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!
Exploring Greece With Lewis & Clark
Friday, December 21, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
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!
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!
Saturday, December 15, 2007
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:
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!
Dec. 13th
Today I woke up in
In
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. 14th
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
After she got up, we searched online for a cheap hostel in
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
Now I’m sitting in our room in
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.
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!
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
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!
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!
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
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.
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.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
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 :)
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 :)
Monday, December 3, 2007
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!
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!
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