Greece, day 2

Okay after this I'll need to break for chores. Darn it, it's Sunday afternoon already, which means the weekend is more or less over.

Jun. 28, 11
Yesterday's breakfast: sour cherry juice (actually sweet), cherries, toast w/ honey, egg. The receptionist was v. helpful & gave us directions AND maps AND recommendations of places to go. And tickets! Because you need tickets prior to boarding the bus.

They are sold in mini-vending machines next to the bus stops. Needless to say, because we arrived via taxi, we have not braved public transport and so had not bought bus tickets, so it was def. a good thing that the hostel sold them at the front desk. Also, at this point I had no change (bank and ATM machines only give you bills) and the machines take coins.

So, after packing our lunch (wheat bread sandwich, with cheese and ham that claimed to be "toast", in English, on the packaging, along w/ these v. addictive cookie sticks) we set off for Knossos.

The bus station (route 7) was ~2min away by walking and the bus came within 30min. While waiting, Annie gave me some brief background on the Minoans (linear form A writing, pre-, old, new, & post-palatial periods, excavator by the name of Evans).

Ah yes, the benefit of traveling to ancient ruins with a friend who's an archeology grad students.

We successfully navigted our way to the Astoria Capsis station (transit center-ish place in downtown Iraklio), where due to a slight bit of misunderstanding we were confused about the types of tickets we should purchase (types divided into colors, and asking "τι χρομα εναι κνοσσοσ" -- "what color is Knossos" -- didn't seem to cut it) but luckily things worked out and we arrived @ the Minoan Palace (route 2) along with massive amounts of tourists.

We spent 10 euros on a duo ticket that gave us entrance to both the archaeological site and the archeology museum in Iraklio and spent the entire morning clambering over ruins from ~1700 BC (most of it from the New-Palatial period), which even the oceans of tour groups clogging every corner could not diminish the coolness of. (Have also been warned by Annie that Venice is apparently much worse -- the city gets "swarmed" by tourists descending from cruises during the day.) We had lunch onsite beneath an apricot tree, next to an Italian family who entertained us w/ their little boy's antics (and later parental assistance) to obtain fruit (I should also mention at this pt. that the mixture of nationalities was also v. cool, despite of my complaint about tourist groups -- though we did run into a bride -- white dress & everything -- rest of wedding party not seen -- who was either Russian or Polish or Ukrainian -- I can't tell the languages apart by sound -- and that was a bit weird.)

After lunch we ventured to the tourist kiosks lining the sides of the entrance, which contained some of the most sexually explicit souvenirs I've ever seen. (Annie was amused by them; I think she'll be getting something of that nature for her mother.) We then navigated our way back to Iraklio, where we figured out where to get off mostly by following our fellow tourists. A brief re-orientation with the map later, we arrived, one block away from our station, at the archeology museum, the contents of which, even though a bit sparse compared to the scale of the museums I'm used to, went perfectly with our morning ramble to Knossos. Because it was a fairly small museum, we were able to finish rather sooner than expected, and so had the time to follow the adjacent street down to the coast where we encountered the Venetian Arches (though we didn't know what they were while we walked under them) as well as the Venetian Fort Koulos (where we were lightly sprinkled with sea water), which was unfortunately closed. Following the advises of fellow tourists ("fellow" in the sense of them also being tourists -- they were from York, UK), we proceeded to the St. Pedros monastery. We then went to the Crete Historical Museum, which had more floors and interesting things than we expected for such a compact looking place (in terms of museum layout I would say it's better than the archeological museum) and as a result we had to rush our tours so we can go through the place before it closed at five.

Dinner was at Liontaria Square, which our receptionist recommended for "Greek watching" but was, in fact, an event better site for "tourist watching". We split a moussaka and a thing of mushroom grilled with honey-mint vinaigrette and cheese (which squeaked when you bit down on it and was strange -- I gave the rest of mine to Annie) and I was introduced to the "Mediterranean attitude", where when I signaled for the bill at the end of our meal & the waiter made motions for me to wait. We were kept for MUCH longer than I expected before we started back for the hostel, where we showered and I drew and Annie knitted while we listened to music until it was late enough to sleep.

I mentioned to Annie that I'll note this experiment. My conclusions so far are that, for me at least, adjusting my circadian rhythm to an earlier time is easier than adjusting it to a later time.

Temporarily done with forms, so

I am going to type up my notes from the Greece trip, starting from the 26th since I doubt anyone would find my trip from San Diego to San Jose particularly riveting. But the trip itself might be noteworthy not only for entertainment values but also to provide logistic for future trips either to Greece or some other country in EU. The readers will also have to suffer through my random rambling because I will not bother to edit those out. Notes will be added to it as I type but the formatting should make it obvious what is what. Without much further ado:

Jun. 26, 11
Am sitting in Athen's international airport right now. Local time is 11:30, noonish, while it is 1:30am Pacific Time.

Note: I did not adjust my watch at all for this entire trip. I have found it useful in the past to keep track of the time differences should I need to contact someone. In any case it's a 2hr mark difference on my analog watch so the math is simple enough.

Am appallingly awake. Was dropped off at ~5:40am last morning by parents. Despite of seat ordering was assigned seats separate from Annie for the SF to NJ & NJ to Athens flights. However was fortunate enough to change seat on the plane with a kind gentleman so the flight to Greece was much more pleasurable. We (Annie and I) bonded over grad school, academia, and teaching. We watched the Russian adaptation of SHERLOCK HOLMES while flying over France to Greece which, as I've just remarked to Annie, may have been the most trans-cultural thing I've ever done.

Annie also took the time to introduce me to LibriVox, an organization similar to Project Gutenburg in the sense that while Gutenburg project releases public domain ebooks for free, LibriVox produces, with the aid of volunteers, the podcast version of those books.

Have spent past week listening to DRACULA. Have found it boring. Have discovered I may not be suitable for audio versions of books I don't already like, as while reading I can skim through sections where picking out individual words that jump out at me will let me get an idea of what each paragraph is about without reading every single word. In contrast in an audiobook I am forced to sit through 30 minutes of musing regarding the weather and local scenery. I wish I were exaggerating, but I am not. Also, Ms. Lucy must have type AB blood because nothing else makes sense. Or possibly Stoker just fail at medical knowledge / blood type knowledge was not common knowledge during his era? But if they know how to do transfusion the medical professionals must know the importance of different types of blood, right? RIGHT? But I digress.

Descending flight told me why blue & white are the nation's colors --- those are the only colors you see for miles (white = clouds & waves, maybe). A few turns and a few more miles down later Athens seem...less cosmopolitan than expected -- more spaced out, though this could be entirely due to the location of airport. Have no idea how far this place is from central Athens.

The airport is even more mall-like than SFO. There is something reassuring bout how all these airports (SF, NJ, here) are all alike, especially when all the local floral I've glanced at through the window screamed "foreign!".

Oh right, and NJ = New Jersey. Newark, New Jersey. I have the feeling that it's the hub for all trans-Atlantic flights.

Jun. 27, 11

Slight delay from Athens to Iraklio yesterday, but all things considered, arrival was v. smooth. Taxi station @ airport had drivers who v. easily understood our v. English needs and within 15 min. we were deposited @ the front of the hostel, which was v. cute. Annie's passport was held hostage to our living here, and there was the unexpectedly hilarious incident of the rusty door lock where, while trying to understand how we managed to accidentally lock ourselves in, the nice young lady @ the reception momentarily was locked in with us (the unlocking mechanism of the door was rusty). Of course, it was infinitely better to have that sorted and fixed (she got a handyman in less than 5 min.) then and there, and not have to deal with it ourselves at some inopportune moment.

Neither Annie nor I managed to sleep on the flight, so at that point we were v. jet-lagged and starting to feel a bit hysterical, what with the accidental door-locking.

I should mention we stayed at Prince of Lilies and it was a lovely place, despite of the initial misunderstanding with the door.

Then we walked to the beach (10min away). The beach has a bit of littering problem but the scenery was spectacular anyway. Annie was sufficiently distracted from collapsing from sleep deprivation (she was unable to sleep the night before the trip) by the bits of fossilized things she found in the rock strata lining the beach. It really does seem that you can't walk without stepping on historical remains of some sort in Greece.

The beach was not a tourist beach, though presence of umbrella skeletons en masse suggested at some point it was. Not it just seems an abandoned stretch of sand, accessed through an abandoned and rather sketchy looking parking lot, that is sandwiched between the touristy beaches.

Located a grocer's conveniently across the street and have purchased water (tap water is NOT drinkable)

We were warned by the receptionist at the hostel, and you can tell it's true because when you rinse your mouth out after brushing your teeth the water tastes like mildly saline fluid -- not quite as briny as sea water, but definitely not something I'd recommend drinking.

I do remember reading something about wells further inland on Crete, however, but didn't remember to experiment when we visited Archanes (more on that later), not to mention I'm not sure how far inland qualifies as inland on Crete.

and bread and such (housing has fridge).

General observed in Greek hostels: need key/ keycard plugged in somewhere inside the room to have working air-conditioning/fridge/electricity.

Dinner was a roasted chicken that we cant finish and fried potato chunks called chips (maybe they're the Greek equivalent?). Afterwards we showered and crashed @ 7pm (9am Pacific Time). Kept windows closed as advised for fear of mosquitoes (first night = none) & weather was v. pleasant. Was awakened ~11pm by neighbor's radio playing loud Grecian music, however.

As Annie had accurately noted, waking up while still significantly groggy and sleep deprived in a unfamiliar room to pop music in a foreign language was a v. surreal experience.

It was hilarious and thankfully both of us were tired enough to sleep again despite of it.

Got up @ 6:30am, breakfast

For some reason in my book I wrote "dinner" instead of breakfast. What on earth, brain? Want to make note that in the Mediterranean regions the local schedule does not really include breakfast, as people get up fairly late, work, take siesta around 1pm, work, and dinner / after work life is at 9pm. (I know some of my friends would've liked this schedule. Tremendously.) In slightly smaller -- and less touristy-- places, the shops may or may not be open after siesta or in the evening, and may or may not have a regular days of the week schedule...but I'm digressing again. My point was that, for tourists, it pays to either find a place that does include breakfast or buy stuff right off for your own breakfast if you intend to start the day early and not pass out from hunger by noon.

was at 7:30am (in 30min). Going to Knossos today. Weather great.

Random filler post to prove my continued existence

Taken from the Bay Lab Blog:

You know you're a biologist when...
Inspired by the chemistry blog...(a few borrowed)

[I am bolding all that applies and adding my comments in square brackets]

You know you're a lab rat when:

You open the toothpaste with one hand. [Only sometimes. I can close it with one hand too.]
You wash your hands before and after using to the washroom. [Sometimes, only when I'm on campus.]
When you hear tween, you think of the surfactant not the age group.
For you, media is something which increases your culture.
You can identify organs on roadkills.
You have a callus on your thumb.
You use the word "aliquot" in regular sentences.
Sometimes you momentarily vanish from social activities because of a timepoint.
You've never worn a clean lab coat.
You don't fear rodents, rodents fear you.
You say "orders of magnitude" in regular sentences.
You flinch when you hear the word "significant". [Not yet.]
Showing up at 10AM and having a coffee is a productive day.
You can't stand god-like physicians, while secretly wishing you had their job.
You're very good at diluting things.
You're also very good at transferring small amounts of liquid between containers.
You are fed up of people saying alcohol, when they mean ethanol.
You hear the word ‘Molar’ and teeth are the last thing on your mind.
You say “conjugation” instead of “sex”, and "pili" sounds dirty.
SOB is not an insult, it's what you grow your bugs in.
You say "mills" and "megs".
No-one in your family has any idea what you do.
You can make a short film in power point.
You consider a green laser pointer to be science bling.
A falcon is not a bird.... [I will always know it is a bird, and also a type of tube...]
And you have 5 of them with different types of water.
When your fruits go bad and you get fruit flies, you can't help but check their eye colour [I am really sad, yes.]
You own invitrogen t-shirts and actually wear them.
You think that drosophila geneticists have a good sense of humour.
You refer to your children as the F1. [If I ever have children I will.]
You've suffered carpal tunnel from the pipetman. [Not yet.]
You've used kimwipes as kleenex.
A timer clipped to the hip is not only practical, but dead sexy.
You've played Battleship using tip boxes.
The front pages of Science is your light reading.
You think the following is a quality insult: "I've seen cells
more competent than you!". [Can I find this hysterical instead?]
The scent of latex reminds you of work, not play.
You're looking for a cooking book by maniatis.
You've used, "I'd like to get into your genes" as a pickup line. [Have actually heard this.]
You've made dry ice grenades.
You've lost many friends to ice grenades...

[Okay, so not THAT bad. Yet.]

Voila

Throughout the day people have been asking me if my vacation was nice, if Greece was nice. The answer is, of course, "yes". Yet the word "nice" doesn't seem to do any of it justice. How would you describe the emotions inspired by the sound of a hymn dating back to the Byzantines winding its way through the white-washed walls? The feel of marble gone glass-smooth with age and history? How would you summarize the doves in the Venetian fountain and the Acropolis at sunset? How can the pottery shards from 5th century BC and the sun-hazed air of Athens be distilled into a blue-white flag, into a single adjective?

I don't think it can. I would defy anyone to try and yet, in the current context, all this is so much more than I know how to confer, clumsily stringing together words and trying to be mindful of syntax.

So yes, it was nice. It was hugely, tremendously nice and at the end of the day I can only think back wryly to the sentiments in the final pages of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Namely: Life is meant to be lived, not talked about.

In other words:

Wish you were there.

Things are a bit hectic right now. I did write down daily entries while in Greece but I don't know when I'll have time to type up and post those. I also have 2G of photos, a portion of which will make their way to the internet hopefully by this weekend. Postcards should be all posted by the end of this week as well. Mostly though, this is an email to keep everyone informed that yes, I'm back in the States again. Hi!