What We Loved This Week: Def Leppard in Greece, Austrian Competence and Freedom in Colombia

Joanna Kakissis
I had a 20-year reunion with Def Leppard, who, along with Whitesnake, played at Karaiskaki Stadium (usually the raucous home of the Olympiakos soccer team) in Athens on Tuesday. It was great to hear the Greeks sing along to “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” a song that somehow sounds far less kinky in Athens than it did that summer in 1988 in South Dakota. Maybe it’s because I’m no longer a prissy high school student or because Greeks are far more in touch with their inner rocker than the prairie kids. By the time the Lepps played “Armageddon It” and “Rock of Ages,” my faves, I had somehow morphed back into the high-school me, with my giant perm, South Dakota flannel and hopeless crush on bass player Rick Savage. But this time, I was singing “Animal” with the Greeks, who knew all the words.

David Farley
If we know anything about Jesus, it’s that he was a prolific walker. His supposed worn-out sandals were venerated over in Rome’s Sancta Sanctorum and the footprints of a Jesus apparition that St. Paul saw have been miraculously preserved on the Appian Way in Rome. But now an Israeli and an American have recently etched out a 40-mile Holy Land hike called the Jesus Trail that lets trekkers literally walk in the footsteps (or, if you will, sandal steps) of Jesus (the man, the myth, the hiker). I’m not much of a religious man myself, but I think following the trail, which starts in Nazareth and goes through Arab villages and around the Sea of Galilee, would be fascinating. 

Elyse Franko
I loved the ease of applying for a residence permit at the Austrian embassy. There were no long lines, no clueless workers and no interrogations by diplomatic professionals. I just handed in my   paperwork and was miraculously back in the office before the end of my lunch hour.

Eva Holland
I’ve lived in four different Canadian cities, but I haven’t spent much time in rural Canada. My mom moved out to the country north of Lake Ontario pretty recently, and visiting this week, it’s been fun driving the empty backroads, or picking up local meat and produce at the village store. The only downside? Deer flies.

Jim Benning
Like much of the world, I loved seeing the reports of Ingrid Betancourt and the 14 other hostages freed from captivity in Colombia. Among the funny tidbits noted in this Los Angeles Times story: some of the national army soldiers masquerading as rebels for the rescue chose to wear—what else?—Che T-shirts. Even Betancourt was at first fooled. Anyway, Colombia has been near the top of my travel wish list for some time. Apparently the FARC can still do some damage, but one Colombian official was quoted as saying, “We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.” Even Anderson Cooper mentioned last night on CNN that he’d recently been in Colombia on vacation and had a grand time. That’s some good press. It’s all further evidence, I hope, that Colombia’s best days are to come.

Michael Yessis
Another so-funny-it’s-painful report from the Onion News Network: “Bush Tours America to Survey Damage Caused by his Disastrous Presidency.” Watch out, Denver, he’s coming your way.

©2009 World Hum, All Rights Reserved