Seabourn Food & Wine Cruise - Needed Now More Than Ever

Tomorrow I depart for my Food & Wine Cruise sailing on the Seabourn Spirit from Athens to Istanbul.
Boy do I need it.
With the stock market a disaster, housing prices down and going lower because no one will lend money, people having their savings and retirement accounts decimated...and I could go on...how could now be the time to "need" a cruise????

The answer is exactly why we tend to cruise in the first place:  To escape.  To refresh.  To Invigorate.  To clear our heads. 

It is for me, at least, time to be stepping back for a moment, to get away from CNN and to smell the fresh air and remember there is a reason that we live is to enjoy life and to find ways to remember that health and happiness is what really matters.

While I am very interested to see how the world's economic problems are affecting Athens, Istanbul and the Greek islands and Turkish towns I will visit along with way, what I am really looking forward to - honestly - is having a nice local wine in Santorini while sitting on the cliffside in a small taverna with nothing more than a plate of fruit with my wife by my side.  I am also looking forward to a morning in an ancient hamam (Turkish bath) as well as catching up with our "family" while we are in Istanbul.

Just thinking about these things helps me put the first paragraph of this post a little bit further toward the back and the joys of life just a little bit more toward the front of my mind.

To be sure, knowing I will be enjoying the luxury of extraordinary service and gourmet food while on the Seabourn Spirit does not hurt my efforts to be positive.  In fact, in a way I almost feel guilty that I will be.

But I digress!  The point is that I know when I return from my short trip I will be able to have a fresh perspective and that all the pundits, doomsayers (remember those who panicked and sold their portfolios before the big Dow run-up last week!), etc. will have had time to work through their machinations and probably will have moved on to the next problem or explain why the last "solution" was the wrong thing to do.  The rumblings of that are already starting.  (Remember, we were told on Friday that we had 7 days to give up $700,000,000,000 to the control of one person...and it is almost 7 days and we are still OK.)

So if you are thinking of cancelling a future cruise that you booked when things weren't so bad because you cannot conceive of how things might get better or how you can justify such a luxury in these times, I would suggest you take a breath, wait and see what happens right up until that final payment is due and then, but only then, make that decision.