Free wifi!!!

We are in Piraeus, which is the port for Athens. And the terminal at which we are docked has free wifi of such potency that I can get it on deck on the side next to the terminal! For the first time, we have mildly unpleasant weather -- rain and temperatures in the 50s -- but I am feeling grateful to Greece for letting me download some new books (including Mark Twain's "Innocents Abroad") to the Kindle on my tablet. The terminal (where it is warmer and drier than on deck) is full of crew members connecting to family and friends halfway around the world. Being young, they fold easily down to sit cross-legged on the floor or on the footrests under the public phones or against idle security scanner tables and type with eager concentration. Their contracts have them on board for ten months at a time, and they seem to be continuously on duty while on board being efficient, courteous, and appropriately friendly to people, some of whom are -- I search for the appropriate term -- royal pains in the ass even to those of us. who don't have to be nice to them.

Now, do I dare read Mark Twain? Having read his version of travel writing, will I ever have the temerity to post my own again? I think I'll start with a Kinsey Millhone murder mystery instead. I have no ambition to do what Sue Grafton does.