I'm bringing Xanga back - drop a comment if you're with me!

we're in switzerland, we've already bought our chocolate and swiss army knives.  unfortunately, i have 12 little souvenirs from italy, all of them itchy and red.  stupid mosquitoes. ok, we're heading toward gimmelwald today, a tiny town with no internet cafes.  so'll talk again in paris!    hey dad, can someone pick me up on wednesday around 1?  either you or mom.

hey all, some pictures that i finally managed to upload.  only a few.  the rest later.

 

Barcelona

 

Nice

The first town before CinqueTerra, don't remember the name.

 

Today: we are now in Mykonos after a very interesting ferry ride from Athens.  First of all, we barely made the 7:30 am ferry, ada and philllis were on the ramp as it was being raised up.  Then just as we were settling in, an overhead announcement came on asking if a doctor was on board.  Phil and I just looked at each other.  We had had this conversation just a few days before, when in the airport at Milan to Greece, a man felt faint and a doctor was asked for.  But he looked fine and was breathing, so we didn't come forward.  It was generally agreed among us that we wouln't feel comfortable coming forward until we had a year's worth of experience as physicians.  I figured on a boat of a couple hundred people, one doctor would come forward.  However, when they overhead paged a physician again, i thought, what the heck.  Let me see if anyone showed up, and since I look about 18 (confirmed by several europeans), they'll probably just laugh at me anyway.  So I go, and they're like this woman (about 20) is having difficutly breathing.  It was just me, no one else, and the passenger only spoke greek.  I thought "darn."  Translations were a bit rough, provided by the attendant, but I got that she was having some difficulty breathing, and while not nauseus, she felt very thirsty and that her throat was very dry.  She didn't have asthma, was not having a panic attack, and had felt like this for an hour.  Then I asked if she took any medications, and she pulled out an insulin injection kit.  Then i thought, "oh $#%$#", she's a type I diabetic, she's in DKA, and she's going to go into a coma on this 5 hour boat ride.  A couple nurses from portugal showed up and we all agreed that she needed to check her blood sugar right away.  It was high at 366, but not outrageously high.  However, she reported that she's occasionally into the 500's without symptoms, her symptoms now were likely caused by some other stressor.  Her doctor had never told her what symptoms to expect when hyperglycemic or what to do.  Bleh.  So she got 7 units of short acting insulin, we kept her hydrated, and monitored her blood sugar and vital signs every 30 mintues.  In two hours it went down to 260, although not great, it kept her from being hypoglycemic and she felt better. The boat docked at Syros and she went to see a doctor, feeling better.  Thank goodness, I nearly had a heart attack myself on that boat.  Next time I'm stapling the insulin sliding scale to my forehead. 

After checking in, we went to Paradise beach for a few hours. The water is suprisingly cold here!  Clear but cold.  The best part was lying in lounges having fruity cold drinks while reading a book.  Tomorrow, we beach hop!