Hi friends, family, strangers, and lurkers. First, I recognize that I seriously dropped the ball in maintaining this blog. I'm going to give serious effort to keeping this up-to-date and a thank you to Heather for reminding me that some people really enjoy it. (Frankly, it feels kinda vain to blog.) I'm going to do a series of blogs to try to catch up!
Spring Break was awesome!. I got to spend loads of time with people I adore, visit two new lands (what the kids in my class call other countries), and relax. Whoopie!
First, Amanda arrived in Berlin to tour, recover from jetlag, and catch up on life. It was a bit tough to juggle teaching and touristing, but worth every minute. We even went to three new places I hadn't visited. (berliner Dom, Deutsche Historische Museum, and Pergamon) Also, we saw the Egyptian Museum, that wasn't the Egyptian Museum (long story which probably isn't funny except to the 2 of us.) The best parts were showing Amanda all of the silly stuff (Look!That's my grocery store. Ohh- that's the pizza place with the cute waiters!) and having the time to talk without the phone bill at the end. Poor Amanda, though, the U-bahns and busses were on strike which seriously complicated tourist locations and travel times. At least, we thought, we'll go to Greece and everything will be better!
Amanda and I chilling at the top of the Berliner Dom. Awesome view, no?
After one of the tastiest Berlin brunches I have ever experienced (Rubens on Merhingdamm), we set off on our journey to Athens, Greece. (Not Athens, OH, like many of you first thought...) The traveling was uneventful, except for the fact that we waited for our gate until the time the flight should leave. The flight was relaxing and when we arrived in Athens it was WARM and dry!
Amanda and I ready to take off for our holiday in Greece and Italy!
We arrived in Greece and hopped directly on a bus to the city center. Amanda chatted with a nice lady, while I (separated from them by luggage) watched as we drove through Athens. At the time I was particularly surprised to see a Chili's restaurant. (Afterall, Wednesday is fajita day and it had been 3 months since I had enjoyed a fajita.) We arrived at Sytagma Square and headed to check in at the hostel. It was a bit tricky figuring out where to go and I can't say that the area was particularly lovely, but we managed okay. What was really odd, though, was seeing the HUGE piles of trash. Apparently the garbage workers were on strike. Why I didn't take a picture, I'll never know. this is the stuff I always think you'll be interested to see. We shared a hostel room with another girl our age who has been traveling for a year and she recomended that we get up early the next day and head to the Acropolis since the school and senior groups usually arrived around 11. (She was right.)
Lookin' cute at the Pantheon on St. Paddy's Day. (We wore green and our sunscreen, moms...)
After visiting the Acropolis (which seemed like a trip back in time to Hum 110 with Tammy Thompson and Odysseus) we grabbed some lunch at a cafe near the Tower of the Winds. This was, of course, after I was reprimanded for sitting on a bench which was actually some ruins. Some other people were sitting on an identical one about 50 meters away, and the guard informed me that they were old... "not older than the ruins," I wanted to retort. (But I'm wimpy with authority figures and therefore dutifully cast my eyes downward in shame, stood up, and nodded agreeably.)
Since I can't relive each event, I'll hit the highlights with a few favorite stories of Greece.
One of my favorite times was when we went to the Temple of Zeus Olympian and relaxed. The weather was incredible and the sight more astounding. Since Amanda and I felt we had seen the majority of what we wanted to see (excluding the Museum of Personal Hygiene, the Acropolis Museum and the outdoor theatre) we sat and relaxed. While there we enjoyed the wild roaming dogs. Often, they would bark at people who got too close to the ruins or people who seemed to offend them. (Of course, they loved us. Secretly, I think Amanda has a tad smidgen of Dr. Dolittle within her.) While relaxing near the ancient temple we saw one dog barking toward the fence. We looked to see what ticked this dog off and saw people sticking their cameras through the fence to take pictures. Apparently, this dog regards non-ticket paying photographers as little more than piles of ant pee (more on this later)and went crazy. the most amazing part was that the offending photographer backed off. We imagined that the dog's internal monologue went something like this "Hey! Hey. You with the @#$%^ camera! Yeah you- the guy clicking away with the digital camera. You didn't pay! Buy the (expletive) ticket. It's only a few Euros. You probably already bought it, schmuck! Look on the Acropolis pass. Yeah. THAT'S RIGHT YOU SHOULD WALK AWAY FROM ME! I'm a roaming wild hound with a knack for appreciating ancient architecture. Put the camera away. Yeah, move on. Yeah. (Sniff.)"
Amanda and Zeus's Temple (note the Top 10 Guidebook- shout out!)
Another special memory was walking down the street toward our second hostel (since the electric people and the public transport people were on strike too. Did I remember to mention that?) and feeling a burning sensation in my nostrils. I told Amanda that my nose hurt and the back of my throat felt wierd too and she said she felt the same way. As we continued the walk we remembered the pension strikers we previously saw that day (see photo below) and imagined a grand story that a riot broke out and they were pepper sprayed. Later, we found out that it was true, and we were walking through the area about 2 hours later. It hurt. No fun. Really glad we weren't there earlier! (Of course, we stopped for a baklava tasting to soothe ourselves afterward.)
Strikers on parade.
Overall, I really enjoyed Athens and plan to head back eventually. Next time, I'll try to hit up the islands too! Any takers? After Athens, we made our exodus (see below) to Italia!
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