Reversible fingerless gloves and headband, finally finished! I'm taking orders, folks... ;)
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Accomplishment for the day!
Reversible fingerless gloves and headband, finally finished! I'm taking orders, folks... ;)
Friday, September 18, 2009
Bath
So I just got back from Bath, where I went with Rachel and Dan for a nice little holiday. We arrived on Monday afternoon at the Bath View Apartment, which was essentially the souped-up attic of a house on a hillside overlooking Bath. And by souped-up, I mean it was like stepping into an Ikea catalogue. After the shabbiness of my humble abode, it was wonderful to revel in a place that had not one, but two sofas (!), a microwave, little trendy fireplaces of questionable functionality, heated floors in the bathrooms (!!!), and a view from one side over a beautiful little landscaped garden with an apple tree, and from the other side of the city of Bath itself.
We set out the next day in a rented car for Avebury, a tiny town east of Bath whose only distinction is being home to one of the oldest and largest evidences of neolithic human habitation, four times bigger than Stonehenge and 500 years older. We walked through sweeping hills among circles of mysterious stones set into the ground, some as tall as 10 or 15 feet, erected nearly 5,000 years ago without any modern tools, along limestone paths studded with flint. Sheep grazed among the ancient stones, maintaining the grassy landscape as they have done for thousands of years. There was a man-made hill, the size of the mounds we saw in Poland, off in the distance, the work of ancient people, constructed with deer-antler picks. I was surprised at the relative humility of this place, home to such ancient ruins. The museum, which housed 5,000 year-old artifacts, consisted of a converted barn and another tiny room in a building nearby. The artifacts themselves were the result of some seemingly off-handed excavations that took place in the early 20th century, and there had apparently not been any significant (or significantly-funded) research in the area since then. What a shame that thousands of people go to gawk at Stonehenge from a distance, when they could come to Avebury and walk among the ancient stones, even touch them. But at the same time, part of the charm of this place was its desolate and mysterious landscape, which would be ruined with the advent of too many tourists. But a word to the wise: if ever in Bath, it's Avebury you want to visit, not Stonehenge.
After communing with the stones, we headed back home, and arrived with Dan utterly fed up with driving on the wrong side of the road and the car, on narrow country lanes, dealing with about a million round-abouts, and not really knowing where we were going. We therefore decided to ditch the car, and set off the next morning on an eight-mile walk from Bath. The route of the walk was from a thirteen year-old guidebook that we borrowed from the lady downstairs, and contained directions such as "now walk through a gap in the hedge" and "continue along the edge of the field, and when you reach the second sign-post disregard its directions and continue on straight." Right. We forged on ahead, first on a 4 mile-long path with a houseboat-filled canal on one side and thousands of wild blackberries framing pastoral hills on the other. We then turned off into a tiny village, where in search for a restroom and a place to eat lunch we asked for directions to the nearest cafe at one of the houses. The wonderfully kind lady told us that there were no cafes nearby, but promptly invited us to use her outdoor table on the patio for our lunch, fed us coffee and homemade banana bread, and chatted with us about politics, freecycle (of which she is the head for the Bath region), and her children. Refreshed with food and the excellent hospitality, we continued through woods and pastures, managing to find our way despite the fact that the gap in the hedge had (not surprisingly) filled in in the last thirteen years. We ended up at a sham castle (a "19th century folly"), which was no more than a couple meters thick and which commanded a truly excellent view of Bath and the hills beyond. Finally, and somewhat unbelieveably, we managed to find our way home with the help of the trusty guide-book.
The next day was our last in Bath, and we split up to see what we wanted to see of the stately, mildew-stoned city. I saw the world-famous architecture of the Royal Crescent and the Circus, the former of which was a prince standing on a hill sweeping his cape over his shoulder and the latter a coquettish Victorian lady spurning suitor after suitor. Then the Abbey with its gorgeous stained-glass windows and upward-sweeping architechture, Pulteney Bridge, lined on both sides with shops, and of course the touristy Jane Austen centre. And at the end of all this all that was left to do was hop on a bus back to London, munching on a Sally Lunn bun, regretting only that I had not managed to take a single bath while in Bath.
We set out the next day in a rented car for Avebury, a tiny town east of Bath whose only distinction is being home to one of the oldest and largest evidences of neolithic human habitation, four times bigger than Stonehenge and 500 years older. We walked through sweeping hills among circles of mysterious stones set into the ground, some as tall as 10 or 15 feet, erected nearly 5,000 years ago without any modern tools, along limestone paths studded with flint. Sheep grazed among the ancient stones, maintaining the grassy landscape as they have done for thousands of years. There was a man-made hill, the size of the mounds we saw in Poland, off in the distance, the work of ancient people, constructed with deer-antler picks. I was surprised at the relative humility of this place, home to such ancient ruins. The museum, which housed 5,000 year-old artifacts, consisted of a converted barn and another tiny room in a building nearby. The artifacts themselves were the result of some seemingly off-handed excavations that took place in the early 20th century, and there had apparently not been any significant (or significantly-funded) research in the area since then. What a shame that thousands of people go to gawk at Stonehenge from a distance, when they could come to Avebury and walk among the ancient stones, even touch them. But at the same time, part of the charm of this place was its desolate and mysterious landscape, which would be ruined with the advent of too many tourists. But a word to the wise: if ever in Bath, it's Avebury you want to visit, not Stonehenge.
After communing with the stones, we headed back home, and arrived with Dan utterly fed up with driving on the wrong side of the road and the car, on narrow country lanes, dealing with about a million round-abouts, and not really knowing where we were going. We therefore decided to ditch the car, and set off the next morning on an eight-mile walk from Bath. The route of the walk was from a thirteen year-old guidebook that we borrowed from the lady downstairs, and contained directions such as "now walk through a gap in the hedge" and "continue along the edge of the field, and when you reach the second sign-post disregard its directions and continue on straight." Right. We forged on ahead, first on a 4 mile-long path with a houseboat-filled canal on one side and thousands of wild blackberries framing pastoral hills on the other. We then turned off into a tiny village, where in search for a restroom and a place to eat lunch we asked for directions to the nearest cafe at one of the houses. The wonderfully kind lady told us that there were no cafes nearby, but promptly invited us to use her outdoor table on the patio for our lunch, fed us coffee and homemade banana bread, and chatted with us about politics, freecycle (of which she is the head for the Bath region), and her children. Refreshed with food and the excellent hospitality, we continued through woods and pastures, managing to find our way despite the fact that the gap in the hedge had (not surprisingly) filled in in the last thirteen years. We ended up at a sham castle (a "19th century folly"), which was no more than a couple meters thick and which commanded a truly excellent view of Bath and the hills beyond. Finally, and somewhat unbelieveably, we managed to find our way home with the help of the trusty guide-book.
The next day was our last in Bath, and we split up to see what we wanted to see of the stately, mildew-stoned city. I saw the world-famous architecture of the Royal Crescent and the Circus, the former of which was a prince standing on a hill sweeping his cape over his shoulder and the latter a coquettish Victorian lady spurning suitor after suitor. Then the Abbey with its gorgeous stained-glass windows and upward-sweeping architechture, Pulteney Bridge, lined on both sides with shops, and of course the touristy Jane Austen centre. And at the end of all this all that was left to do was hop on a bus back to London, munching on a Sally Lunn bun, regretting only that I had not managed to take a single bath while in Bath.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Thoughts on a Sunday night
Now back to our regularly scheduled musings on life in London! Here's a few.
-I did a roast tonight, and finally made the chicken I've always wanted to make. Seems marinating it all day in olive oil, white wine, garlic, and rosemary and then sticking it in the oven for nearly two hours does the trick!
-The British seem to be obsessed with sweetcorn. They put it in everything, from salads to sandwiches. Tuna with sweetcorn? Seen it. Pizza with sweetcorn? Seen it. Ice cream with sweet corn? I'm sure that's next. But the thing is, I've never had any good corn here, or at least it's nothing compared to what you can get at a farmer's market in the States. To be fair, I haven't had farmer's market corn here, but the consistency of the British corn I've had is different. It's somehow much tougher than American corn, even bad off-season supermarket corn. I've gotten some British corn in the past and tried boiling it, with fairly unappetizing results, but tonight I tried roasting it, and it turned out rather well actually. So I got to thinking that perhaps the difference between British vs. American corn is like the difference between a horse and a hamster. You can lightly boil American corn (fresh, at least) and it tastes wonderful, just like you can lightly touch a hamster and it'll respond to you. If you lightly touch a horse, it does absolutely nothing for either of you, you have to smack the heck out of it for it to even feel anything. Hence, roasting the British corn: smack some serious heat on it and then it responds.
-I'm knitting legwarmers for myself, and I've already made two, but I don't like the first one I made because I think it's ugly. So I'm in the frustrating position of having made two and still having to make one more. And then what to do with the ugly one... suggestions anybody?
-I did a roast tonight, and finally made the chicken I've always wanted to make. Seems marinating it all day in olive oil, white wine, garlic, and rosemary and then sticking it in the oven for nearly two hours does the trick!
-The British seem to be obsessed with sweetcorn. They put it in everything, from salads to sandwiches. Tuna with sweetcorn? Seen it. Pizza with sweetcorn? Seen it. Ice cream with sweet corn? I'm sure that's next. But the thing is, I've never had any good corn here, or at least it's nothing compared to what you can get at a farmer's market in the States. To be fair, I haven't had farmer's market corn here, but the consistency of the British corn I've had is different. It's somehow much tougher than American corn, even bad off-season supermarket corn. I've gotten some British corn in the past and tried boiling it, with fairly unappetizing results, but tonight I tried roasting it, and it turned out rather well actually. So I got to thinking that perhaps the difference between British vs. American corn is like the difference between a horse and a hamster. You can lightly boil American corn (fresh, at least) and it tastes wonderful, just like you can lightly touch a hamster and it'll respond to you. If you lightly touch a horse, it does absolutely nothing for either of you, you have to smack the heck out of it for it to even feel anything. Hence, roasting the British corn: smack some serious heat on it and then it responds.
-I'm knitting legwarmers for myself, and I've already made two, but I don't like the first one I made because I think it's ugly. So I'm in the frustrating position of having made two and still having to make one more. And then what to do with the ugly one... suggestions anybody?
Monday, August 31, 2009
And in case you don't believe me...
Photographic proof!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026294&id=4101276&l=4ed4101596
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2026294&id=4101276&l=4ed4101596
Europe part 2
When we last left our heroines they had collapsed in a tent near Salzburg. We find them again on a train to Munich.
After our week of madcap Italian and Austrian adventure, it was very nice to be met at the train station in Munich by Hilde, Sebastien and his scooter, and ushered to their lovely house in the suburbs of Munich. That weekend we enjoyed sleeping on real beds in a room whose walls didn't move when you pushed them, a tour of a beautiful carrot-smelling monastery, gilded white and full of gorgeous paintings, a scenic boat ride, and lots of swimming and ice cream. Becky left for the states on Monday, but I was lucky enough to say for another couple days, reading Pride and Prejudice on a real sofa (!), playing bike tag with Sebastien, visiting BMW world, and enjoying the lovely company of Hilde and Andrea. On Wednesday I said goodbye to this lovely haven and its occupants and hopped on a train to Stuttgart, and another train to Strasbourg (a TGV! it was nice to be able to understand the language, after all that German), and a night train, and ended up at Avignon at 4:38 in the morning. I had the good luck to have an accidental traveling companion, whom I met on the way to Strasbourg and who just happened to be in the same compartment as me on the night train. He was a nice fellow from New York, a business school grad, who was also on his way to Barcelona, and who also got off at Avignon at 4:38am. He had to wait for a train in the morning, so I asked if I could sit on the same bench as him as we read our respective books, and it sure was a comfort not to be sitting alone on a bench in Avignon at 5am. After he caught his train, I wandered around Avignon under an unbelievably clear morning sky, saw Le Pont and the ancient stone Palais des Papes (Papal Palace), and had an espresso and pain au chocolat in an open air cafe and some "jus de pomplemousse" (grapefruit juice) in the balmy shadow of an old church.
At 10:21am I caught the first of three trains to Barcelona, and at the border of Spain I experienced the first passport check yet in the EU. Lunch was some bread and goat cheese cured in ashes, very creamy and bitter. I arrived at my cosy, quiet hostel at about 9pm, and collapsed in my tiny room soon thereafter. I had two days to "see" Barcelona all by myself, and the first day was jam-packed. I walked through the gardens to the south of the city, with beautiful fountains and statues. My favorite part was the Parc Joan Brossa, which was filled with strange wood and rubber structures that resembled a lifetime course but were actually musical instruments! Next was lunch at the big market, where I got a strawberry-coconut smoothie, some fried fish balls on a stick, one of those flat peaches, a couple little fishes fried in vinegar, and some little strawberry-like things, all for under 6 euro. La Rambla was kind of disappointing to me: there were lots of tourists gawking at street performers with huge costumes and no discernible talent, vendors selling bird whistles and others selling actual birds, and the constant fear of pick-pockets. More exciting was the Chocolate Museum, which gave out little bars of dark chocolate as the tickets! In addition to lots of information about the origin and history of chocolate, there were lots of sculptures made entirely out of chocolate! Delicious. That evening I went to see the Magic Fountain, a light and music spectacle featuring the most virtuosic water I've ever seen. After a delicious dinner out at a restaurant at about 10pm, I collapsed, and woke up next morning determined to see the Sagrada Familia. After walking quite a long ways on feet already tired from the day before, I finally found it, and it was very cool, still under construction of course, with towering spires and dramatic sweeps of architecture. That fulfilled the list of things I had wanted to do in Barcelona, so I and my aching feet wandered the city more or less aimlessly until my flight that evening to Athens.
At about 2am, I found my housemates Frank and Jill and my classmates Txema, Eric and John Michael in the Athens airport, where they were hunkered down for the night after arriving from London at 1am. After some delirious early morning laughter and a couple games of solitare, we hopped on a plane for 35 minutes, watched the sunrise over the sea, and landed in Chania, Crete where we were met by another classmate, Margot. We all drove to Rethymno in our rented cars and were met by the happy couple, the male half of which is our classmate Nikos, who invited us to Crete in the first place to do a play for his wedding. They treated us to Greek coffee (much like Turkish coffee, with a sludge of grounds at the bottom), and instructed us to go swimming immediately. The water was warm enough even for me, the waves just big enough to be thrilling without being threatening, the sand hot and fine. When our hotel rooms were ready we walked across the street from the beach (!) and settled in. After a nap and a wonderful communal dinner of spaghetti, olives, olive oil, and bread, some of us set out to explore the town, a picturesque place filled with touristy shops and thudding disco-bars. We ended up being invited into one of the port-side restaurants, courtesy of Margot, our out-going Greek-speaker, where we were treated to free raki (Cretan hard liquor) and a bazouki concert by the owner off the place. This was just a taste of the hospitality we would enjoy for the next week, a week full of food and drink, music and dance.
Crete is stunningly beautiful. The ocean stretches out to the horizon in its many shades of blue, mirrored by the clear blue sky. The beaches are composed of perfect sand on the north side, tiny pebbles on the south side, where we went only once and where the water is perfectly calm, cold, and clear, as opposed to the warm, turbulent, seaweed choked waters of the north. By the beaches are multitudes of little "tavernas", where German tourists sample the seafood and Cretan men pass the time, flipping their komboloi, which looks like rosaries, incessently against their hands. Further inland, Crete is a maze of winding roads through towering mountains, with goats and groves of olive trees on their steep slopes. There are tiny church-shaped monuments on the side of the road, from the many (too many, one of our new Cretan friends tells us) accidents that happen on the roads. The taverna where we rehearse, and perform, our wedding play is in these mountains, a rustic building with a round concrete stage that stains our feet with its red dusty paint, and a green grape arbor from which we can reach up and pick a snack whenever we like. We rehearse in the mornings on the cool shady grass with the groom Nikos, who is otherwise running around like a headless chicken. After rehearsal we swim in the ocean, go to plays in Greek at Rethymno's pine-studded outdoor amphitheater, or visit the house of a recent LISPA grad, who lives with her parents in a perfect pink villa with a pomegranate tree, overlooking the sea. She and her boyfriend, also a recent grad, taught us to dive off the rocks into the warm turbulent water and fed us cucumbers and stuffed tomatoes fresh from the garden, homemade olive oil and raki, and huge slabs of feta. We were also entertained one evening by the family of Emmanouela, the bride. The party started at about midnight, and we were fed massive quantities of meat and generally smiled at until three in the morning.
The wedding itself was joyous. The ceremony took place in a tiny church high up in the mountains, at just the right time of day so that the bride looked absolutely stunning in the light of the fading sun, and the groom equally stunning as she came to meet him. The couple were married under an outdoor awning, as the crowd looked on and chatted, and pelted them with rice at the appropriate moment. Everyone then trooped over to the taverna, which was set up for 300 people (a small wedding, we were told). We performed the love story of Nikos and Emmanouela to general appreciation, stuffed ourselves with lamb, rice, potatoes, and wine and raki made by the bride's father, and tried our hand at the Cretan dances. Most of us woke up quite hung-over the next morning (not me, of course ;). On our final day, we were informed that it was bad luck the weather was so bad (it was 80 degrees and sunny, but apparently the wind was too strong), and we suffered the bad weather at a beach-side taverna with a palm-thatched roof until it was time to say goodbye to our dear friend Nikos and his lovely new wife, and set out on an overnight ferry to Athens.
In Athens, we stayed at the house of Nikos' mother, who was still in Crete, and were looked after by their friend and upstairs neighbor Dimitrius, who insisted that we call him Jim. We gladly fell into the Mediterranean habit of afternoon napping, and spent many blissful hours asleep or reading in the quiet house, disturbed only by the barking of the neighbor's dogs. We visited the Acropolis and its museum, and though the ruins were stunning, I was quite frankly a little too overwhelmed by that time to take it all in properly. For the last couple days we stocked up on sun and souvlaki, played 7-hand rummy, and went to see the guards at the Parliament building, who did an amazingly stylized clown-type walking routine, wearing shoes with pom-poms and hats with long tassels, and whose sweaty faces were wiped with a hanky by a camo-wearing guard. On this note of absurdism, we prepared to leave, and soon thereafter we touched down at Stansted airport, cursing the overcast, chilly British "summer", but generally glad to be home.
It is good to be home, now that I've adjusted to the weather. My tan is starting to fade already, but the taste of feta is still in my mouth, and I'm truly grateful for the amazing European adventure I was lucky enough to have. Next on deck is a visit from the wonderful Philly relatives, a visit to Roger in Austin, and then my second and last year of LISPA! Onward and upward...
After our week of madcap Italian and Austrian adventure, it was very nice to be met at the train station in Munich by Hilde, Sebastien and his scooter, and ushered to their lovely house in the suburbs of Munich. That weekend we enjoyed sleeping on real beds in a room whose walls didn't move when you pushed them, a tour of a beautiful carrot-smelling monastery, gilded white and full of gorgeous paintings, a scenic boat ride, and lots of swimming and ice cream. Becky left for the states on Monday, but I was lucky enough to say for another couple days, reading Pride and Prejudice on a real sofa (!), playing bike tag with Sebastien, visiting BMW world, and enjoying the lovely company of Hilde and Andrea. On Wednesday I said goodbye to this lovely haven and its occupants and hopped on a train to Stuttgart, and another train to Strasbourg (a TGV! it was nice to be able to understand the language, after all that German), and a night train, and ended up at Avignon at 4:38 in the morning. I had the good luck to have an accidental traveling companion, whom I met on the way to Strasbourg and who just happened to be in the same compartment as me on the night train. He was a nice fellow from New York, a business school grad, who was also on his way to Barcelona, and who also got off at Avignon at 4:38am. He had to wait for a train in the morning, so I asked if I could sit on the same bench as him as we read our respective books, and it sure was a comfort not to be sitting alone on a bench in Avignon at 5am. After he caught his train, I wandered around Avignon under an unbelievably clear morning sky, saw Le Pont and the ancient stone Palais des Papes (Papal Palace), and had an espresso and pain au chocolat in an open air cafe and some "jus de pomplemousse" (grapefruit juice) in the balmy shadow of an old church.
At 10:21am I caught the first of three trains to Barcelona, and at the border of Spain I experienced the first passport check yet in the EU. Lunch was some bread and goat cheese cured in ashes, very creamy and bitter. I arrived at my cosy, quiet hostel at about 9pm, and collapsed in my tiny room soon thereafter. I had two days to "see" Barcelona all by myself, and the first day was jam-packed. I walked through the gardens to the south of the city, with beautiful fountains and statues. My favorite part was the Parc Joan Brossa, which was filled with strange wood and rubber structures that resembled a lifetime course but were actually musical instruments! Next was lunch at the big market, where I got a strawberry-coconut smoothie, some fried fish balls on a stick, one of those flat peaches, a couple little fishes fried in vinegar, and some little strawberry-like things, all for under 6 euro. La Rambla was kind of disappointing to me: there were lots of tourists gawking at street performers with huge costumes and no discernible talent, vendors selling bird whistles and others selling actual birds, and the constant fear of pick-pockets. More exciting was the Chocolate Museum, which gave out little bars of dark chocolate as the tickets! In addition to lots of information about the origin and history of chocolate, there were lots of sculptures made entirely out of chocolate! Delicious. That evening I went to see the Magic Fountain, a light and music spectacle featuring the most virtuosic water I've ever seen. After a delicious dinner out at a restaurant at about 10pm, I collapsed, and woke up next morning determined to see the Sagrada Familia. After walking quite a long ways on feet already tired from the day before, I finally found it, and it was very cool, still under construction of course, with towering spires and dramatic sweeps of architecture. That fulfilled the list of things I had wanted to do in Barcelona, so I and my aching feet wandered the city more or less aimlessly until my flight that evening to Athens.
At about 2am, I found my housemates Frank and Jill and my classmates Txema, Eric and John Michael in the Athens airport, where they were hunkered down for the night after arriving from London at 1am. After some delirious early morning laughter and a couple games of solitare, we hopped on a plane for 35 minutes, watched the sunrise over the sea, and landed in Chania, Crete where we were met by another classmate, Margot. We all drove to Rethymno in our rented cars and were met by the happy couple, the male half of which is our classmate Nikos, who invited us to Crete in the first place to do a play for his wedding. They treated us to Greek coffee (much like Turkish coffee, with a sludge of grounds at the bottom), and instructed us to go swimming immediately. The water was warm enough even for me, the waves just big enough to be thrilling without being threatening, the sand hot and fine. When our hotel rooms were ready we walked across the street from the beach (!) and settled in. After a nap and a wonderful communal dinner of spaghetti, olives, olive oil, and bread, some of us set out to explore the town, a picturesque place filled with touristy shops and thudding disco-bars. We ended up being invited into one of the port-side restaurants, courtesy of Margot, our out-going Greek-speaker, where we were treated to free raki (Cretan hard liquor) and a bazouki concert by the owner off the place. This was just a taste of the hospitality we would enjoy for the next week, a week full of food and drink, music and dance.
Crete is stunningly beautiful. The ocean stretches out to the horizon in its many shades of blue, mirrored by the clear blue sky. The beaches are composed of perfect sand on the north side, tiny pebbles on the south side, where we went only once and where the water is perfectly calm, cold, and clear, as opposed to the warm, turbulent, seaweed choked waters of the north. By the beaches are multitudes of little "tavernas", where German tourists sample the seafood and Cretan men pass the time, flipping their komboloi, which looks like rosaries, incessently against their hands. Further inland, Crete is a maze of winding roads through towering mountains, with goats and groves of olive trees on their steep slopes. There are tiny church-shaped monuments on the side of the road, from the many (too many, one of our new Cretan friends tells us) accidents that happen on the roads. The taverna where we rehearse, and perform, our wedding play is in these mountains, a rustic building with a round concrete stage that stains our feet with its red dusty paint, and a green grape arbor from which we can reach up and pick a snack whenever we like. We rehearse in the mornings on the cool shady grass with the groom Nikos, who is otherwise running around like a headless chicken. After rehearsal we swim in the ocean, go to plays in Greek at Rethymno's pine-studded outdoor amphitheater, or visit the house of a recent LISPA grad, who lives with her parents in a perfect pink villa with a pomegranate tree, overlooking the sea. She and her boyfriend, also a recent grad, taught us to dive off the rocks into the warm turbulent water and fed us cucumbers and stuffed tomatoes fresh from the garden, homemade olive oil and raki, and huge slabs of feta. We were also entertained one evening by the family of Emmanouela, the bride. The party started at about midnight, and we were fed massive quantities of meat and generally smiled at until three in the morning.
The wedding itself was joyous. The ceremony took place in a tiny church high up in the mountains, at just the right time of day so that the bride looked absolutely stunning in the light of the fading sun, and the groom equally stunning as she came to meet him. The couple were married under an outdoor awning, as the crowd looked on and chatted, and pelted them with rice at the appropriate moment. Everyone then trooped over to the taverna, which was set up for 300 people (a small wedding, we were told). We performed the love story of Nikos and Emmanouela to general appreciation, stuffed ourselves with lamb, rice, potatoes, and wine and raki made by the bride's father, and tried our hand at the Cretan dances. Most of us woke up quite hung-over the next morning (not me, of course ;). On our final day, we were informed that it was bad luck the weather was so bad (it was 80 degrees and sunny, but apparently the wind was too strong), and we suffered the bad weather at a beach-side taverna with a palm-thatched roof until it was time to say goodbye to our dear friend Nikos and his lovely new wife, and set out on an overnight ferry to Athens.
In Athens, we stayed at the house of Nikos' mother, who was still in Crete, and were looked after by their friend and upstairs neighbor Dimitrius, who insisted that we call him Jim. We gladly fell into the Mediterranean habit of afternoon napping, and spent many blissful hours asleep or reading in the quiet house, disturbed only by the barking of the neighbor's dogs. We visited the Acropolis and its museum, and though the ruins were stunning, I was quite frankly a little too overwhelmed by that time to take it all in properly. For the last couple days we stocked up on sun and souvlaki, played 7-hand rummy, and went to see the guards at the Parliament building, who did an amazingly stylized clown-type walking routine, wearing shoes with pom-poms and hats with long tassels, and whose sweaty faces were wiped with a hanky by a camo-wearing guard. On this note of absurdism, we prepared to leave, and soon thereafter we touched down at Stansted airport, cursing the overcast, chilly British "summer", but generally glad to be home.
It is good to be home, now that I've adjusted to the weather. My tan is starting to fade already, but the taste of feta is still in my mouth, and I'm truly grateful for the amazing European adventure I was lucky enough to have. Next on deck is a visit from the wonderful Philly relatives, a visit to Roger in Austin, and then my second and last year of LISPA! Onward and upward...
Friday, August 14, 2009
Europe, Part One/Uno/Un/Eins
(Those allergic to travel diaries in blogs should stop reading now.)
So a week and a half ago, I woke up at 2 in the morning, threw together the last scraps of food in the kitchen (which meant a fish sandwich and some biscuits for breakfast), hopped on a bus, climbed on a plane, and went to Rome! There I met Becky at the main train station, and we headed out to explore. Rome is just so... old! I was impressed by its color palatte, a range fom cream to salmon, its omnipresent graffiti, its embarassment of ruins. We saw the "Colo-frickin´-sseum" (as we called it), the Sistine Chapel, went to the Vatican museum (and sang Tom Lehrer´s Vatican Rag, of course), saw St. Pete´s Basilica, Michelangelo´s Pieta, and the Pantheon, and ate the best gelato ever, handmade by a friendly guy who gave us free samples. And Becky got a Roman haircut, which was pretty much like any other haircut except that it was in Rome. The hostel that we called home during this part of the trip was kind of bizarre, like Sandy Island full of strangers, for those in the know. Swimming in their Olympic sized outdoor pool surrounded by tropical greenery, with an Italian moon overhead and "The Girl from Ipanema" playing in the bar, we could almost forget that we would be sleeping in a tent on rickety bunk beds, and that we´d payed approximately 6 euro a night for this privilege (an incredibly good deal).
The next stop on our journey was Venice, and after getting the best coffee of my life at a coffee shop near the station in Rome (I didn´t sweeten it at all, which is saying something!) we hopped on a train. Golden green hills spattered with red roofed villas and their farms gave way to flatter land, and eventually vast stretches of water, and then a warm-hued city that seemed to rise up out of it. After spending a night at a hostel that was full of Australian touists and where we slept yet again in a tent and were bitten by exceptionally vicious mosquitos, we set out to explore the city. Since we´d decided we were "churched out", we spent the day wandering in alleys that felt like hugs, going anywhere that the other tourists weren´t going, which meant that we often ended up at a dead end at a green alley of water, with a striped shirted gondolier going by with his cargo of tourists. The city felt, as Becky put it, like Disneyland: for every resident we probably saw about a hundred tourists. If I go back to Venice some day, I want to go in the winter, when real people are there. So far we´d been living mostly on amazing local bread, cheese, and tomatoes, but before leaving we had a proper dinner at a restaurant near the train station: pasta with mushrooms in cream sauce, bread, fried fish, salad, and the most amazing berry-ricotta cake.
Next was Salzburg, and to get there we went on an overnight train, where we shared a compartment with three frat boys from the Netherlands who offered us beer, and when we declined didn´t bother us again the whole night. We arrived at 4 in the morning, and while Becky slept I read a book and watched the sun rise on the Austrian mountains. Salzburg smelled like herbs, was full of Mozart-kugelen, mountains with castles on top of them, and women wearing traditional Austrian dress completely unironically. It felt much colder somehow, despite being just as hot as Italy in temperature, and it was strange to be hearing German on the street. Our major goal of the day was to find the gazebo from the Sound of Music, but we didn´t have a map or a real idea of where we were going. After much extrapolating and 10 miles of walking, exhausted and with sore feet, we finally found it, and it turned out to be the most anticlimactic gazebo we´d ever seen. So we promptly got on a bus, went to our next hostel, collapsed, and slept for about 17 hours, with a brief shower and dinner break in the middle.
The adventure continues in our next episode... stay tuned!
So a week and a half ago, I woke up at 2 in the morning, threw together the last scraps of food in the kitchen (which meant a fish sandwich and some biscuits for breakfast), hopped on a bus, climbed on a plane, and went to Rome! There I met Becky at the main train station, and we headed out to explore. Rome is just so... old! I was impressed by its color palatte, a range fom cream to salmon, its omnipresent graffiti, its embarassment of ruins. We saw the "Colo-frickin´-sseum" (as we called it), the Sistine Chapel, went to the Vatican museum (and sang Tom Lehrer´s Vatican Rag, of course), saw St. Pete´s Basilica, Michelangelo´s Pieta, and the Pantheon, and ate the best gelato ever, handmade by a friendly guy who gave us free samples. And Becky got a Roman haircut, which was pretty much like any other haircut except that it was in Rome. The hostel that we called home during this part of the trip was kind of bizarre, like Sandy Island full of strangers, for those in the know. Swimming in their Olympic sized outdoor pool surrounded by tropical greenery, with an Italian moon overhead and "The Girl from Ipanema" playing in the bar, we could almost forget that we would be sleeping in a tent on rickety bunk beds, and that we´d payed approximately 6 euro a night for this privilege (an incredibly good deal).
The next stop on our journey was Venice, and after getting the best coffee of my life at a coffee shop near the station in Rome (I didn´t sweeten it at all, which is saying something!) we hopped on a train. Golden green hills spattered with red roofed villas and their farms gave way to flatter land, and eventually vast stretches of water, and then a warm-hued city that seemed to rise up out of it. After spending a night at a hostel that was full of Australian touists and where we slept yet again in a tent and were bitten by exceptionally vicious mosquitos, we set out to explore the city. Since we´d decided we were "churched out", we spent the day wandering in alleys that felt like hugs, going anywhere that the other tourists weren´t going, which meant that we often ended up at a dead end at a green alley of water, with a striped shirted gondolier going by with his cargo of tourists. The city felt, as Becky put it, like Disneyland: for every resident we probably saw about a hundred tourists. If I go back to Venice some day, I want to go in the winter, when real people are there. So far we´d been living mostly on amazing local bread, cheese, and tomatoes, but before leaving we had a proper dinner at a restaurant near the train station: pasta with mushrooms in cream sauce, bread, fried fish, salad, and the most amazing berry-ricotta cake.
Next was Salzburg, and to get there we went on an overnight train, where we shared a compartment with three frat boys from the Netherlands who offered us beer, and when we declined didn´t bother us again the whole night. We arrived at 4 in the morning, and while Becky slept I read a book and watched the sun rise on the Austrian mountains. Salzburg smelled like herbs, was full of Mozart-kugelen, mountains with castles on top of them, and women wearing traditional Austrian dress completely unironically. It felt much colder somehow, despite being just as hot as Italy in temperature, and it was strange to be hearing German on the street. Our major goal of the day was to find the gazebo from the Sound of Music, but we didn´t have a map or a real idea of where we were going. After much extrapolating and 10 miles of walking, exhausted and with sore feet, we finally found it, and it turned out to be the most anticlimactic gazebo we´d ever seen. So we promptly got on a bus, went to our next hostel, collapsed, and slept for about 17 hours, with a brief shower and dinner break in the middle.
The adventure continues in our next episode... stay tuned!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
On the verge of adventures
It is nearly time! On Monday morning at 4am I will climb on a bus that takes me to Stansted airport, from whence I will travel to Rome, where I will meet my darling sister at the Main Termini. And from there the European tour commences, from which I will not return until August 27th. Preparations are nearly completed: a rucksack has been purchased, nearly 200 pounds in coins are sitting in my room waiting to be converted into Euro, and all I need to do is print out my boarding pass!
The last few weeks have been nice and hectic. We did our final presentations, which turned out very well, I thought. I was very proud of us fish, and hopefully someone will post a recording of our little piece later on in the summer: I'll post a link to it here when it goes up. And then school finished with a beautiful ceremony that we first-years put together for the second years. It was a sort of pagan Greek/Roman luxury spa trust fall/walk inspirational experience with lots of massages, grapes, togas, and blindfolds. We first years, toga-clad, greeted the second-years with music and dancing, married them all together (one of my classmates got "ordained" for the purpose from the Church of Universal Light or whatever) and led them through different stations that were intended to help them relax after a long hard year and to help them prepare for the future. These included a massage parlor, an inspirational quote and trust fall section, and a blindfolded "journey to mount Olympus". After we cycled them all through these stations, we had them take off their blindfolds to see us all "punting" them into the future by the canal, and they each got a flower to throw in the canal with a wish. By this time it was raining as well, so the atmosphere was amazingly emotional and joyful. Some of them even threw themselves into the canal along with their flowers and went swimming, to the surprise and amusement of all. And after all this, we went back inside, dried off, ate lots of good food and said good-bye! Several of my classmates have decided not to come back next year, which is very sad, but they're going on to do amazing theatrical things, so it's nice to know they'll be happy and busy.
For the week and a half after the end of school I had the pleasure of being visited by my dad (for a few days) and Roger, so I got treated to all sorts of nice food, a real tour of London on one of the open-top buses, and of course the amazing company. It was so nice to have people from home here. I sometimes lose track of the fact that I'm living in a foreign country, and it was so nice to have that reminder of where I come from. And after the venerable guests left I dove right into working at the cinema and street performing, trying to save up as much as possible for Europe.
And that's where's I'm at! I'll try to keep you all posted during the European adventures, but I don't know how often I'll be able to post, so have a good month everyone, and I'll see you on the other side of Europe! :)
The last few weeks have been nice and hectic. We did our final presentations, which turned out very well, I thought. I was very proud of us fish, and hopefully someone will post a recording of our little piece later on in the summer: I'll post a link to it here when it goes up. And then school finished with a beautiful ceremony that we first-years put together for the second years. It was a sort of pagan Greek/Roman luxury spa trust fall/walk inspirational experience with lots of massages, grapes, togas, and blindfolds. We first years, toga-clad, greeted the second-years with music and dancing, married them all together (one of my classmates got "ordained" for the purpose from the Church of Universal Light or whatever) and led them through different stations that were intended to help them relax after a long hard year and to help them prepare for the future. These included a massage parlor, an inspirational quote and trust fall section, and a blindfolded "journey to mount Olympus". After we cycled them all through these stations, we had them take off their blindfolds to see us all "punting" them into the future by the canal, and they each got a flower to throw in the canal with a wish. By this time it was raining as well, so the atmosphere was amazingly emotional and joyful. Some of them even threw themselves into the canal along with their flowers and went swimming, to the surprise and amusement of all. And after all this, we went back inside, dried off, ate lots of good food and said good-bye! Several of my classmates have decided not to come back next year, which is very sad, but they're going on to do amazing theatrical things, so it's nice to know they'll be happy and busy.
For the week and a half after the end of school I had the pleasure of being visited by my dad (for a few days) and Roger, so I got treated to all sorts of nice food, a real tour of London on one of the open-top buses, and of course the amazing company. It was so nice to have people from home here. I sometimes lose track of the fact that I'm living in a foreign country, and it was so nice to have that reminder of where I come from. And after the venerable guests left I dove right into working at the cinema and street performing, trying to save up as much as possible for Europe.
And that's where's I'm at! I'll try to keep you all posted during the European adventures, but I don't know how often I'll be able to post, so have a good month everyone, and I'll see you on the other side of Europe! :)
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