Leaving Ireland for Lisbon

Immediately after my parents left I began studying for my last final: John Donne. I spent four days in the library reading about this poet and gained a major appreciation for him. The poetry is amazing, specifically in my opinion the Holy Sonnets, particularly “Death be not proud,” and his Devotions, where Hemingway gets the phrase, “For whom the bells toll.” The final was on the 16^th, and after it was over about six of us spent the afternoon day drinking. Prone to doing stupid things, we took pills meant for fevers, just to see what would happen when ignoring the warning not to take with alcohol, thinking nothing would actually happen. In reality, I ended up falling asleep on my friend Bridget’s shoulder an hour later, then ate dinner with Beth after that, barely staying awake through it, and went to sleep embarrassingly early for my last night in Dublin. I guess the medicine had the last laugh.

The next day I left Dublin for good and headed down to Lisbon, Portugal to meet up with my friends Evan Johnson and Eillie Anzilotti. The whole semester I’ve been wanting to see Seamus Heaney in person, and I finally got the opportunity in the security line. I was standing there and I saw him walk to the back of the line, talking with someone, and he had a major smile plastered permanently to his face. This was definitely him and I felt immediately star struck. I was debating whether to say something to him at the end of security, wondering if I had the courage. I watched him go through security and get padded down by one of the guards. That was great to see: Nobel Laureates are real people too who get frisked by security. He finished security before I did, and I watched him walk away and disappear down a corridor of the airport. I really don’t know whether, if I got the chance, I would have said something to him. I fantasized the conversation going something like this:

Me: Sorry to bother you, but are you Seamus Heaney?

SH: Haha, I am indeed.

Me: It’s an honor to meet you. I just wanted to shake your hand and tell you that you are an idol of mine.

Then I proceed to smile awkwardly and walk away, half humiliated. Good thing that didn’t happen.

Just seeing him made my morning, and I boarded my flight happily. Our plan for Lisbon was to decompress from the semester by hanging out on the beach the whole time. And that’s exactly what we did. When I got to the hostel, Home Lisbon Hostel (the best hostel of the semester), I changed and we took the train to the beach and stayed there for five hours. 

That night we ate dinner at the hostel, one of the best meals I’ve had all semester, and Evan and Eillie were exhausted from Dublin so we stayed in that night.

The next day we woke up and went back to the same beach and spent another five hours there. I walked up and down the beach and took some cool pictures. 

Evan and Eillie got really bad sunburns. We ate dinner that night at the hostel again, and the meal was incredible still, and sat at a table with two Australian girls. That night we went on the Hostel pub crawl, which started off during a monsoon that completely flooded the streets. The pub crawl was a lot of fun. The first bar had free drinks for the first hour, and the next two places were dance clubs. We went to sleep around 4:30 that morning. Eillie and Evan had to wake up at 9:30 for flights back to Dublin, but I stayed an extra day and slept til about 1:00. When I woke up I took a tram and met up with my friend Marjorie Kalomeris and her friend from home. As I was waiting for them I went to a community garage sale and bought a CD player for 3 euros, only because I hadn’t seen one in almost a decade and therefore found sentimental value in it. I had a horrible hangover from the night before, and the three of us went to a few cafes, which I appreciated. Her friend got in that day, so they went back to Marjorie’s place and I went to an art museum nearby for a while before heading back toward the hostel. 

I wound up taking my last aimless journey in Europe around Lisbon, which lasted almost four hours.

I got some dinner to go at a place that sold falafel, but they gave it to me without sauce or bread, so I was planning on throwing it away. On the way back to the hostel I was stopped by a Rastafarian man who asked me for some money. I then had a ridiculous conversation:

R-man: Have some change, man? I see your fooood.

Me: Don’t have money, but actually do you want this? I don’t want it anymore.

R-man: Sure. No, I don’t need this, I need money, man, moooney. For some juice. I need chuuuice.

Me: I don’t know what Chuse is.

R-man: Chuuuuuice. Like whiskey man.

(I pulled out my wallet and gave him 50 cents)

R-man: What is this? I don’t need this man.

Me: How much do you need?

R-man: 70 euros.

Me: I don’t have 70 euros to give you.

R-man: But I need it man, I neeeeed it!

(I was getting angry)

Me: Listen, I just gave you my dinner, okay? I have to go.

R-man: No, I need the money.

Me: What the fuck do you want from me? I gave you food and some money, that’s all I got.

(I turned around and continued walking down the street)

R-man: C’mon you dickhead!

(He ran after me and I quickly turned around. He handed me back my falafel)

R-man: This is yours, I don’t want it, I just need money for the chuuuise.

Me: Here, here’s 3 euros, that’s all I have for you. Good luck.

Luckily a storeowner was closing his shop nearby and the Rastafarian ran up to him begging for juice, and I got away. I threw away the falafel and bought a better one at another place. I realized that that man would be the last interesting person I met in Europe. I got back to the hostel and hung out there for the rest of the night.

I woke up the next day. (Please note that today is the same day I’m currently writing about. I finally caught up!) I got breakfast in the dining room, showered, finished packing and left for the bus. I’m currently writing this on the plane flight to Boston. I am going from Boston to Chicago. After we took off from Lisbon I looked at Europe for the last time and said my goodbyes. 

We are currently over Newfoundland, I think about two hours or so away from the connection.

Parents Visit Ireland

My first final in John Milton was approaching and I had some work to do in preparation for it. I spent the next four days in Dublin reading the second half of Paradise Lost, which is now my favorite piece of literature. It is very long and very hard to get through, but Milton’s imagination, coupled with the fact that he wrote it in unfaltering iambic pentameter when he was blind is unbelievable. I took the test on May 4^th and described the experience at the beginning of my third Greece road trip post.

Two days later my mom and dad came to Ireland to visit for a week. We had a great time. We rented a car and Dad adjusted to driving on the left side of the road. We wasted no time and drove up to Belfast and stayed for two nights. It is a very interesting city, and Mom and Dad were particularly intrigued because they remember hearing about Belfast on the news every week only a few decades before. While up north we explored the city, visited the Bushmills distillery, the Giant’s Causeway, and explored. It was raining for most of Belfast, which only really affected the visit to the Giant’s Causeway.

After Belfast we drove westward through Sligo county and ended in Connemara. We stayed there for two nights as well, saw the Cliffs of Moher, walked around Galway, and explored Connemara. In Connemara we went to Kylemore Abbey and then the more impressive Ashford Castle, built 800 years ago and still functioning, now as a five star hotel. That night we drove into Galway and walked around. I brought my parents to my favorite pub there, Crane's, which they loved, and then we went back to the hotel where I finished writing my thesis proposal for next year.

The next day we headed back to Dublin, stopped in the middle of the country to get haircuts (Dad and I have a running list of all the interesting places we get haircuts, which includes: an island in Seattle and the Arab Quarter in the old city, among others). We got back to Dublin and I settled back in my apartment while my parents checked into the Schoolhouse Hotel down the street. That night we went to a restaurant called Eden, which was fantastic, and at the end of dinner the Dublin Film Group (that’s not what they’re called) put on The Wizard of Oz on an outdoor screen right outside the restaurant. We ended up staying and watching the whole movie, which undoubtedly will never get old, even 100 years from now.

The next day I slept in while my parents went to the Guinness factory. I met them at the front gate of Trinity and we had lunch at Murdock’s, a fish and chips place in the Temple Bar area. After that we went to the Jameson distillery, and then back to Trinity to see the Book of Kells and the Long Library. Later that day I took them to my favorite alcohol store, where I bought my Dad’s birthday present in February, a bottle of whiskey called Clontarf that he thoroughly enjoyed. He bought another bottle of Clontarf and a second bottle of whiskey from the same distillery.

That night we took Brad out to dinner in a part of Dublin I had never been in before. It was only five minutes from my apartment, and I was shocked that I hadn’t seen it before, and wondered where else in Dublin I hadn’t been, thinking that I should have explored more since I only had a week left. Yet at the same time you can never fully explore any city, and I know for a fact that I am infinitely more knowledgeable about the layout of Dublin over the layout of Chicago. 

My parents left the next day, and took the majority of my luggage with them. We had a great time together exploring the country, and had many great conversations on the road. That was the longest time we ever consistently spent together in my whole life, and it was wonderful.

Recap of Amsterdam

I was only in Dublin for one night before I took another flight out to Amsterdam. I was meeting up with Jenny Kronick and Brad there. It was Brad’s last stop on his Eurotrip of six or so cities. It was great to see them. We stayed in a hostel called the Flying Pig, in a great location in the city. What can I say about Amsterdam? It is a crazy place, from the coffee shops to the Red Light district, where people of all ages feel free to do whatever they want.

I’m falling very behind on these blog posts, so I’ll just recap the major events. The Red Light district is a place quite unique to anything I’ve seen before. All along the street are glass windows where girls in lingerie sit and wait for someone to give them some business. It was interesting walking past, seeing different men quickly walk inside a booth, led to the back behind a curtain by the girl they just chose. It’s crazy that the place is government funded. The district also has other attractions such as live sex shows, peep shows at 2 euros for 2 minutes, and fast food restaurants.

In an utterly 360 degree contrast, we went to the quite sobering Anne Frank museum the next day. The museum is very well done, without much to read on the walls. It’s powerful because of how bare it is. We saw the bookshelf that covered the door to the hiding place, the very steep staircases, the bedrooms, the kitchen. In Anne’s bedroom some of her newspaper clippings were still glued to the walls. The annex was bigger than I expected. Of all the people hiding there, Otto Frank, her father, was the only one to survive. In a recorded interview with him taken when he was an old man playing at the end of the museum, he said that for the years they hid up in the annex, he and Anne maintained a very good relationship, yet he never knew what she wrote about in her diary. Naturally he was surprised when he read it for the first time, unaware that Anne had those kinds of thoughts and he concluded that no matter how good your relationship is with your child, you never really know who they are.

Later that day we rented bikes and rode around the city. We ended up going to another notable place: a “fluorescent light” museum that the walking tour guide told Jenny to see. This place was hilarious. It was run by a 54 year old man from Wisconsin very much still living in the 1970’s, wearing a flower vest and washed out jeans with a long grey beard, and his 74 year old French girlfriend. The museum is their house, the front room completely cluttered with art they are trying to sell, and the actual museum is the man’s basement: a small room filled with his rock collections and cave project he’s been working on for 20 years. 

He and his girlfriend travel all over the world finding rocks that light up under black light. He is a real expert with these types of rocks and phosphorescent paint. He says that the two of them will go to a location, say the Himalayas, and will take a black light and walk up mountain trails at 3 in the morning looking for rocks. It as all very strange but I enjoyed talking to him, as he is a part of a dying breed of committed hippies, and we left after an hour or so.

Later that day Jenny flew back to Edinburgh and Brad and I hopped a train to Utrecht to stay with my friend Jeremy Cohen for the night. We ordered pizzas and Brad fell asleep. I went with Jeremy to the campus bar and we hung out there for a while. I got to meet some of his friends, many of whom were freakishly tall. The next day I got on the train and headed toward the airport.

Last Two Days in Greece

When we woke up the next day the passengers were all back and the boat was leaving. It was a nice boat ride, but by the end I couldn’t wait to get away from the other passengers.

We got off at the island Sifnos, the third stop en route to Santorini. I immediately bought a ticket back to Athens for the next day, and after that we went to the closest ATV store and rented two of them for just 15 euros. I named mine Frank and Peter named his Lula. This became the only thing we did on the island. Over the course of 24 hours Peter and I transformed the island into our own amusement park, pressing our vehicles to the maximum speed around dangerous road curves, roaring through small villages, collecting dirty glances from each local passerby, but loving it. 

It wasn’t vacation season yet, so the island was very empty. We stayed in a very nice hotel that night, went to a very trendy bar called Argos where the owner gave us free shots,  and in the morning were excited to get back on the ATV’s. Having spent a whole semester walking everywhere, we were glad to not walk at all on the island. If we were told that a store we wanted to get something from was 50 meters up the street, we drove there. The island was beautiful and we had a great time, but 24 hours was definitely enough time. 

When we dropped off the ATV’s Peter kissed his goodbye. We had dinner by the dock and got back on the boat headed to Athens. We got in around midnight and checked back into the hostel. 

We woke up the next day and went up to the Acropolis and then the New Acropolis Museum. It was awesome to see it after learning so much about it in school.

Peter was just beginning a three week long journey through Europe, and we said our goodbyes and I wished him luck.

I got back on the subway and headed for the airport, thinking how great Greece had been and how I really felt like I had gotten to know the place well after the nine day trek. I’ll never forget it.

Anywhere But Here: Greece Continued

I woke up the next day and returned the car to the same guy I got it from. He walked around the car and seemed genuinely disappointed that I hadn’t scratched it, and I assumed that their business must depended upon the follies of the clientele. He sighed, shook my hand, and drove off. My friend Peter was meeting me later that day, but I had a few hours so I decided to do something Jewish with my time. I got onto the subway train and made my way to another square two stops away, got out and found the Jewish Museum. I was very pleased with it—a very well done place beginning at the basement level and moving up a winding staircase through history, up until the present age. Jews have a very, very long history in Greece, and in the Ancient Agora only a 15 minute walk from the museum archaeologists discovered carvings on friezes of menorahs.

What was also striking about this museum were the stories of the righteous gentiles during the Holocaust. I found this story to be especially powerful (click picture to enlarge).

After WWII the Nazis wiped out approximately 87% of Grecian Jewry. 

I walked around the city a bit more and finally met Peter back at the hostel—my first friendly face in a week. We talked to the people at the hostel and booked tickets on a ferry headed for the island of Santorini. We then explored up the street and found a kiosk selling cans of beer for 1 euro each, and we both bought ourselves five cans.

At 3:30 PM we got to the ferry, picked up our tickets, and boarded. It was a luxurious boat, with neon lights and couches and television sets. 

We sat on the boat, which was planning for departure at 5:00. At 4:30, the captain cracked over the speaker and informed us that there would be an hour delay because of choppy Mediterranean winds. A few hours later, we were again informed that the boat was postponed until the next morning at 9:00AM. We were given the option to sleep on the boat overnight.

Peter and I disembarked and found a coffee shop. We were upset at first and didn’t really speak, trying to figure out what to do. My flight back to Dublin was leaving in two days, and the ride to Santorini was 12 hours by boat. Planes were too expensive. After a half hour of feeling sad for ourselves, Peter had the brilliant idea to just get off at a closer stop, since the boat docked about five times before reaching Santorini, and we wondered why we hadn’t thought about that a half hour earlier.

We found a small restaurant and ordered food from the very kind owner. He let us drink our beers there as well. Taking out his first beer, Peter slipped his fingernail under the metal top and said, “You know what can make this night better?” And saying that he broke the can’s seal, causing a rush of vapor and fizz to hit me in the face. He looked at me for a second stunned, and then we both burst out laughing for a good five minutes, squandering any irascible feelings from before. Thank God for the stupid little jokes.

We ended up having a great time in the restaurant, talking to the people there, using the free wifi, drinking the beers. Outside the wind was howling, blowing over furniture—a hurricane without rain. We understood then why the boat had to be delayed. It was around 11:00 when we headed back to the boat, talking about how we couldn’t possibly stay in Athens for another two days, and I said that when I write about this day I’ll title the post: “Anywhere But Here.”

We found a nice big couch and drank the rest of the beers. The classic movie Eurotrip was on my computer and we watched it. I kept thinking how bad the movie was, but how at the same time all the scenes in that movie, especially the one-liners, are truly classic. 

We had a good night's sleep along with some of the other passengers on the boat who had nowhere else to go that night. It was a million times better than the floor of the Granada bus station.

Meteora to Athens: Day Five, Roadtrip Wrap up

I woke up pretty late the next day, showered and left the hotel. Upon driving 30 seconds out of the parking lot, I had a surreal experience. Five dogs ran onto the road in front of my car and blocked the way so I had to stop. They then circled the car and the alpha dog of the group stood in front of my car barking at me. The other dogs were behind and on either side of my car. The dog in front would not move, and I was at a standstill on the road. I tried honking, but the car horn sounded like a pathetic squeal in comparison to the barking. The other four dogs would chime in as well, and I started to get a little nervous and pissed. I felt like I was trapped in a situation that was going to turn into something out of Cujo (viewer discretion advised). The alpha dog in the front was brave and wouldn't move away from the front of the car even as I moved it forward--he just kept barking. This whole ordeal went on for a minute or two, and then I figured that if this dog wasn't going to move I was just going to run it over (PETA will get me one day for that comment). I pressed the gas and the dog ran in zigzags in front of the car and as it accelerated the dog moved to the side and ran alongside the car. I got the car up to 20 km/hr, then 25 and the dog and his crew kept up until finally they fell behind, still barking. Something about that was disturbing, and definitely not a good way to start the day.

I drove to one of the monasteries and looked around.

It was beautiful with an awesome intimate chapel completely decorated. The priests were praying inside. I felt like I was intruding on their space, but they did make their monastery into a tourist attraction so I guess they don't care.

I made my way to another monastery down the mountain and had to climb up about 100 stairs to get to the front door. It looked like the first one but with prettier views of the city bordering Meteora.

When I left  I bought two spinach and cheese pastries from a boy who ran a stand outside the monastery and got back in my car to begin the journey back to Athens. I drove back up the same road I came, and the dogs were still there, just lying on the road, and I cautiously drove passed.

The drive was fairly uneventful, and I thought I could make it back to the city without filling up on gas again. What a mistake. 40 minutes outside the city my gas ran out and I had to merge onto the right side shoulder of the road. I turned the car off, then tried turning it back on, but the juice was utterly spent. I was on top of a small hill on the highway, so I put the car in neutral with the battery going and got the car rolling at a nice slow pace down the hill. That journey lasted about 100 meters until the car stopped again and I burst out laughing. I had just driven a couple thousand kilometers around the mainland, and here I was, 40 minutes from Athens, stranded on the highway. I called the car company to see if they could help, but the guy didn't know any English and was no help. Not quite sure what to do, I found the closest gas station on the GPS, luckily 2 kilometers in front of me, and was preparing to ditch the car and walk on the shoulder of the highway to the gas station until I saw the wonderful blinking hazard lights of the highwayman in the reflection of the rearview mirror. He pulled up behind me and I got out of the car and shook his hand.

Luckily he was fluent in English, and was also good company. I called the car agency back and he spoke with the same guy, yelling something at him in Greek. He gave me the phone back and asked how it was possible they didn't speak English when they rent cars to Americans. I didn't have an answer to that. He then called the gas station and they sent someone over with a small portable tank of gasoline. While we were waiting, I talked to the highwayman who told me he'd been working that job for four years. I said that he must know the entire highway forwards and backwards, to which he responded: "Meter for meter." At that point there was only one thing left to do. I got my bread and nutella out of the car and sat on the metal barrier and went to town on the last remnants of the food source. I offered the man some bread and nutella but he declined, and then I asked him what the most intense thing he'd seen on the job was, to which he responded, "I've seen everything. Severed limbs, severed heads, everything." He said that when a crash happens he's the first one to get there and his job is to make sure that the other cars on the highway are safe. He told me that I was the third car that day that ran out of gas, and I told him that my gas gage was broken. He told me some more about his job, and spoke about it with a clear sense of pride and nobility. The guy from the gas station came and drove up on a dirt road on the other side of a fence next to the highway and threw a plastic container of gas over the fence to the highwayman. He took a magazine page and curled it into a funnel and poured the gas in the tank that way. I had enough in the tank to get me to the gas station. I said goodbye to the highwayman and offered him a tip, but he refused that too. Driving away I was thinking about how lucky I've been the whole semester: I've been in a few situations like this and each time I've met some interesting person with a good heart who enjoys helping. I realize also that though these kinds of situations should be avoided, it's usually when you get yourself into some trouble that you meet the greatest people. Therefore, you can slap yourself on the wrist if you like, but then be sure to embrace your own stupidity with a laugh and smile.

I finally got back to Athens and parked the car. It was raining hard and I checked back into the hostel, my money mostly spent, having survived my road trip and completely satisfied with it. I will never forget those five days wandering over the Grecian mountains, listening to my iPod, seeing the ancient sights, meeting fascinating people, and now equipped with more stories to tell. The end of day five.

Delphi to Meteora: Day Four

I woke up the next day and ate some standard Greek hotel breakfast (bread and butter) and then tried to make my way to the Delphi archaeological site. I went the wrong way at first but was turned around by some nice English speaking Europeans who gave me a ride down to the actual site. It was a very cool place to see. After meandering through the museum I successfully tagged along with a paid tour group from Athens who were there on a day trip. The tour guide I assumed knew I wasn't part of the group, and to make it worse I kept interrupting to ask questions, but she never told me to leave. So I got a nice free tour of the place.

Delphi is extremely interesting. All kinds of people, especially kings or those with money, would go to hear the oracle make a prophecy. Interestingly enough, the oracle, who was elected from the neighboring villages, would breathe in volcanic fumes rising from the temple floor, which would make her convulse and mutter, and then the priest would listen to her mumbling and interpret what the prophecy meant. The temple they lived in is now mostly just the base with a few remaining pillars. I expected there to be the famous signs that read "Know Thyself" and "Nothing in Excess," but of course they haven't been there for some time. I walked around a bit until I saw everything, then made my way out. It was hot out so I bought a strawberry smoothy and pastry from a man with turrets and then made my way to the Temple of Athena further down the mountain.

After that I got back in the car and set off for far away Meteora.

I expected this ride to be beautiful like the others, but in this part of Greece the infrastructure is more fortified so the highways in some way obstruct the surroundings.

 It took 4 hours to get to my destination, my longest drive yet. I had to make a detour when I started getting anxious about the gas level in my tank, and also had no cash on me (gas pumps in Greece don't take credit card). I ended up making a 15km detour to a town back up a mountain I had driven down already, found the bank, then went back down the mountain to a gas station I passed before and filled up the tank. That lobbed off about an hour, but oh well.

Meteora is a fantastic place. I went there on my sister's recommendation and I've never seen anything like it. It's made up of a bunch of cliffs with red-roofed monasteries built on top.

The cliffs themselves remind me of the Flintstones landscape. I went on a minor hike and then found a hotel at the top of the cliffs to stay in for the night. It was called Hotel Arsenis, owned by a man with the considerably largest stomach I've seen in a long time. I ate dinner there and sat at my computer all night sorting out my cluster requirements and classes for Wash U. That took hours until the manager of the hotel told me to go back to my room because it was 4:30AM. End of day four.