Greece
I'm sitting in bed in a room in a quieter neighbourhood of the sprawling city of Athens. It's getting late, but I had a nice long noontime nap, and I'm still fit as a feather. (fit as a feather? is that even an expression? I think not, it just popped into my head and found it's way onto the keyboard without much thought).
Whoa, this laptop went into standby after, like, 20 seconds. I was just taking a break to think, geez.
Okay, as I said, the last week (May 7-16) was spent visiting family and friends in Switzerland in a whirlwind tour of dates. I stayed at my Aunt Kathi's house in Konolfingen, but I only slept there half the time, often staying overnight at other people's house. I'm assuming describing this won't be incredibly interesting for anyone except my immediate family, so I'll just summarize the highlights:
-having my grandpa's heart diagnostic machine being explained to me for the umpteenth time by my grandpa and finally understanding (most of) it.
-checking out my cousin Thomas's apartment. He's got pretty much one of the best apartments in Bern. And he isn't even paying very much for it.
-jamming with Thomas on his piano (while he played this retro e-piano next to the one I was playing). We just decided on some basic jazz riff and off we went. It was so cool. I've never had so much fun jamming before.
-lunch at grandma's house
-gelato with Michelle (cousin) and her boyfriend Bruno at this excellent ice cream place (homemade Swiss ice cream - never knew it could be so good)
-lunch at grandma's house (on the next day)
-shooting my cousin Christoph's bow
-playing ping pong with my cousin Lukas
-playing my uncle Alex's piano (a 60,000 dollar Fiziola grand)
-chatting with Alex and Madeleine (uncle and aunt) after dinner
-driving their Saab
-the view from the train as I traveled from Basel to Bonfol
-bringing a bunch of cows with a trailer and tractor up to the hills for the summer with a friend of mine, Jon. The place was wreathed in cloud and it was pouring.
-sunrise in the Alps as I traveled on the train from Bern to Brig.
this last Wednesday, I hopped on that said train from Bern to Brig, then changed in Brig to another train to Milan, Italy. I was due to catch a plane to Athens at 6:00, but I got into the Milan train station by 9:30 in the morning, giving me plenty of time to enjoy the city a bit. I didn't have a plan, or even a city map, so I just struck out on foot in some direction which looked good. I wandered the streets, had lunch, read my book, wandered around again, headed back to the station and wound up getting lost. Being a guy, I tried to find the way myself, stubbornly refusing to ask for directions. Finally, gave in and asked some guy at a café who communicated to me in broken English and sign language that I should walk up the street to the next busy intersection and wait for tram 9. So simple. Back at the station I hopped on the shuttle bus to Malpensa airport, checked in, waited around for a long time (as is ALWAYS the case when flying), and finally got on the plane to Athens.
Why Athens? Well, we know some people there.
Actually, this girl called Binia came and helped out in our house for a few months in our family 17 years ago (my parents and her parents knew each other). She married, had kids, and her husband was over for dinner last year at our house when he happened to be in Vancouver on business. Cool thing is, he happens to work for Aegean Air (that is why they, originally Swiss, happen to be in Athens), and he was able to get me a sweet deal. And a sweet deal for the flight back on Monday too.
So, arrived Wednesday at 9 in Athens (losing an hour), got picked up by Roland, and headed to their house in this quiet neighbourhood (Kifias) north of Athens. As Binia's mother is here right now and staying in the guest room, I get to stay in Oliver's room while he sleeps in his brother's room. Thursday I headed into Athens on the metro (80 euro cents from here to Athens! So ridiculously cheap. And you can even go all the way to the harbour with an 80 cent ticket. That's the equivalent of going from Vancouver to Maple Ridge.) In Athens I, of course, visited the Acropolis, the Stadium, Herucles's temple, the Greek Agora (where Paul debated with the Athenians), the Roman Agora, some palace, the National Park. You have to pay 12 euros and then you get a pass to go see all these things within 48 hours. Except - and get this - you happen to be under 19. Then you get in for
Absolutely nothing.
Free visits to national monuments, 80 cent metro rides (compare to $10+ metro rides in London), 50 cent bus rides...Athens is an awesome city.
The Acropolis is cool, but at the moment the whole hill is a construction/restoration site, so it can be a bit hard to appreciate the ancientness of the place when you have all this metal scaffolding encapsulating every stone temple on the hill. Oh, and the thousands of people make it kind of hard as well. The place is an absolute zoo. I had to take some pictures, I couldn't believe the numbers.
One thing I wished I had done was to either have taken a good tour book along to explain all the sites or go on some guided tour. There were almost know signs or information boards to tell you what you were looking at.
The remaining time I walked through the neighbourhood on the north side of the acropolis. This was my favorite, just strolling along, looking at the houses, the taverns, the little alleys, the cats (they're everywhere), hearing people discussing loudly in Greek... Ah, beautiful. Did I take pictures? I took pictures.
On Friday, Binia, her mother Ruth, and myself headed to the harbor and hopped on a ferry to the Greek island of Aegina while the kids were at school. Went swimming in the Mediterranean Sea (wonderfully warm and clear, but much saltier than the Pacific), checked out the port town of Aegina, had lunch at a Greek tavern (obviously), checked out shops (or at least the two ladies did. I photographed the wonderful boats in the harbor) and then headed back at 3.
Today was pretty relaxed. We slept in and then headed to the kid's school were they had a fundraising run/walk to raise money for a new playground. I didn't do any running; played soccer with some of the Dad's instead. After a delicious buffet lunch we headed home where I took a nice long siesta, read, helped prepare dinner, watched a movie with Oliver (the oldest son, 12), and did some catching up on emails that needed to be written. And now it is approaching 1 in the morning and I don't really feel like writing anymore. Actually, I'm feeling distinctly uncreative today; that's why this post is so boring. Sorry. I'm not feeling it today; If I was I would go on and on about how wonderful Greece is, about all the mopeds on the streets, about the house across the road from which I hear Greek opera every night, about the traffic on the street, about the little alley shops and the street booths...because Greece really is amazing. I already know I'll be back here next time I head over to Europe to check out some more islands, do some snorkeling, sailing maybe?...
Monday I fly back to Switzerland where I have two days to do some visiting before heading back to Würzburg for a youth conference over the weekend, then a break of two days to pack before flying home. The adventure is slowly coming to an end.
Whoa, this laptop went into standby after, like, 20 seconds. I was just taking a break to think, geez.
Okay, as I said, the last week (May 7-16) was spent visiting family and friends in Switzerland in a whirlwind tour of dates. I stayed at my Aunt Kathi's house in Konolfingen, but I only slept there half the time, often staying overnight at other people's house. I'm assuming describing this won't be incredibly interesting for anyone except my immediate family, so I'll just summarize the highlights:
-having my grandpa's heart diagnostic machine being explained to me for the umpteenth time by my grandpa and finally understanding (most of) it.
-checking out my cousin Thomas's apartment. He's got pretty much one of the best apartments in Bern. And he isn't even paying very much for it.
-jamming with Thomas on his piano (while he played this retro e-piano next to the one I was playing). We just decided on some basic jazz riff and off we went. It was so cool. I've never had so much fun jamming before.
-lunch at grandma's house
-gelato with Michelle (cousin) and her boyfriend Bruno at this excellent ice cream place (homemade Swiss ice cream - never knew it could be so good)
-lunch at grandma's house (on the next day)
-shooting my cousin Christoph's bow
-playing ping pong with my cousin Lukas
-playing my uncle Alex's piano (a 60,000 dollar Fiziola grand)
-chatting with Alex and Madeleine (uncle and aunt) after dinner
-driving their Saab
-the view from the train as I traveled from Basel to Bonfol
-bringing a bunch of cows with a trailer and tractor up to the hills for the summer with a friend of mine, Jon. The place was wreathed in cloud and it was pouring.
-sunrise in the Alps as I traveled on the train from Bern to Brig.
this last Wednesday, I hopped on that said train from Bern to Brig, then changed in Brig to another train to Milan, Italy. I was due to catch a plane to Athens at 6:00, but I got into the Milan train station by 9:30 in the morning, giving me plenty of time to enjoy the city a bit. I didn't have a plan, or even a city map, so I just struck out on foot in some direction which looked good. I wandered the streets, had lunch, read my book, wandered around again, headed back to the station and wound up getting lost. Being a guy, I tried to find the way myself, stubbornly refusing to ask for directions. Finally, gave in and asked some guy at a café who communicated to me in broken English and sign language that I should walk up the street to the next busy intersection and wait for tram 9. So simple. Back at the station I hopped on the shuttle bus to Malpensa airport, checked in, waited around for a long time (as is ALWAYS the case when flying), and finally got on the plane to Athens.
Why Athens? Well, we know some people there.
Actually, this girl called Binia came and helped out in our house for a few months in our family 17 years ago (my parents and her parents knew each other). She married, had kids, and her husband was over for dinner last year at our house when he happened to be in Vancouver on business. Cool thing is, he happens to work for Aegean Air (that is why they, originally Swiss, happen to be in Athens), and he was able to get me a sweet deal. And a sweet deal for the flight back on Monday too.
So, arrived Wednesday at 9 in Athens (losing an hour), got picked up by Roland, and headed to their house in this quiet neighbourhood (Kifias) north of Athens. As Binia's mother is here right now and staying in the guest room, I get to stay in Oliver's room while he sleeps in his brother's room. Thursday I headed into Athens on the metro (80 euro cents from here to Athens! So ridiculously cheap. And you can even go all the way to the harbour with an 80 cent ticket. That's the equivalent of going from Vancouver to Maple Ridge.) In Athens I, of course, visited the Acropolis, the Stadium, Herucles's temple, the Greek Agora (where Paul debated with the Athenians), the Roman Agora, some palace, the National Park. You have to pay 12 euros and then you get a pass to go see all these things within 48 hours. Except - and get this - you happen to be under 19. Then you get in for
Absolutely nothing.
Free visits to national monuments, 80 cent metro rides (compare to $10+ metro rides in London), 50 cent bus rides...Athens is an awesome city.
The Acropolis is cool, but at the moment the whole hill is a construction/restoration site, so it can be a bit hard to appreciate the ancientness of the place when you have all this metal scaffolding encapsulating every stone temple on the hill. Oh, and the thousands of people make it kind of hard as well. The place is an absolute zoo. I had to take some pictures, I couldn't believe the numbers.
One thing I wished I had done was to either have taken a good tour book along to explain all the sites or go on some guided tour. There were almost know signs or information boards to tell you what you were looking at.
The remaining time I walked through the neighbourhood on the north side of the acropolis. This was my favorite, just strolling along, looking at the houses, the taverns, the little alleys, the cats (they're everywhere), hearing people discussing loudly in Greek... Ah, beautiful. Did I take pictures? I took pictures.
On Friday, Binia, her mother Ruth, and myself headed to the harbor and hopped on a ferry to the Greek island of Aegina while the kids were at school. Went swimming in the Mediterranean Sea (wonderfully warm and clear, but much saltier than the Pacific), checked out the port town of Aegina, had lunch at a Greek tavern (obviously), checked out shops (or at least the two ladies did. I photographed the wonderful boats in the harbor) and then headed back at 3.
Today was pretty relaxed. We slept in and then headed to the kid's school were they had a fundraising run/walk to raise money for a new playground. I didn't do any running; played soccer with some of the Dad's instead. After a delicious buffet lunch we headed home where I took a nice long siesta, read, helped prepare dinner, watched a movie with Oliver (the oldest son, 12), and did some catching up on emails that needed to be written. And now it is approaching 1 in the morning and I don't really feel like writing anymore. Actually, I'm feeling distinctly uncreative today; that's why this post is so boring. Sorry. I'm not feeling it today; If I was I would go on and on about how wonderful Greece is, about all the mopeds on the streets, about the house across the road from which I hear Greek opera every night, about the traffic on the street, about the little alley shops and the street booths...because Greece really is amazing. I already know I'll be back here next time I head over to Europe to check out some more islands, do some snorkeling, sailing maybe?...
Monday I fly back to Switzerland where I have two days to do some visiting before heading back to Würzburg for a youth conference over the weekend, then a break of two days to pack before flying home. The adventure is slowly coming to an end.
11 days remain
posted by thomassanz at
1:05 PM
1 Comments:
Dont worry - that entry was far from boring, because nothing that you described was boring! Sounds like Greece is as cool as I though it would be - next time you go, can I come, too? Looking forward to seeing those pics.
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