Venice ….aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh BRAVO!!!!

            OK soooo take anything I have seen so far and times it by ten! VENICE IS … WOW…

Really, I can’t even explain it. It’s not only the beauty of the city but the art that literally MAKES the city. There are galleries everywhere, but that is not where the ‘fine arts’ are… just look at the ceiling of almost every building you walk into…it’s BEAUTIFUL. The buildings are so full of character and they seem to be in their original architectural form (well most of the buildings at least) and most of the architectural style is Gothic… MY FAVOURITE!!!… they say that Venice is the best preserved big city in Europe…and it is over 1500 years old! There is music playing on gondolas and in some of the squares …last night we went to a classical concert where they played the 4seasons by Vivaldi and some Mozart and … something else I can’t remember haha. But it was fantastic.  Almost every store you go into you can buy masques or marionettes or statues and drawings of Commedia dell’Arte characters… it is just RICH with all art! I really wish I could have come here during ‘Carnevale’ where people dress up in costume and wear masks …I have seen pictures…looks AMAZING….

            Honestly, Foolish Wit gang, I SINCERELY think you all should come here… I keep finding myself thinking of each and every one of you guys and saying “ooohh god I wish—- was here… she/he’d LOVE this…” makes me miss you all the more.

This city was created on a lagoon and that means that there are NO vehicles ANYWHERE… there are boats of all sorts (the ‘buses’ are boats called vaporetto)…even the taxis are boats… Venice is constructed of hundreds of islands that are all connected by little foot bridges…soooo beautiful! So the MOST fun thing to do here is simply walk around and get lost…you eventually find yourself at a main sight or landmark anyways so it’s not so bad. Yesterday we also went to Doge’s Palace…which was CRAZY…it’s full of art and was the seat of the Venetian government and was the home of the Duke and it is attached to the prison by the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ called so because of all the prisoners that were sentenced to prison (actual dungeons) and had to cross that bridge and see Venice for their last time. It was SSSOOOO COOL to actually walk through it.… there are even writings, carvings and drawings  on the walls of the prison cells from past prisoners (many of naked women but at a grade five caliber of sketch haha).

            Anyways… Saint Mark’s Square is where all the pigeons are… man it was SO much fun just to buy some corn and feed them… they sit on your shoulders and head… it’s kinda gross to think about, but FUN and it’s neat when they sit on your shoulder and you can hear them talk… it’s quite cute actually.

            What else can I say…. I LOVE this city. I think THIS would be a neat place to get a summer job. AND THE LANGUAGE … it’s so beautiful! I want to learn Italian now. The people here are quite nice, like when we got here two days ago at midnight and some stranger asked where we were trying to go (in VERY broken English) and motioned ‘where are you sleeping’ and I told him and he took us there. I thought ‘hmm perhaps this guy is trying to lead us to some dark alley, note to self-don’t follow down dark places’ or  that he WOULD show us the way and then demand payment or something… but nope… he was just a nice guy trying to help-out some tired lost souls. Unfortunately, due to the language barrier, he did not lead us to the right hotel…so I went back to the directions I had originally written down, got on a bus and asked the bus driver to tell us when we were at our stop, to which he agreed… then, after about eight min of driving, he pulled a u-turn and started going back the way he came…the only other man on the bus asked what he was doing and the bus driver said that he forgot to tell us when to get off… the next thing we knew he took us DIRECTLY in front of our hotel… SO NICE!!!

            Oh and Gelati…mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… and MOM you would LOVE the baking here… the biscuits are AMAZING as are the cookies and bread… I can’t stop eating them and they are so cheap!

            Anyways, tonight we are going on a ‘couchette’ (night train you sleep on) to Rome… so hopefully it will be as beautiful and fantastical as Venice.

Greece part TWO

Vacation points: OK.  So…  Since I last wrote we have seen and done so much more.  We didn’t do much more in Santorini but sight-see and we went to another beach called Perissa… also beautiful.  Then on Sunday, we came back and were home by about 1:30 am.  On the Monday we slept-in a bit and Ted’s sister & cousin (Margarita and Robin) and I went to the market (like a flee market with many touristy shops).  It’s called Monastiraki… it was good times.  Then on Tuesday (Sept 11) we went to the Acropolis with Robin and Tony.  It was quite amazing.  My highlight of that would have had to have been The Theatre of Dionysus.  Holy Shit.  Just to think of how many plays were put on there thousands of years ago.  It blew my mind.  I got to sit in the house where ancient Greeks sat before.  It is in pretty decent shape, considering its age,  and it’s just beautiful.  Not all of the seats have been excavated, but the majority have been including the Royal chairs (more like thrones – but I was not allowed to sit on it, unless I wanted to be ‘whistled’ at in reprimand. The Parthenon was not what I expected – a bit of a disappointment if you ask me, as it is completely covered in bars and scaffolding.  The Temple of Athena Nike was completely hidden… by bars and material – another restoration eye-sore.  And to top it all off, the Acropolis Museum was under renovation.  PAH!  Oh well… Next time.  We also got to see (from above) the Theatre of Herodes Atticus which is also in the Acropolis grounds.  This is an ancient theatre (161 AD)  that is still used today – It is just Beautiful and ­HUGE. After all that, Ted and I split off from Robin and Tony and we went to Monastiraki – again (where I bought some replicas of statues) and then we went to the Ancient Agora which was quite well restored, less busy than the acropolis and had one of the best preserved temples: ‘Temple of Hephaistos’ which was amazing. We saw some ancient bath houses which I pretended to take a shower in…yah yah I am a loser… but it was NUTSO seeing all of these ancient structures. Ooohh and there were a couple tortoises crawling around the ground…SO CUTE! 

Then we ventured off to the National Archaeological Museum where we saw artifacts that dated over 4000 years ago…again… BLEW my mind. This is where I got yelled at for ‘mocking’ the statue of Poseidon-which I wasn’t MOCKING it… I was just trying to give a picture of a statue some ‘life’…pshaw!

But none the less it was amazing being able to stand next to these gorgeous statues, vases and artifacts… I almost lost my breath when I stood by the HUGE vase ‘the mourning of the dead’ it was one of the first things I saw in the museum and I learned about it in my history of European art class.

Anyways, that was a long day.

On Thursday Sept 13^th we went to Delphi. … Again… BREATHTAKING! The view in the mountains was indescribable. Delphi is almost the top of a mountain so you can see pretty far. Ancient Delphi is so well restored and quite well excavated. Ancient Delphi was not only believed to be the ‘cneter of the earth’ but it is also the ‘oracle city’ where people would travel for miles to see how a war was going to end or what their tactical move should be or even to tell them of prophesies. There are two temples there-one to Apollo and another one for Athena. There is another ancient agora(which basically means ‘marketplace’) there are many statues and treasuries (small temple like buildings where they kept their ‘dedications’ like a bank or a vault) –but none of these are actual structures… just a build-up of rocks in  formation…it’s actually a bit depressing to think about…I mean if people would have kept good care of them and oh I don’t know if they DIDN’T steal the stone blocks to build their houses and who knows what useless structures… but that’s life eh? I guess ‘finders keepers’ was also practiced over a thousand years ago.

ANYWAYS, what did seem to ‘keep’ were actually my highlights… again… the stadium and the theatre. It was amazing how well the sound traveled on that stage (I got to stand on this one) I mean you always her about how good the acoustics were in those ancient theatres…but REALLY they were amazing! I guess it helps when you can build the ‘house’ INTO the mountain, creating a semi-circle around the stage…it’s like the house is the stage’s own speaker. Half of the stadium’s seats are also built INTO the mountain… obviously this is the half that preserved with the protection of the mountain on its side. But the parallel side of seats collapsed. The stadium itself (where the athletes were) is in REALLY good shape. You can even see and TOUCH the original marble start and finish lines. WOW! We actually got to walk on it. CRAZY! It just blows my mind…to think of how many athletes that competed on that very same ground. Never mind the stadium… EVERYWHERE… as you are walking from ancient structure to structure, you are walking on the little pieces of clay that came from who knows what structure or artifact from thousands of years ago that was not able to stay in one piece. And you also are walking on the SAME marble floors that they had originally laid (carefully though, as they are quite slippery) and to think of the time that THEY put into those floors…some of them are even in patterns: black marble, 2 white and one red..repeat… haaaa so cool!. I am putting a lot of exclamation marks aren’t I? haha WELL I MEAN IT!!!!!!!! Anyways, it’s just neat to think that you are using the floor for the exact same purpose they were thousands of years ago. Ok I’m a geek… but I’m a geek enjoying herself with the history she steps on.

Anyways, we also went to the museum in Delphi…more artifacts…more blowing of my mind.

This Tuesday we will be flying to Italy where we will enjoy yet another culture and all they have to offer.

MORE things I have noticed about Greeks and the Greece:

-you can’t flush your TP down the toilette, you have to put it in the garbage beside the toilette-no matter what ‘state’ it’s in.

-Stores close in the middle of the day so the workers can nap- every 2^nd day they reopen in the evening.

-Hospitality is great here. People are almost in competition with each other for their hospitality “eat more, here have this… Eat eat!!, want some wine? *pour pour pour* try this, you’ll like it *plop on your plate*” haha it’s nice to be fed while you are traveling though.

-Where in Canada people will show off by pumping the bass in their car, here they pump the actual tunes… you can hear every word they say from a block away (well not necessarily understand every word but hear…depending on the language)

-Politics are HARD CORE here- it is mandatory to vote and you are chosen (like jury duty) to work at the poles on voting day (this happened to Ted’s sister Margarita)

-You buy your ticket for the bus at a corner store or ‘periptero’ (little shack that sells gum, water, pop, beer, snacks etc on the sidewalk) and then once you get onto the bus (via one of THREE doors) you have to punch the card into a box that prints on it and you have to keep your ticket. If you don’t keep it and the do happen to do a random check for everyone’s ticket…you pay a hefty fine…but I haven’t seen any ‘checks’ yet.

-Instead of saying ‘no’ or knodding your head ‘no’ …SOMETIMES they will knod their head up and raise their eyebrows- easily mistaken for a lazy ‘yes’… well easily mistaken by ME haha

-Speaking of LAZY-the people working at grocery stores…or almost EVERY store for that matter, sit on chairs, lean on the counter AS they ring your items through, while YOU bag it.

- in Winnipeg, when someone dies on or near a road, a memorial wreath is placed at the side of the road….in Greece they place a miniature replica of a church (ted calls it a micro-chapel). Now, I know it’s not meant to be ‘cute’ BUT THEY ARE…they are like little doll churches for Barbies. (they even have a glass front door so you can put the candle and picture inside.)

Holy @#*$! I’m in Greece!!!

Ok, so here is a run-down so far… On my way here I apparantly had only a stand-by ticket from montreal to munich even though ted had his assigned ticket and we bought them at the same time (stupid travel cuts) this also caused problems in the Germany-Greece flight… not to mention how they lost my luggage…but all is well, I got here in one piece and my luggage came …eventually.

The next day we took a ferry to Santorini… WOW it is beautiful here!  We have done so much the first day we walked around Fira (main town on the island) the next day we went to the volcano and hiked around it, then the boat took us around to the smaller volcano and swam in the hot spring…CRAZY!!! the water here is so hard to describe… but it is the colour of thier flag… BLUE BLUE BLUE and is quite warm for the ocean. Then on the way back up (to get to the port you have to descend a cliff by either walking down the stairs or taking a cable car or a donkey… the way down we took the car) but on the way up we took a DONKEY… oh my GOD it was the MOST fun I have had in a LLLOOONNNGGG time… they were so funny! mine kept cutting every other donkey off and Ted’s decided to go back down the hill half way through(one of the donkey men had to come and yell at it… he said to the donkey “i’m going to kill you, you idiot, go to hell …. “etc… oh man it wAS FUNNY.
anyways, the next two days we went to beaches and at night we shopped, ate and just wandered. OH and we had breakfast at this place called ‘momma’s’ … SHE is a character… she has a caution sign outside that says “sex bomb inside” and she YELLS at you when you come in “HHEEEYYYY SAYY HIII TO MAMMA!!!” in her very cute rhaspy greek accent… she compliments you like she is insulting you ‘watt dewww yew want? SEX BOMB!!” … we took a picture with her and instead of the classic or traditional ‘cheeze’ she said ’savfe sex!’ oh and btw she is about 65. Ha!
Today we are taking the Ferry back to Athens.
but here are some observations I have made so far about Greece and the people here”
-it’s WINDY (well at least in santorini) every 2nd day…today is a windy day
-it is BEAUTIFUL!!! the architecture (churches, houses-are more like short appartments), coloursetc; vegetation-pom trees, amazingly colourful flowers, … ;topography-wow wow wow the water is … breathtaking… the sunsets are the ‘most beautiful in the world’ or so they say… I dont know about the world but they are incredible, mountains surrounding everything, rocks, volcanoes, … ahhh
-Water, to buy is CHEAP… they have a ’standard’ amount of about 80 cents for 1.5euro.
-BEER is bought in ANY store and is 60cent euro to one euro for a KING CAN
-People are LOUD… just like mamma… they are complimenting you yet acting as if they are insulting you
-traffic is quite different than what we are used to… there doesn’t seem to be any real rules. it just seems like a general code of conduct that you are born with. and the traffic flows FAST!. The streets are incredible narrow but they manage to fit a parked car and cars driving in both directions and a padestrian… mind you you are inches away from getting skimmed.
-it is ssssoooooo dry here, you hang your laundry and like 20 min later it is dry (btw they all hang their clothes to dry) You ALWAYS have to have water with you. and constantly have to keep yourself moisturized.
-coffee is expensive and noone seems to know what a mocha is?!?!-might as well drink beer
-every day seems to be a holiday for the locals (the church bells are always ringing)
-the streets are very sloaped… great ass work out though-thank goodness for biking, everyone else is SORE… but my ass is fine!
-did I mention how breathtaking the view is?
-Gyro’s are cheaper than coffee and fill you at 1.20euro and they have tasty french fries in htem
-people hang their octipus outside their stores and restaurants …eww…yet tasty
-BATHROOMS the toilets don’t flush well, you have to put your toilette paper in the garbage…I keep forgetting, oops!… there doesn’t seem to be mant bathTUBs… and the shower area is not inclosed (no walls) it’s just a little curb-like tile box about four inches high and the shower head is hand held… oh and the water is almost ALWAYS cold, which isnt that bad since it is so hot here.
-sky is almost always blue with no clouds
-doors and gates are the only colour accent(usually blue or red), the houses and buildings are white, cream or peachy…the domes are blue

-cats and dogs are everywhere EVERYWHERE..not for pets, just stray and are harmless…
-you have to watch yourself at stores, the clerks are often trying to short change you

thats about it…

well i will keep you updated and send pics soon

love you all