Israel

I never thought I would appear suspect to airport security personnel, but Israel runs a tight ship (plane). And I suppose my story was a bit strange: Canadian citizen living in Athens, traveling to Israel to visit the mother of a friend from college in the United States. The whole questioning process took about 40 minutes – they called Toby, mother of my friend Noa, to confirm my story, and spent a long time looking through everything I had with me – so I was glad I’d showed up the requisite three hours before flight time. Luckily, once I’d explained that although I was on a student visa, I was also helping teach classes at Athens College in exchange for free housing and a stipend, (which was, well, kindof illegal) I was allowed through.

I arrived in Tel Aviv on Thursday around 1 pm. After shrugging off a young Israeli at baggage claim who insisted on writing his phone number on my hand, I took the Sheirut (a shuttle van), sandwiched between a terrible smelling young man and an old woman who couldn’t stop coughing, to Toby’s house in Jerusalem’s German colony.

Toby spends half the year in Jerusalem, half in New York, and works as a freelance filmmaker/writer. Her work focuses on Jewish life, everything from Israeli slang to the kibbutz movement. She knows a TON about Israel, so it was great to have her around to explain everything. She’s also fucking awesome (as is her daughter). Noa had another friend, Erika, there as well. We really hit it off, and I was glad to have another nonjew there with me to see the place with fresh eyes.

Because Jerusalem is one of the oldest cities in the world (first settled in 4000 BCE), and is a holy city to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it has a very different character than any of the European cities I’d visited this year. The population of the city is increasingly orthodox, and you can see this orthodoxy in the way people dress. It was incredibly hot while I was there (mid June), yet men wore black coats, long pants and hats and women donned long dresses and some covered their hair, too. You can feel the religion. The architecture is also very uniform in appearance – city law requires that all buildings in Jerusalem be faced with “Jerusalem stone,” various types of pale limestone taken from the highlands of Judea and Samaria, so all the buildings are beige.

That afternoon, Noa and Erika took me to the old city. It is divided into four quarters, by religion – Christian, Jewish, Armenian and Muslim. The streets are tight and windy, but many are also packed with touristy crap. Lots of kipas for sale. If it had been available to be bought, I would’ve bought an Israeli soldier uniform – it looks good on pretty much anyone who wears it.

Army Uniform

I wanted to be sure to see all the main tourist/religious sites in the old city. One of, if not THE most important religious site in the old city is “Temple Mount,” which Judaism regards as the place where God chose the Divine Presence to rest. From this site, the world expanded into its present form. God gathered dust from this ground to create Adam.

The famous “Western Wall” (or wailing wall) is located at the foot of the Western side of Temple Mount. Over half the wall dates from the Second Temple period, constructed in 19 BCE as a wall to surround the Second Temple. It has been a site for Jewish prayer and pilgrimage since the 4^th century. With the rise of the Zionist movement in the early 20th century, the wall became a source of tension between the Jewish community and Muslim religious leaders, who worried that the wall was being used to further Jewish nationalistic claims to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem. Today it is just, well, crowded. The area in front of the wall has the status of a synagogue and thus must be treated with proper respect: Men and married women must cover their hair, and women have to cover their legs completely to approach the wall. A woman stands near the wall on patrol and hands out shitty blue fabric for onlookers to make themselves modest. It is custom to walk backwards when leaving the wall so as to not turn your back on it, though I’m not sure why.

The Western Wall

For us Christians, the spot to visit in the old city is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This site is venerated as Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified, and is also said to contain the place where Jesus was buried, and resurrected. It is also an important Christian pilgrimage site. Although it was an impressive structure, I’d say many of the churches and mosques I’ve been to in other countries were much more exciting – for example, St. Stephen’s Basilica in Budapest, or the Aghia Sofia in Istanbul. And there was hardly a soul (except Jesus’s) in there!

Inside the CHS

Unfortunately, the Dome of the Rock is only open at odd and very short hours for non-muslims, so I only got to see the golden dome from outside.

Dome of the Rock

Food!

Being the secular person I am, the thing I got most excited about in Israel was not religious – it was the food. Actually, the food has everything to do with religion, because it’s all kosher. Because the Book of Exodus says: “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mothers milk,” it is not kosher to eat dairy and meat together. Thus falafel (entirely plant based), which can be eaten with either meat or dairy, is very popular, and is considered a national dish. From falafel to Israeli salads to the fresh squeezed juices to sample at the “Shuk”– a vibrant maze of fruit and vegetable stands, fish on ice, candies, pastries, you name it they got it –  I think I had the most delicious food in Israel of all the foods I’ve experienced over this past year. It was a really nice break from the greasy, meat-heavy foods of Greece. 

At the Shuk

In the West Bank

Toby’s sister, Bonnie, lives on an orthodox Kibbutz, named Tirat Zvi, in the Beit She’an valley, just west of the Jordan River and the Israel-Jordan border. On Friday, after dressing ourselves up appropriately (long dresses and cardigans), we drove up the West Bank to the Kibbutz for Shabbat (day of rest). 

This was one of the most interesting (2 hour) drives I’d ever been on, because it was right through the desert. As we passed camels and herds of goats, we could see across the sand, past the Dead Sea, to Jordan. I was struck by the difference between the Palestinian vs. Israeli sections of the West Bank – the Palestinian parts are dry, desert, while the Israeli parts are green with fig plantations.

Desert

Kibbutz, in Hebrew, means a gathering or clustering. Before the state of Israel was founded many of these agricultural communes, known as “Kibbutzim” (“im” in Hebrew means plural) were established in Palestine. Many idealistic young Jews came to work on the kibbutzim with visions of a utopian, socialist Jewish state. There are about 270 kibbutzim in Israel. Only 19 of them, including Tirat Zvi, are orthodox. Toby’s sister moved here in 1968 from New York when she was only 18. Today, many of her children and grandchildren still live on the kibbutz, if not on other kibbutzim. The Kibbutz is very, very family oriented. The kibbutznik begin their families early, and often with people they knew all through grade-school.

On the Kibbutz

The Kibbutz kindof reminded me of the community where “the others” live on “LOST.” There is lush, green grass, the houses all look roughly the same, there is a very tranquil feel about the place. The kibbutz operates a meat processing factory, and nearby is a fig plantation and a tomato field. There is even a zoo! Around 700 people live there, so everyone pretty much knows everyone. People need not lock their doors or bring their wallets about. It was also very HOT – and in 1942, the highest daytime temperature ever recorded in Asia (128,7 degrees Fareinheit) occurred here.

As an orthodox kibbutz, the kibbutznik follow the rules of Shabbat very closely. I was blown away by how rule oriented they were. Essentially, they aren’t allowed to lift a finger from sundown on Friday to sundown Saturday. No writing, no using any electronics, no shower, no turning lights on or off (many houses have timers to switch the lights on and off automatically on Shabbat). I felt like I should offer up my services as a nonjew to turn the lights on and off so that they wouldn’t have to break the rules. Erika made a major faux pas while trying to do the dishes by putting dishes that had had meat on them in the dairy sink (they use separate sinks to wash meat and dairy dishes). I guess they did all the cooking beforehand, and the food was delicious. I enjoyed playing with the little kids because the language barrier was not as troublesome when you aren’t really speaking any language anyways. Hebrew, in my opinion, is not an attractive sounding language.

On Saturday night after sundown, we went back to Jerusalem and then went out on the town. Jerusalem was actually a surprisingly fun city to go out in. And then I got a taxi at 3:45 am to the airport for my 7 am flight (which was not very pleasant).

Because I was only there for such a short time, I didn’t get to see nearly as much of Israel as I would’ve liked, including the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv, the Negev, etc. The next step will be to fake my Judaism (I think I could pass) and try to get myself a spot on birthright. 

Mykonos

First off, I realize it's August, and that I haven't written in a long time. This is because the last few months turned into such a travel frenzy that I didn't feel I had much time to write. But now that I'm back in North America, I will try to finish my record of my time in Greece. Here goes:

Mykonos is named in honor of Apollo’s grandson, Mykons. But visiting the island, you wouldn’t know it – as the “ultimate party island” (although perhaps Ios has now surpassed Mykonos in wildness) it doesn’t have much to do with mythology anymore. It’s a pretty strange place.

Sure, I like to party, but it’s not usually my priority when traveling. I was interested in Mykonos because along with its rager reputation, it was also supposedly really, really beautiful. Greeks raved about its beaches and its main town, and told me it was a must see. “Such beautiful bitches” they say, meaning, of course, beaches (this never got old).

On a sunny Friday afternoon (June 10^th), Whitney and I caught a cab from school to Piraeus. Because it was a long weekend, (Pentecoste or Holy Spirit day on the Monday), there was heavy traffic and it took us about an hour to get to the port. Our cab driver, a young Albanian named Tony, blasted Jay Z, sped 160 km down the road once it opened up, and insisted that that the three of us would later go out for coffee and get married. We made it to Piraeus just in time.

The ferries almost never fill up completely, so lots of people just sit wherever they please. When I found my seat, it was already occupied. After I’d politely asked the woman in my seat to move and sat down, I heard “Hi miss Claire” from the seat directly across from me. One of my students.

The ferry (of the superfast variety) took about three hours. Upon arrival at the port, we found the sign for “Paradise Beach Resort” and were promptly herded into a large van. Along with us on the bus was a group of McGill student who had just been on birthright in Israel. Our usher was a Serbian Torontonian. Small world indeed.

I hadn’t chosen the spot – but apparently hostelworld.com had given “Paradise Beach Resort Mykonos” pretty rave reviews. The upside was that it was on the beach. The downside was that this beach is one of, if not the, most popular beaches on the island.

There was nothing even remotely Greek about it. Most of the employees were Australian, it seemed. The “resort” was more like a giant factory of a youth hostel, a compound of different structures (ranging from “beach cabin” at the lowest end to apartment at the highest) spread over a large area. I opted for “room” at the higher end of the accommodations strata, and was very glad I did, especially when comparing my room to the beach cabins: tiny, noisy, cramped little huts with no air conditioning and swarming with mosquitoes.

To save my energy for the Spring-Break-in-Cancun style weekend I knew I was in for, I went to bed early on the first night (around 1 am). In the morning, I woke early (9:30 am) and went to scope out the beach. At this hour I was the only person on the beach, and in its emptiness and quietude it looked quite picturesque.

Our Beach

 The water felt refreshing, but about 30 feet from the shoreline, a giant shelf rose up from the ocean floor to about a foot below the surface. It looked to be about another 20 feet long (to pass over). Lengthwise, the shelf extended almost the entirety of the beach, blocking swimmers off from the rest of the ocean. However, I figured I could clear the shelf by swimming right over it – I pulled myself over by grabbing onto whatever seaweedy/rocky/corally thing I could get my hands on. Once cleared, the shelf dropped off and I found myself in a turquoise sea of bliss. I kicked around for a while and explored the very limited sea life (there’s not much to see in the water in Greece) and then made my way back over the shelf. On the way back, I wasn’t so lucky – I scraped my belly along the coral and it ripped my bathing suit. When I got out of the water, I saw a lone couple sitting on the beach. The girl looked at me with disdain. She turned to her boyfriend “Already?” she said, as if it had been criminal of me to swim so early.

After breakfast (because I’d opted to stay in a room, I got a free breakfast of stale toast and lukewarm instant coffee and powdered orange juice), most of the morning was spent lounging on the beach. At around noon, Whitney and I left for the old town port, to get to the tiny island of Delos, 2 km off of Mykonos. To get to the old town, we crossed the island inland on a small bus. Mykonos is mostly made up of granite, but driving through the interior it looked like it was mostly made up of sand, dotted here and there with cacti. It’s like a big desert out in the middle of the Aegean. There isn’t much fresh water on the island, so they desalinate the sea water to drink. Compared to the other islands, it’s also relatively flat.

Delos marks the center of the circular ring of islands called the “cyclades” (sik-la-deez) –the cyclades are named as such because they are “around” (kuklas- κυκλάς) Delos. It is considered a sacred island, and is one of the most important mythological/archeological/historical locations in Greece. The island was inhabited since the third century BCE, and was a holy sanctuary for one thousand years before Greek mythology made it the birthplace of the twins Apollo and Artemis. Between 900 BC and 100 BCE, the island was a major cult center, where Dionysus and Leto (mother of the twins) were worshipped. Delos was initially a religious pilgrimage for the Ionians, until it gained religious significance throughout Greece.

Ruins on Delos

Beginning in the 6^th century BC, the city-state of Athens (under the tyrant Pisistratus) undertook a number of purifications of Delos so that it could be fit for proper worship of the gods. Pisistratus ordered all graves within sight of the temple to be dug up, and to move the bodies to another island nearby. In the 5^th century, during the Peloponnesian war, the Delphic Oracle instructed that the island be entirely purged of dead bodies. So that no one could claim ownership to the island through inheritance, no person was to die or give birth on the island.

As important as Delos is historically, at this point in my travels around Greece I’ve begun to view rocks as rocks, so I wasn’t exactly blown away by the ruins. That said, there’s a spectacular view of the Aegean and the surrounding islands from the island’s high point, which can be reached by a steep hike.

Top of Delos

Back in the Old Port

After about two hours on Delos, we returned to Mykonos, and Whitney and I ventured into Mykonos town. The town is a a classic, picturesque example of the Cycladic architectural style – the white and blue houses you see in postcards of Greece. The island has retained this traditional style because of strict building regulations. Winding through the whitewash, you notice bright pink flowers  above and their pettles scattered over the stone streets below. But while a classic example of Greek architecture, the town is also completely overdone for tourist benefit, and has a very cosmopolitan, highend feel. While the buildings appear ancient, they contain such stores as Sephora, Louis Vuitton, and Mui Mui, which seem bizarre out in the middle of the Aegean.

We ate lunch in Little Venice, where colorful buildings are constructed right at the water’s edge, their walls hanging almost into the sea. I met (and petted) Petros the Pelican, who I later learned has been the island’s official mascot for over 50 years. He’s enormous. 

Little Venice

We had a very nice chat with a gay couple from Texas at lunch, who told us which beaches to check out. Mykonos is one of Europe’s hottest gay destinations, by the way, which was later further evidenced by the nude beach a few steps from our own.

We also saw the windmills, which are quite famous, though I’m not sure why.

When we returned to our hotel around 5 pm it was still blazing hot out, so we returned to the beach. By this time, though, the beach had turned into an outdoor club. Music blasted from all down the beach, and at our hotel’s bar, 3 professional dancers in mini shorts, 3-inch heels and bikini tops danced provocatively atop 5-foot high platforms. Similarly clad waitresses took drink orders.

The beach was really crowded. I’d thought June would be a great time to go to Mykonos because it wouldn’t be too hot or crowded yet. Apparently by mid July, the island is crawling with tourists, and you can barely find a place to put your towel down on the bitch. I mean beach. But alas, it was a long weekend.

I saw more tattoos in Mykonos than I’ve seen in a while, and I think I was convinced once and for all that I won’t get a tattoo. I’ve seen about two tattoos in my life that I actually like, but the rest I’d say look pretty trashy. Sorry, tatted friends.

For that night, the party everyone was talking about was to take place at “Cavo Paradiso,” which was luckily within walking distance from our youth-compound. But we were told not to show up until at LEAST 3 am. After a 10 pm dinner of souvlaki, we played stupid drinking games with some Australians/Irish/French Canadians we found at our hotel bar. By 1:30 am, we were getting pretty restless and decided to just go.

Petros

The cover charge was 20 euros, which included one free drink. At 2 am, it was true, there wasn’t much happening at this club. This club’s claim to fame was its “amazing view of the ocean.” At first I was a little confused as to why this view would matter in the dark. Then I realized that the whole point is to stay up until the sun rises. There was also a pool in the club. The DJ, up above the rest like a god on his platform, spun trancey-house music which I’m sure would’ve been really awesome had I been on a lot of drugs. I’m sure all of Mykonos would’ve been really awesome if I’d been on a lot of drugs. Anyways. I just couldn’t make it that long, and went to bed around 2:30. Not the proper Mykonos experience at all.

I spent most of the second day just lying on the beach. In the afternoon a group of us set out to find another beach, which a guidebook had deemed the most beautiful beach on Mykonos. As we walked to the far end of our own beach, I had to stifle a squeal when I almost tripped over two fat old naked men, one lying on his front with his butt cheeks spread open in the sun, the other on his back with his junk displayed for all to see. And then I looked around and noticed that everyone on this part of the beach was naked. I haven’t been to many nude beaches before, so I can’t generalize about who populates them at large. On this beach, however, it was the people you’d least like to see in the nude.

After the nudists, we had to traverse some rough terrain. We stumbled through strange rock formations and past many lizards (who scuttled away), past cacti and along the edges of cliffs. When our beach came into view, disappointment set in, because the sand of the beach was barely visible beneath the swarm of people upon it. Loud music untzed across the water towards us, warning us away.

            That night I didn’t go out. Truthfully, I probably would’ve enjoyed my time in Mykonos better if I hadn’t been stressed about staying healthy and rested, because I knew I was going to Israel the following Thursday, and to Spetses the weekend after that. (Once the weather got nice and I began to near the end of my time in Greece, I went on a bit of a travel frenzy, trying to pack it all in).

The Infamous Windmills

            I left on the same ferry as James on Monday morning, at 11:30. Because I’d bought my ferry tickets at a travel agency, I already had them with me. James, however, had ordered them online, and needed to pick them up. When we arrived at the port at 11:12 am, James asked a ferry official where he might pick up his tickets. He was told through cigarette smoke that he couldn’t get them here. He would have to go to the old port (not close by). Having a place for tickets to be picked up in the same port the ferries left from would be far too sensible and convenient. Luckily, James was able to chase down the cab that had brought us to the main port, get to the old port, and make it back to the main port just in the nick of time (because he had a Greek driver, who drove really fast). But seriously, Greece. 

Nafplio, etc.

Nafplio (Ναύπλιο) is a small seaside town in the northeastern Peloponnese, about 2 hours from Athens by bus. It was Modern Greece’s first capital, and remained so until 1834 when King Otto moved the capital to Athens. As with many Greek names, I’m pretty  unclear on the correct name of this place, as it also goes by Nafplion, Nafplia, and the list goes on.

I had been planning to visit Nafplio in September, but was stopped by rain and bus strikes, and had abandoned the idea when it got too cold to swim. But my interest was piqued again recently while I was reading “The Magus,” by John Fowles, in which the protagonist, Nick, mentions Nafplio several times. A bit more on the book – it’s a total mindfuck, and fun to read while in Greece. While teaching English on the fictional island “Phraxos” (based off of Spetses), 30-year-old Nicholas Urfe becomes tangled in the twisted mindgames of the old Mr. Conchis, the “Magus” - Greek for Magician or Sorcerer.

 

             Between 1388 and 1715, Nafplio changed hands from the Venetians to the Ottomans too many times to count, ending up finally in Ottoman hands. In 1821, Greek revolutionaries began to wage war against their Ottoman rulers, thus beginning the Greek War of Independence. Nafplio remained an Ottoman stronghold for over a year, but finally surrendered because of starvation. Once captured, it became the seat of modern Greece’s provisional governments, due to its strong fortress. It was officially made capital in 1829, when Count Ioannis Kapodistrias, the newly liberated Greece’s first head of state, set foot on the mainland in Nafplio.

View from Palamidi, straight down

The Venetian influence is very evident in the town’s architecture. It reminded me a lot of Corfu town – very pretty and quaint, although Corfu town is slightly more glitzy. There isn’t a whole lot to do in Nafplio, aside from hauling yourself up the 216 m high hill to Palamidi castle (constructed under the Venetians), which affords a lovely view of the turquoise sea, and the mountains of the Peloponnese across the bay.

From Palamidi

 Other than that, the town is a relaxing place to eat, drink, and stroll around.

In Town

Back Alley

We (Whitney, Robyn and I) left at 12 pm on Saturday, and arrived at 2 pm. Not having booked a hotel, we went in search of something affordable and not too far from the center of town. In the third hotel we tried, we walked in and kindly asked the manager how much a triple room would be. Rather than answer, he looked us up and down and began firing questions at us. “Where are you from? How long are you here for? Which part of America? What do you do here?” – the usual stuff. I’ve begun to grow quite impatient with Greek men and their persistence at small talk. Though it’s intended as friendly, I can’t help but find it annoying and often creepy. When I asked him again how much the room would be, I was rebuked. “Perimenete,” he told me – wait. He said it as though I were a child asking for dessert before dinner had been served. “I’m thinking.” Apparently, there was no fixed cost for the room, he would just decide what was appropriate based on the clientele. Thankfully, he gave us a reasonable price.

Aside from the cafes/tavernas/gelaterias, we spent most of the trip on the beach. Unfortunately, the beach is pebbles rather than sand, and the pavement alternative area was covered in broken beer bottles, so we were pretty uncomfortable, lying in the sun. We watched  a fat little Greek boy step gingerly, barefoot, over the rocks and glass. 

“Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit,” he kept uttering, in a heavy Greek accent. Luckily, the water was finally warm enough to swim in (still pretty cold, but warm enough to stay in for more than just a dip).

"Oh shit"

Now, 2 weeks later, it’s hot as Hades out, and the water is completely comfortable to swim in (and provides some nice respite from the heat). These past two weekends I went to the beach at Porto Rafti (Port of the Tailor), on the East side of Attica, out by the airport. The water on this side of Attica is much much cleaner and clearer than the water on the West side, where there’s much more ferry traffic, and I suppose many more pollutants as well.

The colour of the water in Greece is very different than the blacker, greener water of the Atlantic. IT IS SO BLUE. Why is this, I’ve been wondering? Apparently, there are a combination of reasons. Mainly, the blueness results from the Mediterranean’s being oligotrophic – from Greek ολίγον (oligon) meaning "little/few", and τροφή (trophi) meaning "food/nutrition" – (not enough food). Basically, there aren’t enough nutrients in the water to support the growth of phytoplankton, which, when present in high numbers, appear green or reddish brown and discolour the water. The Atlantic is very rich with phytoplankton, and thus appears more green or black. Also, because the Mediterranean water is so salty, and because salt tends to scatter blue light.

There’s a tradeoff, though, with the blueness. The water here is lovely, but there’s NOTHING in it. Zero wildlife. You’ll see a tiny fish now and then, but never anything colorful or interesting.

            Life right now is pretty relaxing. Because school has finished, (it’s exam time) work has slowed down to a snail’s pace for me. All of the other teachers are in over their heads with proctoring and correcting, but since I’m not an official teacher I’m not allowed to touch the exams. So I’ve been editing the “Student Notebooks,” which takes about three hours a day (on a busy day). I’m not complaining, not at all. I usually get up around 9 am, roll into work around 11, leave around 2:30. It’s a good life. Two weeks from now, summer camp will begin, and I know I’ll be absolutely exhausted. It’ll be 3 weeks of 8:30-5 pm in the blistering heat, trying to communicate with hundreds of Greek children who hardly speak a word of English. But I’m actually pretty excited about it. After working with teenagers all year, it’ll be a nice change to play with the little ones.

Speaking of little kids, on Sunday we went to our Greek teacher’s house for a sort of “last hurrah” party. She has a three year old, Myrsini, who she spoils absolutely rotten. She lets Myrsini eat spoonfuls of raw sugar and draw all over herself with markers. Myrsini has her own playroom full of toys. Myrsini dictates what music we listen to in the car, so on the way from the metro to the house I heard the song “Je Veux” (by Zaz) about 15 times, ditto on the way back. When we tried to change the music, Myrsini threw a fit. Spoiled as she is, I had a great time playing with her, pretending to be a dancing fairy and letting her pretend to kill me over and over again.

Greek lessons are now finished, which is nice, but also sad. I feel as though I’m just on the brink of being able to speak without having to painstakingly think through what I want to say first. And now it’s time to head home. I tell myself I’d like to get a tutor next year, and thankfully Toronto has a massive Greek population, but I have the feeling that if I’m too lazy to study it while I’m actually in Greece, Toronto’s gonna be even harder.

In other news, Robyn has moved into the Halandri apartment! I’d forgotten what it was like to have a roommate- it’s actually really great! So. 6 weeks left. Finally, here is the Greece I've been looking forward to all year, the Greece where you can lay in the sun and swimin the sea. And it's almost time to go.

Same old same old

Santorini

Santorini has quite a reputation.  Everyone I knew who'd been had gushed about how friggin gorgeous it was, so I expected to find it a little overrated. But the island is all it's cracked up to be-  it's friggin gorgeous, and undoubtedly my favourite place I've been in Greece thus far.

What sets Santorini apart is its unusual setting atop cliffs, which makes for spectacular views of the Aegean. The buildings are exactly those you see in postcards and calendars of Greece - white houses, blue, domed roofs, etc. Funnily enough, I haven't come across this architectural style anywhere else in the country. So if that's the Greece you're lookin for, go to Santorini.
A little history:

Originally and still officially, the island is called Thira, (Θήρα). It got its later name, Santorini, from the Latin Empire in the thirteenth century, as a reference to Saint Irene.

In the Bronze Age, roughly between 3000 to 1580 BC, a Minoan settlement thrived on the Southern part of the island. At the time, Thira was a single island, whose inhabitants lived in sophisticated, 3 story houses with advanced drainage systems. They had a dual pipe system, which suggests the use of hot and cold water (the hot water probably heated by the nearby volcano), and toilets. Their elaborate fine art (mostly wall paintings) indicates that they were probably quite wealthy. The settlement's architecture, piping system and the city's layout match up nicely with Plato's description of Atlantis, the mythical lost city. As does the fast, furious destruction of the city by the eruption of the island's volcano:


Plato says in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias (360 BC), that after a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune."

The eruption occured at some point during the second millenium BCE, although scientists and archeologists are unsure of the exact date. It completely whiped out the settlement there, although the ruins of the ancient town (known today as Akrotiri) were well preserved by the lava, and are often compared to the ruins at Pompeii. Until 2005 (when the canopy over the ruins collapsed and killed a tourist), you could go see the remains of the city. Apparently the canopy is being fixed and the site will reopen soon.

Anyways. The volcano erupted. I'm a little unclear on exactly how the geology goes after this, but from what I can glean online, here's what happened post-eruption: the peak point of the volcano could not sustain the weight from the explosion, so it sank down. Over time, water moved into this deep crater portion of the volcano, forming a lagoon, and the parts of the island that were not submerged became the  "caldera", or cauldron.

Today, Santorini looks from above like a backwards C, whose massive cliffs surround the lagoon on 3 sides. On the fourth side, the much smaller island Therasia separates the 12 by 7 km lagoon from the sea. In the center of the lagoon is the volcano, which we visited by boat. The lagoon (400 m deep) also merges with the sea in at two points, so ferries can easily come in and out of the lagoon to drop off the thousands of tourists who journey to this far-away gem of an island. From cafes atop the cliffs, you can see the boats come in and out, leaving white trails in the blue behind them. All the harbors are situated in the lagoon, not on the outer perimeter of the island, where the land slopes gradually away from the interior cliffs.
I went with Robyn and Whitney. Two of Robyn's friends from DC also joined us, and it was great to have some new blood around. We stayed near Fira, the capital, which perches on top of a cliff at the center of the inverted C. On Thursday night, we went out in Fira, where there are three or four bars that everyone in the town seems to gather at. There were a surprising number of tourists in Santorini, considerin it was only mid-May. I'm really glad we went sooner rather than later, as I imagine it's crawling with tourists by now.
We began our first full day (Friday), with a hearty American breakfast of Ommelettes and toast at "Jerry's" breakfast joint. (We returned to Jerry's on Saturday and Sunday, as well). After breakfast, we rented ATVs and drove around the island. About a mile into the trip, we realized that Whitney's helmet wouldn't stay on her head, Robyn was missing a left mirror (she probably should've noticed that earlier), Sandra's brakes were kinda broken, and my ATV only went 28 k/hour. And the ATV's didn't reverse, so we had to get off and pull them to turn around. Clearly the man at the rental service was awfully concerned about our safety.

We stopped for a midday "snack" at a shoddy looking beachside taverna, which ended up having someof the best Middle-Eastern/Lebanese food I've ever tasted.

Lebanese Food

We returned to our hotel around 6:30, showered and "napped," but then suddenly it was 9:30 pm and we called it a night.

On Saturday, we did the volcano boat excursion. It's a little silly. You go to the volcano and hike a kilometre up to see a tiny hole in the ground, from which thermal, sulphuric air emerges. Everyone goes crazy to get their hands up next to it. And you gotta be careful, because you never know when the volcano's gonna blow - it erupted in 1950!


After the volcano, the boat takes you to the "hot springs" - you jump in the freezing cold water and swim to a rust-coloured, muddy, lukewarm area near the interior. Your bathing suit gets stained brown. It's kindof a strange tourist attraction. I liked seeing goats amble down the hill to observe the humans splashing in the mud, and hearing everyone yell "Fuck its cold!!" in English, French, German, Greek, and Chinese as we swam back out into the cold to be hoisted onto back up to the boat.

After the "hot" springs, we spent some time on the beach of the detached part of Santorini, known as Therasia, before the boat brought us to Oia (top of the Caldera) for the famous sunset. Oia is 300 m up, and you can either walk or take a donkey. We walked, but almost got knocked off the hill by the donkey stampede a few times.






Before sunset, we went to grab a drink at this rooftop bar. Pretty incredible view:



View from the Bar



Ditzy, Delicious Drinks

The sunset is hilarious. Tourists pack onto the Northern slope at Oia like its a movie theatre. As soon as the sun goes down, they file out - show's over. It is a lovely view of the sunset, but if anything on Santorini is overrated, I'd say this is it. But certainly still worth seeing.

That night, we ventured back to Fira for another night on the town. At "Murphys" we met some rather entertaining Australians who had just quit their catering jobs and were travelling in Greece for the next three months. They planned to move to Ios the following Monday, and find some kind of work there. Is it just me, or do most Australians just surf, drink, travel, and find work where they end up?


At lunch on our last day, our kinda-creepy waiter told us he was going to charge us double for our meal because all of us had refused to dance with him the night before. (He had been trying to grope Whitney all night). Although I'm going to miss Greece, I can't say I'll miss the lecherous old men.


On the flight back to Athens, I got to watch the sun set, twice - once while we were down South by Santorini, and then as the plane went North and caught up with the sun, again over the mountains surrounding Athens. Not a bad way to wrap up the trip. :)



 



Oia



Santorini Screaming Match

Parents Part 2 - Crete

When travelling around a Greek island, the hotel shouldn't be the best thing about the trip. There's so much culture and history to see, and the natural landscape is so beautiful, you'd want to get out and explore it, right? Well, sortof. Truth be told, the highlights of our Crete trip - and lowlights, I suppose - were the hotels we stayed in.

Crete, as the largest of the Greek islands, spans 260 km East to West, and 60 km North to South, thus its sheer vastness is what led us to stay in more than one hotel. The first hotel was paradise, the second was so abominable that it deserves its own post (and will get its own post soon). The third, to which we fled from the second, was such a welcome refuge from the second that it could've been a homeless shelter and we'd've loved it.

Crete is incredibly mountainess. From the airport in Iraklion, we could see snowcapped peaks in the distance. The landscape provides a sharp contrast with that of Corfu, because it's so much drier. As we drove towards our hotel, we could almost constantly smell smoke and see it rising up through the mountains, because Cretans burn their trash. Flocks of sheep and small packs of goats lined the sides of the highways.

Kinda Looks like Maine

Sheep

Crete's natural landscape is spectacular. The rugged coastline reminded me of Maine, and I was grateful for that. But to really experience the interior of the island's natural landscape, you need to know your way around. And you need to be comfortable driving in Crete, which is a whole other ballgame, even when compared with driving in Athens. Cretan drivers are freakin insane. During my time in Athens, though I've consistently noted how recklessly Greeks drive, I have witnessed a total of two car accidents. In my four days on Crete, I witnessed three. In Chania, a car backed straight into another parked car, leaving a visible dent, and drove screeching away.

We wanted to drive up to the "Lasithi Plateau," a high plateau which apparently affords extraordinary views of numerous windmills and the surrounding mountains. So up the narrow, winding road we went, a road with no signs, no lanes, and no stopping any Greek driver coming down the mountain at 80 mph from blindly slamming his car right into our own. We made it about 1/5th of the way up and then decided to cut our losses and turn around. Just not worth it.

Mountains!

We wanted to go to the Samaria Gorge, but didn't realize that you could only get there by bus. Of course we missed the bus, which departed at 8 am, and it was raining cats and dogs anyways, so.

600,000 people live on Crete. Approximately 42% of them live in the island's main cities. In my humble opinion, Crete's main cities are not very nice. Iraklion and Aghios Nikhios, on the Eastern side of the island, were tacky, touristy, and unkept. Chania, on the Western side, has a reputation for being a quaint sea-side town. It was cute enough, but packed with tourists and tourist junk. In my eyes, it didn't shine a light to Corfu Town. Even Kritsa, a small village with a reputation as a "traditional example of Crete," was a disapointment. It consisted of little more than a few hilltop streets lined with old Greek women selling lace and men selling the traditional Cretan black riding boots. I think my father put it well when he said of the Cretans: "They're not taking advantage of their advantages." This is arguably one of the most spectacular landscapes on the planet, and yet the towns are so unfortunate looking.

Chania

During these first two days, what excited me most about Crete was our beautiful hotel. The hotel was very modern, and reminded me of why travelling with parents is a good thing - because they'll pay for you not to stay in a shitty youth hostel! The people at the hotel were incredibly friendly. Through speaking to them I realized that Crete has its own specific dialect of Greek, and a very unique accent, different from the Athenians. The food was delicious, I had my own room and my own pool, and a free massage that left me "greased up" and smelling like heaven. This place was paradise.

Night view from Room

Crete was the center of Europe's first advanced civilization, the Minoan civilization of the Bronze Age (2700-1420 BC). The Minoans wrote in Linear A (still undeciphered). Minoan history is the source for the legend of King Minos and the Minotaur. Every year, Minos, the son of Europa and Zeus, chose 7 young boys and 7 young girls to go hang out with the Minotaur in the labrynth. By hang out, I mean wander aimlessly around the labrynth and try to avoid getting eaten by the half-man-half-bull Minotaur. Unfortunately, until Theseus came along with a ball of string to guide him through the maze and slayed the minotaur, the kiddies always got eaten.


We went to visit Knossos, the largest Bronze Age archelogical site, which was "probably" the political center of Minoan civilization. I'm sure it was once a wonderful maze of living spaces, storage spaces, workrooms, etc, but now, it isn't all that impressive. The extensive restoration by archeologist Arthur Evans lends a strange and slightly cheesy air to the site, because the restored parts include many too-colourful wall paintings that look really out of place next to the actual ancient ruins. If I were an archeologist doing restorations, I would try to imagine how what I was restoring would look today, after thousands of years, not as it did in it's original form, because when you put "as it looked then" next to "as it looks now" you get a very odd result. All in all, Knossos doesn't come close to comparison with the resplendent Acropolis.

Minoan civilization is often thought to have collapsed due to the volcano at Thira (Santorini), but this is up for debate.

The best part of Knossos - Peacocks

On our last day we went to the beach. It was a nice beach, but be forewarned if you're ever thinking of travelling to Greek islands - if you want a real "island" experience, come in the summer. Crete, even as the southernmost island, is not warm in late April. It was windy and particularly freezing that day, and there was no chance I was going in the water.

Parting words: While in Crete, my father, impressed with my Greek, told me, "You should consider joining the foreign service." If you know me at all, you'll understand why this is funny.

Paska in Corfu

Corfu  (Κέρκυρα in Greek, pronounced Kerkyra) is the northernmost and second largest of the Ionian islands, a group of seven islands in the Ionian sea, off of Greece's west coast. The island's name comes from mythology - Poseidon fell in love with the beautiful river nymph Korkyra, abducted her and brought her to this island.

I'm still not sure why it's called "Corfu" in English. This is something that's been baffling me all year - why do we change the names of places for our own languages? A name is a name is a name. For example: Greece, in Greek, is called "Hellada." Wouldn't it make sense for every other country in the world to just call it Hellada, too?

Anyways. Corfu was the beginning of a nine day Greece extravaganza with my parents.

The flight up the coast of Greece over the Ionians was one of the most pleasant flights I've been on - also one of the shortest, at 45 minutes. I was surprised to see how large the island was - as we flew in, it seemed to stretch on forever - (from top to bottom it's around 200 km). 

While waiting for a cab outside of the small airport, my parents got their first taste of Greek melodrama - a cab driver and what seemed to be a paying customer (a man dressed in a fancy beige suit and polished black shoes) had a full on screaming match. They just wouldn't stop yelling at each other, for about 7 minutes straight, ignoring everyone in the taxi lineup. "Then Boro!" the cabby kept yelling. ("I can't!") Other than this, I couldn't make out much of what he was saying, as it was all coming way too fast and furious. Finally he told us to get into his car.

"What was that all about?" my mother inquired. "Oh, that's just my boss," he responded in a very British accent. When asked where he learned to speak English, he responded. "London. Too many English girlfriends."


He drove us through winding streets, full of colourful houses with ornate shutters that looked much more Italian than Greek. Corfu was long controlled by Venice, and you can certainly see the Venetian influence in the architecture near the main town. At one intersection, he pointed to ruins on both left and right of the car - "There, byzantine, there roman," he said. And then he brought us to the wrong hotel.

My mother had been to Greece once before, when she was in her twenties - she and a friend got stuck on Milos for an entire week because they were given wrong directions about which ferry to take and the ferry to Milos only came once weekly. My father had never been to Greece. He has this incredibly annoying tendency of treating all languages other than English as one language, and responding in a strange hybrid of French, Spanish, and Italian to any language that he does not understand. So there was plenty of "si si"ing and "grazi" on this trip. I tried to teach him a few Greek words, like thank you, "effaristo," but he kept saying "effaristimo." At least I was able to teach him the one Greek word to replace his all time favourite word, WANKER - malaka. That one, he could remember.

On our first night, on our way into Corfu town, my father tried to speak his Franglospantalian to the cab driver. I told the cab driver in Greek that my father was crazy. "Ohee," he responded. "Eisa treli, yiati milas Helenika!" - YOU're crazy, because you speak Greek. Very encouraging.

Hangin out the windows to see the celebration

I chose to bring my parents to Corfu because it is THE place to be for easter, and I wanted them to see a bit of Greek tradition. Tens of thousands of people flock to the island for the occasion, wherein different philharmonic bands play (the island has the highest population of musicians of anywhere in Greece), terra cotta pots are thrown from windows, and fireworks light up the sky.

Spit roasted Lamb - traditional Easter dish

Corfu Town looks much more like Rome than anywhere I'd been in Greece thus far. The buildings are grand and ornate, but the town is small enough that it's not overwhelming. We had two lovely (minus the mayaritsa, a traditional soup made of lamb innards) dinners in the outdoor light of Corfu town amidst the Easter celebration.




Because the island is so large, we rented a car. About 5 km down the road we realized there was NO gas in the car, so we almost had a close call in the middle of Corfu town, but luckily were able to get to a gas station in time. I'm really glad we rented a car, because there's a lot to see - the geography of the island is pretty striking. Corfu recieves a pretty heavy rainfall, so it's much more lush than the islands in the Aegean, and doesn't look anything like the rest of Greece that I've seen. As we drove up the North side of the island along the Eastern coast, we could see Albania, which is only about 2 miles away.



At one point we stopped to get out and figure out where we were going and were met by a very friendly, if a little odd, British couple in their mid-sixties. The man, tall, thin and tan with white hair, was smacking away on an ice cream on a stick. "Lost, ah you?" His ginger haired wife flashed us a yellow, crooked toothed grin.  "No, no, just trying to figure out where's best to go... what do you recommend?"  The man finished his ice cream, came over to take a look at the map, and used the stick of the ice cream to point out the best route. I couldn't help looking more at the chocolate and saliva covered stick, rather than the map, as he pointed here and there along the coast and up into the mountains of Corfu. "Don't wanna go up there," he told us, dragging the stick over an area on the northernmost part of the island. "Bit like Blackpool. Not your cup o tea, I'd say."

Mom's fish "soup"

We had a very nice lunch at a little beachside taverna, probably the only place on the island that was open. My mother ordered fish soup, but was told there wasn't any. They recommended something else that was supposedly "similar," and she agreed. Instead she was brought an entire fish carcass covered in brown sauce. At first we were all repulsed, but she found it fresh and tasty.

View from Lunch Table

We drove to a few beaches and little inlets, where the water was crystal clear and turquoise. I went in for a swim, but the water was almost as cold as it is in Maine - really biting. We got lost in the woods, among olive groves, on some seriously winding and narrow roads, and in some little hilltop towns. The driving was pretty hectic and the roads are not very well marked at all. The other towns, aside from Corfu town, were not very well kept, and were pretty tacky from what we could see, which was a bit disappointing. But the landscape made up for it.

My parents were generally pretty impressed with how friendly the Greeks were. After getting lost innumerable times our first day, my Dad was fiending for a beer, so we stopped by a little roadside restaurant to grab something. The owner told us he was closed.. "But come in! I give you something to drink." We ordered a few beers. He introduced himself as Evangelis, and told us all about the island. When we tried to pay, he refused to let us. All he wanted to do was just have a nice chat with some tourists. It was so kind of him.

That's something I've found with Greeks - they generally ARE very very nice, one on one. It's just when it comes to things such as driving, where they're incredibly aggressive, or lines (which they have no concept of), that they can seem rather abrasive. But Greek hospitality is no myth.