Thank you for all your good wishes for my time away- I am back working and all caught up on my many emails now.
I thought I would do a brief recap of my holiday, and also talk about the conference, my reason for being there! I will have a few more in depth posts about certain parts of the conference over the next week or so, until everyone is thoroughly sick of hearing about it.
Flying to Greece was pretty brutal- we went from Auckland to Singapore, and then a direct flight from Singapore to Athens- which didn’t leave until nearly 2am Singapore time. Once in Athens we had another flight to get to Santorini, so it was about 42 hours from the house in Auckland to our hotel in Santorini.
Santorini is beautiful, very hot, but also incredibly dry and it was very windy. I walked up to Ancient Thera, some ruins on top of a cliff but couldn’t really look around because of the wind. We also did a tour and got to see some of the local churches and walk through the villages, up to the castles where the locals would shut themselves in if pirates were seen, and through the narrow streets where even today donkeys are the only way to transport goods.
After three nights, and getting over our jet lag, we flew to Thessaloniki for the conference. There was a welcome drinks on Thursday night, where I met many of the Australian contingent from the Aurum Project. The conference had various sessions, including Basic Research, Clinical Research, and Veterinary and Agrohomeopathy. Basic research looks at homeopathic remedies and how they affect cells in the lab, and testing for potency. Clinical research is trials using homeopathy for certain conditions and looking at the people using homeopathy. Veterinary is animals and Agrohomeopathy the use of homeopathy for agriculture and plant production. I took extensive notes, so expect to see some in depth posts about these different areas also. My poster presentation also went well, with quite a few people coming up to talk to me – some of the identified challenges for homeopathy are mirrored in many other countries unfortunately. Three days of conference was magic, but there was also the networking. I met Homeopaths from all over the world, made some really amazing connections, and have so many more ideas and plans for future research. I took every opportunity, going to both the Friday night dinner and the Gala dinner all dressed up (and dancing til 2am).
The conference finished on Sunday, and I was exhausted after staying up late dancing, which I haven’t done since I was in Uni! It was our last day in Thessaloniki though, so instead of having a nap when conference finished, I pushed through and went sightseeing. (Did you read my post from last week about the pillars of immunity? I should have taken my own advice!)
I ended up sick, with a flu-like virus. I put this down to the lack of sleep, but also down to dryness of the air, which I’m not used to, constant air conditioning, and exposure to cigarette smoke. This has been a trigger for me since I was a child, and unfortunately at one of the dinners there was a smoker at my table I couldn’t move away from, and when out for dinner on the Sunday night there were smokers everywhere. I took Arsenicum Album, which did really help with the fatigue and initial stages including the tightness in my breathing.
The next day we hired a car and drove to Meteora. We stayed in a little village, Kastraki in a 200 year old guesthouse. This was fantastic, and we were able to turn off the air conditioning and just have the windows open. The next day we did two half day tours, morning and sunset, to see the Monasteries. They are amazing, built initially in the 14th century, then rebuilt after 200 years, they are still active monasteries and nunneries, and built on these amazing sandstone rocks. We climbed many many many stairs to see them, but it was so worth it. The other notable thing in meteora was at lunchtime I had an asthma attack- my first in 30+ years, triggered by cigarette smoke. Mum had brought a salbutamol inhaler with her in case and this did get me out of it. It was also the worst part of that virus, after that I did improve. Self-treating with homeopathy can be hard though, and I’m sure if I had taken the time for a consult, or taken remedies I did self-prescribe more regularly I would have improved faster!
The next day we drove to Athens, where we had an apartment in Psyrri. We kept the car for another day and went down to Ancient Corinth (ruins), Mycenae (more ruins) and the Corinthian Canal (engineering feat). Then I returned the car and we had a sightseeing day in Athens, and then a tour of Delphi and the temple of Apollo. Our last day in Athens was quiet, walking around he flea markets and shops.
Before we leave Greece I need to rave about the food- it was amazing. We solely ate Greek food, and found an amazing restaurant in Athens we went back to for all four nights and tried different food each time. We almost always got different things, so we could try everything. Standouts were the Santorini salad, Greek salads (with large blocks of feta on top), Moussaka, and rice stuffed peppers and tomatoes. Come summer I’m going to be searching for some recipes to replicate some of them!
We left Greece early on Monday morning, flying the wrong way to Zurich and then through to Hong Kong. We had 13 hours in Hong Kong so we got out and did a tour- at times nearly falling asleep on it, but it was good to get out of the airport, keeping busy and enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. We went to Tai O fishing village, and to Po Lin Monastery then caught the cable car back to where we started. I climbed over 100 more steps up to the base of the Buddha, and we were lucky to be there on the last day of the lotus festival with all the beautiful flower arrangements in the open temple of 10,000 buddhas.
We were on Air NZ home, then I had more time before I caught my flight to Kerikeri. I had an amazing time, but I am also glad to be home with my family, and, I find the dampness of our climate suits me! My sinuses and lungs stopped producing mucus once I got out of the dryness of Greece.
Jet lag was definitely more pronounced coming back, but after 11+ hours sleep on the Thursday night I was much more ‘normal’ and no back into the swing of work (while juggling school holidays!) However, I also now need to make time to see my Homeopath, to sort my lungs out, and my Chiropractor, to make sure there is no physical compression, and between the two make sure I’m back to my normal healthy state.