- Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Sofia, Greece, Egypt -
Be prepared for a realllly long entry. I've kept 3 weeks of stories here for one entry. Save it for multiple readings if you like, scan for the pictures, or skip down to Greece/Egypt if you want the meatier parts of my trip. Thanks to Evan and Morgan for providing me pictures to help round out this whole entry. I had a bad habit of leaving my camera in the hotel room until my camera broke midway through week 2.
Also, pardon the spelling mistakes. It took a while to write, and I'm really too lazy to edit it.
WEEK 1
The first week of 3 week break was a pre-planned trip by DIS - the program I am studying at this semester. As part of our "Doing Business in the European Union" class, DIS took us 35 students to Berlin and Prague to experince culture and perhaps a little bit of business in Germany and Czech Republic. This week wasnt entirely about vacationing, though they left ample time to treat it that way. Hotels, restaurants, and museum visits were pre-selected and pre-paid. To add in some academic context, we had four business presentations over the course of the week (these presentations would provide us information for a paper we are required to write for class). The combination of bars or clubs in the evening with early morning business meetings was an odd contrast.
Berlin
After an early bus departure from Copenhagen, a ferry ride across to Germany, and some more time on the bus we came to our first stop: Sachsenhausen, a former concentration camp. Pretty much every stop on the guided tour had a story about how people were killed in that area of the camp. If we thought the living conditions were bad - where people got trampled to death or died of starvation, we need only walk further to see the prison, the gallows, or the gas chamber. Once you grasp how terrible these camps are and the atrocities that occured within, you are left so depressed that it is impossible to take in the educational information the audio guide is spitting out. An emotional reaction and an educational experience are too much to ask out of the same visit. A few songs of my newfound music addiction, the Danish retro-pop band Alphabeat, pepped me up a bit for the final bus leg to Berlin. We arrived in Berlin in time to throw our stuff in the room and head out to dinner. As with all the other meals this trip, we were served a pre-oredered menu. Fortunately, DIS did not let us down and with only one exception, we ate well the whole trip, including dessert which is certainly absent from my meals in Copenhagen. Instead of hitting the bars the first night, a few of us took a walk around the neighborhood. This walk turned out to be quite fortuidous, as we found a fantastic and fantastically cheap "Currywurst" stand. Currywurst is a plate of sausage and fries with a seasoning that I can most easily compare to the seasoning you find on BBQ flavored potato chips. SOOOO GOOD. Each night thereafter, we made a point to stop by the kurrywurst stand on our way back the hotel.
**BEAR IN MIND - THIS IS ONLY 1 DAY OUT OF MORE THAN 21 - THIS MAY TAKE A WHILE! Again, I remind, if you want the abbreviated version - cut down to Greece and Egypt.
The next morning our bus departed at 9 AM for a tour of Berlin. Though I had gotten enough sleep the night before, I would soon grow to hate the 9 AM departures or shortly thereafter. Though the bus tour was very informative - most people were too tired to take in all of it. Featured on this tour were Brandenburger Tor (featured left) and the Reichstag (featured right), along with the remnants
of the Berlin Wall and assorted other buildings contructed in the 19th or early 20th century in Roman style. Because of the post Cold-War rebuilding process, Berlin has more modern architecture than I have seen in any other European city. In contrast to the older buildings that still remain in East Berlin, Berlin is a very interesting place to walk around (or take a bus) and just look at the buildings. The bus tour dropped us off at the central station. They had a food court, so I got myself a second helping of kurrywurst before I went into the center of the city to meet up with my friend Nick from high school. I spent the afternoon touring the city (again) with Nick, sucking up a downpour that came out of nowhere, and came back in time for a quick nap before dinner. Our dinner that evening was at the "Unsicht-Bar", a restaurant that serves you a meal in complete darkness. This was the most interesting dining experience I've ever had. Waiters, trained to get around the restaurant without the need for sight, led trains of us in 8 at a time. We had to hold the shoulder of the person in front of us to prevent from getting lost inside the restaurant. Inside, you truly cannot see ANYTHING. he waiter helped us find our seats (which were less than a foot away from us when we arrived at our table) and helped us identify where silverware was on our table. I had no sense how far away I was from the person across or next to me. Talking was the only way to remember who was around you. As you may expect, knowing me, there was a point in the evening when the girl next to me was surprised to hear my voice, as she had forgotten that there was someone seated to her left. The food was delicious - even though I still dont know what I ate. I heard rumor that the main dish was turkey, but the sauce made it difficult to know. Eating was a bit of a challenge - it was hard to know if there any stray items on your plate. And ice cream on the dessert plate was hard - everytime I found it, I nudged it away with my spoon! Many people solved these difficulties by eating with their hands. You can't see whats going on around you - who would know! Finally getting to see again on the outside was a nice relief. We got some beers at a local micro-brewery that evening. The experience there wasnt all that exciting, but on the walk back, we watched a car - alone on the road - veer pretty hard into a dumpster. ???!???
The next morning we heard some crazy stories of events that unfolded at clubs the night before. One of the kids on our trip woke up at 4AM the next morning on a subway in Berlin without any idea where the hotel was. Nevertheless, he made it back in time for our first business presentation - with Bayer Schering. I spent a few hours of the afternoon at the Jewish Museum. The architecture was very interesting (again with the modern theme); I'm not sure how much I really took out of the experience however. Evan and I thought about playing a few hours of hold 'em at the Berlin Casino, but apparently to get to that table, you have to be on a list. That sufficed to say, we did not have enough money to be in that casino. Nap instead - which is probably better than losing money. Another two bars that evening, and of course - more currywurst.
Morning business meeting at Lufthansa - and we were off to Prague!
Prague
In Prague, we stayed at the "Caesar's Palace Hotel". After our lack of success in Berlin, we were disappointed to find that this hotel did not have a casino either. My exact order of activities for Prague is a bit hazy, so I'm ditching chronological order. We'll start with my favorite part of any city - the food. Prague's traditional dish is goulash - a beef stew usually served with bread dumplings. Simple, yes, but it was quite tasty. DIS's biggest culinary letdown was arranging lunch at a restaurant with goulash with terribly cooked onions (no I dont know how to cook them correctly - i just know they were cooked terribly). Fortunately, for dinner that night I decided to redeem goulash its reputation and get it cooked right - and it was cooked right. The Czech's are known for their beer, so I made sure to sample that as well. My friend Steph from Brown took Evan and I to a microbrewery where they made flavored beers as well as the lagers and ales I would expect. We tried the Sour Cherry, Banana, and Thistle varieties. Thistle was fine, but interesting - not sure why anyone wants that flavor in their beer. The Czech republic is also one of the (few?) countries to legalize absinthe. Absinthe shops such as these are not too uncommon. The absinthe that they sell, however, is not the halucinogenic drink of fame, but a variety without wormwood, which has those effects. Apparently you can buy that too, but its much more expensive. I did sample the tamer variety of absinthe - it tasted not too different from high proof vodka with an herbal aftertaste. No need to try it again.
Prague was a very interesting city architectually. Without the same architectural influences as Western Europe, Prague developed its own style. The color scheme is very different from Western Europe as well. There is a lot of red and yellow, but all the colors seem to have a yellowish tint. I'm still not sure if I really liked the city; it didnt quite live up the hype that I'd heard from previous tourists. I found I was ready to leave when it came time to go and that trees or bushes lining the street were notably absent. Another reason I was ready to go, was that I had spent my final day in Prague doing laundry at what appeared to be the only public laundromat in the heart of the city. What looked like a short walk from my hotel turned out to be nearly an hour trek, lugging my suitcase full of dirty clothes around with me. On the way home, I lugged it down to the subway (which is remarkably far below the ground!). Neither trip was particularly enjoyable.
What was enjoyable about the city was the view from Charles Bridge (seen left), especially of the Prague castle. Apparently the Czech Republic had some jealousy issues with its close neighbors, as the most recent design of the castle was built to compete with the palaces in Austria (though I may not be exactly right). Incidentally, the Prague TV tower was build to compete with the TV tower in Berlin, but wasnt structurally sound enough to be built as high. The view for the TV tower, a bit outside the city, was hardly as good as the view from the tallest tower of the castle. The climb to the top of the TV tower featured a walk up 300 steps with no space for stopping and barely enough room to let people pass on their way down. This climb was no good from claustrophobic acrophobics. At the top, you can walk around on your sore thighs and see a great panorama of the city.
One of Prague's biggest claims to fame is Kafka - our walking tour of Prague featured a few locations where Kafka had lived in Prague, so I was a bit Kafka-ed out by the time we had a choice of museums on our final full day with the study tour. I elected instead to see the Mucha museum. He was a famous art nouveau artist, know in particular for his theater posters from Paris. This was sadly the smallest museum I have ever been to, and was over before I knew it. It was interesting, however, to get a brief historical backgound about a famous(?) artist I had never heard of. The day after, we five students of the comparative field study class parted ways from the rest of the class as they headed to the second leg of their breaks. I had my laundry-filled afternoon, and the following morning we took an early train to Vienna to begin our week of interviews.
WEEK 2
The second week of my spring break had been designated for my "Comparative Field Project: Expanding European Union" class. This class has been a semester long project where we selected a topic related to a new EU member (we chose the emerging winter tourism industry in Bulgaria - and yes it exists!), designed questions and conducted interviews in preparation for a report that I will have to start writing soon (and probably should be doing research for now - if I didnt have so much other work to do!). Our project features a comparison to an existing and thriving winter tourism industry - we chose Austria. So our trip took us to Vienna, Sofia (Bulgaria) and the Bansko ski resort. Despite the interviews, we had time to be tourists as well.
<-- The Group in Sofia (Haruko, Me, Diana, Mary, Evan)
Vienna
We arrived in Vienna on a weekend, so we had a few days to explore the city before worrying about the interviews we would have to conduct on Monday. We stayed in the best hostel I could possibly imagine - the Wombat. Funny name aside, the owners really understand what people want in a hostel. Rooms are relatively large (you arent cramped next to people that you dont know), the showers were nice, the rooms had well-managed heat, the whole building was painted nicely, and it had a TV area, internet, and a bar downstairs. My only complaint was the expensive breakfast that we opted not to shell out for. We had a delicious doner stand right across the street - and frankly, who needs a continental breakfast, when you can have doners. We spent the first day just getting acclaimated to the city. After a much needed cake & cafe break, we took an evening walk around the city. I was not prepared for Vienna. The immense and beautiful palaces, the wide streets, the beautiful squares were all so much better than I expected. The city is also lit up remarkably well at night, so the walk was a great way to get acquainted with the city.
(Karlsplatz to the left, Stephandom to the Right)
As a city to sit in a cafe or take a stroll, Vienna was perfect. I'm certainly not the type to find just walking around a city by myself an exciting activity, but (given the sun, lack of clouds, and mild temperature) I really enjoyed my walk the second day were in town. I walked the majority of the "ring road", a near circle of streets that surround nearly all of the historic buildings. Parlament, the opera house, the city hall, the city park all fall along these streets as well. Aside from walking around and our frequent cafe breaks, there wasnt all that much we did in Vienna (who needs to do any more!). I visited the MUMOK, the museum for modern art in Austria and hated it. Modern art is very hit or miss for me (as it is with most people, I assume) - but I had alot of misses here. The art in this museum is largely meant to be very provocative - and to this end, the artists succeeded. But instead of questioning what art is, or the pressures of society, I left for the next room thinking how gross everything was. The featured artist (who got 3 floors of a 9 floor museum to himself) was Yves Klein. The extent that I knew about him before this exhibit was that he had patented a certain shade of blue (if I were going to patent a shade of blue - I might have picked that one too). His featured artistic concept was to have three nude women with buckets of his patented blue paint their disposal, rub paint onto themselves and press themselves against a canvas. He had at least 8 works with this theme. Pieces like these confuse me; how are they uniformly recognized as intelligent art. I think its bullshit. Each floor was filled with pieces that I would put in the "bullshit category". The museum was redeemed a little bit by the collection of more typical modern art on the top floor, but by the time I got there I was too overwhelmed with frustration at the museum to enjoy it. In retrospect, I'll take a cafe instead.
The national dish (as our local restaurant declared) is naturally Wiener Schnitzel. It took this trip for me to realize that "Wiener", just like "Hamburger" or "Frankfurter" is actually just an adjective meaning, "comes from Vienna". I surprised to find no wieners in my Wiener Schnitzel. Our most interesting meal in Vienna was at Centimeter, so named because you order bread by the centimeter. However, for a restaurant that named itself after its unique way of selling bread, the bread was pretty miserable. We ordered the cold variety topped with garlic or pepperoni pastes. Meh - one or two pieces were fine; we ordered too many centimeters. The main dish on the other hand, was much more of an experience. We were a group of 6 at that point (one girl had met up with a friend in Vienna), and saw a menu item called "DAS SCHWERT" [the sword]. As you can
see from the picture, they took the sword business quite literally. In the foreground we have the infamous schnitzel, with porkchops further along the sword. On the bottom we have french fries, chili con carne, and chicken wings. A huge perk of travelling with girls (especially smaller ones), as Evan and I came to realize, was that they dont always finish their food. In fact, they order what tastes good and eat until they are in a comfortable state between hungry and full. This meant, alot of extra food for Evan and I. I'll say thats a good deal. We didnt quite finish the whole thing (we had 2 or 3 untouched porkchops), but we all left full and without spending as much as we would have with individual meals. If I come back to Vienna, I will make sure to stop by Centimeter again, and this time order the "wheelbarrow of garbage", serves 3-4. Seeking a more local, authentic Austrian meal the next evening, we found a small uncrowded restaurant near our hostel with a special discount on ordering schnitzel. Easy choice. Great food + hotel discount = coming back the next day.
Our interviews did not pan out so well in Vienna. Our contact information for our first interview never made it to paper and on the trip with us. We still arent sure whether we ever had enough contact info from them. And our second interviewee got sick, so we had to fight to interview his substitute. Fortunately, Austria was not the focal point of our paper. We hoped for better luck in Sofia.
After waking up at 3:50 AM, and grabbing some doners from the stand across the street that was still open, serving those who were heading home for the night, we headed to the airport for our flight to Sofia.
Sofia
Sofia struck me as like any other European city, just a whole lot less developed. For a change from Western Europe, Sofia was not overrun with Roman-style architechture. Though, aside from mosques and churches, there wasnt much architechture to look at, at all. For the first time in my travels in Europe, it was hard to find people who spoke English. But Bulgaria felt completely safe. We were barely ever asked to give money, and never saw any particularly sketchy behavior while we were visiting. Before this trip, when we mentioned that we were going to visit Bulgaria, a very popular reaction (and one that you all may have made) was "Bulgaria? Why?". If you did ask, I may have recited my spiel about our project and Bulgarias strong, emerging winter tourism industry. When we arrived, we started to ask ourselves the same question. With more extravagant European cities, including Vienna, under our belt, it was hard to find interesting things about Sofia. One of the things that makes Bulgaria unique is its network of hot springs - second only to Iceland. Because of this rich natural resource, Sofia has catered its city infastructure to allow usage for everyone. On our walk around the city, we visited the water fountains, which constantly pump warm mineral water, free of charge, to whoever wants it. It was not uncommon to see people standing at an individual pump to work on filling numerous water bottles for later conception.
I sampled the water (which is rumored to have healing qualities) and it tasted pretty good. (First, Alexander Nevsky Cathedreal. Then, the water fountains)
Arriving in the city 45 minutes before our first scheduled interview, Haruko and I took a taxi to a square in Sofia instead of to our hostel. When we stepped out of our taxi, a group of children ran up to us and gestured that they wanted money from us (my business attire must have suggested that I might have had some on me - but I actually had no Bulgarian currency yet). It was a very uncomfortable experience to walk silently wihtout eye contact as they were following us. I was afraid this would set the standard for Bulgaria, and I would be overwhelmed by the poverty. This turned out not to be the case, and that first hour turned out to be the only time I was ever asked for money. Bulgaria must be making grand jumps in growth these days. I was not aware of the true state of Bulgaria when our interview was over and we headed over to our hostel. Each hostel I had stayed in previously had had its own lobby or a large inviting sign and an elevator to the front lobby. The Hostel Mostel had an orange sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper stuck to the door to indicate we were in the right place. After getting buzzed in, we hiked up a dark staircase past doors that were locked with metal grating locked in front of them. I was very uncomfortable with where I might be staying. When I arrived at the right floor, I found something much better than expected. Behind its locked and grated door, the hostel was bright and clean and relatively new, with free internet and a free breakfast in the morning. Works for me. The only complaint I had was a single bathroom for the 16-20 residents plus staff. When this only bathroom featured the only shower as well, it got smelly, humid, and a long line in the mornings.
Before our 3 week break, Evan's and my hair was getting a bit shaggy. If finding a haircut was simpler or cheaper in Copenhagen, we would have gotten ourselves haircuts in early March. Instead, Evan got the idea, and I naturally tagged along, to get our hair cut cheap in Bulgaria. The prices were cheap certainly, but finding a reasonable place to get it cut was another matter. In anticipation of the language barrier, we had our hostel write on a piece of paper, "we want haircuts - do whatever you think would look good." We could only hope that that was what they actually wrote down. What was striking when we went to get our haircuts was that people didnt really want to help us. We walked into the first shop, I asked if the woman (who was helping the only other person in the store) spoke english and she just said "no". So we waited around for a bit, thought about sitting down, and showed the paper from the hostel, to which she responded "no" again. At another barbershop/salon, there were three employees sitting around reading or eating. We asked if anyone spoke English and got no response. I was surprised that no one wanted to try to make the effort to understand what we wanted so they might make a little more money. No such luck. We finally found a place where an employee spoke minimal English and he managed to squeeze the two of us into the schedule. The haircut was not particularly unique, except for costing about $10 tip included. (A huge steal from Copenhagen prices)
Food in Bulgaria was pretty good. They are big on the Bulgaria BBQ (pictured left below), and cook all sorts of meat and vegetables on it. We went to what was recommended as good food + traditional Bulgarian atmosphere and we found just that. We ordered a Bulgarian sampler which had various grilled meats and cheeses on skewers. Naturally, we also had to sample the Bulgarian wine as well. While we were there, we were entertained for a few minutes by some Bulgarian music.
After 4 days in Sofia, we headed the Bankso ski resort south of Sofia. We had a 2.5 hour car-ride on newly built roads (to accomodate the influx of tourism in the area).
Bansko
Our hotel in Bansko was one of many new hotels (finished completion just months before we arrived). If we had come one year ago, Bansko would have looked completely different. If we had come a year later, same thing, Bansko is being developed faster than any other part of Bulgaria, and maybe even Europe. The location is largely a winter weekend destination (though the location is popular with the UK who have been interested in vacation houses for longer stays). We were the only guests at the hotel for the Thursday night we were there. The hotel was booked full for Friday night. Visiting Bansko was mainly for interviews; we conducted 3 that day and the opportunity to see in real life what we were talking about in our paper. The chance to relax in a hotel instead of an overcrowded hostel was a nice perk.
Sofia Again
We came back to Sofia for one night to rest up before we parted ways again. We were surprised to find that we were not in the lovely hostel we had stayed in for 3 nights, but another building a few blocks away. Compared to the other hostel, this was a dump. The shower had very limited hot water (and was just a showerhead coming out of the wall), the bathroom smelled worse than at the other hostel, and the location was even sketchier than the first. It got the job done, though. We had a place to sleep. Joing the 5 of us in the room was a 50? year old man originally from England. He had been at a train station in Germany with all his belongings and asked for a ticket for the next train to Eastern Europe. He has been teaching English and living in the hostel for 6 months. Though I think the free-spiritedness and bravery required to pack up everything and try living somewhere random is quite impressive, there was something off about this guy - he was pretty awkward. I wanted out of that hostel after 1 night - I dont know how he could have stayed for months. Oh well - he seemed happy and good for him if he is happy with his choice.
Our final dinner was a few blocks from our hotel. I wanted to get some small items because I wasnt so hungry. I had a salad, split some chicken fingers with Evan and ordered the sea bass, which appeared as "Sea Bass 100 g. 4 BGL". A taste of sea bass for about $2.50 USD seemed good. When they arrived with a whole fish, I was impressed and pleased. I figured they count grams after cooking and deboning the fish. It was cooked well too. At the end of the meal, my waiter informed me that my fish had been 500 grams, and would cost me 22 BGL. His math confused me; he must have meant 550 grams, but this bill was far greater than I had imagined and wanted to pay, though I had no idea how to argue my way out of this one other than that their menu was very misleading. I complained about sea bass for the next week and hoped to avoid 18 BGL worth of meaningless purchases later on in the trip.
Pissed about fish prices, I headed with Evan to Athens the next morning.
WEEK 3
Week 3 was my actual vacation this break. To have a no-regrets experience, we decided to go for Greece and Egypt. The group was Evan, Morgan (from DIS), Isaac (from Brown) and Leo (Isaac's friend from CA who was studying with him for the semester). The dynamic was less than perfect, since Leo's idea of a good vacation differed from ours. His interests were in meeting the locals, meeting other people at the hostel, sitting in a cafe, sleeping and using the internet. Though that sounds like a fine way of handling a vacation, the rest of us were not interested in talking to anyone besides ourselves, but wanted to see as many sites as we could squeeze in over the course of the week. Though there were never any direct arguements, there was a bit of tension on occasion. That all aside, it was a great experience.
<-- The Group in Meteora (Isaac, Me, Leo, Evan, Morgan)
Athens
Because our experience was so much more interesting everywhere else, I don't have all that much to say about Athens. The weather was perfect while we were there and all sun. It was perfect weather to hike up Lykkavitos hill, the only point in Athens higher than the Acropolis. From there, we could see the whole city and it was a pretty damn good view (see right). We met up with Isaac that evening after debating for about 2 hours whether we should head for dinner with or without him, finally deciding to go, eating, and coming back to learn that Isaac had arrived just minutes after we left. Such is life. Morgan recommended the view of the Acropolis from the roof, and indeed it was beatutiful to see it all lit up. The next morning we got gyros for breakfast (Does it get any better than that!?) and headed up the Acropolis, which was free since it was the first Sunday of the month. Naturally, it was insanely crowded, but it was just as impressive as always. I left early so I could do the laundry i had amassed over the past week (I had seen the Acropolis already when I was in Athens for the 2004 Olympics. They all wandered more around the park and sampled some more gyros and crepes.
Laundry turned into a very interesting experience. I wound up dragging my bag 15 minutes to where the hostel had marked a Laundromat to find out it wasnt yet operational. I dragged my bag back and asked the front desk where there might be laundry machines. Naturally, there were machines in the courtyard behind the hostel - pity i didnt ask earlier. Though the machines together cost just under 7 Euro, having clean clothes for the rest of the trip sounded wonderful - since i was fresh out (or "out-of-fresh"). The washer posts a washing time of 40 minutes, which in reality is somewhere over an hour. I took the opportunity to grab some spinach pie (why is cheap food from street stands so much better in Europe than the US!?). When my load finally finished I noted that instead of centrifuging, my laundry was sitting in soapy water. I wrung out all my clothese, threw them in the drier and told the front desk about the problem. He fixed it, gave me my money back, and suggested I wash them again, because it would take them forever to dry at that rate. I took his suggestion, and waited again for the hour long wash cycle. I have not mentioned that I was in a bit of a time crunch - we were planning to catch a bus up to north central greece that evening. If I missed that bus, I was missing Meteora, the location I was excited most for on the trip. But, what was I going to do with wet laundry!? I was in a pickle and a race against time. The 4 guys came back from their hike and I told them to go to the bus station without me, but to get me a ticket. I would come as soon as possible. I watched in pain as the first wash cycle went successfully, my clothes had been properly centrifuged, but the washer has two cycles - and you cant pull your clothes out early. Just my luck, when my laundry finally finished - it's sitting in more water than the first time. I grabbed a trashbag and wrung out my wettest clothes and tossed everything inside. We were fortunately coming back the night after so I threw the bag of clothes in my suitcase, packed up the remaining shirt I had in my backpack, and told the front desk about the problem again. He seemed to think it was my fault - but I'm not sure how if I had clogged it the first time, I managed to still have enough lint and string, etc. to clog it again. I continued my dash to the bus station.
<-- Dramatic recreation of my laundry experience
I got off the metro at 4:30 (bus at 5) with just a general sense of where the bus station was. I headed in the general right direction and asked for directions. I continued in the direction i was given until I felt concerned again and asked someone else. He pointed back the way I came!!! I talked with him more, and he changed his mind and pointed in the direction I was walking. I made it to the bus station with 20 minutes to spare, grabbed another spinach pie, and complained about wet laundry and fish prices.
The bus to Trikala was a long one, but we got there fine. A quick layover in Trikala and we were off to Kalambaka, the town right below Meteora.
Meteora
When we arrived at our hotel in Kalambaka, the manager asked us if we had brought a car with us. We had not, so he had a fellow employee grab his. Our hotel was not in the small village of Kalambaka, but the even smaller villiage of Kastraki, even closer to the road up to Meteora. The hotel was a bed and breakfast, with (despite its old-timey theme) small flat screen TVs in each room. Again, a hotel was a welcome change from hostels and sharing a room with strangers. Though it was midnight, we managed to find a restaurant who was willing to serve us dinner. When you consider the thought that you might go hungry that night, all food tastes fantastic. When we ordered a salad, she went outside and picked some fresh lettuce from her garden. Excellent choice! The food style was kind of similar to Bulgaria, as we had the option of various grilled meats along with some grain. I can't get enough grilled chicken, so the menu was fine with me.
Meteora is hard to explain in words. Over the course of the last millenium (thats about as specific as I can get with the dates), the Greeks built monasteries all around the Meteora area. Meteora is a series of boulders? rock pillars? onto which over 20 monasteries were built. Today only 6 still exist in full form. You can visit each monastery for 2 euro each. Instead of taking the bus up, we walked along the road and hiked up to the top. The views are breathtaking. Instead of explaining exactly what we did, I'll show pictures (the hotel is on the right in the leftmost picture below):
I can safely say, that this was my favorite day of my 3 week break. We caught another late bus back to Athens and spent the night at our hostel. Leo had misplaced his ticket from Athens to Cairo so had to spend the next day arranging a new one. The 4 of us went to Delphi.
Delphi
Delphi had a tough act to follow. We were back to Greek ruins after some amazing views. The bus ride over took us through some hilltop Greek towns which reminded me more of Italy than what I thought Greece was like. It was about a 4 hour bus-ride for about 4 hours in Delphi, so we got used to bus rides in our time in Greece. We found out the oracle was not located in the mountains, nor in the circular shaped ruin that we all had assumed was the oracle, but in the gigantic temple of Apollo higher on the hill. (Temple of Apollo left, Sanctuary of Athena right)
Delphi was beautiful, but compared to the other destinations on the trip, not so impressive, sadly.
We came back to Athens to catch our 12:50 AM flight to Cairo. If we were tired before the flight, we were exhausted when we arrived. I learned I am not so good at travelling at 3 AM. I almost left my backpack at check-in and again on the plane. Good thing I had other people there looking out for me.
Cairo
Cairo + Americans + 3 AM is a bad combination. We weren't at all prepared for Cairo at this point. We came to passport control and had 4 banks to choose from to purchase our $15 tourist visa. Those who had euros instead paid 15 euros. It was just the start of getting ripped off. Morgan had asked our hotel to meet us at the airport. We waited for 10 minutes or so, but saw no sign of them. An airport official was pushing us to get an official taxi with him, which Leo thought was a good idea. I just wanted to get my bearings first. We eventually gave in and accepted his offer for 15 euros (not too much of a rip off, we found out). As we were led to the street, some other people graciously offered to bring our bags to the taxi. Egypt seemed to have a different system for taxis than Europe or the US. As soon as we got to the taxi, the bag carriers started demanding money from us. We hadnt had the chance to visit a bank yet, so they were out of luck. One of us had a 5 euro note (a bit too much of a tip, if you ask me) which he gave to one of them. Despite this, they continued asking for money, indicating that they might want 5 euros from each of us. I was tired and pissed and wanted to argue with them that I didnt have any money. I did not realize this is what every day of our trip would be like.
Our taxi driver darted down the Egyptian streets. He was passing cars left and right - even a police car with flashing lights! He ran red lights, and didnt really follow the right side of the road law. Again, I did not realize this is what every day of our trip would be like. Red lights are seemingly cautionary if observed at all. Cars go wherever they see space, pedestrians cross whenever they see space (it doesnt matter if a car is speeding in his direction - though Cairo is so crowded its rare to see a car speeding in your direction), and all drivers rely on their horns.
Our hotel was fine - a budget hotel by hostelworld.com and our defition. It had beds, and a shower, which is all we really needed. We took a 6 hour nap/sleep from 3:30 AM or so until 9:30 AM when we planned to see Cairo. We were all shocked to hear, in the middle of our night, someone chanting on a megaphone. We were surprised the city was okay with that behavior. We later realized that these were mosques and we were listening to a call to prayer. We weren't in Kansas anymore.
When we got up, we found out from our hotel that we could take an offer to see the ancient sites around Cairo in the taxi of a friend of the hotel's proprietor. For the price (and not having any clue how to get around Cairo on our own) it seemed like a good deal - and it was. We were cramped in a taxi for the whole ride (a result of travelling with 5 people), leaving one person with an uncomfortable leg each leg of the trip.
Oh yah! And they had someone in the hotel who we could pay to do laundry for us - so I gave him my whole wet bag of clothes and got the clothes back the next day. With the water weight, my suitcase weighed 28 kg, without it, it was under 18 kg.
We started the day with Dashur. It was the only place with a pyramid that we could actually go inside. Starting the day by going inside a pyramid kinda rocks. The inside was surprisingly hot, and didnt feature any heiroglyphics. It was pretty damn cool anyway. To get inside, you have to walk down the escape tunnel of the pyramid which is small so that you have to lean forward the whole way. It opened up into a large empty room, with another large empty room next to it. In the same area is the bent pyramid, shown right. We couldnt go inside, but it looks pretty cool too.
The second leg of our trip was the city of Memphis, with a small musuem featuring a number of statues, including this gigantic statue of Ramses II. Next up was Saqqara, the step pyramid. Again we couldnt go in, but they had extensive grounds that we could walk around and explore.
After we left the grounds of the Memphis museum, we found our taxi driver sipping some tea outside a papyrus store. Im not sure exactly the agreement between our taxi driver and the shopkeeper, but we bought our relative-to-Egypt expensive drinks and accepted a free lesson on how to make papyrus, which was pretty interesting. The papyrus pictures for sale were not really worth buying. (I'm sure our drinks would have been discounted if we had all bought pictures!).
At Saqqara we first started to see people purposely try to mislead us. A man in the path to the pyramid told us that the tickets we had bought lower down on the hill were no good, that we needed to by tickets again and led us to a booth. We were a bit skeptical and watched as a tour group marched by with the same tickets and the man was unaffected. When we followed along with the tour group, instead of telling us to buy the new tickets, the man took a different approach and started to talk to us about the site, hoping for a tip. He was not a unique example. Within the sites, locals would call to you and invite you over to show you an excellent part of the site. For their energy, they expect you to pay them a tip. At the first pyramid policeman outside suggested we take a picture with them and their camel. After the picture had been snapped, they asked for money too. Egyptians are very friendly, but you can't trust a soul. Everyone seems interested in talking to you for the chance to get your money. I feel bad for the people (if there are any) with a genuine interest in meeting travellers, because I gave the Egyptians no respect.
To make things more extreme, our taxi driver took us to a camel renting facility instead of to the gates of the pyramids at the end of the day. I was pretty annoyed - especially because I had no desire to ride a camel in the first place. Our taxi driver had been friendly and honest with us the whole day, I was disappointed with this decision. Apparently seeing the pyramids at sunset was not an option without this camel ride. The proprieter claimed to have a special permit to ride on the premises after hours (this permit looked an awful lot like Egyptian Currency - and our guide had to show alot of different ones to different police officers along the way). The proprietor offered a really high price for a camel ride, and we eventually bargained him down. Some people actually wanted the camel ride, I just was seeking the cheapest way I could get some good pictures. The trip was worth it in the end, but I hated riding the camel. My inner thighs were sore for days from that. The guide complained to me that I was not smiling. That I was riding a camel was not a reasonable response, in his eyes.
Afterwards, we watched the pyramids light show from the roof a nearby building. We sadly had to hop on to the camel once more to get back to our taxi. I didnt understand why we kept doing it. Clearly the camel wasnt too fond of standing up and sitting for us riders, and I wasnt too fond of it either. We went to an Egyptian fast food restaurant for dinner and got falafels and schwarma for cheap! To make it authentically Egyptian, the line to order is waving money in front of the cashier until he takes it and takes your order. We tried another falafel place nearby afterwards. I got 4 falafels for about 10 cents, US currency. For about 50 cents US, I could have bought three falafel pockets (which was my favorite meal choice later on on the trip).
On the streets of Cairo, we found that people here too would try to start up conversations with us to get our money. "Where are you from?" was a clear signal that people wanted a tip or to direct us to their shop.
Our second day in Cairo, we decided to actually see the city. We had planned to walk around the city in the morning, catch the Egyptian Museum in the afternoon and catch our night bus to Luxor in the evening. When I called the train reservation office however, they told me to come by right away to get our tickets, so I obliged. We didnt start our day until after noon. We passed juice stand on our way back to the hotel and saw an interesting juice that everyone was drinking that we had to try. It was very sweet, but not too fruity. When we looked more closely to see what we were drinking, we noticed that a man was shoving plant reeds into a juicer. We were drinking sugar cane juice! (Juice stand left, Egyptian Museum right)
The Egyptian Museum was filled with Egyptian artifacts, the most famous being the mask of Tuthankhamen and the rest of the treasures from his tomb. It was unfortunate however how many artifacts they had, since it got overwhelming. Seeing so many gigantic sarchophogi gets kind of repetitive. Seeing any of these artifacts in an Egyptian tomb would have been thrilling. Any of them individually would have been thrilling, but all together, it was just too much.
On this day, I forget when we had to cross an 8 lane road. Naturally, there are no walk signals that cars follow, so it was us against the cars who werent particularly interested in stopping. We eventually made it to the other side. I was in "fight or flight" mode the entire time, so I blacked out the entire experience, and couldnt tell anyone afterwards how we had crossed the road. I expect this to be the only time in my life where I'm proud of crossing the street.
Later that afternoon we walked down the Nile towards old Cairo. Unlike any other city we'd been to, Cairo is as big as it looks on a map, if not bigger. After over an hour of walking, we werent yet where we wanted to be. We decided to try to take a short cut off the main road and over to the "Babylon Fort" we were looking for. We didnt ever make it to the Babylon Fort. Instead we wound up on a street of locals, where tourists may never have wandered in many years. We got stares from everyone around us, and got to see clearer signs of poverty than anywhere else in Egypt. For a change, no one tried to start a conversation with us, expect for a few kids asking for money. We had definitely stepped out of the tourist zone - and we definitely werent welcome. We kept walking, feeling it would be dangerous to stop and look at the map or ask for directions. Eventually we made it out and back to a main road. It was getting late, we only had time to drive by "Citadel" the large mosque in the center of the city before heading back to our hotel. When we arrived back at the hotel, in a bit of a time rush, our cab driver avoided saying how much we owed him until we took his mobile phone number in case we needed a taxi again. When we continued to refuse, he finally gave us a price, a bit over what would have been fair. We wonder what it would have been, if we'd just taken his phone number.
The sleeping train was the first time we'd seen a large group of tourists outside of the ancient sites. We bought three 2 person rooms and it was great to have a place to sleep, albeit for not that much time. It was expensive ($60 compared to our alternative of $15 for a sitting train), but we found it worthwhile.
Luxor
When we arrived in Luxor, we were greeted by a friend of our hotel in Cairo. He told us that his hotel was better than where we were staying and that we should switch. We declined and he headed off. A taxi offered us a free ride to his hotel if we switched as well. We kept with our original plan, and it was a good one. Our hotel had a roof patio. Though our rooms werent ready, I was thrilled to have a break from all the dirtiness and pushiness in Cairo. I was very on edge in Cairo, and I felt that I had a chance to relax for a bit. After showering up, we toured the two temples on the same side of the Nile as our hotel. I dont know if I was more relaxed than in Cairo, but I think I enjoyed these more than the pyramids near Cairo. The pyramids certainly made for better pictures, but the chance to walk around the ruins was pretty thrilling.
(Temple of Luxor left, Temple of Karnak right)
That evening, Leo called it a night early and the remaining four of us took a felucca ride to Banana Island. Not much to explain there. Our felucca captain offered us tea on the way over and hibiscus on the way back. Hibiscus is a flower that is apparently good for your heart. The drink was quite sour. On banana island, we got to see the banana trees and sample a plate of bananas. The task of eating all of them seemed daunting, but we had no problem with it.
The next day we toured the other side of the river. Our hotel arranged for us to get a driver to take us around. This turned out to be a real rip off; we would have been much better organizing taxis on our own. The driver took us first to the Temple of Hatshepsut which was not much more than an amazing view from the outside. An American we had met in the fast food restaurant in Cairo had recommended the hike from the Temple of Hatshepsut to the Valley of the Kings, on the other side of the mountain. We are hiking types, so these seemed just our cup of tea. Unfortunately, it wasnt too exciting. The path was not clearly marked, though we estimated correctly the right route. We were walking for 45 minutes in the scorching sun with no option for shade. Naturally, we quickly ran out of water. Below are two pictures from the hike. Temple of Hatshepsut on the left, Valley of the Kngs on the right. As you can see, we're a bit high up over the sites.
We made it to the valley fine, and used the opportunity to sit for half an hour in the shaded area with fans. We did not want to move again. Unfortunately we had to hike even further down the hill to get tickets to see the tombs that we were near. We visited 3 tombs in about 30 minutes total. The tombs were pretty cool. Generally the walls were covered with heiroglyphics and there were impressive sarchophogi at the bottom. We finished with the Temple of Habu (and appreciated the shade!). Our taxi driver, in typical form asked us if we wanted a drink, if we wanted dinner, if we wanted to see a Papyrus store (apparently Cairo papyrus is no good), if we wanted to see a goat factory, and finally dropped us off in front of a restaurant he recommended (that was near the ferries to take us home). I got pretty tired of all the selling. I was happy that we were headed home that evening. We had a few hours to spare that evening, so we played cards on the roof of our hotel. We borrowed a room to use to shower. Unfortunately, Leo and I didnt have the chance to use it before the front desk had to give the key to the proper guests. Instead of the sleeping train, we took a seated, air conditioned train back to Cairo. This started the worst 24 hours of my trip.
On the train back to Cairo, I picked up my only souvenir from Egypt - FOOD POISONING! Evan and I split sandwiches for only 11 EGP - about $3 USD maybe? Its a week later and I still have a stomach bug. This was not a pleasant sickness to have on a sketchy train in Egypt, but I got through it somehow. Sleeping also was a challenge, since the lights in the car never got turned off and the stewards continued to sell newpapers, coffee and tea throughout the night. As soon as I fell asleep, a steward came by, yelling to sell whatever it was he wanted to sell. Tired, sick, smelly and now with a fever, I sat around the Cairo airport for many hours waiting to be able to go to our gate. This wait gave me the opportunity to throw up in the Cairo airport bathroom. We also found out that our flight had been pushed back an hour, without them telling us, and that we were going to miss our connection in Budapest. Grr.
The flight was fine and so was the evening to get a good night sleep in Budapest. We flew to Malmo, Sweden the next day and made it home by 4 on Monday. Im a bit disappointed that I won't be able to tour Budapest this semester, since it looked like a nice city. I know I will make it back some day though.
Overall it was a pretty awesome three weeks, and as you can see from the pictures. I have a lot of good pictures to show from it. One more month here, then I'm off to Norway, England and Iceland and then the good old USA. Being sick on a train in Egypt makes you miss home more than anything else I can imagine. I know I will be quite happy to have American supermarkets, American food, and American everyday life.
