Author Matthew Heneghan

Over the next several weeks I’ll be exploring each of these notes into their own stories.

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There’s a certain kind of romance that exists when you’re in another country. An unscripted honesty that smacks you in the face like heat and humidity. You realize, in an instant, how alike we all are — how much you share with a complete stranger. Neither of you understands a word the other is saying, but it doesn’t matter, because you’re standing in the footprints of sincerity. Where bullshit means nothing and honesty is the only currency that matters.

I think peace might be possible — if we could just step out of our own egos long enough to feel the love, and the strange familiarity, of somewhere different.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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I’m convinced, after wandering aimless and smiling through the streets of Athens, that there isn’t a mother alive without a broken back. That old fable we crooned as kids — step on a crack, break your mother’s back — feels like prophecy here. The streets are nothing but etched lines of time, scars from bygone eras and the countless wayfaring steps they’ve collected.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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Amid the ancient modernity, and unlike the tragedy of cities back home, litter doesn’t choke the streets like cancer cells here. People actually use the bins, and carry their wrappers if one isn’t close by. There’s a certain baseline respect and personal responsibility that seems to run deep among the people here — and I love that.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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Athens is that favourite fun uncle — the one with tattoos and the best stories. Every building wears an unsanctioned tale, sprayed in paint. Slogans of resistance, peace through defiance. A tattooed sprawl, all grit and insatiable character.

(Nites from Greece 2025)

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Food is a love language in Greece. The colours are vibrant — like a peacock in full display — but instead of boasting, they arrive quiet and seductive. It’s a home-cooked meal from your favourite grandmother, plated by an artist that never leaves a name for credit.

Each bite isn’t just food; it’s culinary hypnosis.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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At the risk of sounding like an old man — I’ve seen a lot of postcards in my day. And if I’m honest (which I can be from time to time), I never expected life to drop me inside one.

Greece.

It’s one of those rare places where even when you end up somewhere the locals call “boring” or “dull,” you still find yourself slack-jawed and wide-eyed. There’s so much beauty here it’s as if Aphrodite herself signed off on every square inch.

From the brown, craggy stones that shape the hillsides to the legions of olive trees standing proud and ancient. Fig trees that lean over fence lines like they’re offering contraband, practically daring you to take a handful. And the locals? They don’t mind.

This whole place both looks and tastes like somewhere too good for humans — but here they are. And though they might come off a little terse at first, they’re still some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met.

Sorry, Newfies.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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Some breakfasts feed your waistline. The breakfasts in Greece feed your soul — and then your waistline, just to be sure. It’s like a hug good morning… only with more bacon and pastry.

At forty-two, it’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I’m not sure I’d ever really met breakfast until I came here. Sure, I’ve had bacon — but not this bacon. Eggs — but not like these. Juice — but never this fresh, like it skipped the carton and came straight from the tree to my glass.

People have been telling me my whole life that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I never believed them… until Greece proved me wrong before noon.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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Anthony Bourdain — may his dear soul rest — once said: “Without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, and moribund.”

So guess what we did? Took the late, great Anthony at his word. Not just nodded and reposted it on Instagram — actually ingested it. As phenomenal as Athens is — and believe me, it’s phenomenal — we decided it was time to move on.

Not because we’d seen it all — we hadn’t. Not even close. But it was time to taste a slice of the pie less ordered. So we hopped a puddle-jumper to the island of Rhodes.

“Ródos,” as the locals say. Almond-shaped, sun-soaked, floating in the Aegean like it owns the place.

Here, the roads belong as much to cars as they do to goats. Yes, goats. Bastards don’t use turn signals, but they’ll give you a slow blink and a mouthful of grass that says, “I’m in charge here.”

When you’re not from here, every road is an exercise in wrong turn and oh, shit. The locals have a driving language all their own. To us, it’s chaos. To them… it’s still chaos. But it’s their chaos, and they wear it well.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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I’ve seen some strange pussy in my time.

Here in Greece — it’s everywhere. Roaming the streets like they own the place. Sometimes in packs, sometimes solo. Some friendly, some feral. Always crazy. Pussy is always crazy, in some degree or another.

Cats, people. I’m talking about cats. Jesus, keep up.

The Greeks haven’t historically viewed spaying and neutering the way we do in the West. So the feline population balloons and spills into the streets. They’re less pets, more fixtures of the community. Wayfaring roommates that pur… and hiss.

People leave food out in random corners. And instead of “here, kitty, kitty,” it’s more like a reluctant truce with that surly roommate who might share the couch with you one night and claw the hell out of your legs the next.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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This morning, as the sun yawned its way from sea to sky, spilling marigold and amber across the island, I wandered off — away from the tourist traps and the safety of the shoreline — onto a path that staggered like a drunk, winding its way into the mountains above the Aegean.

Less than fifteen minutes into the lung-burning climb, we stumbled across some rusted holdovers from the Second World War. Anti-aircraft guns, still standing watch all these years later like no one ever told them the war was over. We won. Jerry went home.

I stood there for a while, almost a relic myself, wondering who once manned that tin can of war. What had it seen? How many sunrises, how many pale moons, how many nights freckled with stars? Did it still recognize the world it once swore to protect?

Half the time, I barely recognize the man in my own mirror. I can only imagine how this thing feels. If it had knees, I bet they’d ache like mine on the loose rock and uneven ground.

The world was different then. Different, but the same. We still kill each other for God, for ideals, for invisible lines in the sand.

It’s strange, finding common ground with a rusted hunk of war metal. But maybe that’s the lesson — man’s greatest skill is his refusal to learn.

Still… the sunrise was beautiful.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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For much of my life, I hated the sun. Scratch that — hate’s too soft. I despised the thing. Every time its searing head popped above the horizon, mocking me with a radiant wink and smirk, I’d pull my shoulders to my ears and try to shrink out of sight.

To me, it was just a reminder: another day of going twelve rounds with myself. Hangovers, heartbreaks, flashbacks, funerals. Alarms that went off too early — or not at all. The sun was a smug son of a bitch: always showing up, always shining down whether I asked for it or not. It felt like an accomplice to suffering, spotlighting the kind of days you want left in the dark.

But unless you live under a rock — or in my case, a bottle of bourbon — you can’t outwit the sun. It arrives on its own schedule, stays as long as it wants, overstays more often than not.

So how is it that in 2025 I ended up on an island dedicated to the damned thing? By Zeus’s own hand, this land was pulled from the sea and given to Helios, the god of the sun.

Good question.

The answer is as poetic as it is unlikely — I met a girl.

Correction: the girl. The one we all hope exists but rarely find. And somehow, against years of self-sabotage, alcoholic shrapnel, and trauma as my tour guide, I stumbled my way from lost to found.

Fast forward to present, 2025, and we find ourselves sitting on an island soaked in sun on a family vacation that even the Griswold’s would eveny. And yesterday, under that relentless sun, I asked this magnificent woman to marry me. She said yes.

The sun was there, of course. Scorching, looming, watching the whole performance: the shaky knee bend, the stuttering tongue, the tears, the hug, the kiss. It lit the entire damn show.

And this morning, coffee in hand, I sat on the deck watching the sky paint itself in saffron, blush pink, violet, indigo. A seamless signature from God Himself, welcoming me into a new day — a new life.

As the night melted away and the sun climbed over the craggy silhouette of the mountains, I felt my old hatred loosen its grip. The marigold spilling across the sky didn’t feel like mockery anymore. It felt like a gift. An early wedding present, maybe.

Helios, you sly bastard — you might’ve just won me over.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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The other day, I went for a walk around an ancient medieval city. Never thought I’d start a sentence like that — but holy shit, it’s true. And even cooler than it sounds. Look at me go.

Rhodes Old Town: a place in defiance of modernity. Not in that annoying Twitter/X activist way — more like in a principled, dignified, reverent way. The castle walls still stand guard as they did centuries ago. Rough, sharp, like that war veteran who just sits on his porch and stares at everyone passing by. He may not say much, but you can feel his experiences bleeding through the silence.

That’s the castle of Rhodes. It doesn’t boast, doesn’t beg tourists to look. It doesn’t have to. It lingers where it was built, letting its magnificence do the talking. And it’s even more impressive when you learn that nearly six thousand people still live within those walls. That’s right — it’s not a museum. It’s still a city. A living, breathing one.

Walking those curving streets, you can’t help but feel echoes of what life must’ve been like back then — horses clopping, footfalls in chorus, voices carrying down stone corridors. It all feels romantic through a modern lens. But the reality? Those people lived hard. Every day was survival — of self, of community.

Man, if walls could talk, the stories here would drown you.

Sure, today there’s plenty of hawked goods and overpriced meals. Taverns humming with stringed instruments and mood lighting, every joint trying to be “the” flavor of Greece. It can feel overdone. But is it really so different from what they were doing centuries ago? Maybe we just wrap it in neon and convenience now.

That’s what I keep thinking about: how disconnected we’ve become from the people who brought us here. Was it ego? Myopia? Some slow erosion of respect?

Here, surrounded by antiquity, it’s easy to feel like you’re standing in an echo of timelessness. A faint reminder that maybe we’re not so different after all.

If you look hard enough, you can see lingering stamps — graffiti of the time — script from when the Ottomans ruled. Four hundred years, give or take. Then, by way of poetic irony, a marble slab erected in the center of one of the dining districts: a monument to the Jewish struggle and loss.

Today, we have trains scarred with vibrant paint smears, murals on walls that get argued over and repainted. HOA’s with Kevins and Karens demanding “uniformity.” Pretty sure that sort of thing would’ve gotten you beheaded in older times. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Either way, one thing’s painfully clear — we’re spoiled. Much of the world is, anyway. It’s easy to take for granted where we come from. Harder to admit that we do.

Here’s hoping we leave behind something worth a damn. Something more than a clever tweet, eh, Elon?

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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I learned something new today — sea glass. Now, for those of you who aren’t dumb like me, you probably already knew what that was. Me? At first I thought it was the latest Honda release.

The all-new Honda Sea Glass.

You know, one of those sneaky dog whistles to middle-aged dads everywhere, letting them know they can still drive something “cool” with the wife and kids strapped in the back.

Turns out, not even close. Sea glass is once-jagged shards of broken bottles and chalices, maybe a wine glass that fell from a yacht like some drunk sorority girl on spring break. Over time, the sea gets its hands on it — whittling, softening, smoothing the edges — until what’s left is an opaque, ocean-made gem. Sea glass.

One of those things that’s exactly what it sounds like, but still manages to mean more than you expect.

Today, I held an emerald shard of it in my hand. And as I floated in the Aegean, pruning fingers clutching that little relic, I couldn’t help but wonder: maybe the sea was trying to tell me something. Whispering its sermon through the waves.

You can take something shattered and jagged, something you’d swear was beyond repair, and if you give it the right environment — if you let time do its slow work — those edges smooth out. The broken thing becomes less about where it came from and more about the place it grew into.

Maybe it was heat stroke. Maybe it was the Mediterranean sun playing tricks on me. Or maybe it was just lived experience finally bubbling up into a little bit of optimism. Either way, that emerald shard is coming home with me.

I got you, little buddy.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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“Don’t pay now. Sit. Slow down. Eat. Enjoy.”

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been offered this kindly phrase in Greece. Extended like a warm handshake; it’s less a suggestion and more an invitation: turn off the westerner in you. Not given as a critique, mind you, but as an observation — and always paired with the perfect remedy: stop rushing.

And now, with only a few hours left in this land where modernity blends seamlessly with antiquity, those simple, polite words hit with a kind of profound weight. Or maybe I just overthink simple pleasures.

Truth is — eating in Greece isn’t just a meal. It’s an experience. A pause from life, traffic, chores, responsibilities… hangovers, for some. A moment carved out just for you. They don’t care only about your money. I mean, sure — they do, they’re not crazy. But first and foremost, they care about you as a person, not just a customer. That kind of respect is a lot rarer back in our North American consumeristic bustle.

I’m not writing this in judgment — more a curious observation.

Why do we rush through life? We hate standing in lines — and, to be fair, rightly so, because there’s always that one person nearby who seems to think deodorant and basic hygiene are for “other people.” But the point is, back home we’re always in a hurry to go nowhere. Whereas here in Greece — especially on the islands, Rhodes at least — the only things in a rush are the suicidal motorists on scooters, re-enacting scenes best left for Vin Diesel’s next Fast and Furious installment.

Other than that? Sit. Slow down. Enjoy.

And you know what? I think I will.

(Notes from Greece 2025)

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