Greek Week

It's interesting how much Athens can change in a week. Compared to when I was here with my parents, on this visit the city was far, far more crowded. I expected there to be more Greeks in twon, since it was no longer the long Easter holiday, but there were also exponentially more tourists and backpackers around the city as well. There were suddenly venders lined up in front of marble pillars that were not there before and the metro was packed and busy. May 1 must mark the start of the big tourist season or something, or at least other people pay attention and start their vacations AFTER Easter? Imagine that! I still really enjoyed the city, but if people I've talked to had only visited during high season, i can easily see why they would find it a crowded, dirty city.

Of course, my circumstances changed as well - before, I was not only on a high from getting to see my parents, but I was also in a happu hotel existence, bopping about the islands at a good clip and enjoying the company. On my return, I was back to hostel living. The one I stayed at a supremely nice location, but also had a barely-tolerable bathrooms (some of the worst I've encountered thus far actually - I hope it's not an indication of the hostels in Europe...).

I also noticed the travelers here - like with everywhere I've been, the majority seem to all come from a similar background, and in Greece, in May, a huge percentage of them are American or Canadian college students either finishing their study abroad by traveling about or getting a jump on their summer backpaking through Europe.

Even though the age groups are similar, for some reason, this group strikes me as decidedly more Baccanalian than the young Brits traveling everywhere in Australia. Maybe because the Brits were in one place longer, and were working, and were living and traveling both, but somehow they were not as ...frat party about thier travels. Sitting in the hostel's garden, listening to groups trade stories about where they had been and where they were going, so much seemed like a waste - a giant drinking binge across a continent. I hope that, too, is not an indication of the hostels across Europe...

(Though it did encourage me , since I will be in my last month in Western Europe during high season, to make the unprecedented move to book hostels for that whole time - good thing, too, since I already ran into places being booked out).

But despite some of the difference not being for the better, and despite it being a 3-day stay rahter than a day-and-a-half one, I had a good time back in Athens. I went to the Archaeological Museum, whioch we missed the first time on account of Good Friday but which was absolutely worth a visit, and I sat in the National Gardens, so unruly compared to the tidy, manicured botanical gardens of Australia and New Zealand.

I also went to Delphi today, to see the oracle and a bit of northern-ish Greece. It involved a long day of travel and lots of clmibing about the ruins, but it was well worth it - the rocks and cliffs and stones were just gorgeous, and there was almost palpable history there. Of course, to get to Delphi (three hours out of Athens) one must get up before 6am. And at that time, one thinks one is tucking ones camera in their bag, when in fact they are leaving it in their backpack at the hostel. Sigh.

on the road again

All alone again, now in Athens. My parents left today, and I am not going to lie and say it wasn't hard, but they are off to Italy, and in a couple of days I am going to Egypt.

The good news is that even though I am back to traveling alone, back to hostels, back to it all, I have sort of re-discovered my reason for doing this. I am once again looking forward to the places I get to go, and once again feel capable of getting to them. So really, the time with my parents, the time in Greece, it all had the rejuvenating effect I hoped for. And thank goodness!

I am glad my attitude returned, though, because the day my parents left, things did not go so well. I had worked out what I wanted to do for the four days between coming back from Santorini and going to Cairo, and I made reservations at a hostel on a nearby island called Aegina, and then at a hostel in Athens for two nights each. No problem.

So yesterday I sadly leave mom and dad, and get on the Athens metro and ride it to the ferry terminal. Then I get a ferry to Aegina. Then i wait an hour to get bus to the other side of the island. Then I get there and discover in 8 minutes that the hostel is shut up tight - presumably still for the season? I don't know. It's overgrown and padlocked.

Awesome.

So I basically get to retrace everything - wait another hour for the bus, catch another ferry, do another metro ride, and go to the only hostel I know in Athens, where I do not have a reservation, at 7:30 on a Saturday night. Good lord.

But, fortunately, they did have a bed, and I was so exhausted from a futile day of LOTS of travel that I fell into it. I have one more day in Athens now, so we will see how I fill it.

It seems my travel karma markedly improves when I have others in my family there to help it along.

something old, something older, something oldest

Ah, Santorini. Really stunning place - the island is on the cusp of a volcano, with the towns clinging to the sides of sheer cliffs in white, stair-steppy glory.


Santorini at times feels a bit superficial, or like its water - shallow, but pretty! - but there were some really cool, amazing things to the island as well. On Naxos, we went to the Mitroplous museum and saw the remains of a city from 1300 BC and I marveled that it was the oldest thing I'd ever seen (apart from nature, of course). Today, though, we went to two museums. At the first, there was a new record, as most of the artefacts - gorgeous, well-preserved vases and pots, still painted and lovely and mostly recovered from the town of Ancient Thera - dated to 1700 BC. Everything was stunning. But THEN we went to the Museum of Prehistoric Thera, where they keep the really old stuff. It's findings from Akrotiri, an ancient...well, urban hub, really, that has only been 3-5% excavated. The new oldest thing I've ever seen is this:

dated from a Cycladic period from 2800-2300 BC. Jaw-dropping. Aren't they incredible?

In New Zealand, I marveled at how new everything was. As an American, I can go to England and see schools still in use from back before anyone over there even FOUND our continent, so in New Zealand, where America was old hat during their entire Anglo history, everything seems so young. But, of course, the Maoris were there long, long before - as with the aboriginal sin Australia, the Native Americans, and so on. There were people there and living hundreds of years ago. But in Greece, it's in terms of millenniums - there were people there, building cities, wearing jewelry, making purchases, taking baths, cooking and eating and celebrating not too differently from how we do now several MILLENNIUMS ago. It boggles the mind.

But that is not the bulk of Santorini - really, the bulk is all about the pretty. I get the feeling that the Santorini Chamber of Commerce or whoever saw tourism starting in Greece like 30 years ago and decided to capitalize by turning the island into Quintessential Greece (tm). The terraced, perched villages are stunning, but all the buildings seem to be hotels and restaurants and shops - everything for tourists; the locals (of which there aren't many, year-round) are sensible and live on the flat parts, where it's not 40 zillion stairs and a donkey ride to get a bottle of water from the market.

It's worked, though. If you go to the Greek Isles, from the States anyway, then Santorini is the place you go. Often to Mykonos as well, and maybe another, but Santorini without a doubt. If you go ona cruise in Greece, you go to Santorini. It really is "typical Greece all the way" I wonder if that's Quintessential Greece (tm)'s motto?

I can't even imagine what this place is like during the high season, too. We were in Fira today - the capital, where we stayed - when there was a cruise ship, I think from Spain, was in port, and toe town felt overrun. That was one ship. Yesterday, there were nine cruise ships docked for the day. NINE. It made me so happy that was the day we rented a car (this time an even more stripped-down mini vehicle in bright yellow we dubbed Little Buttercup) and fled to the other parts of the island. We got to see lots of beaches - one in red! - and lots of quiet towns not yet thumpin' for the season. We ran into two Japanese tour groups when we went to Oia at the north of the island to watch the sunset, but mostly we zigged when the hordes zagged. In high season, I don't think there is that option - our waiter tonight was telling us that, in August, the adorable cobblestone walkways are so packed, people can only shuffle along, not walk at full speed. Even with things sometimes being not open or the weather being occasionally cold, I will take Greece outside the high season, thank you. After all, it's still pretty.

All around the islands we go

In keeping with tradition, Greek weather only remained crappy through the evening of Easter, presumably mourning Jesus. On the day after Easter, we got bright blue skies and gorgeous sunshine. Go Greece!

We rented a car yesterday to take us all around Paros - which, if driving slow, takes a couple of hoursto completely circumnavigate. It was only minorly hairy at times, thanks in part to the weeeeee little car we had (which was like 4 sized UP, and the "smallest" they had that day (!) but which was also an awesomely ugly bright green and therefore nicknamed Kia the Grouch); partially due to the mostly-paved, mostly-marked nature of the Paros roads, and partially due to the fact that my dad is not as familiar driving stick shift anymore. I, sadly, cannot drive, as I am a poor unlicensed driver, as it expired on my birthday. Sigh.

But there were no casualties! And we got to see such a pretty island - we found beaches that were tiny and cold, but with gorgeous clear blue water and littered with spectacular marble pebbles; we went to the third-largest town on the island, a non-tourist spot that we were told was what Greece was like 50 years ago; we got lost several times in the windy cobblestone streets of Parikia, the port town (but found ourselves in time for an awesome lunch at a local souvlakeria). I really like paros, and I can easily see why it is such a popular spot for people from all over Euope to come and rent an apartment or a bungalow and just get lost for a month or two every summer.

The today, we went to a whole other island. The original plan was to see Mykonos, but ferry schedules being what they are this week (they are notoriously changeable in Greece, apparently) a day trip was impossible. Instead, we went to Naxos, the island next door. It's mostly agricultural, but the main town is pretty big. They have their own ruins there - an unfinished temple to Apollo that greets you as you come up on the ferry, how is that for spectacular? - as well as a really well-preserved old town, complete with Venetian castle. But the most amazing thing was in the oldest part, the Mitropolis, where the excavated ruins of the town are underground, really, and date back, no joke, to the 13th century BC. That is OLD, when it makes the Acropolis look like nouveau construction.

We walked about some and tried for Mexican food - it's been too long! - but it was sadly closed. It was hardly a bustling day, but it did make me realize that I like Greek islands a lot in general, but I do like Paros more than Naxos. Tomorrow, we head to Santorini, and we will see how it stacks up. I am already guessing gorgeous.

diet coke: greece

My mother and I split a Grecian Coke Light yesterday. I think my parents' conversation sums it up the best:

Dad: So, Coca Cola Light didn't cut it, eh?
Mom: Coca Cola Crap is more like it.

Easter, again, some more

It's my very special second Easter this year - in Greece for Eastern Orthodox celebrations means I get the whole Good Friday/Easter Sunday rigamarole again, and things are just as shut down - and rainy, sadly - as they were in Sydney back during Famous Original Easter.

It's funny, the things that I hear about countrie before I get to them, and how they compare. Bngkok was so exactly as advertised that I felt like I had been there before I'd even set foot in the city. Athens, though...it was touted as a grotty, smoggy, dirty city, very much see-the-Acropolis-and-get-out on the itinerary. It was, though, nothing like I expected, in a good way. I kept being struck by how quiet the city was; it was no more dirty than any other major metropolis, and quite a bit cleaner, really, than a lot I've been to. I don't know if it's that we were there at the first blush of the tourist season, or if it was because it was the start of Easter weekend, when many of the Greeks flee the city, or if most of the information was from people who had visited a while ago, and changes from converting to the Euro and upgrading the city to accommodate the Olympics changed everything that significantly. Whatever the reason, I really liked Athens, and found it navigable and interesting, and much more appealing than I had been expecting.

Yesterday, though, it was time to go and we ferried out of Athens and to the Cycladian island of Paros. It is every bit as picturesque as postcards would have you believe. We are here really early for the tourist season (a lot of things like restaurants, bars, and hotels close in the winter and only reopen in mid-April or early May) and it's easy to see why. Athens had perfect weather - a light breeze, sunny and fine. Perfect jeans-and-tee weather, with a light fleece for the evening, which might be a little warm for scrambling around ruins at midday and a bit cool after a late dinner at a taverna, but overall pretty ideal.

Here, though, it's a bit of a storm - quite chilly, rather windy, overcast. It's still picturesque, but not exactly beach weather. It made me glad we booked the high-speed ferry; it took 3 1/2 hours from Athens, and got pretty rough in the middle. I got seasick for the first time ever (happy birthday!) but it passed and I was fine when we arrived.

If it's ever possible, I do recommend spending a birthday on a Grecian island - this place is stunning, an just wandering about everywhere you look are the whitewashed buildings and blue shutters and red geraniums. I love it. There is also an unexpected bonus, being here for Easter - apparently the tradition is to go to Easter services late on Saturday night, and then have a huge feast afterwards. So for a birthday dinner, I ate a spectacular 5 course meal at about 1am, complete with the grilled Greek cheese and roasted lamb and dried figs. Fantastic.

Being on a quiet island out of season on a rainy Easter has one other good side effect, too - I really feel like I can see that I've become a lot more adaptable to things since I left originally. Obviously, having everything shut (though apparently things open at like 6pm on Easter Sunday, and that's when everyone sets of firecrackers and goes to the bar? Weird Greek traditions.) is not ideal for anyone, but I don't know - it just doesn't bother me much. I've learned quickly that the best laid plans of a traveler often bear no resemblance to how the day turns out - as often for better as for the worse, though. So a day is rainy, you get bored, you get a different day the next. It is what it is - that's the way life is, honestly. It's nice to let things roll off your back more often than not.

Happy Greek Easter, everyone. He is risen for the very last time this year, I think.

Greece is the word

First off, you guys are great. Thanks for all the nice things, and the votes of confidence, and for reminding me that I am not the only one for whom travel is an awesome walk in the park where every single moment is magical. Sometimes, the moments suck, and sometimes that's ok.

I am in Athens, and already things look up. Being with my parents is such a load off - I suddenly don't have to decide every thing for myself, I get to have others suggest dinner or an itinerary, and when I see something as spectacular as the Acropolis, I have people there to share it with.

It's also reinvigorated other things as well, being in Greee - my skin is already so grateful not to be trapped in smoggy humidity, my poor melted "solid" shampoo is about back to solid, and I remember why I like traveling again. Things are better.

I really like Athens, probably more than I thought I would. The Plaka neighborhood, with its tiny streets crammed with tavernas and a view of the Acropolis, is my favorite. We don't get to see the National Archaeological Museum, as it's closed for Good Friday, but hopefully I will see it on my way back through Athens. Instead, we've scrambled over tons of ruins, enjoyed the perfect weather, fallen in love with Greek yogurt, and eaten wonderful lamb and chicken and enjoyed it all. And it's only day two!Tomorrow we are off to the islands. I can't wait.