Story time: part 3

Athens

I had to put off my Athens story because it was A) daunting B) going to talk a lot of time and C) so epic I wanted to make sure I was in the right mind set to do it justice.

Those of you who know me know that I love Greek philosophy and have gone through some serious Greek Mythology phases in my life as well, so going to Athens was up there on my bucket list. Fortunately it did not disappoint.  Well, to be completely honest the city itself is nothing spectacular; in fact it is dirty, plain, and boring. (It’s actually quite shocking because the ancient Greeks were known for their glorious architecture and magnificent temples. They perfected the combination of art, beauty, and knowledge to create a civilization of superior culture.  And you look at modern Greece and you kinda have to wonder ‘what happened’? How can they settle for such plain buildings and dirty streets in light of such a history?) But, then again, beauty doesn’t always have to reside in stone or marble; in the context of modern Greece I would have to say it now resides in their beautiful traditions and family like interactions. The Greek way of life is so fun, so inviting, and so unifying that it doesn't surprise me they hold so fast to such customs.  Greeks don’t cat call like Italians or invite you in off the streets like in Sicily, but once you are indoors as a cultural insider a whole new world is opened up to you that isn’t obtainable from sight seeing or wondering the streets.  What made Athens better than the rest was ironically not the Parthenon or Temple of Zeus, although they were breath taking and life changing experiences within themselves, but what made Athens truly memorable were the people. 

But before I get into my epic story let me set the scene and give you a little background.  The first day we left our janky little hostel early in the morning, partly because we wanted to get a head start on the day and partly because it was so sketchy we didn’t want to be there anymore J … So anyway, we arrive at the acropolis around 10am and head straight for the ruins. Students of the European Union get in free to all the major attractions so we bypassed all the lines and saw Hadrian’s library, the ancient agora, the Roman agora, the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena and Poseidon, the theater of Dionysius, and the ancient road surrounding the acropolis all in one day.  While sitting on a couple thousand year old rock and staring at the birth place of democracy, I started to imagine history’s most inspirational philosophers and brilliant thinkers of all time walking the very ground I stood on.  It was a profound experience and made me proud to be a human.  But at the same time while looking at these massive columns still standing from 500 B.C I happened to notice the trees behind them; and I thought to myself that while we are so impressed by what humans accomplished we sometimes forget to be that awe struck by what God accomplished. That tree stands firmer, with more beauty and more grace than any human creation in history. No matter how hard we try we only borrow from what God has already created and any attempt to replicate will forever be doomed to second best.  

After sight seeing we wondered around the local flea markets and had one of the best Greek meals of our entire vacation for dinner that night. Pretty epic day.  But because we got so much done the first day we were kind of at a loss of what to do next. So naturally I drag both my roommates to the middle of nowhere Athens to see Plato’s academy where he taught his famous protégées and presumably wrote his legendary works of literature.  As excited as I was I have to say it was a failure because the academy, or what’s left of the academy, is a pile of rocks buried under dirt and grass in the middle of an abandoned park.  But like the bible says, God works all things together for good, because as we are walking back Mallory gets bird poop in her hair and so we run into a small, corner restaurant to try to wash it out.  In the restaurant are a couple old men sitting at the bar, the women bar tenders around 30-40 years old, and three men sitting at a table drinking beer. At one point one of the men pokes his head in to see if we needed in help – apparently we were making a lot of commotion for being in a bathroom – but once they find out it is because Mallory was pooped on they just say “MONEY” and invite us to have beers with them.   The waitresses brings out these little shot glasses and fill them with beer and we look at each other, smile, and dive right in.  Soon after they bring out these meat dishes, olives, and beats that they literally force-feed us with telling us it is traditional Greek and we must try.

Let me fast forward a couple of hours to when we find ourselves dancing on the counters with Greek music playing saying OPPA! And VIVA ASPBERBADO!  (which means drink till the end) and holding hands with everyone in the restaurant dancing in a circle the traditional Greek way, literally straight out of a movie. Let me also clarify that it is about 6pm by this point and we have already been there since 4pm.  Anyway, then some of the street vendors come in with flowers and the old men buy countless bouquets and are ripping off the petals and throwing them at us.  We are literally getting showered with flowers and handed flowers, more food, and more drinks constantly.  At one point a woman even brought out this champagne bottle and a man grabs it and throws it on the floor and shouts OOPA!  Basically it was nuts. They party harder and for longer than I have ever seen.  The man who owned the restaurant came up to me at one point told me that it was nothing and if I wanted to see a real party to come back at 10pm.  Finally the two guys we were with ask if we want to go get coffee.  So we hop on the back of their motorcycles to go to his friends coffee shop and stop along the way to his cousins Gyros stand and get gyros and then go get coffee (also let me clarify that we didn’t spend a single cent this entire night).  At one point they explained to us that they never get foreigners that far out of the main city center and were just so excited to show us their life and share their neighborhood with us. Seriously, throughout the night we had countless men and women come up to us saying that if we ever felt uncomfortable to just let them know and they would take us home and that they just wanted to make sure we were ok and not feeling pressured. It was the sweetest and most reassuring thing ever. 

Continuing on: after coffee we then hop back on the motorcycles and Vespas and go to one of the guys house to meet his dad and they offer us some authentic Greek stress beads as gifts and of course give us more alcohol. Later on in the night we go back to the restaurant and literally start it all over again. This time the entire neighborhood and extended family found out they were partying with Americans and everyone showed up to join the fun. There was more dancing and OOPAing and more flowers and more traditional Greek shots.

Long story short we spend 10 hours with these people and had the most authentic Greek experience I think I could have ever asked for.  It was a privilege to join them and be invited into their life.  They were generous, fun, crazy, accepting, and accommodating. Needless to say I am a big fan of Greek people.

(O and did I mention that they truly are all named Nick, Nickos, Nicole, etc. Nickos had like three cousins that were also named Nickos… it was great!)

So that is basically my Athens story. I decided to cut everything else short so I could explain this one night in detail but the entire time was amazing and one of the best experiences of Europe so far!

Story time: Part 2 Rome

When trying to book the cheapest flight it was obvious that the 8-hour layover in Rome on the way to Athens was the best way to go. So we thought, ‘hey lets make a day out of it’ and switched to the next flight to make it a 20-hour lay over and vowed to just sleep in the airport to save money. So we get in at 10am and make it to the Coliseum by noon because my wonderful friend Rick Steves told me some local secrets.  Ambitiously we packed in the coliseum, the Roman Forum, the Palatine hill, Michelangelo’s Moses (in St Peters in Chains), The Vatican City, St Peter’s Church, the Pantheon, and Rick Steve’s night tour throughout the famous squares, all in one day.  The only regret I have is that with so much to do we had such a strict time schedule that if one thing went wrong our whole day was behind… and that definitely happened. Let’s just say that during lunch we heard thunder  – but I looked up and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and I had a tank top on, so I didn’t think much of it. But while I was staring at Michelangelo’s Moses, in total bliss, Mallory came bursting in to tell me it was pouring rain outside. And this was not Southern California pouring rain; this was Costa Rica and the Amazon pouring rain. We went back and forth and with whether wait it our or take our chances running through it, and finally decided to just book it to the metro station. So we started sprinting through the streets of Rome - in my little cotton sweater and tank top - and reached the metro station completely wet. Naturally we were a spectacle because once we reached our destination and climbed back out of the metro it was bright and sunny again meaning if we had simply waited 5 minutes like everyone else we could have spared ourselves some humiliation (but at the same time I wouldn’t have been as good of a story).  It also wouldn’t have been a big deal but our fiasco caused us to arrive at the Vatican Museum 11 minutes after the Sistine chapel was closed to tourists... I still cant talk about it I am so mad. I guess it just means I am going to need to go back.

So instead we head over to St Peter’s and spend three hours in the Church to make up for not seeing the Vatican Museum. We even attend 5:00pm mass, which was in Italian in the most famous church in the world – an experience I wont easily forget.

Finally late that night we head back to the airport by 11:00pm so as to pick up our stored luggage before the room closed.  We then find some newspapers on the ground and snuggle up next to the homeless men for the night.  Hahaha… you think im kidding. Definitely not. We had no other option but to curl up on the hard, freezing marble floors, using jackets as blankets and luggage as pillows. But I did discover something very positive about myself: apparently I can sleep any where because I slept the whole night, waking up a couple times to change positions, when Mallory and Megan literally slept a total of 10 minutes and just walked around and twiddled their thumbs for 6 hours.  Evidently sleeping in the airport wasn’t the best idea in the whole world.

But we survived and arrived in Athens around 9am the next morning.

The Athens portion of the story will come later in the weekend since I am leaving for Kutan Hora tomorrow for sight seeing and hiking! But hang tight in suspense because Athens is the best part! 

Story Time: spring break in Europe

Story time:

Spring break 2011- Sicily, Rome, and Athens  - as they say in Greece “VIVA”

It would be way too ambitious of me to try to explain all three parts of my trip in one post plus the last couple paragraphs would probably never be seen. So ill spend three separate days trying to explain the past week of my life. 

Part 1: 4 days in Sicily   

We arrive in Palermo (the biggest city in Sicily) on Saturday night, walk through some ‘groups of friends’ to get to our hostel, enter in the most run down and destroyed building I have truly ever stayed in, and get shown to our room by this incredibly outgoing 40-year-old Sicilian man with a fake tan named Josepa. We put down our stuff and decide to go exploring. (bear with me it gets really good).. So Josepa recommends this restaurant owned by his friend Franko who will give us all we can drink and a three-course meal for 10 euro each.  We walk in and ask for Franko; as soon as they learn we are friends of Josepa we are instant celebrities. After eating grilled eggplant, these strange vegetable casseroles, fried zucchini, other strange foods I have never seen, and individual large pizzas, I can rightly claim to be truly and beautifully stuffed. But throughout the meal they also bring us wine, shots, champagne, and their Sicilian specialty dinner drink. Lets just say it was a fun night.  

The next day we do our site seeing. We walk around the fish and vegetable markets with the classic tent roofs and barter on the streets. Then we head into the antique markets that consist of mainly people’s old shoes and broken pieces of jewelry, which ironically goes on forever as if everyone in the entire city has this endless supply of useless stuff. Finally we make it out alive and head for the Catacombs.  Ok so the Sicilian Catacombs are famous for their preserved dead people. Literally there are just people hanging on the walls who have been there for hundreds of years, looking exactly the same.  Most were decaying by this point but some still had skin and hair.  I had nightmares. Just saying. There was even one girl who was added in the 1900s who looks like she is simply sleeping because her body is fully in tact.  Creeepppyyyy.

But alas our time in Palermo was short because we had planned to spend most of the trip in Taormina, a small resort town on the Sicilian coast a couple hours north. Mallory had booked a hotel on the water and claimed it was cheaper than a hostel in the city (we come to find our it was cheaper because she had booked the hotel for two while comparing prices of hostels for the right amount of three) but fortunately the people in the hotel had compassion on the three, dumb, American tourists and let us sleep three in a double room.

Taormina was gorgeous. What else can I say?  Rolling green hills on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea, ancient Greek theaters overlooking all of Sicily with a view of the largest most active volcano in the world in the background, and of course blue water that rivals Paradise itself; pure bliss. Also did I mention that it was supposed to rain, but being from Southern California I naturally took credit for brining with me the perfectly blue, cloudless, sunny, flawless skies that we enjoyed during our three day stay. There are only two events that I really need to write down during our stay here and the rest I will leave up to your imagination J

The first night we decide to go classy.  We buy some wine, cheese, and Italian olives; steal some bread from the hotel; take a boat ride along the coast that we flittered our way down to about 7 Euro each, and came back and sat on the rocks eating and drinking with the waves splashing at our feet. Yes we are cheesy but I enjoyed ever second of it, especially after realizing I am now an olive fanatic (but only the unrivaled Italian or Greek olives).  The second night went a little differently. We spent the whole day sight seeing and walking around the town and were therefore thoroughly pooped. We didn’t make it back out of the hotel until late and by that time everything was closed. So as we are walking along we run into a café as two men are walking out, apparently about to lock up.  One of them starts talking to us and asks if we want to have some drinks with his friend and him. We shrug and say we have nothing better to do and he says he will come back in ten minutes to pick us up. (trust me we weighed the situation and decided he was harmless). But apparently a lot was lost in translation because we thought we were going out but he literally picked us up and took us around the corner back to the café where we had met and reopened the shop just for us. He and his friend open a bottle of wine and we sit and drink and chat with these two Sicilian men all night. It was great! 

The next day we wake up early and sit on the beach and read. Then around midday we take the bus back to Palermo since our flight left the next morning for Rome.

And Rome is a whooollleee different story. Ill get there later. I’m going to give both you and I a break and will continue later.

(O PS. Im currently writing this in a park by my apartment overlooking downtown Prague with gorgeous blue skies and green trees with blossoming flowers.. HELLLOO SPRING!)