Meteora!!

Check out that location! The Greek alphabet is about a million times more confusing than I was even beginning to suspect coming into the country. I thought that those math symbols I used years ago would give me some stable footing in interpreting, but nope. I get so lost following street signs in this country, and I was trying to keep oriented on the bus rides, all for naught.

I'm in my hotel room in Kalabaka right now, 3 km away from Meteora. Even though I took a bunch of pictures, you should really goggle the place to see some professional ones. They have a better chance of doing this place justice than my phone will! It's absolutely incredible here. The cliffs jut out of the landscape like hunched over giants. The monasteries at the top are stupefying, making you wonder how in the world they were made -- especially since the stairways I climbed up are relatively modern additions, meaning that before they were carved into the side of the cliffs to afford tourists an easy way up the only way to get to the top of the cliffs were by getting hauled up in a basket.



I got into Kalabaka yesterday evening, having taken an insane 7-hour bus trip together here from Delphi. I had originally wanted to take the train, which would have been a much easier 4-hour ride, but the strikes going on included nation-wide train transportation. The bus was comfortable enough, just long. When I got into town, all the monasteries had closed for the evening (they close pretty early, most of them around 3:30) so I just hiked up to the gates of the first one and took some pictures, and then ran back down like a crazy maniac!

I stopped by a climbable hill and did some amateur rock-climbing until it got too steep, and then I just relaxed from my vantage point for a bit. The view here is phenomenal. The cliffs are in sight from almost every corner of this small city.


This morning, I got up bright and early to start my day-long hike. I reached the first monastery, getting there at about the same time a busload of grandparents drew up. It made me really, really appreciate the fact that I got to see these places when my knees are still very spry and my legs strong. I made it up the >100 steps, peered curiously through the place's small chapel, enjoyed the view from the top, and then started heading back down just as their group made it to the top, huffing something terrible.

From the first monastery, the 2nd one is actually quite a distance away. It took me about a half hour to get from my hotel to the first one; as I started hiking up the road heading to the next monastery, a taxi drove up next to me, asking if I wanted a ride. When I said no, thanks, the driver added that "for free" :) awesome! I jumped in and off we went, cutting out about an hour of uphill walking from my day. He drove me up to the biggest of all the six, Great Meteora Monastery, and I spent over an hour there. I felt like a bit of an intruder when I walked through the Orthodox chapels -- they're so ornate, so decorated, with tons and tons of paintings everywhere as if the monks were scared of leaving any wall untouched. They don't let you take pictures anywhere inside the museums or the chapels that they have, but I got tons of pictures of the fantastic views from these very high places.



The monasteries don't let women in who aren't wearing skirts, so if you show up in pants they lend you a weird wrap to wear over your clothes. Same goes if your shoulders are bare -- you get this weird shawl that you're supposed to wear the entire time you're in there. I just saw hoards of women wearing the same skirts and holding on to the same shawls, it was pretty amusing. For myself, I was prepared with a long skirt and the man behind the ticket counter gave me a smile for it.

I visited another monastery right below the Great Monastery, got some more great views in, and then started another ridiculously long trek to the 4th monastery I wanted to visit. Originally, there were some 20 odd monasteries up in these cliffs, dating back to the 1300's or so; now there are only six still remaining, all of which are living monasteries where monks still live and devote their lives to prayer.


The last monastery I wanted to visit was on the way day. The taxi driver has pointed down a road we passed to where there was a monastery, but added that it was too far to walk to. While I was walking, an old man on a scooter pulled up and asked if I wanted a ride to the next monastery and his little 50cc. He ended up giving me a lift to this far-out monastery, which was very cool and had gorgeous gardens, and which was given to women vice men. I guess that makes it a nunnery instead of a monastery. There were roses everywhere in that one! The old man waited while I wandered for just under an hour, and then he gave me a lift all the way back down to town, cutting out about... I don't know, like 4 hours of walking from my day? It was very nice. H told me how to say "thanks" in Greek, but by the time we'd gotten down to the bottom of the hills and back into town, I'd completely forgotten.


With all the rides, I got back to my hotel very much earlier than I was planning, and I had nothing else really to do. I took a shower and walked through the streets of the town for a bit. Kalabaka is very, very small. There isn't very much to do here aside from hike back up to Meteora. I ran into my scooter-driving friend again while he was sitting with the rest of the old men outside a cafe, sipping at their coffee cups. I gave him an enthusiastic wave as I walked by.

I ended up grabbing a gyro and stopping in a park, sitting on the blocks of an outdoor theater as I read "War and Peace" on my phone. I started reading it about a week ago, using it to pass the time during plane and ferry and bus rides. I've gotten 1/5th of the way through it and, while I can't pronounce any of their Russian names, I really enjoy it. I stayed out there until the bugs started coming out.

It's so peaceful in this place. The cliffs remind me of tall men reaching towards the skies, or maybe just of tall buildings which I'll now forever associate with Howard Roark and man's ability for greatness. The people here are very friendly and very slow, without the bustle that was in Athens. I think, thought, that in a way similar to what I felt on the islands, I will quickly grow suffocated with the smallness of it. I'm leaving tomorrow, heading to Thessaloniki, a city on scale with Athens.



I wish I could replace this blog with nothing but pictures. Seriously, Meteora robs me of all my poetry. I feel both small in comparison to their physical greatness and clumsy with my words in comparison to the beautiful song of their being. I've struggled this entire blog to come up with the right things to say and have butchered the attempt, I know. I'm so glad to have seen this place. I so glad to be here.

Location:Καλαμπάκας-Καστρακίου,Kalabaka,Greece

The Oracle

I consulted the Oracle, asking what futures lay in store for me, and only silence answered, the stillness of a centuries-old quiet. My question returned to me in an echo, the words distorted and vowels elongated -- I will take it as my answer regardless.

It is a beautiful place, this City of Delphi, beautiful in a way I don't dare try to fully contain with words. It's not nearly high enough in the mountains of Greece for that to be it's most impressive fact, nor is the hike to the archeological strenuous enough for it to be the featured description. The ruins are very near totally ruined, nothing but huge blocks of stone thrown about the place almost carelessly. Anything of value has been long since excavated and removed to the museum which was closed by the time I made it into town. I get the feeling that they took literally everything that they could move, picking at the site like hyenas at a kill, leaving only the bare bones remaining.

Those bare bones, though, are chillingly awesome.


I may be somewhat vulnerable to the mystical mood, and it helps that Apollo was brother to Artemis, whose Roman self shares my name. I love the stories involved with these sites, historically true but seeming more like a fantastic piece of fiction nowadays. Kings and emperors consulting the Oracle before wars, before peace, before resettling an empire (in the case of Constantinople). And walking in the steps leading to the Temple of Apollo to where the Oracle was supposed to have done the most prophesying, I felt like I was walking through the words of a fantastic dream.

There really wasn't much to see on the archeological site and I finished walking through it in just about two hours. The most impressive things to me were the remaining pieces of the Temple of Apollo. Only a few columns remain, but the coloring was such a contrast to the mountains and sky that I stared for quite some time. When I finally stood to go, I felt like I was shaking myself awake.



Below the official archeological site, there are two more excavations that I guess didn't make the cut. One is an ancient gymnasium and the other is a sanctuary dedicated to Athena. When I got down the the gym, I couldn't help myself and broke out into a run, feeling like a wild thing finally set free. I'm pretty sure I looked like a fool but it was just so, so refreshing! The wind in my hair, the feeling of firm ground beneath my feet, a sense of the ghosts of ancient Olympians joining my side for a brief rush -- it was so amazing! I'm committed to waking up early tomorrow to watch the sun rise over this ancient gym and getting in at least another lap around it. I imagine that Achilles is to my left, Hercules to my right, that the strength of the Titans seeps up through the soles of my sandaled feet. Plus, the view is breathtaking. If I could regularly go to a gym situated amidst green, gorgeous hills, I would go every day.



To get to Delphi, I caught a bus out of Athens at 1pm. I managed to sit in the front row, getting what I think is the best seat on the bus. It was just under a 3 hour ride. Delphi is a tiny, tiny town. My hotel is right by the bus stop, so I managed to drop all my things off and walk to the site less than a km away, getting there at just about 4pm. After walking through the ruins, I headed back to my hotel at just before 8pm, with the sun slowly beginning it's inevitable descent.

There was a group of guys ahead of me, all stopped and staring intently down to the ground, cameras out. When I passed them, I saw that it was only because of a huge grasshopper that they were all so excited. One of the guys noticed me noticing them, so I casually threw out, "Didn't realize you guys were so into bugs!" as I walked by.

A few minutes later, when I'd stopped by the cliff-side of the road, stopped by the fantastic view, one of the guys jokingly called out "Don't jump! Life is too beautiful!"

We ended up walking back to Delphi together. Most of them were related in some way or other, being all French with one Greek friend. it was a very enjoyable walk back. We parted ways when I continued on to the town center and them turning towards their car, heading back to Athens. meeting them and talking with them made me very happy especially since they were just normal people. A few of the pele in my hostel last night were weird, like a kid from Amsterdam who talked like a puppet and a pair of Spanish girls who wouldn't stop giggling. I can't wait until Andreina gets here.

Until then, I'll start working out! Perhaps this inspiration is the Oracle's answer, coming to me like a whisper across the wind. Perhaps the land is the inspiration itself, touching me the same way it touched those ancient Greeks. If Delphi was this great, I'm even more excited than ever for my trip to Meteora tomorrow!

Location:Delphi, Greece

The Ladies

I couldn't get back to sleep last night after Skyping home. It was just about 3am as I rolled into my dorm bed... And my body was awake. Wide awake.

It wasn't supposed to be. Aside from it being unbelievably early in the morning, I hadn't gotten much sleep beforehand. Sure, I had gone to my hostel at about 9-ish, meaning to get in a few hours nap and wake up just before 2 for the call home. Instead, my body stayed awake. I read some, listened to some music, and then pointlessly stared up at the bunk above me. Sometime near midnight, I finally drifted to sleep only to jerk awake minutes before my alarm went off.

At the time, I figured it was for the best, that I'd be tired enough after the call to immediately drift back to sleep. 3am turned into 4am, which turned into 5am. I wasn't alone in my sleeplessness, either; in the other beds, I could hear people tossing restlessly the entire night as well, as if someone had cast a sleep of sleeplessness on our room. The first thing I heard when I woke up was another girl bitterly complaining about how little sleep she'd gotten.

My day, consequently, was a little drab. I spent the morning walking through the open-air market of Athens' Central Street. The place is enormous, and the food is all awesome! If I lived here, I would do all my shopping on these few blocks. There were easily 20 or more different stalls for fruit alone, that many more for vegetables (including half again as many devoted simply to olives). Across the street was the meat market under what looked like an abandoned train station. There were as many meat vendors as the fruits and vegetables combined, and they were just as pushy in their sales as I'd been warned.

Imagine walking down a street crowded with nothing but fresh produce, and at each stand there is a man shouting at you in Greek. I have no idea what they were saying, but I imagine it was something like "Buy my stuff!"

The prices also were very tempting. You could get 3 kilo of tomatoes, fresh as if they'd just been picked that morning, for only 1€. I'm not sure what that converts to, but when I also saw a dozen eggs going for 0.12€, I knew it's quite a bargain.

I didn't take any pictures of either market as I got the feeling it wasn't really a place that would appreciate it. There weren't many other obvious tourists there, probably because the vendors are very pushy. I have, however, developed quite the stare-down myself and have been able to adopt a "Don't expect me to acknowledge you" expression that scares off most people. I never knew a mean look could come in handy so well!

Right next door to the food stands were tons of birds and other small pets for sale, like rabbits and chipmunks. They were all just piled up in their cages, dozens of them at each stall, all squawking indignantly. I saw a bunch of miniature turtles for sale at 10€ and I was so, so tempted to get one, carry it in my pocket, pet it at night... Alas! I'll have to go to Mexico next spring and get one there -- they're so, so cute!

I spent a few hours walking through all the stands. In addition to foods and pets, there are also tons of knock-off purses, dresses, sunglasses, and flea-market type of products, all for very cheap. If I was flying home tomorrow and didn't face the prospect of lugging my purchases on my back for the next two months, I probably would have spent a fortune and brought home a ton.

In the early afternoon, I decided to take a walk to the long-distance bus station and get my ticket to Delphi for tomorrow, provided that they were still going to be driving in spite of the general strike. I wasn't exactly sure where it was but I thought I knew the general direction of the bus station. 45-minutes later, when I'd done a massive circle only to land back at my hostel, I went in and grabbed a map, and then set out again with real directions leading me the way. The problem, which I didn't take note of before heading out, was that the map I had led me all the way to the last street I needed, but that my destination itself was off the map! And on that last street, I had to walk about 10 blocks blindly hoping that I hadn't passed it, relying on my amazing powers of intuition and observation.

I did make it, though, and got my tickets. The lady behind the counter didn't look like she wanted anything to do with me, which is just weird, but luckily another guy came by just then and pretty much forced her to do her job and sell me a bus ticket. She gave me a sour look the entire time.

Her irritation with me put me in a wondering mood, which led to me making a striking observation for my walk back: that, it being early afternoon, there were tons of people lounging around the city, sitting on benches, eating lunches in restaurant patios, walking the streets, etc, but that they were all men.

I hadn't noticed on my walk to the bus stop. It's a special station served by a private company and is approaching the outskirts of Athens' northwest side. Walking back towards the city center, I was really struck by the utter lack of other women walking around and at the overwhelming amounts of men who were, for lack of any other evidence, humming it up. Some of them were sitting on the sidewalk, some were leaning up against trees, some were just propped up against the next building, but they were all guys.

I have no idea why there were so many men just hanging out. It was still early afternoon, about 2:30pm, too early (I think) for work to be out.

The closer I got to the city center, the more women I started seeing, first in small smatterings and groups, and then more regularly. It wasn't until I was very close to the city center that I started seeing a more even population between the genders. I'm trying to figure out where all the women are from the other part of town. The shop owners are slightly uneven, with a slight majority being men; the food vendors were all male. Even as I started seeing more girls in the city center, it's hard to judge how many are tourists versus locals.

Maybe this is just a weird twitch of mine to be devoting so much time to, but it's really, really weird to walk through about 20 blocks of a major city and not see another woman. I didn't feel threatened, I didn't feel like I should be worried about it, and on the walk to the station I didn't even notice it really, so that's not why I'm spending so much of my thinking on it. And there are plenty other parts of the city that I haven't been too -- maybe all the ladies work there (not to make it sound like a red light district!). Who knows. It just was really, really weird, and I'm intensely curious about it.

That was my day, really low-key. After I got back from my bus-walk, I pretty much passed out like a dead person for over an our. Then I grabbed another delicious salad and visited my rooftop bartender Edwin again, watching the sun go down once more and the Acropolis get lit up in the evening. The strike starts tomorrow but I'll be on my way to Delphi! A bunch of people here at the hostel are knocking their heads together trying to figure out how to get to the airport, if their flights have been changed or cancelled even, how to get to the island with the ferries also being on strike. I consider myself fairly lucky, especially after I found out that the day I got a ferry Santorini to Athens was supposed to have been another strike but it was called off at the last minute!

I have a lot of sympathy for the Greek people, but I also know that their policies and attitudes are what's lead them to this position. There is a lot of apathy here to how the government runs things, a very pessimistic apathy, in the "that's the way things have always been, there's nothing we can do to fix it" vein. There's also a certain resistance to change and a great deal of excuse-making for problems. I don't know if I told this story but I'll tell it again anyway:

While I was on the islands, I was astounded by the sheer number of emaciated stray animals that wander around despondently, absolutely heedless of the human population as they trudged the streets. The cats are everywhere, the dogs are everywhere. They lay down in the middle of the sidewalk, they gather in the trees' shade, and they'll walk down the sidewalk in such a way that you're the one moving out of the way. Here in Athens it slightly less noticeable, but the dogs are bigger and they're still everywhere, even in the ruins, scouting for food, very hopelessly wandering the streets. It's extremely sad.

Yesterday, while I was talking with my Canadian family, the father mentioned how he had to switch hotels because the dogs howling outside his room kept him from sleeping. Before he'd moved, though, they'd tried to get the police to do something about this wild pack of stray dogs that had set up camp underneath his windowsill.

The cop they found, however, refused to do anything about it. "Some of the animals that look like strays actually belong to someone," was his excuse, "and if I take them away, then instead of having 20 dogs howling at me, it'll be 20 people, plus their mothers. And no one has any money to pay if I try to charge them to get their animals back." So the Canadians moved to a new hotel and the dogs got to stay where they were, howling at the next resident.

The Canadians were shocked by the cop's attitude, especially since it was the Greek son, from that island, talking so they couldn't blame it on them just being tourists. They have the same sort of animal control system as the states and figured that not only would it be a better solution for all involved but it would also prevent animals from dying of starvation right on people's doorsteps.

I feel like a rant is about to come on :) sorry! I sort of lost my point somewhere in the puppy story. At any rate, Greeks have tons of excuses and little to show for it. Much of that is the governments policies, and much of that is driven by a decades-old system of kick-backs and favorites. So they have my sympathy but only to a certain extent.

Location:Athens, Greece

Another Afternoon in Athens

As I'm grabbing some cereal for breakfast this morning, I look around the hostel and see one empty table remaining near the front windows -- it has an almost empty cup of coffee on it, but no one actually sitting at any of it's tables. So I put my cereal bowl down, go back to grab some coffee for myself, and imagine my surprise when I turn around to see that my table is now being occupied by a large, red-faced and peeling older man! Not to be deterred, I sit at my side opposite him, display a polite smile, and then get around to eating my breakfast.

He asks me if I speak French. Bewildered, I say no, and in very broken English he introduces himself as a French Canadian from somewhere between Quebec and Montreal. For the next two hours, I have one of the best breakfasts so far in my travels, what between our trouble at communication and our combined pleasure at trying to share each's experience thus far in Greece. He'd stayed on the isle of Crete with his son-in-law's family. When he realized that my iPad could access a map (I'd brought it to breakfast with me to upload my latest pictures) he was positively thrilled and got an enormous kick out of being able to zoom into the spot that they'd vacationed at for the last month. He was there with his wife and two daughters, one of whom was married to the Cretan. The whole family gradually joined us, along with a 9-month old baby girl who reminded me something fierce of Julie.

The married daughter and her husband spoke near-perfect English and everyone was nothing but thrilled to be in Greece. The attitude is absolutely infectious -- if I hadn't already been thrilled to be in Greece myself, just sitting with them would have changed my mind. As was, they put me in such a good mood that my entire day started off on a high note.

Not even hearing word of a possible 48-hour general strike starting on Tuesday 6/28, the day I planned on leaving for Delphi, and lasting through the next day when I'd planned on making my way to Meteora, was enough to upset me, though it did make me do some research to see if the long-distance buses I was planning on taking were still going to be running. I'm fairly certain at this point that they are, though I'll have to check again tomorrow just to make sure. And it's possible at this point that the strike will be called off as have the last few called-for strikes, apparently. There is nothing but grumbles and groans about the Greek economy these days. I've read so many news articles about it, listened to many Greeks and their individual views about their country's troubles, about what sort of future is in store. Some young people I've heard from are quite depressed and think their only future lies outsider the country.

At any rate, I'm not going to solve any problems myself and I've got sights to see at the moment!

Today was a fair turn from yesterday. It's as if the sun, herring my many complaints about it's terrible het and reading my blog cursing it for making the day so hot, has bashfully withdrawn in shame, coming out only in sporadic bursts. It was a glorious day for exploring! The cloud cover kept the temperatures down and I scampered about the town like a girl version of Indiana Jones -- never before now have I been so happy with my Adventure Sandals, as John apparently calls them. Jessica told me that once upon a time and the quote was repeating itself n my head through the hours as I went on another Athens Adventure.

When I went to the Acropolis yesterday, I bought a set of tickets that, for the cost of one Acropolis admittance, also let me into some seven other ruin sites. After yesterday, I still had three more places I had tickets to go into, as well as a good portion of the inner city that still needed exploring. The first place I made my way to is an ancient funeral plot called Kerameikos.



It was a lot larger than I was expecting and, for a graveyard, a lot cooler. I think it was the turtle; I saw a turtle crawling around eating grass right near the entrance and if a place has a turtle, you know they're already pretty awesome. There were also plenty of headless statues. I managed to get to one out of sight of the people who run the site and, well, you know...

The picture didn't turn out as good as I was hoping, but every time I saw a headless statue for the rest of the day, I was so tempted to try and get another picture. It was like those photo cut-outs, where get to put your head in a hole and pretend to be a cheerleader or clown or (in Randy's case) a wanted fugitive.






Maybe it's in our blood? Who knows!

I really began to feel like Indy there, as parts of the path sort of faded out and I took it on myself to start goat-hopping through the huge stone blocks that lay scattered through the ruins like some giant's lost legos.

The goat-hopping only got better after that, as I took off towards the Ancient Agora and got instead side-tracked by the Hill of the Muses/Nymphs, where the tree branches twisted into every imaginable pose, it's easy to see how they could look like human shapes. It's a hill to the southwest of the Acropolis and one that climbs to heights equal to that tall point. Near its base was "The Prison of Socrates," which I headed to with an avid interest only to be disappointed by the plaque outside the cove which stated that no one really knew that the place was used for, that it was only by myth the prison where Socrates was kept. After learning that, I wasn't too impressed by the literal hole-in-the-wall and took back to hiking up the hill.

The view at the top was once again spectacular! It was also the home to some guy's funeral stone he commissioned for himself. Note: when I die, I want my life to be commemorated by something like this:



And it has to be on one of the highest points in the city. I'm just making a simple request that I'm sure the people who love me will also love to see happen.

I stomped around the hilltop for some time before heading back towards my original goal of the Agora, but was once again sidetracked by another opportunity to hike up a big rock. Literally, there was a big rock just to the south of the Acropolis and I hiked up it. The information plaque says it was where a judicial committee met to decide fates of murderers and thieves. The steps carved into the stone were ridiculously steep and slick with time. I find it hard to imagine a tribe of judges making their way up to the top just to meet for a discussion that could have far easily taken place at, say, the bottom of the rock.

Finally, I made my twisting way to the Agora. And, in my humble opinion, I thought it blew away the Acropolis.



The view from the top near the Pantheon is still hard to beat, I admit, but the Ancient Agora is not only much larger than the Acropolis, it's also got the least beat-up temple (the Temple of Hephiados, pictured above), a "library" of restored/discovered statues from the work of the American College of Ancient Studies, a neat-looking church, and much-loved shade from tons of trees -- that alone, I think, makes it a "cooler" place to visit than the Acropolis. Get it?! ^_^

I spent a long time walking through there, really just wondering at the thought of what these ancient structures must have looked like in their prime. The temple in the picture about was made sometime around 450BC! It's mind-boggling to think about how long that simple structure has been around, what it's stood through. I look at all the information plaques and their depictions of what the ruins might have looked like, and I really have a hard time imagining it all. The broken bits of statues are enormous as well, huge body parts where their legs knee-down are alone as tall as I am.

(In this picture, I seriously only come up to this guy's knee. It was intimidating!)


When I was walking around Boston, Jared and I passed by some old buildings that were only a few decades old but that had long since been deserted and allowed to whither into ruin. That's what I think of most of our current buildings' futures: that they'll turn into unused warehouses, emptied out sheltered, eventually collapsing into ugly piles of trash. I can't picture any modern day building surviving for 2,500 years! Let alone age gracefully in the process, turning into a structure that future generations will marvel at, will gaze out for it's beauty in splendor even thousands of years later! I know that only a very, very small percentage of ancient Greek buildings have survived, that only a very small amount were able to live through the long years -- but even that small amount is nothing short of amazing! Especially considering the multiple wars and city-sacking that Athens has lived through. It really is amazing!

The Agoras, by the way, were central stations in the city where a lot of commercial and government business went down. When Rome took over, the commercial aspect of it was moved to their own special and shiny "Roman Agora," which was not even a quarter of the size of the Ancient one but was still pretty to look at and walk through.



By the time I had wandered through these last few ruins, the end of the day was approaching. I hadn't gotten to the National Garden again so I'm still putting that on tomorrow's plans, as well as walking through the protestors again to see if there's any noticeable ramp-up in anticipation of Tuesday's strike. I'm going to sleep early tonight and waking up to Skype home, and then to wander to the early-morning market. Some of the girls here have warned me against walking through the meat market by myself, saying that the sellers are almost angrily-aggressive at selling their wares, so I'm probably going to stay on the fruits-and-veggies side.

My Canadian family passed by me earlier, still very happy and nothing but smiles. I haven't gone back up to see if Edwin is having a good day at the rooftop bar but the group of Germans from yesterday said goodbye to me this morning as they headed to the airport. One of the girls in my dorm headed back home to Indiana while her travel mate flew onward alone to Budapest. Life is nothing but continual transition and these hostels are a living embodiment of that.

Transitions and turtles, who are just transition in slow motion.

Location:Athens, Greece

The Ruins of Athens

I looked upon the Temple of the Olympian Zeus and I was pleased. Also, sweaty.



It was a baking hot day today, and I chose to use the heat to power my internal engine and enable me to hike through the city of Athens today, bravely taking on the sun in my quest to look upon the great monuments to human construction, ingenuity, ability, and historic beliefs. I sweat a lot, yes, but in the end it was the sun who lost, who failed to deter me from even hiking to the highest point of the city, the Acropolis, despite trying to blaze it's hottest in the middle of the day.

...in other words, I set out this morning, not taking into account how hot it was going to be, or at what time I'd end up reaching the Acropolis, and spent most of my exploration bitterly kicking myself in the head because of how unbelievably hot it was. I thought I was a minute away from heat exhaustion. I was one of the few people walking up the mountain to the Acropolis and I'm pretty sure everyone who saw me shook their heads and muttered to themselves, "What a fool you are." Buuuut, I survived to tell the tale, and that's the important part. (My first interpretation of the day was by far better.)

Athens stretches out for forever. I don't know that it's hugeness comes from it being really a very, very big city, or if it's a side effect from the buildings not being so tall. They do have tall buildings, not like the islands where the tallest building I saw was 3-stories, but one of the stories was on a Terrance a level below and I'm not sure that really counts... But it just seems like Athens is like a pile of white dominos scattering out for much further than any city made of stone and marble has the right to.



(And that's just one tiny, tiny slice. This view is repeated for an entire 360 degrees turn.)

The first thing I saw today was the changing of the guards at the House of Parliament. No, scratch that -- the first thing I saw were the dozens of protesters gathered in the streets on my way to the House of Parliament. I didn't take any pictures of them because I figured it'd be rude, but they blended in really well with all the street vendors. The thing that gave them away was the sign that had a Guy Fawkes mask and the "V" symbols from V for Vendetta on it. If I happen to walk past there again, I definitely taking a picture, rude or not!

In my guide book, the changing of the ceremony is supposedly a really cool thing to watch. In reality, it was kind of stupid. They do all these weird kicks with their legs as their walking so it looks like some sort of deformed tap dance, and the shoes their wear have these weird black fuzzy ball things on the end that I can't even begin to explain. I really wanted to just walk away, but I'd sped-walked from my hostel and felt obliged to stay there at least ten minutes, at which point it was over anyway.


After that, I headed to something on my map labeled "National Garden." I was expecting some trees, maybe some rose bushes or something, like a small park that I could glance at with slight interest as I walked by. Not so! What I found instead was a miniature (but still enormous) African jungle.


I wouldn't have been surprised if a pair of lions walked out -- which they didn't. I would have been surprised to see a pair of missionaries walk out -- which they did. Before I could say hi or snap a picture, though, the elders had sped-walked out of sight, vanishing as if they'd never been and leaving me feeling very, very confused about sort of "garden" I was walking into.

It went on forever and was extremely cool. I'm here in Athens until Tuesday and I'm definitely going to go back with a book and my beach towel to find a spot and read some Aristotle or Plato one afternoon.

My next stop was the Temple of Zeus (see first picture) which is supposedly the largest temple the ancient Athenians ever built, and it took them over a hundred years to do so. Only 14 of the pillars remained standing up until about the '20s, when one pillar tipped over during a record storm -- meaning that there are now only an unlucky 13 pillars still standing, with the remains of the 14th lying in their slaughtered pile. It was pretty cool as well!

After the Temple of Zeus, I saw Hadrian's Gate, which sounds more like the title of a sci-fi novel than a real place. They made it to celebrate some emperor or other, but the cool thing is that on one side they wrote "This side is a part of Athens" and on the other side they wrote "This ain't."

I was getting really close to the Acropolis by this time and getting very excited. As I started ascending the slope, I first stopped at the Theater of Dionysos, the birthplace of Greek theater. They have a spot set apart full of parts they've managed to pull out from the rubble, but that means that it looks like a display of stone body parts with labels like "torso of a naked warrior, possibly in Atlas pose" and "foot remaining from statue." The theater itself, having been reconstructed, is fairly impressive.


That was the last obstacle before I finally broached the Acropolis itself. I had to take several breaks along the way wherever there was shade because, like I said, I was hiking up right about noon and felt like I was standing in the middle of the desert. Greece is a very, very dry place. I think that the next time I picture an island paradise, it'll be more like Costa Rica and less Greece.

But I finally made it to the top!


And it was totally worth it.

There was no shade up there and the wind had died out, so the entire time I walked around I felt like I was baking, but it didn't matter. The Pantheon was amazing, especially as close as I got to it. The view of the city itself was breathtaking. The random mountain off in the distance, the thousands of buildings, the misty mountain range that was nothing but a haze from this distance -- all of it was just amazing.


The Pantheon is roped off so you can only view it from a distance. There were slabs of marble on the ground that had been so worn down from the ages that it was sort of slippery, which made for an occasional instant thrill as your feet skipped a beat, especially being so far up.

I've just now realized that I spent so much time just staring at the Pantheon in amazement that I only managed to snap a few pictures. Oh well. They light it up at night and I've taken pictures of it being this glowing, beautiful mountaintop spectacle.

After that, I was completely worn down. I made it back to my hostel and grabbed a quick siesta, skipping out on the hottest hours of the day. I wandered around the lobby of my hostel a bit, then decided I could go catch at least one more sight in the day since it was significantly cooler. I managed to make it to Hadrian's Library.


When I saw "library" on my map as a place to see, I was fooled into thinking it was an actual library. When I got there, I was extremely surprised to see yet another ruin -- I know, I know, the "Hadrian" part was a dead giveaway. I felt this heaviness in my heart, like it was breaking and falling into little piece as I looked on at what had happened to this once-great structure. Really, not even libraries are safe from the sacking of time? Not even a library? But, but!!

I walked to the other side of the city and found where the Central Street markets were. They are a few blocks of extreme food shops -- a meat market, a fish market, fruits and vegetable stands, even an exotic pet market -- that is supposedly quite the sight to see, especially first thing in the morning. I plan on waking up early for that first-thing craziness...or did, until I realized tomorrow is Sunday. I don't think they open on Sundays, so I'll just go on Monday instead.

My hostel has a free walking tour of the city tomorrow morning. I'm pretty sure I've seen most of the sights they'll be touring, but I also think it'll be cool to hear someone narrate so that's what I'll be doing in the morning; in the afternoon, I'll probably grab my towel and head to that park.

I had a delicious salad for dinner tonight and got it to go. I wanted to eat it on the rooftop bar of my hostel, which has a glorious view of the Acropolis especially as the sun goes down. I'd gone up there last night to see the view and ended up making friends with the Lithuanian bartender, Edwin. Edwin is a self-proclaimed attention-addict, especially from the ladies, and he's extremely straightforward about everything. I'd just meant to tell him how much I liked the King of Leon, the band he was playing at the bar, and we ended up getting into this one-way conversation where he spilled all his stresses out to me for about 15 minutes. He's tall, good-looking, has a very cool accent...and he's got an attitude that reaches for the sky. Since his attitude last night was directed at this female friend he was stressing about -- he was beginning to like her more than he wanted, and blaming her for it ("I'm always thinking about her, I wonder what she is doing, I don't like it!") -- it was pretty entertaining to just listen to him go off.

I went up there with my salad, thinking to hear about how his day had gone and to get a good story out of it. He spent a long time grumbling about how much he hates Greek people, how they treat him like a slave, how his female friend hadn't called him yet. I wasn't disappointed! A group of Germans came in a while later and we all sat around introducing ourselves and comparing Greek travels. A guy came in a bit later, first introducing himself as a New Yorker and then mentioning that he'd only studied in NY and that he was originally from Ohio. Edwin would add to the conversation every so often, enough that you could tell he really wasn't in the mood to work but that he had to do just the minimum. For some reason, the Ohio guy really brought down the mood -- maybe I was just acutely aware that we were both representing the same country and I thought he was acting like sort of a jockey sap and I didn't like being in the same category as him -- so I left awhile later, getting back to my hostel dorm and finding it all to myself.

It's a little before ten now and some people have since come and gone; there's another girl in here, meaning that my plan to walk around naked will have to wait. Outside, the night life is audibly picking up again. There's a club a level below my window and I could hear their music all night last night, like a soundtrack to my sleep. If anything, it should be louder tonight.

I keep on forgetting what day it is. When I found out that tomorrow was Sunday, I almost didn't believe it. There are about 50 more days left before I get back home, not that I'm actively counting (I'm passively counting, thank you very much!). There are still a ton of sights that I've left to see in Athens, like the Agora and the Central Market I mentioned earlier.

I am peculiarly glad to be off the islands. I hadn't really noticed it, but I was getting claustrophobic the longer I was on them. They quickly run out of things to do, leaving only "lay on the beach" as an option. I love the ocean, I love the waves, but I also like knowing that if I get really bored I can drive to another part of the city or maybe even a neighboring city to explore. It would have to be a large island to be able to say that after a few weeks or months, large like Australia sized.

Here in Greece, one really good bit of news is that I fit in with the locals to the point where, while I saw standing next to a hat stand, some German lady tried to give me money, thinking I was the stand owner. People have stopped me to ask for directions and I can only shrug helplessly, unless they're going somewhere I've just been and then I feel like an expert as I point them in the right direction. When I talked to that Nigerian last night, he told me he thought I was Greek. I've even tried not to say anything when I'm buying a bottle of water and the Greeks talk Greek to me, to which I just nod and smile. I feel like an undercover spy at times, blending in with the local populace, walking the streets like I've lived here my whole life and not just arrived last night!

I'll leave you with a message I found in the floor mosaic of the library ruins:


(I love you, in case you have a hard time reading ruins!)

Location:Athens, Greece

Aussies in Athens

I spent my last two days in Santorini being extraordinarily lazy. The day after my amazing forever-long hikes, I spent most of my time by the pool reading "Super Freakonomics." It was such a windy day that to have tried another hike along death-defying cliffs would have been insane, and the wind also meant that spending the day on the shore would have called for mouthfuls of sand. The Australian girl in my dorm spent a lot of time out there as well, sun-bathing on the opposite side of the pool. I think we were the only two guests in the hostel for the better part of the day.

Mike, the hostel owner, came out occasionally to make sure that we were both being entertained, and also to do regular chores like vacuuming the pool :) he and I chatted for most of the time, things from why Detroit is such a sucky city to why girls spend so much time with their boyfriends (his daughter was the guilty party in this). Towards the beginning of the evening, the Aussie chick left to catch a late ferry and I was pretty much alone. There was one more girl in my dorm but she didn't show back up until nearly midnight. I kept myself occupied by chatting with Mike some more, going to the local market for dinner food, and then listening to music for the rest of the evening.

The next day, I woke up bright and early meaning to make the most of my time. Since it was so bright and early, I went back to sleep! When I did wake up again, I realized that the wind had stopped and immediately grabbed my towel with a book before I headed out to the beach.

People wander the beach trying to sell anything, from sunglasses to...to tattoos. Really, there was a guy walking around holding a portfolio of designs, asking "Tattoo? Tattoo?" I had found "Notes from the Underground" by Dochetvesky (I'm messing his name up so bad, but that's what he gets for being a Russian) and soon established a routine: read for about 30 minutes, at which point I would begin to feel uncomfortably hot, and then go dive into the cool, cool water of the sea.

The water felt like delicious ice against my heated skin each time I dived in and kept me cool for that next 30 minutes before I dived back in again. It was also so unbelievably clear -- I could see my toes as I swam out, which is an enormous improvement over both east and west coast beaches (not counting Miami Beach, which is a beautiful abnormality in itself).

I got back to my hostel in the early afternoon, in time to see the last girl in the dorm off as she left to catch her ferry, took a nap, and then returned to the beach to finish my book. Instead of reading, though, I struck up a conversation with an Athenian man that went through the Greek economy, different products of Greece, the future of the world's economy...a lot of random money talk. He was a hotel worker come to the island for the tourist season. I left as the sun went down and got back to my now private room, listening to more music, reading until I was tired, and then dropping into a very uncomfortable sleep where I dreamed Russian tragedies.

This morning I woke up and packed all my things slowly, feeling no rush to get ready to go. I checked out and Mike insisted on giving me a ride to the capital. It was a 15 minute ride and saved me about 3€ in bus fare. We had nothing but good conversation the entire time over there and he told me that if I ever wanted to come back to the island, to just email him and "no matter what, no matter if I got no room, if all my rooms are booked, I'll find a place for you." And my family, he added, since I'd mentioned how much I wished they could experience the island.

It was only about 11:30am by the time I got to the capital, almost 4 hours before my ferry was supposed to depart. I spent the time walking around, seeing things I hadn't seen yet, exploring all the ridiculously expensive shops that were obviously tourist traps. I grabbed another gyro for lunch and sat down in a window sill to watch the sail boats go by...only to get shoo-ed away by the shop owner whose window sill it had turned out to be. I caught a bus to the port and made it on to my ferry, sitting next to four older ladies. When I found out that, unlike my last ferry, this one would not allow passengers to stand out on the deck as we sailed to our destination, I grumpily put on my headphones and drifted into an afternoon nap.

The ferry had one quick stop at the island of Ios before continuing on to Athens. At this stop, the lady sitting beside me left and was replaced by one heavily accented Aussie. He, too, had his headphones on, plugged into his own iPhone. I asked him what he was listening to, and for the next four hours we had a very good conversation. He was leaving a group of friends behind on Ios since he had to get back to his dentist school. He was about six months away from graduating and very excited about it. He was also carrying around the autobiography of the lead singer from the Rolling Stones rock band and we spent a lot of time talking about music.

Towards the end of the ride, as the ferry slowed down and approached the port, the deckhands allowed passengers to stand out on the deck. I grabbed my Aussie and out we went, watching the land smoothly slide alongside us, watching the other ferry boats steam past towards the open sea, and commenting about the different beautiful sights we both observed. My Aussie was very funny, very quick with the reply, and very easy to talk to. I never got his name, though, and we parted with just a quick hug, going opposite directions.

I wandered to the metro, having scribbled down some quick notes on how to get to my hostel, and had a shock to my system when the rail runner made an announcement that, "due to technical difficulties, the last stop of this train will be at Thessio," which was one stop too early for my directions. There were no other explanations or alternative routes given to us passengers, just the notice repeated at every stop up to that last station, and then once the train reached Thessio we were all unceremoniously dumped out.

There were no information booths or maps or rail workers to give us dozens of tourists directions. I'm not sure who finally made a decision on which way to go, but I noticed the massive hoard of tourists, each dragging along or packing with them a huge suitcase such that it looked like an army of door-to-door salesmen, all seemed to unanimously decide to start swarming in one direction and I followed. It turned out to be the right direction and I ended up at my hostel, checking in a little before 9pm.

I met with some of the other people in my dorm, including an Indiana girl who is actually flying back home tomorrow. I couldn't help confessing that I was partly jealous of her. The streets were still ridiculously alive -- it looked like it was more around 6pm than 9pm -- so I went out to see if I could grab some dinner. When I couldn't find a place to serve fast, decent food, I grabbed an ice cream cone instead with coconut and raspberry scopes, went to the hugely popular square near my hostel, and sat to enjoy the lively crepes that were all passing through.

After about five minutes, a guy approached me and started talking about where we all were from. He was with a group of friends and it turned out they were all from Nigeria. Personally, I thought he was from Italy maybe. None of his friends spoke English so it was just me and him having a talk.

He started out by talking about how, when you start seeing different cultures, there will always be many things you love and many things you hate about cultures different from you own. Then his talk started getting a little crazy: he started justifying the honor-killings that take place when a woman is found cheating on her husband, as well as making a point that there must be a real reason behind many terrorist acts. As I was giving him the goggly-eyed stare and telling him that those actions were extreme beyond what we would consider sane, he then added some parts of his culture that I really did like: how honored women are by all men, how people will bring each other food if they are hungry, how a neighbor will help his neighbor in need since being neighbors means they are like brothers. His English wasn't perfect and I get the feeling that there was a lot lost in the translation, but he may have proved his point too well, providing examples of his culture that I did both hate and appreciate.

I left him with a "thanks for the thoughts" and got back to my hostel, his parting words being a heavy warning against thieves in the city (after he tried to give me a cell phone when he found out I didn't have one!). In my dorm, each of the 10 beds is full tonight. There is a club right next door and I can hear their deep bass beating over the s'mores of my dorm mates. I can't wait to get up tomorrow! I've seen the Acropolis from afar and at night they light it up. It's so gorgeous! They said it was in the 90s today so I'm also dreading tomorrow's temperature but still -- I'm in Athens! Lands of the gods and the heroes and the myths!

Location:Athens, Greece

Santorini, Day 1 (Full Edition)

I'm so exhausted, and yet so awake. Being here, it's like I've been imbued with some unnatural amount of energy enabling me to leap mountains in one bound. I finally drifted off to sleep at about 4:30am, only to wake up at 8:30 on my own. When the hostel driver picked us up last night, he didn't know how to sign us into reception and so we had to leave our passports behind as collateral to ensure we'd come back and pay for the rooms. I was a little anxious to get that back and got to the reception desk right at 9 when it opened. Afterwards, I walked around, went over to the beach for a bit, and by happen chance caught sight of the hostel I'd be spending my next few nights in, Sea Wave Studios.

I dropped in to ask if, despite check-in not being until 2pm, I could at least leave my backpack behind while I explored the rest of the city. There was an older man behind the counter and we hit it off straight away! His name is Mike and he owns the place. He instantly made me feel at home, insisted that I could check in and even get into my room at that very moment, and then started making suggestions on where I could go in my explorations. I ran back to Youth Hostel Anna, picked up my stuff, and returned.

Mike, it turns out, has family that lives in Colorado, and he's driven through the state himself on a trip from Detroit to Salt Lake City (his son wanted to watch a Jazz game). His daughter, who looks like she's about my age, spoke with no accent whatsoever and we three chatted it up like old friends for almost an hour before I realized how much time had gone by. I had intended to catch a bus to the city of Fira and do a hike to the far-north city, Oia -- its a hike that I've heard about, both for its beauty and for its toughness. It's a 16 km trail that curves around the famous western cliffs of the island and is definitely not for the soft. He suggested I take a walk up to the ancient ruins nearby as a wqrm-up and, when I declared my intentions to do just that, even gave me a lift through town to the start of the trail.

The trail up to the runs is a 4.5 km hike that, in some spots, goes almost 100% vertical! I felt like I was almost rock climbing, and I certainly felt like a mountain goat. The view absolutely gorgeous and only got better the further up I got. At the top, the rush of the wind made me want to stretch out my arms and soar away. The haze of the ocean made the horizons seem to evaporate, giving it all a feeling of mysticism as if truly nothing existed beyond.

By the time I made it back down and into the city's outskirts, it was approaching 1:30pm. I spotted a us stop and happened to glance at the times for the next run up to the north end of the island and the capital, Fira City, thinking to get in the hike from Fira to Oia. As luck would have it, the next bus was scheduled to arrive within five minutes. Within the hour, I was in Fira City asking for directions to the start of the trail. Some people looked at me like I was crazy and one man even asked why I didn't just take the local bus, but I insisted.

The hike was absolutely beautiful. I took about a thousand pictures but I don't think any of them will be able to do those cliffs justice, or be able to convey how peaceful the terraced landscape was with the rush of sea wind soaring through the golden grass. It was also unbelievable how! I'm pretty sure it hasn't gotten under 90 F since the sun came up, and hiking on the western side of the island in the afternoon meant that I had the full sun's glory blazing down on me the entire 2.5 hours I walked. It wasn't as intense a hike as the one up to the ruins. The trail between the two cities, for the most part, was a steady and gentle rise/fall cycle between hills. There were parts where my legs screamed bloody murder for me forcing them up ridiculously steep steps, but that didn't last too long.

I got into Oia at just before 5pm, having fallen only once and only barely scrapping my knees. My chest and shoulders, unfortunately, were back to beating beat-burnt-red and I dragged myself through the town just looking for some shade and something to eat. I grabbed a bag of sesame crackers and found a cool, shady cement sidewalk to collapse on.

For over an hour, I relaxed there, watching people as they passed, eating my crackers, and even pulling out my phone to read some Nietzsche. A pack of three stray dogs came nearby to investigate me and eventually decided I was all right enough. They lay down nearby me and kept me company. I intended to stay there and watch the sunset, since the sunset in Oia is world-famous and largely declared as being the best sunset anywhere. However, as time went on and the sun appeared to have no intentions of setting ever, I started getting very restless. At 6:30, I couldn't take just waiting around anymore and got back to the bus stop just in time to start heading back to my base city, Perissa.

I got back to my hostel, showered, and headed out to the beach for an evening stroll, realizing that during my shower the sun had indeed set without me. After walking for a it, I made a pit top at the local grocery market, grabbed some food for dinner and cereal for breakfast, and got back to my hostel just a little before 10pm.

There are three other girls sleeping in the same dorm as me. One of them in from Australia, one is from Canada, and the last one speaks so quietly that I have no idea where she's from. I talked with them for a bit, then went back out to the hostel reception to get some wifi signal. Mike saw me there and we had more laughs and more jokes. H really is a great guy and I think I made an awesome decision with this hostel. I got back to my room and chatted with the Canadian girl a bit. She's been traveling Greece for the last month and intends to spend another month here bore going home. And the Australian girl has been traveling for 28 months! I have no idea how you ca be away for so long or manage to travel for such an extended period.

All in all, it's been an awesome day. I think I'll try to sleep in tomorrow and take it easy, but I really do feel wide awake even now, like my feet don't want to stop walking. I didn't like Santorini very much when I first got here -- it's too dry, too much of a desert climate, and too ugly after beautiful Kos. Now, though, I'm very happy again! Kos is still, by far, much more beautiful and I would love to be back there, but I'm falling for Santorini I think. The next few days will tell!

Location:Perissa, Thira, Greece

Ferries

It's almost four in the morning and I can't sleep.

I suppose it's my own fault, really; I took those short, quick cat naps on the ferry ride over here and, uncomfortable though they were, it was enough to recharge my batteries. I hardly slept last night so I was pretty sure I'd be able to knock right out. It doesn't help that my room feels like a sauna -- I hadn't realized how hot it was in there until I opened the door to my balcony and stepped out into the night, breathing deeply into the cool, dark air.

I'm on Santorini Island now, having got here just before 2am. It was a 5-hour ferry ride from Kos, during which I spent most of it on the observation deck just staring into the inky pot of sea stewing in our wake. The sight was so familiar to me -- water turning a bright, airy blue from the turning screws, the ship leaving it's fanned-out trail behind it -- that I was hit hard with memories of being aboard the Enterprise, of spending so much time on the fantail watching our own propellers move her forward. Unlike all those times, though, this ride was going to end in just 5 hours, not 5 weeks or 5 months or "time to be determined"! And I could still see plenty of islands to my right and left. I do love the way the sea stretches out for forever, though, the way that everything ends with her. I love how the water is the only thing that can hold all the heavens and the stars and the sky, even as it holds in the sun and the clouds during the day. I could have stared for many more hours into the waving sea, not even thinking of anything, just staring...

Not that I miss the Navy or anything close to that!

I didn't have a room booked for tonight because I wasn't sure what time the ferry would actually get here and if anyone's reception would even be open for me to check in. I had initially planned on just hiking up to somewhere unexposed and camping it out for the night. But, as the ferry unloaded, there were masses of Greek hotel and hostel drivers, each waving their own sign, each trying to claim us passengers. My room for the next few nights is in a town on the southern part of the island, Perissa, and I saw a hostel offering free shuttle service there as well as a private room for a decent price so here I am, at Youth Hostel Anna. The shuttle driver was this old man who spoke broken English; I rode with two Hong Kong boys spending a week traveling after having spent a semester as transfer students in Eindhoven, Holland. The drive was about 20 minutes and I had good conversations with all three of them.

Now I'm in the balcony of my room, looking out into the pool, waiting for sunrise.

Location:Perissa, Santorini, Greece

Kos, Kos, Kos

I love Greece.

If I were rich, owned a yacht, and had nothing but time on my hands, I think I would just sail the Greek Islands. If I were poor, but I knew how to play the accordion, I would just travel between the islands and beg for a living, but beg with a smile!

From the moment I stepped off the plane, it finally hit me: I'm on the other side of the world. Up until this point, everything has been almost like a dream, the feeling of unrealness being very heavy. It was like I was just traveling from one city to another, but still in the States and not too far away from home. But here, I know. And here is one of the first places that I am through and through excited to be at!

The drive from the airport to Kos City was very unexpected. The island's inner lands are so dry, I was instantly reminded of New Mexico. They even have the same short, hutch-like architecture, though Kos is much more of the white-and-blue coloring while Santa Fe was almost uniformly tan. Goats stared at us as we passed, uninterested in what we were altogether but just too lazy to turn away. It looked more like a desert's outskirts than an island.


But then we got to Kos City and flowers started showing up everywhere! I headed directly to the port and got my ferry tickets, which was a huge relief for me after having spent the last few nights stressing about if the ferry would be sold out by the time I got there. After that, I started hiking out to my hostel for the next few nights. The lady at the ticket shop reminded me so much of the actress from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," but I think that was only because she was Greek and working in a travel agency.

The walk to my hotel was amazing! Everywhere were beautiful, abundant flowers and these grand old trees. I wanted to just stop and hug them for some reason; their branches twisted in such a way that they looked like they were welcoming to the island with wide open arms. when I got to the hotel, there was a little old lady behind the counter who spoke maybe a dozen or two words of English. She had a great smile, though, and even though we didn't understand each other she immediately made me feel at home. I was too early to check in and the rooms weren't ready yet, but she showed me a place where I could change out of the warmer clothes I'd put on in Frankfurt to more beach-ready things. And by the time I'd changed, she'd rushed the cleaning lady to finish my room in particular and I got to leave my bag behind securely.


For the next few hours, I just wandered the city. It's very tiny, this little town, but they have their own acropolis, a few ruins, and of course the Hippocrates plane tree which the famous first physician is said to have planted himself and later used for shade as he taught medicine. It didn't take me too long at all to get fro one end to the other, or to see all the sights. The beaches were, for the most part, made of small rocks and pebbles, not good for laying on at all, and so I headed back to the hotel meaning to swim in their pool and take a short nap on their sun beds. I headed out again later to get some dinner and ended up ordering chocolate crepes! Delicious!

When I made it to the hotel again later, I ran into a group of three guys from Slovenia who we on the island for 10 days. One of them spoke the best English and we hit it off, chatting about traveling for nearly an hour before I headed up to my room. I'd gotten a private room for the price of a dorm and was really happy about having my own space again. The room even had a small TV and I turned it on as I got ready to sleep.

"Saving Private Ryan" was playing with Greek subtitles and I caught it just as it started. At some point, I drifted to sleep and woke up to some Greek news station playing.

The next morning, I opened the doors to my balcony, stepped outside, and just breathed in the smell of ocean air mingled with fresh roses. when I went down for breakfast, I ran into my Slovenian friend again and we talked about beaches. He told me about a stretch of sand that I could find not too far away. While I was checking out of the hotel, I noticed a free book exchange and grabbed something in English to read on the beach.

The rest of the afternoon, I lay out on my beach towel, drawn into a terribly predictable story but not quite able to quit it. Before I knew it, I'd finished the book and still had three hours before my ferry ride, so I went fo get something to eat and ran into a very drunk but very happy pair of couples, one from Italy and one from the island. I got to listen to them rant about young people, about what make the perfect couple, and about global politics for the next bit as I dug into a Greek gyro.

It's now 8pm, I've made it to the port to for my ferry to pull in. It's a massive, massive ship. I saw one pulling into the harbor yesterday and it's about 100x larger than what I expected! It'll be here sometime in the next half hour, and then off to Santorini, goodbye, beautiful lovely and peaceful Kos!

Location:Kos City, Kos, Greece

I'm on a plane!

Frankfurt, good bye and good riddance! You were nothing but freezing rain to me, which is just unacceptable considering how hot Vienna, Prague, and Berlin all were!

I got to Frankfurt in the early afternoon and it was freezing! Luckily, my hostel was about a five minute walk from the station and I dodged in just when check-in time started. Hooray! I also found out that the shuttle I'd have to catch the next morning was only about 5 minutes away as well, just to the right of the station exit. And I'd have to catch it at... 3am?! Geez! Thanks, RyanAir for the way-cheap air ticket to Greece -- but did you have to fly to a "Frankfurt" airport that's actually two hours away from Frankfurt?

The rest of the afternoon, I spent just making bland conversation with the other hostelers, and then surfing the web. I'm proud to say that I've caught up on some of the Daily Show episodes I've missed, and sad to inform you that Netflix does not accept foreign IP addresses when attempting to stream movies. The hostel was hosting a Pasta Party this particular evening so I didn't even have to venture forth to get my dinner -- a very nice thing, as the rain didn't let up at all the entire day. So while I can say I've been to Frankfurt, the only things I've seen are the things in that short walk across the street from the train station. And since a sex shop is included in that list, it's not much to brag about.

My mattress at the hostel was horrific. I felt like I had been given a thin, thin tarp to stretch over the springs and it was really just a test of endurance to see if I could actually sleep. Not that it mattered much, since the building across the street had a neon sign on so large and so bright that it was like the light was on in our own room. Sleep was not forthcoming at all. Luckily I got a weak wifi signal even in my bed and amuse myself by streaming College Humor video clips until I passed out. Before I knew it, it was time to get up, check out, and head to the shuttle.

My day started getting interesting on that ride at 3am. I didn't head out until about 2:45 because I didn't want to wait in the cold and didn't know how early the bus would actually be there. I was very sir raked when I caught to the collection point to see the bus already there and almost full with a line of people waiting to get their tickets. I was one of the last people on, and I sat next to a black man who gave me a weary smile. As the bus started off for its two hour drive, he asked me where I was flying off to. His voice was very heavily accented -- he was actually from Senegal, Africa. (And I have no idea where that is.) we chatted for a few minutes before I bluntly said, "Ok, well, I'm going to sleep."

When the bus got to the airport, I made it through security and sat down in front of my future gate. I'd read my ticket information wrong, seeing the 7:05am time stated as he departure time, when really it was the gate-opening time; departure wasn't until 7:40am. It's not much of a difference, but it meant that I could have caught the 4:30 bus and slept another two hours -- maybe even breakfast! As I was mentally kicking myself in the head for overlooking that important detail, my friend from the bus appeared next to me with a large smile. he wanted t finish the short conversation we'd started on the bus.

We talked about our travel plans. He was heading to Barcelona, a city he'd lived in for many years. When he heard that I was going, he excitedly started describing all the many things I had to do. And then he started saying things like "maybe we might see each other," which changed to "maybe I will fly out there to see you," which ended with "maybe, I don't know, maybe something will happen-"

"I don't think do," I cut in, "I'm already dating someone."

I'm constantly surprised by how fast these guys are. I hope it's just a European thing. I'd like to think that if I were sitting alone in the airport in the States, men wouldn't come up to me, start a conversation, and very soon (say, five minutes) start moving into the relationship territory. I'm becoming a more and more surly person with strangers.

Our conversation changed to why I left Lucas behind, to Barrack Obama, to other places I must go -- the main one being his home country, Senegal. He was so insistent on it, he even started making these plans about how "we" could go in the winter, when it was cool, and how he'd pay for my airplane ticket and all. "Uh huh," says I, "that's a really interesting idea, but nope."

His plane departed at about 5:55am and as he walked out towards his, he turned back and fanatically waved goodbye. The whole experience was a very unreal.

I sat in my chair for about another hour before finally it was time to start lining up. RyanAir does the same things that Southwest does, a first-come, first-pick rule to getting seats. Since I definitely wanted a window seat, I got in line as soon as it started forming. When the doors opened to let us actually board the plane, I experienced again the rude shoving match that any line-up process turns into here in Europe: there was a family in front of me with two young boys and they moved, understandably, a little slower than normal, but since they were in front of me I patiently trailed behind them. Not so, all the other passengers. Mot of them almost angrily sped-walk around us -- some people even started jogging to get to the plane first. It's like this for everything: getting on a bus, getting on the metro, standing in line for e bathroom... If you're not quick, if you're not almost actively shoving people to get in front, people will have no problem in shoving past you. If you're not driving like a race car driver, everyone will honk at you, drivers will swing their fists at you as they pass by, and you'll be run off the road.

At any rate, I did get my awesome window seat regardless of the people who ran to beat me there. I'm getting a little warmed up from still-raining Frankfurt and I can only hope that Greece is warm today!

Location:Plane ride to Kos, Greece

Munich...and Dachau

Today is my second and last day in Munich. Sometime tomorrow, I'll head out to Frankfurt (I think it's only a 2-3 hour train ride) and then on to Greece! And, as if to give me a special goodbye, a butterfly smacked me in the nose as I was walking around.

I could definitely picture myself living in Munich, I think. I mean, it's easy to just see all the good things when you're traveling, easy to ignore anything bad about your vacation. But Munich is absolutely beautiful! It's a pretty small city, too: when I got in yesterday, I was prepared to hike around for at least an hour before I got to the city center and was stunned when I got there within 20 minutes! I can walk across the majority of the city, from one side to the other, in under an hour if I keep a good pace.



I'm not saying that there's nothing to see. It's got a great - and dark - history to it. The buildings are for the most part old relics from the 1800s, and they seem to go to great lengths to keep the city's historic look preserved. There's so much construction and restoration going on that at first it felt like I was walking onto a stage being created. The major shopping centers, the Platzs, are all in a row and connected by multiple forms of public transportation. There was always a crowd there, always a buzz. Tonight, when I walked down the main street again, there were signs of a festival getting set up.

The reason I think I could imagine myself living here is simple: the Englishgarten. It's an enormous, enormous park on the northeast side of the city. And it's absolutely fantastic.



Look at that! Did I leave the city? Did I drive to the country? Nope, I just walked for about 20 minutes from the main shopping district and suddenly, wham, I'm in gorgeous wilderness. They treat the park like a beach, to the point where I even saw a guy carrying around a surfboard! Everyone's sitting around in their bathing suits, jumping into the stream, playing volleyball, reading, sleeping, etc. It really was a beach, just with all the hot sand replaced with cool grass.



Not a bad idea, I have to admit.

The rest of the city is very folksy. They even have a may pole erected in the middle of one of their shopping centers. And unlike the last few cities that I've been in, Munich doesn't smell like flowers -- it smells like strawberries! They have ton and tons of fresh fruit stands. You can't go a block without seeing one. And the fruit smells so fresh!

I spent hours yesterday walking the entire city, going from one side to another. Like I said, it's not too big but it's very fun to walk through. The gardens and greenery blew me away though. One pretty funny thing that happened was that I got turned away from the US embassy. It was near the Englishgarten and I thought it would be cool to wander in, since I had plenty of time to wander. A guard came down, asked me what I wanted, and told me the only way I'd get in is by appointment. So, file that away for future reference: if I ever need to get to the embassy, apply for an appointment ASAP.

This morning, I woke up early and caught a local train to the city of Dachau, about 20 minutes north of the city. Then I walked the Path of Remembrance for about 45 minutes until I reached the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial.



I spent the better part of the day wandering through this first concentration camp, the one that served as a model for all other camps, the one where the SS were specially trained, engrained with the "Dachau Spirit," before getting sent out on future assignments and to guard other concentration camps.

It was really hard to walk around. The path I walked was the same that many prisoners were forced to march from the train station to their prison. The gates were inscribed with the same, too-familiar horrific saying.



There is no entrance fee but I paid to get an audio guide that provided me with tons of background information and additions to the standing information posts. They had dedicated the memorial sometime in the '60s and had changed the entrance to it's original entrance in 2004. All but two of the barracks where prisoners slept had been destroyed but for their foundations; those remaining two had been restored to their original structures.



It's really hard to actually picture what life was like, given only these empty wooden boards. The huge plaza where they underwent daily roll calls seems to be too large, but with some 20-30,000 it would have been far too small. Everything felt like I was viewing it through a tunnel and very far away. Everything felt too far away to really contemplate, but I think I couldn't handle this history if it were too close.



They had a museum in addition to the standing compound. In the middle of it was a theater playing a film that was just dozens of clips from the war sewn together with an English voice occasionally coming over to narrate. There was no background music, no other sound but for the one voice. The film was physically jarring to watch and when they turned the lights on at the end, I almost jumped out of my chair.

When I had walked the path on the way into the memorial, I was enjoying the walk. It's very green, very cool, and passes through some quaint neighborhoods through the norther part of the city. As I walked back towards the train station afterwards, I had the residual feeling of the compound with me and I could imagine thousands upon thousands of strained, starved bodies walking the same trail, heeled by heartless guards, not knowing where they were going but not particular hopeful about the destination whatever it might be. I felt like if I turned by head fast enough I would actually be able to see them, these dehumanized souls, with their enfeebled shoulders hunched over, eyes staring wretchedly forward... The pleasant walk was now menacingly haunted. Those quaint houses that I had passed earlier now seemed unbearable oblivious to the compound site located only 3km from the train station.


I remember watching "Band of Brothers," and one of the most hard-hitting scenes in that was when the village people were forced by the soldiers to clean up in a concentration camp. I couldn't understand why an entire town would just let something like Dachau happen so very close to where they lived, ate, slept. Now, having been there, I'm nowhere near closer to understanding. If anything, it seems ever more bizarre, unnatural, and inexplicable to me. If the prisoners had to march along this path, they marched right from the very heart of town -- there's no way that their plight could have gone unseen, march after march, shipment after shipment. How can an entire town willfully ignore or justify the violence and maltreatment and sheer evil when it is so blatantly obvious? I'm unable to answer that question, and it makes me afraid of the possibility that perhaps my town, my people, perhaps I myself am guilty of the same thing. Maybe not in the same extreme, but what if there is some ongoing violence, ongoing injustice, happening before me that I justify easy or easily ignore?

What would I do in the same situation? It's a question that has been in the back of my mind ever since I left the compound. I would like to think that I would be horrified enough to shout out, to point and yell and call for help. During the tour, one plaque pointed out that many in the camp were forced to labor in the city itself, widening and fixing roads, and that the townspeople couldn't ignore the harsh conditions under which they worked. But, one plaque chipped in helpfully, not all the townspeople were cruel. Some gave the prisoners a piece of bread, some a sympathetic smile --

It turned my stomach. Here you see people slavishly, mercilessly worked, their bodies inwardly collapsing, and your only response is a sympathetic smile?! I would like to think that my response would be horrified outrage and immediate action, not a sympathetic smile n

The visit totally exhausted me and when I got back to Munich, I collapsed in my hostel, taking a long afternoon nap. When I woke up, I wandered around the city again, returning to the present, grounding myself. The girl who picked my up from the airport in Berlin, Vanessa, made a point to me that I'd never considered before when she told me that, during her trips through Europe, she and her companions were repeatedly warned not to speak in German if they could help it, being told that many in Europe still viewed even the current generation as being just as guilty of the Holocaust. And I'm sad to confess that, as I walked around Munich today, most of my thoughts were still on how so many people could allow the concentration camps to happen. It made a city that I had joyfully walked around in just the day before seem dark, suspicious, less friendly.

It's been a few hours now and I'm getting back to feeling less ominous than I was. I'm still kind of down in a way, a moroseness that lingers long after its cause is gone. I think I'll go to sleep early, or at least settle in with a good book. I already treated myself to some ice cream and I'm extremely tempted to go and get some more. Their ice cream here tastes like fresh, fresh fruit. It's like a bit of sunshine after so many clouds.

Location:Munich, Bavaria, Germany