Monday, August 25, 2008

Hania

According to our tried and trusted friend, The Lonely Planet's Greece, the number one highlight to see in the Greece is the Akropolis. (They especially recommend catching it under a full moon... Emily and I felt fortunate enough just to find it...) Number two on their list, though, is Hania Old Town. Hania is on the northern shore of western Crete and is the 3rd largest city on the island. The center of the city is a modest square with a modest fountain (we were clearly underwhelmed at this point) that leads you to the most picturesque harbor I've ever even seen pictures of. Every picture book and calendar of Greece has at least 1 if not 2 shots of this harbor.


With its half-circle arch of colorful homes and shops around the clear blue harbor and the old Venetian Wall built across the water, closing in the harbor to a small opening, Hania Old Town affords the unique opportunity of being able to walk in a full circle around it, capturing a truly incredible view from anywhere you stand or look. Whether you're standing on the wall between the Mediterranean and the harbor, looking in at the restaurants spilling onto the sidewalks, or looking out at the colorful boats heading towards the lighthouse, it seems too freaking cute to be true.

Our hostel, Villa Venezia (in blue letters) was right on the harbor, smack in the center (I tell you, I can really pick 'em). With our quaint little room (though whose mattresses felt like cardboard) looking into an adorable cobblestone alley adorned with a pink flowering plant and framed by a stone archway inscribed in Greek and Latin.

Intending to check out the lighthouse first, we found another exit of our building that led to this alley instead of the harbor. Our somewhat suspish innkeeper had given us a brochure of things to see in Hania, but nowhere on it was "wander up and down its colorful labyrinthine alleyways practically in tears of awe and joy", which is too bad for the brochure because that's all we did all morning.





In between wandering into handmade craft stores and staying away from the shlock-city alleys (after deeming it such in disgust, I immediately hoped the relatively fluent shopkeepers' English vocab didn't include "shlock-city"), we again took countless pictures: a doorway here, a vined staircase there, or, most notably, a window display whose picture turn out to be less memorable than the bird that shat on my head as the photo was being taken.
Emily said that as soon as I cried "What was THAT!", she knew.
It took me a second later, when I turned my head up, only to see a disappearing bird tail on the windowsill above.



I promptly dumped our water bottle on my hair, and, if I do say so myself, was a damn good sport about the whole thing, as my demeanor clearly demonstrates. Good times.





Our best find by far was a 16th century synagogue. The place was modest, fit snug into the surrounding buildings and alleyways, but draped in greenery, its mood somber and spiritual. It was cool and quiet, and felt even a little spooky, as if it hadn't been used in years.


On the way back to the courtyard with a lily-pad-
covered pool of goldfish and a cracked stone tablet of Hebrew with plants growing up between, we read the plaque dedicating the place to the entire congregation of 300 that was taken away by Nazis in 1944.

We wandered in reverence before talking to the curator with remarkably good English, whom we have since named "Joe" for lack of any knowledge of what his name actually is. Joe told us abut how the synagogue was founded by Jews who had been in Crete for so many generations they were considered Hellenistic, and about how after the population was taken away, the building fell into disrepair. It was revived by a British botany enthusiast and is aided by a PhD candidate, plu this Joe guy, a native Greek who spent much of his childhood in Rhode Island. He moved back to Hania where he'd visited his grandparents growing up because, well, wouldn't you?

We totally dug Joe and tried to get him to come to lunch with us, but being tied to the synagogue for the day, he gave us a recommendation for a place that was once a Turkish Bath instead. After wandering into the kitchen to ask if someone would please mind serving us, we had yet another delicious meal (me, however, not brave enough to eat Emily's whole anchovies). At the end, for reasons wholly unbeknownst to us, we were brought a small carafe of a chilled clear liquid, 2 little shot glasses and two dense, moist clumpy cakes. Eyebrows cocked, we delicately sniffed the liquid, tentatively ruled out it being ouzo, the local version of wine and upon tasting it, we conclusively determined it to be vodka. We suspiciously looked around the restaurant (no one else had any), checked out watches (it was barely after noon), and took a brief moment to confirm that we were not, in fact, in Russia.

Unfortunately, the cake wasn't that good, nor was the vodka when sipped (does one even sip vodka? out of shot glasses? really?) but by no means were we going to do vodka shots in a former Turkish Bath at noon. But, then again, we figured this was Greek hospitality at its finest, and, as they (apparently) say, let it "wash our necks".

The rest of the day's highlights included the lovely lighthouse, a beach filled with, oh let's call them "vivacious" youngsters (not to mention a particularly unabashed naked man), and at least 2 impromptu naps.

I feel we are experiencing Greece to its fullest.

Friday, August 22, 2008

The Oldest City In Europe

Armed with our copy of The Lonely Planet's Greece in hand, Emily and I decided to tackle Greece by attempting to follow their walking tour from our centrally located hostel. (And please do consider this an unabashedly shameless plug for their glorious publication.) We meandered up cozy ("Narrow," Emily later corrected) cobblestone streets, attempted to decipher Greek street names (I have yet to confess aloud that my newfound comprehension of the Greek alphabet makes me feel like a secret agent), and ended up in the main square of Athens before officially ditching the tour in favor of finding the Akropolis. The square was unimpressive, aside from its history for housing demonstrations that led to: the king's granting of Greece's first constitution in 1843, the beginning of Greece's civil war in 1944 (after open police fire, cool!) and the union of Greece with Cyprus in 1954. As you read this, you can pretend that you totally knew about Greece and Cyprus already, it's cool.

In this bustling square, Emily and I also happened upon our roommates from the previous night playing cards in the grass. Unfortunately, we had not actually met them, persay, as they we arrived after they'd already fallen asleep and woke after they'd already left. We stood there for a moment, debating how likely it was that they'd recognize our faces since we were on the top bunks (clearly not very), or just how awkward it'd be to waltz up and join them anyway. Knowing ourselves as well as we do, we wrote off the certainly awkward encounter and trekked on in search of The Most Important Site In European History.

One set of directions (from a quite friendly man in a car rental shop) told us to ride the metro. Now, building an underground transportation system under any major city is going to be a nauseatingly difficult undertaking. Digging, tunnelling, excavating under a thriving metropolis? Yeah, no thanks. But when a city like Athens attempts to tunnel under their thriving metropolis, they encounter the countess remains of millenia of other thriving metropoli. So think of Boston's Big Dig and add a few more years, a few more billions of dollars, and actually legit excuses. What they're left with is an effective beautiful new system with museums of baller archeological relics at each station. Man--other cities dig and hit cumbersome rock enbackments, but Athens digs and hits terracotta aquaducts, graves of Homerian-era soldiers and ornate mosaic floors. I was totally geeking out down there.

I should probably take a minute to admit our obvious tourist-status. Armed with our passport wallets slung across our shoulder, backpacks in tow, camera straps attaching our cameras to our bodies (when they're not glued to our faces) and Greek phrasebook in hand, we unabsedly trek our way along, our earnest faces seeking our adventure (or our weary ones, seeking shelter). As silly as I might feel, taking pictures of mosaic floors or sleeping dogs in the curb, I figure I'm only here once and my dignity is well worth the momento.

So all of Athens is in a valley of sorts, surrounded by mountains to the north and the ocean to the south, but right in the middle of the sprawling city of 5 million is a towering mountain visible from almost anywhere in the city. As you walk up, you pass ancient landmarks--the temple of Athena Nike as well as the Theater of Dionyseus where the plays of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Eurypedies (thanks, GTL!) were performed in the 5th century BC--and you can feel how spectacular the view is going to be. (And if you're like Emily and I, you may well keep squealing in anticipation as the view gets better and better.)

All the buildings on the mountain comprise what we know as the Akropolis, which means "high city". Through the 6th century BC people actually lived up there until it was deemed exclusively for worship and government affairs around 500BC. You really break a sweat hiking up that thing on a August afternoon, but all of a sudden: It's There. The giant Parthanon stands looming atop this breathtaking (get it?) mountain, its giant marble pillars supported by an extensive iron rod infrastructure which seems well worth its unsightly toll to me.

You stand there, torn between staring at it or at the view of beautiful white and yellow homes and buildings stretching for miles. Blue domes peak out between the red rooftops with craggy mountain ridges in the background. You could stand and marvel at how in Zeus's name they lugged countless tons of marble up this mountain thousands of years ago, or you could wistfully stare, head cocked just slightly, at the sparkling mediterranean, just in the distance.

Odds are, you'll spend 30 minutes fruitlessly trying to capture the beauty on film before finding an English-speaking tourist to take a photo of you with your hair blowing in your face--or, if you're me, before realizing sunscreen has leaked all throughout your bag and trying to salvage your possessions by wiping off the sunscreen onto your gritty skin (and getting yelled at for getting some onto an apparently valuable block of marble you've chosen to sit on).

However you do it, the experience will rock pretty hard. Especially if you are a student and do the whole thing for free.

All in all it wasn't so bad for an unintended day in Athens, and before we could even reflect on it, we were off to our ferry to begin our time in the isles.

The first day, always taxing

Our first day was, even if all went accordingly to plan, going to be a rather long one. First to Memphis, whose airport looked exactly like a the inside of a chemistry building, as Emily put it (I was feeling more towards the geophysical sciences, but I agreed nonetheless). Then we flew to Norway from Memphis with a bunch of Norwegians. Emily was seated next to a rather unhappy-looking young woman who declined my request to swap for my window seat two rows up, so Emily and I rode apart. (Apparently this girl spent her 8 hours doing absolutely nothing, so I don't really see what the big deal was, but hey.) But let's take a moment to reflect on just how bizarre flying (esp. transatlantic-ly) is. Herded into our tiny pens, strapped to seats like calves waiting to become veal, we are fed and watered one by one, and are wracked with guilt even to request to step past the attendant's cart to go to the bathroom. In a large communal space we all attempt to fall asleep in chairs, despite having no room to recline nor anything to lean against (save a likely disgruntled neighbor, though if having someone be angry at you in English blows, having someone be angry at you in Norwegian could very well be hilarious, come to think of it). Then, a relatively arbitrary amount of time later, the sun has surrounded us and we stumble out of the plane, plucked from one time and place and tossed into another. I can't say I much care for it.

Our last leg to Athens was filled mostly with an Asian student tour group quite full of energy--videotaping the take off and then their own (amusing, I'm sure) shenanegans, and bursting into applause upon a bumpy landing--but we sat in the exit row (roomy!) with a friendly British gent (I wanted to say 'bloke' but figured I couldn't pull it off) who works out of St. Louis and travels all over. He assured us that traveling quickly loses its glamour, which I had to admit was easily believable. And as if to make certain we took his words to heart, we land, ready to make our speedy commute to Pireaus to catch our ferry, only to rather wearily discover that while we had make our tight connection in Amsterdam (even with a passport briefly left at customs--where, by the way, they apparently give you a thumbs up for bringing a small plant in a burlap pouch filled with soil, no joke), our bags had not been so fortunate. After many rounds of tedious navigation, communication and negotiation involving 3 information desks, a lesson in Greek payphones (lesson learned: I cannot follow directions in Greek.), 4 hours in the Athens airport, and a rather surly store attendant (apparently in Greece it is not kosher to buy a pack of gum with a 50 Euro bill), we got our bags and got on the metro for our evening's back-up plan--a hostel in central Athens. Props to Emily Moss for telling me to book that one, though I should probably be mad for you jinxing us. After waiting on the empty metro that looked fit for deep space travel, it finally got moving and dropped us off a few blocks from the hostel.

At this rather late hour in the evening (Dear Mom: it was still daylight, I swear.), I can not report that we got the warmerst welcome to Athens. We found our hostel alright, dropped our things and asked where to find some food. On this mini-adventure, Emily and I were struck by a few things (metaphorically? physically? you'll see!). One, Athens is not very clean--but for this, I think we can forgive Europe's oldest city. Two, Athens is populated with mangy stray dogs. Everywhere. Not cats,dogs. Big ones. What the hell. Lastly, Athens is home to some sketchy teenagers. On this particular evening some took the liberty of informing us that we looked 14 years old (and boy was he a looker himself), while others thoughtfully threw jelly beans at us as we ate our "parisienne crepe". But perhaps most memorably of all, we at one point turned a corner only to find a rather large group of sexily dressed teenaged girls.
"Why Emily," I remarked. "It almost looks as if that girl is wearing just a shirt and a thong. How odd!"
And indeed 5 or so were proudly displaying their butts ("Such beautiful butts," Emily later recounted wistfully) while another half dozen or so were in the process of pulling on their pants. We were stuck (fortunately not by a physical object this time) with shock, awe, and earnest confusion as we attempted to casually thread through this group, assembled on the sidewalk as if waiting for a play to start. I think the best part of this introductory experience in Athens was the jaw-dropped expression of horror on the face of a European tourist mother ahead of us, her head turned away from the girls, as if to confirm with us that the experience was indeed out of the ordinary. We smirked and shrugged at her, after all, for all we knew this was just another night in Athens.

[End Day One]

Thursday, August 21, 2008

A Ferry and A Look at the Natives

Forgive me as these posts will not likely be chronological. We are here on day three, using free internet in the back of a restaurant in Hania... After a day's delay in Athens we are safely here in Hania, on the northern side of Western Crete. We spent the evening on a huge cruiser, sleeping like sailors in our bunks. Following the rambunction crowd's lead, we pulled up chairs to the edge of the deck for our late evening departure and slowly watched the lights of Pireus (Athen's port city for millienia) fade into pitch black. I recounted my favorite Roald Dahl sotry to Emily, where a man jumps into the ocean off a transatlantic liner, intending to be saved but is only witnessed by a crazy man whose testimony is written off. We spectulated how far from shore we could fall in and still swim to safety; our conclusion was "not far". The cruise provided for some excellent people-watching--mostly European tourists, some Greeks (August is when the locals return to their hometowns to reconnect and celebrate being Greek), and many young people armed with intense backpacks and sleeping bags. We have observed so far that 1) everyone in Europe smokes, 2) European women dress trendy at a much older age than American women bother (think hot pink heels that match a dress's trim, for heaven's sake), and 3) that European men are creepy. Well, that they are often attractive despite their greasy locks, but the older and less-accompanied they are, the creepier. We ate a delicious cheese pastry (enas, parakalo) and read under the orange moon before calling it a night.

We had (we thought) 2 roomates in our double-bunk cabin, complete with mini-bathroom and the most fantastic showerhead I have ever experienced. It practically misted you, its stream was so fine. If love could be personified (de-personified?) in bathroom appliance-form, this would have been it. Our roommates seemed to be two Greeks, a youngish mother with dyed auburn hair, and her adorable blonde daughter with a ridicuous quasi-mullet haircut. There's something about young children in a foreign tongue that makes you feel at once so inadequate and yet so enamored you briefly consider the consequences of international child abduction. Her mother opened up some sort of prepackaged Barbie goodie bag, much to her glee, and we surrupticiously (forgive the lack of english spell check) observed as she rifled through its contents. She settled on a dart gun (eerily resembling a black handgun) and we crossed the language barrier by speaking the international language: pretending to get repeated stricken with a dart and feigning dramatic death. It was quite fantastic.

We took advantage (as I have already adamantly referenced) of the shower after a hot, sticky, sunscreeny day in Athens, myself going first. I do my thing, dry off with a postage stamp-sized towel, emerge into our bitty room and was immediately concerned that I had somehow exited into the wrong room: I am horrifiedly witnessing an old Greek lady wrestling into a pair of panties. Apparently our new friends were sharing a bed, blessing us with roommate #5. I've read a bit about Greek culture, and this lady seemed to have possessed a few quirks they hold: 1) Voyeurism is kosher. Greeks apparently love their gossip (think My Big Fat Greek Wedding, I suppose) and the local news goes all-out (we watched cameras zoom in on a sobbing newly-widowed woman after the Madrid crash). They observe, they pry, they judge. All in good faith, of course. In such small quarters as we were, with strangers, most would avoid eye contact or engage in brief, miserable small talk for formality's sake, but with our newest friend I felt distinctly as though we were being acutely examined. Trait # 2) was passive-aggressive bossiness. Perhaps this is a trait--and do forgive me--among matriarchs everywhere, but watching her run the room from her little corner was quite amusing. When Emily kept her reading light on after the others were extinguished, she received indignant huffs in her direction. When the time came for our friend to wake (read: 4:30 am) before our wee-morning arrival, the time came for all of us to wake. And just like that, she disappeared from our lives as silently as she had entered.

In the dark by the harbor we befriended an English transplant (the local men are known for their foreign, once-tourist brides) with whom we rode the bus into town, who quite openly gave us the scoop. We passed a beautiful fish market and arrived in the square by the old Venetian Harbor by 7am. Much of Crete was inhabited and run by the Venetians (back before Italy was a unified country) for much of the second millenium, and this little harbor--home to our current hostel--is heart-meltingly picturesque. Sitting right along the edge of the harbor on the cobblestone pedestrian street, we ate an exquisite breakfast featuring fresh Greek yogurt and fruit as the sun rose along the beautiful buildings. (Emily was too right, Greek yogurt does NOT disappoint.) We're about to explore and head out to the lighthouse--Greece's oldest!--a 1.5 km walk along the old harbor wall. Our British friend scolded us for not budgeting more time in this lovely town, but we're off to make the best of it.

(I can't access a USB port on this computer without super-awkwardly climbing into this desk, so this entry will be updated with photos ASAP!)

Lots of love,
Jessie

Monday, August 18, 2008

GREECE

So here I am, in typical Jessie fashion--about to leave for the airport in 1.5 hours, mostly unfinished packing, and doing something that entertains me more instead! Emily and I have quite the epic journey ahead of us before we end up at our first destination in Western Crete. It will go down something like this:
Fly to Memphis (clearly the international hub of the US...)
Fly to Amsterdam, not seated next to each other :_(, hopefully endure colorful/strange company on the plane
Arrive in Amsterdam Tuesday morning, Fly to Athens
In 2.5 hours, deftly navigate our way around the airport, find lockers to overpricèdly store put our semester's-worth of luggage, and scoot onto a metro for an hour's commute to the port to...
Hop on an overnight ferry to Hania, the largest prefecture in Crete.

After that it's
2 nights at a hostel in Hania
2 nights at a remote, "mountain retreat" village that advises you to do things like "bring a flashlight as electricity is not consistent" and "have an open mind and open heart, for that is the stuff of life". This was Emily's find, and I am freakin' stoked.
a bus to Heraklion, the largest city in Crete, and either a night "couch-surfing" through the esteemed online network (www.couchsurfing.com, you should go and check out the profiles, they're pretty hilarious) or at a nearby hostel that looks truly beautiful
a ferry to Santorini, where we'll stay for 4 nights and recreate Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to the best of our ability
an all-day ferry back to Athens, completely with scenic view of the islands and Ionian Sea
3 nights in Athens, complete with white-water rafting where the 2004 Olympic Kayaking was? I will go to ridiculous lengths to make sure we do this.
After that, we fly to Paris and Valencia, respectively to begin our semesters abroad!

I hope to update regularly--we plan to hit up internet cafés that seem to be all the rage in Greece, but we'll have to see!

I hope to hear from you guys, via email or posting.
Lots of love!
Jessie