"“Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.” -Frank Herbert

Holiday Saga Part 3

We realized pretty quickly that traveling alone in Greece was not a wise move, so Rachel and I signed up for a bunch of the cruise’s excursions. I had done some research, and found the prices on the cruise were more than reasonable, and they took us to some great sites, so I think it was a good move. The cruise was only 5 days long, but it covered a lot of ground! On Tuesday, the first full day of the cruise, we went started the day (insanely early!) in Kusadasi, Turkey.

I was shocked by how incredible Turkey is! It is really beautiful, which I was not expecting. We drove up the mountains, taking in the view until we got to The House of the Virgin Mary, which is believed to be where the Virgin Mary spent the last years of life. It is now a holy site for both Muslims and Christians, so on August 15^th every year a service is performed there and both Christian and Muslim pilgrims venture up there. It is one of the only (if not the only) times Christians and Muslims gather to worship together, so even if it is not the actual house of the Virgin Mary, it is still pretty cool. There is also a spring that runs under Mary’s bedroom and she is believed to have drunk from, and now the Spring is believed to have healing powers. Beyond the religious significance of the site, it is also just really beautiful.

The House of The Virgin Mary- the different colored stones on the bottom are the ones from the original house (it was reconstructed after a German nun's visions led archaeologists to the site). This is the only picture I could get that didn't have a bunch of tourists in it.

The front of the house

Prayers on the gates lining the walls by the house

Washing my hands in the water from the holy spring

After leaving the House of the Virgin Mary, we went to the ancient city of Ephesus. Turkey actually has the most ruins from ancient Greece, and the most well preserved ruins, of anywhere in the world, including Greece. Surprising, no?

Greek Ruins

Kittie hanging out on the Gate of Hercules

Ruins of a Greek Library

Ruins from the marketplace. The ugly siding on the right is actually protecting these 7 homes of really wealthy Greek families that were found remarkably well preserved (with tables set in the kitchens, etc). We didn't get to go in, but it was cool nonetheless

Public bathrooms from the marketplace/forum. Rachel and I thought it was picture-worthy, until we realized how weird it would be if in a hundred years or so people took pictures of the toilets we use now

The Octagon, the tomb of Princess Arsinoe, sister of Cleopatra, whose husband Marc Anthony executed Arsinoe by poisoning her, as he saw her a threat to his power. This is where the poison Arsenic gets its name. I hope if one of my siblings or their spouses ever murdered me they would at least have the decency to name the murder weapon after me.

The Great Amphitheater, where Saint Paul preached to the Ephesians. Elton John has also been featured there, which I found delightfully ironic.

After we left Ephesus the tour took us to a traditional Turkish rug maker. Naturally, we assumed it was just going to be a boring demonstration where they tried to get us to buy a rug, but we were pleasantly surprised. We watched a woman who is working on weaving a beautiful silk rug (that will take her a year and a half to complete!), which was very impressive. Then they rolled out a bunch of finished rugs and we were just amazed at how gorgeous they were! They are really works of art. I, being naïve, asked how much one cost. It was about as much as a year of room & board at Smith, so I just laughed, whereupon the nice salesman brought Rachel and me into a private room where he rolled out rug after rug, trying to convince us to buy one. We had a hard time trying to make them understand that we were not going to buy a rug (gorgeous though they were, I need a new computer far more than a Turkish rug, and the cheapest one they had was as much as a top of the line laptop).

When we finally got out of there and said goodbye to the pretty rugs we wandered around the market near the ship. Rachel and I received a strange number of comments about our hair (she has curly hair as me), and heard many calls of “Hey, Curly, come over here!” It was very weird! Poor Rachel got ripped off at one of the shops, which we only learned when we got back to the ship. It was pretty upsetting, but she was a good sport about it (much more so than I would have been!).

Rachel, being very happy in Kusadasi (prior to realizing she had been ripped off).

That afternoon/evening we went to Patmos. It beautiful, but not as cool as Kusadasi. First we went to the Grotto of Saint John where it is believed that he received the visions of the apocalypse recorded in the Book of Revelations. We could not take pictures inside (an angry-looking Greek Orthodox priest was there to make sure) but they had the rock he used as a pillow, the groove in the wall he used for support when he stood up from the rock-bed, and the fissure in the wall representing the trinity.

The view on the way up to the grotto

Building constructed to protect the grotto

Mosaic outside the grotto, showing St. John dictating the Book of Revelations to his scribe

lots of Greek cats outside the grotto

The Monastery next to the grotto in honor of St. John

We also saw more windmills, and took a scenic drive around the island, before stopping at a little Greek café, where Rachel and I got to try Greek orange juice. My friend had told me a while ago that the orange juice in Greece is different from anywhere else, and very special. She was right! It was delicious, and I don’t usually even like orange juice!

Wandering around Patmos was lovely. They had a bunch of cute shops and the scenery was gorgeous. There were a lot of beautiful houses on the island, and our tour informed us that they range from €2,000-€3,000/square meter. So, my new mission in life is to find a rich husband who will buy me a house in Patmost (I already picked it out!) that I can fill with pretty Turkish rugs.

Anyway, here are some pictures from Patmos:

We kept seeing this fat little dog around the beaches; he even wandered in the cafe where we were eating! I named him "Fatty". He was really sweet and funny! The security guys stationed outside our ship got bored and gave him some food, which he is happily eating in the picture.

There are lots of little churches like these (at least I think they're churches) around the islands. Also, that's our ship in the background, which provides an interesting back drop.

Another tiny little church

" “I am a citizen, not of Athens or Greece, but of the world”-Socrates

Me in Mykonos!

So, after I spent a lovely day in Frankfurt I headed off to Athens. My friend and I were booked for a cruise that left early the next morning, and she was flying direct from a competition in the Netherlands, so I was going to spend the night in a hotel, and she would meet me there when she got in. I talked to the hotel ahead of time to figure out how to get from the airport to the hotel and it all seemed easy and I was not worried in the slightest.

I should have known that me not worrying is always a bad sign. When my flight got in and I got my bag, I just walked right out without going through passport control or customs or security or anything, which seemed a bit strange, but I was not complaining. I tried to get a taxi to take me to the hotel but the driver said the hotel was so close that it would not be worth his time to take me, and since I was fairly certain he was drunk, I hopped on the bus that the hotel receptionist had told me to take. It was not the right bus. Hardly anybody spoke English, and finally through the help of a nice man who kind of spoke English, I was told to get off and cross the street, and then just walk straight, and I’d get to the hotel. Once I crossed the street though, I learned it did not continue like the man had said, but rather cut off in a very sketchy ally. It was very late and I was really scared. I tried not to cry, but I was pretty terrified. I managed to hail a taxi, but the driver quickly got lost, spoke no English, and drove like a maniac. I just prayed and held on tight for what felt like an eternity, thinking all the while “I should have stayed in Germany!”.

Once he dropped me at the hotel (after overcharging me and throwing my bag to the curb) I slept just a bit until Rachel came. She and I got a few hours of sleep before heading over to our port for the cruise. We noticed a couple of things very quickly:

-Athens is dirty. It has become very run down and disgusting, which is sad considering how much history is there

- Greece has lots of animals running around. While we were in the queue to board the ship, we saw several homeless dogs running around. They were surprisingly clean and very friendly, but it was very strange

- Our boat had a lot of Americans, especially the type of Americans that make you understand why the rest of the world has such a negative view of Americans. Fanny packs and sandals-with-socks galore! There were also lots of American school groups onboard- one from Wisconsin (made evident by their sweatpants/shorts/t-shirts with the word “Wisconsin” emblazed brightly) and a few others. And I thought my high school was cool when we went to a Broadway show! The kids were kind of annoying, and made me really glad to be out of high school, but we managed to avoid them for most of the trip.

The reviews I’d read online made me a little unsure of what to expect from the ship, but I was pleasantly surprised. The ship was small, especially compared to the two Royal Caribbean ships I had been on, but it was very nicely decorated, modern, and did not feel too crowded. There was not much of a pool, but that was not a problem since it was till a bit too chilly for swimming. Our room was really nice, and our window afforded us some great views (well worth the bit of extra money you had to pay for a room with a window). My only complaint was that you felt the ship rocking quite a bit, which I had not experienced on the other cruises I had been on. Those prone to motion sickness might not have enjoyed the ship so much!

Rachel, my wonderful travel companion, and I have both had some experiences in which we are “creeper magnets” (attractors of creepy people) and while we were hoping to get away from this on our holiday we were not so lucky. A very nice crew member showed us to our room when we first arrived, and then we wound up seeing him again at dinner, so he came over to our table. We were trying to eat quickly, but he seemed very eager to have a conversation with us, but it was extremely awkward. We laughed it off once he left, but then that night, at about 11:30, he came to our room! Rachel (by far the sweeter of us two) tried to make it less awkward by asking about breakfast, but it was very strange, and annoying since we had to be up at about 5:30 am. We had another awkward encounter the next day, and then that night he came to our room AGAIN at 11:30! This time I answered the door, not too happy to be disturbed when I was just about to get under the covers. It was very awkward, and since I lack Rachel’s charm, I was perhaps a bit snippy. At this point we were pretty uncomfortable with the situation, so the next day we went to the reception desk and explained about our frequent visitor. The receptionist seemed pretty freaked out and promised to take care of it, but said that if he should come by again, to call the desk “IMMEDIATLEY!” Fortunately he did not come by again, and we managed to avoid him for the rest of the cruise, but that night when we were about to go to sleep, Rachel found a black hair on her pillow not belonging to either of us. We fell asleep laughing and teasing each other that he was our new stalker.

But back to the fun stuff. After we left Athens we spent a few hours at sea before getting to Mykonos. We walked around the city as the sunset along the beach. It was simply beautiful! We were one of the first cruises of the season so it was not too over run with tourists, and people were not sick of Americans just yet. I bought a beautiful painting (where I got ripped off for the first time, but more on that later. It wasn’t a huge deal, though) and we had a really nice night.

View as we approached Mykonos

Pangia Paraportiani at Sunset

the famous Mykonos windmills

typical little street in Mykonos

View from the beach

" We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment" -Hilaire Belloc

It has always been my experience that layovers between flights suck. Three hours in the St. Paul, Minnesota airport was certainly less than exhilarating. So, of course, when I was trying to book my flight to Athens and the only two flights available both had insane layovers, I was not thrilled. However, the cheaper of the two (“cheaper” being a relative term), had a nine hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany. I have a few friends who always tell me how wonderful Germany is, and another friend who routinely has massive layovers, which she uses as a chance to get a bonus trip, so I decided to take my cue from them, and spent a few hours exploring Frankfurt. Here is what I learned:

1. German is a language with far too many consonants. Many of the words are actually very similar to their English counterparts, just with random Ws, Xs, Hs, and Zs, thrown in. As a result, German sounds very harsh, and the speakers seem somewhat angry. Really, I think they are just tired from using so many unnecessary letters.

2. Nine hours was all I really needed to see Frankfurt. It is not a huge city, and since it was a Sunday, very little was open, so the short amount of time I had allowed me to explore the city without feeling too rushed, but also from getting bored or tempted to do too much.

3. Everyone really does speak English. My friend who lived there for two years had told me this ahead of time, but I thought he was exaggerating. But really, everyone there spoke English and I had no trouble communicating or getting help when I needed it. Even the homeless woman who helped me find my way spoke fluent English! I hope this doesn’t make me an annoying American tourist, but this was a comforting discovery.

4. There are a surprising amount of Roman ruins in Frankfurt. I couldn’t believe all the old remains I saw, or how beautiful the Roman part of the city is.

5. Frankfurt is very clean! There was little graffiti, the city felt entirely safe, there weren’t any vagrants, and everyone was friendly. Maybe it’s because I just wrote a paper on the Holocaust, but I was expecting a very cold, hostile, ugly place, but I was pleasantly surprised.

I really needed some time away from London and school and stress and everything, and just some time to be by myself and not have to worry too much about anything, so this was a great way to start off my trip and I was so grateful for the opportunity.

Since I was traveling alone, I could not take pictures of myself, and I have heard too many stories of people having their cameras stolen by seemingly nice people offering to take their picture. Still, I didn’t just want to have boring scenery pictures that look the same as everyone else’s who has been to Frankfurt, so I took along Mr. Chick, a little stuffed chick I found on sale at a store in London, and enlisted him to be my model for the pictures.

Eschenheimer Turm

A beautiful graveyard I happened upon as I was lost (with Mr. Chick)

Not sure what this building is but it was really pretty

Reconstructed Roman building (the original was bombed in 1944)

The Kaiserdom, circa 1356

Mr. Chick hanging out on some Roman ruins

I loved the mix of old and new here

"Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not." - James Joyce

For those who don’t know, I have the greatest mother ever. Seriously, she’s the best. And, she spent the last week in London with me! Naturally, it was fantastic.

She came armed with an itinerary a mile long, most of which was taken from my London Bucket List (see below) so we checked off several key things, and had a lovely time.

When she arrived on Sunday, we had a nice cup of tea/cappuccino and headed to the Wallace Collection, which was surprisingly incredible, and highly underrated.

The armor and weaponry room at the Wallace Collection

Then we went to Hampstead Heath which was beautiful, but quite chilly. We got some great pictures, saw amazing sights, and walked and talked for miles.

The view from Hampstead Heath

John Keats' House, next to Hampstead Heath

On Monday, after my classes we went to a fabulous, and quite unique dinner and then saw The Misanthrope (which was awful, by the way, but seeing Keira Knightly from the second row was pretty cool). Tuesday we went to the V&A, got crepes nearby, and went to see Private Lives, with Kim Cattrall and Matthew Macfayden, which was fantastic. Wednesday, since I had the day off, we went over to Kingston, where I got to go riding in Richmond Park, and we attempted to go to Hampton Court (we got there just after they sold the last ticket of the day L), did a bit of exploring, and then saw A Midsummer’s Night Dream with Dame Judy Dench, which was also great.

Thursday, my Mom booked us on an incredible tour that took us to Bath, Stonehenge, and this small town Lacock, which is beautifully untouched by time. It was one of the best days I’ve spent in England, and it was an unforgettable experience. I took lots of pictures!

The view from the Bridge in Bath

Bath Abbey

The Roman Baths

the beautiful and mystifying Stonehenge

Mom and me at Stonehenge

King John I's Hunting Lodge in Lacock, where the king was forced to sign the Magna Carta at knifepoint in 1215

Church Graveyard in Lacock

The Medieval Fireplace at the George Inn in Lacock, where we had a most fabulous dinner (the inn was established in 1361)

A small dog would run inside this wheel to fuel the fire in the fireplace above

Friday we did some shopping and had tea at Fortnum and Mason’s (which I loved even more because in the musical Oliver! there is a cart onstage from Fortnum and Mason’s during “Who Will Buy”). After the tour guide from Thursday’s adventure and I recommended WarHorse, my mom suggested we try for return tickets, which we lucked out with and got great seats. I think I enjoyed the play even more this time, possibly because I wasn’t jetlagged out of my mind, and partly because I was with much better company than before. But I (like the rest of London theater-goers) would highly recommend it to anyone in London.

tea at Fortnum and Mason's

For my mom’s birthday I’d done the British Library’s Adopt-a-Book program, and adopted a 1904 edition of Anne of Green Gables for her (she read it to me when I was little, because, as I said, she’s the best mom ever), and so on Saturday we got to take a special tour of the library, which was very interesting and made me appreciate the library even more. Then I dragged her to my favorite part of London, the markets. First we went to Camden Market, where I got my dress for Ivy Day next year (Seriously, next year!!!). Then we went to Portobello Road, which I think my mom liked a lot better, and we looked at the beautiful antique jewelry, and she bought a beautiful brooch, and we got some delicious crepes.

We passed George Orwell's house on the way to Portobello Road

Afterwards we went and saw The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I may be scarred for life, but my mom enjoyed it because she’d read the books and actually understood what was going on. We got Indian food for dinner, and all was right with the world.

After a lovely lay in at her amazing hotel and a yummy English breakfast (well, as yummy as any English breakfast can be) we bid adieu. It was so great to spend time with her, and do things I could not have done with anyone else. Also just being on the same continent as her was great, because normally our schedules do not mesh well with the time difference, so being able to talk with her was so wonderful and cathartic in many ways. I was so glad to see her and spend time with her and just be able to hug her for the first time in months. I do not think I realized until fairly recently just how blessed I am to have such a great relationship with my parents, so having my mom here was just fantastic, especially since, by sheer coincidence she was here for the British Mother’s Day, so she gets 2 mother’s days this year!