Brain dump

Goodbye, Athens!

Hello! I am back at work today and I feel little bits of my vacay slipping away as I catch up on two weeks' worth of work, so I wanted to go ahead and do a brain dump real quick before it all disappears. This might be random, but we'll start out with some semblance of order...

Hello, Alps in Austria!

Sunday was one of the longest travel days of my life. We left Athens at 8 AM, arrived in Frankfurt at 10:30 AM (turbulent landing, since there was a storm in Frankfurt), left Frankfurt at 1:30 PM, arrived in Newark at 3:30 PM, left Newark at 7:45 PM, arrived in Charlotte at 9:50 PM, and my dad picked us up and we arrived at my parents' house at 11:30 PM. All this is local time. 11:30 PM EST would be 6:30 AM Greece time. Since I got up at 5 AM Greece time Sunday, that means I finally got home at 6:30 AM Greece time Monday. That's a long day. I fell asleep in the car.

Police in Athens the last day

The good part was the flight from Frankfurt to Newark wasn't full, so I moved from the middle of a three person row to the row behind me, and there was a space between me and the girl at the window seat. So it was a very comfortable flight! I watched Side Effects and The Dark Knight Rises and the flight went by quickly. Woohoo!

The bad part was border control in Newark. The longest line ever. I'm always reminded during border control how nice it would be if my suitcase had wheels, but I've heard that just adds weight to the backpack part, and as I use the bag primarily in its backpack form, that would be silly. But man. It would have been nice in Newark, as I was dragging it along the ground.

Then I had to drive from NC to Nashville on Monday, and today I am finally back at work. Woo! Once I go running tonight, everything should feel normal again. Jetlag back is much easier to deal with. It's nice to gain 8 hours...

Free bread at dinner the first night in Athens

So now for the brain dump:

- Multiple times while we were in Athens we heard people yelling at people. At the Roman Agora, a man was screaming at someone on the phone. When we first got to Athens, a man was yelling at his wife. This leads me to conclude Greek people yell a lot.

The Roman Agora

- There was Greek yogurt at every breakfast. I like this.
- I felt very, very safe in Greece. Nothing got stolen, no one tried to rip us off. It's nice. A lot of the time people try to rip tourists off. No one tried that in Greece.



- I don't think I saw any overweight people, so maybe all that jazz about Mediterranean diets is true?
- There was some kind of race that went past us on Wednesday afternoon. Cops at the front, but no roads were closed. It was really random and I sorta wanted to join them.
- I didn't see any runners in Germany, but lots of walkers. But I saw quite a few runners in Athens!
- Greek people don't dress as...flamboyantly?...as Germans.
- I heard more British accents than American, especially on Paros.

Storage lockers at Monastiraki metro station

- I am leaving this open as I can add to it throughout the work day as things come to me.
- There were a lot of cops stationed throughout Athens on Saturday. Near the tourist spots, like the Acropolis and the Parliament, and pretty much all over. I heard someone on the bus say it's in case of riots. They did seem to be wearing riot gear (the shield and knee pads).
- There are large storage lockers at Monastiraki metro station. This is very handy when you don't have a nearby hotel and need somewhere to store your luggage while wandering around the Plaka.
- Every meal included free bread and most of them included a sweet "desert" wine in a shot glass. Nice touches.
- There were stray dogs everywhere. It was weird, though, because in Athens they had collars on. Do they tag the strays in Athens?
- I only saw goats once, on the way to Mycenae.
- Bathrooms in Greece were free, unlike in Germany. You couldn't throw paper in the toilet, unlike in Germany.

OK, now for some random photos. I'll post more from my nice camera once I edit them to smaller sizes. Right now they're too huge to deal with.

Paros

Paros

Line to ferry to Paros in Piraeus

Cute frozen yogurt place in Piraeus

The beach we were near in Paros. It's Parasporos beach. Lovely!

Me walking up some of the many stairs to the Acropolis

People running around the original Olympic stadium. All marble! Well, except for the track.

The marble roads were slick and easier to walk down barefoot. Oop. Athens.

Our hotel balcony on Paros. Minois Village. Lovely!

Um, I just realized I never posted about Paros!

5 min recap:

Paros was beautiful! The kind of pretty pictures don't really capture. The hotel was right next to a little beach that was sooo not busy and soooo calm that I could just sit in the water and let the waves rock me. The water was also so clear I could see the fishes at my feet.

I'd have taken a picture but I had to crawl over rocks to get to the sandy part and I am a klutz and would have dropped my phone in the water. By the second time I went in I found a path through the rocks someone had made in the water. So that's how locals get in so easily!

Last day in Greece!

Seeing all the spots we missed in Athens Monday. I am starting my morning with Starbucks. Good day!

Hello. I am writing this blog post on Notes on my phone while riding the ferry from Piraeus to Paros for our 1.75 day island vacay. I don't know what I expected from a ferry but this is different. The seats are little whicker chairs around tables so I feel like I'm at a little cafe out on the open sea.

I know I am prone to motion sickness so as a precaution I'm rocking some seabands, so hoping I'll have a cool seaband tan. I just ordered a cappaccino latte because I knew it'd have milk so I figured I'd just add sugar. It's aight. 

 I just realized that if I write my posts while they are happening I can take pictures to match. So this will have images!

 

 Yesterday was good. Since our hotel in Tolo was near the beach and beaches are, you know, part of the Greek experience, we had a lazy start. 

Spent two hours on the beach before heading off to Epidaurus, which was way cooler than I expected. The acoustics really are great and I really love climbing things. Climbing things here makes me feel badass, too, because it's all marble, which is really slick, so you're basically sliding all over the steps and could basically die if you have bad balance.

 OK, joking about the dying part. At first I thought it was just my rainbows failing me, but then I noticed everyone, including people in sneakers and "hiking" sandals, were slipping all over the Acropolis. So it's just the marble. And that was dry!

It's the dust that slips on the cool surface. Wonder how slick it is wet? Does it actually rain in Athens? We had a few clouds yesterday and it was surprising.

 Anyway, Epidaurus actually had a large archaeological site besides the theater, which surprised me because all the books talk about JUST the theater. The site was pretty cool, too, but I am a bit ancient-sited out, unless it involves climbing, like the theater or the fortress in Nafplio, which I will return to one day sans my mother and navigate to the tippy top. I will. You wait. Anyway.

 After Epidaurus we headed back to Athens which I navigated flawlessly without directions until I got off the highway just a bit before Athens, in a town like 15 km from Athens that LOOKED like a city. So my flawless internal GPS failed me. Once. In a country that doesn't label streets (no, seriously, these were the google map directions -- WHAT ROUNDABOUT?) and with someone signs only in Greek. Which, you know, doesn't use Latin characters. You know. I think the "th" is φ?

Guys, I just had to install the Greek keyboard to get that and that's dangerous. OK, then what. Then we went to our hotel near Piraeus Port for today's ferry ride.

Piraeus is not as...well-groomed?...as Athens. Lots of trash. Our hotel was nice, though, and dinner was delicious. Nothing exciting...a turkey burger and fries. I wanted to make sure I'd look good in my bathing suit today, you know. I also had Belgian beer!!! The best. Framboise lambic. Wish they sold it more Amurrica.

 Today I got up at 5:30. I needed coffee, so I paid 5 euros for the hotel breakfast and ate a toast and drank two cups of coffee by myself while my mom finished getting ready and I felt badass eating by myself. That is all. I did. And now here we are.

Here are some general observations:

 1) I passed someone in a no passing zone. Ha!
2) There were cops on the highway yesterday! What
 3) The speed limit is 120 km on the highway, which is LOVELY. The highway. It's a toll road, but seriously great! It was like 5-7 euros overall for tolls? Not bad. But gas was like 80 euros. I allotted for that but we can't complain about gas prices in the US when Europeans pay that. What! We were driving a Hyundai accent, so it's not like it uses much gas. 

4) You can't flush toilet paper. Nope. Not allowed. You throw it in the trash can. I am SO BAD AT THIS and keep accidentally tossing it in the toilet. Why am I so bad at this? I am a terrible American. I am sorry, Greece. I am sorry I am clogging your bad plumbing with my toilet-tossing-instincts. 

5) There were tons of orange trees along the road to Nafplio. 

6) Two hotels so far have provided qtips and cotton balls (or pads, swabs, whatevs), which I think is fab because I need the pads for my face wash and because I am obsessed with qtips. American hotels, get on this train. 

7)I could think of more, probably, but I want to drink my cappaccino latte thing and stare at the ocean. I will post this in Paros with pics. 

 For now I leave you with the image if me asking random gas state attendants (it's not self serve here) and patrons where Athens is.

 "Do you speak English?" 

"Yes" shrug, smile 

"Which way is Athens?"

 "...um." 

"Like, which direction?" 

Points in a general direction. "There? Ask someone." 

 I guess giving dumb Americans driving directions isn't part of the English instruction in school. Oop! This is why I don't drive without my phone.

A few pics my iPad let me load from my nice camera.

Running the Olympic track in flip flops like a true ninja warrior.

Mycenae and Nafplio and Tolo, etc.

I am not as exhausted today. 

Yesterday I seriously passed out right after I posted that blog (8:30, y'all!), so I'm a bit scared to reread it. Who knows what I posted?! 

 Today I'm not as tired because I fell asleep at 8:30 last night and slept 9 hours despite waking up at some point in the middle of the night to a massive charley horse. So much I woke up and yelped. It twinged throughout the night and into the morning, but it's aight now, probably because I've driven most of today and only walked like 4 miles instead of 10 or whatever.

 So today! Maybe I'll do an hour-by-hour recap to see if I can write more, like, how time goes... 7 a.m.: Breakfast. Two toasts with strawberry jelly, an egg, and some Greek yogurt and peaches. And two cups of coffee with all creamer and sugar. 

 8:00 a.m.: 8:50 a.m. To be exact. Our car rental driver showed up and dropped us off at the car rental place to sign papers. Then I drove us to the highway and out of athens. I went in planning to be a "defensive" driver because I hear Greek drivers are crazy. I became an "aggressive" driver. I no longer follow speed limits or drive in my lane. I like to take up two lanes now. Maybe tomorrow I will try passing people on winding curds and in no passing zones, eh? Today I did a few three point turns and random side of the road stops. So baby steps!

 9:00 a.m.: Pee stop one. 

 10:00 a.m.: I noticed our hood wasn't properly latched so after my mom's insistence (nagging), we stopped at a gas station and they were so nice and put some greaser or something on the latch and it worked! For free. I also got my first Greek coffee. Something called a...um...freddio? Something? It was better than German coffees. They had alcohol at the coffee counter so I had a short moment where I worried they'd put Baileys in my coffee because the ingredients of the freddio were in Greek so I was ordering blindly. So I sniffed it before I tasted it. Definitely no alcohol and it tasted like an iced mocha. Win!

 11:00 a.m.: We finally arrived in Mycenae at about 11:40 a.m. It's in the middle of what felt like nowhere, but there were hooooards of tour groups milling around like ants. I kept trying to dodge them. Not as impressive as the Atropolis in Athens but cool. You have a great view of Nafplio from there! I posed with rocks. 

 12:00 p.m.: Still in Mycenae.

 1:00 p.m.: Lunch. Coke. Two cherries. An apple. And Lays potato chips I bought at a vendor in Mycenae. 

 2:00 p.m.: We have our first and only driving confusion when I followed signs to Epidaurus. There's the ancient theater Epidaurus and a new town called Epidaurus and Rick Steves says to be careful not to go to the new town, so when I didn't see the town near the THEATER Epidaurus on the winding road we were following, I thought mane we were going the wrong way. So we tracked back to Nafplio. Turns out I was right, though. The road was right. We're just gonna go there tomorrow. 

 3:00 p.m.: We arrive in Nafplio and Rick Steves wins again! IT. IS. LOVELY. Beautiful streets, a beautiful fortress at the top of tons and tons of stairs (I wasn't allowed to climb...), beautiful ocean. Lovely. 

 4:00 p.m.: We drive to our hotel in Tolo. Beautiful view! I plan to spend tomorrow morning before Epidaurus Part 2 at the beach. Wee!

 5:00 p.m.: Back to Nafplio for dinner. I am not adventurous and got chicken souvlaki and a Greek salad again.

 6:00 p.m.: Wander around Nafplio. 

 7:00 p.m.: On the way back to Tolo we stopped for baklava. The piece was huge and delicious. I could only egg a few bites. 

 And now here I am typing this blog post. I am too annoyed with the iPad keyboard to type anymore tonight, but I'll do a picture post in a second.

My legs hurt

My legs hurt really bad. I think it's something to do with climbing up marble slab hills all day.

I am too lazy to upload pics at the moment but I'll write a bare minimal recap and add pics tomorrow or something.

We got to Athens at 9:44 last night, Athens time. That's losing an hour German time. So we didn't have to go through customs then caught what was supposed to be an hour long bus ride to the city center but EVERYTHING WAS WRITTEN IN GREEK. Everyone said that everything would be in Greek AND English alphabets but nope. All the signs on stores and on the buses were in Greek. So how were we supposed to know our stop?

Luckily it was the last stop because my plan was to go by how long Google said the bus ride would be and then I'd press the stop button, but we got there early so the bus driver just made everyone get off then. And then the hotel was right behind the bus stop, so woo!

That was the last good thing from 11:15 to 6 a.m., because as soon as we got in the room, I saw a massive cockroach in the bathroom and I had on sandals so my mom had to try and kill it and she missed it and it got away and OHHHHH MYYYYY GOOOOSH, I did not realize I was scared of massive cockroaches with inch-long feelers till one got away in the bathroom. There was a hole under the toilet he escaped in.

So I spent the next hour being terrified and coming up with coping mechanisms. Y'all, my cockroach fear is REAL. My final game plan was to spray my insect repellant around the toilet and hole behind the toilet, leave he bathroom light on all night because what cockroach comes out in the light?! -- and finally, sleep with my sneakers on the night stand for if I had to pee. Once I had that settled I was good.

I slept from like 2 to 6, then we got up for breakfast. Breakfast was coffee and toast and an egg and it was good and I was ready to go but then my mom wanted to do a walking tour and at the first stop of the walking tour I realized I drank too much water with my coffee and I had to PEEEE.

Peeing in Europe is such a hassle. We went back to the hotel because it wasn't far, and THEN we were off. We saw...uh...let's see if I know all we saw: Temple of Zeus? Hadrian's Arch? The Roman Agora, the Ancient Agora, the Acropolis (these I know!), the Plaka, and then original Olympic stadium. I used my GPS watch to track everything but the Olympic stadium because it was a separate trip and it was like 7 miles, on slipper marble, so that might be why I am sore, I dunno.

Oh, and I did a lap around the Olympic track in flip flops because that's what cool people do.

And now I plan to read random crap on the Internet till I pass out because I am on 4 hours of sleep (more than Peru!) and I have to drive all over the Peloponnese tomorrow.

There are probably a lot of typos here because I am typing in my iPad and it can never tell what I mean when I misspell things. 

I am a failed blogger

In my defense, my trip to Germany is mostly a family visit, which means most of my time is spent trying to come up with ways to tell my grandma that yes, I do mostly understand what she is saying but, no, she won't understand my response because my German pronunciation is soooo bad.

Basically, we're not really traveling around Germany. We're spending almost the whole time in my grandparents' tiny village. Today was the exception I was granted because Becky happened to be in Germany at the same time as me, so how could we NOT meet for lunch?

So my mom, Opa, and I took the ICE from Limbürg to Würzburg and met Becky and Allen for lunch (with the slowest service ever). 

Here is my Opa and me waiting for the train bright and early at 8:40 a.m.

And here is all of us minus my mom waiting on the slowest service ever:

Photos with date courtesy of my mom's camera because I somehow did not take one. I blame lack of sleep.

Becky tried currywurst! Wee!

Spot the white asparagus.

After lunch we said auf weidersehen to Becky and Allen went off to find an old church my mom wanted to see and the bridge with a statue of saints. The patron saint of Würzburg is the same as the patron saint of Nomborn, which my mom was strangely excited about. So much so that she posed for a picture in front of it with my Opa.

Anyway, I took lots of pictures as we wandered around all day, stopping for ice cream, Opa's fave, and stopping at an H&M because Würzburg has one even if Nashville doesn't...and I complained about loud German YOUTHS who were smoking and skateboarding and wearing weird clothes.

The Main River was really swollen.

Oh, and I bought something I thought was the equivalent of mocha but it turned out to be pond sludge. No, really. They gave me a strainer for it and everything.

So I taught my mom how to use my camera instead of drinking it. Hence this sexy shot.

Check out my shades. $5 from Forever 21. I am high class!

My main travel blogging will begin next week when we're not family-visiting.

Oh, and Monday we went to some abandoned village, where the whole village left Germany for America in the 1830s or something. My grandma was trying to make me read a newspaper article about it, which is kinda flattering since she's always saying Dustin and Evan speak so much better German than me...yet I can read a newspaper article? Sweet.

Look, I can read some! I can read anything I need to. Ausgang. Ausfahrt. WC. Pommes. Hanchen!

Das ist alles fur jetz! Guten nacht, kleine Fräulein!

Packing part 2!

Behold the power of my organization. Sit in awe.

(Our flight to Newark is delayed. Gross.)

All the clothes I packed before.

All my clothes after. Boom!

My purse/camera bag contents. (Yes, I love wipes. They are so handy while traveling. I have so many wipes. I have Wet Ones, Pampers, Ponds, Kleenex, Cottonelle. YAY WIPES.)

Camera bag packed (sans camera, of course).

Boom!

And now I am too lazy to do anything else with this post. Enjoy!

Packing Part 2 will have to wait till later...

Because I'm too lazy to post my pics. But for now I just thought I'd do a post saying I am off to Germany today (Charlotte via Newark to Frankfurt) and then off to Greece next week, so I shall be posting again. Woohoo!

Enjoy a picture of Oliver for now.

PACKING. Part 1.

So I have this really weird...thing...where one of my faaavorite parts of traveling is the planning. I love figuring out transportation! And hotels! And...what I pack. I mean, I love the actual traveling, too, of course, but I think the planning aspect is just all about the anticipation and that's why I revel in it. As Winnie the Pooh so wisely realized:

"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called. ~A.A. Milne

So anyway. About that anticipation. I have a big year of travel planned this year! I just bought tickets to Germany and Greece with my mom. We're going to visit my family in Germany the first week, then we're flying from Frankfurt to Athens and hangin' out in Greece for a week. I am super, super pumped!

I also just bought a really cheap plane ticket to San Diego with my friend Dana for next October (did I mention it was cheap? like $164 cheap! super cheap!) so we're gonna explore Cali together for 5 days, which I am also super, super pumped about because I went to San Diego last November and it looked like THIS:

Anyway. The point of this post is not how awesome my travel plans are, though. It is that I am slightly insane. It is that I will be flying on quite a few small planes and I refuse to check any baggage, which has led me to the point of planning what I will pack 4 months in advance. This is pretty normal for me, though. I do this with most international trips.

So today at work I decided to make a visual list! And as I was making my ghetto visual list, I thought, hey, why not blog it and share my insanity with the world? See list below. I do not own the "personal item" purse yet but think it looks perfect for what I need. I've been wanting a cute purse that will protect my DSLR camera that I suck at using so much that I forget how delicate it is. The only problem is it costs a pretty sum, so while I have planned how to pack it, I have not yet purchase it. Enjoy!