Writing again

With my first round Storyball piece finally done, if a little short, I'm feeling especially accomplished. I got up early to vote, hit a doctor's appointment before work, and have been powering through a stack of submissions. I finally feel like I'm getting things done again, like I'm not just plowing through unending piles of papers. My desk isn't anywhere near to being emptied, but I feel in control again, so there's that.

Anyway, the last couple of weeks have been crazy. My mom's birthday was a week ago, and we took her out for a big dinner at an Italian restaurant in midtown that was being picketed, for some reason or another. Bad enough I felt like a scab going in for our reservation -- I didn't try to ask the reason, especially not when someone else was paying. Out of the conversation that night came my often-thought but never before mentioned (to my family, at least) desire to see Cairo in the 1940s.

Yes, I know time travel's still impossible. It's just -- I'd like to see the pyramids, and the Sphinx, and take a riverboat down the Nile, and I've read so much about Cairo in the pre-War period, that's the impression I have of the country. That's when I'd like to see it, not now.

So, I got to thinking: where else, and when, would I like to see places? Can I come up with five? Can you?

1. Cairo in the 1940s
2. The highlands of Scotland, pre-Culloden
3. Versailles, under Marie Antoinette (I'm very curious now!)
4. Elizabethan/Shakespearian London, not during plague season
5. Ancient Athens

Thoughts? Comments? Other suggestions?