Isle of Kos, Greece

Well, it's been an annoying slog getting here but hopefully I'll let that go and really start settling in to the island rhythm. Taxi driver took me to the wrong place this morning but finally sorted it out, then I sat on the boat for an hour before it left. I listened to some Al Stewart as we crossed into Greece - completely appropriate with his evocative lyrics.

Annoyance continued when I went the wrong way entirely and took over an hour of traipsing around with my backpack on before I arrived here. In a few minutes I'll hire a bike and ride out to a nice beach somewhere. Spoke to Nadia at 1pm - we were both annoyed for different reasons! Her unreliable colleagues are messing up her plans for the extra week she's taking off. Funny how things affect us. My traipsing around has left me quite grumpy and I've lost the excitement I had on the ferry listening to Al Stewart. I might try a bit more whilst lying on the beach in an hour or so. I was thinking as we crossed on the ferry - who am I exactly? And my thought was - I'm this Al Stewart-listening, world-travelling, ruins-clambering, medieval literature-reading, inner peace-seeking individual who is most at home doing what I'm doing right now.

On the way from Rome to Istanbul

Photos here

It's taken me a little while to reconnect with that dormant, nearly-deceased part of me but it's coming back lentamente, slowly - just like the way you should heat the water when making a proper Roman coffee. I've recovered quickly from the jetlag, in fact I'm feeling completely normal after an excellent night's sleep. Not sure when it'll hit me again.

Had a nice time with Ennio - he is a gentle, quiet man and I like him a lot. We spoke a lot of Italian this morning, or better said: he spoke a lot and I fumbled with the odd sentence.

I'm still coughing and I'm thoroughly sick of it. Otherwise I'm feeling fine. Listening to music on the plane is what finally broke through the wall yesterday. Living in the suburbs in Melbourne, working 40+ hours a week, commuting, thinking about Mum's welfare, chasing things for the building project, doing all we can in our other endeavours:  all in all, this adds up to too much for me to juggle successfully. It overwhelms any parts of me that aren't integral bits of the immediate to-do list. So, my European side, my soul, my connection with nature, my love of the outdoors, my relationships with family and important friends - all these things start to slip away. And after a long, sustained period, all these things suffer greatly.

Listening to Almeno sta volta, tears welled in my eyes as I felt just how alientated I'd become from all these important things. It was somehow carthartic, because now I'm feeling much better. During my travels, I'll do my best to nuture all these parts of me, to slow down, to resist distractions, to remain in each moment with all my being.

In an hour I'll land for the first time in Byzantium, Constantinopole, Istanbul. Probably the only city on Earth that could possibly rival the city I  just left, Caput Mundi herself. What an embarrassment of riches, how overwhelming, how very much that which I lack and long for in that sunburnt, prisoners' island at the bottom of the world, that place I very gratefully call home. Caput Mundi, il centro del mondo, il cuore della cultura e della civilisazione.