Where in the World is Tim?

So last year Ithaca College raided the piggie bank set aside for funding the construction of a much needed H&S building so that they could create this new online super system called Homer. First it took the campus a little while to get used to the idea that we would no longer have our outdated SIS system. Meanwhile, no one seemed to get the connection between a system named after the blind bard and a school called Ithaca. But the registrar knew how to solve the problem. They printed out signs depicting Simpsons characters which had the desired effect of exciting the student body about using Homer.

Meanwhile, I didn't care. Homer was advertised as being so simple to use that even Joe Tempesta could do it. I knew there might be some bugs the first time around, but I was going to be in Barcelona, and thus out of the reach of the system. And I was right, none of the first go-round glitches ruined my Barcelona experiance. Though I did have to officially sign up for London classes on Homer, it was only a formality seeing as how spots had been reserved for all the students in there classes as part of the registration process. All in all, Homer and I avoided one another for an entire year.

However, the present is a different story, the countdown is over and the Homer Crisis has begun. Because Homer has told Ithaca College that I have been a drop-out for the past year (because I wasn't on campus), I don't get to sign up for classes until April 9th, along with all the other freshman. A wiley trick, I must admit, but I bested Homer on that front. I've been talking to all my old Profs from on the home campus. Little does Homer know that I have seats reserved for me in all my classes next semester. Granted history classes are slim pickings because Joe Tempesta and Prof Brown have been put out to stud, and other Profs have decided to take sabaticles, however my tenuous plan to work on tutorials takes me out of the class rat-race for 6 competitive credits.

I am not the only one Homer went after though. Maliciously, He decided to schedule my friends Meg and Lee Boo to sign up for classes (they DO need to deal with the rat race) at times neither of them can get near a computer. But the humans have fought back against Homer once again with the power of team-work. Lee Boo will sign up for Meg and Meg for Lyss. Humanity refuses to fall to our greek digital overlord.

Homer would not go unavenged, some poor sap had the terrible idea to connect Skynet (I mean Homer) to the housing selection system. Fear abounded as to what trechery Homer would unleash on our desperate housing search. The mortal imagination is not dark enough to fathom the Machiavellian machinations of Homer.

First it did away with the merritocracy that had previously ruled housing selection. The old system (fairly) provided a better housing number to students who had more credits. Granted this favored students who had gone to high-schools with more AP classes, but there are slight problems in even the best systems. Now Homer allows housing preference to go to students who have been ON CAMPUS longer. Not only does this hurt the ambitious study-abroad-er like myself, but it also screws the pooch for transfer students. I ask you, why a transfer senior should ever get stuck in the Boot with a freshman? Somethings are just wrong. Next Homer did away with the superlatively efficient system of signing oneself up for housing. The old system used to be that if you wanted to live somewhere, you showed up at the right time and wrote your name right in the room where you wanted to live. The system provided for minimal confusion, AND the ability to cheat the system like I did to live in Emerson. It had its problems but it's better to have the devil you know than Homer. Now Homer decides where you live. One person must tell the leviathin their party's housing prefference (I note that someone could easily put someone in a flat against their will, but Homer loves such sinister behavior). This also means that a single person can only sign up for a single. And all singles suck. The old system meant that two strangers could meet up on paper an co-habit the room of their dreams, but no longer. Homer won't have it. I now have to live like a freshman.

Using Homer is, itself, an act of hateful blastphemy. I deplore the system, and urge all my fellow human being to break off the shackles the System has imposed upon us. I have a dream that one day we all will be free!

-Tim

It seems that some American students were told before they came to London, not to worry about foreign languages this semester. While it is true that with some notable exceptions and superfluous U's they use the same words here as they do in the states to convey ideas, this advice was not meant soley for the UK. It seems that a numer of Amuricans are under the impression that everyone in Europe (or historyland as it is often called) now speaks English so that they can better serve the tourists and learn from our enlightened United Statesian ways of using the death penalty, fiening democracy, and using a perpetually devaluing currency. I openly scoffed at the idea when I first heard it. I've been to Paris and communicated to the natives using their alien tongue. I've been to Barcelona, where I was schooled in Spanish, a language rarely ever used in the city. And I have been confused by Catalan, which native speakers will repremand you for not understanding, but will never humble themselves to the point where they'll teach you. Yes I've been to history land, and I can attest to the reality that English is not something everyone is born speaking. There ARE other languages out there... or so I thought.

It turns out, as I found last week, it has all been a lie. A clever well thought out lie. But a lie all the same. Other languages aren't REAL, they're just a way of bilking tourists out of their money. Offended by my cultural insensitivity? Well you'll be singing another tune once I provide you with proof.

First to Greece...

At first glimps, Greek looks like a completely different language. They were even clever enough to imagine up an alien alphabet that they use to shroud the secret meanings of their text. But the Greeks got over confident. They imagined that no one would be able to crack their ingenius code (I found when I got there that I could read the Greek alphabet with ease thanks to only a few hours of study three years ago), hense they didn't bother to change much else about the words. The entire language is composed of the combination of prefixes and suffixes that anyone that scored above a 400 on their SAT's will be able to figure out. Toward the end the Greeks just got lazy. They, like the crypto-linguists, the Latins (not to be confused with the Romans who stole their language and claimed it as their own, as is the Italian way you will soon discover), end their words in declensions. All of the words in a sentense match, this makes it sound better. But while the Latins, and Ancient Greeks for that matter, specified which pronoun and tense the declensions apply to, the Greeks of the Modern era use random and often changing endings to their words thus abandoning all meaning. Of course this makes the 'language' sound exotic, but it does not convey any sort of point, which is one of the pillars upon which language should be built.

Now on to Italy...

They just weren't trying when the Italians created their cultural tongue. I'm not sure what happened on the day of the big meeting when all the representatives met to disguise their native tongues from English ears. Perhaps Italy lost her notes, or was sitting next to the window and kept getting distracted, or maybe Italy was just lazy. What I do know is that those words that Italians speak is NOT a language. As Alyssa found out, nearly 75% of their words are just Spanish said with an Italian accent. One need only affect something that sounded natural and speak Spanish and you got along fine. However, there were whole bunches of words that WERE English, but an i or an o was added as an after thought. What is the Italian word for a grown up? Adulti. It was shameful. The only TRUE Italian word we found was 'ciao', which they said insessantly, as if reminding tourists that they were in Italy. There's just one problem for anyone who knows the etymology of the word 'ciao', it comes from Venice and literally means 'our business is concluded'. So all those Italians were using their own language incorrectly. But they don't care, they just hop on their Vespas and drive off.

Now that I've exposed the secret of foreign language, I no longer feel bad about not trying in French class back at WHS. It's all BS anyways.

-Tim

Every great dramatic character has had his own great antagonist. Drama arises from the clash of a good man with his antithesis. Sherlock Holmes has Professor Moriarty, Ahab has the leviathin, Superman has Lex Luthor, the Batman has The Joker, Oedipus has Jocasta, Darkwing Duck has that evil version of Darkwing duck that wore yellow, even Mork has Mindy. I am no different. I am but a man plagued by all the evils contained within pandora's box personified. Iniquity, thy name be Alyssa.

All week during my spring break I was tortured with the repitition of varriations on the same pun. Since I didn't have a magic muffin that grants my every wish, I was unable to achieve a world free of punny terrors. I opennly rued the day some eccentric italian looked at Renaisance art and said 'yes but what would be fabulous is if it were even more flamboyant', and thus inspired the baroque movement. Just saying the word makes me cringe because I know somewhere in the world Alyssa is laying in wait for her next oppertunity to say 'if it ain't baroque, don't fix it'. My stomach turns.

At least thats the way it started, an innocent quote from Cogsworth (that cock blocking clock) in Beauty and the Beast. But it went on from there. When she saw the dome of the Duomo, she said we should call a repairman. When she saw St. Peter's square, she requested hammer and nails. She committed the ultimate Art Historical blaspheme when she started insisting classical ruins were baroque.

That's not even the worst part! I just read her blog (jerseygirlinlondon.blogspot.com), and found out she's PROUD of what she did. She even reprised some of her vile puns. Back in my day we had a word for someone like her: 'witch'. I say we burn her! I say we pile up some bundles of wood (I know a fascist we can borrow some from) and burn the she-devil.

Who's with me?

-Tim

Ok, so maybe the Athenians aren't commissaries, or at least they're not OUR commissaries. If you like, you can look at them as the deputies of the EU staying the advance of the Turkish plague into their exclusive mens club for jerks (not that I don't like the EU system of confederate government, I'm a Brown Coat all the way, but come on guys, let the Turks in. It isn't funny anymore). But that wasn't my doing, and I'd like it if people would quit blaming ME. Anywho, the focus of this post isn't going to be EU politics. I don't like to use my blog to soap-box. I prefer to enjoy that pasttime IRL.

If Boston is said to be the Athens of America, and Madurai is the Athens of India, then surely Athens is the Athens of Greece. Today I will primarily focus on the animal and vegitable life of the cradle of democracy, with (assuredly) brief and quasi fictional accounts of my most recent trip to Greece.

First off: Flora

That city used to be COVERED in orange groves!

And it still is. The city of Athens is composed of four things in the way of architectual lay out.

1)Antiquated ruins that still stand as a testiment to how great, powerful, and advanced the ancient Hellens were. As we marvel at the perfection of their temples, still unsurpassed more than two millenia later we know that truly this was the culture of Plato, Aristotle, Pythagorus, and Zeno.

2)Fake ruins. Thats right, the Athenian Bureau of Tourism has seen fit to fill up the empty spaces between the plethora of Athenian ruins of immeasurable historic significance, with fake plaster ruins and intentionally felled columns. This makes the whole city feel like it is the seedy burrow in the Magic Kingdom.

3)Buildings that are in serious need of a bath. I get it Athens. You're very old. And you fell on hard times as the Ottomans declined, then again after WWII when people started thinking fascism was a good idea. You were economically weak for a while Greece, it's ok. But you're on the Euro now, so spring for some soap and a hose and clean yourself up. Most cities write history books to remember what has happened to them, Athens just collects all its dirt.

4)Friggen Orange trees man, they're EVERYWHERE! You know what it looks like in June, before all of the grass turns brown and dies, when every green area is polkadotted with yellow dandelions? Well that's what Athens looks like, only instead of weeds they have orange trees. With oranges! Did I mention the oranges? The size they have at supermarkets when oranges are actually in season, and one of the fruit is big enough for a meal. For FREE! Just growing on the street. Of course we were all too afraid to eat one. I've seen what happens in American prisons when a man cuts the heads off parking meters, I don't want to live the Greek version of Midnight express. But when you pealed them (the oranges) they made your hands smell delightful.

As for the animal life in the city, our guidbook gave us a helpful hint: "How do Greeks feel about animals? Well, it depends whether or not its a cat". It seems Greeks love their cats. And not like in the way Chinamen love cats. I suppose their affection for felines goes back to the Ptolemic rule of Alexandria, but I'm just saying that because I read it... in a book. We saw a few cats, that looked like strays, but there was always a food and water bowl that the cats had hidden somewhere near by.

Greece used to have a large population of sociopathic short swarthy men well schooled in varrious forms of martial arts. Unfortunately, deforestation, migration, and over-hunting by green-bean vigilantes has thinned the once great heard of Drakons to only a dwindling fraction of what they once were.

My travel companions in Greece, Zivic (the explorer), Alyssa (the tolken girl), and Wangchung (or Chinese man-servant whose barbaric pasttime of playing handheld video-games was alien to us at first, but we later accepted it for their primative simplicity) will all tell you that Athens was populated by a wealth of stray dogs. However, I did not have the heart to tell them all the truth. Those were no dogs... they were bears. But the bears were disguised as dogs, and seemed nice enough. We even made a number of friends.

Nicco- It seems most Greek males are named Nicco, and that goes for bear dogs as well. Nicco was the youngest and most friendly of the members of a pack of strays that were guarding the Parliment building. While the other dogs were in the streets hunting down cars for sustinance, Nicco was hanging out with us, fetching the scraps of our lunch that we threw him. Alyssa was particularly fond of Nicco because the language barrier that seems to exist here in London between man and beast was no problem in Greece. Nicco understoond kisses and 'hi there' and 'come here, Nicco'. Although the word 'no' got lost in translation when he dove into a garbage can.

Cow- Well it looked like one, so we called it Cow. It had big brown bovine spots all over its fat body. We thought, for a time, that it was running to keep up with us. In reality Cow was just running, or maybe stampeding, in no real direction. Cow would become confused when it would run away from us, then find us a minute later down the road.

Romeo- This dog loved me. It showed some affection for Lyss, and snubbed Zivic and Greg all together. But Romeo couldn't get enough of me. I particularly liked him because he looked EXACTLY like a dog I've seen somewhere before... I just can't think of where. It's a work of art, a Velasquez or a Goya. I'll post a picture of him soon so I can get all your feedback.

Scruffy- A clever and ambicious mut that followed us back to the hostel from the archeological museum. Scruffy understood how to use crosswalks and even how to understand walk signals (which would be impressive for a colourblind dog, but we now know he was a bear fully capable of seeing a full spectrum of ROYGBIV and even Ultra Violet and Infra-Black). Scruffy did not, however, get the concept that I was told is instinctive to all real dogs, that if you grab them by the scruff of the neck it is supposed to be natures off switch. But since Scruffy protected us from a cat who had been maliciously sculking in some shade by the road. We didn't notice the cat's surreptitious loitering until Scruffy had chased it into a tree. The cat lept to the top of the tree in a single bound. This had the effect that when I first saw the leaping critter, I thought it was a big white bat, which is far scarrier than a lounging cat. I'm not sure what Scruffy was thinking.

Then, of course, there were all the Greek gods walking about. However, like the false ruins, they are just a sleezy tourist trap now too.

-Tim

What? Oh, hello. I didn't see you there.

...

Oh this? This isn't my wig. I was just holding it for a friend... from Hammersmith. Anyway, what can I do for you? Continue telling you about my Spring Break adventures? Well, alright. Where did I leave off.. oh yes. I remember now.

There I was, a giant to these people, many times taller than even the tallest of houses, and the Lillapudlians were screaming that their palace was on fire. Now perhaps it was just because I'd had a little too much to drink that night but... what else was I to do? They needed a way to put out the fire and I could naturally provide one.

...What? That's not where I left off? Oh, I get confused sometimes. I suppose I could tell you all about Jesus Camp.

Lyss and I got into Florence at a little after 8 o'clock in the evening. That's round about the time that any good italien, or someone hoping to enjoy their cultural quirks, would go out to dinner. The two of us were feeling peckish, so we figured we might as well go find some food too. But first we had to drop our bags off at the hostel.

My first impression of my room was dull. I simply noticed that there were 8 beds and mine was the one closest to the door. It was not only that I was tired, but that the hostel rooms were set up in such a was as to numb the part of the human brain that forms oppinions. While the walls of the hallways were near sensory overload, as they had been marked and signed and drawn uppon by all of the hostel's past guests, the rooms were so boring that my eyes could not focus for any amount of time. After two seconds of looking in any direction self preservation dictated that I must move my eyes to find something more interesting lest I go blind out of bordem. There was honestly absolutely nothing remarkable about my room. 8 beds, the one closest to the door was mine. Not so much as an interesting water stain that looked like Alexander Hamilton. I just wanted to get out and explore the city so that I could escape from the white noise that was my room.

Alyssa's room was more interesting.

Let this serve as a lesson to you ladies out there who might be thinking of booking a girls only room in a hostel (and allow me to burst the bubbles of any young men out there who might have their own naughty ideas about what goes on behind those closed doors), the kinds of girls who book rooms like that ARE Bible Belters. And not just your run of the mill typical conservative Christians, these are the people who love Jesus militantly. The kind of people I fear will drag me from my bed at night and nail me to a lower case T. Picture Mel Gibson as a group of college aged girls. That's who Alyssa was rooming with (it's a wonder she survived). She didn't see them at first. The room was empty, except for the five beds made military style, at least one of which was adorned by a (spare?) Bible (which is fine I guess, I like to do a little light reading before bed too).

The two of us came back from dinner (and the gillato that preceeded it) at about ten. We wanted to change our shoes before we went out to explore the city. Jesus Camp was already in bed, sound asleep. Now, I know its a bit pre-school to tease people for having an early bedtime, but even I wanted to check out the nightlife, and I think Jesus would agree.

We went out, we walked throughout the city, we hid from other ICLC students because its just not an exotic vacation if you run into the girl who always needs your help using the photocopier, and we returned dead on our feet, barely able to keep our eyes open. It was midnight. Alyssa collapsed into her bed, and I tried to collapse into mine. But there was a slight problem. The female Jesus Campers had brought their somewhat androgynous, but apparently male friend with him. I don't want to make fun of his weight problem, but he had the top bunk, and it was sagging down so much that I had to suck in my stomache to fit on my bed.

The morning was worse. My Jesus Camper's alarm went off at six in the morning. It played an Irish jig that would have been merry had it been played at a time other than six in the morning. He hit snooze. The jig was no more merry at 6:01, or 6:02, or any of the other 58 minutes until 7am when he actually tumbled out of bed and the very foundation of the building shook. Meanwhile, Alyssa's five Jesus camper woke up promptly at six, and proceeded to gossip 'til the sun come up. They whispered, I'm told, but it was a stage whisper, the kind you use when you want to make it very clear to the audiance that you're speaking in hushed tones, but you want them to hear everything you say. One of the commandments SHOULD be thou shalt not be an ass and wake strangers up.

The epilogue to my tale about Jesus Camp is that later that morning, while I was waiting for the shower, Jesus Camp (male) spent 15 minutes in front of the mirror adjusting the angle that his gelled hair was at. But no matter how hard he pushed his bangs back, his self confindense wouldn't go up.

But on the subject of religion, I met two angels on my trip. I didn't think I believed in angels, but I was wrong. Well, other than David Boreanaz of course.

I met the first angel in Vatican City, which I guess is fitting. Alyssa and I were looking for this hole in the wall Gillattoria which, according to legend, sells scoops the size of your head and for cheaper than anywhere else in the city. This is true. However, Meg, who told us about the legendary shoppe, was a little vague on the directions. All we knew was that we were supposed to take a right at Saint Peter's Square. Lyss and I had done that, however unintentionally, as we were looking for a WC. No sooner had Alyssa looked at me and said that she coud go for a frozen treat, but a miracle happened. The clouds parted and the sky openned up. We could hear a choir of cherabim with a back up band of seraphim on brass playing from on high, and there in a great etherial spotlight was an angel in blue jeans. We knew he was an angel because he had wings, though they had disguised themselves as a leather jacket and pair of glasses. He had teeth that were beyond white one the colour scale, they were two notches above ultra white. He asked, but we understood he knew the answer, if we were looking for the Old Arch (or something I dont remember the name) Gillottoria. We said 'yes' as our souls quaked. He told us we need only follow the road we were on until it went around a bend. Then, in a flash of light and white feathers he was gone. Now maybe he wasn't really an angel. Maybe we were just talking to a bubble of swamp gas reflecting the planet Venus, but the gillato was real... and huge. Alyssa was David to the frozen creamy Goliath.

The last angel was the bus driver I met outside Stanstead airport. He was somewhat less impressive looking. He looked like Mark Addy with a squished face, but I didn't care. Whoever decided that the busses and trains stop running from Stanstead BEFORE the last flights land should be deported to Naples. When I got through past port control, I thought I was going to have to spend the night in the international terminal, or hitch a ride with the nice man with the hook and the crazy eyes, or commit a crime so I could spend the night in jail. But angelic Mark Addy had other plans. He saw me wandering around the bus depot, shivering because I was dressed for a say in Rome, and invited me on his magic (not school) bus. It was filled with Croatian tourists that had chartered a bus to Kings Cross. But there was an open seat and he offered it to me. It is thanks to Him that I made it home that night, or maybe just that I made it home in one piece.

-Tim

I only have a few moments before I have to run to class, but I need to fill you all in about something. Hammersmith, the area where I live, is full of drag queens. FULL of them! I can't walk to or from class in the morning without seeing half a dozen. Well I can't be certain they're all drag queens, they might be transvestites (male tomboy). I don't know if there's a commune near by, or if that area just attracts a certain type of person. Either way, I'm fine with it, I bumped into one the other day and (s)he was very nice. Perhaps someone should go live among them, like Jane Goodall and the apes, these are a great people with a proud cultural history. But I dont look good in tights, so it can't be me.

-Tim

Well that's the past tense, isn't it? And so help me if anyone tells me to fix it... I've heard enough puns about 17th century architectural styles to last several life times. If you don't understand what that means, count yourselves among the blessed.

My actions over the past week can only be described as 'jet-setting', and I trust that you, my loyal readers would like it if I recounted my journey for you. The question becomes (if you'll permit me to think outloud) 'where to begin?'. The beginning seems like a fitting answer, but I'm not actually sure when that was. Setting the itinerary, booking tickets, packing, leaving my flat, leaving for the airport, getting to the airport, flying, landing, checking in, these are all fitting places to begin if I choose to tell my story chronologically. However, I'll level with you, as I write I'm bound to get distracted and go off on some tangent that will throw my whole narrative off its chronological track. My blog posts will become a flaming trainwreck of lost time, plot holes, and references that really dont make any sense no matter how you look at them. But I feel I owe it to you all to make some attempt to tell my story, so I'll try. Starting from the middle, and trying to fill in the gaps as I go.

It was dusk by the time the train pulled into the station. I couldn't be certain of the exact time because of the problems I'd had with my watch in Ancona, but my eyes still worked perfectly well, or at least well enough to see that the sun had gone down but there was still sufficient light to see the Tuskan hills turn hazy blue out the window of the coach cabin that my ticket said I wasn't supposed to be in. The fact that the windows were second class did nothing to dull the view. However, there had been an added thrill to looking out first class windows when we hadn't paid for them, but the conductor saw to it that we were put back in our propper place. One day the revolution will come, and even second class ticket holders will be able to look out first class windows.

The problem with trains is that they assume you know where you're going. Roads are marked with signs because everyone is going somewhere different, and planes only have one destination. Trains are the unhappy medium that require that you know exactly when to get off. There are two tricks to surviving train travel. The first being that you should get off when the train stops, the alternative tends to be dangerous (exceptions are made for those persons who have a pre-ordered a horse to run beside the train that they can jump on, or persons who realize that their knife fight on the top of the caboose is about to be suddenly interupted by the trains entry into a tunnel with a low ceiling). The second is to look at the signs within a station that identify its location. Travellers to Florence (called Firenze by natives who know about the city's quadrupedal founder) should note that the train station has within it no identification signs in it at all. If you are going to Florence you are supposed to know where you're going and know when you get there, if you miss it then you obviously had no right setting foot there in the first place and maybe you should consider Naples (this is, of couse, hyperbole. No human being ever deserves to go to Naples, it is a crueler punnishment than the death penalty... which was banned in Italy during the mid-18th century).

Alyssa, my travel buddy for my Tuscan adventures, and I were part of that audacious population of aliens with the gaul to try and cross Florences impregnable defenses. The Italiens never stood a chance. Not since the sack of Rome by Charles V, or perhaps even the barbarian vandalization of the falling Empire, has an Italian city fallen so easily to outsiders. Unsure of where we were, Alyssa and I threw our luggage from the train whose coal filled engine blazed like the Inferno itself (the train did not have a coal burning engine, and thus the fire prevented it from achieving a velocity of 88mph), we threw ourselves headlong from the burning train and took cover under an nearby gypsy. Moments later the armored safe-car exploded raining cash and little pieces of Mr. Woodcock with it, but there was no time to make ourselves rich. As the train dispatched its supply of self replicating repair Nanites, I ran out of the station to try and find any sort of a clue as to what city we were in while Alyssa guarded our bags from, oh, lets say a tribe of super intelligent baboons with machine guns for hands (all of this happened, trust me).

None of the locals responded to my flawless Italian as I asked what city I was in, they all knew I didn't belong. I rushed into the street, finding one of the largest Italian Gothic churches I've ever seen (not the famous one) but no signs saying 'yeah, that's right, your in Florence'. I knew the train must have been getting ready to depart for Turin (its final stop), so in a last ditch effort to find out where Alyssa and I had landed ourselves I asked a (gah) American.

Success! Florence at last. Alyssa was elated that her battle with the baboonbots hadnt been for nothing. Together we forged ahead into the heart of the city to find our hostel. A journey that would take less than five minutes, but end in sinister tragedy. For an ambush had been laid for us at the hostel, but not by Florentines or cyborg-apes. No, at the hostel we encountered a far graver threat... Bible Belters!

To Be Continued...

-Tim

That's No Moon

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

So the Internets at the hostel where I'm staying may be free, but they won't let me post on my own blog. I blame the fascists *ciao*. But I am alive and well and in that place named after the centaur in Harry Potter (so readers, where in the world am I?).

-Tim

PS

Oh, and I found out I own a multi-billion dollar communications firm in Greece. Who knew? I'll have all the exciting details when I return to the land of the living fish and chips (which also begs explination)

10:12 AM