Prologue: 1 week to go!

Hi there!
Thanks for tuning in for the New Adventures of the Wandering Gaijin!
For those of you who don't know, I will be spending 5 and a half weeks travelling through Greece and Turkey, with a short stay in London at the end, starting NEXT MONDAY, 13th July.
Wow - I can't believe that it's already come around! As company on my sojourn around the Mediterranean, I will have my trusty sherpa, William "Waldo" Street, and his beautiful bride to be, Eleanor "Dr Kavorkian for animals" Lee. When our powers combine I'm sure that there will be many hijinks ensuing, which I hope will entertain you and allow you to have a vicarious holiday.

The Greek leg of the trip will involve spending 3 days in Athens then 3 days on the isle of Skopelos and 1 week on the isle of Alonissos. Following this time spent slumming it up, there will be a considerable bus trip from Thesalonika, Greece to Istanbul, Turkey.
Apparently there is some big market in Istanbul, where people sell stuff... Not 100% sure, but I will have 5 days there to work out the lay of the land. Following Istanbul, we will be travelling to the ancient battlefield of Galipoli, where we will doff our hats and drink a VB while remembering those that came before.
Next stop will be Ephasus, where there are supposed to be the best preserved ruins of the Roman Empire, which should be rather impressive and I believe will drive Eleanor quote "batshit" unquote. Not quite sure how that works, but will hopefully have an update on that one coming up over the next couple of weeks.
The next port of call (no pun intended) will be Fethiye, a port town, funnily enough, where we will board the mighty vessel of Captain Ahab and chase great white whales... or at least that's what the brochure says... I get the feeling it loses something in the translation from Turkish to English.
Once we disembark from our 4 day cruise, we will spend a week in a villa in the small town of Kalkan. Oh, it's a hard life.
Following these couple of weeks spent around and on the Mediterranean, I will attempt to acclimatise myself back to Australia's weather by spending a couple of days in London. I promise I will NOT visit an Aussie pub, and I will NOT call anybody over there a whining Pom... well, I did have my fingers crossed, but let's see where life takes me.

Last Friday night was when it actually dawned on me that the planning stage of my trip was coming to a close, and the ACTUAL trip was about to happen. OMFG, I thought. Have I organised everything properly? Is my passport still ok? Do I have enough money? Is the accomodation all booked? Do I have enough pairs of underwear???

Once I had answered yes to all of those questions, a calm descended on me, and I started feeling like a little Zen Buddha, for I realised that I will be missing out on half of Winter. Ah, blessed warm weather - soooooo looking forward to you.

So, I will sign off for now, and keep you updated as time progesses.
I hope you enjoy staying up to date with the New Adventures of the Wandering Gaijin.
I know I certainly will.