Angie's Journals From Greece

This week, went to Orientation and registered for classes, which include good o'l Archaeology 100. Because I'm going to Hong Kong tomorrow, leaving you all three weeks without me, to fill that gaping void in your soul, here are my journal entries for my trip to Greece in 10th grade. I know it's long, but you have 21 days to read it, so I don't feel sorry for you. Oh, also. These were written before I began blogging, and are written on paper, and so are unedited and contain traces of my 10th-grade self, such as usage of the word "Woo!" I wish I'd been more descriptive, but I didn't have a lot of writing time and that's what photos are for.

April 8

Sabena sucks. The airline food reminds me of Cloud's quote, "I've eaten better dog food." I've never eaten dog food, but I suspect it would taste better. I'm dry puking. Nick says the correct term is dry heaving. Technicalities.

Belgians are nice. What does Flemish sound like? Brussels airport looks so much like the US it's creepy. It's like we never left. Rain and everything. Some parts look like Tokyo Narita. Some guy passing mumbled "Crazy American students." Nick & Rob are complaining about tobacco smoke. I didn't notice it. I found "Peeing Boy" merchandise. Joy. I'll buy some when I get back. More English here than in DC! Some French.

About airline food: apparently, Sabena is the trans-Atlantic airline that spends the least on food. It shows.

April 9

In Athens airport. Rainy. Again. As if we never left, but this is definitely Greece. Half of the words are in Greek, but the illiteracy isn't as bad as I expected, like in Hong Kong where I can speak fluently but not read at all. I managed to read "Exodus," gate. The landing was nice, even w/ rain. The guidebook said it rarely rains in Athens, but that's too stupid to believe. At first the islands rolled out of the cloud bank, green and rocky, like Hong Kong only I usually land in Hong Kong at night. Then the plane banked and you could see the mainland stretching out over the horizon with green and beaches and mountains. If only it weren't raining! There was an interesting effect with droplets flying across the window. I've seen it in cars, but not on planes.

We flew over the Alps, and over Venice. It was sunny. The Alps were really pretty, since you could see layers of clouds beneath, like frost over clear ice. And you could see winding rivers and valleys, not just monotonous snowy peaks. W/ the Greek view, you could see waves on the water, and red roofed houses, and shrubs and turqoise swimming pools, and ships sailing. You can't see pollution or poverty yet, though there's a hint of it as we descend, with murky green in the water and crummy houses. Then again, if you live next to an airport your house probably will be crummy.

Our luggage isn't coming and security wouldn't let us go to the bathroom. What sort of place am I in? Not exactly post card. Ooh. I got me some shiny drachmas with some guy on them. Woo.

The Greek they speak here sounds odd. If it weren't for the Greeks speaking it, I wouldn't know it was Greek.

The airport is all blue and white in the receiving area, but significantly friendlier later. And smoke-filled. Naturally.

Athens. Nice place. I'm surprised I don't have culture shock yet, though it's so different, it seems perfectly normal. Plants are Hong Kongy, houses are European and vertical. I think a reason I don't have culture shock is because the streets are wide enough to drive through. Some of the poorer places have random piles of trash lying about. The grafitti artists are quite skilled. There's a lot more color in Athens than American cities.

Athens metro and Syntagma Square. The Metro is an archaeological place too. It's the cleanest Metro I've ever seen.

We saw the changing of the guard in Syntagma. Poms squad.

In Plaka, we got chased around by a large band of stray dogs which would get driven off by storeowners slapping things together and yelling in Greek. They started attacking motorcycles and taxis and things. (Present day Angie's note: The dogs were attacking, not the storeowners) I didn't get a great view of the Acropolis, but I did see the Tower of Winds. The walking tour is tomorrow.

April 10 (Current day Angie's note: I stopped dating my journal entries here, using only a squiggly line to seperate each day's entry. However, I will continue to note the date in the blog, for your convenience.)

Bus tour, actually. We went to the Acropolis. Sunny, finally. Absolutely gorgeous. I really hate these journals though; it feels like I'm taking inventory. The view from the Acropolis is amazing; you can see the city stretch out for miles. And finally went shopping at Plaka & saw Syntagma in the daytime. Athens is growing on me, and begins to look less like Hong Kong. Went, after a long bus ride, to Cape Siounion, with the Temple of Poseidon. Drove along the sea, and it was incredibly pretty. The view from the temple was awesome, with dramatic cliffs and the ocean all around, and wildflowers. At the hotel, our neighbors introduced themselves. They're a bunch of British boys who like throwing oranges out the windows and burning deoderant. I went to Plaka to go shopping at night, so I couldn't join in the orange throwing, but I heard that we got some good stains in the alley. Night shopping was fun, but I killed my feet. Amy & Debbs spent all night talking to Tom on the balcony; they said it was too crowded for me too. I did not sleep. The Italians across the hall are too loud.

April 11

Windy windy windy. It's the island cruise, though really, it's more of a glorified ferry service. It's very windy on the "sun deck", they ought to call it a wind deck. It feels like I'm flying, and seagulls swoop and race the ship. Took a cold hour to reach Aegina; I can't believe such a booming town only has 3000 people. I took the bus tour to the temple of Atreya. Aegina is very pretty, like a springtime suburban Athens with mountains and valleys. The view from the temple was nice too, in a different way; I think all the temple views are nice anyhow. And I saw the church, where I bought the famed pistachios.

Okay. So Aegina has 10,000 people and Hydra has 3000. It's a tiny town tucked in a cove. There are no cars. I took a donkey ride for 1000 drachmas and nearly got a leg cramp. The donkey driver would occassionally wave to random people knew, like a Greek equivalent of "Wassup, my homie G?" I suppose in such a small town, everyone knows each other. I also suppose his Greek isn't really Athenian Greek but whatever. We went into the upper residential areas, which were much quieter than the portside tourist shops. He didn't know a lot of English. Maybe like "1000 drachma," "Hydra good, yes?" "This donkey, not horse," "you like donkey?" and "No problem."

(sketches on next page, labeled 'Greek building foundation' and 'tree')

The shopping is great.

Poros. Spent 20 minutes there. Should've went to the clock tower, but didn't.

There was bozouki on the ship later. I got dragged into it. It was scary.

April 12

Village of Arkhova before Delphi. (written in Greek letters) Two hour ride to Delphi. It was mountainous, but the view into the valley was great. I'm getting apathetic of tourist sites, and have stopped taking pictures. Arkhova, ski resort. Very European. The lanscape is different here in Greece. It's greener, and the mountains are rockier. In the US the mountains have dark green trees, and fields of wheat and corn and wooden barns and silos, maybe a corall with horses and cow. Here, it's cypress trees, olive groves, silvery gray, and pens of goats and sheep. There don't seem to be suburbs, just towns of differing size and density. Ferry over Straight of Corinth. Patras is a suburb. It was raining cats & dogs so we couldn't go to the beach. The coastal road was pretty but inefficient. Mt. Parnassis was snow capped. Patras is so pretty in the morning after the storm when the sea shallows aren't brown.

I spent the rainy night watching Greek soap operas, news, and religious stuff. Plus jumping at people exploding firecrackers.

April 13

(Greek letters, with the caption of 'random Olympian street signs' and 'part of inscription at Olympia, too lazy to write it all down.' sketch, caption: 'roadside memorial photos inside, sometimes made to look like Byzantine churches.')

Friday

Olympia. Seems that bagel cookies are popular in the region. The mountainous area looks more like the US. There are pines and broadleaf trees now. There were many memorials to people killed on the road alongside, it was a bit disturbing. Olympia was yet another archaeological site. The trees and flowers were very pretty, but the other temples I've seen were more impressive. Yay, food. I had eggplant. I can feel myself getting fat.

Tolos: passing near Sparta with very awesome dramatic mountains. Almost like pictures of Switzerland. Nick says there was communist grafitti all around, KKE; I didn't see it. There's nothing green and pretty about it. Saw a lot of goats & sheep, and some chickens too. The houses aren't as square. They have red tile roofs.

Tolos is a normal Greek town. The hotel is nice. Some frescoes, and you can see everyone from the balconies. No shower curtains. Good Friday, at night people went around with lit candles, and you could hear services from afar. And tons of firecrackers going off.

I didn't go to the disco, I went to the beach. It was dark and gravelly and hurt my bare feet, so I got my sandals sandy. It was mostly dark over the water except a mountain randomly glowing green in it. The water was clear and cold, no tides as usually. I'm glad I had my stupid flashlight, which illuminated about as much as a lit Good Friday candle. No one had a flash camera, but I tried to take pictures anyway.

Went back up; Nick and Renwa called home from a payphone, and we all went in an internet cafe to use email. 450 drachma. Thinking of Vassilis. Passed "The Gorilla", the disco. It looked pretty dumb, with Europop, a bar, and ppl getting drunk off their asses. I'm glad I didn't go, but I'll have to ask people how it was. Nick finally bought a souvenier. Some metal relief thing, of the Parthenon whole, and colored. About time he buys something.

April 14

Saturday

Super Saturday, or whatever. Left beautiful Hotel Epidauria, the beach (which we can't go to) looks very pretty during the day. The whole "two days at the beach" thing was really misleading. Went on to the theater of Epidaurus, yet another happy archaeological site. Stood around on the top row of seats like a total idiot staring at scenery while some tourists below were singing "Lean On Me". Went back to Tolo to pick up forgotten passports. It was interesting to see Tolo in daylight. Then doubled over to Mycenae, lion gated Mycenae of Agammemnon.

Mycenae had the most beautiful view ever. It was not a temple, but a well preserved fortress on top of a hill. You could see for miles around, and at one corner the walls just dropped down into a valley. The rocks were slippery, and it was windy with wildflowers. Then we went to the beehive dome of Agammemnon, where I forgot my camera. It was like a giant stone igloo, and smelled like something had died in there. There was a smaller, darker room we weren't allowed to go in, with a danger sign. We could see it with a flash camera.

Corinth canal. We passed the Acrocorinth to see it. Acrocorinth is a lot higher than the Acropolis and is very impressive looking. The Corinth Canal is a lot deeper than you'd think it would be, at sea level, and goes for four miles. The vertical drop is a bit freaky.

Fireworks. Holy crap, they've been scaring me. Candle light service was more like walking through a bomb field. Little boys would set firecrackers off in the public park, throwing them in bushes and things. They'd glow like embers for several seconds and explode in a flash and a bang. There were sparklers, and sky-launched ones that made a high whistling sound. People would go around with candles that'd blow out in the breeze, and random people would ask us for lights. One woman asked Rob;

Are you tourists?
Yes
Are you Greek?
No.
Are you Greek Orthodox?
No.
What are you then?
Assorted Christians.
*Pause.*
God be with you.

At 12 every church bell in Athens started tolling and people were setting off firecrackers like Dooms day. I suspect Athens Fire Department has one hell of a time every Easter.

April 15

Easter Sunday

I still have red Easter egg dye on my hands. I hope this doesn't symbolized the blood of Christ, or else I'd be disturbed. It's washed off a bit, so now I'm rosy fingered. Everything is closed. Wed took the bus to Syntagma and went up some hill by tram. It was windy, and you could see the Acropolis from the top, and from the 100 drachma pay telescope. There was a church on top, like in defiance of the Parthenon lower down.

(Chinese characters meaning: Big Earth Flower Bloom
Made in Hunan China
Fireworks in 03
BE 62150
Caution
Spins on ground emits flame and sparks
use only under close adult supervision. For outdoor use only. Place on hard flat surface. Do not hold in hand. Light fuse & get away.)

Spent the afternoon walking around at Plaka. McDonalds was open and I had spring rolls. It must be horrible working there, having to speak all sorts of languages and deal with tourists who have no change. Plaka was almost all closed except some tourist shops and jewellry shops, so we went around the agora, and residential areas, tavernas roasting lamb, and lively open parts of Plaka. My last daytime view of Athens.

The alternative evening was just scary. Basically "all the tourists you can cram in one taverna." It really was a fire hazard. Really longass tables and stuff. Scott got pulled up to belly dance, Nick got pulled up to do the drinking dance, which is pretty much how it sounds.

JEFF GOT LOCKED IN THE BATHROOM.

Dammit. Okay. Now Jeff can stop bugging me about putting that in my journal. The knob came off and he started ramming the door until Jane came to save him. Mrs. Bryant got to kiss one of the Bozouki guys.

April 16

Monday

Drove through Athens, for the last time. Sims' alarm clock fell on the floor and we never got a wake up call, so we ended up waking up to Nick banging on the door at 3:10 in the morning. The power went out repeatedly, causing our lights to go out and the elevators to fail. Greek elevators have no doors, by the way. We had to drag our luggage down five flights of stairs. And now we've been waiting for an hour in line for the check in.

Okay. No one expects a two-week old airport to function smoothly the wee hours after Easter, but you'd think it'd be more efficient. As in, not jogging/running through an empty airport to the gate.

Wherein Angie Gardens

Stayed inside parked on a couch most of the weekend in order to read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (OoP), which I awaited with anticipation from midnight Saturday to the middle of the afternoon, when it arrived in the mail. Am about halfway through. Received the shock of realization that Cassie Claire is indeed the superior writer, stylistically, to JK Rowling, and also the shock that one minor but extremely specific thing speculated about in fanfiction (can't remember for the life of me which authors) actually came to pass. I suppose I should've seen it coming by rereading the last few chapters in Goblet of Fire, which I did belatedly. But at any rate, (good ol' JK Rowling) nothing beats Potter canon. Some of Harry's newfound teenage angst is overdone (I wish people would stop talking in capital letters) but on the whole the additional complexity to the plot is truly mind-blowing, in a good (really good) way. It's like dunking your head in cold water, when you first start reading. I think this may be my favorite HP book yet.

Potter reminds me of an IB student, complete with sleepless nights, too many afterschool activities, cramming for standardized tests, and useless classes with no practical application. Kudos.

Also, I went to help Doug do his Eagle project on Sunday. You know that garden at Twinbrook library? No? Well, there is one now. It's purty. Andrew Durfor, but not Rob (who just came home from vacation, the lazy bum, so we harangued him via cell phone), was there too, so we made a very nice dork Troika. We sporadically broke into song (dorky songs too, like Istanbul Constantinople, and Knights of the Round Table) as we heaved, shoveled and carted around topsoil and manure, and planted marigolds and azaleas and artistically big rocks, and sprayed each other with the water hose. When Doug makes Eagle, he'll be the Praetorian Guard of the Boy Scouts. You go, Doug! You're an elite killing machine!

Wherein Angie Prods her Skewed Worldview and Muses on the Scheme of Things

On Friday, after fencing, went to Ruchita's party and watched Devdas. I didn't do much socializing between the movie and the swarm of Nick B's girlfriends around the strawberry wafers. Apparently, people at the party were loud so people couldn't hear the movie, but it has subtitles, for God's sake. I never thought noise was much of a problem unless people really really want to hear the Hindi. (But in any case, Ruchita got very angry at the socializing swarm around the food table, not that helped quiet things down anyway.)

Aishwarya-Rai is a very beautiful actress, but her role as a tragic romantic heroine was ruined for me on sporadic intervals when she would suddenly, for some unknown reason, remind me of Elaine from Seinfeld. *shrug*

I spent the rest of the evening being confused, because India's always the type of country that Other People live in. Normal People live in The American Empire which dominates the North American Continent and swallows all of poor Canada. They also live in the UK and Europe, which is like the American Empire except better dressed and with silly accents. Then there's China and naturally inferior China-like satellite states (who wish they were us, the poor dears). Then there's Japan, a version of Asia that's clean and hip. Everywhere else is a Heart of Darkness, though India is acknowledged every once in a while as that wild and quaint country to the west of China, where travelling monks go to retrieve Buddhist scriptures, and from where sternly bearded men emigrate to Hong Kong to become bank security guards.

Those exoticized paper puppets who do live in India usually dwell in some sort of vague and mythic jungle between turbans and curry and elephants, kind of like a happy National Geographic theme park.

So that in having the hero and heroine and family and love and weddings and jealousy (and all the things usually within the jurisdiction of Normal People) all exist within this mystic wonderland, Devdas might as well have been set on Mars.