It's Greek to Us!

Corfu
Nov 12, 2007

Ahhhhhhhhhhh, Greek soil! Feels so good! I swear I must have Greek blood in me somewhere (I know I don't, but I sure love anything Greek!)

We arrived in Corfu early this morning after a rocking night aboard the Star! Whew, it got a little rough on the Adriatic Sea last night. We are on the back of the boat and on the 12th floor and we can feel the wrockin and wrollin! Maybe we should change our handle to the "Wrollin Wraspirs"....nah!

Last night we went to the Italian Restaurant on board the ship....all I can say is WOW! So much food, so little room. We all groaned as we got up from that table! Then we went to the ship show, which was a great juggler. Normally, I don't like juggling acts (I do to many of them at home, but that is a whole other blog), however, this guy was good. After getting back to the room Al mentions that his left leg is bothering him. When I saw his leg I knew why! It was swollen HUGE, red and very hot. Oh oh, a trip to the doc in the morning.

This morning we were up and to the medical facility here on the ship before breakfast. Yes, he has edema in both legs, stomach, but not in congestive heart failure yet. The doctor put him on an IV of a massive dose of furosimide (lasix) and antibiotic. He stayed in the hospital room for over 3 hours this morning and he must stay on board for at least 48 hours. No tours for him...he must keep his leg elevated and stay off of it. We have to return to the medical office every 12 hours for it to be checked and for them to give him another dose of furosimide and antibiotic through the IV. What fun! He is feeling much better this evening and his leg has reduced in size considerably. I feel so bad for him not being able to tour, but he doesn't seem to mind. Doctor said between the flight and the walking he has done for the past two days probably brought this on. All I could think of was cellulitus, but she said it hadn't progressed that far. Had we waited another day it would have and then we would be in big trouble.

So after getting him settled, Jack, Suzi and I took off on our scheduled tour of the Island of Corfu. What a beautiful island -- and so Greek! DUH! Our tour took us first to a Kum Kwat distillery. Yup, more liquor tasting. This one today wasn't as bad as yesterday, but instead of tasting like Drano, this tasted more like cough syrup...we figured we were improving and by the end of the trip we may taste something we actually might like. From there our bus took us to the town of Placakostrista (spelling may be off on that one....maybe not enough vowels). This scenic little town is on the western side of the island. One of the Greek Myths is that one of the rocks just off shore looks like a ship and that Poseidon was angry at Odysseus (maybe) and turned his ship into a rock! Okay.... Then we started up this very narrow, winding wroad to the village of Lakona to view the scenery from way up high. Uh huh. The bus driver I must say was an EXCELLENT driver...thank goodness. The wroad had plenty of switchbacks and hairpin curves, and was very narrow. He navigated them all with no problems, other than most of us On the bus gasping and holding our breath. When we reached the little village the wroad was so narrow he missed the buildings on each side by less than an inch. At one point, there was a car parked in one of the wider spots in the wroad...the driver got by the car with no room to spare! Needless to say, all I could think of is what goes up, must come down and somehow we were going to have to get off this mountain. However, he took a different wroad down, much to the relief of the entire bus! The little village of Lakona was cute, we had a drink of our choice at the little restaurant and some different tasting walnut cake. It had some spice in it we couldn't identify, but it was good.

From there we went to Corfu town. Toured a bit of the old town, but by then it was getting dark and the ship was scheduled to leave in a short time so we came back to the ship. Very interesting island and another one I would like to come back to and spend some time.

We have been very fortunate so far on weather. When we were in Venice the weather was excellent, however the day before it had been cold, windy and rainy. Same in Dubrovnik. We thought our luck had ran out here as it was raining this morning, but by the time we took our tour the sun was out and it was warm. Hope our luck holds for the rest of the trip.

Tonight after dinner Al went back to the room to put his feet up, Suzi is in the casino and Jack and I are on the computers. Since the Internet is not free on board, and I still can't figure out how to send pictures, I may have to wait to send pictures when I get home.

Until tomorrow......which is Katakolona..............