I blog from Bologna

La vie au Maroc

2006-01-17T09:21:00.000-08:00

We took the 30-minute ferry ride across the strait from Algericas in Spain to Ceuta...also in Spain. It's a little Spanish enclave in Morocco that people use to avoid having to arrive in Tangier. And that's what we did. Avoided Tangier. After waiting in the passport check line for several hours behind a bunch of truly cracked out French hippies, we managed to get a grand taxi to take us the two hours south to Chefchaouen, a little town in the Rif mountains.

Riley sat in the front seat, and made friends with the driver, who pretty much ignored the existence of the women...me and Bianca. It got dark pretty fast, and then started raining hard. The taxi, it turned out, did not have windshield wipers. The driver stopped at a gas station, and bought some mint tea for himself and Riley. He then started smoking some kif, which he also offered only to Riley. Basically, this is how it went down: Stoned taxi driver driving too fast on dark mountain roads, blinded by a wet windshield, drinking mint tea and taking his eyes off the road for minutes at a time to look for some cassette that he wanted to play for Riley. I'm still vaguely surprised we made it to Chefchaouen alive.

Chefchaouen is striking. When you first get there, it feels like you've been transported into a real-life George Lucas set. All the buildings are made out of this white plaster. You see almost no women in the streets, and most of the men wear long woolen robes with tall pointy hoods. There are mules being led through the streets, and chickens and stray cats everywhere. It's low season, cold and rainy, so there were almost no tourists in town. Being the only tourists is kind of cool, but I was thinking how great it would be there in the spring. When it's warmer, you can get a guide and do a couple days' trek in the mountains. It's beautiful open countryside, and you can get to isolated little Berber villages. And see the shit-throwing Barbary apes that we missed by skipping Gibraltar.

The first night we were there, we noticed the Moroccan flags everywhere. The next day, there were more flags. The day after, they were hanging portraits of King Muhammed VI all around the central square of the medina. Everyone seemed really excited. It turned out that the king was scheduled to make his first ever visit to the town, the day after we were planning on leaving. We decided to try to stay (the king is young and cute...and he's the king), but our hostel was closing. For security reasons the whole medina would be closed off for the king's visit.

So we had no choice but to leave our mountain paradise and take the bus four hours south to Fès. Which is where we are now. I hate it. You get to the medina, and people just swarm you, trying to get you to eat in their dirty restaurant, stay in their shitty hotel, buy their ugly knockoffs... And there's a real mean spirit to the hassling. It's like not only do they want your money, they also really don't like you much. You ignore them, and they call you racist. "Hitler is dead, you xenophobe." Fun fun. Riley and Bianca are both sick, so I spent the day touring by myself. I decided to check out the "new" (14th-century) medina, which is smaller and supposed to be less hassle. It's also where the mellah (Jewish ghetto) was. So I spent two hours getting lost with people calling at me, looking for the synagogue. I finally found it (through a coffee shop, down a dark alley). It was this little wooden doorway, with a man sitting smoking in the front, the caretaker I guess. It was mid-afternoon. I asked him politely for a tour. He looked me up and down, and just said "No. Closed." I asked when it would be open, and he said that he didn't know about later, just that it was closed now. I went back to the hostel and hired a guide for tomorrow. She'll take us around, and then we're hightailing it out of here. Next stop Meknès.

Traveling Spain

2006-01-17T09:00:00.000-08:00

Since I haven't updated at all since leaving Milan, and since I type very slowly here (awful French keyboards!), the very abbreviated version of my two weeks in Spain.

Madrid: Awesome. Got to hang out with Christina. I love big cities, and Madrid is so liveable. There's not much in the way of tourist stuff, but there are great museums, and it's a fun city to just walk around and chill in. Great tapas and good clubs and lots of shopping. For New Year's everyone dresses up in wigs and body paint and green Santa hats, then gets drunk and hangs out in Plaza del Sol. After midnight, the crowd leaves the plaza to go run around the streets shouting and dancing and partying. Really good times.

Toledo: Got to see all the El Greco I could want. So also awesome.

Valencia: This is a horrible, disloyal thing to say, but Valencia is the cool kids' version of Bologna. Hip medieval college town. Lots of orange trees. Good paella. Good music. Nice people. Two thumbs up.

Grenada and Sevilla: I was horribly sick for both, so I basically didn't leave the hostel in either city. It pretty much really sucked. I did manage to drag myself to the Alhambra, which was gorgeous.

Conclusion: Spain is really really cool when you don't have the flu. I am going to learn Spanish when I get back to Cal.

Back from Berlin, Goodbye Bologna

2005-12-23T06:39:00.000-08:00

So lack of posting aside, December has been a pretty insane month so far. I turned twenty, which is cool. Hopefully now I'll feel the need to lie about my age a little less often. Then the day after my birthday I took off for Berlin for a week. The trip was a last-minute decision, and I'm really glad I went. I don't know what I was expecting, but especially coming from Italy (which can, on days when I'm feeling frustrated, seem like a beautiful but static relic frozen in time) Berlin just seems so modern and full of life. My German was a complete bust, but I had a great time walking around the city, taking in the gray sky on gray concrete aesthetic. And at night, after your chosen wurst, you can walk along some deserted street until you hear a telltale rumbling under the sidewalk, enter some abandoned-looking building, and find a raging club playing some kind of undanceable music downstairs. It's just awesome.

Oh, and the other thing about Berlin...they are obsessed, yes obsessed with Christmas. Christmas markets, Christmas trees everywhere (even on top of Checkpoint Charlie!). But then I got back to Italy, and found that Christmas had hit Bologna too. They put up a two-story high tree in front of the Palazzo Comunale, and every store window (even the posh D&G window!) is filled with different kinds of panforte (Christmas fruitcake). On Sunday, they staged a huge nativity play on the steps of the city's main church, San Petronio. It was a big budget affair, complete with live donkeys, professional lighting, and hundreds of extras. Mary sang Jesus a lullaby in Yiddish. And at the end, when the main priest came to give the closing speech, a bunch students made the obligatory loud Marxist protest ("Drugs are bad for children!" Opium especially I guess?) I can see how all the Catholic stuff can feel overpowering at times, but seriously, I give the protesters five minutes against the evangelizing minions of Berkeley Campus Crusade for Christ. They wouldn't stand a chance.

And now I'm in Milan, for my very own Italian Christmas with my relatives. I am staying with my cousin's mother-in-law, who since I arrived last night has not left the kitchen. She is making four types of ravioli from scratch, and is busy on all the fillings. It makes me tired just watching her, but I predict good things, very good things, for Christmas dinner.

After Christmas, me and my backpack are hitting the road again. I'm meeting up with Christina in Madrid for New Year's, and then I'm going to meet two other friends and do southern Spain and MOROCCO. Ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar! Singing along with "Marrakesh Express"...on the train to Marrakesh! It's going to be sweet! I'll update along the way.

Buone feste everyone!

It Turns Out I'm Not Dying

2005-11-23T10:11:00.000-08:00

I was really sick last weekend. Really really sick. And I couldn't sleep. And so I was awake one night at about 5 in the morning and decided to go watch TV. And so I walked into the living room, and saw two surprising things.
1. CNN was on public TV.
2. My housemate was watching CNN on public TV.

This is surprising for two reasons.
1. It's Italy.
2. Said housemate speaks, by generous estimates, about five words of English.

Apparently
1. Every morning from 4-6 a.m. Channel 7 airs CNN.
2. That morning CNN was airing a special on avian flu, and the language of men in space suits slaughtering chickens is universal.

My housemate thought that it would be really funny to try to convince me that I was dying from avian flu. And since I was under the influence of
1. cough syrup
2. flu medication
3. lack of sleep
I believed him.

But it turns out that he was wrong. Because I am now well on my way to being completely cured...just in time for TURKEY tomorrow.

Two other exciting tidbits.
1. It's SNOWING!!
2. An UNDUBBED version of "Goblet of Fire" will be playing ON MY BIRTHDAY at the Cinematheque!!

As For Scalito

2005-11-02T02:19:00.000-08:00

I sincerely regret my snarky comments about Harriet.

Democrats: PLEASE FILIBUSTER!!!

Viva lo sciopero!

2005-10-21T05:14:00.000-07:00

For the last two weeks, my department, Lettere e Filosofia, has been occupata. There is a big nationwide university strike going on, and although everyone is enthusiatic, no one can seem to agree what it's over (choices include: budget laws being debated in parliament, changes being made to conform the Italian degree/credits system to EU standards, the war in Iraq, America and the bad things America does and the bad way Berlusconi is helping America do those bad things, the results of the recent leftist-coalition primaries, etc.)

Strikes here, unlike strikes in the US (or at least at Cal) are not supposed to be announced, and I found out about this one when I decided to go to class one day. I got to my department, saw the 15th-century palazzo covered with red spray paint (hammers and sickles, commie slogans, random obscenities, etc.), and beheld my professor standing on the steps, jacket collar dramatically turned up, delivering a passionate contro lo stato speech to my mesmerized classmates. At the end of his shouted manifesto he announced that he was cancelling class that week, in solidarity, and that next week class would be cancelled too because he would be decamping, for a much-needed break, to his country home outside of Parma.

My department, as well as being one of the largest in the university, is also one of the most centrally located with respect to the Zamboni bar scene. So if you pass it at around midnight or one, you will see a festa in the house. The doors are wide open and there are hundreds of students milling around, shouting, singing, playing the guitar, drinking, smoking all manner of things, writing on the walls, and generally just chilling and having a wholesome good time.

The jolliness of such absolute chaos was at first hard for my rigid Anglo mentality to accept, but the bottom line is...great parties and out of five weeks of class, at least two and a half are cancelled. When I get back, I'm calling for Dwinelle to be occupied at least once a semester.

From Dallas City Council to the Supreme Court

2005-10-06T01:01:00.000-07:00

I'm still suspicious of John Roberts, but Harriet Miers is just downright embarassing.

As BuffaloWings&Vodka says, "I'd rather just let Clarence Thomas vote twice."

I HAVE A HOME!!!

2005-09-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

It's official, no cold nights on Zamboni for me! And DeLay indicted too! Two miracles in 24 hours! Some serious Ave Masantosomethings are in order.

Pickapocketoni

2005-09-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

On Monday my wallet was stolen. Colpa mia. I was in a rush, and put my wallet in the outer pocket of my backpack. I know, I know. Me and my roomate left the studentato, and when we arrived at the Piazza Maggiore, she noticed that the pocket was open. Of course, my wallet was gone. I was upset, mostly about losing the not-insignificant amount of cash that I had on me, but also grudgingly impressed. We were walking pretty quickly, didn't go through any really crowded areas, and didn't stop at all, and still someone managed to open my backpack, reach in, and take my wallet out without either of us noticing anything.

As a result of this praise-worthy professionalism, I got to make a field trip to the questura, the local police office. Before coming to Italy, I had heard the standard jokes about carabinieri ("Why do carabinieri always work in pairs? Because one knows how to read, the other how to write"...and so on in this vein) If only those jokes weren't so uncomfortably close to reality...

After waiting two hours to make my denuncio, I was questioned by three carabinieri for about an hour. They spent about forty-five minutes of that hour asking me questions about Los Angeles and Califonia. One, who was a good three inches shorter than me and about half my size, kept asking me if I had ever been to Musk-le Beetch, and if I had ever met the Governator. They spoke really really fast, and I had even more trouble understanding them because there was a radio in the background blaring Britney and J.Lo. From time to time, I would tear my eyes away from the huge cross-with-graphic-dying-Jesus on the wall and ask them to talk "piu piano, per favore." Each time I said this, they would start giggling, yes giggling, then look at each other and say "ma e una californiana." And proceed to talk just as fast as they had been. They didn't seem too troubled by my stolen wallet, but were very concerned about the fact that I was only carrying a photocopy of my passport with me. "You should always be carrying the original" they warned me. Sound advice, clearly.

At long last, they printed out six copies of my denuncio. Each one of them signed each copy. They then made me sign each copy, and gave me one to keep (a souvenir?). They put each of the other five copies in its own folder, and put the folders on top of one of the huge stacks of folders on their desk. The mini carabiniero showed me out and invited me to have an aperitivo with him when he got off work.

It would be oh so funny if it weren't oh so sad.

2005-09-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

My first week in Bologna has been quite crazy. They pretty much just throw you right into the deep end here--and then it's sink or swim. Which I kind of like actually, even if it makes me want to scream sometimes.

Bologna is an amazing city--beautiful and medieval and modern and dirty and ugly. It's pretty unique I think. The surprisingly large city center is circled by a viale that follows the track of the medieval city walls (which were demolished in the 19th century, although most of the gates remain and the center is still referred to as the area "dentro muri"). Once you're in the center, you can walk pretty much anywhere in under 30 mintues, although almost everyone has a bike or scooter (Vespa).

But exit the city center, and you're in an industrial city, which looks a lot like the some of the uglier urban neighborhoods in the Bay Area. While I look for an apartment I've been living in a studentato a couple of blocks outside the city walls, behind the train station and quite literally on the wrong side of the tracks. Besides the twenty-odd Californians living in a deserted high-rise (most of the Italian students have not returned to the city yet, as classes don't start for a couple more weeks), the area is mostly inhabited by droggati (of the heroin variety). But frankly, in Bologna there are drugs everywhere, and the center is teeming with punk a besti (literally: punk with beast, referring to the fact that they almost all have scary pitt bull-ish dogs). In fact, the main university street, via Zamboni, is a dead ringer for Telegraph Ave, minus a couple medieval buildings and Telegraph's Bob and Che t-shirt stands.

And that's what's so cool about Bologna. There's all that, which can make you forget that you ever left Berkeley, and then there's the reality of a city center that is an astonishingly pure example of medieval Italy. I visited two medieval cities when I was in France, and both of them felt pretty fake. The fact that Bologna is an actual urban area, with all the grit and grime that entails, somehow just makes the fact that it's so so old that much more evident. Almost all of the streets have porticoes (covered arched walkways); actually Bologna supposedly has the longest length of porticoed streets of any city in Europe (this because in the Middle Ages the leaders of the comune--the Italian name for city-state--made a law that all new houses include them). There is a piazza every two blocks, as well as a good ten or twelve large Romanesque churhes. There are dozens of medieval university buildings. And there are no trees. I think you can walk through the whole center, minus two parks at the edges, and count the number of trees you see on one hand. I'm no nature person, but I thought that it might be depressing to never see trees. But then, when I started visiting apartments, I realized that the gardens are all inside. Almost all of the old buildings, and most of the new ones two, have an inner courtyard. It's not that the city doesn't have gardens, it's that they're hidden. I heard that there is one day, in the early spring right as the weather starts warming up, when everyone opens their doors so that you can see all the courtyards from the street. It must be beautiful.

And in terms of what I've been doing...we have language classes every day for about three hours, but most days that includes taking some trip around the city or going to hear a lecture. I actually really like this language class, because it is completely focused on giving us the things (mostly vocabulary and pecularities of Bolognese dialect) that we need to get around. Other than that, I've seen about a million apartments. Yes, I'm being picky, and the search is stressing me out, but I'm also enjoying getting to really know my way around all the little neighborhoods inside the walls and going to meet random people...potential future housemates. In any case, I won't move until October because I'm set for the month of September in the dorm. I would love to live in one of the older buildings, they're all a little run-down but they're just gorgeous but I like the ghosts in older houses. But mostly I'm just trying to find an apartment with cool people who won't mind helping a poor befuddled exchange student make some nice Italian friends. I just hope I find it before I go crazy...

Almost there

2005-08-31T03:46:00.000-07:00

Been in Nice for the past four days. Could have stayed longer. Cote d'Azur, absolutely no contest, coolest place I've seen in France. Given this region is basically Italy (Garibaldi, a Nicoise!), I'm thinking this bodes well for the upcoming year.

Tonight...midnight train to Bologna. Next post....ITALIA!

An Italian by any other name

2005-08-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

Linguistic puzzle of the day--Almost each major European language has its own word for referring to those of the German persuasion: allemand, tedseco, Deutsche, German... I had assumed that this was because Germany as a unified state didn't come around until the mid-1800s (googled: 1871), by which time the varied ethnic/national terms had already been coined. But if so, why is the word for Italian the same in every language, given that Italy was unified not much earlier, in 1861, and there is no actual Italian province/city-state called Italy? Were Italians refered to as Italians before unification as well? A quick internet search has yielded no answers, but I will find out...

(BTW: I found a pretty cool site during my search, www.wordorigins.org)
(BTW Part II: In case you're wondering, I've found myself in a hostel with that most rare of luxuries...free internet.)

Potter Nerd Alert

2005-08-24T15:51:00.000-07:00

Having had many hours on ferries/trains to think this through....predictions for the next book. If you haven't read the 6th yet...shame on you, and don't continue if you don't want to know. Also don't continue if you enjoy mocking Harry-acs...I am on vacation and clearly have too much time on my hands.

So first off...I think this was the best one yet, and I feel a little vindicated since Snape has been my favorite since about Book 3 (you have to admit Sirius was always a bit of a righteous bore). OK, so he's obviously not working for Voldemort. It seems pretty clear that he had previously sworn an Unbreakable Vow, the fulfillment of which obligated him to swear the vow to Narcissa, and eventually to kill Dumbledore. The popular theory is that he swore to Dumbledore that he would protect Harry, and that it was this vow that earned him Dumbledore's trust. I think this is plausible, especially since I think it was the guilt of having indirectly caused Lily's death that made Snape turn double agent. There must have been some as-of-yet-unexplained connection between Snape and Lily. I think that Petunia will be the one to reveal that one, probably towards the end of book 7. One problem with "vow to protect Harry" theory is that Snape's having stopped Harry's Occlumency lessons seems to break the vow, but this could just be me nitpicking.

The other big question is whether Harry is the 7th Horcrux. I think the whole Horcrux plot line is a bit hokey, and I wish Rowling had come up with something else. And while I would really prefer a different solution, I think that either Harry, or the scar, probably is the 7th just because it would allow Rowling to nicely reinforce her ongoing free will/it's your actions that define you/all you need is love themes. In the end, it will be the force of Harry's will/love that will kill the 7th Horcrux and destory Voldemort. I don't like this too much, because it's positively Hallmark, but there you have it. It doesn't work too neatly with the prophecy (why can't Voldemort live while Harry lives?), but I suspect that this is just because the soul-splitting mechanics haven't been fully explained.

An Ignorant Wino No More

2005-08-24T15:23:00.000-07:00

After doing the WWII circuit I spent one more day in Bayeux, seeing what I came to see...a tapestry. This is embarassing to admit, but it's a pretty awesome tapestry. It was begun right after the Battle of Hastings and tells the whole story of the conquest. Apparently even in the 11th century they had war propaganda (William sailed to England to restore the honor of sacred relics on which a broken oath had been made).

After Bayeux, I moved on to St. Malo. It's in Brittany, this beautiful walled city jutting out into the Atlantic. I didn't like it that much though; it was a little boring, super-expensive and felt vaguely Disneyland-esque. I later learned that this is because 80% of the old city was destroyed during WWII. It was then rebuilt, exactly as it had been before, in the 50s and 60s. That's why it has this artificial fake-old vibe. But it does have this very romantic, windy, ocean-crahing-loudly-against-the-rocks type weather.

For the last few days I've been in the Bordeaux-region. It's been nice and relaxing; I've been staying with my family on their tiny vineyard about a half-hour outside the city. My uncle is very serious about the craft, and I now know more about making wine than I ever wanted to know. It's a damn lot of work. During the summer, the vineyard is opened to families in camping cars, who come to stay the night, get a tour of the vineyard, and hopefully buy lots of wine. It's been fun being on the other side of the tourist machine for a little while, and I've been picking up a lot of cool French argot from my cousins. Plus the wine really is pretty awesome.

A Rockies Retreat in the Bavarian Alps

2005-08-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

I met this guy on Naxos who had just finished a two-year stint working for the US Army in a tiny town outside of Munich. He was doing publicity for an army-run resort in the Alps for families of American servicemen posted in Germany. The idea is for said families to be able to take a relaxing vacation in Colorado without leaving the land of Deutsch. All hotel staff is American. All wrapped products shipped from the US, so as to have the American packaging. Tex-Mex and Cajun theme nights...You get the idea.

At the time, I was vaguely repulsed by this, but also vaguely intrigued. This is since at the time I was suffering the throes of a fairly severe Diet Coke withdrawal. The Diet Coke here, which has been euphamistically renamed Cola Light, is not Diet Coke. It has this cloying, syrupy sweetness that tastes suspiciously like...regular Coke! I didn't so much mind the idea of a couple days in Bavaria nursing some cans of the authentic stuff.

Since, I have become accustomed to the inferior European version. I might even, embarassing as this is, miss it when I get home. This might seem like no big deal, but to me it feels like one of the first steps in the process of becoming a true-blue ex-pat.

But it is still a process. I do still miss America. A preliminary list of pros and cons of life in France:

Pro
Old here means old...not dating from the '20s. You can go see "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" in a converted 17th-century monastery.
Con
Brad and Angie speak French. Un vraie horreur!

Pro
Cute dogs everywhere.
Con
Dog shit everywhere. The pooper-scooper has not yet crossed the Atlantic.
(On a related side note...if you have not yet read "Me Talk Pretty One Day", you're missing out...Sedaris is not only hilarious, I now realize he's also got France dead-on)

Pro
Generally good, varied taste in music.
Con
An inexplicable affinity for Robbie Williams and mediocre trans.

Pro
Frites (aka Freedom fries) with each and every meal.
Con
Frites (aka Freedom fries) with each and every meal.

That's all for now. Italian edition forthcoming.

oh la la...rachelle adore paris

2005-08-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

I was going to stay in Paris for two days and ended up staying for five.

But I'm glad that I left, because so far outside Paris is just as nice. I'm in Bayeux, a little town near the coast in Normandy that is chock full of tourists but somehow still manages to be charmant. The main draw of Bayeux is that it is very close to the beaches of Normandy, which is where I went today. It was interesting, but mostly just massively depressing. And somehow happy too, because it was, so to speak, the beginning of the end. My favorite part was Arromanches, where the Brits managed, within a week of D-Day, to assemble a massive (almost four miles long), fully functional harbor out of component pieces built across the channel. My brother would have loved to see it...there's not much left now, but they have models showing how the harbor assembly worked, and it was definitely no small feat. They must have had some mean intelligence too, to get accurate enough surveys of the area (pretty exact ocean depths, etc). Still, the most striking thing is actually that they managed to plan and construct the whole thing in the UK without the Germans getting wind of it. It must have been that only a handful of people at the very top knew the whole story, while 30,000 workers spent a year and a half blindly building massive concrete blocks. I wonder what they thought the blocks were for.

So many islands...

2005-08-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

Back in Athens, leaving for Paris in a couple hours. The islands were great--tiring, but a real adventure. Pictures probably won't be uploaded until I get to Italy. In the meanwhile, the run down...

Naxos
A good intro island, I think. Pretty calm, billed as a family island, it's full of German and English families, all very blonde and very sunburt. Nice beach, but I saw much nicer on other islands. The hora, however, is absolutely beautiful. The archeological claim to fame is this super-Byronesque gate to a temple of Apollo; it's on a hill and stunning at sunset.

Santorini
Not at all what I expected. I think I was imagining this ritzy playground full of Missoni bikinis and designer sunglasses. Not at all. It is though, as beautiful as everyone says, more beautiful even. I stayed at a beach on the opposite end from the volcano caldera, at this super-chill hovel/hostel, probably my favorite place I stayed the whole trip. First day I rented a scooter, turns out in Greece you don't need a license if the engine is less than 50 cc. I asked the guy for the weakest one he had, and sputtered around the island, going to all the various beaches and nearly killing myself (and one cute old Greek lady). Scooters are really the only way, other than car, to really cover the islands, but I was scared enough by my one go that I didn't try it again. The next day, I got a boat and saw the volcano and the hot springs.

At this point, I was planning on taking a ferry to Crete and spending the rest of the trip there. I heard from a lot of people that the south coast is amazing, especially Plakeas and Paleohora. Instead, I somehow managed to board the wrong ferry (don't ask me how I did this...it was early in the morning) and, by the time I realized my mistake, was in the middle of a group of tiny Cycladic islands. It ended up being a fortunate event thought...I met a cool English girl on the ferry, while I was in the process of a minor freak-out (nothing compared to the freak-out of later that day, when I lost my ATM card...more on that), and we traveled together for the next couple of days.

Sikinos:
The first island we landed on, we spent the day here. Quiet and unassuming. Nice beach and hora.

Ios:
We had decided to spend the next couple nights on Anafi, a completely deserted island with no ATM. I was out of money, and the ferry stopped at Ios on the way to Anafi, so I decided to run off and get cash. The result--I stayed on Ios about three minutes, just long enough to leave my card in an ATM machine. Heard it's a fun island, though.

Anafi:
This island is only about an hour and a half from Santorini, but it's empty. It has about 300 inhabitants, and while we were there, about ten tourists, all of whom camped on the beach as this island has no hotels and no campsites. It was awesome. We hitchhiked around the island, since there are no regular buses on Anafi, and I got my first taste of camping. I loved it, and I camped-sans-tent for the rest of the trip, and just yesterday got a little tent so I'll be able to camp in high style in France.

Tinos:
This island, one of the biggest Orthodox pilgrimage sites in Greece, is a great combo. It has quite a lot of Greek tourists, but very few foreign tourists. The result is a big town, with all the tourist amenities, but still with a really untouched feel. The island is very religious, but also very patriotic, since it was during the Greek War of Independence that an icon of the Virgin Mary was found here after a vision by a saint. I was on Tinos on a Sunday, and got to see dozens of women crawling on hands and knees up a long hill to the huge church, kissing the ground as they went. Why do only women do this? I heard that on the 15th, on the Feast of the Assumption, there are thousands crawling up the hill. I wish I could see it--it sounds positively theatrical.

Myknos:
I hated this island from the moment I stepped off the ferry, parched, and was charged 3 euros for a bottle of water as "Last Night I Cried at the Discotheque" blared from loudspeakers. The beach, while decent, was bar none the most crowded I have ever seen. The only thing to do on an island like this is drink one...or four margaritas and forget it all. At about 20 euros a pop, this was unfortunately not an option. Delos, a major archeological site, is a twenty-minute ferry ride from Mykonos. It's the reason that I stopped at Mykonos in the first place, and it too was a disaster. I missed the one tour of the day, and was left to wander around piles of rocks without even one of those fold-out brochures to tell me what I was looking at. The museum only had explanations in Greek. Total waste of time, and pretty frustrating, because I could tell that with even minimal explanation, it would have been great.

And one overnight ferry later...back in Athens. I got to spend another day here, which was nice, I went to the flea market and ate the best gyros I've had the whole trip.

Tanning on Santorini

2005-07-31T09:41:00.000-07:00

Left mainland a day early, spent a couple days on Naxos and am now in Santorini. More on the islands when I get back to the mainland and high-speed internet.

Does the fact that you sunburn really fast when on white/light-reflecting stuff (e.g. snow) mean that you tan slower when on a black beach? What about a red one?

Until next time.

Greece Part 1

2005-07-27T05:27:00.000-07:00

I'm in Athens!

I don't think that this city deserves its less-than-stellar reputation. Yes, it is HOT, but this is the Meditteranean, and it is July. The air is not gray with smog. I haven't been accosted yet. My main gripe with Athens, and this is coming from an American, is that although it is a major city almost no one understands any English. Speaking French helps a little, but not much. This means that without a Greek friend to show you around, it's really an effort to find the quieter/less tourist-infested spots of the city.

One unique thing about Athens is that in the rush to remake the city for the Olympics last year, a strange mixture of spanking new and completely run down was created. The airport and metro were both completed within the last two years. The street signs are all new and all the major roads are rebuilt. You get from the airport to the city by way of a brand-new highway. On the side of that highway, you pass miles of shiny modern glass-and-steel buildings. On the other hand, once you enter the city, the neighborhoods of narrow roads and dilapidated buildings look an awful lot like the more grungy areas of Tel Aviv. And then, there are a couple of old squares and public parks, surrounded by wide lanes and well-kept townhouses, that look like they were transplanted from some bourgeois section of Paris or London. All in all, a really interesting combo.

Today was my sightseeing day. I went to the Acropolis, and took the requisite picture of myself in front of the Parthenon. The Acropolis, I have to admit, was less than impressive. First off, it was packed and sweltering. My own fault, for coming during high season. Added to this, both the Parthenon and the Temple of Athena Nike are covered in scaffolding as their marble is restored. I think that the experience of the Parthenon was also diminished by the fact that I've just seen too many pictures of it. It's nothing new, even in person. It's also not in great shape, having served as a Turkish gunpowder repository (expolded during the Turkish-Venetian War), an easy marble quarry for the Greeks, and a collector's item for British lords (see the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum).

The city's main museum, my other excursion of the day, was great. It was small enough to not look like an art warehouse, as so many museums do. Plus, unlike the Acropolis, it was empty and air-conditioned. I am spoiled. I admit it. These things make a difference. The museum has a brilliant collection of Cyladic figures (my favorites), Mycenean art, and Archaic Greek sculpture. It also has a lot of Classical and Hellenistic sculptues, but I like those less, again probably because I've seen so many of them.

All this said, I feel that I've had all the cultural enrichment that I can take for a while. My threshold is lower than I realized. I am taking a day-trip to Delphi tomorrow and then will head straight for the islands, to the beach.

Welcome

2005-07-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving for Europe today. I'll be traveling to Greece and France and from there will head on to Bologna, where I'll be spending the year. So I'm starting this blog, which I might or might not regularly update, to write about...whatever I want to write about.

Happy reading!