I love to travel. And in my short(ish) life, I've been lucky enough to have seen some amazing places on this fine earth. Puerto Rico. Aruba. London. Paris. Cannes (for the Film Festival). Amsterdam. Munich. Sydney, a few times. My favorite New Zealand city to say, Putaruru. (Ok, not sure I've actually *seen* this place, but I've definitely seen a street sign directing me to it. POO-TAHR-ROO-ROO…what a great word!) Beijing (once for work, once for the Olympics.) Seoul. Pyongyang, North Korea. (Don't ask, it's a story best left for another day.) And now, after much wishing and hoping and thinking and praying (my respects to Burt Bacharach), I can finally say, Greece. 

My dear friend Maggie – she of MightyGirl fame – has created a life list, 100 things she wants to do before she kicks it. I think this is a wonderful, inspirational practice, and something that has remained on my "To-Do" list for way too long. In fact, I think I should get to that soon, shouldn't I? Enough about me, however. One of the items on Maggie's life list involved going to Greece…and here's where it gets fun.

Intel stepped in. As part of their Sponsors of Tomorrow campaign, they offered to help Maggie out with checking things off on her life list. And this trip did just that, and more. 

Along with the lovely Laura Mayes, we had a blast.

We made new friends.

We tried new foods.

We saw the sights.

We relaxed.

We partook of the local culture.

And we took photos..

OH YES, how we took photos. (You can see a pretty huge subset of mine here on Flickr.)

It was lovely.
It was BEYOND lovely.
I opened my computer two – yes, you read that correctly, TWO – times in two weeks. That's ONCE A WEEK for you non-math majors. Unheard of in this here internetty age o' electronic attachment. What did we do instead?

We read.

We wrote postcards.

And, ok fine, you got me, we *may* have texted now and again. 

After it all, we took our sun-kissed bodies and calm(er), relaxed minds back to our real lives, and the blue skies and waters of Greece have started to become a facsimile of their stunning, azure blue realities. But as Laura so aptly coined, Greece is the word. And what a word it is.

My endless, eternal thanks to Intel for sponsoring Maggie's dream, and helping make this trip possible for all of us. My tomorrows will never be quite the same after this jaunt. I dedicate all my nine-hundred thousand Flickr photos in beautiful, warm afternoon light, to the people there. Especially this one.