Spanish Doll

whoever said that athens could be seen in 2 days is a BLOODY GENIUS! in fact, this includes all the ruins, the two best museums, outdoor cinema, lunches, drinks, 2 hours on the internet, 2 shows at a planetarium outside of the city center, and chilling for 3 hours at the airport in wait for a late night flight.

REALLY.

next time i decide i want to see some Roman or Greek history live, please remind me that i hate ruins. also, that summer in the Roman and Greek empire is H-O-T.

aaaand, after a flight to barcelona at 2:55 on june 26,

i am home... or roughly, home, at carmen's. her neighbors are tearing up her wall, from the other side. it's impossible to sleep but i do. my computer is not totally dead, but zero or right parenthese do not work, but i can still type and post and use it, so that's good.
 

after a late night arrival, i am reading up on the sights and everything i would like to see and cursing the person who told me that athens could be seen in 2 days. there is a ton of history, a ton of sights, beyond the Acropolis, a ton of activities like outside cinema, rembetika club, show at Theatre of Dionysus... I am overwhelmed and, stressed out even, thinking now that we should have taken an earlier night ferry and then we'd have more time.

i don't know what's wrong with me today, but today, in my self-induced stress, makes me want to kill someone. and as they say, the victim is most likely to be the one currently closest to me. i am a real bitch today.

food improves the sitation but not by much. seeing the Acropolis and the spectacular new Acropolis museum, only a few days in operation, is amazing, but not enough. somehow the heat and the frustration of having to go even faster has gotten under my skin... damn, it's bloody hot here. word of advice to the future generations: GO TO SOUTH OF EUROPE IN SPRING.

the most amazing experience, believe it or not, isn't even the Acropolis today.. it's the outdoor cinema, the most romantic of concepts. we are seated on moderately comfortable chairs, interspersed by patio tables, drinking wine at mere 4 euro for a half a liter, which i polish off by myself with ease and ask for a second 1/2 liter -- damn my tolerance is up -- and munching on delicious freshly popped popcorn, watching Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock, my first of his films. the screen is rounded by vines, in true style of olive & wine country, and the antiquity of the film strip makes me think that maybe it's not even two thousand and nine, and i am wearing a poodle skirt.
 

happy greek island hopping ... man, these guys know how to party! after 3 days of blissful mykonos paradise, we are shooting east to paros, another island with a history of providing the stone for Venus di Milo and being the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. but the bottomline is that it's more beach, sun, blue crystal water, happy naked people, dance, and non-stop party attitude. how the hell have i never come here before!? because from now on, discovering more of the greek islands needs to be regular! 

the peculiar thing about travel is that it's super-addictive. the more you do, the more you want. is that normal?

 

today is a super lazy day, very typically summer, in thessaloniki. off to a leisurely start past noon, strolling down the main waterfront drag. breakfast at yamas (a yummy homemade eggplant salad), complete with aromatic greek coffee, shadowed by a perfectly pink piece of rose-flavored turkish delight. peeerfect, it makes me purr.

carmen and rafael came back yesterday from romania after a disastrous 24 hour ride from bucarest, where the bus arrived 2 hours late to begin with, the bus driver didn't know the way from romania to greece thru bulgaria and got lost, arriving 4 hours later than scheduled. terrrible. now my hanya banya and hubby are sightseeing, while we while away the short hours til our flight to mykonos. paradise beach, where they say it is truly paradise, in every party and beach sense of the word, here we come!

i am not thrilled with this city. fairly plain as it is, though (WHO KNEW!?), it is laden with history. get this: apparently, it was the second most important city after constantinople during the age of the byzantine empire. and it was a major trading post and it is the birthplace of Cyril and Methodius, the fathers of Cyrillic and Eastern Christianity, and also the birthplace of Ataturk, the man that made Turkey the proud modern society it claims to be today. 

but it lacks magic of many other places we've seen. but the night here is ALIVE.

carmen is back today , thank god, i am so so so so happy!!
 

woke up very late today after some heavy-duty partying ... and belgrade is definitely NOT a beauty queen. i am almost surprised that a city can be THIS unappealing. i am amazed at how undeveloped tourism is here. street names are in cyrilic (thank god i've got that one taken care of, not only for myself, but also for prasad, whom i taught to read russian on the bus to belgrade. not that russian and serbian is the same thing, but it helps a TON!). getting around on public transport is a puzzle, especially outside of the center ... again, for lack of signage. we went to Tito's grave today and, i swear, there were NO pedestrian ways to get there... we walked on a highway for the majority of the way there ... though rightfully, we were told by the museum keep (in spanish!!), that we should have gotten a car.

on another note, we ate deliciously at Biblioteka, exactly the type of care i've dreamed of since 52 burned down.

we missed the 11 am bus to belgrade. partly because we didn't know how long the bus to the station would take and partly because the bus driver was convivially chatting with someone at EVERY stop. and there must have been 20 stops from the hostel in the center of sarajevo to the bus station outside of the city, on the Republika Spska side of the country.

now i am catching up on some thinking and writing over some strong turkish coffee outside of the bus station. guess what the locals are munching? nothin' but cevapcici with onions and kajmak ...

do they eat ANYTHING ELSE here!? i shouldn't complain as i've grown to love it ... but still! there is a plethora of food they could have in this awesomely green country, but meat has such a prized place in cuisine, i am seriously surprised they don't have heart attacks by the time they hit 40.

carmen, my hanya-banya, left this morning for budapest, en route home to turgu mures in romania. we are leaving today too, which leaves me melancholy, though it might be also from leaving sarajevo in particular. i FEEL in this city. sarajevo, sarajevo, sarajevo, sarajevo, it rolls off my tongue, sounding like home. i've fallen in love with it. though it may be, at least partly, for my recently developed taste for Bosno-Yugoslavian men. what a delicious sight!!

sarajevo wears less scars than mostar, but still you can see the damage, of the physical variety, on buildings, street asphault - pockmarks, indentations, grenade roses, burned homes that have been abandoned and untouched since. and yet the people are sooo warm here, having risen from the ashes and retained their sense of dignity, peace, kindness... i am surprised at the sober attitude bosnians have adopted; they have dealt with this war and are looking ahead. in this way, sarajevo reminds me strongly of berlin.

but on the war note, i am in awe of trying to understand how brothers can kill brothers. they are so similar, even to me as a Russian, because of this pan-Slavic connection.. they speak the same, look the same, share the same ancestry... what kind of people kill their own brothers?

* * * 

so we took the 12:30 bus to belgrade, an 8 hour long trip that makes your ass go numb and during which you alternate between various stages of (in)sanity. disaster struck not too long after we departed.

the bus driver asked us again for our tickets and explained that we bought a ticket for the 11 am, not 12:30 pm bus to belgrade. in my now perfect Cro-Bosno-Serbian, i explain that we got it AFTER 11 am, pointing at the strange number concoction under [Karta Vydana] line of print, but i fail to convince him, after several minutes of furious explanation. he wants me to spend another 40 euros on new tickets, which obviously is not something i want to do, in light of someone else's mistake. prasad nervously looks at me, though with hope and belief in my linguistic abilities and skill of persuasion, but we ride on for a while in anxiety of whether we'll get kicked off at the next stop, east of the balkan nowhere.

the bus driver comes up to me again to discuss the situation, several times. but this is my story and i am sticking to it. i repeat it about 6 more times. finally, a blond young woman turns in her seat in front and says to me in broken Russian that she understands enough Russian to help me communicate and i proceed to explain the situation for the 7th time. she explains the same thing to him, now with the added suggestion that, seeing that the bus is half empty, he just doesn't submit our tickets to his boss and lets us ride "for free" so to speak. he seems to like this idea and we ride the remainder of the way quite happily.

and at night, we are in belgrade...

not a city for sightseeing, but for partying!! what a surprising turn of the story for this otherwise UGLY city .... what a personality! another quickly developed love story ... and we are off to a barge club on the Sava River for some turbofolk!
 

today we went to pula and saw an ancient amphiteater, but it wasn't nearly as impressive as the ones in provence because it was less well-preserved. and a temple and a fortress. but i was dissapointed, somehow, it just didn't deliver. the best part of pula was the nap in the fortress, time on the internet, reading molvania (a spoof tour guide to the land untouched by modern dentistry), and carmen laughing at the word pula, which means the curse word for "penis" in romanian.

some fabulous quotes from molvania:

Molvania, "the world's number one producer of beetroot and birthplace of the whooping cough."

Buzh-Buzh, the father of modern Molvania, is credited with many achievements, which include the deregulation of the tractor industry, shortening of the alphabet by 33 letters, reinvention of the wheel, and the guaranteeing to all citizens the right to bear a grudge.

"the west of molvania is also something of a paradox: much of it was spoiled by 40 years of rampant post-war industrialization, but here and there you can still find areas of great natural beauty that were only ruined a few years ago."

image caption under some kind of a tower: "a marvel of local architecture, the leaning tower of sasava was built entirely without foundations. scientists estimate that the structure leans an additional centimeter each time the lobby door is slammed shut."

"No one spends much time in Sasava without being offered a glass of biljgum, the locally brewed brandy. This highly scented, thick liqueur is quite unlike anything you've ever tasted - unless you've inadvertently swallowed fabric conditioner - and is generally offered at the end of a meal as a means of prompting guests to leave."

and now to leave you with some handy expression to aid in your travels!

 

upon getting the car in Portoroz, Slovenia, we drove to the Slovenia-Croatian border to take a dip into Croatia Istria and avoid having to come back here from Zagreb. this was to be our first eventful border crossing.

as almost everywhere, there are typically two border points to cross -- to exit the first country and enter the second. though we crossed the slovenian border successfully, prasad perceived the Croatian horizon to be devoid of people and thus deemed it unnecessary to stop there and attempted to RUN the border. as he swiftly approached the checkpoint booth, a whole bunch of police with rifles and guns started waving frantically and jumping in front of the car ... prasad skidded the car to a halt and could merely say: "oh, there are two border patrol points!" to which the Croatian police feigned amusement and one of the police officers mimicked prasad's shoddy excuse with true hate in his eyes.

this is when we handed over 4 documents, presenting:
 

1. a Russian, but with an American passport,
2. a Romanian, but with an American passport,
3. an Indian, but with a Singapore passport
4. an American, but a black one.

i can tell you that the border police was not amused that a troop of posterchildren for United Colors of Benetton attempted to run their secure border; they scrupulously analyzed our passports, looking at them through various lights and trying them with their teeth. having evoked such a stir among the local militia, i was beginning to think we'd spend a night in jail, just to take the adventure up a notch. but our passports did not fail us and we were let to pass, onward to Porec.

* * *

Porec is ... cute, waterfront, with tiny streets that are really wells ... wait, no, that was Piran! well, this just tells you that they are starting to look all the same! what i remember of this place is some incredible Romanesque buildings and my first meeting with Byzantine architecture, including an unbelievably well-preserved church , St. Ephrasius, with honest-to-god mozaics as old as time (4 c. b.c) that make you believe!! i was amazed that a R.C. church could look so ... Eastern. oh, and Istra, a homey restaurant with a waitress that keeps running out of breath, but serves up a memorable meal -- tagliatelli with truffles and a traditional seafood oven creation. fish, potatoes, carrots, olives .. i really should look up a recipe for Croatia truffle pasta, because i am STILL dreaming of it; really, it was nothing short of .... orgasmic, the best food i had on this WHOLE trip.

* * *

Russian is finally beginning to be handy! a number of people here speak a version of Cro-Bosno-Serbian that is decently close to Russian for me to begin to understand and be understood.

* * *

our next destination, Rovinj, is in fact quite rainy ... but despite this, it still offers the best looking coastline so far! but the pinnacle of the visit to Rovinj was a trip to the voluminous, hill-top church of St. Euphemia. the legend of St. Euphemia is quite intriguing. according to the story, Euphemia was 15 y.o. when her faith was tested and when she persevered. alas, she was thrown to the lions, but the lions only licked her and spared her life. but her test did not end there -- she was killed by men and their swords.

anyway, she died. but then, her body showed up in a sarcophagus on the Istrian coast -- the sarcophagus was so heavy, it was impossible to bring it up to the church as a reinforcement of dedication to her faith. but, a little boy and his bovine friends actually managed to move it and bring it up with ease. now, this sarcophagus rests in the church and it has a panel through which you can see the mummified body.

naturally, when we got to the church, carmen, prasad and i wanted to see the dead lady. but after we found the sarcophagus, we didn't see this panel. so we decided to talk to the parish keep to see how we can take a look at her for real.
 

yelena: "hi. so we see that St. Euphemia's sarcophagus and preserved body lie here in this church."
parish keep: [in a VERY strong Croatian accent.]  "Yeees, zis iz tru." [unnaturally long pause. we are trying to contain our laughter.]
yelena: "and it says in my guide that there is a panel through which we can see her?"
parish keep: [still in a VERY strong Croatian accent.] "Yeees, zis iz also tru." [another unnaturally long pause.]

[carmen already can't look at him because she is going to explode in giggles. prasad is standing behind me and snickering.]

yelena: "so is there a way we could see her?"
parish keep: "yeees."
yelena: "how?"
parish keep: "i..hev a kee. wiz zis kee .. i can open end cloze ze doorr. end i.. hev clozed... ze doorr."

[at this point, we can barely contain our laughter because his expression, intonation and phrase are absolutely, hilariously out of control.]

yelena: "i see. so, is there a way for us to actually see her?"
parish keep: "yees. i can open ze doorr." [pause.]

yelena: "i see. and what do we have to do for your to open this door?" [at this point, i am half-expecting to have to bribe him or provide various sexual favors.]
parish keep: "naahsing." [pauses, then reaches for a drawer from which he extracts a tiny picture of the saint and pushes it toward me and continues.]  "Zis is what she luks like."

yelena: [not entirely happy with this outcome, i attempt another approach, which is to keep him talking.] "i see .... well, if you could explain, however, if she was thrown to the lions, how come she lies here preserved?"
parish keep: [obviously frustrated by my lack of knowledge of the history, now with a monstrous Croatian accent.]  "Becaahze she deed not get eeten. she died by svord. do you know vot svord iz?"

[it is at this point, that an army of Croatian pre-schoolers bursts into the church and all hell breaks loose. the parish keep got up and calmly walked over to the altar and, over the microphone, told them to stop running and yelling. and that was it. and needless to say, we did not see the mummy.]
 

so, i lived in a building with a blue elevator shaft with alan burchell (GOOO iese class of 2009!), cousin It, and an Indian boy, whom i call Vishnu, with relationship problems. i was going down in the elevator with Vishnu and suddenly! alan pops in his head at a stop and cousin It, with his looong hair over his eyes, shuffles out of the elevator like "ti-ri-di-ri-di!" and Vishnu drones on, as we shortly emerge on a terrace where he lights a cigarette, and drags heavily:  "my girl is cheatin'..." and i am surprised because he seems non-too-devastated and all too complacent. so i ask, "but you are not doing anything about it?" and he replies: "no, what i can do? she belongs to me anyhow, i cannot escape my fate..."

and so it goes.
 

it took us half the day to get to Piran in Slovenia, a cute little town on the Istrian peninsula, the first of many Adriatic coastal town with the emblematic red roofs, which makes this one -- the first of many picturesque towns on our way. and picturesque it is! and tiny! and CUTE! though, a withdrawal after Venice, because i think i need more CONtent to be more conTENT. hehe. though there is little better pleasure than boozin' up on the beach.

we've been playing the clue game, in which a person secretly tells a word to another person in the game, who gives clues to a third person in order for this third person to guess the secret word. the word given to carmen is CANNIBAL. and so it goes:
 

- rafael: "Hannibal"
- carmen: "people eat people"
- rafael: "individual"
- carmen: "hannibals!"

 

 

for the 15 mins of my vaporetto ride today, i contemplated studying Italian and living here for a few months, taking in the surreality of this place.

but, really only for 15 minutes, because, on second thought, where are the venetians?! there are droves and droves of tourists, like barcelona can only dream. we are a part of this crowd, but desperately seeking to be mistaken for locals, though it is absolutely impossible -- we are all too obviously bewildered and titilated by the romance of the canal streets, narrower than narrow alleys, and general beachy decandence of this town, and hence, we stand out like polar bears in the jungle. it would be prudent to come here next in a colder season, say November-March, to experience the coolness of the Adriatic and the barrenness of the streets -- to be able to take in the fairy tale unobscured by the visitor droves and unpestered by in-season city tourism industry.

still, i want to be in venice for carnavale.

Venice is small. small enough so that on day 2, we realize that we have easily walked across several islands, but somehow the magnitude of everything there is to see in Venice magnifies its actual size.

* * *

somehow, we didn't end up seeing SO MUCH of what i had wanted to see. but, San Marco shines and shines; this square even with the droves is a star. we stayed in Santa Croce by the Santa Lucia station and Piazzale Roma and i loved that there already, you can breathe easier without being surrounded by clicking cameras. and the canals are narrower and more delicate and q-u-i-e-t, allowing us only a quick peek.

gallerie dell' Accademia -- spectacular museum though i wished also for Ca'Rezzonico. of the other major churches, we saw I Frari, but i long still to see Scuola Grande di San Rocco and the Tintoretto hanging there.
 

to check out in the future, in Venice:

 

* * *

probably the best musical accompaniment to Venice is baroque because somehow only this music conveys the underlying colors of this world. sitting in the tiny San Vidal church on San Marco, to the vivaldi adagios and bach sonatas played by the Interpreti Veneziani, i was convinced and overwhelmed by the powerful message of beauty as the gently forceful argument for this land flowed into my eardrums.

8:15 am cab thoughts
the adventure begins!! i've already forgotten to pick up my dry-cleaning before leaving, complicating my return, but oh well.

10 am
flight to venice. uneventful, aside from a troop of Spanish high schoolers that woop with every breath of turbulence.

12:30 pm
we arrive in Venice. walking past the "lost & found", Prasad snickers: "hehe, suckers!!"
minutes later, it becomes clear that ClickAir has lost his luggage. we are barely HOURS into our 6 week trip and here it is, the adventure, a backpacker without his backpack. and then it's

11:30 pm
and he is sitting across from me in the only boxers he now owns, aside from the scantily-clad pair provided by ClickAir/Iberia.

* * *
 

Venice leaves only emotions. it's a city for lovers, for only they feel true happiness here, in this fairy tale, in its true, peaceful form. the rest, i think, experience a cocktail of melancholy with a double shot of beauty, pinch of admiration, and sprinkle of longing, anxiously dreaming of a time when they'd bring someone here again, to bathe in this magical concoction together. all because Venezia is the ideal honeymoon destination, really, as if made by some god of romantic tourism.

tokyo is remarkably quiet for a city that can take on New York any day, an example of the Japanese politeness, in my opinion. you are walking through some of its busiest districts, but sounds never seem to overwhelm you, not in the places where our ears are traditionally accustomed to noise. the cars don't honk, there is no one running talk on a cell phone, even teenagers walk on quietly humming to one another without intruding on other people's airspace.