Coming Home and Leaving Again

Today, it is August 27. I recognize that I have been away from Athens for about a month and have not written a single word because I've been spending time with my family and friends and sleeping and being sick. I have neglected to write a conclusion to my time in Athens, so here it is. In the end, I didn't get to complete everything on my list. I tried (perhaps not my hardest; I valued sleep over adventuring some days) and did not quite succeed. But I'm alright with that, not only because the List was meant to inspire adventure but because I was certainly inspired by all my adventures to go back to Greece and to continue adventuring and learning about myself.

I opted not to venture outside Athens during my last days in Greece partly because it was a lot of travel time and partly because I was so exhausted from the two months that I kinda needed to chill a little bit. On Friday, I brought my office cookies and finalized my project to disc, after which I finally went to the New Acropolis Museum, which was awesome. If there was any doubt about the painted majesty the Parthenon, it was eradicated when I stepped into the museum. The cool interior was a great way to escape the heat and the friezes and other artifacts from the Acropolis were amazing to see up close. On the fourth floor, one can walk completely around the "Parthenon" and see all marble detailing as it would have been on the Parthenon. There was also bits of color left on some of the statues, showing that they had once been brightly painted. Due to our current perceptions of what marble art is (the clean, smooth, whiteness that defines "class"), I don't think I could have imagined the Parthenon ever brightly painted, but now, I can see a little how glorious it would have been.

That Friday night, after a picnic at Zappion, I wandered around the city and completed what was to be the last task on the List I would complete. This one was especially dear to my heart because I decided to do it after much thought. As I flipped through the book of designs, I tried to find one to best encapsulate my trip to Athens this summer. Turtle? No, though my work with turtles was what inspired my trip, I had entirely too many turtle things to remind me of the trip. Owl? Though the symbol of Athena and wisdom crossed my mind, I decided against it, especially since i had a little owl of my own to remember Athens by. Finally, I decided on this:

To me, a phoenix represents rebirth, rejuvenation, and reinvention. With each passing summer, I feel a little more grown up, but this summer, truly living on my own, buying my own food, and making my own travel plans, I felt myself blossom. Through writing this blog, I could see myself through my adventures, and, almost like an outsider looking in, see myself grow. I had no regrets on this trip, no coulda-shoulda-woulda's. My mom told me this morning that once a choice is made, you live with the consequences; there are no regrets. And as I write this, I realize how I could live by that philosophy. I won't paint this summer as a perfect golden-fielded frolicking fantasy, because I had my ups and downs, but even sleeping in the tiny, bug-infested cots taught me something. And if anything, made a great story.

7. Get a Henna tattoo. 


The last day in Athens was a bit of a slow one, sleeping, packing, and eating. Shivani's plane had left without her, so she came back to spend Saturday with us and we picked up some Golden Chopsticks and went to eat on the top of Filipapous Hill. When Weike and I went up her last night in Athens, I said that I would go with my group our last night in Athens as well. That was when I still had hopes that we would be a solid group of 13, but although only our apartment went, and I'm glad it turned out that way.

And then it was back to Los Angeles. And I learned that karma works in mysterious ways; sometimes you wait forever and a half for something to come around again and sometimes it happens in the blink of an eye. In my case, I gave up my seat so a couple could sit together and a tin of chocolate covered blueberries came my way (courtesy of the couple). And on the next flight, I gave up my seat again so that a woman could sit with her family and lo and behold, I got my forgotten passport back! Yeah. Karma rocks.

Three weeks passes by very quickly. I feel like I barely had enough time to spend with my cousins and my grandparents and my mom and my aunt and then I was back here. Yale. Old Campus. JE SUX. I was (and still am a little) sick for the last part of my time at home so that wasn't all that fun, but otherwise, I was so happy to be back there and to see my family. My family is the most important thing to me and I was super happy to be back for my grandpa's birthday and to have girly time with Mom and puzzletastic time with Grandma. And now...Yale.

The summer has come to an end, and so shall this blog. It's been a great ride. Thanks to those who read. I love you all. And writing things down has inspired me to continue blogging, more for myself than anything else, just so I can remember stuff about this year, which I feel in my bones will be AWESOME. So many exciting things are happening and it's exciting to be a part of it all! So without further ado, I graduate The Summer of 20 and bring you...

Talk, Walk, and Chew Gum

Sat/Sun 7.24-7.25 Part III: Make Your Own Luck

We awoke at 9:00 AM and had what turned out to be quite a good breakfast at the hostel. Eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, and juice, and in the heat, we walked back to the ferry to go to Santorini. Once on the ferry [both this and the last had very comfortable seats by the way], we noticed that they were playing an episode of Doug!! *childhood memories ensue*

And then, of course, I immediately fell asleep afterwards and woke up in the port in Santorini. We made our way to Fira with some shady dealings with the people who were picking Nick and Sam up to go to their hostel (we weren't actually supposed to be on the van with them, but the woman was super nice). And I thought to myself, "I need to get one of those stuffed donkeys to remind myself of the awesomeness of this trip." And after much walking up and down the hills of Fira, I found one. And I found myself wanting to name him. At the same time, I realized what a pain it's been trying to find a guy named Kostos here in Greece. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard, but the number of guys I actually asked the name of dwindled after the skeezy ones tried to "ni hao" me. I mean, I had found a Kosta and a Kostis, but...no Kostos. So, instead of relying on luck to find me one, I decided to make my own luck and thus, this cutie here is named Giannis  Kostos Leonidas IV, Giannis because all the men  Marj has met here are named John, Kostos for me, Leonidas for Shivani's chocolate obsession, and IV for the fourth John Marj has met here. So his name is pretty intimidating, but we call him Yanni (after my coworker who's as adorable).

1. Meet someone named Kostos.

After getting Yanni, we headed to one of Santorini's famous black beaches. The beaches are black due to the volcanic rock on the island, and all the beaches in Santorini are black except the Red Beach and the White Beach which are red and white respectively. The thing with the black beach is that as expected, the sand is very hot during the day so that if you don't wear shoes in the sand, you will likely experience pain of some sort on the soles of your feet. Because it was the last beach experience of the summer, we decided to splurge for an umbrella and because we hadn't slept all weekend, a nap. But before we napped, Marj decided she wanted to fly a kite and produced from her backpack, two kites! I tried to help launch them but the wind wasn't having it.

And thus, we relaxed at the beautiful beach. I contemplated getting my henna there on the beach (lots of other people were doing it!) but ultimately felt too gross to do anything of that sort. I still had smoke residue, sulfur residue, and Eos sand residue on me and was sticky from sweat and ocean spray. So I slept. And it was wonderful.

We finally decided to call a cab to take us to the airport and got there around 7:00 for our 8:15 flight. So a little background on the next part of the story: On Friday, there had been a little scare that the air traffic controllers in Athens were going to strike that Sunday, but when the courts deemed it illegal, we thought we were in the clear to come back to Athens all safe and sound that Sunday. And the air traffic controllers are law abiding people so they did not strike that Sunday. They did, however, all call in sick. The message we got at the airport was that "All flights scheduled today will be leaving at midnight. But if the air traffic controllers feel better, maybe we'll go a little earlier."

And so, with four full flights waiting to get out of Santorini, we squatted in that tiny airport with overpriced food and the same sticky air as the ocean with no breeze. But it wasn't that miserable an experience, and definitely not enough to bring down the whole weekend. I finished a book I started around 3 weeks before, David Sedaris's When You are Engulfed in Flames. I highly recommend it, especially for those who share a sense of humor for the daily absurdities of life. It's a good beach read because it's a compilation of short stories so you can read one, take a nap, go swimming, and come back to read another. However, even in the comedy there is a sort of a darkness that...well...you'll just have to read it for yourself.

We didn't make it until midnight. At around 11 PM, our plane took off for Athens and we finally made it back to the apartment, exhausted but pleased with the way the weekend turned out. We went big and now, we get to go home accomplished.

Sat/Sun 7.24-7.25 Part II: The Night is Young

The next leg of our trip involved getting to Eos, a nearby island. By nearby, I mean 2 hours away by ferry and 45 minutes away by hydrofoil (a faster kind of ferry). Unfortunately, the ferries leave from a more modern port than Old Port, and to get there, we had to either get a cab or take the bus [no donkeys or cable cars here!]. The problem was, by the time we got to the bus station, the last bus before our ferry had left and we were forced to get a cab. Problem being, not many cabs were receptive to taking us to the port, for some reason. It took nearly an hour to get a cab, and when there are 6 people, it's especially difficult. After much frustration, running around, and literally chasing after taxis, we got to the port, got on the boat, and [for me], after eating a cheese pie, immediately fell asleep.

I awoke as we were docking in Eos and a driver from the Princess Sissy Hostel came to pick us up. Yup. Princess Sissy. The hostel was (surprise) on a hill, just like most of the island is, about halfway between the beach and the town, which was a pretty good compromise. After depositing our stuff in the rooms, we decided to head down to the beach and swim off the mineral residue from earlier in the hot springs. Eos is famous for its white sand beaches and the one near our hostel did not disappoint. The sand was much finer than anything I had seen before in Greece, even finer, I would dare say, than the sand on the California beaches. It felt super nice to walk in [no sharp rocks], but the problem with fine sand is that it gets everywhere and does not leave. Luckily, after a short nap, it was swim time.

Now you might be wondering (as I was) that I lasted for 2 months without going for a swim in the ocean. Well aside from my obvious lack of swimming chops, there were many things that I won't dwell on that contributed to me taking my first swim in the Aegean two months after I got to Greece. "But what about you leaping into the caldera, Angela?" Well, technically, it's not part of the Aegean; it's a caldera. Oh technicalities. Pictures are on Marj's camera so as of now, I don't have any of me "bobbing" in the ocean ["bobbing" because the water was only 3 feet deep] but after a day of stinky sulfur and stinky donkeys, the water of the Aegean felt so good. Also, reading Cosmo out loud on the beach is a great way to bond and share some laughs with the ladies.

13. Take a dip in the Aegean.

Then, we watched the sun set. It disappeared behind some mountains very quickly and before we knew it, we were bathed in the dusk of twilight. As we turned to go back to the hostel, we saw something that you don't see very often: moonrise. One of my favorite books is A Wrinkle in Time and in this book, the protagonists are forced to turn away from the moonrise to watch a dark shadow fall over them. Since then, I've wanted to see a true moonrise, but it's hard because in many places the moon rises before the sun sets. But here, oh what a sight.

~~

A bit of background on the island of Eos. Eos, also spelled Ios, is one of the youngest [touristwise] of the Cycladic islands. It's known for its white beaches, which served as campgrounds for the young, penniless traveler during the 1970s, and subsequently, for its nightlife. Fortunately for us, who hadn't slept much, nightlife doesn't really start in Eos until 2 AM, so we had time to take naps and get our strength back up before heading out.

We start getting ready at around midnight, busy ourselves until around 1:30 AM and head out for the town. It's dark, but the hill leading up to the town doesn't feel dangerous. In fact, there is a sense of anticipation in the air. Where do we go? How do we get there? We end up going to a couple of clubs, which did not charge covers for the ladies [Rehab and Disco 69] and danced the night away with sparklers in our hands. All the stresses of the summer - of my project, of finding food and water on the islands, making our flight, dealing with unsavory characters - all that slipped away as I moved to the beat, and I remembered why I love dancing and why I love watching others dance. There's a euphoria as they let themselves go, a light in their eyes when they hear their song come on. Personally, I'm not a big dance whilst intoxicated gal because I want to feel everything - my feet on the ground, the beat thrumming through me, the heat of the bodies around me. And I want to remember it.

Shivani's mantra is "go big or go home." And I'd certainly say that we went big that night. Finally, with drooping eyes and tired limbs we decided to head back to the hostel. At 5:00 AM, on our way back we stumbled upon what else but a Nutelleria.

The line was too long so we decided to skip and go to sleep, but still, an epic end to an epic night.

Next, back to Santorini. Stay tuned.

Sat/Sun 7.24-7.25 Part I: Leap Headfirst into a Volcano

Before I start, a note about the next couple of posts:
Our last weekend trip in Greece was a Santorini/Eos island hopping adventure. I hit Santorini early Saturday morning, left at 5 PM to go to Eos, stayed the night in Eos, and went back to Santorini at 10:30 AM the next morning. Thus, this trip will be broken up into 3 parts: Santorini-Eos-Santorini. Enjoy. :)

When people mention island hopping in Greece, there are two islands that they always recommend: Mykonos and Santorini. We went to Mykonos pretty early in the trip but I've been waiting two months to get to Santorini. The problem is, although "island hopping" sounds like it should be a breeze, as if you were simply jumping from stone to stone across a babbling brook, unless you want to carry around all your stuff all day and sleep in dubious places (like mosquito-infested beaches) at night, it's important to plan ahead. That, and the fact that islands are farther away from each other than you might think. For instance, Santorini is about 10 hours away by ferry that usually either runs super early in the morning, or around midnight and the ferry tickets cost around 80 Euro round trip. Thus, we thought it would be easier and cheaper to fly, given our friends at Aegean Airlines. Because of scheduling (people's families were in town) and availabilities of flights, however, the trip kept getting pushed back and back and back. At the time, even when the change in schedule freed up other weekends for me to do things like go to Rome or Rhodes or see Lysistrata at Epidaurus, it was still incredibly frustrating because I would get all excited to go to Santorini (to the squeal while jumping up and down point) only to be let down. Over and over and over again. That being said, going to Santorini this weekend was an epic last trip in Greece, a great way to end a summer abroad and get ready to go back home and back to school. Super. Epic. Awesome.

I had it in my mind for the longest time that Santorini would be a lot like Mykonos, same blue and white houses, same kind of beaches, same nightlife, etc, probably because everyone groups them together as Must-See-Greek-Islands. I should know by now that every island has its own personality and own flair. And here's what I learned about Santorini:

The islands in the Santorini island group were once one big round island that contained a huge volcano. But one huge eruption caused the volcano to collapse in on itself and form the famous Santorini caldera. I had once thought that the caldera was on Santorini itself and that if you wanted to see the sunset from it, you would have go somewhere in Santorini and climb the caldera and watch the sun set. But actually, all of the island of Santorini [the big island] is part of the caldera, as you can see from the map to the right. Water rushed in when the volcano collapsed and flooded the caldera, forming the island chain we know today. In the middle is what's left of the volcano, part of which is still active and last erupted in the 1950s. And along the whole island are cliffs which give great views of the sunset, making Santorini one of the most romantic of the Greek islands. Thus, to party, go to Mykonos. To get married, go to Santorini.

So! How was my trip? Well, Liz and I took one of those 5:30 AM flights again on Saturday morning to get to Santorini and were able to see the sun rise, again. By the time, we met up with Marj, Shivani, and Ray, who had gotten in the day before, it was breakfast time and we stopped by a little convenience store to pick up some goods where I found...

Yummm. I ate them on the beach later in the weekend and they were delicious. Nothing was too overpowering and everything blended together wonderfully and really, munching while watching the ocean is the best way to eat them. Nom.

5. Buy honey-roasted peanuts coated in sesame seeds in Santorini.

 -> The Volcano

We decided a little while before we left for the island that we would love to go see this volcano, located in the middle of the caldera. It's a short boat ride away and we opted to do a combination volcano/hot springs tour [you can only do it via tour boat, as far as I can tell] for 20 Euro. The boats sail from the Old Port and there are three ways to get there: by cable car, by donkey, or by walking [through donkey poop]. Now, I admit that I had not done the most thorough research about Santorini, but I did hear that one of the great things to do was to take the cable car down and the donkey up, unless you really wanted to slug through poop either way. What I had not anticipated was how far down we had to go to get there. Well, really, how far up, then down we had to go. Because Santorini is basically a lot of cliffs, to get to the cable car, we had to walk up a hill. But it was so worth it.

Loading up:

Going down!

The view was absolutely stunning, especially to my sleep-deprived brain, and since we were running short on time, it was a great way to get to the Old Port quickly. At Old Port, we got on a pirate ship...

and headed off toward this here volcano.

Don't be fooled by the seemingly flatness of this island. The thing actually rises 1200 meters up and yeah, I walked all the way up. The ground is volcanic rock worn down by the winds to a gravel-like consistency so walking up the volcano was like walking up a sturdy pebbly mountain, if that makes any sense. The island was very solid, but the paths were pretty steep, so in each step, I would sink my feet into the gravel and use that to hold my feet in, preventing me from sliding back down. Finally, I got to the top to the King George crater (or some crater named after him), the active part of the volcano and the view from the top was so worth the hour climb it because with a 360 turn, you get to see the entire caldera.

After a quick romp back down the volcano, our tour took off for the hot springs on a nearby island. Little did I know that the boat would drop us off a little ways away from the island and we would have to swim to the hot springs!

This was the helm of our boat. See that brown murkiness with people's heads poking out? That's the hot springs, full of minerals like sulfur, copper, and iron, and a mud that is super exfoliating and therapeutic for the skin. The problem? I'm a terrible swimmer, especially in the ocean. I have no upper body strength, no endurance, and can't tread water all that well. Now, if I swam under water for most of the journey, I could probably make it to the hot springs, but I also have sensitive eyes which don't like water in them, especially salty water, and without goggles, I mostly have to keep my head above water and paddle my way there. Did I mention I have no abdominal muscular definition either?

Regardless, I was "peer pressured" (in quotes because I didn't need much convincing to get out of the heat and jump into the cool caldera waters). Still, with all that's said above, I struggled to make it to the hot springs. Liz was a life saver (literally) and walked me through it. But yeah, we all made it there, bathed in the decently warm, but not too warm springs, covered ourselves in mud (Ray grew his first mustache), and came out better for it. There aren't any pictures of us covered in mud because 1) we had to swim there and 2) the mud all washed off by the time we got back to the boat. The remnants of the iron/copper/sulfur stayed on us and got most of our clothes red (luckily, I was wearing black), but the experience was one of the most worthwhile things I've done in Greece. Two thumbs up and a recommendation for anyone visiting the Greek islands.

We make it back to port, a little sadly, and it's time to make it back to Fira. Now, Ray, Liz, and I took the cable car down, so we felt it was only prudent that we took donkeys up. It was a great trip. Ray's donkey kept stalling and letting people pass him and although mine liked to hug the edge a bit too much, I had a lot of fun, alternating watching other people's donkeys be obstinate  with them and seeing the view get better and better as we got higher. Let me say that it's very hard to get a good picture when you're on a donkey so although we switched cameras, there weren't very many great pictures of me. But I like this one because my sunglasses are glinting and it looks like I'm wearing a tiara.

8. Donkey Trail in Santorini

*feels a little bit like a princess*

Next entry: Eos. Stay tuned.

Saturday, 7.17: Now this is just absurd

The day begins. I wake up still grimy from the last night of theater, still fairly tired, but extremely hungry. So I make myself a cereal breakfast, watch some Criminal Minds clips to wake me up, shower, and decide, what a great day to re-try #14! So I get all set, and, remembering my blunder from last time, I make myself a map of Athens University Campus (not to be confused with Panepistimio Metro Station), look up the bus schedules, and set out. I make it to Evangelismos and sit there waiting for this bus that's supposed to take me to the university. Apparently, there are no buses to the university. Not on a Saturday. Maybe it's the weekend. Maybe it's summer. Whatever the case, there are no buses. So, after waiting a while [read: 30 min] I decide to just walk it. It's not that far away. So, I do. And I walk, and walk, and walk. And the "campus" is completely empty. There are no people, whatsoever. There aren't even really many buildings. In fact, most of my walk looks like this:

No cars, no people, nothing. After a twenty minute walk inside campus, I see...buildings! And on one of the buildings, a map! The problem with my crudely drawn map was that it had no scale and once I found the real map [which also had no scale], I quickly saw the problem.

But...I decided to keep going because I had already gone so far, right? Eventually, I reached the little circle thing on the map and I was like...I can either keep going on the same road and go up this ginormous hill, or I can go take a look at the theology department, the arts and literature departments, etc. before reaching science. So I go through this totally sketch tunnel...

Walk along the road where there are no people and no cars, and reach this building of sketchness.

See if you can find it on the map above. As far as I could tell, this was the theology school. UM. WHAT? There isn't even a door! There is a HOLE in the middle of the building! There are stairs that don't lead anywhere!

And then, as I had thought I went the wrong way, I turned, slipped on a rock and twisted my shoe. And bam! No more flip flop.

To be honest, I shouldn't have been wearing flip flops to go walking, but I figured I wasn't going to be doing that much walking so I did. Also, it wasn't really that surprising that they were going to wear down soon, because they were the first pair of flip flops I ever got, way back in sophomore year of high school or something, but it was still super bad that they broke because the ground was rocky and hard and there was a dead rat lying a couple meters away from me and the first thing I thought of was, "Really? Is this really happening??" And proceeded to crack up.

Because if you think about it, how absurd is this, that my shoe would break in the sketchest building with not a soul around, not even the soul of the dead rat currently being eaten by small insects? So, at a loss, I called my mother. I'm pretty sure I was laughing so much that it sounded like I was hysterical, but it was just a total surreal situation. After talking to her, I rummaged about and found this hair tie in my bag:

And...why not?

There was no way I was going to keep going to the chemistry building at this point because I had no idea how long the hair tie would hold up, and though it held my shoe on my foot pretty well, it wasn't good enough to randomly wander around an empty campus. So, dejected, I headed back. I treated myself to an ice cream to help compensate for my complete and utter failure.

As I trekked home, I thought about how far I had come as a person. Only a few years ago, I would have been hysterical in the opposite direction, probably burst into tears, would not have known what to do with myself, and gotten a stern talking-to from my mother who, if halfway across the world, would tell me that there's nothing she could do and I should just rough it barefoot across the disease-ridden ground. I definitely would not have started cackling at myself in the middle of the empty road, and would definitely not have had the sense of mind to take pictures of my broken shoe but in fact would probably have sat on a rock next to the dead rat and lamented about my life and how unfair everything was. But if I've learned anything about life being here on my own, it's that you have to make the best of everything. Wash your clothes by hand when you haven't got a washing machine. Walk when the Metro goes on strike. Tie your shoe to your foot with a hair tie when your strap breaks. Complain if you want, but do what you have to do to fix your problem.

So slowly, I walked back to the apartment, munching on my ice cream cone and breaking out into peals of laughter at myself and my situation every once in a while. Luckily, there was no one around me to hear this insanity, although the few people that I passed looked at me funny, possibly because I was limping a little due to the extra thing on my left shoe. But finally, I got back to my apartment, collapsed, sweaty and dusty, onto my bed and fell asleep for a good while. When I awoke, the absurdities continued.

First, Marj, Shivani, and I made these absurdly delicious stuffed peppers. They came out 10x better than the ones we made the first time and the surprising awesomeness of the cheesy top made the day all better.

Then, as I was browsing the internet, I came across this absurdity. And let me just say: MWARHHAH



With that, I'll leave you. #14 failed yet again. Debates on whether to try it one last time.

Tuesday 7.13: Total Eclipse of My Heart

Since I was young, I have been taught to make plans and to follow through. When I have a lot of work, it's great because it keeps me focused and if I get tired of doing one thing, I can look forward to checking something else off my list. And that's one of the reasons I've been glad to have this List, so I have a little bit of direction, goals to complete while in Greece. I'll admit though, the best times come when bits of the List are completed completely on a whim.

Normally, when we get back from work, we cook, eat, talk, sleep. It's fine with me because I get tired after work, especially from sleep debt and the fact that I've been working extra hours without break these couple of days. Occasionally, Dionysis will call us to hang out and catch up and occasionally, we'll go, but weekdays are generally reserved for stocking up for weekend trips, and the like. This wonderful Tuesday, we discovered that Eclipse was playing in the open air theater at Zappion until Wednesday. Now, I've been asked before why #19 on the List is "See a movie in an open air theater" and not "See a play in a real theatre." There are two reason for this. One, I didn't think I was going to be able to see a play in a real theater. That costs money that I wasn't sure I'd have. Two, the open air theater is a integral part of Greek culture, especially of Athens culture. A lot of the time, when people go to see a movie, they bring their beers, bring their cigarettes, and go sit out in the coolness of the evening and watch the movie with their friends on the big screen in the open air. There aren't any open air movie theaters in LA as far as I know and even if there were one at Yale (people have projected stuff onto the side of LDub), I wouldn't go out in the middle of winter to watch it. So, even having seen Oedipus at Epidaurus, I fully stand by #19 as a part of Athens that people coming should definitely experience, especially if coming here for any extended period of time. Also, the American movies are still in English.

So on this fine Tuesday, we scorned dinner, went and got ourselves some 1.80 Euro gyros [how do you pronounce this??] and ambled down to Zappion, which is where we went our first second day in Athens and saw the book fair. Here's us with our humungor yummy yummy gyros.

Here's the theater as we approach it:

And so we went in, with a bottle of wine, and took our seats. Although none of us are Twilight fans (I actually abhor the writing in the books, and because the dialog in the movies is exactly the same, I'm not really a fan of them either), we are fans of shirtless Taylor Lautner [I'm allowed to say this because he's 18 now] and we thought, what a great apartment/suite-bonding time!  So we take our seats...

And actually, before I knew it, the movie had begun. As in, I didn't know it had begun until a couple minutes in. When Jacob came on screen, a little squee went up in our row.

He's depressed because Bella is with Edward. I can't believe I just wrote that line. *facepalms*

When he was shirtless for the first time, I swear our row cheered. People probably looked at us funny.

Now, I'm not an advocate for taking mind-altering substances to make your world better, as we all know that after the effects go away, your world is not better. BUT. I'll say that the wine and the happy being with Marj and Shivani made the movie significantly better than it was. Yeah, the dialog was still horrendous and the cinematography wasn't all there either, but, some quotes:

• In the tent in the snow where Bella is shivering and cold and Jacob is STILL SHIRTLESS and offers to warm her up. Jacob to Edward: "Face it, I'm hotter than you." <-- Truth
• In the tent in the snow where Jacob is spooned around Bella warming her up. "You'd warm up faster if you took your clothes off...survival 101."
• After Jacob uninvitedly kisses Bella and she whacks him for it. Jacob to Bella's dad: "I kissed Bella...and she broke her hand...punching my face." *fave*

Anyways, looking back on this entry, it's much more superficial than my previous ones in terms of physical superficiality. And that's the way the night went. I'm not going to pretend that we're not all superficial sometimes. And I'm not going to pretend that the evening wasn't one of the most awesome I've had in Athens. It was a much needed fun-filled, relaxed night out where we were just happy. And I'm ok with that. So,

19. Watch a movie in an open air theater.

Saturday 7.10: All Rhodes lead to a Castle in the Sky

When I first told Dr. Parr, my faculty adviser, that I was going to Greece, he said first that I would have a smashing time, next that it would be unbearably hot, and third, that I should go to Rhodes. So far, I have had a smashing time, the heat has actually been bearable in places where I could take a good shower, and I have finally gotten myself to the place where all roads lead.

However, upon first arriving in Greece and looking up the feasibility of island hopping, it seemed like if I were to go to one or two islands on the weekend, it would not be to Rhodes. After all, it is one of islands farthest from the mainland (only 11 miles away from Turkey, actually) and would be very hard to get to by ferry if we were only going for a weekend. This is considering anyone would even want to skip out on the fun in Mykonos and Santorini to take a 10+ hour journey to Rhodes. However, while we originally planned to go to Santorini this weekend, the plans fell through and our backup was to go to Rhodes, with airplane tickets provided by Aegean (1 hour flight ftw).

A little background: Rhodes is the largest of the Greek islands, around 50 miles long and 24 miles wide at its widest point. It's closer to Turkey than it is to Greece, so the vegetation and climate is also more akin to that of Asia Minor than to the Mediterranean. It was famous in ancient times for the statue of Colossus [the sun god, Helios], marking entrance to its port, and because it was so big, it became known as one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Unfortunately, supposedly due to a number of earthquakes and other disasters, the statue fell and basically disappeared from the face of the earth (perhaps around the time Atlantis, if there was one, disappeared) and all that's left are the stories about this gigator statue that inspired the design of the Statue of Liberty.

Today, Rhodes is known for its medieval town (Old Town) complete with castles and knights, Lindos, containing the Acropolis of Lindos, Butterfly Valley, water parks, an ostrich farm, and it's beautiful beaches. Seeing that we really only had 1.5 days on this huge island, there was no way we could do everything, but I think we made a pretty good run for it.

Saturday: Old Town and New Town

Freshly back from my trip to Epidaurus, I showered, packed, and headed out the door an hour later at 3:00 AM to catch our 5:20 flight. With Shivani, Marj, Ray and I was Ray's friend Naz, sort of a breath of fresh air into the group. Marj, Shivani, and I had gotten close enough that we could basically look at each other and tell what the other was thinking, but it was nice to have an outside perspective on everything. That being said, our first hours together consisted of napping whenever possible; on the bus, on the flight, on the bus to our hotel, etc. We arrived in Rhodes at 6:30 AM, made our way into the town of Rodos at a darn dratted early time. We were lugging all our stuff around, but still managed to be blown away by the blue of the water in the early morning.

See those mountains shrouded by mist a little bit? We're about 90% sure that's Turkey. Anyone up for a swim?

Gradually, we made our way to the hotel (Europa Hotel), but it was so early in the morning that they didn't have our rooms ready yet (this also may have been because we had booked our rooms at 2 AM that day...) so we dropped off our stuff. Ray and Naz took off to the beach, Marj and Shivani went shopping and I took a nap at the pool in the shade. Great nap until little kids started coming the pool and yelling. In the end, we all went to the beach and got...tanner. :D I felt like the little Coppertone baby in my beachwear. Because I got there a little later, it didn't make much sense for me to find a bathroom and change and go swimming. Boo...the water was quite fantastic, but: hot sand! hot sand!

After checking into the hotel, our original plan was to go to Lindos for the afternoon, but that didn't quite work out because we would have only been able to spend a couple of hours (read: 2 hours) there, which didn't seem quite worth it for the hour of travel there and back, so we decided to visit Old Town instead. Great call.

Here we are at the gates of Old Town, the medieval town of Rhodes. When I say medieval, I mean with knights and castles and everything. Very western European. I say this to you, Chris Kizer. :D And when I say castles, I mean castles. With moats and everything.

As we were walking about in the moat, we found a little side entrance that we were probably not supposed to go into, but we did anyways...

It led into the main castle area of Old Town and we explored the museum and the history of Rhodes. They didn't let us take pictures in the lower exhibits, but there were influences from the Romans, Egyptians, eastern Europe, Asia Minor, and it was a big culture mush, which was awesome. The entire upper floor of the castle had been destroyed in the earlier history of Rhodes, and the Romans rebuilt it as a summer palace for Victor Emanuel III. They imported all these mosaics from the nearby island of Cos, and even got some pieces from East Asia (yeah China/Japan).

Now, I realize some of you might be thinking, Angela, whatever happened to the List? Well, due to the little detour I took in Rome, it's been on the back burner, but, while we were walking through the tourist town part of Old Town, I finally found one of the things I had been looking for since coming to Greece. If you remember back to my Italy posts, there were a bajillion beautiful fountains. But Greece isn't known for its fountains and there aren't many that are that impressive. But when I saw this one, I was like: this is going to be my wish fountain. So,

It's a very Turkish fountain, I feel, but it was the most beautiful one I had seen in Greece. Note how those birds on the fountain don't move at all...pigeons here are like squirrels. Not afraid of anything.

9. Make a wish on a coin thrown in a Greek fountain.

THE LIST LIVES! Of course I won't tell you what wish I made. Otherwise, it wouldn't come true!

Super tired and sleepy, we then stumbled back to New Town, which was a surprisingly modern town with a lot of shopping. Deciding that food would probably be awesome, we stopped by this restaurant, L'Escargot, by the coast. We ended up watching the sunset while enjoying a great meal and some really great conversations (including Harry Potter/LotR/Disney/movies discussions). It was one of the most chill exploratory days I have had in a while, and watching the gorgeous sunset was really great way to end the day.

Midway Reflections

The date is July 1, 2010.

I am officially halfway through my stay in Athens now, and the Summer of 20 is 1/3 over. Yesterday, as I was buying my monthly metro pass, I had a sudden moment of revelation that a month had already passed. It's a little scary to realize that time is passing so quickly, to know I've already actually been independent for a month, that I've been away from my family and friends, to know that I only have a month left to finish my project, and that I've seen so many amazing things and have had so many amazing experiences in such a short amount of time. During this time, I have felt rejuvenated and broken, uplifted and in despair, validated and helpless. It's a lot of emotions to feel in one month, but it confirms, at least to me, that I'm not a Cyber[wo]man.

Something quite mundane: the weather in Athens has been just wonderful, at least, in my eyes. For the past couple of weeks, it has been thunderstorming on and off. I realize this is due to the global weather changes, but when I lay awake a couple nights ago listening to the thunder and watching the lightning, I felt an intense sense of peace. Maybe it was exhaustion, but since then, I feel like I have grown up a little bit. It's only been a day, you say. Still. This summer. These past couple of years. My whole life. What can I say? As I look back on the things I used to write about, I can still see that girl within me, the one who tried so hard to not let herself get complacent with her happiness, the one always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wasn't a very trusting teenager; probably a smart move on my part, as I remember what high school was like. But to compensate for that, I was at once overly bubbly and super emo at the same time. I held on too tightly to acquaintances and wouldn't let my true friends in close enough. And I wrote about the most INANE things.

Quotes from younger years:

In the morning, I played tennis for about an hour and then I went to the picnic and played frisbee for a while. I think I had forgotten how fun frisbee was.

Woah! My legs are like jelly from sitting in the car for so long. I should go running....or dancing. Yeah...dancing will ungelly (=P) my legs!! *dances*

 People will say that I don't have to study for the history final tomorrow, but I'm still going to after my break.

I'm not sure what's wrong with me these days. I feel so apathetic towards everything. Nothing interests me anymore. It's like everything's moving so fast and I'm left behind. Time has just disappeared. I'm going to turn 15 [<--points to large red number and the fact that I wrote this 5 years ago] in a couple of weeks and it doesn't feel like I should.

Anyhow, just some reminiscing. I'm thinking that I might restart one of those inane blog things when I get back to school. Just to give me something to rant with or something. I may go back to LJ just because I don't feel like looking up code for current music/mood/location. Something to think about.

Ok this has turned into a "Angela's going to write the first thing that comes into her mind" post, so I'll wrap it up.

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As of now, I'm halfway through and I have completed 50% of the List. Yeah. That's right, baby. You didn't think I would actually go through with it. But I am. :D

My plans for the weekend are to go to dun dun dun....ROMA. That's right. Party with the Italians for awhile. And I'm going with my future roomie, Maria, so we'll get to do some roomie bonding activities. I am super stoked, because although I have not seen nearly enough of Greece, I feel, for my sanity, that I need to get away for a little while. Just from all the drama, and the strikes, and the yelling. This is going to be awesome.

So here's a cheer to a great month had and a great month to come. And if you're reading, you're awesome for sticking with me this far. So cheers to you too. :)

Contemplatively yours,

Angela

Sat/Sun 6.25-6.26: Olympia as I want to remember it

We all want to remember our adventures, our once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, as being these great, epic odysseys, our troubles faded into the background, still there, perhaps, but faint, like the last traces of paint on a 3000 year old marble statue. We don't want to remember the times when we were cold and hungry, being eaten alive by gnats and mosquitoes, and the people around us were not only unhelpful, but malicious. It's not fun to remember the tears and swollen eyes, and the dehydration that followed. When we retell our stories, it's not only to recall those moments we knew we were in the presence of greatness, but to make others wish they were there with us, for what's the point of having an adventure if you have no one with whom to share it?

That's how I feel about the trip to Olympia we took last weekend. I could harp on the bad things that happened, but the truth is, when I walked onto the sites, saw the ruins, the museum, none of it seemed to matter. Yeah. Totally cliche, I know, but for me, this trip to Greece is the first time I have really embraced history and historical sites of any kind. It has been a real eye-opener and I am truly thankful for this opportunity. I have not yet processed all the information I've taken in, what it means for my life, my world views, etc. because I'm still in the state of DudeThatWasAwesome, but I do know that with or without me, I am making sure my kids do this too. Because: Dude, that was AWESOME.
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Saturday: The Drive to Olympia and the Ruins

Professor Hale, a former Yalie and professor in Kentucky, very graciously let a few of us ride in the van with the group of archaeology kids. The drive is about 4-5 hours, depending the number of stops you make and which route you take. Our route took us through the mountains of the Peloponnese. I live in a bit of a hilly region in California, so driving through the mountains reminded me of when our family used to drive into the mountains and wind about until we reached the top. Interestingly, the vegetation on these mountains was very different from the chaparral around Athens. It was lush and green complete with cool mountain breeze, which was a nice change of pace. On the way into the mountains, we stopped by the Corinth Canal, started by the Greeks, continued by the Romans, who drilled holes in the soft limestone, and completed, apparently, by the Hungarians. It definitely has a wow factor.

As we were driving through the mountains, we met some other friends, namely bees and sheep. There were bees everywhere because there were beehives everywhere (thanks to the apiarists and connoisseurs of Greek honey) and there were sheep because....well there were sheep. The sheep seemed to be very well behaved, and even in the middle of the road, they formed a nice circular formation. I'm not sure what the sheep in the middle of the circle were doing because there didn't seem to be anything to eat in the road, but....I'll let you judge for yourself.

We reached the tiny town of Olympia in the late afternoon, after a lunch in the mountains, and hit the ruins. The town is quite small, but the ruins Olympia is known for are huge. This is because the Olympic Games (and the Heraea Games) were once held here and athletes from all over Greece would come to compete. The winners would have free meals for the rest of their lives, as well as eternal glory in the form of poetry and statue, while the losers would slink away in shame, condemned to walking the back alleys and hiding their faces in the street. That kinda sucks.

Some highlights from the ruins:

Temple of Zeus and it's lone column:

Temple of Hera and her three columns:

The Monument to the Philip of Macedonia, his wife and his son, Alexander the Great. In what can only be described as a super b*tchy move, Philip commissioned a monument to his family at the entrance to Olympia where it obscured the views of both the temples of Hera and Zeus. Smart politically, but really, Philip? Really?

And the place where they light the Olympic Torch every four years. Rather underwhelming, but they use a parabolic bowl that concentrates the rays of the sun to light the torch, and they can't just put the bowl on display, lest it make the whole place catch on fire.

Then, we entered the ancient Olympic Stadium, where, in 2004, they actually held the shot put event. It's around a 200 m long track and the athletes would run up and down the track, instead of around it, as we're used to. Since we were there, of course we had to run a race. They boys ran one, and the girls ran one [for Zeus and Hera, of course]. A video of the girl's "race" is embedded below. I say "race" because we decided we would just jog together across the stadium; however, I encourage anyone who wants to race to run a legit race. :D Also, because of the way the footage was taken, only the beginning and a 3 second clip near the end of the race was captured so I took some liberties in documenting the event. A funny moment came during the boy's race when Sam tried to take off his shirt to run and the guard yelled at him to put it back on. From that moment, he would take it half off just to goad her. Also, we were apparently too loud for the obnoxious French tour guide with her group, so she yelled at us. You can hear her in the video and you can hear Prof. Hale say "We paid too." Haha he's awesome.

And another item crossed off the List:*

12. Run a race at the Olympic Stadium

We then took a little detour where we heard some weird duck-like sounds. It turns out, they were frogs. If anyone remembers Aristophanes's "The Frogs," the frogs at the river Styx chant a chant to help the rowers row across the river. And it goes like this: Brekekekéx-koáx-koáx.

Listen closely, and though you can't see the frogs, maybe you can hear them over the voices of my compatriots:

We then made it to this German-built sports museum, all about the Games. They had a fantastic floor mosaic, the biggest I've ever seen, as well as the chiseled bodies of many a Greek athlete (esp. Heracles). Apparently, if you win at your event in 3 consecutive Olympic Games, you get a statue of you, with special attention paid to your body. It was in this way that they found a lot of the traits needed to win specific events. Science, man, science.

We stayed in the Hotel Neda (recommended), where, after a hot bath and delicious breakfast with a fantastic view, all troubles and tensions melted away. It's only a few Euro more than the hostel we stayed at in Mykonos, but it was so much better.

Sunday: The Museum

Not only is the site at Olympia amazing, the museum is a gem in itself. The moment you walk in BAM: super giant freses from the temple of Zeus; one of the story of Pelops and one of Theseus battling the centaurs. Once you're blown away by those, which are truly incredible, Winged Victory greets you and, turning around, the helmet of Miltiades (and one of his Persian foe's), who blew away the Persians at the Battle of Marathon.

As you pass by the bronze shields, phoenixes, and pottery, you enter a small room with the crowning glory of the museum: Young Hermes carrying baby Dionysis. It was really epic, especially because it was polish on this marble was really well done and the whole effect was just...wow.

P.S. Love Hermes's sandals. :D

There were also some Roman statues from after the conquest, but while those were incredibly draped, this statue was really the culmination of the museum for me, so I'm going to leave it at that.

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All in all, I was very happy with what I saw at Olympia. It's one of the most beautiful places I've been to in Greece and so rich with history and art and amazingness. People forget about it because it's not a famous island or as convenient to get to as Delphi, but it's really a worthwhile trip if you're coming to Greece.

Also, on the way back, we ran into another wedding in progress. The groom was apparently a military man because he had his comrades dressed in uniform with swords and everything. It was pretty epic.


Touched by the fires of Olympia,

Angela



*Disclaimer: I actually did change one of the things on the List after I had done this because if anyone asks me from this point forward what they should do if they come to Greece, running across the Olympic stadium is a must.