the airline industry for so many years, and we shared stories of many celebrities we had encountered—I in Hollywood and he at 38,000 feet above the world. We would share stories about American entertainment versus British entertainment. For the most part, both cultures share the same common ground. He came from London to Paros, while I came from Los Angeles to Paros. We both knew how the months of December to February can be with all the rain and lack of activity. I could not even go to Mykonos on my birthday in December as there were no boats or flights from Paros to the island then. I thought this was only in Paros, but I guess it’s very common in the Cyclades islands. The trap could be being isolated during these months, staying home, drinking your wine and souma (maybe too much at times), but I made sure I got out and hiked, went to the beach (even if it was too cold to swim), worked out, and wrote—sticking to a routine is key!

19

Let the Greek Tours Begin: My First Victims: Family!

My younger brother Chris had ed me about coming to visit Greece along with our nephew Ryan in February 2020. I thought that was nice, but I told him he should come in summer instead because there will be more activity. With their schedules, it just worked this way. This was going to be our nephew’s first time overseas at age nineteen. According to Chris, he was a late bloomer as Chris’s and our older brother Mike’s first overseas trips were at age eighteen to Poland, while for myself, I was seventeen when I went overseas for the first time. Our niece, Grace, will get to travel overseas soon herself. She has always wanted to go to Paris, but it may be Paros instead. She was only sixteen at the time of their trip, so she has plenty of time. With Ryan’s mom being half Greek, this was going to kind of be like a roots trip for him, at least seeing the land of his forefathers. I was excited for both of them to visit, but I told them that I was going to be in Poland in mid-February so they should come later in that month.

I was going to Poland to teach English outside of Łódż as well as recover more history of my family’s roots to hopefully obtain dual citizenship with Poland. I always thought there were so many Ozogs in Michigan, but Poland has so much more. It is the motherland after all. Many of these Ozogs would not even be related and their name would be spelled the Polish way- Ożóg. I was also going to meet up with an elementary school friend, Ryan (not to be confused with my nephew), in Wrocław who was there on business as well as another childhood friend from Chicago, Jenny, who had been living in Szczecin the past ten years and working as a coordinator at Theatr Brama there. It was a nice reconnection in the motherland. On the way to Warsaw from Athens, the plane made a pit stop in Rome first. What I noticed that surprised me at the time was that many Chinese tourists getting on the plane were wearing masks. News had surfaced about some virus escalating in China a few months earlier called coronavirus. I was not putting too much thought into it as I ed SARS, mad cow

disease, and swine flu from years past, and I thought we got over all that as a society. Unbeknownst to me, my last flight before the pandemic of 2020 was going to be returning from Warsaw to Athens. The plane was full to capacity. I was not getting a sense of a worldwide pandemic yet, but both flights were foreshadowing what was going to lie ahead.

Chris and our nephew Ryan arrived in Athens in the last week of February, and I took the boat from Paros to see them. They decided to stay in the Plaka area of Athens, which is at the base and the shadow of the Acropolis, which is the ancient citadel built on top of the city which has the remains of many ancient buildings including the Parthenon. The dates of the original ground may go as far back as 4000 BC, but it was Pericles who initiated, in the fifth century BC, some of the structures that remain there today. Plaka is clustered around the northern and eastern slopes of the Acropolis. There are many cobblestone streets among the Neoclassical architecture and ancient archaeological sites. You can find many cafes, tavernas, as well as many shops selling touristy items like ceramics, jewelry, clothes, and other retail merchandise.

With my brother and nephew at the Acropolis

There is a restaurant in Plaka named after a Greek actress called Melina in the area. Melina’s full name was Maria Amalia “Melina” Mercouri, who came from a long line of family politicians. Before she became thoroughly involved in politics by becoming the Minister of Culture in the 1980s, she often caused a stir on the big screen and received many nominations and awards for acting in her time. Her most famous was a film from 1960, Never on Sunday, for which she was nominated for Best Actress, but lost to Elizabeth Taylor who won for Butterfield 8. Something interesting about Never on Sunday is that the character, Ilya, played by Melina is a prostitute in the film while Homer, played by Jules Dassin, is an American scholar fascinated with her, hoping he could change her ways as he searches for truth in Greece. According to Homer, Greece is the perfect place to do this, searching for truth, as so many centuries of history came out of a rich empire that eventually fell. Was my journey in Greece going to be similar to Homer’s? Searching for truth after being influenced by Hollywood and American culture for so long? The vibrancy of this actress and activist can be seen inside the restaurant and bar in Plaka. All three of us had some beers as well as rakomelo (which is the raki, tsipouro or souma) mixed with honey and cinnamon and served warm. It was a chilly night in the foothills of the Acropolis, which felt so perfect as we all toasted and said, “Yamas!”

I had forewarned Chris and Ryan that things like restaurants and activities were going to be limited on the Greek islands because it was winter. We were going to Santorini (which I had not been to in almost thirteen years) followed by Paros, so I told them that we should live it up with any kind of culture we can have here —music, bands playing, and restaurants and establishments which did open. In our two nights in Plaka, we visited many restaurants and bars while listening to Greek music wherever we went. I knew they both would like this as well as the Greek cuisine. Since we are all Detroit natives, we frequented ‘Greektown’ Detroit many times. The Greeks there do it quite differently as lamb is more plentiful while shaving it off the vertical rotisserie as well as the saganaki coming out of the kitchen flaming as your server squeezes a lemon on top of the

burning cheese and yells, “Opa!” Not much of this in Athens, but a lot of meat, vegetables, and salads would be served as a gyro, souvlaki, and full plates as well.

Chris and Ryan were initially not keen on taking a seven-hour boat ride from the port of Athens, Pireus, to Santorini, but I told them the boat had everything from restaurants to shopping. They wanted to fly, especially after knowing the boat was taking off at 7:20 a.m. I encouraged them that they could see many Greek islands if they do this. Once they found out that we booked too late and only first class was available, they were stoked. We had taken the Blue Star Ferry, which is a big boat and goes slow. It is only ninety miles between the port of Athens and Paros, but it is a four-hour journey. Along the way, they could see Syros, Mykonos, as well as pit stops in Paros and Naxos, and then finally onto Santorini. The sun was out the whole time with a nice sea breeze, too. I was just as excited as they were, as the first time I stepped on Greek soil was on Santorini, and I was finally returning there after almost thirteen years. I was curious to see how many changes had happened there and if it was still that same special island I once knew.

20

Santorini—Thirteen Years Later

Coming in on Santorini, Greece

As the boat ed between Ios and Sikinos, there was excitement in the air as Santorini was coming closer; we were coming up on the volcanic Thirasia as we were veering toward the main island of Santorini. We could see the various buildings on top stretching from Oia to Fira and beyond. If you did not know any better, they all looked like snowcapped mountaintops, but those were all the white buildings that were in keeping with the color scheme of the Cyclades. Not much life was at the ground or base of Santorini, and you had to take a cab or vehicle up to the top where the roads and villages were spread out. Back in 2007, the cruise ship left us in the sea and was berthed there as we took a smaller boat to the land. Our choices then were hiring a donkey or taking the incline up. Now the port was in a different place and we had more modern options to get to the top where the villages and the major roads were located. The donkeys and the incline were still there, but used only seasonally as I ed them from my previous visit. It took me back as we were roaming in a windy Thira (that part of Santorini where we were staying). About eighty percent of all shops and restaurants were closed. However, some of the bars were just starting to open up for the season as this was the end of February. Many Athenians were returning to work on the islands, but this was going to be short-lived once the pandemic and the coronavirus of 2020 was about to sweep the planet.

We took a day tour the next day of the Red Beach (which I had visited with Liann and Danielle in 2007). Our tour guide did say that in the height of the summer and tourist season, traffic jams could be as long as forty-five minutes to an hour from Fira to Oia, which normally should take ten to fifteen minutes. I thought to myself, Didn’t I leave the traffic of Southern California behind me, so why would I want this here?

In Oia, which is the northwest part of the island, you will discover the best sunsets, especially at that elevation that is over 400 feet above the sea. Many of

the buildings were one on top of another in Oia. With the way the sun reflects on the buildings and the sea, it reminded me of the way the sun reflects on the Victorian townhouses in San Francisco and the way they reflect on the bay or even the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. This was the Cycladic approach though, and you would see sea, sea, and more sea.

The actual island of Santorini was devastated by volcanic eruptions in the sixteenth century BC helping to shape this rugged, yet vivid landscape. The island is only twenty-eight square miles (seventy-three squared kilometers), and it also has smaller neighboring islands of Thirasia, Nea Kameni, Palea Kameni, and nearby islands of Aspronisi and Christiana. Paros is three times the size of Santorini at approximately seventy-six square miles (197 km²). When you disembark onto Paros, the land is right there for you as you do not have to travel up, so Paros is flatter than Santorini and therefore has easier access to the beaches. Santorini has a very strong wine industry (as it is more commercialized and has been around longer than Paros). It also costs more. Cost does not mean it is better. In Paros, the wine is more for local consumption. I guess I made up some of the industry when I cut grapes the previous autumn.

We had stumbled upon a Thai/ Indian restaurant on the main street in Thira. I had been missing Thai food for so long because on Paros the Thai places are only opened in summer. The restaurant was just opening up for the season, and only the Indian chef was there, so I was out of luck. My nephew never had Indian food before.

Since moving out of Los Angeles, I was really missing spicy food more than anything. I thought I was going to miss Mexican food, but no, it was Thai. I wanted to impress my brother and nephew, so I ordered something spicy on the menu. It was Chicken Madras that was given 2.5 chili peppers on the spiciness scale set by the restaurant. There was something on the menu that had a 3, which was the max—it was Beef Vindaloo. Unfortunately, I choked at the first taste of the dish as Chris and Ryan just laughed at me. I did have to take some rice and order some milk to calm me down. We had such an enjoyable meal that we went

back the next day. I ordered chicken masala, which had only one pepper, and there was no choking or food poisoning. The name of the place is Momo, and it is located in the main square of Thira.

For someone who loves sunsets, Santorini is the place. It is often up there with Niagara Falls as a great honeymoon destination. It was very windy the whole time we were in Santorini, and this effect escalated the closer we got to sunset. We did need our jackets even though the sun was out constantly. It was just before 6 p.m. on Saturday, February 29, 2020 (Leap Day) when we watched the sun go down on the sea and in front of the hilltop of the city of Oia. Even though most of the buildings were white, you could still see subtle changes with the sun on these buildings with hues of orange, tan, yellow, and even pink. It was very windy along the walkway of our Airbnb, which was right on the sea. If you were not careful, the wind was so strong that it would just whisk you out at a moment’s notice, so it was best to stay in groups, especially as the wind intensified.

In Heaven at the pool with a view in Santorini

Sunset on Santorini February 29, 2020

Something that was starting in 2020 was going to drastically change the world in so many ways, something that initiated in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. It was called COVID-19 or coronavirus. At this point in early March 2020, nothing was brought up so much as a mention in the Western world like North America or even Europe. I did see many Chinese roaming around Santorini wearing masks —a precursor of what was going to come in the world. I realize in many Asian cultures, they already practice safe measures when it comes to germs, viruses, and medicine, as compared to other cultures. After my anxiety issues in California were occurring for so long as well as certain situations in my life, I always felt I could sense when I was going to see a loved one for the last time, Los Angeles having fires to protests, to the Hollywood industry closing shop for a while, if not indefinitely. I did not make any prediction for the pandemic, but when it came to Europe and North America in March 2020, I wasn’t surprised. Some family back home were worried about Chris and Ryan’s return, but they were leaving in four days. We had a blast on our final night in Santorini on Leap Day 2020. Chris kept asking why so many places were closed on Santorini. I told him the upkeep, bringing workers in, and high rent makes options limited in the off-season.

21

America, Brazil, and Austria All Come to Paros

Upon our arrival to Paros, I wanted to throw a party for my family similar to the Winter Solstice party I had in December. Spiro’s friend, Cecilia, a retired Swiss judge, had been planning on making us steak dinner. Chris brought some expensive wine from Santorini as Giannis brought his own, which he made in Paros. The one from Paros tasted much better, and I am sure was a lot cheaper. Chris was amazed at how hospitable Cecilia was and commented on how such a typical European woman she was, making sure we were all fed properly and had plenty to eat. I think Ryan had seconds on food. My mom thought Cecilia owned her own restaurant in Switzerland by all the delectable food she made for us. Cecilia is a great cook. She introduced me to some unique dishes from her country like alpen or alpine macaroni, which is pasta with chopped potatoes mixed with onions and white cheese (she uses gouda), and sometimes bits of bacon can be added. It is then served with “apple cream” as Cecilia calls it or just applesauce as the Americans. A great analogy is potato pancakes meet pasta. Sometimes she would cut up pieces of French bread and put shredded cheese on top and bake them in the oven, too. Many times, she would also have something chocolate for dessert, especially her homemade chocolate mousse. Great cuisine for the Swiss Alps, not sure about Greece, but these meals were always in the afternoon and would be easier to digest than if we ate at night just before bed.

Since the family was on Paros for a limited time, I gave them the quick island view and made sure they went to Lolantonis, my favorite beach on Paros, to soak up the sun before they both were going to go back to Detroit, knowing they still had some more “winter” ahead there to endure. Chris was amazed at how busy Paros was compared to Santorini. I told them Easter is coming, so it will be a busy time again all the way through the end of October. My family commended my move to Paros-dise away from Hollywood and was glad I was focusing on myself while trying to defeat anxiety at the same time.

A week after their visit, Denis, who I visited in Vienna the previous year, came to visit me on Paros. We both originally had met in Argentina; he’d visited me in Hollywood, USA, I’d visited him in Vienna, Austria, and now he was coming to Paros. I always cherish my international friends, especially when we have been to several different places on the planet together. For the native Brazilian, the only other time he had been in Greece was to Mykonos the previous summer. Something interesting, yet surprisingly unsettling, was about to happen—a total shutdown of the world. It all started when Denis was on Paros as he made it off the island in the nick of time. We were both fearful of what was going to happen in the world.

22

Paros Pandemic 2020

There was a viral pneumonia coming out of Wuhan, China, a few months earlier. Some people believed that it may have started at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market. The World Health Organization recognized the spread of COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11, 2020 as widespread cases were reported in Italy, Iran, South Korea, and Japan. These number of cases had sured outside of China. The first known case in Europe was in on February 14, 2020 while I was in Poland. Denis did not know if he would be able to get back to Austria as the cases were starting to increase and there was much talk about border closings. He left Paros after two days, just in time before the lockdown which fully began on March 23, 2020, in Greece. This was going to be the first major worldwide pandemic since the Spanish Flu of 1918–1920. COVID-19 or coronavirus had not even majorly hit the US yet.

There was a prophecy on what was going to lie ahead with it being an election year in the US, the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and 2020 in hindsight being perfect vision. Was it going to be a perfect year? Far from it, but maybe this was what God was telling us that in order to have a perfect vision you must recognize what is important in life, which would include a slowed economy (financial things not having so much importance), people staying at home (less pollution in the air from vehicles traveling, so the environment would be able to be better preserved as well as non-humans being able to drink water from a pond, walk around the land freely, etc.). During the Spanish Flu, there were less than two billion people living on the planet. In one hundred years’ time, it was becoming close to eight billion, four times as many. In the early 1900s, there were silent films, newspapers, magazines, but no television, internet, or smartphones. The casualties were 500 million as this is how many were infected (over one fourth of the globe at the time), and an estimated twenty to fifty million died including some 675,000 Americans. As of October 2020, COVID-19 infected over 25 million and there were over 800,000 deaths worldwide, so such a small percentage from now to then. I could only imagine what people had to go

through during the Spanish flu pandemic. Times were simpler then, too. As many have had it made for so long and all of a sudden there is a halt to their income, their job has been eliminated, industries that were so profitable are limited and on the verge of crashing that it all takes its toll. If it is in God’s will for this change, then so be it. If generations before us could survive a pandemic, two world wars, and the Great Depression, we can survive this. How was life going to be on a Cycladic island in the middle of the Aegean during this worldwide pandemic? Probably safer than any big city in America, especially Los Angeles. During the winter months, there are about 6,000 regular residents living on Paros while the city of Los Angeles has about four million people.

The Greek prime minister put an order/decree which had specific measures on what was expected and should be met. I am sure if I lived in Athens, the measures would have been stricter. Travel from one’s home would only be out of necessity, like going to the grocery store, doctor, pharmacy, and work. Since I was teaching English online, I was working from home. I also had biweekly face-to-face English lessons with Dmitris, Giannis and Maria’s son, but he was only a five-minute walk away from my house. Every time you would have to leave your house, you would have to fill out a paper or go online (this was only in Greek, so I just filled out the paper). On paper, you would have to fill out where you were going and what was your purpose and the times you were gone. I guess this was made so if you had contracted the virus, it would show where you had been. I usually just wrote everything in a notebook. I only left my house two to three times a week anyway. Masks were not required, but as I was seeing so many pictures back in the US of mask wearers, I had no clue.

Boats between Athens and the islands were limited, and individuals who had a permanent residence on Paros, but NOT if you only lived there part-time or were from somewhere else. I guess I was in lockdown on the island. I tried to reach my native New Yorker, Greek American friend, Peter, several times in Athens, but these restrictions did not help me to travel to see him. He had been in a motorcycle accident a few months prior and had surgery and was recovering at home. We would FaceTime each other now and then, talking about his recovery, mine, and now the whole world’s.

The weather in March and April had some good days and some bad days. I had moved into a year-round home closer to the sea, and it seemed like a villa with six different apartments that only had one resident—me. I heard reports of no swimming allowed in public places in Greece, but I went anyway as I would go alone to Lolantonis so that there would be no questions of me social distancing. Now this was the new norm in the world. This lockdown was finally my time to lose weight. Daily swims as well as a regular workout routine had to be incorporated. The regular workout routine got me off the antidepressant thanks to Nick Myre’s workout routine. I have not had that drug since. Now I needed to shake off any excess overeating and drinking of alcohol. When I did, I felt better. As I was losing weight, I did not crave any of this as much and my body couldn’t handle it.

When I first arrived in Hollywood, I wanted to tackle it all, and I did. I worked on situation comedies, cop shows, science fiction projects, action films, dramas, and a whole lot more. I just wanted to be forever on celluloid. I knew I was not going to be the next Tom Cruise or Jim Carrey, but I knew I tried, and because of my health situation, I had to make a change. Some people say that if you are having so much anxiety, it means that you need to change what you are doing or maybe what you are doing is not ultimately what you should be doing or are meant to do. I had tried to please so many in Hollywood, and it just got to be too much in the end. Would my habit of trying to please so many people ever break? They say it takes three weeks or twenty-one days to break a bad habit. I knew I had to give myself some more time than that. Nothing in life is permanent, and there is always room for improvement as we are trying to better ourselves. My cousin Bob would tell me that we are only on this earth temporarily to get to the place we need to be to go to Heaven. We can get to Nirvana or Heaven in a lifetime, too. If we just live this way, there will be less stress and expectations. Bob often credits our Grandmother Ozog for having thirteen children, and all of us as her descendants who need to carry on until we all reunite someday. The heroes and legends I knew as a child were quickly dwindling away and ing away as my generation, Generation X, was no longer the youngest. We had the Millennials and Gen Z just behind us, and they are a much larger population. My generation was the last one before smartphones, full-fledged internet, and social media. In my opinion, the younger generations are cleverer than we are, not

necessarily smarter, but cleverer, especially with technology and starting their own businesses.

As I have explored over fifty countries, six continents, and have lived in five different countries (as of the writing of this book), I have friends all over the world. Be it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or even Snapchat; it seems like I can never be in just one time zone. As I was living in Greece, my family in Michigan was now seven hours behind me and California was ten. I also have friends and colleagues in Asia, so five to six hours ahead there. At times, I couldn’t sleep knowing all these people from all over. I had to put my focus on where I was living in Greece. It is nice to think about them, but I could not be in the same time zone as them when we would communicate as it could bring back anxiety. I had to start making a habit of putting my cell phone on charging overnight and in the wall and not picking it up till I woke up the next day. It has always been my ion to work in the media, but I realized I don’t have to necessarily consume so much of it. I had to make my eating healthier with more fresh vegetables, fish, chicken, and less red meat. I also had to consider my portions and that I was not consuming so much at one session. I would also have to incorporate less alcohol, more exercise, meditation, writing, sunlight, and water while receiving the appropriate amount of rest.

Greece does follow the afternoon siesta, which is typically from 2 to 5 p.m. In the US, this would be considered not being productive. A one-hour lunch is typical, but then it is back to work ASAP. When I was in Dublin, Ireland, I noticed the pubs were packed between 12 and 1 p.m., with everyone ordering a couple of pints of Guinness and some food and then going back to work. I thought that would NEVER be allowed in the States. As long as people are productive, that is all that matters. I figured out why countries like Mexico, Italy, Spain, and Greece have the afternoon rest time. It is because it is so hot in the middle of the day anyway. When you come back to work at 6 p.m., it has cooled off and you are so refreshed. You are so refreshed that it makes it easier to stay out later and still wake up at 7 a.m. to go to work the next day. In a country like Greece, many people live well into their nineties and over 100 years old probably because of this practice which in turn leads to better health, less stress, and a great outlook on life. Looking back at all the times that I had to commute

two to three hours in one direction for an audition or a job in Los Angeles, I reflect that this time could have been made into a siesta and used for destressing instead. I was taking care of my forty-eight-year-old body now like God had intended for me to do.

In recent years, I had four female friends who all ed away in their forties— Brooke at forty-seven, Tricia at forty-eight, and Karen and Tina both at fortynine, as well as my cousin Ken at fifty-six. All of them were prematurely taken, and I constantly would say to myself, “Why so young?” I did not want to follow in their footsteps and just for me to strive to live well into my nineties. Limiting stress, social media, following that diet that I stated earlier helps as well as staying away from the American philosophy of “Keeping up with the Joneses,” meaning I want what my neighbor has, be it a car, a pool, a new girl—I want one, too! The point being, why do people want to be like everyone else? In Hollywood, there are many who want to be considered as “successful,” but what is success measured by? Now that I was in Greece, I just wanted to be “satisfied” and have a satisfying life. By changing these simple words, one could get over anxiety even quicker. Actresses Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe as well as singers Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, all had successful careers, but do we think it’s likely that they were satisfied, knowing their lives were cut short by apparent suicides?

As daily stats were now out on COVID-19 cases around the world, China, Italy, and Spain got it pretty bad and later the United States. Restrictions for social gatherings were put into play, especially when Greek Easter (a time when many tourists would come to Paros in particular) was happening. It is like you had to have your own private Easter. Church services were not allowed as well.

23

Cyclades Island Hopping: Mykonos

As things were in limbo regarding global tourism, and Americans were not being allowed to travel to the EU because of the high cases of COVID-19 there, I did some thinking about traveling to some of the other islands near Paros. Costs were now going to be less to go, too.

Mykonos, the luxury island, could be seen from the mountaintop in Lefkes on Paros, so I thought why not take a venture there for a day. Unfortunately, there were no day trips, so I decided to go overnight on a superfast ferry (as that was all that was available). This would be the first time I would be wearing a mask in a moving mode of transportation. This practice was already long in effect in the United States. I was so out of the loop on what was going on back home. They took my temperature as soon as I boarded, and I kept my mask on for the whole ninety-minute trip. When most people think about the Greek islands, especially those that are in the Cyclades, they think Santorini or Mykonos. I heard horror stories that I was going to break the bank with my trip, but after living in California for so many years, I knew how to conserve and watch my spending.

My Airbnb was only thirty-five euro of which I thought booking.com had taken care of it for me. My host said, “You only put your credit card down in case you are a no show so I can get paid.” What is the difference between me showing up or not? They still have my credit card information. You can find many people in business who try to cheat the Greek system for their benefit. You may go to a business and they say they take a credit card, but they tell you the credit card machine is broken. Are they really telling the truth? I think it is just a way for them to pocket the cash and not report it to the government. If it wasn’t a COVID-19 year, I am sure watchdogs would be after these businesses. It is just the hassle of the host following me to the ATM to get money out and putting a break in my day.

Mykonos was named after the first ruler of the island who was the son or grandson of Apollo. There could have even been a great battle on the island with Zeus and the giants, where Hercules may have killed them. According to myth, large rocks all over the islands may be the corpses of these large giants.

I was advised that there were water taxis that would take you from the main port to the city or Chora, but I chose just to walk. My first impression of Mykonos was Disneyland parking lot meets Paros. This is only my opinion.

As I ventured throughout Greece (even when I was there in 2007) and this time, I like to put things into perspective or make comparisons for someone who may have never been to Greece. For the sake of living in California and now Greece, I wanted to compare places in Greece to similar places in California as there are so many similarities. If it is a city, beach, landmark, or neighborhood, it could remind me of it. This is only MY opinion. The following is my list. Athens is Los Angeles and Hollywood due to the big city/cultural activities. Patras is like Long Beach due to the water and smaller population. Kastoria, which is on the Albanian border, is like Lake Arrowhead/Big Bear due to the lake in the middle of the mountains. It also has a small town attitude. Ioanna is like Fresno as there is no water and it is a big city for Greece and there are many mountains in the distance. Corfu is like Bakersfield on water. Naxos’s mountains are like San Bernardino/Riverside due to the hiking, especially to Mount Zeus while the beaches on the westside remind me of Kona (Big Island), Hawaii (I know not California, but still the US). Santorini is San Francisco due to the cities being on the top of the land with gorgeous sunsets facing out from so many Cycladic buildings. Ios is Ventura due to the many churches, unique and petite beaches, and little harbor. Milos is Orange County in particular to the port city being like a Huntington Beach (but no surf). The east, north, and south coasts of Milos are like remote islands of Hawaii, like Monokai or even Kauai, Hawaii, to a certain point (again not California, but the US regardless). Amorgos is like Santa Barbara because of its small island appeal and unique landscape. My home island, Paros, is like San Diego because of the various beaches, and Mykonos is like Beverly Hills and Malibu because of the expensive resorts, restaurants, and

beach clubs.

Like many Greek islands having windmills, Mykonos is no exception. They have many windmills scattered all over the island, but the main ones, which are near the Chora and overlook the sea, are the most popular attraction on the island. These windmills have been featured in many films and television shows from The Bourne Identity to even The Love Boat. They were built in the sixteenth century by the Venetians to help with the strong winds that come into the area, but now they are refurbished to be homes for locals and places to hold Mykonian archives. The main windmills or Kato Milli are within a bird’s eye view and a short five-minute walk to Little Venice, which originally served as homes for many seafaring people, but now many of these homes have been converted into restaurants and bars which are right on the sea. The day I was there, the wind was so strong that the water was coming up to us sitting in these restaurants. It was just me and two girls sitting behind me. There was no one else. Usually, Little Venice is packed and crammed like sardines and there is hardly any room to walk. This was not the case during COVID. It was so cool to have so much room to breathe in what is normally a top tourist destination. I heard stories that in Mykonos people can charge whatever they want and people will pay. There was a restaurant that charged six people 1,000 euro for calamari, which would be about 120 euro back in Paros or maybe even Athens. Just because it is Beverly Hills, huh?

Getting sunburnt at the famous windmills

Little Venice

My Airbnb host recommended I go to the top of the hill restaurant and bar above the Chora, about a thirty-minute walk to watch the sunset from there because of the spectacular views. I thought about staying in Little Venice to do it, but the water overflowing from the sea into my seat was just too much. I felt like I was at a top Vegas resort or Midtown Manhattan bar with the twenty-two-euro Long Island iced tea I ordered. The server even asked me if I was happy with it. I told him that it could be stronger especially with all the ice cubes in it. He took it back, and he returned it with more. With more what? Maybe just more coke because it tasted the same. My cousin Cindy knew I was on Mykonos and told me to go to the same place that Lindsay Lohan was at when she had a party. I told her that I was not interested in a Hollywood party and COVID had closed any type of these venues, but I could see how Mykonos could be turned into such a party place.

The pricey view at sunset from Mykonos

I had been missing Thai food for the longest time, even more so than Mexican, but I heard I could have Mexican food on Paros. It was the worst Mexican I have had in my life. One time I was in Northern Sweden on the Norwegian border at a ski resort and went to a Mexican restaurant there. It was different than most Mexican food, but the way the chef prepared it, it was exquisite with the cheeses and spices. What was wrong with the major tourist center, Mykonos? I know you may be thinking you are in Greece, why would you order Mexican food? I complained and got something else besides the burrito and the manager gave me a spicy appetizer instead, compliments of the house.

I could not leave Mykonos without visiting some beaches, so I took a taxi to Paradise Beach on the north side of the island, facing Naxos. It was a mini resort with several beaches, but it was closed. You could still use the facilities there, but there were no services. There was a restaurant with outdoor seating, cafeteria-style. There were many workers fixing up things as the businesses hoped to open for July, August, and September as this was mid-June. There were hotels, Airbnbs, and restaurants scattered up on the hill from the beach. After my two-hour swim, I decided to walk back to the town. Basically, I had time and I could not readily find a taxi. After this venture back to the town, I started changing my attitude on getting around on the islands. I wanted to hire less taxis and do more walking.

In 2010, when I was in the Bahamas on a work trip, I rented a bicycle with my coworkers and we ventured around Columbus Isle. It was probably a twentymile trek. This helped me initiate my bicycle trainings, which were forty miles roundtrip from Santa Monica to Redondo Beach when I was training for my first triathlon. I was getting into my best shape then, and now that I was in Greece, I had to lose weight. The panic attacks, anxiety, antidepressants, and binge drinking all attributed to me putting on weight in the last five years. Now it was

time to counter-attack that and go the other way. Before I came to Greece, I was the heaviest I was in my life. I wanted to go back to the days when I was in better shape, so I needed to walk. On this venture to town, I was walking through open fields, streets, and views of the sea for a very long time. I didn’t come across many people except for maybe workers or farmers. I did happen to stumble upon a boutique hotel in the middle of nowhere, with sparkling blue and cool hues. The hotel itself was closed, but the pool was not. I jumped the fence and took a few laps before I left all cooled. Of course, I had plenty of water with me to drink on the way. Sometimes in life, you have to risk it all and live for yourself. I it I was tresing, but I needed to cool down and I was there like for five minutes as I had a good hour walk ahead of me in the heat. Now I know how abandoned animals could feel in these types of situations.

Once I saw civilization, I came to a major street where I could see the airport in one direction and the sea with boats coming from the sea. I was yearning to take a break as I was becoming a little exhausted. Behold in front of me was a modern Starbucks. I was kind of missing America, so I went in. I video called my cousin Shirley back home on Google Duo as she had never been to Europe, and I showed her some of the scenery of Mykonos from the outside and even the inside. Again, I walked by the windmills, Little Venice, but could not locate the famous Petros, the Pelican, the mascot of Mykonos, but I did see the Paraportiani (Our Lady of the Side Gate), a seventeenth century whitewashed Orthodox church. This church is several separate churches connected into one. They started building the first church in the 1400s and ultimately took three centuries to complete. It almost sounds like La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. I hope that church will not take that long to build. I am glad I explored the Beverly Hills and Malibu of Greece, but there are more islands to venture to see.

24

Cyclades Island Hopping: Ios

Living on the south side of Paros, I could see three islands in the distance— Iraklia, Sikinos, and Ios. You could see them outside of my back veranda. Again, Ali recommended unique, tranquil Ios. In of area, it was the largest of those three islands, but compared to Paros and Mykonos, it has a much smaller population. Ios has the little port, where I stayed, plus the Chora (or major town/village/capital). It seems like most Greek islands have a Chora, and most of the time it is just called Chora.

The Chora on Ios has a major church on top of the hill overlooking it, named Panagia Gremiotissa or Virgin Mary of the Steep Cliff. During the Turkish occupation, the residents on Crete used to throw religious icons into the sea to save them from any possible destruction by the Turks. One of the icons, Panagia Gremiosissia, was found on Mylopotas Beach on Ios by a shepherd. The icon was later in the church in the Chora, from where it later disappeared and was found in a cave. The locals started to then build a church in the spot, but it was always being destroyed, until supposedly, the Virgin Mary appeared to one of the locals to reveal where to actually build the church. The goal when they were building the church was to see Crete in the distance, since that is where the icon originally came from.

As you walk in the Chora, you will see a cathedral to the south among all the restaurants and shops, but Panagia is further up from the cathedral. As you the cathedral, you will see windmills on the east side followed by the Odysseus Elytis Theater (outdoors and open-air). You have to walk a few streets up to this, but as you turn your head to the northwest, you will see Panagia on the hill overlooking the sea as well as three chapels upward from it. It was later in the day, so the sun was on the west side of the island. I could sense what life was like when this church was being built in the late 1700s as I looked at all the

churches. I felt like that shepherd or local from back in the day. This was an adventure, navigating through the Chora, then up the steep mountain to Panagia with its open gate. As you Panagia, you climb further to the park that is just to the west of it. This path in the park will take you to the three chapels from lowest to highest, Agios Eleftherios, Agios Georgios, Agios Nikolaos. (St. Eleftherios, St. George, St. Nicholas.) The sunset here has just as spectacular a view as from Santorini. If you look south, you do see Santorini, but this view has a far more spiritual aura. I prayed outside all three chapels on my path in life and what direction I was headed. It was a very mystical, humble, and soul-searching experience. Maybe the Virgin Mary was there for me like she was centuries earlier. There could have been more people watching the sunset like there were when I was on Santorini a few months earlier, but COVID was happening.

On top of Ios by the Three Chapels on the Hill

On top of Ios looking south towards Santorini

The Three Chapel looking down on the Chora and the sea

There are 365 churches on Ios, each representing one day out of the year. With only 2,000 residents, there is a ratio of about six people for every one church. Mind you, most of these churches are what many people would consider just little chapels, the majority of these chapels being built 200-500 years ago. The oldest church is on the northern part of the island, named Agia Theoditi. Near the church is Plakoto Beach and supposedly the tomb of the ancient poet Homer, famous for the Illiad and the Odyssey. It was not until the seventeenth century AD that any evidence was found if this was his tomb or not. Today, some even speculate it. Unfortunately, it was too far of a walk for me to go there (even though I had multiple trips between the Chora and the port)—a twenty-mile walking trek was not going to be had unless I was a marathon runner. Homer’s mother was from Ios and supposedly, he took his last breath there around 700 BC. I guess I was not that compelled to go see him.

When I came down from the church, I stopped at an eclectic place and ordered something NOT Greek, and it was superb. It was named Lord Byron, and my server was very exotic looking, like I knew her from a past life. She was from originally, but had been living on Ios for sometime. Her bloodline was from Morocco in northern Africa. I told her I had been to Morocco. She encouraged me to order the quesadilla with lamb. It was to die for. White cheese mixed with some spices and mince or ground lamb cleared my palate and my spirit all at the same time. I was in love with the dish as well as the server. I told her I would be back. On the way back to the hotel at the port, I came across Tropicana Snack Bar. I thought it was something out of the Caribbean, but it was just the name. I ordered a Long Island, and the cost was only six euro, and it was one of the best I ever had, and I told the server about my lack of a good Long Island in Mykonos. The bartender made it correctly, and he should not change anything. He was so impressed that he made another one for me, on the house. My conclusion is six euro on Ios for something better, twenty-two euro on Mykonos for something worse.

I stayed at the port at a hotel which was run by three sisters. They had just opened for the season in mid-June—over two months behind schedule. This was a hotel that seemed to be stuck in the early 1960s, and nothing had changed in sixty years including the original doors with actual keys opening the doors up (if you were lucky). You had to bolt the lock very tightly. I chose the hotel because they had a pool, but when I showed up, the pool had no water, so only beaches for me. It seemed like all three sisters were their own bosses, and they had to show it to me. As I was leaving to go to the beach, one of them offered me cookies and introduced me to her daughter who was a single mother with a twoyear-old. I thought, I am only here for one night. Does she want me to go out with her daughter? The other two sisters looked at her like they were jealous of her buttering me up. I was their first customer of the season, a single guy in his forties and American. They were all in their sixties and were so happy to see me. Did I say I was their first customer and only customer at that point? I asked if I could have a late checkout at 1 p.m. since my boat the next day was not leaving until 4 p.m. One of the sisters said that was fine.

There are a variety of beaches on Ios. Some which have their own clubs and resorts attached to them. Most of these clubs and resorts were closed just like on Mykonos. I heard that these places attracted a lot of twenty-somethings and college students. I had seen none of them there. I continued to do more walking like I did on Mykonos. The buses were not working, so when I arrived at Ios, I walked up the hill thirty minutes to Chora, then down, twice the first day. On the second day, I walked back up to the Chora, then walked another thirty minutes in the other direction to Mylopatas. I was hoping to find another religious icon there, but had no luck, only blisters on my feet. I walked back up the hill to the Chora from that beach, then back to the port followed by going to the beach on the furthest west side, hoping to get a view of Sikinos, but I found only barren beaches like Koumpara and Valmas.

I did not have much time to get ready for the boat and was hoping to shower before I checked out. I then hurriedly rushed back, quite sunburnt, to the hotel. When I left that morning, one of the sisters told me that I had to be checked out

by noon. I thought, No problem. I will just take all of my stuff with me and just shower when I return home to Paros. I went to my room to get my stuff and leave in the morning, but as I went to the reception, the other sister told me that she was the boss and not the other sister, and since they had no reservations, I could stay up until my boat was going to leave. With all of this being said, I definitely did not want to miss being late and miss the boat because the next one wasn’t for two days, so I would have to stay with what I called “The Greek Golden Girls,” based on the 1980s sitcom The Golden Girls. There was Rose (who was played by Betty White), who was the one who checked me in. She followed me to the bathroom to make sure I washed my hands appropriately and constantly stared at my US port. Then there was Sophia (who was played by Estelle Getty), who gave me cookies and wanted to marry off her thirty-year-old daughter with a two-year-old granddaughter to me, and Blanche (played by Rue McClanahan), who told me I had to check out at noon, while Dorothy (played by Bea Arthur) said I could stay up until my boat was leaving. There was more to Blanche. They all knew when I came back from the beach and I had not checked out yet. I went to my room, about to take a shower, and took my bathing suit off for my birthday suit, and Blanche came to the door and without even knocking, she opened the door. I guess I did not bolt the door—oops! I was standing there stark naked and just wanted to run into the bathroom while telling her to get out and that I was going to checkout within fifteen minutes if not sooner. I think I was more embarrassed than she was. She apologized and closed the door abruptly. As I was taking my shower, I thought that she probably did that on purpose. Maybe it was a while since she saw a man, especially someone twenty years younger than her. As I checked out, all three sisters were at the reception smiling at me. I am sure they were gossiping about me. I was expecting them all to have cheesecake, or in their case, baklava while doing this. “I hope you enjoyed your stay. Please come back and visit us.” I believe that was the goodygoody Rose who checked me in who said that.

Because of the easy access to the beaches, the Chora, and the port with some docked boats, Ios reminded me of Ventura, California (sixty miles northwest of Los Angeles). In Ventura, there are also many churches and a mission while Ios has a plentiful number of churches.

25

Cyclades Island Hopping: Sifnos

They say Sifnos is the culinary island. I say it is the Central Coast/Big Sur, California island. I could not believe my boat ticket was only fifteen-euro roundtrip from Paros—there was even a stop along the way. Sifnos is the island just west of Antiparos, so two islands over from Paros. On embarkment, we first stopped on the island of Serifos. As the boat was coming into port at Serifos, it looked like a different version of Ios, but the Chora was right behind the port. It looked like a little more of an intense hill compared to Ios. Most gyms or health facilities were closed due to the pandemic, but if you lived on Serifos, you would not have to have a gym hip if you walked that hill every day. You would have the strongest legs, I am sure. The Chora was more concentrated than Ios, and it was a little bit quainter. There were people already out on the beaches and a few on the resorts swimming. It would be nice to see all the Greek islands, but a person can only do so much. For someone who has suffered from anxiety, focus and concentration are key. My father would always say, “You’ve seen one island, you have seen them all.” In my opinion, it is all based on personal preference and what you enjoy and want to see—another cure to be 100 percent anxiety-free.

Upon arrival on Sifnos, you enter on the western side at the port city of Kamares. There really are five distinct areas on Sifnos: Kamares (the port), Apollonia/Kastro (on the east side and also the major area for business and commerce), Platys Gialos/Faros (on the south known for each beach), Vathi (small beach on the southwest), and Heronisos (on the far north and most desolate). I went to visit Kamares, Apollonia/ Kastro, and Platys Gialos and again walked most of it. Upon my arrival in Kamares, I thought it was a small quaint port just like Ios, but very commercialized. I thought it was a small version of Main Street USA at Disneyland, but Greek style.

I just continued to walk up the hill looking at google maps on my phone as it was about three miles to Apollonia from there. It took me a little over an hour. It was a total walk uphill and then stationary into the largest city (with about 900 year-round residents) on the island, Apollonia. The city took its name from the Greek God Apollo. The main street is lined with bakeries, tavernas, and banks. You have great views of the sea to the east, but it is less than two miles from the actual coast, which is Kastro. I stopped in a cafe for a sandwich and a glass of Sifnos white wine, which was only for like 2.50 euro. Yes, I was not on Mykonos anymore with the high cost! My server saw that I had two big bottles of water with me—one down to its last drops and the other warm. I asked her if she could chill it for my walk to Kastro. She told me she had the best spinach pies. I told her I would come back and try them.

It was about two in the afternoon, and I continued to walk in a northwest direction from Apollonia and saw even more churches on the hill overlooking Apollonia. I didn’t know what to expect. From the pictures, I knew there were churches on the mountain overlooking the sea at Kastro as well as at the castle where the whole village circles it, but it turned out to be a fortress built by the Venetians in the 1600s for protection from invaders. Kastro was the ancient capital during this time. Today, a little over hundred residents live in Kastro—a high elevation perched village overlooking the sea on two sides. I probably had more people living at my apartment complex and the two on both sides of me in Los Angeles than in the entire Kastro. Most of the buildings inside the fortress are crammed and the streets are very narrow. The whole area is less than one square mile. It was a ghost town when I was there. I often wonder if there was no COVID, would this village be swarmed with tourists? The place where I was staying was the Aegean Eye, right next to the windmills as you entered the area, and my room was facing north on the sea. I could have sworn I was on the Pacific Coast Highway in California, driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles in Big Sur with not much room between me and the cliff. Big Sur has always been my favorite place in California, and now I was liking my favorite place in Greece—Kastro, Greece. This was a great place to meditate, relax, and write. If you walk toward the far eastern end of the Kastro, you will first discover St. Anthony Catholic Church. Of course, I told my mom it was meant to be as I was named after St. Anthony since my middle name is Anthony. At the furthest end of the Kastro, you will see the Church of the Seven Martyers, which is really a chapel, but the way you see it atop the hill overlooking the sea, gives it a

perspective as something special—something Greek, something Cycladic, something religious, something unique, something special. There are many steps up to the church at the end of Kastro and be careful with the wind. Underneath the rocks on the south side, there is a place where one can swim or fish. I conquered the first. I took all my clothes off and dove into the sea. I had a spiritual moment on Sifnos swimming in the sea and looking up at the rocks and even further up at the church, praying to God to even further my destiny and life on this earth as the sun was peeking through the clouds and God was there for me. It was even more special than what happened at the churches in Chora at Ios. Back on the path of the rocks back to Kastro, you can see another chapel, which really does not have a name, but I did see a sign that read “Nicholas” in Greek. Where is there no Nicholas in Greece? A cat was escorting me to this chapel. Maybe the cat was another sign from God. All the major sites of Kastro can be conquered in less than two hours, but I wanted to experience more.

Church of the Seven Martyrs- Sifnos, Greece

The locals were very genuine. I met an elderly lady in her late eighties who had lived her entire life in Kastro as I bought water from there. She explained to me where to go—to check out the local cheeses, wine, and pottery that make Sifnos even more special. Even though Kastro is on the east side of Sifnos and it is better known for its sunrises than sunsets, I still wanted to spend this sunset on top of Kastro. There was a little mojito bar named Kavos Sunrise which was opened after 5 p.m. The owner looked like a hippy from the sixties who either came from the US, Cuba, or somewhere not in Greece. He was nice and made a five-euro mojito and gave me some appetizers on the house. There were many cats lounging around on the seats as the sun was setting behind us, but I was enjoying the reflections and the view of Antiparos, Despotiko, and Strongyli in the distance. Of course, the Spanish music playing in the background made me feel like I should be back in Cuba, but it was alright. My dinner was at Astro Restaurant where I had a simple salad with local herbs, spices, cheese, and vegetables plus a homemade cheese pie by the owner’s son with local honey on top of it. Normally, I do not eat sweets, but this was scrumptious. What a great way to end my day in Kastro, a place I highly recommend when on Sifnos.

The next day I walked back to Apollonia and then south to Platys Gialos as I wanted to experience a flatter scenery and the south beach. It took me about two hours as I had to burn off my calories from all the food and drinks I had from the past day. You are walking uphill and then downhill. Platys Gialos is pretty much one main street consisting of hotels, Airbnbs, and shops. I’d heard about this famous fish restaurant named Omega3. I just had a seafood roe as an appetizer, which is basically like a mousse and was light and served with bread. It was only four euro. I decided to have an alcohol-free night.

I was seated at a bar stool overlooking the beach and the sea. Behind me, I heard a woman speaking English- not clearly English, but American English. Since

there was a ban on Americans traveling to the EU, I would rarely see anyone from back home. She was talking about having her picture taken with two other ladies. I turned around and said, “Can I take a picture for you? I think we are from the same place!” Her name was Constantina, and she was from Connecticut. She came to Sifnos with her cousin Anastasia and her friend Haroula, both of whom lived in Athens, and due to COVID, Constantina had to extend her stay in Greece. She welcomed me to her family. We discussed life in general and how she had a love for Greece and at one time was even married to a Greek and lived in Greece. I talked to her about my goal of obtaining Polish citizenship as this would be a great honor for my grandparents who left their native land for economic reasons, and I would be able to live, if not all the time but part-time, in Poland or anywhere else in Europe. She told me that I should find a nice Polish girl. I told her my mom would appreciate that as well. We talked about all the Greeks and the Poles in Connecticut as well as Detroit. Even though we only knew each other for two hours, we felt that we could keep in touch. She told me that the restaurant we were at was frequented by Hollywood people like Scarlett Johansson and Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. She also told me that all Tom needs to do is hop on his boat in Antiparos and he could be at this restaurant in twenty minutes. I said, “As opposed to a four-hour boat ride for me.” I had my night of American mix with European culture and hope and promise for the future. Thank you, Constantina!

The next day, I decided to take the bus to Apollonia instead of walking. I did stop back at that bakery to buy a spinach pie for the road, and that server was right, it was indeed the best. I had my hour hike back to the port of Kamares where I just waited for my ferry. About thirty minutes before my boat arrived, Constantina and company showed up. They treated me to a coffee, and we started talking about living in the US compared to living in Europe. At Kamares, there are two places where the boat can be docked at. I kept on looking at the one closest to me, and there was no boat, yet. I figured a late one again. Constantina then pointed out to me that my boat was in the dock furthest away and I had five minutes to catch it. I ran so fast out of dodge like the roadrunner running away from the Tasmanian devil. The boat officials kept yelling at me, “Hurry!!!!” Ten seconds after I boarded, the boat pulled away. I texted Constantina thanking her for pointing out my mistake. Otherwise, I would have been on a five-hour boat to Athens with them followed by four hours to Paros. Efharisto, Sifnos! I got to see several sides and experienced much- definitely one

of my favorites!

26

And Now a Word from Our Sponsor-Coronavirus

In between all these travels of the summer of 2020 on the Greek islands and the pandemic, I continued to teach English online and in person, walked to the beach, and continued to write and pray for the world. My friend Igor’s wedding had been canceled twice in the summer due to COVID as I was going to go back to Poland; my distant cousin invited me to his wedding in the autumn, but due to COVID, I again had to cancel; Mario was visiting his new family in Poland from Mexico and wanted me to go there, but I being American might have trouble returning to Greece (even though I was traveling between EU countries) as there were different health restrictions from country to country. My friend Lance from California was supposed to come visit me in Greece, but because of the US ban on Europe, could not. For the first time, I felt like Americans did not have freedoms like in years past. What was going on in the world?

When I first brought my Jeep to Greece, I was told it had to be six months on and then six months off and then six months on. Due to my car being from America and me not wanting to pay the sixty percent tax to make it a Greek car, I had no choice but to follow this. Unfortunately, when it came to my six months on again, I was denied access to it and was told it needed to be sent back to the US by the end of the year. Some things we find out at the drop of a hat. I rented a car for six months, but due to the high tourist months in the summer, I turned it back in due to the higher cost. Now my American Jeep was just sitting there with nowhere to go and was being held hostage. Government, politics, money, and bureaucracy were at the unfortunate helm.

This still did not ruin my good times, especially in Aspro Chorio as there were many parties at Giannis and Maria’s, especially for Maria’s Name Day on August 15th. Due to COVID, there were no public events and parties like there were in the previous year when I arrived in Paros, but these smaller parties at

home made up for them. Social distancing in the US was more defined than in Greece, especially on Paros. Giannis’s sister, Marina, threw a few parties too with dancing, music, and drinks. I was now immersed in the afternoon siestas and their importance—respite from the heat of the day and as well as being able to enjoy the night more and even later. Many parties went on till 6 a.m. or even later, which is so unlike the US where the party starts at 6 p.m. and is done by 10 p.m. Here the party only gets started at 10 p.m. or later. I think this is an overall European thing, which I experienced in Spain, Holland, Sweden, , and even in South America in Argentina. In fact, when I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I went out to dinner at 8 p.m., thinking that was a good time. Nobody was in the restaurant. When I left at 10:30 p.m. is when people started showing up. Such a difference from the US (except maybe places like Las Vegas, New York, New Orleans, or Chicago) in so many ways.

The unfortunate thing is that I was not fluent in Greek, and some of the local Parians did not know English, so there was a language barrier. My landlady, Vasso, was one of them. She wondered if I knew Spanish, Polish, Swedish, Italian, and some Turkish, why I could not learn Greek. I told her because all the languages I know have the same alphabet based on the Latin letters, but Greek has its own letters. For me, I need to learn a language first by writing and reading, and then speaking will come later. I was picking up some Greek here and there, but now I know where the idiom “It’s all Greek to me” comes from. Sometimes, things can get lost in translation and even culturally, and this could be a challenge. I was hoping others would not take offense to anything I did or said incorrectly, but it all makes for the experience even more. I often feel like the character Homer Dassin, the American in the film Never on Sunday, when he applauds the male dancer on the floor who then wants to beat him up as he just liked him while the Greek or brut was offended. As in a lesson of life, I guess c’est la vie.

27

Cyclades Island Hopping: Milos

When I met Constantina on Sifnos, we discussed about traveling to the furthest west Cycladic island, Milos. I shared that I loved the swimming and scuba diving that I had done before in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia as well as in Mexico and the Caribbean island of Aruba. She told me, “You won’t find scuba diving in Milos, but you can swim in the caves, and it is very impressive.”

This time it would be a longer trek from Paros but again very inexpensive, fifteen- euro one way. This time I would see the islands and stop off in Serifos, Sifnos, and Kimolos before reaching Milos. The boat comes into Milos on the north side. It was so windy and overcast that day that you could not see much of the land. It seemed very sleepy to me and reminded me of Kauai, Hawaii, rather than anywhere in California. The island is in the shape of a horseshoe, forming a bay where you reach the port city of Adamas.

My first impression of Adamas was that it was like a small version of Orange County, like Huntington Beach, because of all the shops, restaurants as such near the port. My goal was to find an excursion to the south side of the island to swim and dive into the sea and caves. The island was created over two to three million years ago out of volcanic activity. Most of the western side of Milos is uninhabited and has no villages. Much of the west and east can only be seen by boat and not by land.

The next morning, the van picked me up in Adamas and drove to Provatas on the south-central part of the island. Masks were required inside of it. Two girls were sitting next to me, and they were both speaking English. I thought, more Americans? They were cousins—Ema from Serbia, and Helena from Toronto,

Canada. I told Ema she spoke perfect English for being from Serbia. She told me she went to an English-speaking school. It was good to speak English with some people from the other side of the pond. This guy with a ponytail and a goatee came over to us and said he lived in Canada before. His English was also great, too. At first, I thought he was French, but he was Swiss from Zurich. His name was Lukas. I told him I had a Swiss friend back on Paros from Basel. The only time I had been to Switzerland was at the Zurich airport, and I was frisked by security who seemed to think I was a spy or drug lord to America as they frisked me twice in there. I asked all three of them where they had been all these months that I was homesick. After eleven months outside of the US, I was getting homesick. The four of us bonded on our time on the yacht. We kind of felt like it was our private boat, and it was awesome. We would later meet up for local cuisine and drinks with a Greek host and boat captain, Andreas.

There are many minerals on Milos, like sulfates, fumaroles, and pozzolan. At one time, there were many active mines as well as more people living on Milos to work in these mines. You could see some of these abandoned mines from the distance of the boat. There is only one working mine on the island. The boat stopped four times on the south side. Gerakas was the first. Living along the Aegean for months, I would always see the azure-colored water, but when you see it in a different island just among nature and nothing else, it gives it that deserted island appeal. Tsigrado was second and was my favorite. If you came to this beach from the road, you would have to walk down steps like a ladder on the hill, so it may keep many beachgoers away. From the sea, there were many swimming through the various caves. I was no exception as I swam through about four different caves as my adrenaline and “high on life” attitude was at its extreme. I was surprised my new friends did not want to me, but I met a nice German family in the largest cave. We were trying to see if there were any fish. I was just looking for octopuses, but to my luck, there were none. It seems a fan-favorite beach is not necessarily a beach, but an area known as Kleftiko, which is on the most southwestern part of Milos. This cove area is one of the most popular sites on the island. The area is full of crystal-clear water, beautiful rock formations, and caves that you can explore by mini boat and some you can even swim through. Kleftiko means “thief” or “pirates’ hideaway” as many pirates came to this area as recently as the middle of the nineteenth century, trying to steal treasures, minerals, and other items from the island. Our captain said normally there are hundreds of boats in the area, but due to the pandemic,

there were barely even ten. It was a unique and pleasant time. The fourth and final beach was near Psathadika, and here we had to swim off the boat to it. I felt like Charleton Heston or Mark Wahlberg in the Planet of the Apes arriving at the island there.

Kleftiko

I rented a car the next day and drove the north side of Milos to Pollonia, which reminded me of Naoussa back on Paros, as well as beaches—Papafragas, Alogomandra, and Serakiniko. All areas are very unique and distinct. The earliest settlers came from three great periods—the Cycladic, Minoan, and Mycenaen. In about 1000 BC, the Dorians settled on Milos. They were from the same ethnic group as the Spartans. I could sense the spirit of these earliest settlers of Milos as I roamed the north side of the island. Like many places in Greece, you have the Roman influence combined with the Ottoman and the Venetian and now some Mark Ozog influence.

I finished off my tour of Milos by going to the capital Plaka with its churches high on the hill as well as Tripiti. A statue from the late Hellenistic period (323BC to 30BC) was found in the early 1800s on Milos by a farmer. This statue was of Aphrodite—the ancient Greek Goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, ion, and procreation. Unbeknownst to the farmer, the statute was worth a lot of money. Many people tried to steal it, but were unsuccessful. Eventually, the statue made it to the Louvre museum in Paris, , but both of its arms were missing somewhere in the thievery process from the farmer to the museum. The statute was renamed Venus, the Roman name of Aphrodite. Hence the name of Venus of Milos or Venus de Milo in the Louvre. In the archaeological museum on Milos, there is an authentic copy of the statue.

Since I had to return my rental car and make it back to my boat, I just drove through this area but did stop by the catacombs and attempted to go in, but I found it was closed (probably due to the pandemic). There is evidence of Christianity on the walls in the catacombs and in the tombs. I did get to see the ancient theater which was just above the entrance to the catacombs. It reminded me of the little theater at the Acropolis, but this one was Roman influenced and had a sea view. Speaking of the sea, there is the fishermen’s village Klima that

you can stop by on your way back to the port as I did. You can even stay on a boat for the night as your Airbnb.

Overall, Milos was a great adventure filled with recreation, sport, history, and architecture. I did not find anything specific with the cuisine compared to other islands though. I guess that will be searched next time. I can see why Conde Nast rated Milos the “Second Best Island in Europe” (after Paros) in 2020.

Ancient Roman Theatre on Milos

28

Live Your Best Life!

Even though I was doing what I love to do most by traveling and swimming and going to new places and meeting new people, my anxiety was still not eliminated, especially from hearing reports from the US about the rise of COVID-19, riots due to Black Lives Matters protests and other racial tensions, the political debates between Trump and Biden, and hearing of so many friends losing loved ones due to COVID or other situations. It was disheartening to see this, but I was strong because this was me from 2015 forward with my body and all my weariness in LA and the United States. I knew I had to take my health into a new arena, especially by living on a Greek island. I kept in with my family in Michigan with weekly Sunday chats on Facebook messenger, as well as Zoom meetings with the Hateful Eight and Keiko Benson’s Friday Night Happy Hour in LA, which would be my Saturday morning. Everyone would get a kick out of seeing the sun on the sea with me walking around half-naked with a rooster cock-a-doodle-dooing behind me. Due to the time difference, I would have coffee in hand as they would have beer, wine, or whatever cocktail in hand.

As I was losing weight, I continued to be aggressive with my workouts, my swims, and my walks. I do have Spiro to thank for motivating me in these areas. Also, my body could not consume as much food or alcohol like it used to, which was even better for me. For once in a very long time, I did not miss drinking that beer, the wine, or souma. In fact, souma was no longer a friend to me. Just like we have special occasions in our lives, that is when this type of celebrating should be made with the drinking. Lukas and I did meet up on Paros when he came to visit, and I did introduce souma to him, but I told him I would only consume this on special occasions, meaning times like when he would visit Paros or other special occasions. We both discussed that in order to be free of anxiety, you have to start doing your own things is life- you can only count on yourself to ultimately change. For the first time in a long time, I was proud of myself. Maybe I was relying on others too much that initially attributed to my anxiety in the first place. Nevertheless, I will continue with a better diet of small

portions scattered throughout the day and drinking more water throughout the day as I did especially when walking.

29

Cyclades Island Hopping: Amorgos

In the next town over from Aspro Chorio is Dyros. Ali was telling me to go see Stellios at Fly Art Travel who can help me book ferries and give me the best deals. One time I went in to see Stellios and asked him what his favorite island was. Being from Athens, he chose something completely the opposite of where he is from, kind of like me choosing Aspro Chorio after Los Angeles. He told me of Amorgos, which is on the east side of Naxos. He told me that it is not as touristic as the other islands and the people who live there are very authentic, and they have their own specific food, too. Up until talking to him, the only thing I knew about Amorgos was that the mayor of Paros was from there. Again, the ferry ride was under twenty euro, well within my budget.

I had to arrive on the north side of the island and depart at a different port on the south side of the island. Amorgos is on the eastern edge of the Cyclades and is the polar opposite of Milos. It is an island with diverse terrain—from the mountainous center and east side to promising beaches on the west side. It is known for its psimeniraki (raki with honey) festivals. Unlike Paros or even Athens where I had hot rakimelo, on Amorgos it is cold and sometimes even chilled. I arrived on the north side from Naxos and Donousa (which reminded me of Kimolos near Milos) at the port of Aegiali. The port and the beaches had a similar feel to Ios and Sifnos’s ports. There was a nice scenic drive from the port to the Sea House on the west coast of the island—a hotel with a pool and nothing else around it, except views of the mountains and the sea and a few goats on the road.

One of my childhood friends from Michigan, Kim, had requested I have a video chat from Greece with one who her daughter’s friends. A nine-year-old boy she knew was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was looking to video chat with people from various countries from all over the world. I had made a chat by the

pool with the view of the sea and the mountains from Amorgos with Jake, his parents, Krzysztof and Amy, and sister Stacey. They were all amazed at the scenery and the background as it was sunset when we were talking. I later told them that I could do the same when I returned to Paros, and I did. I told Jake that Hercules is a common name in Greece and that he could be just like Herculesstrong, brave, and fit! Jake was doing well, but eventually he succumbed to his disease and he ed away in early 2021. Now he can be Hercules for eternity. The craziest thing is that Stellios, who told me to go to Amorgos in the first place, ed away of heart problems just two months before Jake. Maybe this was just coincidence that this happened or maybe magnetic energy, or just God giving me a sign. God Bless them, both!

At the Sea House pool with a view after video chatting with nine-year-old Jake where I told him he could be Hercules- strong, brave, and fit! Rest in Peace, my friend!

A few years before I decided to move to Greece, my dad called me one time in LA and said there were some islands in Greece that were paying people to move there. It was to boost their economy. Many of these islands did not have medical facilities and would be boring in the winter months is what I figured after living on one of the more established islands of Paros. When I was on Sifnos, a restaurant owner told me that only about 200 people lived on the island twelve months out of the year. It was the same for Amorgos. As you take the bus to the south side of the island, you have the sea on the right (just like the Pacific Coast Highway in Big Sur, California) as well as some unique beaches and even the smaller island Nikouria, as well as the high mountains on the left.

The Chora on Amorgos is closer to the southern port of Katapola and is more inland, on the east side of the island. I did want to see the Chora as well as the Monastery of Panagia Hozoviotissa facing the sea on the east side and toward the Dodecanese Greek islands as well as Turkey. The Chora is strategically located away from the coast and more in the center of the island so the pirates would not have seen it from afar and have the desire to attack it. The name of the monastery, Panagia Hozoviotissa, comes from an icon that was supposedly found at St. Anne’s Beach or Agia Anna. Here we go again with St. Anne’s. Just like people’s names being the same wherever you go, the city names are the same wherever you go as well depending on where you are in Greece. There was a lady in Asia Minor who threw the icon to the sea to protect it and it ended up on Amorgos. The islanders who found it knew they had to build a church and just like Panagia Gremiotissia on Ios wherever they were going to build it, it was destroyed until one of the builders asked the Virgin Mary where to build it and the next day he got his answer. The original icon may have originated in Hozovo or Hozava in Palestine in the Holy Land, hence the name of the monastery. The monastery has stood there since 1088. The church has seen many renovations through the Ottomans and the Venetians. It stands 300 meters above the sea and

is forty meters in length and five meters in width. The day I went there, it was closed between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. when I first arrived at the Chora, so I had to wait around until it opened.

Meanwhile, the Chora was filled with music coming out of many establishments, scents of food, and great energy. I hadn’t had pizza in a while, so I decided to order something similar for lunch; a calzone stuffed with pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers, onions, local cheeses, and sujuk—a dry, spicy beef and pork cured sausage—blended together were delectable.

I walked my meal off to the monastery which has a strict dress code for which I was not prepared as no shorts were allowed. In Italy and Poland, as long as your shorts were below your knee, you could enter, but not here. It was about a fifteen-minute climb up to the entrance where you saw many sweatpants around the fence that anyone could put on to enter. There was a wait with about thirty patrons including some cats for the five o’clock opening. As through most of Greece, you will find abandoned cats everywhere. It is very difficult to control pet populations, especially on the islands as they do back in the States. I often joke, but should be serious, that most of the homeless on the islands are cats. It was so cute seeing them want to go up the stairs in the monastery. You definitely could not be overweight or too tall because you would get stuck getting in or even walking about the place. I hit my head twice. Maybe that was a sign from the Virgin Mary. It was a self-guided tour as no one was there to explain anything to you, and at the end of the tour, they offered you some cookies and psimeniraki (honey raki). It didn’t seem to be as potent as in Paros or Athens. The island is known for psimenitaki festivals usually around the time I was there, but due to the pandemic, they were canceled. After my ventures for the day, I just wanted to go to Katapola until my boat was due back to Paros.

The famous Greek cats waiting to go to church to pray for the gloominess of the world during the global pandemic of 2020

Panagia Hozoviotissa monastery, the second oldest monastery in Greece dating back to 1017 AD

I stumbled upon Traditional Restaurant Veggera in Katapola. I was greeted by the owner, Rosa, who had been on Amorgos for some time but was from Athens originally. Her father’s family had come from Italy. Knowing all this Venetian influence on the island and the pirates, I wasn’t surprised that there were not more people of Italian descent. She had a dream about traveling all over the world, and I told her that I made that dream come true in my own way. She only wished the best for me; I was told it was time for me to settle down and get married. Where have I heard that before? She encouraged me to order the Amorgoran salad with rusk, tomatoes, capers, onions, and xynomyzithra cheese (local cheese) as well as pork with carob and honey. She told me the recipe goes back many generations and is very unique to the island. I thought she was just trying to sell it to me to make money. She told me it is carob mixed with honey and wine. Carob has good health benefits, which include lowering blood pressure, helping with digestive issues, and lowering cholesterol. When the dish came to me, it looked like Chinese sweet and sour pork, but my taste buds were having an ecstatic orgasm. Did Rosa put a curse on me? The sensational taste remained on my taste buds, and I went back just before my boat was to arrive to thank her again the next day. She just smiled and said, “I told you so! I hope you come back with your mate. Be well.” Another way to finish a Cycladic adventure. I left Amorgos feeling energized and having a new appreciation for life.

30

More Adventures Await

Unfortunately, my Jeep could not stay in Greece due to the high tax placed on Americans. I was getting homesick for America and was given another opportunity to live in another country—Mexico. And for all those apprehensive about the situation there, it all depends on where you go. For once in my life, I wanted to be a part of the world, and I understand my purpose better. Maybe Mexico would be my gateway to seeing more of South America (as I had only been to Argentina and Uruguay) and eventually Antarctica. Living in Greece did teach me a lot, though. I was missing many of the sites on the mainland of Greece like Mount Olympus, the site of the ancient Olympics, Sparta, and so much more, but I did conquer a lot of Greek island territory.

I finished off my Greek island tour on the largest island in Greece, Crete. Some say that it should be its own country, but I did not sense that. Maybe I needed to go to a mountain village and not the largest cities, Heraklion or Chania. It was enjoyable to see more of the city life again in those two places from Venetian fortresses to the Palace of Knossos. Knossos is often called Europe’s oldest city as the palace dating back to 1900 BC and was settled as early as the Neolithic period. The palace eventually became the political and cultural center of the Minoan civilization. For a late September visit, it was very humid in Crete compared to the Cycladic islands. What I noticed was that during the four days on Crete, I had zero anxiety. I had not felt this way in almost six years since that initial panic attack back in 2015. I even noticed that when I took a day trip on a boat to Kato Koufonisia, which is a small island on the other side of Naxos, where all I did was swim in the water for eight hours, my anxiety was also gone. I had to watch all those sea urchins on the bottom of the sea. I did accidentally step on a few and thought I was poisoned, but I was just pricked, so I survived just like a fish would have to survive. Maybe I should have been a fish and not an actor.

You have to swim to this chapel on Naxos... only in Greece

About to do a back flip into the sea of off Kato Koufonisi, Greece... September 2020- ultimate freedom from anxiety!

Like so many things in life, much can be on hold. I am still waiting on dual Polish citizenship, but that is ok because I have traveled so extensively anyway. No matter what, I can teach others all over the world what I have learned about the world we all live in. If I should ever make it back to Paros to live, I know I would like to be there during the summers. I will say “efharisto poly” or “thank you very much” to all the Parians I did encounter during my fourteen months on such a majestic island.

After I departed Paros as a resident, I traveled the mainland of Greece, in particular the Peloponnese peninsula which is to the southwest of Athens as well as points north of Athens to Thessaloniki up to the Bulgarian border.

My first and most important stop was to the ancient city of Olympia on the western side of the peninsula. Due to COVID, not many tourists were there. Ever since I was twelve years old and because of the summer Olympics being in Los Angeles that year, I have been attracted to the Olympics. Always a swimmer, rarely a runner, I did run into the ancient Olympic stadium as I was back in that time period over 2,700 years ago. I felt my soul full of energy of so many spirits of centuries gone-by. It was interesting to find out that once Christianity came to this land, the Olympics disbanded as much of the ancient ones was based on sacrifice as a part of their rituals and tributes to the Gods and not just one God. It would not be until 1896 AD that the Olympics would return to the world and have such a great effect on modern society.

Being an actor, I could not help myself but perform (unfortunately with no audience) at the theater in ancient Sparta. I felt more like a warrior comparable to Gerard Butler in 300 than a second-class citizen performing just for the sake

of performing. I was rushed to get my five seconds of fame at center stage at the 3,000-year-old ancient Epidaurus theater with such excellent acoustics even dating back centuries. Hollywood has nothing on this place of again feeling the spirits of so many actors before me.

Speaking at the ancient Epidaurus Theatre which dates back to the 4th century BC and has excellent acoustics

I had an issue with my port as well because of a non-existence of a visa extension. I attempted to leave Greece to Bulgaria to get my port stamped, but was turned away at the border due to an overstay situation. On my way to the northern border, I visited Thessaloniki and learned much about the Byzantine culture and Alexander the Great when I was up there. Of course, no visit would be complete to the north without visiting Mount Olympus, where I felt more of the spirits of the ancient Gods. Even though for the most part this is based on mythology and would most likely not be true, it was cool to feel this energy. This would be the same energy that I also felt on the island of Crete as well as in the ancient city of mountainous Delphi.

Throughout the pandemic year of 2020, I was involved in many Zoom meetups. One was Keiko’s LA virtual happy hour, where I virtually met Mina who was living southwest of Athens, and she found out that I was living on Paros where her grandmother is from. She also lived in LA for some time when I was there, but we never met each other until I was living in Greece. We did meet up faceto-face a couple times and even swam in what is called the baths or springs of Beautiful Helen of Troy together. Again, there was a special energy in this area. Except for Rhodes and many of the northwestern Ionian islands, I had seen most of Greece, so I felt very free and full of life especially by living this Greek and southern European lifestyle which I will take with me for the rest of my life. My lesson to all of you is to find YOUR ions, stop overthinking, pleasing others, and live life to the fullest.

Conclusion

I did not know how long I was going to stay in Greece. I was coming up on one year and was missing driving my Jeep, seeing my old friends and my family, but the US was still a mess with the coronavirus cases and the election of 2020. I wanted to go back for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but what if I could not return to Greece from the US because I would not be allowed or my dual citizenship with Poland was on hold or not even happening. As I have always said, “It’s all in God’s hands.” It was since day one. Now that I have lived in a land going back so many centuries, full of history, religion, spirituality, mythology, fitness, democracy, architecture, culture, the arts, and theater, my soul was full of gratitude and living moment by moment for once. I continued to have some anxiety, but it was not as bad as in the years before. As long as I stay focused on my gifts to the world, my love for the world, and knowing I have a purpose, I will be fine. I also need to take care of my body, my soul, my health, and my mind. Competition can easily kill your soul as it did for me, so I had to change. Just like with the pandemic of 2020, we do not know what tomorrow may bring, but my advice is as long as you stay focused, like I have stated many times, you will be on the correct path.

Unfortunately, when I did finally leave Greece for the US, I was stopped at immigration for a miscommunicated overstay situation and was fined 1,200 euro on the spot. They would only accept cash and were a--holes to me about it even though I had documents showing my tax id, my automobile being there, and even having a bank . To add insult to injury, one of the ATMs would only give me 800 euro, so I had to venture through the airport to find another one, and then the immigration officer even gave me further grief by asking “What took you so long?” I told him, “I wrote a book about changing my perspective on the world and life, getting over anxiety and depression, as well as losing over thirty pounds and being able to live to tell about it. Now you are going to be in my book for the way you treated me. This whole situation will make a great story!” It all goes back to politics and the world we live in. I say we should have no

borders and be kind to one another. If you cannot have such an impact like this on the system, there will be no change in it. Call me a rebel, but I risked so much already, so I didn’t care what they told me that day—the life of a citizen of the world.

For myself, there are more roads to travel and people to touch. If I return to acting someday, that will also be in God’s hands. But I know how my travels and time in Greece helped me break away and escape from anxiety and depression at the same time. The Jeep eventually did make it back to New York, and I visited old friends from my acting days in LA, Grayson and Bill, in New Jersey, sharing my experiences with them both before I traveled back to Michigan. They must have blessed me on my way and out of harm’s way as I had to deal with rain, hail, sleet, an ice storm, as well as snow on the way back to Michigan. Come January 2021, I would be onto a new destination of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico so out of snow and cold again, of which I never was a fan.

Thank you for following my journey and how TRUE life helps you focus on a satisfying life. This is the ultimate joy and key. I still believe, too! Do you? I wish all of you well on your journeys and please cherish and seize each moment and live for making a difference for yourself and others. We are all in this together—LIFE! CARPE DIEM!

As the sun will come out tomorrow, here is the sunset of my home after Greece, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Here’s to more adventures ahead!

Bibliography

1. The Wizard of Oz, Dir. Victor Fleming, MGM, 1939, Film.

2. Schindler’s List, Dir. Steven Spielberg, Universal Studios, 1993, Film.

3. “Madonna.” American Bandstand, Dick Clark Productions, Los Angeles, January 14, 1984.

4. Beaubier, Jeff. High Life Expectancy on the Island of Paros, Greece. New York, New York: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1976, pgs. 16-17.

5. He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Filmation Associates and Mattel, Los Angeles, 1983, Television.

6. Fantasy Island, Columbia Pictures Television/ Spelling-Goldberg Productions, 1977-84.

7. “Job Switching.” I Love Lucy, Desilu Productions, Los Angeles, September 15, 1952, Television.

About The Author

Mark Ozog is a native of the Detroit, Michigan, area and grew up in a Polish Roman Catholic environment. He was eager to perform at an early age. He got his start at age five as a Polish ethnic dancer and then continued to pursue acting from college through adulthood. He has worked in radio, on stage and television, and film. He loves to entertain, educate, and motivate. He has been a Screen Actors Guild member since 1998 and has been featured in Starship Troopers, Catch Me if You Can, Teachers, and A Star is Born, just to name a few. He was a part of I Love Lucy history on August 6, 2011 in Jamestown, New York, the hometown of actress Lucille Ball, whose 100th birthday was that day. He played Milton Biow, the ad agent who made sure the famous TV show made it to television in 1951 and has touched the world ever since, in the play I Love Lucy: The Untold Story.

In addition to his performing ventures, Mark has traveled to nearly sixty countries and has lived in five (USA, Sweden, Turkey, Greece, and Mexico). Mark has documented his journeys in two books: I Still Believe! (An Inspirational Journey) Memoirs of Mark from Michigan Who Went to Hollywood, Then Conquered the World (Page Publishing 2018) and now Live Your Best Live! (Book Baby 2021). He is also a professional public speaker and has given thousands of presentations all over the world. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

No matter what your goals are in life, Mark illustrates that if you see it, perceive it, and believe it, you will achieve it. His favorite saying is “Carpe Diem!” Seize the moments in your life and turn your dreams into reality. Enjoy Live Your Best Life! by Mark Ozog.

The diverse acting roles of Mark Ozog...

Playing a swing dancer on TV Land’s TEACHERS

Wife beater, Tony, being arrested in the domestic violence play, They WILL Know, along with actors Liliana Montenegro and David Sifling

Playing Sgt. Winslow for the web series, BITS AND PIECES, along with Michael Anthony Jr, Matthew Campbell, and Marcus Thomas.