Sunny sweet talk

Going about the routine this morning, I wandered past the windows and, despite the blinds being closed, I could tell there was oodles of sunshine outside. Excitedly, I burst in to the bathroom.

    "Honey honey honey! It's sunny outside!"
    "Okay...?
    "It's been so GLOOMY the past few days--it's sooooooo nice and sunny!"
    "Oh. Honey, because I have you, I don't notice much else."
    "Is that because I am your sunshine?"
    "My only sunshine."
    "Do I make you happy?"
    "Only when skies are grey."
    "Awwww...hey, wait, 'only'?"
    "Uh, I mean just 'when.' When skies are grey."

:p

R-acking discipline

I told myself I wasn't going to open up my computer today until I had the time to do it, after completing all of the other million things on my list of things to do.

Fail.

But at least I'm blogging again. I know I still have all of the rest of my Europe posts to put up, but as I just mentioned to SilentR in an email, I'm only just making it through my Rome pictures at the moment. I put all of my Athens pictures into their own folder yesterday--870 of that city alone. Sheesh. But I will persevere.

I wish the weather had been more cooperative in Rome what with it having been so cloudy and me not having a monopod nor tripod with me (not that there weren't enough vendors to offer me those for sale) to stay still long enough for the exposures to be any good. I tried my best. I say 10 great pictures per city should be good.

Can you believe that while in Rome I didn't put pen to paper once about the city and all I saw? I plan to correct that now, but still, I feel a sense of disappointment in myself--what kind of writer am I that I couldn't fight through the exhaustion to record a little of what I saw in words.

But then again, in my defense, there are not enough words nor pictures in the world that could describe what I saw and experienced.

Back to what I'm supposed to be doing. But at least I can take satisfaction in the fact that I have gleaming counter-tops already this morning.

Not a foggy clue

I was in charge of getting Dimps to the airport tonight, but also had a lot of other things that I had to get done too (trying to post just ONE travel post being one of them). So that meant that as soon as I was done cooking so that my Crazy and I would have dinner to eat when I got home, I changed and flew out the door.

Having watched the dismal weather move in all day, and then knowing that traffic was insane because of the conditions, I wasn't THAT fazed when I stepped out and found that it was incredibly foggy out. Nevertheless, I made my way as speedily and safely as I could towards Dimps' place, squinting through the fog.

Finding it was pretty bad, I turned on the ventilation to try to clear the mist. Without much result, I then hit the defog button. Still not much help. I let it be for a while, just keeping an alert eye on the road. Then at a stop light halfway to my destination, it dawned on me to try one more thing.

I cleaned my glasses.

A chorus of angels might as well have sung after I was done. Definitely solved the foggy problem. :S

Processing...

In trying to post my pre-written blogs from Europe, I've been sorting through the THOUSANDS of pictures that I took in order to hopefully accurately illustrate the story. But on my lagging laptop (still love you though, Jenny), picture editing and blogging at the same time is proving to take FOREVER.

The three posts I've put up so far have probably taken me a total of no less than 5 hours to compose, illustrate, and post. Ridiculous. So take it as a warning...these posts will probably appear slower than you (or I) would like, but let's believe that they're worth the wait.

And home again

A few Fridays ago, I received an email from SilentR:

...can I interest you in a trip? i found ticket to london 550, london to barcelona 50 bucks, barcelona to madrid 50 bucks, madrid london 50 bucks. 11 DAYS? what do you say? we leave monday?

We left that Monday.

The trip destinations were altered (as well as the flight prices!) by the time we took off. We flew through London to Athens, to Rome, to Barcelona, and then back to London before returning home just last Friday. This explains the bit of AWOL-ness and the lack of warning before leaving. But I'm back, with the stories and pictures to prove it.

And so, to catch up with the trip, I've decided to post everything with approximately correct dates. But I'm also going to include labels, so that they're a little more easily found. However, all this means that updates may not be noticed since the posts will appear in my past archives pretty quickly. Try to keep up, will you? :)

Waiting again at Gatwick

The airport is surprisingly full at this hour of night (this hour being the wee hours). That's not necessarily saying that it's busy and bustling with activity. It's just apparent that SilentR and I weren't the only travellers with the idea of saving a buck on hotel stays and camping out at the airport before our morning flight.

It's standing room only here at Gatwick Airport as every bench available has a body stretched out, sleeping on it. Some came prepared with blankets and sleeping masks, while most are like Silent and I--baggage for pillows and extra clothes as covers.

Of course I'm still awake.

It's funny the things that people will wake to and then other things that they'll just ignore and sleep right on through.

There are repairmen setup down the hallway working on the fire alarm system. After a muted announcement of a drill, the fire alarm went off. I think of the multitude of sleepers here, 4 woke up, saw that no one awake was panicking, and went right back to sleeping. Meanwhile, not long after, a girl tired to take her suitcase off of her luggage cart without the aid of her boyfriend (who had been coddling her and doing everything for her all night). She dropped the suitcase with a bang and sent the luggage cart sailing across the hall to collide with another sleeper's cart. That woke at least 10 people up for a glance. Actually, those who woke all shot up with a start.

I suppose it's all about the kind of sound. The only reason I didn't wake up for either was because I haven't slept yet.

Giving up on change?

It took me a few days to make myself familiar with the sizes, shapes, and colours of all the Euro coins. It wasn't even until a few days ago that I realized each country had their own variation of design/impression on each coin.

And then I got to London.

Pounds and pence, quid and shillings. I could keep up. It didn't help either that I still had a collection of Euros in my wallet, not to mention that life and all of its transactions in London take place at breakneck speeds.

I tried my best to keep up--I really did. I separated out all of my Euros. That didn't help. I kept all of my coins at the ready in my hand when paying. I was still left sorting through each coin, trying to discover its denomination. I paid only with bills--that helped, but also caused me to amass a fortune in small change.

And so, I gave up.

Everytime I've made a purchase in the last 12 hours, I've pulled out a fistful of coins, and have just offered it all to the cashier.

    "I know I can pay all in change, but I really suck at it. Help."

And suddenly, London change sorted itself out.

Homeward

Truth be told, I'm happy to be heading home. Excited, actually.

Excited to take a shower, wash my clothes, eat a home cooked meal, see my family and friends, kiss my boyfriend, squeeze the cat, sleep in my own bed...but even more than the comforts of home, I'm excited for all of the events that are awaiting me, planned in my absence.

Upon touchdown in Toronto, I have one day to reset before being whisked away by my lovely Crazy to a weekend getaway to Niagara Falls (though I have a sneaking suspicion the locale was motivated by his lately strong craving for the casino buffet). Then I'm in for a chicken overload with Roomie and Em for belated birthday celebrations (for each of us!). Finally, somehow my Crazybf found time to book us into his company Christmas party.

Splendid. The anticipation is already killing me.

So as not to make the fans Cross

    "What next?"

We'd decided to go easy on the walking while in London and instead made the most of our all-day transit passes by hopping on and off random doubledecker buses and seeing where they would take us.

By this method, we'd seen Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, a bit of the Eye of London, and even landed some time at Camden Market. Next was a planned visit to King's Cross Station to visit the infamous Platform 9 3/4.

For this trip, we jumped on the Tube. When we exited at King's Cross, I knew exactly where to go, having been there once before (and where else would you find 9 3/4 if not between platforms 8 and 9?) so we made a beeline through the crowds for it. When we got there...it was gone!

Construction and renovations were taking place and instead we found barriers and scaffolding. However, we also found a sign:

Dear Harry Potter fans, due to upgrades, we have relocated Platform 9 3/4.

Following the sign's directions, we found the magical spot (still between platforms 8 and 9) and took our coveted pictures afterall.

It made me smile to think that King's Cross Station understood that Platform 9 3/4 was important enough to be moved.

Spidey Senses

Wednesday night, and SilentR and I were on the Tube home from fish and chips and adventure through Oxford circus. Having a bit of a ride ahead of us, I let my eyes wander until they fell on the pages of the book my neighbour was reading: American Psycho. Almost tempted to ask him how he was liking it, I decided against it. I was too tired for small talk, and besides, he was only on page 6.

A moment later, Silent nudged me. Speaking quietly through her teeth, it seemed she asked me a question.

    "Ithzat o bee mwire?"
    "What?"
    "Ith tht obi mgwire?"
    "What??"
    "Is that Tobey Maguire?" she finally had to hiss at me.

Oh.

The next chance I got, I took a look. It could have been, but the nose was too pointy, in my opinion. Maybe more of a hobbit-ish Elijah Wood lookalike. Especially with those blue eyes. I said so. But SilentR wasn't convinced.

A few more discreet glances and finally a seat change by Silent, she was almost positive of it.

AND we got off at the same station.

AND he kept glancing back at us as we followed him out of the station and crossed the street (we had to go that way anyway).

AND, just to be sure, we googled images of him back at our hotel.

    "There's the cleft chin! It was definitely him!"

Dammit.

Too late did I learn the discreet way of asking celebs if they were indeed who we suspected them to be.

    "Psst. Are you so-and-so?"
    "Yes."
    "Oh, okay."

Next time. Don't worry, I'll ask Robert Pattinson if he's really him when we find him in London. And I'll ask him if he can wish a friend a Happy Birthday too.

Down the Tubes

By far the easiest route from airport to hotel was the one in London. Half probably due to being able to speak the language, half probably due to London's extensive train system.

Having arrived at Gatwick Airport briefly 9 days ago, we already knew where to head for the trains. Once at the info booth, we told the guy where we wanted to go.

*click click click*

Moments later, he'd printed us out an itinerary of which trains to take, which stations to aim for, and when everything departed.

Moments after that, we had our tube passes in hand and we tore onto our train just before it left the station. At the transfer station, we didn't know which platform our next train was on, so we asked. Not only did the guy know which platform, he knew what time our train was to leave!

Finally, we reached our destination station without knowing our actual final destination. Like a champ, I wrote down the address of restaurants, but not of our hotel.

So, we asked for an internet cafe and got great directions to one. I barreled in and checked my email. 30 seconds later (and no internet fee charged...thanks!) we were on our way. Even the internet cafe guy gave pretty good directions. 3 minutes later, we had arrived. Sweet.

And now, because I'm sure someone will be able to tell us, we're on our way to have some fish & chips, roight?

Barcelona Travel Tip: Just get drunk

9.90 Euro - 2 tapas + paella

Sweet. We signed ourselves right up--low on cash, this was just the meal price we were looking for.

    "What'll you have to drink?"
    "Oh, nothing, thank you."
    "I'm sorry, but I can't serve you if you don't order a drink."

Catching each other's eye, SilentR and I each ordered water (knowing it'd probably be a bottle of it) to pacify our server. Out came our 500ml bottles of water--which we drank--our tapas and paella--which we ate--and our bill--which we gawked at.

3.60 Euro for a bottle of water? Each?!

If we had to go back and do it again (as someday we probably would), we'd order alcohol. For probably pennies more (if any at all), it'd be worth paying to get drunk!

I think what made it the suckiest was that each of us had planned for a long day and each had a 1.5L bottle of water in our bags. Boo.

Definitely not like back in North America where it's all about ordering exactly what you want, and all the free tap water you could drink. Because later that same night, Silent and I ventured out of late night tapas. Neither of us were hungry enough for a meal, so we stuck strictly to the snacks, and we were shafted for it.

At first, we were seated and our table set for two--two placemats and two sets of utensils. After we'd ordered only 2 tapas dishes (we started with just 2 because we didn't know how much we could eat), the man who appeared to run the restaurant came by, seemingly scolding our server in Spanish, and re-set our table. He whisked away one of the placemats and moved the remaining one to the middle of the table, and removed both of our utensil rolls, replacing them with just one (which contained 2 forks, at least).

You shouldn't have to bite off more than you can chew, just to get regular service.

Picking Barcelona

In all of the city descriptions our (now lost) Lonely Planet book had to offer, the one warning that was consistent for each of our destinations was: beware of pickpockets.

In my mind, a pickpocket was first and foremost a classic Oliver Twist character who picked things out of your pocket. Hence, I didn't keep anything important in my pockets.

Second came the more modern image of the ploy of someone (or several someones) bumping in to you as you're walking, causing a distraction whilst nimbly relieving you of something valuable. Hence, I always, checked my person immediately after if anyone bumped into me.

However, I've realized that more than the classic notions (that I had) of pickpockets, these people are sleight of hand artists. This is after a foiled attempt (foiled by fast acting SilentR) of a petty thief today.

Tired after yet another mountainous climb, Silent and I sat down for a meal and to write some postcards on an outdoor patio. In addition to putting her postcards on the table, Silent pulled out her iPhone to check the time. A second later, a man come up and tried to offer her fliers. She kept telling him "no", but he continued to fan them in front of her, spilling some onto the table. Another firm refusal, and a quick gathering up of her belongings onto the other side of the table out of his reach was finally enough to discourage the man, not to mention our server barrelling out to shoo him away as an apparently known thief of the area.

A quick assessment of our stuff told us we still has all of our possessions.

    "Quick thinking to grab your phone, eh?"
    "I know! I swear he'd already pulled it closer to him--it wasn't where I'd had it on the table. I knew when he wouldn't leave me alone that he was up to something because when the lady at the other table refused him, he'd left right away and came here."

A close call, a wake-up call, and another adventure to add to the list.
...

Marilyn Manson is playing somewhere in Spain this December.

    "Marilyn Manson is so 90s."

Indeed.

International boob-tubing

So, in every country we've visited, we've caught a little TV during each stay. The one thing all three countries (Greece, Italy, Spain) have had in common so far, is that they really enjoy darker genres of shows and movies.

In Greece, we had 2 English channels. They played movies like Derailed, Perfect Strangers, and another movie in which women were murdered and no one went to help. For shows, they had The shield, and haunted investigations. In Italy, we only caught whatever was on (and all dubbed in Italian) the common TV, but the first movie seemed to be about depressed women, and the second was about explorers that all died exploring the supernatural. Spain had either the BBC and CNN channels on loop, or English shows dubbed into Spanish like Law & Order (I think). On the last night in Spain, I was able to watch Twilight in English, but only because SilentR was there to "dub" it back for me from Spanish.

Oh. And Spain had porn.

    "Are there anymore movies on?"
    "No, just the news."
    "Oh, well I'm just going to channel surf then."
    "Uh, I wouldn't do that if I were you..."
    *starts flipping*
    "...I was surfing earlier and they're showing commercials for some really, uh, hardcore, girl-on-..."
    "WHOA!" *quickly changes channels*
    "Yeah, see?"

And to think, what we saw were actually only commercials...

Our next place to stay in London is advertised to have 3 glorious channels--in English! Superb!

Lights out

Our day began at 3:45am--perhaps early enough to say that our previous night had never really ended. Bleary-eyed and still exhausted from our arduous trek back from the city (via BUS again--damn Sunday-night train schedules), SilentR and I dragged ourselves to the front desk to be picked up by the airport shuttle.

Needless to say, we arrived in Barcelona (much) later that day, still exhausted, but we wasted no time before beginning to tour the city. By the time dinner rolled around, we threw in the towel. Without the energy for even just eating that last meal, Silent took a shower and rolled into bed and I followed suit right after. Some BBC got my eyes tired, and so it was time to turn out the lights, so I did.

And something exploded.

Frozen, with my hand still on the light switch, I assessed the situation, overall hoping that I at least hadn't woken Silent, who'd been having trouble getting any good sleep.

    "Uh, mel?"

Dammit.

What seemed to have happened was that my turning off the light had somehow short-circuited the breaker and blew out the desk light bulb across the room (which had been off all night anyway). While the experience had been startling enough for me, Silent had woken up convinced she was done for.

    "I'd been having a dream that I was being chased. And then when I heard the bang and the breaking glass, I thought someone was shooting at us through the window!"

I felt so bad, even though I technically hadn't done anything (except turn out the lights). Her heart rate did not slow until well after we'd made our way down to the front desk and returned with reinforcements to at least clear out the glass.

The rest of the night passed without any other incident (and Silent was so exhausted she fell right back to sleep, thankfully), but I guess the whole thing hadn't helped that, again, after booking our hotel, we found a review of our area of town, telling us it wasn't exactly the best. But hey, it wasn't an Omonia by any stretch.

As the Romans did

Not too surprisingly, I didn't write anything about Rome while I was there. Or while still in Europe. While I filled nearly an entire notebook of my experiences, Rome's pages were left blank for the simple reason that words just couldn't describe what we saw in Rome. It's history that's ancient. Ancient history! To be able to grasp the concept of how ancient it was, SlientR and I had to physically touch it to believe it.


Day one was spent in Vatican City in the St. Peter's Square, the Vatican Museum (on a tour we probably shouldn't have bothered with in the end--though on it I didn't think twice), and then in St. Peter's Basilica. My mouth was so parched half the time because it was agape in awe at the amazing art and architecture of everything I saw.

(Okay, I give up. I've been trying to write this blog since 9:30 this morning, and it's now 1pm. I'm going out. Here are some pictures. Deal with it. :) )

I wish it'd been sunnier...

Um, I've just learned how to spot-colour...or maybe should say I'm learning to spot-colour.

That's a woven copy. That's right...woven.

"Hmmm...I've run out of walls to paint...I'm going to work on the ceiling now..."

That's flat ceiling. It's painted to look like it was sculpted. Seriously.

Things I've learned so far

• The French and the Italians were afraid of [attack from] the Turkish. In an attempt to belittle the Turkish and reduce their fear, they turned the Turkish emblem (a crescent moon) into something they could feel powerful over--and what way to feel more powerful than something than to be able to eat it? And so, we have croissants and coronetos.
• The Colosseum was not always named as such. Originally the Flavian Amphitheatre (Latin: Amphitheatrum Flavium), it was re-named when a colossal statue of Nero was moved to a location just outside. So the new name Colosseum was actually after the size of the statue, not the Gladiator stadium.
• The middle of the Colosseum where the fighting took place was covered in sand (for easy clean up of the blood and guts). The Latin word for sand is "arena." Therefore, that area was then and onward called the arena.
• The swoosh logo of the Nike brand is an abstract graphic representation of Nike's (the goddess of victory) wings.
• All of the paintings in St. Peter's Basilica are slowly being replaced by mosaics, but they're so good, it's unlikely that you'd be able to tell.
• Michaelangelo
  • was a sculptor, not a painter, yet he conceded to paint the Sistine Chapel
  • was a criminal--he exhumed and dissected dead bodies (a big no-no) in order to better understand the shape and workings of the human body and incorporate it into his art
  • went blind later in life, likely due to all the paint dripping in his eyes while painting the ceilings

Triskaideka--what?

I don't know if the Catholics of Rome are superstitious, but I generally am not. So when SilentR and I booked our flight from Athens to Rome to be on Friday the 13th, I thought nothing of it. When we ran out of time to have one last Athenian lunch, I thought nothing of it. When we arrived at the Athens airport to find that our flight was delayed, I thought nothing of it.

But then SilentR mentioned the date.

    "Ooh, Friday the 13th!"

Then I thought a little about it.

When a heavily perspiring (and therefore, smelly) man chose the seat behind us on the plane, I thought a little about it. When we arrived in Rome to find that the Metro train line that we need to ride was down because a man had died, I thought a little about it.

When the lady on the bus kept SCREAMING AND RAGING in Italian for 25 minutes straight, I thought a little more about it. When the packed-like-sardines-bus ride took over an hour, I thought a little more about it. When the next bus dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, I thought a little more about it.

When we asked for directions three times without reaching our hotel, I definitely thought about it. When we finally found our place of lodging but then found the only supermarket nearby was closed at 7:30pm (5 minutes before we stepped in front of the automatic doors that didn't open), I definitely thought about it. And when we managed to select the most expensive restaurant for MILES and were seated while dressed like bums, well, by then I just gave up and gave in and went along for the ride.

Travelling on Friday the 13th, may have whooped our butts, but the food (and our perfectly shirted server) absolutely made up for it.

As it turns out, the tally wasn't THAT bad:

• Missed meal: still had time to snag a DELICIOUS piece of baklava

• Flight delay: only 30 minutes
• Perspiring man: only smellable when he moved
• Screaming lady: was finally told to shut up (I think) by a bellowing man--and everyone cheered when she finally got off the bus
• Train delay: well, that one hurt--what took us almost 3 hours by bus should have only been 20 minutes by train
• Bus ride to nowhere: actually everyone on board pitched in what English they had to get us off at the closest stop
• Bad directions: were actually accurate, we just didn't try hard enough to follow them all the way through
• Supermarket: I'd only wanted water and it turned out that the restaurant sold it really cheap
• Expensive restaurant (except for the water): worth every Euro

Sure, it'd been a HORRENDOUSLY long and tedious travel day that had us nearly throwing in the towel by the end of it, but after the water, the food, and the perfectly shirted service--no, really, the guy's shirt fit him perfectly--the walk back to camp (yes, we were staying at a campsite!) wasn't so daunting and our trailer (yes, we were staying in a trailer) actually seemed cozy.

It all comes out at night

Having no clue what Athens' layout was going to be like, we booked our accommodations based on 3 criteria:

1. price
2. proximity to major attractions
3. travelers' ratings/reviews

$41CAD/night just couldn't be beat, people had written they'd had nice stays, and it was only 2.5km to the Acropolis ("I can walk that far!"). Hotel Aristoteles it was.


It wasn't until after we'd booked the place that we bought our copy of The Lonely Planet and did any research on the different areas of Athens.

    "Where are we staying?"
    "Hotel Aristoteles."
    "What part of the city is that in?"
    "Uhhh, it says...Omonia, why?"
    "Uh-oh."

From the Lonely Planet Guide Book:

The area of Athens that makes up Omonia is known for its pickpockets, prostitutes, and drug-users. Women should avoid walking here alone at night.

Our flight arrived in Athens at 8:45pm. The bus ride into the city was an hour long. Shit. On top of that, we weren't even quite sure of the way from the bus stop to the hotel.

Off the bus, we got directions from a lovely girl at Costa Coffee ("If you take metro--10 minutes. If you use your legs--30 minutes.") and got as close as possible by subway. We were ejected into Omonia Square and from there, it was going to be pounding the pavement along the side streets.

Obviously massive travel backpacks on our back, obviously tourist maps in hand, and obviously the only East Asian females around for miles, we dove right into the thick of it.

Winding through the unfamiliar streets, the walk probably felt longer than it was. Whether it was me being the over-optimist that I am, or whether or not it was the truth, or whether or not I was too busy concentrating on getting to our destination, I didn't notice prostitutes nor drug-users on our route, and my pockets were definitely not picked. All the men on the street did seem slightly shady to me, but I wrote that off to not yet being comfortable in the foreign country. I did notice the Police station and the number of cops loitering outside on one of the street corners we passed ("See? It can't be THAT dangerous.").

20 minutes later, we'd made it safe and sound. We even ventured out again and back for that awesome first-night dinner. Sure, there was an overall feeling of shadiness to the area, but I was fairly convinced that the Lonely Planet's description was just to over-prepare newcomers and the more pooh-pooh type for the dark atmosphere. For me, after a night's worth of accidental exploration, Omonia wasn't so bad. The next morning, the streets were even bright and bustling with activity.

And then it was night again.

Night #2 in Omonia, all the shadiness came out of the woodwork. More familiar by now with our neighbourhood, we took the main streets to get around. One street north of the police station, we nudged each other, chin-pointing towards a group of women on the corner.

    "Hey, are those...?"
    "H-O-O-K-E-R-S?"
    "Yeah."
    "Yeah."

One street south of the police station, a group huddled urgently into a small doorway. I didn't see much, but that little was more than enough. I saw a little bit of arm, a little bit of syringe, and a little bit of plunge.

    "Did you see...?"
    "Yeah."
    "And did he just...?"
    "Yeah.

The next corner, a man brought something to this nose and snorted. Across the street, a man on a motorcycle slowed to admire the merchandise of women.

By the time our stay was up, we grew familiar enough with Omonia to know which nooks held the drug users, which side of the street had the African selection of H-O-O-K-E-R-S and which had Caucasian. We even grew familiar with the sight of the man in the matching tracksuit, zigzagging back and forth across the street, checking on his inventory.

Well, at least we didn't get pickpocketed. And hey, it's all part of the adventure. :)

Athens:1, Legs:0

We arrived in Athens late last night and after a deliciously simple dinner...


(authentic Grecian Tzatziki has changed my life; the Danforth will never be the same to me again) we came back to our hotel and I crashed hard...

"You fell asleep right away, huh?"
"Yeah. Did I snore?"
"Yeah..."

...but awoke the next morning ready to conquer the world. And we might as well have.

After breakfast down in the hotel
tavern (so simple and yet satisfying--and the COFFEE...!) we headed out on foot.

Jumping out of the metro (yes, it's also spelled "metPo" in Greek) at the Acropolis stop, we spent the early morning hours strolling the 5000(?) year old site. I was totally awed
by the architecture and carvings. I'd always heard of and learned of the ancient mythologies, but there I was, STANDING on the site!






I gotta say too: thank goodness for zoom lenses. Used it both to take superbly close-up pictures, and I could also inspect the otherwise detailed but too far away fresco carvings.




So we climbed up to the Acropolis and walked the entire site, circling each building at least once. Then we climbed back down (gawking at the crowds flocking up for the late morning shift). Just a short walk away, there was a random mini-mountain of rock.

"I want to climb that!"


And so we did.

We climbed the slippery rock to reach the top for an amazing view of the Acropolis and the surrounding views of Athens. Wow.



From there, we could spot several other churches, ginormous buildings, and another, real mountain.

"I want to climb that!"


And so we did.

But not until after walking to visit the site of the Olympic Temple of Zeus and walking to visit the Panathletic Stadium.


Finally, we wound our way through the streets of Athens towards our mountaintop goal. Without a map, we kept ourselves on track by making sure we were always heading uphill.

Oh man.

So it was uphill past (what we think was) the Prime Minister's house, uphill through the Yorkville-area of the city, uphill through some very narrow residential streets, and up some very steep stairways. Finally we reached...the bottom of the mountain.

Bottom?! All that uphill and we were only at the BOTTOM?!

Yup. And so our climb began. And it kept going and going and going. It was exhausting. But the views at the top--spectacular. When we reached the top, I forgot what all the complaining was about.



The landscape sprawling beneath us was breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking.

After we'd rested up and had taken in enough of the Athens cityscape from above, we headed over to pay for the cable car ride down (for the record, we didn't know there had been a cable car to begin with). Turns out the car wasn't leaving for another half an hour--so we walked down.

Once we were off the mountain (Lycabettus was its name, by the way), we started to make our way back to the city--on foot, of course. Along the way somewhere, we decided to hop on the Metro to see the port area of Piraeus.

Um, besides the street sellers and behemoth ferries (because there were no beaches or views to be had), it was fairly a bust. We spent 1.5 hours walking around trying to find some cruise agency to book a day on the water. Finally, a little store owner took pity on us and called the agency from his own phone and let us speak to them.

&nbsp &nbsp "Where is your office?"
&nbsp &nbsp "Behind."
&nbsp &nbsp "I'm sorry?"
&nbsp &nbsp "Behind three blocks."
&nbsp &nbsp "Behind what?"
&nbsp &nbsp "Three blocks behind."
&nbsp &nbsp "Three blocks behind what?!"
&nbsp &nbsp "Behind."
&nbsp &nbsp (oh geez)

By this time we found the right office, our feet burned...and we didn't even book the day on the water anyway. Instead, we walked back to the station and headed towards our hood on a restaurant recommendation from our Lonely Planet book.

Score.

The station we got out at deposited us into a square and adjoining flea market. My fave.





Starving, we cut our strolling short to eat dinner at Savvas. Y.U.M. But starving as we were, we couldn't even finish our plates.


On our walk back to the station, we caught a glimpse of something fantastic.


Wow. The Acropolis by night.

The rest of the night in a sentence: walk, walk, walk, pass-out, walk, coffee, walk, creepy TV, sleep.

It was the return of my angry legs, but it was worth every step.

It should have had a button

Coming up on our 17th hour en route to our first official destination of Athens, Greece, I've hit a roadblock with time-passers. I have no urge to sleep, watch, listen, read, knit (well, they wouldn't let me on this flight, but I wouldn't have felt like it if I could have), so I've turned to writing. We're currently soaring high up in European skies aboard our bright orange easyJet plane. And easy it is.


Upon boarding the plane (from the tarmac), we found we didn't have seat numbers and were free to choose any two seats together. With frequent flight times there was no over-booking so SilentR and I got our own row. The plane itself is spacious with high ceilings/overhead clearances and wide aisles.

Simply delightful? Sure, but of course the simplicity of the plane didn't stop there. All food and beverage service was a la carte. There were no TV screens or audio systems. And the kicker? No reclining of the seats.

Overall though, I'm not complaining. I think the fact that it was so clean bowled me over enough to forget the rest.

Yes, 17.5 hours now, still en route, but yes, I would have to say that this leg of the trip was easy.

What to do in Gatwick

Our trip all began because of a cheap ticket to London Gatwick Airport. It then continued because of also cheap Inter-EU flights. And so, having set out today, we found ourselves excitedly landing in London, only to look forward to a 6-hour layover. Not even in the main city of London, but in London Gatwick instead.

What were we ever going to do in Gatwick?

Well, first off, we were going to mess up telling customs how long our stay in London was going to be.

    "Hey, what did you put down for 'length of stay'?"
    "Eleven days. We land here today [the 9th], and we go home from here on the 20th."
    "Yeah, but we're travelling so much in between. I only put down 2 days because we're only staying 2 of the eleven days in London."
    "True. Okay, let's tell them 2 days."
    "Welcome to London, ladies, how long are you staying here?"
    "Well, 2 days. We're staying here only on the 18th-20th and we're travelling the rest of the time. We leave for Athens today at 3pm."
    "So that means you ladies are actually here for zero days."
    "Oh, right, it does."

[USA!]


Alright, what next?

Well, after taking a couple of pictures in a place I later discovered I wasn't supposed to (luckily no one noticed), we got directions to the local mall so we could grab some grub and stretch our legs. Over coffee...


...(Americano style) we discussed what to do about our flight to Barcelona that wasn't to Barcelona...

Earlier email from TC:

Are you guys really flying into Girona? Because that's not Bacelona. [...] You're so USA. Maybe you should consult a map next time.

(In our defence, the route READ Barcelona. Why would they call the airport "Barcelona" when it wasn't?)

...and what else to see and don in each city. We ended up spontaneously adding an extra destination to our original list:

• London
• Athens
• [insert Island of Santorini]
• Rome
• Barcelona (we'll get there by bus)
• London

By the time we headed back to Gatwick Airport to check into our next flight, we were exhausted, so the next thing I proceeded to do in Gatwick was spread out on a bench and crash. But, because we didn't know which gate we were departing from yet, we set up camp in the middle of the public atrium and food/shopping concourse. Classy. Even classier was when I kicked both my feet out into an (thankfully empty) aisle in my sleep.

Our final adventure in Gatwick began when SilentR tapped me and darted into the seat next to me as I bolted awake.

    "Hey, do you know who Tilda Swinton is?"
    "Yeah."
    "She's over there!"

I looked across the crowds of people towards the direction Silent had pointed. My eyes fell on a red-haired lady in a cosmetic store, but my view was quickly obstructed by a silver-haired man walking by. As I tried to crane around him, I checked with Silent.

    "Is she in the store?"
    "No, she's there!"

I followed Silent's direction this time to discover she was pointing at the silver-haired man, now disappearing towards the gates and airport lounges.

    "Oh! Cool!"
    "Yeah!"
    *pause*
    "Wanna follow her?"
    "Sure!"

And so, we did. As we twisted and turned our ways down what turned out to be a really long hallway that was probably fairly restricted access, we discussed what we'd say and do if we managed to catch up to her. But our pursuit turned out to be to no avail.

However, our paparazzi stalking turned out to have kept us busy just long enough so that by the time we wound our way back to the main atrium, they'd finally posted our gate information and we had just enough time to leisurely stroll on over to our boarding area.

So, what was there to do in Gatwick? Enough, apparently.

Bad Luck Fortune already?

Hah, so a few years ago, I wrote about my string of bad luck while travelling in Japan. Well, departing for a whirlwind trip to Europe, I got stopped at the x-ray/metal detector. I'd warned them about Nikki (my camera), but perhaps they'd forgotten.

    "Is it the camera?" I asked the security guard.
    "Nope. What else is in your back, ma'am?"
    "Is it the lenses?"
    "No, ma'am. What's under the lenses?"
    "Um, my jeans?" I wracked my brain for other, possibly threatening, items.
    "Under that?"
    At this point, he was opening up my bag and pulling out the already mentioned items.
    "Um, extra underwear? Please just don't wave them around if you have to pull those out..."
    "No, I won't. But anything else in here?"
    "The bottom of the bag?" Because by then, he'd really pawed through everything and nothing had satisfied his interest--not even my knitting needles.
    "No, it looks like...it looks like it was just your book here. Have a great trip, ma'am."
    "Oh, thanks."

Seriously, my book? My paperback book? My paperback book about knitting?!

They didn't even bat an eye at SilentR's herbs...
...but they stopped me for my book? Strange.

I suppose getting stopped for nothing is better than getting stopped for something. Or burning a temple down.

Meandering

I had lunch today downtown with Geeb.

    "Hey Hon, how was lunch today?"
    "Delectable."
    "Really? At New Generation [sushi]?"
    "Oh, no, that was just alright. I was talking about my time with Geeb."

After lunch, we lazily meandered around The Annex. We stepped into a used bookstore...

    "Mmmm, the incense smells delicious."

...past a random street vendor...

    "I think I need a new hat."

...past a coffee shop...

    "Tea would be great."

...back around through the leaves...

    "I love clomping around in these boots through crunchy leaves--it just needs to be done."

...and then home.

It was delectable.