Voyages of Spirit and Stories from the Greek Shores

Embark on an odyssey through the Greek Islands as I, Marcy Backhus, recount the unforgettable moments from my recent trip with my California church group, tracing the path of St. Paul. Picture the majesty of an eclipse in New York, the transition to the warmth of sun-kissed skin in sandals, and the profound appreciation for the resilience of spirit required to navigate the ancient sites of the Acropolis and Corinth Canal. As an older traveler, I've discovered the delicate dance between vigilance and voyaging, overcoming the strenuous ascents to serene monasteries with a steadfast heart. Join me for the episode where I share not just the sights but also the poignant emotions of conducting a sacred service amidst the waves, alongside lifelong companions.

As one chapter closes, another begins; "Aging Ain't for Sissies" wraps with a celebration of its landmark episodes, and I'm thrilled to unveil my new project, "Inside Marcy's Head." Listen to how a chance decision to forgo a ride from Uber in favor of local insight led to dining against the backdrop of a boundless ocean, a testament to the magic of serendipitous travel. And don't miss our conversation with the ever-engaging Nita Wenrick, as we tackle the intricacies of Medicare and more. It's a journey of exploration, not just through the storied landscapes of history, but through the evolving journey of this very podcast.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hello and welcome to the Aging Infosys podcast. My name is Marci Backus and I am your host. Well, I am coming to you from my stateroom on my trip to Greece. This is going to be just an episode about talking about my trip from Greece and a few other things. I'm sorry I have missed posting an episode the last two weeks. I'm going to be honest with you, life just got the better of me, but I do have some exciting news to share. So stay tuned, grab that coffee, grab that Diet Coke and meet me back here. Well, as I said, I am coming to you from my cruise here in Greece. I'm on my way to Santorini right now and I thought I've got to get an episode done and an episode up. So here we are. Traveling when you're older is an interesting thing, so we'll talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 1: 1:06

What's been going on with me the last few weeks was really getting ready for this trip, doing some shopping, since most of my clothes don't fit, so I don't. It sounds braggadocious, maybe it is a little, and I deserve it, but I had to. All of my spring summer clothes were not fitting great, so I had to do a little shopping. I did quite a bit of shopping when I was in California, enough that I had to buy a duffel bag to get those clothes home. But I have been on a trip. I'm here in Greece, landed in Athens.

Speaker 1: 1:36

Craig and I flew from Chicago to New York. We caught the eclipse in New York. I don't know if you got to see the eclipse. It's always an amazing thing. We weren't in totality, we were in, I think, 90%, 95%, but it's still an awe-inspiring thing. I think the most interesting thing is how much cooler it gets when that sun is blocked out, and it does really make you realize how much we count on that sun for everything. So I hope you got to see the eclipse. I was smart enough to pack some glasses on our carry-on so that if we saw it, whether we were in the plane or changing planes we would be able to enjoy it. So I hope you saw that we would be able to enjoy it. So I hope you saw that.

Speaker 1: 2:28

We landed in Athens and we are meeting well. We are with a group from our church in California, gloria Day Lutheran. We were all supposed to be in Israel in October and, as you can imagine, that trip got canceled. So instead of following in Jesus's footsteps. We are following in St Paul's footsteps and we have been on a tour of Greece. We started I couldn't even tell you I think we started Wednesday in Athens.

Speaker 1: 2:54

Craig and I got here Tuesday, wednesday, while we were waiting them, they landed in the evening. We rented a crew and a catamaran and had an awesome day out on the water here in Greece, had a beautiful Greek lunch that they prepared for us and just spent time in the sun and the beauty and after a winter no matter how easy or hard the winter was in Chicago by whoever's standards Chicago by whoever's standards it was glorious to be basking in warm and sunshine and wearing sandals and all the things that I miss. Those are things. Sandal season is very short in Chicago and that's okay. Like I said, I love Chicago and I'm doing great there, but I do love me some sandals, so it's great to have my sandals on my shorts, on um, to get a little sun before the trip so I don't look so scary. Um, that was kind of nice too. So we were able to do that.

Speaker 1: 3:52

Our friends came in on Wednesday night, so there's 30 of us touring the Greek islands and this is our last stop is Santorini. We started out. We did Athens for a day. We walked up to the Acropolis, which is something Craig and I have done before, but it is so magnificent. It was so great to do it with other people and enjoy that. We toured Athens. We also had gone out to Corinth and toured some areas there, saw the Corinth Canal, came back into Athens. We spent the night in Athens and got up and headed for a.

Speaker 1: 4:33

It's a small cruise ship, an older cruise ship. It's one that does three and four day island hopping here in Greece and we went straight to Mykonos what a beautiful little island. Got to enjoy a dinner on Mykonos and a little walk on Mykonos. Then we oh, it's been such a whirlwind. Where did we go? Yesterday? We went to Patmos. Oh my gosh, I can't even remember. We did two islands yesterday. We did an island. This morning we were in Crete. I did not get off this morning. I've been to Crete and I just took the day to kind of reevaluate my suitcase situation and all of that Enjoyed a day on the ship. We are now sailing full steam ahead to Santorini. We will get to Santorini and spend the evening in Santorini and then we will head back to Athens, where we will continue our road trip until, I believe, thursday.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Today is Sunday. We just had our church service, which was lovely. It's always nice to worship with people that you've worshiped with for 23 years. I've missed them. They are important to our family and it was getting a little teary. It was great to worship with them again and let's see what else. So it's been a whirlwind trip.

Speaker 1: 5:57

Well, let's talk about, you know, traveling when you're a little older. The thing that I find most difficult is I'm so afraid I'm going to trip and fall. So I'm trying to balance the looking at the ground versus looking at what's around me. Thank God for being in better shape and losing the weight. There's no way. Yesterday we went to a monastery and, even though we got a bus ride partway up, it was a long, steep walk up and a long steep walk down. But when you have someone in your group that's in their early nineties and doing it, you know what by golly I'm going to do it. But uh, you know, it's always that fear. You know, fear of falling anyways is a real thing for us as we get older in the United States, but when you're out of the country. So you know, this is on my mind all the time, ever since I took a bad fall when we first moved to Chicago.

Speaker 1: 6:54

And here we are, going up to this monastery and we're getting ready to go up these steps and there's a man laid out on the ground had taken a tumble, his name was father John and he was laying there waiting and we're all, and here's, all these people on a tour, and we're walking around him and trying to be polite and it was, it was something. So I felt so bad for him and, uh, you know that that just ended his trip and um, that's, you know, that's a fear that we have. So the other interesting thing is the balance of what you should bring and what you shouldn't bring on a trip. And I was talking with another um lady on our trip and she was talking about her medicine bag and all the different medicines she had, just in case, and I thought you know, that's really important.

Speaker 1: 7:41

Craig wasn't feeling really great. Might have, you know, some sort of urinary tract infection. I know TMI, but whatever, too bad, he's fodder, that's the way it goes. And we were able to get him some cranberry pills, which have been great, but our doctor refused to write a prescription, even though the Greek pharmacy said they would fill it. They wanted him to go to a doctor. And we're on a whirlwind trip, there is no stopping to go to the doctor. So, fyi, craig's feeling great had him cut out some acid and things like that.

Speaker 1: 8:12

But I really thought, you know, I need to prepare a bag of little extra medicines just when you take on a trip and put it to the side. I think we all have a few extra antibiotics that we either they gave us and they're like, ok, you're done whatever, or maybe you didn't finish them. I know, because of all the infections that I've had, I have a lot of antibiotics and it wouldn't hurt to just throw those in my bag. I've had, I have a lot of antibiotics and it wouldn't hurt to just throw those in my bag. So, being prepared and it it is, it has a totally different um connotation. When you're older, getting ready for a trip, um, the shoes you wear, uh, what you take is is something that you really have to have consideration for. So the other thing is, I see a lot of people with walking sticks.

Speaker 1: 9:00

I should have brought my walking sticks, I don't know I I know my friend Lynn told me to take my walking sticks and I forgot them. Um, it would give me some stability while I'm walking. I've been doing fine, but I think they're an extra assurance. So if you're getting ready for a trip like this, walking sticks are not a bad idea. Let's see my sunglasses broke. Now you can't always have a second pair of sunglasses, but it wouldn't hurt to throw in a pair. You can lose them. You know two pairs of sun. We're always worried about what's going to take up room. I think freaking sunglasses aren't going to take up much room, but I just bought a pair of sunglasses on the ship for a hundred dollars, like, okay, great, I haven't bought a pair of hundred dollar sunglasses in my life. I buy them from Amazon 15 bucks. So Craig goes, it's okay, it's a it's. You know it'll be your memento Cause.

Speaker 1: 9:50

I also don't buy a lot of things when I travel either. I did at this little store in Corinth. I I do like to usually buy a piece of jewelry, and I got an evil eye bracelet. The blue eye, um, and the blue the evil eye is, is to ward off evil. It's not to be evil or bring evil, it's to ward it off. Um, the last time I was here, cause my eyes are green but a lot of people say they're blue. Um, I say they're green, but a lot of people say they're blue. I say they're green. But they said I had the evil eye and I didn't know how to take that. But then it means that I am able to on my own ward off evil. I don't know if that's ever always worked for me, but it's nice to know, right? So if you have blue eyes, yay for you. And evil eye memorabilia is everywhere here.

Speaker 1: 10:38

Um, are you a buyer? When you're on vacation, do you buy all that crap? I do not, but I know a lot of people do. I also don't bring gifts back for those at home. Um, especially at this age, we're supposed to be getting rid of things. So it's not that I don't care about the people at home, it's just. That is just not my thing. It's never been my thing. I love to shop, but not on vacation. Um, I think jewelry is always nice, because when I wear that piece of jewelry, I remember that vacation. It's not a tchotchke or a nitchki or a or a hoochki that gets thrown away. One of the things I bought the last time I was actually on Crete was a towel for the kitchen that had some beautiful embroidery, and every time I use that towel in the kitchen I think of that trip. So I tend to like things more that bring back memories and help you remember that trip. So we'll see what Santorini brings.

Speaker 1: 11:30

I know a lot of the ladies were talking about shopping in Santorini. I don't know what I would buy, so we'll see when we get there. I know that Craig and I prefer to have a good meal. Are you those people? Are you those travel people that love a good meal? Or do you not care where you eat when you're on vacation? You're more of a shopper, or are you both? You love to shop and eat well. So we're going to be looking for a nice restaurant. We found a really nice one. Well, hold on, we got a ship announcement. We found a really nice one. Well, hold on, we got a ship announcement. Well, the ship's horn has gone off and in the time since I left you, we have gone to Santorini. And what a beautiful island, what a beautiful place.

Speaker 1: 12:12

We didn't get a lot of time there, but we made the best of that time. Our friend Matt Dubow, craig and I managed to snag a driver and his name was Elvis, and he got us to where we needed to be. We made it on the last tender, or second to last tender, back to the ship, so we didn't miss the ship. So all of that is good. What you learn from that is sometimes take a chance. We had no plan to get a driver, but when we got to Santorini, where our ship brought us in, we realized, wasn't the Instagrammable Santorini not the place where everybody goes and the beautiful villas all down with the blue roofs and the swimming pools off the edges? So we got ourselves a driver and he got us to that area and brought us back and got us to the cable car or gondola down to the ship. So to the ship tenders, which was quite a ride too on the way back to the ship.

Speaker 1: 13:12

But I'm back back on the ship. We are getting ready to sail tonight and we will end up back in Athens tomorrow and from Athens we're going to do Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday road trip, going to some more beautiful sites that St Peter excuse me, st Paul was at and learn a little bit more. So I guess the best message on this one is take chances when you travel. You know, don't be stupid, but take chances. We were going to get an Uber and this guy said I can give you a ride. And he didn't stab us and throw us over a cliff, so all is good. We used every minute we had here and I do not regret it, had a beautiful dinner over on a cliff overlooking the ocean and had a beautiful Greek salad so you never know what's around the corner.

Speaker 1: 14:07

So this is a short podcast, but I wanted to make sure I did a podcast this week. I hope everything is going well with you. And now here's the exciting news. The exciting news is I feel that the aging aim for sissies podcast has lived its course. I've done close to a hundred episodes, getting close to a hundred episodes. I feel like I've covered everything I want to cover. So I am going to be starting a new podcast at the beginning of May. I will definitely let you know. The name of it is Inside Marcy's Head Very scary place, but a fun place too. So I'm going to share with you thoughts and ideas and all over the map, I will still have our favorite, nita Wenrick, come and talk to us about social security I mean, I'm sorry Medicare. So you know we'll still have our favorites, but I feel that I need to rebrand the podcast. Hopefully we can grow our listenership that way and still have fun chats. So thanks everyone for listening and I am signing off from Santorini, greece.