Dublin days

I'm back online, after that brief stint of fight-for-your-e-mail time in Amsterdam :)

After getting up at 3:30 a.m., Maddie insisted on taking a cab to the airport instead of taking the bus as we'd planned. I'm not sure what went wrong in her mental construction, but for some strange reason she's just not wired for public transportation. It makes her all nervous and shifty. Anyway we took a cab, only to find that Amsterdam's is probably the worst-designed airport in the history of aviation. The desks are all laid out like islands in the middle of a large room, with "lines" snaking all around the place (more like funnels really, with everybody pushing and shoving around the room, eventually lining up as barriers force the masses of people to form the shape of lines.)

Eventually though, we arrived in Dublin. Our bags, however, did not. They probably ended up in Copenhagen, where we changed planes. Hopefully, though, they'll send them to our hostel soon; my hat and gloves are in there and it's quite cold. Our hostel is pretty hostile, there's not a lot going on here, so I hope they don't like take our bags hostage or something. But hey, we're in IRELAND, so things can't be that bad! I walked around downtown Dublin tonight after a nap, things are pretty cool. I can't wait to see more of it tomorrow. More later ~ cheers!

Safe in Amsterdam

I haven't written in 4 days and for this I apoligize. Internet time is pretty scarce here, I'm in Amsterdam and the waiting line to use the two working computers at this hostel is pretty fierce.

Anyway, we just arrived here the night before last. The ride up from Paris took a long time because we had to stand in a ridiculously long line at Gare du Nord in Paris and by the time we'd got our train tickets to Brussells, the earlier train had already left and we had to wait another hour and a half before the next one. We hopped over to McDonalds for a cup of coffee and a warm place to stand. I've decided to never again travel in the winter time; summer only. Ýou can't do anything outside for more than an hour before you stop feeling your legs and have to go inside, and going inside involves buying stuff, so you end up drinking a LOT of espressos (usually the cheapest thing on the menu) and hanging out in metro stations. I take that all back, it's not that bad. It's just kind of funny.

Anyway, Paris was great. On our last day we were going to go to Rouen and Caen, but the trains didn't work out and Maddie felt sick. So I got to spend the day exploring Paris alone; I went to the islands in the river (Sunday in the Park?) and saw Sunday mass in Notre Dame. Then I walked up past Town Hall (where there was an ice rink and people were skating to American Idiot by Green Day, which made me laugh. Then I also saw the Montmartre area, where Picasso's studio and the Moulin Rouge are. Later I saw the Opera Garnier and tried to walk back to Place 'dÍtalie, where our hostel was, but that was too far so I gave up.

Ack, I gotta get off the computer. Suffice it to say, we're in Amsterdam and it's a lot of fun. Our hostel is full of cool people, and there's a lot to see in this place. I think today we'll go to the Van Gogh museum. Cheers!

Milan was lousy, but Nice was NICE. And j'aime Paris!

I'm alive and well and living in Paris! ...Never thought I'd say that, but it's true! We've been here for a day and a half, and things are excellent. Sorry I haven't written until now, but the internet has been scarce. Before I tell you about Paris, let me go back a couple of days. I've been keeping a journal of the things that have happened recently, so it starts on the 13th and progresses from there:

Dec. 13th

Today I woke up in Verona, walked outside and past many blocks lined with shrub-decorated balconies, to the Casa di Giulietta – Juliet’s house! (It's not the real Juliet's house, of course; Shakespeare may or may not ever have even seen Verona in his life. But with all the balconies all over the place there, I would totally set a play featuring a balcony scene there, just to be safe! Anyway, I saw Juliet’s house, and walked to the main piazza. I saw a fountain (!) where the Montagues and Capulets might have fought. Maybe. Then I walked back, we checked out of our B&B and walked to train station with baggage (ugh.) Then we took the train to Milan.

In Milan we had a two-hour layover, and Maddie wanted to sit and read, so I left her at the train station with the baggage, and went to go see some sights. The city is huge, and I wanted to go to this piazza to see the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world, so went to the Metro station. The Metro was crazy though… it took me like 15 or 20 minutes just to figure out which train to get on, then which direction to go in. Switching trains is a big hassle too, lots of escalators and hallways involved, and there’s tons of people around all the time so I was wary of my bag and purse. ...But not wary enough, apparently; as I was buying my ticket, this girl grabbed my purse and covered her hand up with a newspaper that she looked like she was trying to sell me. I didn’t know what was going on, but I pulled my purse back and said “no thank you.” Then she backed off, and I got on my train into the center of the city. It wasn’t until later, at a sandwich shop, that I realized she’d stolen 100 Euro out of my purse! Wha...? I've never been mugged or stolen from before, so it was a real shock and I was a little bit afraid. The poverty in Milan is crazy… I assume the wealth is very polarized there, due to the supreme richness of the upper classes? Maybe? Anyway I took a moment to be glad that I'm fortunate enough that 100 Euro doesn't mean life or death for me, and that I'm able to get on with my travels safely and without too much worry. It will affect how much dessert and beer I buy though, which may or may not be a bad thing. It's kind of funny, actually; of all the ways to get rid of 100 Euro in Milan, the land of designer bags, belts, and fashion accessories of all kinds... I lost mine in the subway.

Well, that was that, and there was nothing I could do. Deflated and wary of Europe, I went back to the train station, got Maddie, and got on the train to Nice. Nice was SO NICE. In Nice it was warm, and it was only a 10 minute walk to our Hostel, where we were lucky enough to get just a two-person private room, and we met a girl there named Corrinne (sp?) who arrived too late to check in and so ended up crashing on our floor. She made us tea, which was nice.

Dec. 14^th

Today I woke up in Nice, at around 8 o’clock. I’ve found, recently, that I don’t need coffee to get my day started; I have plenty of energy just from knowing that as soon as I get up, I’m going to see tons of new and cool places. It’s pretty sweet. The hostel that we stayed at ended up giving us a two-person room, so we had our own shower. So naturally I took a good long time getting cleaned up and dressed! Then I walked out of our apartment after speaking in French (!) with a guy on the stairs for a minute or two. I turned right and walked towards an enormous palm tree, and came to la plage… the Mediterranean Sea again! After a month on the island of Lesbos, it was like running into an old friend in a different city. And the beachfront was gorgeous; lots of pink hotels, palm trees, and women in fur coats (just like in my Broadway-musical vision of the place that I had in my head!) Ah, the French Riviera… too bad it was still pretty chilly, and I was wearing my knit hat and gloves! Nevertheless I stared at the sea for a while, and then went back to the hostel to wake Maddie up.

After she got up, we searched online for a cheap hostel in Paris (NOT an easy feat, let me tell you! We were this close to not going there at ALL, and just staying in Strasbourg or something. Then we found a place with a double-bed for 24.50 Euro per night, and although 20 is usually our top end, we decided to go for it. Phew…)After that, we ended up going to the train station with all of our baggage and finding out that the train to Paris didn’t leave for another 5 hours! We checked our bags into lockers at the station, and walked back to the beach. On the way, we got bagguettes, ham, grapes, and wine, so that we could have a picnic along the Riviera. It was pretty cool, just sitting on a bench on the boardwalk, staring at the lapis lazuli sea and eating the BEST bread I’ve ever tasted in my life, drinking wine and just chatting with Maddie. Then we left the boardwalk and went to a café for tea and coffee, and sat for ANOTHER few hours just drinking and talking. (I’m beginning to see a pattern here, in Riviera life, and it suits me well. I was sad to leave, actually.)

When we returned to the train station, we sat and read our books until the train arrived, and then it was about a 6-hour journey up to Paris, during which I finished Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which I’ve been working on for a few days and have found very moving and interesting. Aside from painting a compelling portrait of the Greek people in modern history, it made me very nostalgic for Lesbos, since most of the book takes place on Cephallonia, another Greek island. All that talk about olive trees, goats, tavernas, kafeneions… it was like, total flashback time, even though the story takes place in World War II. Anyway, it’s really great, I recommend the book to everybody!

Now I’m sitting in our room in Paris. The whole thing, including the bathroom, is about 2/3 the size of my bed room back in Minneapolis, which most of you readers have seen. There’s just the one double bed for Maddie and I – we’ll see how that works out. At least there’s a shower though, which will be a very good thing. We took a cab half way, until we were sure we knew where we were, and then walked the rest of the way, about 8 longish blocks, which was challenging because there weren’t any street signs, we had to rely on our map and a map we found on the street near the Metro station to guide us. It’s very cold in Paris at Christmastime, for those of you who’ve never been here in December! Bring gloves, hat, and scarf! I don’t know what we’ll do tomorrow, probably just the main stuff; the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Louvre. More later ~ Ciao!

Dec. 15th

J'aime Paris! Today I woke up, got dressed, and Maddie and I took a 10-minute Metro ride to the Louvre. We're both on super-tight budgets now, so the 9 Euro entrance fee was a bit steep, but it ended up being totally worth it. When we got to the Louvre, we could actually SEE the Eiffel tower from the Pyramids! "WHAT?? Are we actually IN PARIS??" I thought to myself. After wanting to come here for ALL of my senior year of high school and much of the year before, not to mention Sophomore year when we did "Sunday in the Park with George," it didn't seem possible that now I had actually achieved what before had seemed only imagineable.

Inside the Louvre, we saw tons of Roman statuary, and the Mesopotamia wing with all its ancient Babylonian and Levantine art from way back in Old Testament times, which I enjoyed but which Maddie got bored with pretty quick. (We totally saw part of the castle of Darius I. Nice...) So we hopped up to the Apollo Wing to see the coronation crown of Louis XV (SO pretty) and then over to the Mona Lisa. It was a bit anticlimactic, because by the time we walked down the Grand Hall to the room where the Mona Lisa was, we had gotten separated, and my first glimpse of the Mona Lisa was a bit clouded with thoughts of "Where's Maddie? Oh god, she's lost, she's been kidnapped, I'm going to have to go look for her, this sucks, why can't I just enjoy the Mona Lisa..." but I eventually found her and everything was cool. So we went and saw the "Raft of the Medusa," which we'd studied in Middle School, and then just walked around for a while. The place is ENORMOUS. I couldn't get over the size of it, it was pretty overwhelming. It just never ends! We also saw the "Venus de Milo" and tons of other cool famous things. What a day!

So we left, and I thought it would just be a quick jaunt up to the Arc de Triomphe, so we headed that way. As it turns out I'm an idiot, and can't read maps; it took us about two hours, and we were super tired when we got there. I'd invested in a "flute" (or baguette, as we Americans call them) and munched on that as we contemplated the world's largest traffic roundabout, that encircled the mighty archway.

We then took the Metro to the Eiffel Tower. By that time it was about 4, and the sun was going down and it was COLD. We were freezing our butts off (quite literally, because neither of us thought to bring long underwear) and after contemplating the massive size of the Tower and its beauty in the crisp winter air amongst the leafless trees, we hustled over to the street and into a cafe. We lingered over way-too-expensive tea, hot chocolate, and French fries (ha ha, pommes frites, rather) and watched the sun set, because we wanted to see the Tower all lit up in its night light. When we left the cafe it had gotten even colder, and we only had enough energy to walk to the tower and "make a photo" before going to the Metro station. We saw the Tower go all crazy-like with the lights, as if fifty thousand tiny people with camera flashbulbs were going off all up and dow the place, which was awesome. We had a crazy adventure in the trains which ended up with us back where we started... but our general attitude was, of course, "at least we're warm!" It's true; better warm and inside a train going nowhere, than outside in this cold. One good thing came of our roundabout journey though; we ran into the Kuglers! They had decided on a whim to come to Paris for a day before going to Germany, and had been at the Louvre today as well, and were just on their way to the Eiffel Tower when they saw us! How crazy is that? Like a one-in-a-zillion chance, that's how crazy! I was so happy to see them and Mitzi was yelling so energizingly, that I hugged all of them.

After Maddie and I sorted ourselves out with the trains, we came back to Place d'Italie, near our hostel. We had seen KFC advertisements all over Paris, so we decided to check it out. DON'T JUDGE US! We like Kentucky-fried chicken! And it's part of the culture, to taste the fast food. Anyway, it was an interesting experience. I didn't know what to make of the fact that we were the only white people there. The food was good, and we had ice cream treats called "Avalanches" which I hope they have at KFC's in the States because they were REALLY good.

Now we're back at our hostel. Tomorrow we plan on seeing Notre Dame, then going to Caen and Rouen. Tomorrow's our last night in Paris, then it's off to Amsterdam! We've booked our hostels for Amsterdam and Dublin, so that's all set. It's shaping up to be an awesome journey. More later, I promise. All my love goes out to everybody back home, I'm getting very excited to see everybody very soon :) Cheers!

Ah, Venice...

Today was a freezing cold, foggy gray day in Venice. After getting up, putting on my usual t-shirt and the zip-up brown sweater that has become like my second skin, bundling into my red fleece jacket and warm winter hat, and blue Athens scarf and the mittens that I got in Rome, we set out for the train station. Although we got a little bit lost, we found the "stazione" and hopped aboard the proper train. Slowly but surely we're figuring out which trains we can ride for free with our Eurail Pass, and which ones we have to pay extra for (i.e. the trains we DON'T want to take.)

When we arrived in Venice there was a thick fog, and everything looked really sleepy. Probably everybody was inside because it was so freaking cold out! But seriously, the city was much less crowded than I remember it being when I was here last, when I was 12 years old and visiting my relatives Jane, John and Mark, who were living in Bologna at the time. I recognized the interior of the train station from my memory, though, as well as St. Mark's square. (Side note: funnily enough, as my dad likes to joke, every time I go to Europe he moves into a new house - when I was here eight years ago, he moved to our house on Ford Road, and now he just moved to St. Paul! It seems that every time he moves, I scamper off to Europe to avoid the hassle.) Anyway, today the place seemed almost empty except for us. There was zero wait to get into St. Mark's basilica, which we didn't go into last time I was here and which I daresay I have much more of an appreciation for, now that I'm older. One thing I definitely appreciated about the place was, as my guidebook told me, that the interior of the basilica was designed not in the traditional Catholic style but in a more traditionally Greek Orthodox shape. Also that the Venetian sailors who took Saint Mark's remains from Alexandria had to pack them in pork meat, to avoid being caught by Arab officials. Also, I had never seen so many gold mosaics in one place before! They were on the ceilings, in the domes, on the insides of archways, on the sides of the archways... the whole of the basilica seemed to be made out of gold mosaics and beautiful green, red, and grey marble columns. Not to mention the awesome tile mosaics on the floor! It's a very visually stimulating place!

Both Maddie and I enjoyed reminiscing about the "Classical Kids" tapes we used to listen to as children, because the Vivaldi one had of course been set in Venice. We laughed at the lines we remembered ("The whole WORLD could meet here!" referring to Piazza di San Marco) and went on an unfortunately failed quest to find the school that Vivaldi taught at. We succeeded in finding the BLOCK that the school was on, however, and we managed to get a picture. We also saw the Bridge of Sighs, and ate at a Chinese restaurant because we wanted to see what Italian Chinese food was like. (It was pretty good, although a little bit expensive. Really good dumplings.) Today was an awesome food day; later, because it was FREEZING, we went and had a cioccolata calda (hot chocolate) Italian-style: thick, rich, muddy chocolate that has to be churned in a mixer to keep it from solidifying, topped with real fresh whipped cream and cocoa powder. I swear, if you held some of it in your mouth, it seriously took a bit of effort to move your tongue around. Mmmmmm... warms the body with its heat, warms the soul with its flavour, AND adds fat to one's body, for extra layering-protection against the cold! Nice.

Speaking of Nice, that's where we're going tomorrow! (The city in southern France, that is.) I look forward to seeing what the south of France looks like at 30 degrees Fahrenheit. The next day we'll go to Paris. I've been e-mailing with some friends of ours, Max and Mel, who are in Nancy and Strasbourg, respectively, to see if they want to hang out with us when we're there. Hopefully that will happen, although they're both still in school. I'm bummed that I didn't get to hang out with my cousin Mark, who's working in Bologna, but unfortunately time didn't allow it. I should go e-mail him right now, actually. Cheers everyone, only two weeks until I'm back in America; see you soon!

In fair Verona...

For everybody worrying about my safety out there, it's been two days, and now I'm writing another blog entry, as promised! Everything is great.

Yesterday Maddie and I got up early to wait in line for the Vatican Museum. It wasn't too bad, we had dressed warmly and we read all we could read in the guidebook about what we were going to see in the Vatican, and only ended up waiting for about 45 minutes. I had brought my passport and everything, but all we had to do was go through a metal detector and put our bags on a conveyor belt, like at an airport, before going into the museum. I guess there would have been more if we were actually going INSIDE the Vatican. The museum's kind of on the edge, like it's part of the wall. Anyway it was cool, we saw a lot of sculptures from the first few centuries A.D. and some cool Egyptian and Levantine art from about the 12th century B.C., also a papyrus fragment from the freking 10th century B.C. (awesome??? yeah... like, oldest papyrus EVER...) And it was also fun to go around looking at the Greek and Roman statues that the Popes had gone and put fig leaves on, for decency. We were so glad we'd bought the little audio guide thingy you type the numbers on and listen to like a cell phone. Where it came in handy the most, I think, was in the Sistine Chapel. Maddie got fidgety and wanted to leave after about 45 minutes in there, but I was glued to that room. I just stood in the middle and stared at the ceiling and at the back wall where the Last Judgment was, listening to that audio guide tell me about the composition of the thing and point out things like the similarity of the skin in the hands of one of the saints, and how the face of the skin resembles the face of Michelangelo himself. Weird things like that. I was also amazed at the size and shape of the place; it's much smaller than I imagined it would be, and also a lot more crowded, both in terms of how many people were there and how much there is to see on the walls and ceilings. I mean it's just an extremely busy room! Very visually stimulating, after 45 minutes I was actually exhausted trying to take it all in, and we left. We then went for St. Peter's Basilica. Oh man. That place is enormous; not as big as the Haghia Sofia in Istanbul - I'll admit I didn't get the same rush as I got in the Haghia Sofia - but it was still a beautiful place. And at one point, all the lights went out, and the guards made everybody leave. That was weird, I thought there might have been some kind of weird security breach or something and it was a little bit scary. Especially because, for some reason, there were thousands of Italian military guys there, probably for mass. Like literally thousands; we had to wait a long time for them to file out, before we could even enter the Basilica. But nothing happened after they hustled us out, which was good. Overall the Vatican was really impressive. I guess I was expecting to meet a lot of groovy pilgrims there, but most of the others that were there appeared to be just regular tourists like ourselves. Same as with the Haghia Sofia, I suppose.

Next we went and had lunch, then went to the Torre di Argentina, the site where supposedly Brutus stabbed Caesar. It was very fresh-looking, like it had only recently been excavated. Right near that site there was a sort of cat sanctuary, which I think Maddie found more interesting than the site itself (oh well.) We weren't there long, since you couldn't go and walk around the site. Wow, looking back on it we did a LOT of walking that day. We saw a LOT of Rome. It's so interesting to see all the Classical influences on more relatively recent art. After spending so much time in Greece wandering from museum to museum and seeing countless marble and stone statues, you get to Rome and it's like, same song, different art period; now we're in the Renaissance, and instead of gods they're saints...? But they still look the same as the gods did over a thousand years ago...? It's really cool. We then wound our way up the narrow sidesteets of Rome, from indistinguishable piazza to indistinguishable piazza, by the Pantheon and nearby obelisk, and walked up to the Mausoleum of Augustus. It's definitely something you have to see; you know it sounds really cool, right? Like, something EVERY tourist would flock to, just to get a photo? Well, it's basically just a cylindrical building of bricks that's overgrown with weeds and vines, with mud caked over the only inscription that's there to read, and beer cans and plastic wrappers all over the place. We weren't sure what to make of it, so we left quickly and went to the Spanish Steps. I'd never even heard of that place, but apparently it's really famous because there were tons of tourists there, and it was really scenic so we took lots of pictures. Sorry I've given up posting pictures on this blog right away, but it's just too dang slow. I've taken over 2,000 all together since arriving in Greece, though, so there will be PLENTY to be seen when I get back to the States!

Anyway, after walking around all day we were exhausted and went back to our hostel, where we met a new guy in our dorm room, Roger from Australia. He was really chatty and we sat around talking to him for a while about where we'd all been and where we were planning to go, and he turned out to be a really nice guy. We went out for a stroll around Rome with him later, planning on going to a bar, although we actually just walked all the way to the Collosseum and nearly all the way back to our hostel before stopping in at a pub for a pint of Guinness. Rome at night is really pretty, but I found it eerily quiet. I mean there was almost nobody out. Anyway, Roger thought we were just these crazy geniuses who knew all about art and architecture and Greek and Roman history, he just grilled us with questions and we totally played it up. I mean, I don't think you have to be a crazy genius to be able to recognize a certain kind of column or be reminded of a certain temple by seeing a similar-looking column formation; three months in Greece will do that to anybody! But we had fun answering his questions, and we were out until about 2 a.m. just wandering the streets of Rome and chatting. All in all a really cool evening.

The next day... that's today I guess... geez, long days!... we left Rome and caught the train for Florence. It took us a lot longer than we expected to get there, so we didn't have enough time to do all the things we wanted to do. But we did manage to see Michelangelo's David (and yes, we saw the Digital David thing at the exhibit, it was SUPER cool to be able to see his face close up and adjust the light to be able to see it from every angle with every sort of shadow!) and we did manage to see the Duomo, the big domed building in the middle of the city, with the Baptissery nearby. We also managed to sample the local gelato (Florence being the place where the stuff was originally invented, supposedly. Maddie the gelato connoissure was pleased.) I'm a little bit embarrassed to say that today's nutritional contents have been mostly consisting of fatty foods; in our rush, we didn't have time to eat other than at the McDonalds by the Florence train station! Gross, I know. But hey, you gotta try the foreign Mickey D's, right? Part of the cultural experience... maybe? I don't know, we were hungry and in a hurry, and living on a budget of 30 Euro a day after lodging doesn't always allow for restaurant meals. The supermarket's always the best bet, but like it says in Kassandrama - "time... marches? Time... tiptoes?"

Anyway, we got back on the train and headed up to Verona, where we are now. The place we're staying at is super sweet, it's this little apartment-turned-Bed&Breakfast. Maddie and I have our own room, there's only a few other people here sharing a bathroom, there's Christmas lights all over the place, and the landlady's name is Flavia. Tomorrow we're going to take a day trip sort of thing, over to Venice, for the day, then come back here for the night. After that it's up to France! We have internet here, so I'll try to post again tomorrow. Ciao!

God, I've had "Waiting" by the Rentals stuck in my head all day. Maybe I'll listen to it on YouTube.

Winter Break... now I am in Rome

Whats today, the 9th? (Sorry in advance for all the typos, I have to get used to this Italian keyboard.) I'm safely in Rome, on the second day of my European Odyssey with Maddie.

It has been an incredible week. Its Saturday, and today I went to the original site of ancient Rome. How cool is that? Maddie and I saw the houses of Augustus and Livia, and the alleged home of Romulus. We went to the Colusseum, and the ancient Forum. (No, nothing funny happened on the way there...) And do you know how we know that the site is officially cool? Because it rained when we were there... just like it rained at Delphi, Pergamum, Ephesus, Mycenae, etc. Rome, too, is worthy of rain. Anyway, this is how we got here: we left Athens, took the train to Patra, took the boat to Bari (on which I slept because I used my sleeping bag, which I hadnt used yet on this trip but which earned its keep that night by keeping me warm JUST THAT ONCE; totally worth it), then in Bari we went to the Tomb of St. Nicolas (as in, jolly old) and then took the train from Bari to here. And now we are in Rome. Wheee... Tomorrow we go to Vatican City, then for a day trip to Florence. We both ended up bringing enormous suitcases, which we intended to ship home but which we found out would be too expensive, so we just put our small ones inside the big ones. When you live on the fourth floor of the building that your hostel is in, you want to stay there as long as possible. So we did three nights in Rome instead of two, and we will see Florence in an afternoon, I guess. But we're actually HERE. Astounding.

I cried SO HARD when I left my Athens apartment for the last time. Greece has been my home for three wonderful months, and who knows when I'll be back, if ever? So it was like, I was almost mourning for my trip gone by like it was this dead thing that will only live on in my memory. I didn't cry when I said goodbye to my friends, because I can never cry around them, they make me so happy. I am going to miss everybody so much, especially Wendy and Alex, they've become my two closest friends on this trip. Oh my gosh, Im going to miss being silly with Wendy, her saying Syndagma so funny, dancing, and just walking around with her talking about everything. Oh man, all the dancing we did, her me and Alex, in Mytilini and a little bit in Athens. I'll miss Alex so much too; us trying to sing and play guitar to songs we both knew, smoking hookah in Istanbul, and just sitting around talking about music, movies, books, and people. The night before I left, we and a few other people went to Mikes Irish Bar to do karaoke (after a failed attempt to get into this Schmaltzy party that Haileys topnotch political connections almost got us into), and even though there wasnt karaoke they were playing awesome music so we just hung out, drank beer that was too expensive, and danced. After that we hung around outside Mikes, and I had a really good (though extremely painful) goodbye with Wendy. Wendy left, and Alex, David, Sam, Chris Scheffler and I went down to Psirri. There we had an awesome conversation about the trip and how we would make it better, the changes we would make, like how we were always given the option to postpone the due dates for our papers and that screwing us up and making this last month so work intensive. (I still have to write my capstone, it's due January 22nd because I got an extension so I wouldnt have to work as hard. I think I finished my other classes with all A's though. Score.) Anyway, back to Psirri. We left around 3 I think, and I said goodbye to Alex, which was really hard. I know that he, Wendy and I will still be friends when we get back to America, but while we were on the trip we were always in such close proximity, always in the same classes and never more than a few blocks apart and always on the same schedule, that we saw each other all the time and had so much in common that we got really, really close. When we go back to school it wont be like that, with them living off campus and us all taking different classes, which makes me kind of sad. At least we got to say really good goodbyes, though. I never feel, at the end of the semester, that I can say the kind of goodbyes that I want to say, because everything is so rushed and everyone is so busy. With Wendy, though, I got to spend a good ten or fifteen minutes on it, and with Alex it was kind of rushed because I had to get into a taxi, but I felt like we had such a good conversation in Psirri, and right as I was getting into the cab as we waved each other bye it just felt really right. I mean, I never get to say goodbyes like that at the end of school. I dont know. It was just really cool, we got to have really good closure, the kind I dont usually get. I guess we just had such an amazing trip, it had to end really well like that.

I hope I recorded all my emotions properly on this trip. Ill probably write more as this European Odyssey continues, because I want to remember how I felt, years from now when I read this journal again. Other trip journals Ive kept for trips in the past have been so bland, I can hardly tell what happened on them, apart from just events. So Ill probably write some supplementary entries, if I get the chance. Just for posterity's sake, you know?

It's going to be hard, getting used to not being in Greece anymore. I mean it was just. So. Amazing. I've tried my best to describe it, but I think that so much of how I thought and felt about it will be best recorded in the relationships I made with the rest of the people with me. And we will have to stay in touch to help each other remember it; we will have to be each others journals, I think. We have this weird little language with each other, of quotes and sayings that make us laugh and remember certain people and things... you know what I should do, I should make a list of all those sayings and put them in this journal so I can remember them. That's exactly what I'll do. It will take a while, but I'll post it eventually. Oh my gosh, I can feel I'm already about to cry just thinking about how much I'll miss being in Greece with everybody, I gotta stop for now. Ciao :)

Classes Are Over, Still Have Papers, Still Procrastinating...

The title of this entry pretty much says it all right now. Our last day of class was last Thursday, when we put on our performance of "Kassandrama." (And time's foot... tiptoes?) The show went pretty well, considering there wasn't much pressure on us to succeed. We didn't expect anybody to come, and indeed there weren't very many people there. Iannis and his daughter Lena came, and Kugler and his family, and a couple of faculty exactly 4 students from CYA. Woo hoo. We just had fun with it, and ran through it very casually. It was nice having it finished, though. Afterwards a few of us went outside in front of the Olympic Statium and played frisbee, which was extremely fun. Being out in the semi-cold, playing barefoot on cold smooth marble with the guys and most of us still being in costume was a really good end for the day!

Earlier last week I finished my Karavas paper (on the defenses against iconoclasm, of John of Damascus and Theodore the Studite) and turned it in. Actually, I should say I wrote until I reached the word limit, and having nothing further to say, I concluded it and called it done. It's a weird paper, because it's only half-way complete; after I get back to Portland I'm going to double the length of it, and turn the final product in to Kugler so I can get 300-level credit for the class in the Religious Studies department. This essay that I just turned in to Karavas is, like, the preliminary debut for it--just the "history" stuff--so I didn't really care about the quality of it, and neither did Karavas really, so that's okay. After I fill it in with the theological questions and the implications for Greek Orthodoxy, it'll be super sweet, and since Kugler's the one who will grade the final thing, the end result should be an "A" for my final grade in the class. (Speaking of A's, I just found out I got an "A" on my Attic Tragedy midterm exam, so that class is in the bag. Sweet.)

Now that classes are officially over it's tough to work on my papers. I still have two that are due Wednesday for Attic Tragedy (one essay and one "written reflections" on our show.) So I'll do those tonight and tomorrow. I also have my capstone paper to write, which I'll turn in on the first day of school in January. It's like, we just keep pushing back the dates for our assignments so I never really feel any pressure to do anything!

I've actually been slacking off all weekend... starting right after the play on Thursday, when we played frisbee in front of the stadium. Oh man, it's been an amazingly fun weekend. I'm surprised my brain didn't explode from lack of sleep, smoke, music, etc. After frisbee we went down to Psirri (me, Wendy, Alex, David and Collin) and went to the Beer Academy. That's this groovy little restaurant that serves all these different kinds of beer, some on tap, and it's just a fun place to hang around. I went home and went to bed around 3 or 4. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent at the following places in a repetitive cycle; my apartment, David's apartment, Alex's apartment, Psirri, and Lena's apartment. Friday I hung out with Maddie and did some reading for my paper. Then that night we sat around eating junk food and listening to music, and then went over to David's apartment. David's become, like, my surprise friend; last semester he was the one I knew the least, and this September he got a bad reputation as a mooch when he would always go over to the girls' apartment and sit around and eat all their food. But he's quit doing that, and he's actually a pretty nice guy, and responsible too, in his own way. Plus he's always up for going out, and never says no. Anyway, we all sat around while he rolled his own blend of cigarettes, until it was time to go to the concert we'd been planning to go to for days; Let'z Zep, the band that BBC news says is "the greatest Led Zeppelin cover band of all time." That was a very cool concert; I like Led Zeppelin but I don't know their music very well so I'm not a connaissure, but I thought they put on a great show and of course the music was great. After that, we got some coffee and David, Alex, Lena and I went back to Lena's place and hung around and watched "Lost in Translation." David and Lena went to sleep, and Alex and I stayed up for a long time talking after that. We finally crashed on these mattresses in Iannis' office around 5 or 6, and slept until 4 the following afternoon.

Lena woke us up when she got back from taking a big English exam. We had cereal and sat around, and finished "Lost in Translation." Then David, Alex and I left to go home but ended up calling Lena when we saw a billiards hall and wanted to play, so we called Lena and she came out and we went and played billiards. After that Lena went home and David, Alex and I went back to Kolonaki. After arguing for way too long about whose speakers we would use and whose iPod we would listen to and and whose apartment we should go to, we decided to go to David's apartment and order pizza. I stopped in at my place to change my shirt, and the evening proceeded to be almost a repeat of the previous one; we sat around David's kitchen while he rolled some cigarettes and we listened to music, and then went down to Psirri and went to the Beer Academy. We tried to go dancing but decided to just go back to Lena's instead. We sat around at her apartment eating desserts for a while, and went up to her upstairs balcony and sat wrapped in blankets. David smoked, and we watched Triplettes of Belleville and fell asleep around 4.

Sunday afternoon, yesterday, we got up around 2 ("wakey wakey, eggs and bakey!") but ended up just sitting around at Lena's apartment for a few hours watching TV. We regretted this later, when the sun started going down and we realized that it had been a beautiful day outside, so we rushed out and went to the park for the last few minutes of sunshine. After playing on a giant rock pyramid, we took the train back to Syntagma and walked up to Kolonaki. Alex, ever the coffee-obsessed guy that he is, made us all frappes. (I just realized I've never really explained about Nescafe in this blog; Greeks love instant coffee, and the average day revolves around a schedule of coffee breaks in which Nescafe blended with milk, sugar and ice - aka "frappe" - is a staple.) Anyway, after that I went home to SHOWER for the first time in days, which was really, really nice. Then I made us all, plus Maddie and Wendy, a penne with meat sauce dinner. Afterwards Lena went home, and we hung around our apartment until we went to CYA to get Elder Chris and Collin and go to the Beer Academy. (Having a pasta dinner before going to the Beer Academy is a good idea because then you can try lots of different beers without completely losing your mind.) Going there last night was the most fun I've had since coming back to Athens; we had a great group (Collin, Wendy, Elder Chris, myself, David and Alex) and we had an awesome conversation about music and what artists we thought people would still be listening to 30 years from now. (Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Strokes, and Beck were the only ones we were even remotely unanimous about.) We left there around 1 and went to a hookah bar where we had more awesome conversation (at one point we played this sort of game where we kept going around in a circle and we had to say one nice thing and one mean thing about everybody, which was hilarious.) Then we got some sausage sandwiches and walked up to McDonalds where we got even more food (??) and then took cabs back to David's apartment. He smoked some cigarettes and we sat around eating ice cream (why we ate so much that night I have no idea...) and talking, until gradually everyone went home and it was just me and Alex sitting around, and then he fell asleep on the couch so I left.

By the way, I hope you'll excuse the somewhat juvenile/diary format of these past few entries. They're my final attempt to capture some of the "little things" that happen here in Athens, before we all go back to the States. I'm going to miss this group a lot, and for some reason I feel like I have to record the things we do so I can at least TRY to remember them later.

Anyway yeah, today I'm going to go sell some books at the used book store, and hopefully get close to finishing one of my papers tonight. I'll probably post again before I depart on my Eurail journey with Maddie... did I mention we bought our train passes? We have 8 days of travel (not necessarily consecutive) within Italy, France, and Belgium/Luxembourg/Netherlands. It's going to be pretty intense, and I'm REALLY looking forward to it! Anyway, more later. Cheers!

Thanksgiving, and some stuff before and after

Well it's Monday again, and it seems like I just wrote my last entry a few days ago, when really it was a full WEEK ago. The trip is almost over and the time is FLYING by, probably because I don't notice it passing, because I spend most of my days staring at a computer. I was talking to Alex yesterday about how our memory of the events of the trip so far are already starting to get blurry. I realized then that I'm so glad I've at least kept track of most things on this journal, so I can look back and at least get the chronology of events right! But in a way it's true that the little details will never be as fresh in my mind again as they are now; the feelings I get when I walk past a certain building (like every morning when I walk to CYA and I get to Spyridonos, the block where I could turn left and get a pastry and/or coffee at Angelina's, the little bakery near school) or at a certain time of day when I do certain little routine things. Like getting out of bed and walking down the hall to the electrical box cabinet thingy, to see if the hot water switch is on so I can take a shower. Or little things to small to even recognize, they're more like subconscious things. Like the comfort of stepping onto a Metro train and glancing up at the map, with its reassuring little green and blue and red lines with pictures on it that let you know you're going in the right direction. Maybe I'll go and take a picture of that map later.

I turned in my final Art & Archaeology paper for Nicola this morning, so that's some work that's out of the way. And I'm 1,750 words into my Byzantine History paper for Karavas, which he hasn't set a page minimum for yet, but which he's said shouldn't be LONGER than 3,000 words. (Because he's kind of lazy like that. There's even some speculation among our group, half-jokingly, as to whether he'll actually read our essays at all...) So I'm getting to the point where that's almost done, which is good because it's due on Wednesday. Then after that it's just the Attic Tragedy paper and written response to the performance we're doing, which is this Thursday. (I'll be premiering the role of Hecuba 2 in our weird avante-garde version of Kassandrama, a "theatromontage" put together by our very own theatre professor Anthony Stevens. I'll keep my mouth shut about how very self-serving this play is, how little we're learning from the experience, etc.)

On a lighter note, we had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner last week! On Wednesday night, Sam and I started making a gigantic batch of eggnog in the biggest pot we could find. (The recipe is from Southern Living.com I think, and I highly recommend it. Oh my gosh, it's mostly milkfat, eggs, and sugar. Also some vanilla, cinnamon, nugmeg, brandy and rum.) We had a lot of fun making it, and even more fun serving it! Thursday was a crisp, gorgeous day. Part of it involved dragging chairs up to the boys' house, and part of it involved sitting around with Renee and Ashley and Emma, stirring whipping cream and mixing it into the eggnog mix from the night before. It's fun having good, quality "girl time" with them sometimes, they're really funny. That night there were about 17 of us who gathered at the boys' house, where they had put all of their desks together in a long row to look like a banquet table. The girls who cooked the turkey, stuffing and sweet potatoes in the boys' kitchen had spent part of the day decorating, so there were turkey napkins and wreaths of orange boughs from the trees in our neighborhood, and little tea candles all over the room so the light had a very warm and festive glow. I had come prepared with my iPod, ready to play "Merry Christmas Charlie Brown" (which I'd already listened to twice that day) but eventually people wanted to put on '80's dance music, which was fine with me. Everyone showed up looking fabulous, feeling well-rested from having the day off, and happy for the excuse to sit around and eat a feast! Speaking of which... the feast itself was HUGE. There were 2 turkeys(!), an enormous pot of stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, 2 kinds of green bean casserole, macaroni and cheese, broccoli with cheese, and lots of gravy and cranberry sauce for everything. And that was just dinner. Most of us had volunteered to bring something, but that translated into about a dozen people walking in the door with desserts and festive drinks. So there were about a bazillion pies, puddings, and stuffed dates, plus there was ample wine throughout the meal, in addition to my eggnog, Charles' spiced cider, Clariece's hot buttered rum, and David Stephens' Irish car bombs. Despite having one and a half plates of food at dinner, I think I drank most of the calories I took in that night!

After the feast, we all went to the Ethniki Theatro (National Theatre) to see a production of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound. I stayed awake for about 20 minutes, and then gave in to the triptophane (i.e. Turkey sleep chemical.) Then I was nudged awake just in time to applaud for the curtain call. When I asked Elder Chris how long the play was, he told me "a little over an hour." What a nap! At least the parts of the play that I managed to see were cool. Prometheus was strapped to a gigantic mill-like wheel in the center of the stage, which made for an interesting visual effect on the whole. Also very impressive was the chorus; they were spot on in their synchronization. But when the play's in a different language it's kind of hard to maintain interest, even though I'd already read the play in English. It's such a poetry-intensive, language-driven play though! All of Aeschylus' plays are like that, I think. If you can't hear and comprehend the words, there's almost no point in watching it, after seeing the initial staging and visual set-up.

The weekend after that awesome Thanksgiving was fun, although I spent a lot of it in the library. Friday night a few of us went to see some live Rembetiki music (the traditional music of Greece that you hear everywhere here, dating back to the Revolution in 1821.) That was fun for a while, but it was kind of weird just standing at the back of this over-crowded bar where I felt extremely out of place. So I went to go and get a coffee with Alex, and that was cool, it was like being back on Lesbos again, hanging out in Musiko Kafeneion. We joined up with the group again after a while, and walked around looking for a club to dance in. That idea sort of failed, although we walked all the way up to Syndagma before giving up and heading back to Kolonaki. Then I called Avery on the phone, which was extremely nice, and went to bed around 3 a.m. Saturday night was great too. (Isn't it funny that I have to refer to the events in my life in terms of what NIGHT they were on, because my days are so dang boring because all I do is sit in the library?) Anyway, Saturday NIGHT a bunch of us gathered in the boys' apartment to watch the movie "Knocked Up." It's a hilarious movie which everyone should see, and it's especially fun when you've spent the last 7 hours working on a paper. We walked to a bar in Kolonaki for a while, but I called it an early night around 1 and went home.

Sunday was fun, I went to the Poet Sandalmaker with Alex, who wanted to buy a leather satchel but needed a second opinion to make sure it wasn't too much of a purse to be a guy's bag. Elder Chris came too, to get some sandals for his mom, and I ended up being his foot model. We took a long time getting back to CYA; although we had the best intentions of being there when it opened at 3, we actually hung around near Syndagma drinking coffee for a while, then went to the park talking about movies until like 4:30, and then went to get pizza at Domino's for dinner, so didn't get to studying until about 5:30. It's really, really, really hard to get started working on your paper when you're in another country and there's tons of fun stuff you could be doing, and it's not due until Wednesday and you're already halfway done! In fact, I ended up making ZERO progress whatsoever on my paper on Sunday. I went onto WebAdvisor (the website where we search and register for classes at Lewis & Clark) and shopped for classes for like an hour, and figured out what classes I still have to take and how much room I'll have left over for electives my senior year. I think it'll be a good year.

Today I've been pretty good about getting work done; I added about 200 words to my essay, and turned in my paper for Nicola. And it's only 2:30! The question is, will I stay here after class, or go home to make dinner? It's so tempting to just leave at 7 after rehearsal, but I should probably stay and make some more headway on this thing. It'll get done eventually...

Stress, and one FUN weekend!

Yarrrrrrrrrgh!

Sorry, just had to let that out. I'm a bit stressed. I finished one paper (yessss!! "The Extent To Which the Remains and Objects Found in the Athenian Agora Match the Practices Described in Aristotle's Constitution of the Athens" is complete!" Art & Archaeology - done.) ...but it seems like the fun NEVER ENDS around here when it comes to papers. Now I've got "Icons and the Monastic Tradition" to deal with, and that's going to be a challenge. Also I've got to wrap things up around here in terms of packing, shipping things home, and getting my travel plans for after the trip organized. You all know I'm flying back to the States from Dublin, Ireland, right? Yeah. Well, that ticket's all bought and taken care of... it's GETTING THERE I haven't quite dealt with yet. Travel across the LENGTH AND WIDTH of Europe in 16 days? ...Can't be THAT hard, right? All the same, it's about time I bought my Eurail pass, I think... and figure out what Maddie's plans are. We haven't been getting along very well these past few days, mostly because she's stressing out WAY too much over Thanksgiving dinner. She wants to cook a big dinner, but not TOO big, so there's drama about who's eating where, who's cooking for whom, etc. and it seems like all she does is yell at people and whine about everybody's lack of organization about the whole thing. Yuck. I've stood up to her a few times and told her not to be so unpleasant about what ought to be a fun holiday of togetherness, but that just makes her angrier. I'll be glad when that's over! Other than that life's peachy. I had an adventure with the Registrar's Office this week, trying to sign up for all the classes I need for next semester. After several tries, a couple of REALLY early mornings (around 2 or 3 a.m.) and one long game of e-mail tag with a Communication professor, here's what I got:

Religious Studies 274 Islam in the Modern World (since ca. 1300. With Paul Powers, highly recommended).

Religious Studies 455 Themes in History of Religions (mystery subject to study in-depth in cross-cultural religious history, TBA first day of class! With Alan Cole, mystery professor.)

History 323 Modern European Intellectual History (focused on ethics and philosophy. With Chana Cox, infamously tough professor.)

Communication 303 Relational Communication Theory (in-depth relationship/communication theory and research methods. With Daena Goldsmith, mystery professor.)

...Basically, I'm going to explode my brain. I'm so excited. Chana Cox is going to be hard, and I'm going to work my bum off for the Islam class. On the other hand, "Themes" is only one night per week, and it eliminates Poekoelan from my schedule. (I can still take classes on Wednesday nights if I want, but Mondays and teaching beginners' classes are out.) So, it's going to be a challenging semester. My roommate talked to the Housing office though, and it looks like we're probably going to get a SWEET apartment on campus. Score!

Anyway, back to GREECE! Our group went down to the Peloponnese this week, to see Mycenae (as in, Agamemnon's place), Nafplia (the first capital of the country of Greece after the Ottomans were deposed), and Olympia (where the first Olympic games were held.) It was a good trip, except that it rained every time we went to a historical site. Modern Nafplia was dry but cold, and Saturday and Sunday were both very very wet and cold. Especially because most of us just brought a single change of clothes... or less. I had only brought a change of shirt and pyjamas; so on the bus I was all about the PJs. (Climbing onto the bus with everybody stripping off their wet clothing soon became natural to us. The first few times it was a bit shocking to climb aboard and see my classmates sitting in their seats in their underwear; but nobody wants to sit around in wet jeans for hours at a time!)

The sites themselves (getting back on topic, ahem) were brilliant. On the way to Nafplia we stopped in Epidaurus, which used to be the spot of an ancient Askepion and healing cult sanctuary. FUN. Also, Epidaurus is home to the theatre that has the most perfectly-designed acoustics in the WORLD. Like, you can hear a pin drop from the way way back nosebleed section, and people's diction is actually IMPROVED when they speak there. That was very exciting. The Epidaurus theatre is also an interesting architectural specimen because the "skene" building, as you can see in the picture, is placed completely behind - tangental to - the "orkestra" (main round part of the stage.) Usually they overlap somewhat, but not in this one; this leads scholars to deduce that in Epidaurus more emphasis was placed on choral movement, music and dance than on drama as we think of it. Hmmmmm.

Friday night and Saturday morning, when we explored Nafplia, featured trips to some awesome structures as the hilltop citadel overlooking the harbor (from where you could see some mountains, beyond which was the harbor out of which the Greek navy sailed under the direction of Agamemnon! Very cool...) and an extremely old mosque (15th century?) that had been converted into a cinema. Also an excellent gyro place. Also our hotel room which was enormous and in which we watched part of "The Rescuers Down Under" in Greek.

On Saturday, Mycenae was the first stop. It POURED. We saw all the buildings we'd been studying in Archaeology class; the Tholos tomb ,the cave where they'd found the "mask of Agamemnon," the grave shafts, and one deep dark stairway/tunnel thingy where we all slipped and slid down a long marble stairway in pitch darkness just to come to a dead end, but which felt really ancient and mysterious.
(Don't be fooled by this picture, it's all because of the flash! PITCH DARKNESS!) The thunder and lightning was intense that day too, which added to the overall spookiness of that particular excursion.


Saturday night we arrived at Olympia, and we were all completely soaked, so we ordered a bunch of pizzas at our hotel. A few of us played poker (I need to start winning one of these days, dang! Good thing we only play for a couple of Euros) and afterwards we went out to explore modern Olympia. Which involved going to a bar and watching a soccer match between Greece and Malta, and having an awesome conversation with Sam, David, Wendy and Alex, and also a Greek fellow named Bill who later took us to his favorite dance club. There were people dancing traditional Greek dances to the house/techno music there, which was very cool to see.

The site of ancient Olympia was EXPANSIVE. I feel like the sites where ancient sporting events were held, such as Delphi etc., are the biggest and best-preserved, and I'm always surprised when I see them. Anyway, we saw the hotels where visitors stayed for the games, and we saw the gymnasium where athletes trained. (Fun fact: when the athletes were washed in the "spa" by professional bathers with olive oil and skin-scraping techniques, the "residue" from these full-body exfoliations was then bottled and SOLD to pious Olympics fans who believed that these leftovers had healing properties! Yummy...) We also saw the hilltop where women who tried to participate in the games and who were discovered were thrown off of, in punishment. In the arena, we reenacted an Olympic race, one for the boys and one for the girls. The participants had to be barefoot, so naturally I opted to take pictures instead. Oh man, also at the site we saw these amazingly enormous columns that zealous early Christians had somehow managed to topple over in anti-pagan fury. Check out how massive they were! This one's a reconstruction, but it's to exact size measurements. Dang!

The drive back was fun; it involved a long time sitting around in my PJ's, listening to music with Alex and playing 20 Questions with him and Wendy. Somehow, even though I'm super stressed about all these papers and things I have to do before I leave, I always manage to have a lot of fun, most days. Like last night; I accidentally took a 3-hour dinner break with Wendy, Alex, Clariece and Chris, just sitting around on the couches in the student center and talking and eating sandwiches. And last week, when I went down to Psirri a few nights in a row to go dancing. (Why nobody told us about Psirri back in September when we had TONS of time and were always looking for the young people of Athens and never managed to find them, I'll never know.) But hanging out over there with Alex and David is extremely fun, and sitting around at hookah bars and listening to Greek techno music is a great way to wind down after a long day of staring at a computer screen trying to make sense of it all.

No excuses...

Wow. It has been FAR too long since my last entry, and for this I have no excuses. I've just been very, very busy getting back into the whole "school" thing; a month spent mostly just experiencing the culture of a Greek island beach paradise can really mix up your expectations for what school is supposed to be like! I'm sitting here in the library on a SUNDAY and it's like, um, okay, how am I supposed to play soccer and go swimming and go out dancing when I have to spend all my time reading and writing papers! This isn't school!

But seriously. I DO have quite a bit of work to do now; I have 2 papers due two weeks from now (on Nov. 26th), one's a 10 page double-spaced essay for Nicola, my Art and Archaeology professor, and one's an 8 page paper for John Karavas, my Byzantine History professor. We didn't have enough time to do these papers while we were in Athens in September, so now that we're back we have to finish those classes up with these final papers. In addition to those, however, we also have our big capstone paper which we've theoretically been working on this whole semester, but for which both Kugler and Sofia (our Modern Greek Culture professor on Lesbos) have given us so many different descriptions of what they're expecting in this paper and what we should be focusing on that nobody's started writing yet and we're all really stressed out about it. At the beginning of the term, Kugler told us we would be writing a paper on a certain aspect of Greek culture and how it's evolved from the ancient world to the modern one. Then, on Lesbos, Sofia told us that it would be more socio-anthropolgy based, with lots of interviews and fieldwork; very modern-centered. So now we're supposed to be writing a paper on some aspect of Greek culture and how it's evolved from the ancient world to the modern world, somehow integrating 10 subject interviews (I have no idea who to interview, by the way, and neither does anybody else, this is so awkward, only a handful of us have ever taken a sociology class) ... And it's due about a week after the other two are due. Oh, and we've also got Attic Tragedy class, for which we have to write a 9-page term paper, take a midterm exam, produce and perform a 30-minute play and submit a lengthy journal detailing our experiences working on the production. In addition to daily readings of class material, usually a couple of articles and/or a play or two.

SO. That's where my head is right now; somewhere between Aristotle's Constitution of the Athenians (my Nicola paper) and the character of Hecuba 2 in Kassandrama, the avant-garde "theatromontage" my Attic Tragedy professor put together for us to put on. Don't get me wrong though, it hasn't been all work and no play since getting back from Lesbos; we've had a massive, all-school screening of 300 in the auditorium, which was immensely enjoyable, followed by a Q&A on Sparta with a history professor. (Gigantic nerd-fest.) We also had dinner at Ianni's house, with Sofia - it was funny seeing how much Ianni's apartment looks like Hotel Votsa! And we just got back from an overnight trip to Meteora, about 6 hours away, which is this beautiful world of cliffs and hermits' dwelling-caves with all these monasteries overlooking the scenery, it was extremely cool. Two of the monasteries held relics of the bodies of saints, which some of our group found kind of disgusting but others of us found quite intriguing. We also found it interesting that girls had to wear skirts inside the monasteries. So anyway, we're having fun amidst the chaos and stress. Last night some of us went out clubbing in Psirri, a part of Athens that's full of bars and music clubs and all these young people (finally!) and didn't get back until 6 a.m. Now it's 4 p.m. and somehow I have to have written 4 pages by the end of today. That's the goal, at least. More on my oh-so-interesting library life later, I promise! Peace 'n' love...

Safely back in Greece

I'm sitting in the cozy reception office at Hotel Votsala, after a day of re-acclimating to Lesbos and relaxing in Music Cafe playing Scrabble in Greek with Amanda and Alex. The rest of Turkey was amazing, but it's good to be back; I was getting tired of being hustled into all the stores and restaurants wherever I went, and being followed and spoken to by ALL the guys there, "Excuse me! Excuse me. Hello. Where you from? You English? Excuse me. Where are you staying?" It's like, EVERY guy there just wants to start up a conversation with you and hopefully take you back to his house. Every girl gets this, even an elderly woman with a limp who I talked to! It's partly because, in Turkish culture, women never go out alone except if they want to look available to men - like, if they're really promiscuous. So everyone thinks you WANT to talk to them, even if you don't show it, so we get hassled by all the guys. Anyway, I'm kind of glad that's over. But Istanbul was AMAZING. Instead of giving you a list of all my day to day activities, I'll just put up a list of things I saw in Istanbul:

- The Kadesh Treaty, the oldest existing peace treaty we know of; it's from the 13th century B.C., and it's a treaty between the Egyptians and the Hittites, vowing to protect each other from enemies!
- The only surviving religious mosaic from before the Byzantine period of iconoclasm!
- An entire room full of pottery shards! (Gives some perspective to modern archaeology, and just how pointless every shard we found actually is...)
- Some talent/shekel measures from Babylon, 8th century B.C.!
- An endless field of beanbag chairs, stretched out before endless blocks and blocks of cafes and hookah bars!
- Some lion and goat mosaics from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, from like the Nebuchadnezzar II period (7th-6th cent.'s B.C.!)
- Some Byzantine emperors' tombs!
- The oldest tower in the world that's still open for tourists to go inside! (Galata Tower, 14th cent. A.D.!)
- An entire city block that was only guitar stores! (Glad Alex wasn't with me at the time...)
- A march to the Independence Monument in Istanbul, 2 days before Turkish Independence Day!
- Independence Monument ON Turkish Independence Day with Alex... and then we went to a Turkish karaoke bar where people were singing "I Will Survive," then to this tiny upstairs bar where there was a Turkish rock band playing a really cool show!
- Topkapi Palace, where the Sultans used to live and do everything (including harems, treasuries, pool-sized bathtubs, imperial kitchens, gardens, etc.)
- NOT Nicea, because the bus schedule wasn't in my favor to go there. But I DID see the Istanbul bus station, with zillions of individual bus companies occupying a gargantuan strip-mall type of building surrounding an enormous ring of crowded cars, vans and taxis. ANARCHY.
- St. Irene, one of the only churches from Byzantine times that hasn't been converted into a mosque, where they held the 2nd Eccuminical Council!
- The Grand Bazaar, which is in this 15th century building with approximately a zillion little shops inside and everyone's heckling you to buy things and coming on to you!
- The Hippodrome, where 30,000 people were slaughtered at the Nike Revolt in the time of emperor Justinian (about 532 A.D.) and where they put all these obelisks from all over the empire. The street that runs around the park is right about where the old horse track used to be!
- Enormous, enormous, gigantic, huge, really really big Haghia Sofia (St. Sofia) re-built by the emperor Justinian after it burned down in the Nike Revolt. So big. So beautiful. Immensely sacred place, built on the site of 3 previous temples, now a mosque.
- Asia!
- AND MUCH MORE!

I'm not putting up pictures, because I took SOOOOO many while I was there. I'll show you all when I get back. Oh but it was SO fabulous. And every night we would go to a different bar or cafe or hookah place, and just relax and talk about where we'd been, what we'd bought and how much we'd bought it for (I've got most of my Christmas shopping done by the way) and music and whatever. There were also TONS of international students there, so lots of fun people to meet. Travelling by myself was nice, it was cool not having to wait for anybody at museums and sites and things, but sometimes I got a little bit jealous of the people in groups for whom it was much easier to get acquainted with other groups at the hostel. Like Amanda and Helana who made friends with these British guys who had biked there from London over like 2 months. They were fun. At the same time they were always getting drunk (I ate breakfast with them once, they were having omlettes... and beer!) so I realized that that would've been kind of hard to deal with. Yeah being by myself was pretty great. Plus I was able to hang out with other people from my program; everyone who came to Istanbul was staying at hostels on this one block behind Haghia Sofia that was all hostels and hookah cafes, so we were all pretty much together. Mel came down from France and was living with Maddie, Clariece and Chris in the same hostel as me (though I had my own separate room) so them and I hung out some times, and Amanda and Helana were in that hostel too. Basically, if you hung out in the hostels or at those nearby hookah cafes and just waited a few minutes, people you knew were bound to stroll in through the door at any time! Lots of fun.

So now I'm back on Lesbos, and we're getting on the overnight ferry back to Athens tomorrow. Sigh. Back to the whole "school" thing in a few days... 4 huge papers... Attic Tragedy class... apartment life... no more sunny beachside hotel... sigh. It's a good life I lead. Cheers!

Istanbul, not Constantınople... 2!

NOTE - My aol e-maıl address ıs NOT workıng for some reason. Please send all e-maıls to carolynb@lclark.edu, I wıll get them there. Also, Just to be clear, thıs entry ıs a FOLLOW-UP to one I started wrıtıng earlıer; you need to scroll down to the entry below thıs one ıf you want to read the story of my trıp to Turkey thusfar! I'm sorry I have put off wrıtıng for so long and now have to catch up on everythıng all at once, but thıs journal ıs as much for me as ıt ıs for you all, so I want to wrıte down a lot of events to help me keep track of them.

Dınner tonıght was fantastıc by the way. I met up wıth Maddıe, Amanda, Helana, Chrıs, Clarıece and Danıel (the guy from the hotel on Lesbos) back at our youth hostel, and we went to the groovy bar upstaırs for a whıle before headıng ın our dıfferent dırectıons. Amanda, Helana and I went off ın search of a restaurant, and on the way we ran ınto an older woman that the other gırls had met ın a souvenır shop earlıer ın the day. She told us she was on her way back to thıs amazıng lıttle restaurant, and we ended up just followıng her there and havıng dınner wıth her. She was an Englısh teacher from New Zealand who lıved ın Chına, very ınterestıng. We talked a lot about dıfferent cultures around the world, what ıt's lıke to be a world traveller when one ıs 63, and other thıngs. The food was terrıffıc (I had lamb wıth mushrooms and a potato dumplıng, oof now I'm really full) and we all had a nıce tıme. Here's a pıcture of all of us.

Anyway, back to my Turkısh adventures of the past few days. After leavıng wet raıny Pergamum, we contınued by bus to Ephesus. It was another few hours, but I slept most of the way because we stopped for lunch at a , a sort of all you can eat buffet type of thıng desıgned for large bus tour groups; huge tables, not too expensıve beer, and lots of greasy food. I slept lıke a baby after that, and when I woke up we were drıvıng ınto Selcuk (sell-CHUCK) a town near Ephesus where our hotel was. A few people from our group went out to explore Selcuk; some went out to hookah bars, but I wanted to get some rest before goıng to Ephesus the followıng day.

Professor Kugler descrıbes Ephesus as the Dısneyland of Archaeology, and he's exactly rıght. The sıte ıs enormous and remarkably well preserved. It's also ıncredıbly ornate, and the hılly surroundıngs and steep pathways around the sıte make for a very stımulatıng trıp. Even though ıt was raınıng lıghtly when we got there, the place was crawlıng wıth tourısts, many decked out ın brıght colored ponchos. At the tıcket booth there was a sıgn sayıng Is Your Tourguıde Lıscensed? Because ıt ıs agaınst Turkısh law for anyone other than lıscensed tour guıdes to speak to groups wıthın sıtes lıke Ephesus and Pergamum. So we had to ınvest ın a guıde to tell us about the ındıvıdual buıldıngs around the sıte - such as Domıtıan's temple and the ancıent lıbrary - and I stuck wıth Kugler so he could tell me about other cool thıngs. We talked a lot about chapter 19 of the Book of Acts, where Paul gets ın trouble wıth the people of Ephesus and they form an angry mob agaınst hım ın the great theatre there. I'm feelıng much cooler ın my relatıonshıp wıth hım than I was earlıer thıs month, when I was a bıt dısappoınted ın the whole archaeology set-up. I had felt that he was judgıng me as a whıny tourıst, somethıng I absolutely couldn't bear. But sınce then we've gotten back on track wıth our rapport. We were all assıgned to gıve presentatıons on one topıc or another on the bus throughout Turkey, and mıne was cemeterıes. Sınce none of us have computers, let alone ınternet access, research for these presentatıons was lımıted (ı.e. nonexıstent.) Needless to say my presentatıon on cemeterıes at a sarcophagus fıeld ın Assos was lackluster, but I remembered a few thıngs from a paper I had wrıtten for Kugler last semester and ended up havıng a pretty good conversatıon\debate wıth hım afterwards about how much one can actually dıscern about ancıent burıal practıces from the evıdence we have. He seemed pleased at how much I had remembered, and I was mutually pleased to get some of my questıons answered by hım. Maybe thıs contrıbuted to my posıtıve take on the sıte of Assos and the wındy clıffs there?

Dıd I mentıon about our last day ın Mytılını yet, by the way? It was pretty ıntense. On our second to last day we went to the bıggest hıgh school on the ısland and sat ın on a Physıcs class there. It was ınterestıng how much the students spoke over the teacher. I dıdn't catch much of the lesson except that they seemed to be talkıng about a traın and a plane both goıng from Athens to Thessalonıkı, and at some poınt the teacher saıd somethıng about the Pythagorean Theorem, whıch I thought was SUPER cool, to be learnıng about that IN GREECE where ıt was INVENTED. Whew! After that we went to ıntervıew some students ın the lıbrary (whıch contaıned many classıc authors such as Nathnıl Hothorn and Tzeın Osten) and ınvıted them out to tea wıth us later. So we came back ınto town around 9 that nıght and met them for tea, whıch was fun; one boy, John, was really enthusıastıc about gossıp. He kept askıng me, Do you lıke gossıp?? Do you watch Oprah?? What ıs the gossıp ın youg group? When we left the tea house we went to a restaurant that also served hookah, whıch was ınterestıng. Later we would wınd up at another hookah bar, and ıt turned out to be a nıght full of hookah and dancıng, and I dıdn't get home untıl about 5:30 a.m. So the next day when I got up at 9 to arrange gıfts for our hosts at the hotel I was less than chıpper, especıally because ıt was raınıng and I had to walk to the Kuglers' house to fetch Hıllary who had the photo we were havıng framed for Iannıs and Sofıa. She ıs such a lucky kıd, theır famıly was lıvıng ın thıs sweet vılla ın Thermı and she had her own separate buıldıng that housed her room, whıch used to be a 18th century battlement tower. Yeah. Anyway, she and I went ınto Mytılını to get gıfts and ıt was wet and cold and pretty lousy ın general. We got some warm pastry whıch helped, but goıng back to the hotel and sleepıng ın dry PJs was pretty much the best thıng ever. That nıght we had a bıg thank you dınner for Iannıs and Sofıa and the staff at Hotel Votsala, where we presented them wıth gıfts and showed a photo slıdeshow set to musıc on Maddıe's computer hooked up to a projector. It was a lot of fun, and everyone from the dıg sıtes showed up too. It felt a lot lıke beıng at camp; we have had SO much fun at Votsala, and we had lıved there for so long and played soccer and sang to the guıtar and eaten ın that dınıng room so many tımes ıt was really sad to be leavıng. But the goodbye dınner was a really great way to end that leg of our journey.

ANYWAY, back to Ephesus... ıt was amazıng. The theatre there ıs HUGE, and you could totally ımagıne an entıre cıty beıng up ın arms agaınst Paul there. A few gırls from our group read part of Antıgone on stage, and some others sang snatches of Bob Marley songs, but I found that a bıt sılly and tourısty. We went to a part of the sıte that was called the Glass House, mostly because ıt was the sıte of domestıc quarters that the Australıan government had paıd to have a glass roof put over to protect the frescoes on the walls there. That was amazıng, and the frescoes were gorgeous, ıncludıng a floor paıntıng of two fıgures whıch I correctly ıdentıfıed as Dıonysus and Medusa (score two nerd poınts for me!) Ashley, Wendy and I trıed to fınd the prıson where Paul was kept, but we weren't sure whıch buıldıng ıt was. Later we found out that NOBODY really knows what buıldıng ıt ıs, and there ıs a lot of academıc debate on the subject. We ended up takıng pıctures of a lot of buıldıngs that MIGHT have been Paul's prıson, and found out that one of those buıldıngs was actually the church of St. Sophıa, where the Second Ecumınıcal Councıl was held ın 431. (Yay for Byzantıne Hıstory... 2 more nerd poınts, please.) On our way back to the hotel we also stopped at the ruıns of the ancıent Temple of Artemıs, one of the seven ancıent Wonders of the World. It was freakıng enormous. And about half of us wrote papers on ıt last semester, so that was pretty awesome. My mental ımage of Turkey from now on, by the way, wıll only ınvolve raın. All those stereotypıcal ımages of blue skıes and sand? All lıes. Lıes, I say.

After returnıng to our hotel ın Selcuk, I proposed a plan of actıon for the afternoon - fırst a vısıt to the church of St. John (the gospel wrıter who lıved ın Ephesus for a tıme), then on to the Hamam (the Turkısh bath), then to the hookah bar for coffee and pastry. I tell you, I would be an amazıng tour guıde because the afternoon was FANTASTIC. Fırst of all, I knew that St. John's was buılt to honor the man who wrote the fourth gospel, but I dıdn't know that he was actually entombed there. But there ıt was, after we had paıd 2 lıre to get ınto the ruıns of the church, ın the mıddle of the sıte was a marble floor surrounded by columns ın front of whıch was a plaque that read The Tomb of St. John. The group of us that was there - Emma, Ashley, Alex, Davıd, Wendy and I - delıberated for a whıle whether he was actually entombed there or whether hıs remaıns rested somewhere else; why would hıs body remaın ın a mostly Islamıc country? Why ıs the place relatıvely deserted? Why was hıs church allowed to fall ınto ruıns? Etc. We couldn't reach a conclusıon, so we just explored the rest of the ruıns. The sıte was absolutely gorgeous, I would totally want to be entombed there.

We left the sıte and walked to the Hamam, whıch I've been waıtıng and waıtıng to wrıte about; I'm sure ıt wıll be one of my most vıvıd memorıes from the trıp so far! Well. We arrıved there all cold, raıny and muddy from trampıng around Ephesus and St. John's all day, and were ready for a bath. We put our belongıngs ın drawers at the front desk, and went ınto separate changıng rooms to get undressed - we were naked except for the towels that we'd been gıven to wrap around ourselves, and we went to the bathroom and through there ınto the Turkısh bath. I dıdn't know what to expect, other than the domed roof, whıch I'd seen from the outsıde all over Turkey already. Indeed, the room was one bıg domed marble room wıth a round marble platform ın the mıddle, whıch the boys were lyıng on already. The platform was heated from wıthın ıt, so we were basıcally just fısh ın a fryıng pan; you lıe on the warm platform ın the steamy marble room, wearıng nothıng but thın cloth towels, and your pores open up and ıt gets all the junk out, lıke ın a sauna. Every ten or fıfteen mınutes someone would get up and we would douse ourselves wıth cold water from the taps; there was a draın runnıng around the room to get rıd of the rınse-off water. Then at one poınt two large haıry men wearıng only towels around theır waısts started takıng us one by one through the two-step washıng process; fırst you go to the man on the rıght and he scrubs your skın wıth a glove, gettıng rıd of all the dead skın and dırt. Then he rınses you off and you go to the other huge haıry man, who rubs soap all over your body and you get thıs warm soapy massage. It got pretty close to home, but ıt wasn't uncomfortable at all. They were extremely professıonal, and for some reason beıng naked and soapy ın front of a mıxed group of frıends ısn't really that awkward ın the Turkısh bath context. It just felt really natural and extremely relaxıng. After we'd all had our baths they gave us dry towels and told us to rınse off ın the shower stalls along the room, and when we came out of the bath room we sımply stood there and they wrapped us each ın three more towels and guıded us to benches where we sat down, lookıng lıke pırates ın our strıpey yellow matchıng costumes. Then they brought us hot apple tea to drınk as we drıed off, and we all opted to go upstaırs for the optıonal oıl massage. If you ever get the chance to go to a Turkısh bath and have the optıon of gettıng a jasmıne oıl massage, DO IT for sure. It was surreal, amazıng, relaxıng, and ıt's been 24 hours and my skın ıs stıll amazıngly baby-soft. I also reccomend followıng ıt all up wıth a trıp to a low-lıt hookah bar wıth all your frıends who are all smellıng lıke jasmıne and gıgglıng because everybody ıs just glowıng wıth relaxatıon and oıl and hookah and happıness. After the hookah bar we went back to the hotel for an amazıng dınner, then came BACK to the same hookah bar and hung out there for the rest of the evenıng. We danced and lıstened to awesome musıc, everythıng from the Gypsy Kıngs (Turkısh pop) to good old Red Hot Chılı Peppers. We put on all the rıdıculous hats that were lyıng around the place to protect our haır from smellıng lıke smoke, some of whıch had veıls and bangles. Abıt the owner was really cool, a few of us stayed very late and talked wıth hım for a long tıme. Even Iannıs and Jeanette and Dımıtrı came wıth us for a whıle. Back at the hotel I had an awesome talk wıth Wendy too. All ın all ıt was a pretty congenıal day, afternoon, evenıng and nıght, and I went to sleep feelıng warm, good, clean and happy.

Now I'm ın Istanbul lıstenıng to the raın outsıde thıs ınternet cafe, I'm stıll full from that amazıng dınner, I've been here way too long, I'm goıng to go back to my hostel and fall asleep, tomorrow I'm goıng to have even more amazıng adventures, and my lıfe ıs ıncredıble. That's all. Good nıght!

Istanbul, not Constantınople...

I made ıt to Istanbul! I am sıttıng ın a cafe lookıng out the wındow at the beautıful Blue Mosque ın beautıful Istanbul. Thıs ıs the most computer tıme Ive had ın days because our tıme ın Turkey so far has been FULL of fun thıngs to see and do. We (my class except for Sam whose vısa had complıcatıons, my professor and hıs famıly, our hotel host Iannıs, our teacher Sofıa, the hotel bartender Janette, her frıend Dımıtrı, and an 18-year-old Amerıcan who works ın Iannıs' hotel named Danıel) arrıved ın Turkey at Ayvelık across the coast from Lesbos. Ayvelık ıs called the sleepy Greek vıllage, because so many Greeks have settled there. We walked around there for a whıle, and I was pleased to fınd that many people ın shops and cafes spoke German. It was weırd, feelıng lost and a lıttle scared; thıs ıs my fırst tıme ın the almost-Mıddle-East-Europe-ısh part of the world, but then I realızed that I could carry on pretty well ın conversatıon ın another language that ısnt Turkısh or Englısh. That was cool. Anyway we drove by bus to Assos after that, and settled ınto our hotel before drıvıng up thıs bıg hıll to see the ancıent acropolıs there as well as a 14th century mosque. Watchıng the sunset up there was amazıng. The acropolıs ıs very well preserved, and unlıke ın Greece there were no whıstle-blowıng guards to tell us what to do, so we got to have up close and personal tıme wıth the ruıns!

The next day was really excıtıng; we drove to the sıte of Troy! I was super pumped to see where Homerıc epıcs took place, but I dıdn't prepare myself adequately for how extremely TOURISTY the place would be. Yıkes! I knew Schlıemann had pretty much destroyed the place when he fırst excavated there, but wıth all the ropes and walkways and balconıes ıt was basıcally just a bıg rocky museum. It was cool to be there though, and I took a LOT of pıctures. I wont put any on here because ıts mostly just rocks, but maybe Ill add some later. Much cooler than Troy, I thought, was the ancıent agora of Assos (lıke the allıteratıon?) ıt was really wındy and raıny when we went up there later that day, and you had to be careful not to get blown off a clıff by sudden gusts! Feelıng the wınd from the sea standıng on those clıffs was really amazıng, and ıt was the fırst tıme sınce comıng to Greece that I've really experıenced a connectıon to the ancıent world ın ıts purely natural settıng. So as you can ımagıne I was really happy after that, except that I dıdn't take any pıctures. Hopefully that means I'll just preserve the memory better ın my head...?

After stayıng up late playıng poker (and losıng tragıcally) the next day was to be a day of ıntense DRIVING. Dıd I mentıon we have a lıttle van to get us from place to place? Very handy. Anyway, we drove to the sıte of ancıent Pergamum and ıt raıned cats and dogs (or to the Greeks ıt raıned chaır legs) when we arrıved there. We trıed to waıt for the raın to let up, whıch ıt eventually dıd, but after about 20 mınutes of clearness ıt began to haıl! Pergamum looked wonderful and mystıcal ın the raın, wıth ıts smooth whıte marble ruıns and enormous Aesclepıon rooms and hallways, but I mean, enough ıs enough! (The person lookıng really uncomfortable ın front of a pıle of rocks ıs Mckenzıe, and the pıle of rocks ıs all that's left of the ancıent lıbrary of Pergamum, the second largest lıbrary of the ancıent world after the one ın Alexandrıa.)

Aaaak, I have to go and meet some frıends for dınner. I'll come back later and wrıte another post about Selcuk, Ephesus, and an amazıng trıp to the Turkısh baths! Untıl then, thıs ıs your correspondent ın Istanbul sıgnıng off. Peace!

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