From Varna, we road on a super ghetto train up into romania. The bathroom consisted of a hole in a room that went straight down on the tracks. gross. and, we got to spend 2 hours sitting on the border in the crazy heat trying to figure out how to open the window of our cabin because there was a serious lack of oxygen. whatever, we were just so happy to be getting out of Bulgaria. Finally we arrived in Romania.
Bucharest, Romania: the capital. ghetto. desolate. poor. desperate. mean ex commies. and apparently have some odd need to put "xerox centers" on every street corner...
We managed to haul our crap from the train station into a supermarket to get dinner (aka whatever weird canned things they sell in romania) and then onto the metro and eventually to our hotel. Sadly, our hotel gave away our room as we naively thought things (i.e our train) would run on time and we would get to Romania by 3 when in reality, we slid in around 10 at night. Luckily, they had another room we could have that we quickly realized could probably double as the hotel's sauna. Laura and i spent the entire night waking up ever half hour to one of us yelling to the other some form of "this must be what hell feels like". We were nearing a low point.
Our day in Bucharest was spent trekking all over the city. We just wandered around and took in all the architecture from the former soviet country. On occasion, we got lost in which case we would wander in to a store or tourist agency and meekly approach whatever person we saw too ask them in our sweetest voice if they could maybe help us. This was usually followed by the person we asked rolling their eyes at us, schooing us away with their hand, and them looking down/returning to doing nothing because obviously if you just dont look at us we will disappear. cool.
so on a side note, i had been having this toothache since i ate all that turkish delight in istanbul. it had been getting progressively worse to the point where shooting pains pulsed through my entire head and i would randomly start bawling because it hurt so bad. laura we really concerned and i was running out of painkillers, so we decided to consulate the ever-dependable parents. now, you would think it would be fairly easy to make an international call, but no, it took us 3 hours to do it. we bought the wrong type of phone cards because no one could tell us what to get. everyone would tell us to go different places to make the call ("go to newstand", "stand at red post office", "no, you don't make international calls in romania")...basically it was terrible. finally, we were about to have a breakdown when laura decides that we are marching into the really nice Hilton hotel we found, pretending we are guests, and sweet talking the concierge into explaining to us what exactly we had to do. somehow, despite our rather frightening appearance and me with tears streaming down my face while my hand is clenched to my jaw, we managed to get through to the parents who helped me conclude that i needed to see a dentist ASAP because i needed a root canal. nevermind that we,of course, are in one of the most ghetto countries we'd been planning on going to. nevermind that bucharest was extremely scary, dirty and the idea of having some dude with a drill have his way with my tooth sounded only slightly worse than our sauna of a hotel room, i couldn't deal with the pain any longer so we started to try and research dentists. After many internet cafe trips and such, it seemed like our best bet was to take a train north to the small city of cluj where there were some german dentists and such.
so we packed up our bags, threw on clothes that were really disgusting from our previous travels, and hiked to the train station. at this point, we were dripping in sweat (we pretty much hadn't stopped sweating since bulgaria), our feet were black either from the sun or dirt (most likely dirt) and we pretty much just looked scary. but not to worry, people would still stare at us because we stick our like sore thumbs and laura would respond to the stares with her own glare that said "whats your problem? dont look at us and if you do, im going to wipe my sweat on you". so yah, we jumped on the train for the 8 hour ride north. On the train might have been our low point, as it was so hot we were just dripping with sweat until this romanian girl in the seat next to me looked really concerned, busted out a pack of baby wipes, and proceeded to wipe sweat off my back and told us to take as many wipes as we needed. i tried to graciously thank her while i fanned myself with a small, ripped up cardboard box of my painkillers for my tooth. it was bad, real bad.
but things got better. we arrived in cluj after having an interesting chat with a romanian girl on the train. You can feel the pull of two world in this country; one where people are excited to be a part of the eu and move forward with technology/economy/etc and then the pull to hold on to their simpler lives in the country and the foundation of their culture. you can tell people are really torn so it will interesting to see what happens to romania in the next few years. also, we forget how recently it was communist. that was such a huge part of people's lives not that long ago, it is still in recent memory for many. after asking the girl on the train about what things were like when romania was communist she replied with "i dont know if it was better or not. then, we had money but no choices...only 2 kinds of cigarettes. now we have many choices, and coke and pepsi and fanta. but no money. i just dont know"
romania has completely won us over. the northern part of the country is gorgeous and the people are so genuine, warm, and take you in as one of the family. once we arrived in cluj, we went about finding a dentist. we wandered to his office where i walked in, he put me in a chair that had a video screen about 8inches from my face blasting crazy eastern european music videos. i tried to explain to him over the noise what the problem is with my tooth while he is smiling crazily at me, using his drill as a microphone and singing along to the music. finally, he tellls me not to worry and starts drilling away. all i can do is hope it works out. my tooth is definitely feeling much better, and im going back to see him in a week. our time in cluj was well spent, especially because we got to do laundry and got to meet Laura's cousin who lives there! It was so nice to see a familiar face.
While in cluj, we found ourselves confronted with the same scenario several times when we would interact with a romanian. It consisted of the following:
Laura and I: smile. "Hi"
romanian: looks at us weirdly and starts to chuckle. turns to whatever romanian is closest to them. they look at eachother. both are then laughing.
Laura and I: politely laugh also. "why are you laughing at us"
romanians: "we were just wondering. what are you two doing here? WHY are you here"
basically, people think we are really weird. but they are very curious and extremely nice. we left cluj to come to this little town of brasov which is nestled in the hills. it is exactly how you would imagine romania...thatched rooves, cute buildings, etc. its a ski town in the winter and just a breath of fresh air for us. we are going to stay here for the week. there are lots of castles in the area, including Draculas castle! we are really excited to see all the stuff, drink some good wine, and just hang out in one place for more than a night.
sorry this was so long. hope everything is well at home. happy summer! we will write more about romania soon.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Bulgaria was a bust
meg and lbora: blog us bitches! facebook only entertains me for so long, keep us updated and post those "pictures" or else we're gonna start thinking you guys are just hiding in reno, NV tripping off acid and making all this shit up.
This is an excerpt from an email written by Kathleen (college roomate...we miss Anza) that cracked us up. Sorry this took so long Kathleen, this blog is for you....
OK. Where did we leave off? Istanbul. We took a bus the next morning from Istanbul to Borgas, Bulgaria. In total the trip took about 7 hours, and we made sure to drink NO water whatsoever in fear that we would not stop during the entire trip for a bathroom break. But oh how wrong we were. This was a sweet bus ride. Music videos played the majority of the time (though they were all of Bulgarian pop stars who were half naked, so it was kind of awkward). A little Turkish man was our bus attendant, and he ran up and down the aisle of the bus like his life depended on it. Meg and I agreed that he was the hardest working person we had seen since arriving in Europe. He had an area set up in the back of the bus with all his "supplies" and would periodically appear with all sorts of treats with a dramatic flourish. First there was water for everyone in little plastic cups. Then he appeared with a glass bottle that was filled with hand sanitizer, which he loved to zealously dump into everyones hands. Next it was fruitcake, followed by more water, hand sanitizer, Nescafe, hand sanitizer, candy, and MORE SANITIZER. My hands have never been so clean. The bus also stopped every hour and a half or so, and Meg and I would scrounge up some change to pay for the bathroom and then check out what new snacks we could find in the mini markets. As we tend to do, we started wandering off during one stop to check out the scene until we heard some yelling from behind. Our little Turkish man was having his shoes shined, but had seen us drifting away and was bellowing at us and gesturing wildly to remain near the bus. He was definitely looking out (and it was probably a good call not to wander around some random little town in Turkey anyway). He truly won us over, however, when after some rumaging around in his area he produced a tray of little cups of ice cream. I'll miss that little man.
Finally we reached Burgas, Bulgaria (it's on the coast of the Black Sea). We wrongly assumed we would be dropped off at thecentral bus station and figure out a hotel from there, but instead we were dumped off on the side of some road, the only ones on the bus to depart. The only actual person in sight was a guy selling really old looking bananas across the street. Sweet. So we wandered around for a bit, made some inquiries about hotels to whoever spoke even the slightest bit of English, and ended up staying in what I could have sworn was an abandoned skyscrapper until we walked through the door. Think really tacky 50's decor in a concrete building. We spent a night there, and then spent two more nights in Varna, another seaside town about 2 hours north of Burgas. I'm just going to lump the towns together in my description of what we saw, as they were pretty much the same thing (although in Varna our hotel wasn't only a ghetto skyscrapper; it was a ghetto hotel/CASINO skyscrapper. Uhhhhh! We tried to go in but they wouldn't let us until they checked our passport and so we decided we were over it).
Now I hate to be judgemental, but bottom line: Bulgaria sucks. Meg and I kept looking around and just cracking up- it was like we were in Bizarro World from Seinfeld. The country is obviously very poor, but the people seem as though they are trying so hard to appear as though they are loaded. The women walk around in the most ridiculous outfits. Imagine a ton of flourescent bright colors, really tight spandex dresses, and heels at all times of the day, even on the beach. We would get dinner at a cafe on the main pedestrian road and just ignore eachother for at least an hour, each of us completely absorbed in our people watching. We saw a lot of mother daughter pairs in equally skimpy outfits, 4" heels and bright turquoise and lavender eyeshadow walking hand in hand. I almost bought Jan and I some matching florescent yellow minidresses to sashay down Tiburon's main street, arms linked, when I get back home, but then I thought about how the nursery school would probably ask her to resign and she would get kicked out of the Marin Women's Tennis League, so I refrained. Sorry Mom, no presents from Bulgaria.
We spent a day at the beach and a lot of time walking in the parks, where the sights just got weirder and weirder. There were about 4 babies per Mom (and I swear we didn't see one mother over the age of 25), but the kids were fully entertained by the odd array of petting zoos, balloon sellers, stationary plastic animals (that I personally thought were real scary looking) that kids could sit in and be rocked back and forth, and the concerts being performed every half hour by a choir of senior citizens. The number of stray dogs wandering in packs was astounding and we noticed that each dog had been tagged in its ear...I'm not too sure what the Bulgarians were trying to accomplish with this, but perhaps its good they are making the effort to keep track of the stray dog population?
We are pretty sure the diet of Bulgaria consists solely of popcorn, corn, and fro yo. But I was especially ready to get out of Bulgaria when we walked by the snake tent that had been set up, pictures of pythons out front enticing visitors to come in. My intense phobia of snakes mixed with the jenky, broken cages stacked up on the side of the tent was a sign that we had to move on.
This is an excerpt from an email written by Kathleen (college roomate...we miss Anza) that cracked us up. Sorry this took so long Kathleen, this blog is for you....
OK. Where did we leave off? Istanbul. We took a bus the next morning from Istanbul to Borgas, Bulgaria. In total the trip took about 7 hours, and we made sure to drink NO water whatsoever in fear that we would not stop during the entire trip for a bathroom break. But oh how wrong we were. This was a sweet bus ride. Music videos played the majority of the time (though they were all of Bulgarian pop stars who were half naked, so it was kind of awkward). A little Turkish man was our bus attendant, and he ran up and down the aisle of the bus like his life depended on it. Meg and I agreed that he was the hardest working person we had seen since arriving in Europe. He had an area set up in the back of the bus with all his "supplies" and would periodically appear with all sorts of treats with a dramatic flourish. First there was water for everyone in little plastic cups. Then he appeared with a glass bottle that was filled with hand sanitizer, which he loved to zealously dump into everyones hands. Next it was fruitcake, followed by more water, hand sanitizer, Nescafe, hand sanitizer, candy, and MORE SANITIZER. My hands have never been so clean. The bus also stopped every hour and a half or so, and Meg and I would scrounge up some change to pay for the bathroom and then check out what new snacks we could find in the mini markets. As we tend to do, we started wandering off during one stop to check out the scene until we heard some yelling from behind. Our little Turkish man was having his shoes shined, but had seen us drifting away and was bellowing at us and gesturing wildly to remain near the bus. He was definitely looking out (and it was probably a good call not to wander around some random little town in Turkey anyway). He truly won us over, however, when after some rumaging around in his area he produced a tray of little cups of ice cream. I'll miss that little man.
Finally we reached Burgas, Bulgaria (it's on the coast of the Black Sea). We wrongly assumed we would be dropped off at thecentral bus station and figure out a hotel from there, but instead we were dumped off on the side of some road, the only ones on the bus to depart. The only actual person in sight was a guy selling really old looking bananas across the street. Sweet. So we wandered around for a bit, made some inquiries about hotels to whoever spoke even the slightest bit of English, and ended up staying in what I could have sworn was an abandoned skyscrapper until we walked through the door. Think really tacky 50's decor in a concrete building. We spent a night there, and then spent two more nights in Varna, another seaside town about 2 hours north of Burgas. I'm just going to lump the towns together in my description of what we saw, as they were pretty much the same thing (although in Varna our hotel wasn't only a ghetto skyscrapper; it was a ghetto hotel/CASINO skyscrapper. Uhhhhh! We tried to go in but they wouldn't let us until they checked our passport and so we decided we were over it).
Now I hate to be judgemental, but bottom line: Bulgaria sucks. Meg and I kept looking around and just cracking up- it was like we were in Bizarro World from Seinfeld. The country is obviously very poor, but the people seem as though they are trying so hard to appear as though they are loaded. The women walk around in the most ridiculous outfits. Imagine a ton of flourescent bright colors, really tight spandex dresses, and heels at all times of the day, even on the beach. We would get dinner at a cafe on the main pedestrian road and just ignore eachother for at least an hour, each of us completely absorbed in our people watching. We saw a lot of mother daughter pairs in equally skimpy outfits, 4" heels and bright turquoise and lavender eyeshadow walking hand in hand. I almost bought Jan and I some matching florescent yellow minidresses to sashay down Tiburon's main street, arms linked, when I get back home, but then I thought about how the nursery school would probably ask her to resign and she would get kicked out of the Marin Women's Tennis League, so I refrained. Sorry Mom, no presents from Bulgaria.
We spent a day at the beach and a lot of time walking in the parks, where the sights just got weirder and weirder. There were about 4 babies per Mom (and I swear we didn't see one mother over the age of 25), but the kids were fully entertained by the odd array of petting zoos, balloon sellers, stationary plastic animals (that I personally thought were real scary looking) that kids could sit in and be rocked back and forth, and the concerts being performed every half hour by a choir of senior citizens. The number of stray dogs wandering in packs was astounding and we noticed that each dog had been tagged in its ear...I'm not too sure what the Bulgarians were trying to accomplish with this, but perhaps its good they are making the effort to keep track of the stray dog population?
We are pretty sure the diet of Bulgaria consists solely of popcorn, corn, and fro yo. But I was especially ready to get out of Bulgaria when we walked by the snake tent that had been set up, pictures of pythons out front enticing visitors to come in. My intense phobia of snakes mixed with the jenky, broken cages stacked up on the side of the tent was a sign that we had to move on.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Goodbye Greece, Hello Turkish Delight
Alright, lets back track a little:
From Delphi, we took a hellish bus trip to journey further north to Meteora, Greece. In usual Greek fashion, a bus trip that should have taken about 3 hours, took us 6 because we had to switch buses a bunch of times and go in a way that had no method. And to make things better, the longest leg of our journey happenned to be the most crowded because some girl with a broken neck was sprawled across the whole back seat of the bus...hence, we had to stand for 2 1/2 hours. what a slut. plus, we of course found ourselves next to the chattiest pair of 80 year olds, who had decided to backpack through europe, but couldn't even lift their own suitcases. and for some odd reason, they kept asking laura and i where to go and which bus to take despite us being as confused as they were. so yah, eventually we got to meteora and it was well worth the trip.
Meteora is another small greek town at the base of giant cliffs which used to be under the ocean. some phenomenon with the plates of the earth or something...we didn't really bother to inquire. on top of these cliffs are monastaries built in the 17th century. we took a bus up to the very top and hiked from cliff to cliff and were able to walk through a few of the monastaries. most are active, but it was really amazing to see the buildings that look like they are part of the rocks. it was breathtaking and the interiors were covered in frescoes that were amazing. we loved it.
From Meteora we continued along northern Greece to Thessoliniki...we still can't pronounce the name. It is the second biggest city in Greece and after all the little towns we'd been to, it was nice to finally reach a city. We aren't going to lie, the first thing we did after having to switch hotels because ours was "out" of water, was get giant coffees at Starbucks. Seeing those green overhangs was like heaven. Then, to be even more american, we went to the movies and saw oceans 13. brad pitt is hot. We pretty much just chilled around town and then saw a Ruby Tuesdays. We got really excited for the salad bar because we haven't had anything but cucumber and tomato salads, yogurt and gyros in a long time. thinking we had hit the jackpot, laura and i piled up our plates at the salad bar, chowed down, then got up to go for round two out of many but were shot down by the waitress who said "um girl, in Greece, we only go up ONCE"...we stared awkwardly at her and our tiny piles of carrots on the plate and wanted to cry. So we left thessolinki and greece behind.
and here we are in Istanbul, Turkey...not caring about long lost salad bars and instead smoking all the hookah we want and enjoying our sugar high of turkish delight (which is really delightful) and bahklavah.
To get to Turkey, we took an overnight train where we were woken up at the border at 4am with an islamic prayer blasting over some loud speakers. we rolled into istanbul in the morning, and were stunned by everything around us. Our hotel is between two infamous buildings- the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia. We are trying to think of how to describe this city and the culture of it, but can't. It's the gateway to the middle east...islamic prayer plays over loud speakers 5 times a day, many women are clad in head to toe coverings, arabic letters are everywhere, carpet stores line the streets (in between the shops selling turksih delight). The grand bazaar is the main market here and it is unbelievable. There are about 5000 shops in a covered area with people selling anything you could ever want. It was a little intense for us, as we stood out like sore thumbs and the harassment got overwhelming (most common names for us were "angels", "shakira and paris", miss california, and the pickup line of someone pointing behind us and saying that we dropped something-we ask what-they tell us its their heart). We were able to go into the blue mosque (after removing our shoes and being givern skirts and head coverings in order to enter). Inside, people were praying...the men in a huge area while the women were in a smaller, closed off area in the back of the mosque.
We then went into Aya Sofia where we were both almost brough to tears. It was originally built as a christian church and then the sultan converted it to a mosque. when converted to a mosque, most of the christian mosaics were painted over but they left a few to see out of respect. It was surreal to see a giant image of the virgin Mary and baby Jesus on the ceiling, just a few feet away from an enormous Islamic lettering in the same place. It was just insane to see these two religions in such close proximity and such a diverse group of people appreciating it.
We have spent our days here trying to stay out of trouble. We wander the streets, taking in all the sights/people, in awe of where we are. Our nights we spend at the local "water pipe" bar where we made a turkish friend who coached us on the workings of backgammon...we will mix it in with our chess playing. It is just wild to be here, we can't really explain it.
From Delphi, we took a hellish bus trip to journey further north to Meteora, Greece. In usual Greek fashion, a bus trip that should have taken about 3 hours, took us 6 because we had to switch buses a bunch of times and go in a way that had no method. And to make things better, the longest leg of our journey happenned to be the most crowded because some girl with a broken neck was sprawled across the whole back seat of the bus...hence, we had to stand for 2 1/2 hours. what a slut. plus, we of course found ourselves next to the chattiest pair of 80 year olds, who had decided to backpack through europe, but couldn't even lift their own suitcases. and for some odd reason, they kept asking laura and i where to go and which bus to take despite us being as confused as they were. so yah, eventually we got to meteora and it was well worth the trip.
Meteora is another small greek town at the base of giant cliffs which used to be under the ocean. some phenomenon with the plates of the earth or something...we didn't really bother to inquire. on top of these cliffs are monastaries built in the 17th century. we took a bus up to the very top and hiked from cliff to cliff and were able to walk through a few of the monastaries. most are active, but it was really amazing to see the buildings that look like they are part of the rocks. it was breathtaking and the interiors were covered in frescoes that were amazing. we loved it.
From Meteora we continued along northern Greece to Thessoliniki...we still can't pronounce the name. It is the second biggest city in Greece and after all the little towns we'd been to, it was nice to finally reach a city. We aren't going to lie, the first thing we did after having to switch hotels because ours was "out" of water, was get giant coffees at Starbucks. Seeing those green overhangs was like heaven. Then, to be even more american, we went to the movies and saw oceans 13. brad pitt is hot. We pretty much just chilled around town and then saw a Ruby Tuesdays. We got really excited for the salad bar because we haven't had anything but cucumber and tomato salads, yogurt and gyros in a long time. thinking we had hit the jackpot, laura and i piled up our plates at the salad bar, chowed down, then got up to go for round two out of many but were shot down by the waitress who said "um girl, in Greece, we only go up ONCE"...we stared awkwardly at her and our tiny piles of carrots on the plate and wanted to cry. So we left thessolinki and greece behind.
and here we are in Istanbul, Turkey...not caring about long lost salad bars and instead smoking all the hookah we want and enjoying our sugar high of turkish delight (which is really delightful) and bahklavah.
To get to Turkey, we took an overnight train where we were woken up at the border at 4am with an islamic prayer blasting over some loud speakers. we rolled into istanbul in the morning, and were stunned by everything around us. Our hotel is between two infamous buildings- the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia. We are trying to think of how to describe this city and the culture of it, but can't. It's the gateway to the middle east...islamic prayer plays over loud speakers 5 times a day, many women are clad in head to toe coverings, arabic letters are everywhere, carpet stores line the streets (in between the shops selling turksih delight). The grand bazaar is the main market here and it is unbelievable. There are about 5000 shops in a covered area with people selling anything you could ever want. It was a little intense for us, as we stood out like sore thumbs and the harassment got overwhelming (most common names for us were "angels", "shakira and paris", miss california, and the pickup line of someone pointing behind us and saying that we dropped something-we ask what-they tell us its their heart). We were able to go into the blue mosque (after removing our shoes and being givern skirts and head coverings in order to enter). Inside, people were praying...the men in a huge area while the women were in a smaller, closed off area in the back of the mosque.
We then went into Aya Sofia where we were both almost brough to tears. It was originally built as a christian church and then the sultan converted it to a mosque. when converted to a mosque, most of the christian mosaics were painted over but they left a few to see out of respect. It was surreal to see a giant image of the virgin Mary and baby Jesus on the ceiling, just a few feet away from an enormous Islamic lettering in the same place. It was just insane to see these two religions in such close proximity and such a diverse group of people appreciating it.
We have spent our days here trying to stay out of trouble. We wander the streets, taking in all the sights/people, in awe of where we are. Our nights we spend at the local "water pipe" bar where we made a turkish friend who coached us on the workings of backgammon...we will mix it in with our chess playing. It is just wild to be here, we can't really explain it.
As this isn't the safest place to be, we are heading out tomorrow to Bulgaria and the Black Sea. The goal is to rent a sweet "smart car" (the tiny 2 door euro car) to bomb around the beaches. We'll see...
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Slight change in "the plan"
So our plan of living in the Greek Isles for the summer, working at a bar in Ios, has come to an abrupt halt, and in true Meghan and Laura fashion, has been completely reworked in favor of a new, BETTER plan.
We worked for a total of 5 nights at Red Bull Bar, the last of which Meghan ditched out to throw up a few times and then head home (apparently you arent supposed to drink the tap water?) Everytime one of the Greeks inquired as to her whereabouts, I told them all she had gotten sick and was throwing up, and immediately they responded with, "is she pregnant?" I got home at 5 am, and we decided there and then that we just could not hang in Ios for the next two months. We had fun, but we realized that we wanted to spend our limited time seeing and experiencing as much as possible, and we could always go to Cancun spring break some other trip. The next morning we quit our jobs, rented an ATV, and bombed around the island, checking out all the remote beaches and feeling enormously content with our decision.
One aspect of our brilliant "new plan" was to ditch the big, rolling duffles we had hauled from home. We bought two blue small handbags and along with our Northface school backpacks, plan to take on Eastern Europe. We look a little bit like our own private tour group with our matching bags, but the lack of luggage has already proved its worth- besides the fact that we basically wear the same thing everyday.
Long story short, we had to take a ferry to get back the the mainland of Greece, so after a day trip in Mykonos, where we chilled with an old, bitter man selling "she shells" (we didnt have the heart to correct him) who shoved packaged frappes down our throats, we boarded a ferry at 11:30pm, only to find entire families sprawled out on the floor with the blankets they had brought from home. We made it to Athens at 4:30am, then hopped a bus to Delphi, our current location.
Delphi is a little town located in the mountains of central Greece, the infamous site of the oracle and home to the ancient temples of Apollo and Athena. It feels right to be travelling again, although we are running out of books to entertain us. Tonight we are planning on getting some red wine and playing chess...we are no longer on the path of old women, but rather old men.
We're having a ball and planning as we go...tomorrow we will bus it up to Northern Greece to check out some ancient monasteries built into the mountainside, and then who knows? We'll keep you updated (and yes, we need to post pictures and i realize i say this everytime, but we are working on it).
We worked for a total of 5 nights at Red Bull Bar, the last of which Meghan ditched out to throw up a few times and then head home (apparently you arent supposed to drink the tap water?) Everytime one of the Greeks inquired as to her whereabouts, I told them all she had gotten sick and was throwing up, and immediately they responded with, "is she pregnant?" I got home at 5 am, and we decided there and then that we just could not hang in Ios for the next two months. We had fun, but we realized that we wanted to spend our limited time seeing and experiencing as much as possible, and we could always go to Cancun spring break some other trip. The next morning we quit our jobs, rented an ATV, and bombed around the island, checking out all the remote beaches and feeling enormously content with our decision.
One aspect of our brilliant "new plan" was to ditch the big, rolling duffles we had hauled from home. We bought two blue small handbags and along with our Northface school backpacks, plan to take on Eastern Europe. We look a little bit like our own private tour group with our matching bags, but the lack of luggage has already proved its worth- besides the fact that we basically wear the same thing everyday.
Long story short, we had to take a ferry to get back the the mainland of Greece, so after a day trip in Mykonos, where we chilled with an old, bitter man selling "she shells" (we didnt have the heart to correct him) who shoved packaged frappes down our throats, we boarded a ferry at 11:30pm, only to find entire families sprawled out on the floor with the blankets they had brought from home. We made it to Athens at 4:30am, then hopped a bus to Delphi, our current location.
Delphi is a little town located in the mountains of central Greece, the infamous site of the oracle and home to the ancient temples of Apollo and Athena. It feels right to be travelling again, although we are running out of books to entertain us. Tonight we are planning on getting some red wine and playing chess...we are no longer on the path of old women, but rather old men.
We're having a ball and planning as we go...tomorrow we will bus it up to Northern Greece to check out some ancient monasteries built into the mountainside, and then who knows? We'll keep you updated (and yes, we need to post pictures and i realize i say this everytime, but we are working on it).
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
A day in the life of Laura and Meghan
Alright, since we last wrote, we have arrived on the tiny island of Ios. Words cannot even begin to explain the insanity of this island, and we are both slightly stunned that this is where we are spending our summer. its a lot to take in and we will do our best to explain it to you.
basically, ios (population 1500) is spring break all summer. its mostly australians, canadians and a few americans...i.e no one speaks greek. you would never even know you were on a greek island. imagine white sand beaches in the meditteranean packed of people aged 20-30, drinking, playing loud music, swimming...and next to the beach they have a whole pool scene, where you can lounge at the pool if the meditteranean isn't quite good enough for you. it is complete insanity. so yah, that is the day scene.
at night, the island turns from crazy beach scene, to crazy club/nightlife scene. the small town is like a maze of white streets that are jam packed with people partying there lives away. its wild, and we are completely overwhelmed and kind of out of our element. most of the people we meet who have been here more than 5 days have this glazed over expression and are in a constant state of either drunkenness or hungoverness...they are barely functioning.
and as crazy as all this is, we are going to try and stay here, we have "jobs" and a place to live, so that we can prolong our travel money for september and after so that we dont have to deal with all the tourists in europe. our summer basically consists of this:
12pm: we wake up, eat some greek yogurt and discuss the antics of the previous night
1pm: we go to our bar that we work at to help clean it and receive our illegal wages that are just barely enough to pay our rent and buy some food (although we've been getting some good tips)
3pm: we wander down to the beach (we are slowly turning into complete beach bums) and sit apart from all the craziness to read our good historical fiction books and watch all the people that we saw who were wasted the night before at our bar looking like they want to die
6pm: wander home, eat some dinner, take a nap, shower, get ready to go out (aka drink some wine on our balcony of our little room we are renting)
10pm: start work (we are "waitresses" at a bar called red bull...its a really popular bar that plays good music and compared to other girls working on the island, we have really good hours. a lot of the people work from 10pm-7am and then have to go down to the beach to promote their bar from 3pm-6pm but since our bar is already popular, we dont have to do promo) working means we bring people their drinks, but mainly stand on the steps outside the bar and look like we are having the best time EVER so that you want to come into our bar. we work with this crazy girl from texas and apparently three blond girls from the states are a tourist attraction as people keep randomly taking awkward pictures of us...not cool.
12am: still working
1am: still dancing
2am: still working
3am: still working
4am: still working and dying
5am: thinking we get to go home but end up getting dragged out to "party" til like 7...cool
7am: we get home, laura tries to pretend to read and wakes up in the morning not remember what she read and i usually just sleep.
which brings us back to us wakign up. we'll see how long we can keep this up but our boss, george, is nice enough to say that we can ask when we want a night off...like 1 night off ever 30 days.
alright, we need to go nap.
basically, ios (population 1500) is spring break all summer. its mostly australians, canadians and a few americans...i.e no one speaks greek. you would never even know you were on a greek island. imagine white sand beaches in the meditteranean packed of people aged 20-30, drinking, playing loud music, swimming...and next to the beach they have a whole pool scene, where you can lounge at the pool if the meditteranean isn't quite good enough for you. it is complete insanity. so yah, that is the day scene.
at night, the island turns from crazy beach scene, to crazy club/nightlife scene. the small town is like a maze of white streets that are jam packed with people partying there lives away. its wild, and we are completely overwhelmed and kind of out of our element. most of the people we meet who have been here more than 5 days have this glazed over expression and are in a constant state of either drunkenness or hungoverness...they are barely functioning.
and as crazy as all this is, we are going to try and stay here, we have "jobs" and a place to live, so that we can prolong our travel money for september and after so that we dont have to deal with all the tourists in europe. our summer basically consists of this:
12pm: we wake up, eat some greek yogurt and discuss the antics of the previous night
1pm: we go to our bar that we work at to help clean it and receive our illegal wages that are just barely enough to pay our rent and buy some food (although we've been getting some good tips)
3pm: we wander down to the beach (we are slowly turning into complete beach bums) and sit apart from all the craziness to read our good historical fiction books and watch all the people that we saw who were wasted the night before at our bar looking like they want to die
6pm: wander home, eat some dinner, take a nap, shower, get ready to go out (aka drink some wine on our balcony of our little room we are renting)
10pm: start work (we are "waitresses" at a bar called red bull...its a really popular bar that plays good music and compared to other girls working on the island, we have really good hours. a lot of the people work from 10pm-7am and then have to go down to the beach to promote their bar from 3pm-6pm but since our bar is already popular, we dont have to do promo) working means we bring people their drinks, but mainly stand on the steps outside the bar and look like we are having the best time EVER so that you want to come into our bar. we work with this crazy girl from texas and apparently three blond girls from the states are a tourist attraction as people keep randomly taking awkward pictures of us...not cool.
12am: still working
1am: still dancing
2am: still working
3am: still working
4am: still working and dying
5am: thinking we get to go home but end up getting dragged out to "party" til like 7...cool
7am: we get home, laura tries to pretend to read and wakes up in the morning not remember what she read and i usually just sleep.
which brings us back to us wakign up. we'll see how long we can keep this up but our boss, george, is nice enough to say that we can ask when we want a night off...like 1 night off ever 30 days.
alright, we need to go nap.
Friday, June 1, 2007
we might be drunk in Santorini right now...
we just finished a nice, romantic dinner on the balcony of Lithos Restaurant, watching the sunset, sipping out wine, and being forced to drink free, bright blue ouzo concoctions that reminded us of the AMF's back in Davis. Santorini has been a breath of fresh air...lots of beaching, breathtaking views, and imagining the erruption of the volcanoe in 1100 BC...we're pretty sure we would have survived just fine. We mean, how bad could it have been, right? Last night we saw a poster advertising the "english version" of Pirate's of the Carribean...so we went, duh. the only issue was that it was at 1030 at night, all the way across the island with no bus to take us home. being the dedicated americans that we are, we decided to go anyways and hike home...let's just say it wasn't one of our better plans to hike back in the dark but here we are.
Santorini has cemented earlier interpertations and observations of the Greeks, which continues to leave us mindboggled and entertained. A few include:
Obviously the bus station is not located where the sign marked "bus stop" is; instead, look for a small raised block of cement completely unmarked.
Time is of no importance. you are on the schedule of the driver and when he finishes his cigarette.
"chef salad", "garden salad", "vegetable salad", "mixed salad" = tomato. cucumber. feta. (i.e: a greek sald)
random billy goats tend to wander. there is no need for concern as they are on an island and are not going anywhere.
we now undersatnd why europeans smell bad...the showers suck. if one of us goes in to shower, the bathroom turns into a lake and we still aren't clean as it is impossible to hold the shower head and try and shampoo/shave. so yeah, we aren't looking too cute.
it is unclear whether greeks are just "chatting" with a friend, or engaged in some intense argument. the decimel level they speak at is abnormal and we are going slightly deaf. or else, they think we are stupid.
there are many more which aren't coming to mind currently. we just got bored so we are leaving now. maybe to a bar? peace.
Tomorrow, we are off to Ios where we plan to settle and find some jobs. we'll keep you updated. stay well.
Santorini has cemented earlier interpertations and observations of the Greeks, which continues to leave us mindboggled and entertained. A few include:
Obviously the bus station is not located where the sign marked "bus stop" is; instead, look for a small raised block of cement completely unmarked.
Time is of no importance. you are on the schedule of the driver and when he finishes his cigarette.
"chef salad", "garden salad", "vegetable salad", "mixed salad" = tomato. cucumber. feta. (i.e: a greek sald)
random billy goats tend to wander. there is no need for concern as they are on an island and are not going anywhere.
we now undersatnd why europeans smell bad...the showers suck. if one of us goes in to shower, the bathroom turns into a lake and we still aren't clean as it is impossible to hold the shower head and try and shampoo/shave. so yeah, we aren't looking too cute.
it is unclear whether greeks are just "chatting" with a friend, or engaged in some intense argument. the decimel level they speak at is abnormal and we are going slightly deaf. or else, they think we are stupid.
there are many more which aren't coming to mind currently. we just got bored so we are leaving now. maybe to a bar? peace.
Tomorrow, we are off to Ios where we plan to settle and find some jobs. we'll keep you updated. stay well.
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