The perfect blue for Greece

By Quynh Vu · July 7, 2026 · 2 minute read

I'm writing this from Underdog, a coffee roastery in Athens, with my little brass Traveler's Company pen. It's the pen that lives in my bag: small, solid, gets prettier the more it gets banged around. It also came with exactly one cartridge and no way to use bottled ink, which, for someone with an ink shelf, is a problem.

The converter that almost fits

So I added a converter. Here's the honest part: the lever on mine is a touch too long for the barrel, so it's not a perfect fit. There's a foldable converter made for compact pens like this one, and it's on my list. In the meantime, the almost-right one works fine. I wasn't going to let a few millimeters stop me from using my own ink on this trip.

Why Sapphire, why here

Before we left, I filled it with Pelikan Edelstein Sapphire. I didn't fully plan this, but sitting here, it's exactly right. It's the same blue that's everywhere here, the water, the doors, the domes. Every page I write on this trip is going to have a little bit of Greece in it.

That's honestly why I love bottled ink so much. A ballpoint writes the same everywhere. But when I flip back to these pages next year, this blue is going to bring the whole trip back.

The takeaway, if you want one

Match your ink to your moment. Trip to the coast, bring a blue. Autumn at home, bring a brown. It's the cheapest souvenir there is, and you can keep making it after you get home.

Quynh