the scribe

I am April Harrison Stoumbos, a lifelong student from an island town. Since growing up in such an isolated place, each move to a new city—Durham, Madrid, New York, and D.C.—and each venture outside of my comfort zone have helped me grow and learn about the world. Thus, the anthropology degree.

My love for travel started when my mom and I lived in a family friend’s townhouse in London for two weeks while I was into Harry Potter and Monty Python. After my mom died, some of my aunts took me abroad to relieve my dad and redeem my spirit. First to Mexico on a Disney cruise to practice my pidgin Spanish; then to New York City to climb the Statue of Liberty and see the Twin Towers; then to Paris, Venice, and Rome. Each place taught me how small and insignificant I was compared to their monuments to power and time, but also how I became part of the timeless, transcendent whole just by being there.

I married a Greek-American whose Yia Yia still insists she lives in her Athens apartment, where she spends a few weeks per summer, and not her son’s house in Alexandria where she lives for the rest of the year. Through coincidence and her insistence, we have visited Athens five times together now. From hostels and day trips with our college friends to family time and visits to the village to romantic getaways and destination weddings, we’ve done all sorts of travel through Greece and popped over into a few other countries along the way. This site is my insider-outsider perspective on Southern Europe.