Greece! (Corfu and Athens)

After some ferry complications on my way to Greece, I spent two days on the island of Corfu, one day in Athens, and then another day back on Corfu. The hostel is famous for it's booze cruise, but most of the attendees were about 20 and the activities sounded a bit immature and/or vulgar. So, instead I did a kayak tour for five hours on one day. It included a cliff jump. The cliff seemed rather daunting from the top, but once we were in the water and looking back up at it, we realized it was only 30 feet or so. We also stopped to do some snorkeling, which was extremely unexciting. There were a few small, grey fish, but I quickly decided I would rather relax on the beach than waste my time looking at some rocks and seaweed.



I did a quad tour the next day. I don't do a lot of four-wheeling at home, so I had a lot of fun and found that I became comfortable with the steering quite quickly. We went up to the highest point on the island to have lunch and take pictures and played "wasp baseball", which is esentially trying to swat as many wasps with your sandal as possible.

Speaking of sandals... I only brought two pairs of footwear on the trip: one pair of running shoes and one pair of athletic flip flops. They suggested we do the quad tour in flip flops because we were going to stop at the beach. Well, mine wouldn't start with the button on the handle, so I had to kick start it. I definitely broke a flip flop in the process. I was lucky it happened before we left the parking lot because I was able to just run and put on shoes really quick. Another girls' broke halfway through! Anyway, the point of sharing this was to point out that I discovered that it is quite hard to find women's sandals in MY SIZE in Greece. I eventually found a pair that will work as a temporary solution.

I found them in ATHENS, which was my next destination. I had repeatedly heard two things about Athens: 1) it's dirty and 2) you can see everything in one day. Both were accurate. I took an overnight bus from my hostel and arrived in Athens around 7am and then left at 10pm on the return bus back to hostel. I didn't feel like planning or stressing, so I did a five-hour walking tour.

I have always wanted to go to Greece because I had seen pictures of and heard about my parents' trips. I didn't think it was going to be possible this summer, but I am glad it worked out. The Parthenon was obviously impressive, but I actually liked the structure across the acropolis better. It is unique in that it has a set of columns in the shape of women, rather than the traditional styles. It's where Poseidon and Athena competed for the gods to win the right to name and rule the city. Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and made a salt water fountain spring up. At the time, the gods did not understand the importance of water and were more impressed by the olive tree that Athena was able to sprout because it represented future agricultural success. We also saw the 1896 Olympic sight (where the first modern-day Olympics were held), which is now rarely used. In 2004 it was only used for smaller events like archery.

I was surprised to find out that dolmas (aka grape leaves) are a winter product and was unable to have any. However, I did enjoy spanikopita, baklava, and gyros. I also learned that Americans say tzatziki wrong. I have always prnounced it ta-zee-kee, but they pronounce it more similar to how it is spelled. Also, the baklava I had not-surpisingly put the baklava I made for a sixth grade project to shame. Spanikopita was my favorite thing I had though (i.e. spinach pie in a thin pastry dough).

Connecting back up with dad and Jeff could be tricky. We are meeting in about 24 hours and have not really concluded on a time or place. Plus, between the two of us, there's a pretty good chance that either Jeff or I will get delayed. Hopefully it will work out!

Some other random thoughts:

I read three books between Heidelberg and Marseille, but I haven't been able to find a book in English to start back up. Here's a quote from a book I borrowed from the French girl, it's referring to playing the Oregon Trail computer game back in middle school: "I would load up the wagon with people I loathed, like my math teacher. Then I would intentionally lose the game, starving her or fording a river when I knew she was weak." :) My favorite of the three was The Bretheren by John Grisham.

When people ask where I'm from, I normally reply that I am "from The States". It seems like the Europeans use the term "American" more than I do. Don't get me wrong, I'm patriotic, I just don't usually use that word to describe myself.

Jeff and I have agreed that for the last couple weeks, it has been about 10 degrees hotter than our ideal temperature... in Celsius.

My parents are ultimate planners, but it wasn't until my dad got a reminder to check in for his flight that he realized that he thought his flight was a day later than it actually was. He made it to France though and we can't wait to see him in a week!

About halfway through!

Our time in Florence was delayed twice due to our laziness... we just don't enjoy long train rides. When we left Marseilles, we saw the beach in Nice as we were pulling into the station and decided to stay there for two nights. We mostly just relaxed, but we did go to an archaeology museum and up to a chateau that overlooked the city. A Turkish guy came with us and talking with him about the different parts of Turkey made me wish I had time to go. We had socca (a tortilla-type thing, made with olive oil and a special flour) and farcis (like stuffed mushrooms, but with other vegetables such as tomato, onion, and zucchini). After the chataeu we went to the beach, which had pebbles instead of sand. It was our first time in the Medditerranean! It was predictably quite warm, but surprisingly salty... seemingly more so than the Pacific Ocean. So that was one thing off the to-do list!



Our next attempt to get to Florence came up short as well. We decided to stop in Milan for two days. We didn't really want to do all the shopping that Milan is known for, but we did go see the gothic-style duomo (aka cathedral... most Italian cities have a duomo and accompanying plaza). While making dinner in our hostel kitchen (with extra garlic because we heard it keeps away the mosquitoes), we met a bunch of people. Long story short, we decided it would be a good night for beer pong! We played with an American, a Canadian who looked like a 6'5" Jesus, four Germans who go to an American school in Berlin, an Australian girl from Nepal, and a Scottish guy. The Canadian had the most elaborate beer pong shot wind-up I've ever seen... it took about seven seconds and lots of twisting and leaning. We only allowed it because it was ridiculously effective. The Germans knew the rules surprisingly well, but were not very skilled (although I considered one to be the German version of BT, for those of you who know that reference). I guess that is precisely the reason we bought ping pong balls... to spread it to Europe and improve the competition. As usual, it was a very impromptu game... the idea was suggested at 8:55 and the store closes at 9:00. We rushed to the store and got there right at 9, but luckily an Italian girl who just wanted to buy water got there at the same time and was able to coerce the store worker to let just her and Jeff in. As Jeff was walking in he asked over his shoulder how many he should buy. At the time there were four of us planning to play, so I said 30. He comes out four minutes later holding two large cases of Heineken, announcing that he bought 30 for €40. We all thought they were kind of expensive until we realized he had bought 30 half-liter bottles. :) Long story short, I teamed up with an 18-yr old American who had toured around with us that day and ran the table for four games... then the alcohol started to hit us a bit and we lost our touch. Still, when I can make two-thirds of the cups for my team and beat a team where fratastic Jeff is the weaker player, it's a proud night.


One of my friends from undergrad studied abroad in Florence, so she had lots of good tips. I had the gelato that she dubbed "the best in Florence" twice (Jeff had it three times) and it lived up to it's reputation... the melon and house special were particularly good.

The duomo in Florence is gorgeous, with white, pink, and green marble. I've never seen anything like it and it is the fourth largest cathedral in the world. We climbed over 400 stairs, including some very narrow and windy passages, to see the huge and varying painting inside the top of the duomo's dome. We also were able to go on the outside balcony to enjoy a view of the city. We also saw the Boboli Garden and extensive Uffizi museum.



Today (Saturday) we saw Micheangelo's "David" sculpture. It is huge... maybe fifteen feet. It was built out of extra marble that was left over from the duomo and it is amazing to think about how large the original piece of marble probably was. We also did an afternoon trip to Pisa, which is only 80 minutes from Florence. It was definitely the most touristy I've felt and we basically took the obligatory pictures, had gelato and then left.


Since I successfully introduced Jeff to gnocchi (my favorite Italian pasta) our first night here, I think we are going to search for pizza tonight and then hopefully head back to the hostel for some beer pong with some Australian guys we met yesterday who have been travelling since April.

Tomorrow will be the first time Jeff and I split up. It'll be good to have a break from each other and I've already been to Rome. So, while he's there, I am heading to Greece for four or five days before we meet up with our dad to do some hiking in southern France.

This would be much less boring with pictures... sorry.

France

So, we intended to get to Florence on Saturday when we were leaving Marseille. We've found, however, that we are pretty lazy travelers and don't like spending long amounts of time on the train. So we stopped for a day in Nice and now Milan. Thank goodness it has nothing to do with Milan the person, for those of you who know the Rome 2008 story. Anyway, we plan to relax for a few days in Florence, starting tomorrow and then I think Jeff may head to Rome and I might go to Greece for a few days.

The girl we couch surfed with in Marseille was a much better host... She had lots of space for us and was really friendly. Bastille Day was one of only a couple major to-dos on our travel itinerary, so we were surprised to find out that they mostly just look at it as an extra day off work. The city shot off some fireworks, but nothing overly spectacular... definitely not any better than the Oak Hills show on the Fourth. I was talking about all this with a Scottish guy on the train yesterday and he said, "what do you guys do on the 4th of July anyway, sit around and watch that Will Smith movie?" He was, of course, referring to Independence Day... and I thought that was quite hilarious.

The French girl also took us to this little hidden pond in the trees by her house... it was run off of some sort that accumulated into a pool of water in a shady glen. We were the only ones there and it was very relaxing.

Leaving Marseille

We are leaving Marseille to head to Italy... a country that loves food and basketball as much as I do: nice!

On the Road Again...

The German keyboard with the z and y switched was confusing enough, but the French keyboard is even more mixed around... I feel like an 8 year-old, staring at the keyboard. haha

Heidelberg was nice. We trekked up a pretty big hill in the afternoon sun to see it's castle. That's the problem with castles! Ya, ya, ya, they're built in locations that strengthen defense, but is it really THAT important to see the enemy coming? I'd really appreciate at least one city deciding that they'll probably lose the battle anyway and just building their castle at normal ground level. Maybe not.

Our host was friendly and answered a lot of our questions about German culture, but he was also a self-proclaimed nerd. He has a ton of semi-hobbies, but the one that he is actually committed to is "live role playing". Basically it's like improv, but everyone wears a costume of some character they've pre-conceived. Most of them are more scary or creepy (e.g. a zombie or samauri), but my favorite one that he told us about was a folk singer who kills people with his singing. Not surprisingly, most of the people in the group aren't that into folk music and it would be "murder to listen to". In any case, he took us to meet up with some friends from this group at a bar. One of his friends had an extrememy bubbly and goofy personality and it was interesting to see that the same personality types exist in every culture... sometimes they are muted through the language barrier.


We visited a friend of mine from grad school who is from the 6,000-person town of Dettelbach, Germany. Her house was awesome--exactly how I might picture a rual/suburban German home to be. It had one of those narrow, winding staircases from the basement to main floor. It had an enclosed patio to relax on and another outdoor patio overlooking a vineyard that we had dinner on. Her family was very hospitable and it was great to see my friend, who is also Lisa.

The first day we went around Würzburg and saw it's castle (no surprise, it was up the hill at the top of the town.) It was about 95 degrees so after a bunch of walking, we went to an outdoor beer garden and relaxed in the shade with Radlers (a mixture of beer and Sprite or lemonade). She also took us to a local lake that was extremely crowded because of the heat. It was extremely refreshing though and fun to see everyone having fun and grilling sausages. The next day we saw her former school (ages 10-18)... we were hoping to visit her mom's English class or dad's PE class, but we messed up their schedules, so it didn't work out.




We wanted to travel Tuesday to be in Marseille for Bastille Day, the French independence day, on the 14th. A lot of the trains that require reservations were full when we checked the day before, so we ended up training through Switzerland and making six transfers to get to Marseille around midnight (because of some delayed trains). We found a hotel that was pretty crummy and overpriced, but it did the trick and we made our way the next morning to the house of the girl who we were supposed to be staying with. We were excited for all the celebrations for the holiday and were surprised to find out that most people just think of it as a day they get off work and the only real difference between it and a Saturday or Sunday is that the city shoots off fireworks at night. Our host, Diane, is actually half-American and one of the friendliest French people I have met. Not speaking any of the language, France is probably not my favorite destination on the trip, but she is really cool. When we got to her house, she had friends over to play guitar and it was fun to listen to them play and sing. One of the them was a girl from Wisconsin, here to take intensive French classes for a month. She is in the process of growing dreads and was a bit of a hippie, but she was friendly and ended up showing us around Marseille before the fireworks. Oh, before that though, Diane took us to a local little watering hole (literally, not a bar) in the middle of some trees. The water was run-off from somewhere and perfectly clear. It's just a small unknown place near her house, so we were the only ones there and it was very relaxing.



Other sidenotes:

Jeff can speak any language you want... just ask him to say the word chicken. It sounds shockingly similar in every language and prounced something to the effect of "bok bok." :)

We had handemade ice cream and their caramel flavor was spicy... and delicious.

It seems like everyone considers themself a nerd in some regard, so I have concluded that you can pretty much break society into two groups: nerds and people who aren't very smart.

First Couch Surf

A couple other things about Prague:

The castle had a cathedral with the most intricate stained glass I have ever seen. My grandpa was a glazer and I couldn't help but think that he would love to see it. In addition to having a lot of detail, the windows also had a variety of color schemes. There was an entire window with a purple theme, which seemed unusual to me.



Along the side of the hill with the castle, we stopped and had lunch at a winery with an amazing view of the city. We each had lunch and two glasses of wine and the bill was only about $25... we enjoyed the view there for over two hours.

We made our way to Heidelberg yesterday and shared a compartment with an American couple from the midwest who were very friendly. We had met them the day before and tried to find the Prague castle together.

Our couch surfing adventures have finally started. We are staying with a 30 year old German guy who hosts someone pretty much every week and is into improv, Japanese martial arts, playing the chello, but not beer... what an unusual German! We cooked dinner for him and his friend last night and it was nice getting to know them. I think he knows more about American cinema than we do.

Okay, off to explore Heidelberg. I'll insert pictures later...

Wigs and Beer... Nice.

Our last week in Copenhagen was relaxing. Jerome, a friend of mine showed Jeff and I around the city. It was great to catch up with him and we had some great views from the top of the Round Tower. On Thursday, I cooked breakfast for the family we stayed with and some teammates because the Danes don't really have pancakes and French toast like we do. I used to make my teammates breakfast before school sometimes last year. The last time I made them pancakes from scratch they tasted like biscuits (not that they knew the difference), but I was glad to redeem my cooking rep! Jeff and I then made dinner for my assistant coach's family and chocolate chip cookies to go along with Galliano shots, another tradition.



Last year we had a pink wig that got passed around on nights out, which is now in pretty ratty condition. Since we were planning on going out on Friday night, we made it mandatory to bring a new wig (or pirate hat in Jeff's case). Christian, a Danish friend from UO met up with us too. It was a crazy night that resulted in 110 pictures, so I will be sure to post some pictures when we get computer access!



On our way to Prague, just before our train got to the Hamburg stop, a man started crying hysterically and yelling "God help me!" and that someone had put something in his coffee. Then he got off without any luggage. We were a bit sketched out and thought he might have been trying to bomb the train so we figured we'd rather be safe than sorry and get off the train. We even told the police about the incident. As far as I know, there weren't any bombings that day, but it turned out to be a great decision! We were in Hamburg for Germany's 4-0 blowout of Argentina! The streets went crazy and we went out with some Brits and Australians that night. The game ended in the late afternoon, but they were honking their horns and yelling the whole night!



Every once in a while the streets would go quiet and then one person would blare their horn and they would fire back up for another hour!

We moved on to Prague, which was the first place new to me on our trip! As I wrote on a friends's postcard today, it's awesome for three reasons: 1) beautiful archictecture, 2) interesting history, and MOST IMPORTANTLY 3) cheap beer. The Wallenstein Garden in Prague had an unusual collection of stalactites in an open courtyard; I have never seen them outside of a cave. There is also an extremely old astronomical clock that does a heck of a lot more than tell time. It gives the astrological time of year, how long it's been since sunset, the sun's position in the sky, and all sorts of other things. The locals say that it's Europe's most disappointing tourist attraction (the clock's movements are underwhelming), but we actually thought it was quite interesting. Still, all the parts were confusing... I think I'll stick with digital.




Also, when Russia tried to invade Prague they planned to do it at midnight, when all the Czechs turn off their radios. Well, Russia was on daylight savings time and it was actually only 11pm in Prague so they had not gone to sleep yet. Word spread that the Russians were coming and all the Czechs removed all the street signs besides the ones directing the Russians back to Moscow! Apparently the Russians got quite confused and it at least delayed their attack til morning. I thought it showed a pretty good sense of humor in stressful times.

We got caught in the rain on our walking tour and the guide was offering umbrellas... I felt that as an Oregonian, I should defer them to the less-adapted Europeans. I also happened to run into a friend from USF, which was crazy.



Our first day here, we went to watch a friend from home play in the World Ultimate Frisbee Club Clampionships... yes, they exist. I had no idea it had such a big following and the tournament was in a stadium built for communist military parades/rallies.



Next, we are moving on to Heidelberg for our first couch surfing experience and then visiting a few friends from graduate school (one who is interning at Adidas and also a German girl who is also named Lisa)!

CPA Exam

I just got a text from my mom that I passed my last section of the CPA exam! What a weight off my shoulders!