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.

I had a happy dream over Break involving Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, and lots of hot chocolate.

They were clothed though. In really poofy winterwear.

Went to dinner with my mom's friend and her daughter Marie, which is why I had to excuse myself from watching a third movie. I was actually a bit grateful, because there weren't that many good movies to pick from in the first place and after two (movies, not necessarily good), it was like, oh ugh. It's sort of depressing that Marie and her mom are going to Hong Kong for two weeks- Marie speaks very bad Chinese, so that she speaks half in Chinese and half in English, which I found annoying me slightly even though I knew she couldn't help it. I mean, she could've just spoken all in English since we all understood it anyways. When she's going to Hong Kong she's going to be living in a hotel. This is what depresses me about the whole affair- with her horrid Chinglish and her living in a hotel and her mother having to consult a map to get to even the most obvious landmarks (this was what the dinner mainly was; my mom showing her mom places on a map), everyone's going to treat her like a foreigner. She's going to go to Hong Kong and (in my imagination, because what else would you do in Hong Kong?) visit the giant bronze Buddha statue on Lantau Island, Ocean Park with its shiny new roller coaster, Victoria Peak, Hong Kong Park, Central with its pinnacles of modern architecture, and the Jumbo floating restaurant, and when she gets home she's going to talk all about how pretty Hong Kong and Victoria Harbour is at night, just like a tourist. And in general, just have a wonderful time, which is all good for her.

I'm not any less American than she is, but somehow when I get to Hong Kong, because I can speak Chinese fluently, suddenly I ought to be a genius on the proper greeting of your ancient grandparents and strange distantly related cousins by blood or marriage, and when I go to church I ought to be able to make pleasant and witty conversation with my cousins' fellowship despite the fact that I've never met most of them and I haven't even been in the same hemisphere for the last year, let alone belong to the same religion or read the same language or watch the same tv shows. You know why I suck at foreign languages? It's because I hate sounding like such a retard all the time- I'm native level in Chinese, and I still can't get the words to say what I want them to say.

Went on a three day cruise with an onshore excursion in Xiamen, China. It's in Fujian. Actually, it's more like one whole day, being that we actually sailed on Wedsneday evening from Hong Kong, and returned to Hong Kong at 2 in the afternoon on Friday. I was on the ship, and after the "wow, it's just like a hotel on land!" novelty of it, I sort of got quickly unappreciative because it.. well.. was just like a hotel on land. With elevators and stuff. That you were stuck in and made you nauseous. I'm so ungrateful. Overall though, I enjoyed spending time with my family. Uno is universal.. as are video games.. especially in an arcade with fake sniper rifles, and bikes that you can tilt on to change your direction as opposed to a joystick. And teaching everyone how to make music by running your finger around the rim of a drinking glass. I enjoyed just watching the sea, if there's anything to watch, most of the trip being just.. blue. The Roman- themed pool and the spa were great (though the chlorine started getting to my head after a while), especially with the water sloshing around from the ship tilting. I didn't know- I guess I should have- that ships roll, unlike airplanes, which rock up and down. It's more unpleasant than airplanes, unfortunately. The pool was like a mini wave pool, and I like ocean breezes. And the whole design was really cheerful and comfortable, though I ate too much. This came from the great idea from my family that since buffets are free, but our tickets automatically gave us $500 HK dollars to spend on food, that we should go to both the buffets and the pay restaurants to get the best of the free buffet food and the more formal pay food ($500 worth would be paid for by our tickets whether we spent that much on food or not).. Which means two meals for each meal. GAH. Best California rolls I've ever had though.

Possibly the most ghetto nighttime onboard entertainment I have ever seen though.. Random people in sequins dancing badly to really loud music to really tacky pyrotechnics involving a laser beam swinging into the crowd blinding it. Yes, Nick, more ghetto than the Greek dude trying to sing in Japanese. At least that was "cultural." I did, however, have my picture taken with a dude in a giant bunny suit. After returning from Xiamen, I tried to sneak into the casino, but this did not work because they were closing the casino anyhow because we were entering Hong Kong waters, and gambling is not allowed in Hong Kong. Hmm, I also wondered how the "Ladies of Love" night time show was, which I probably could've sneaked into as well...

Yes, Mainland (nickname: Big Green) China is now officially the most ghetto place I have ever been. Not so much as ghetto, but totally random. Let me demonstrate. Visualize what I'm about to say, instead of just reading over it, otherwise you won't understand me.

It is nighttime in July, and it is hot and humid. You see a large mall. Right in front of it, is not a parking lot, but a tiny lawn, maybe the size of a blacktop. There are large green spotlights pointed at the grass, so that it's a nice crayony shade of green, as if someone thought, "Damn, the grass should be green." Without thinking that grass isn't green at night. On the grass is some metal playground equipment. You know, swings, slides, etc. There's maybe a hundred people, coming and going into/from the mall, green kids (the lights doing their job) playing on the playground and random people sitting. On the grass. There are poles on the grass. There are Christmas lights shaped like fireworks on the poles. Around this whole scene are colonial style apartments badly in need of repair. There is a giant KFC sign in Chinese. Looming above the sign is a crane. And a clocktower.

I'm not sure if I'm getting across, but what I was thinking looking out at this was.. What the hell???

A fairly dumb tour.. we went to the beach, and just stood around acting like idiots, since it was blistering hot, even with the free fans and free water we were given. I hate beaches. The only thing distinctive about it was that you could see Taiwan. Chinese tea ceremony demonstration.. good tea.. but I didn't understand the Mandarin, and didn't pay attention to the Cantonese. Went to a nifty Buddhist shrine and ate a vegetarian meal there. The cooks were amazing- they could make everything taste like meat. They made fried glutton that tasted like pork kabob, and had some strange fungi mushroom thing diced up to taste like calamari, and mushrooms basted to taste like sea cucumbers, and some awesome vegetarian pan fried noodles.

July 1; the fifth anniversary of Hong Kong's transfer back to China. Got to watch fireworks from Fish's balcony over Victoria Harbour at night, and a loony human rights protestor on a bridge surrounded by cops on my way to get some lunch (not that all human rights protestors are loony; this one was.) I filmed the fireworks. But I saw the footage again and it's extremely jerky. I wonder how the fireworks on the Mall were (I suppose now it's the morning of July 5th in the US.)

Am in Hong Kong. Actually, I've been here for a week or so (starting on the 24th of June) but was too lazy to blog.

It is all normal. It looks very good at night, sparkly like it's Christmas or something (Christmas in Hong Kong is demented by the way... too many lights...), but in the daytime, it's dirty. Japan creeps me out because it's an Asian country and clean. Has been 33 degrees C out, and I wish we'd turn on the air con. The fan is trying very hard, to its credit. This is part of the reason why I escape to my cousin Fish's apartment (flat, my bad) ... because my grandma is worse than Nick B's dad. I don't think she's let a meal pass without commenting on my fatness (when people comment that I've lost weight she immediately goes, "No she hasn't!") And she serves fish at every meal and gets hella angry if I don't eat it (despite eating other things). Evil..I hate having a mouthful of bones- it's like eating a skeleton, especially since choking on a bone when I was little and having to be taken to a hospital.

And semi-escaping from my other cousin's flat because a) he's starting to inherit his dad's temper (this being the type of model family where the father is the disciplinarian and the mother is the nurterer- so that the daughter is extremely compliant and my other cousin is starting to yell at his mom..) Also, he's been running around shouting, having spiked his hair like David Beckham and is wearing a "Brasil" soccer (read, real football) jersey. Also, I have to go to church with them, which althought it hasn't been as offensive as it was last year (we got to watch videos on "converting the natives of Africa") but it's still awkward because I don't know anyone and people think I'm weird because I eat pizza with my hands.

Anyhow. Fish has been teaching me how to play Counterstrike. Yay, FPS. And "Typing of the Dead." Type or die!

I thought the holidays would suck because my mom would be home from work and hence with me 24/7, but it hasn't. It's been nice. Most of all, it's been nice to feel like I totally don't have anything to do. Well, I do, but it doesn't matter right. Now. Ah, the luxury of time.

There, Alex. I blogged.