Well that went fast

The weekend is over already! I meant to try this German chocolate cake (with coconut) recipe I found but never got around to it (maybe next weekend? Then I can inflict my baking on my parents...). I did, however, finally get around to trying Annie's eggplant casserole recipe, which involved the slightly dubious (to me) combination of eggplant with bell pepper and corn chips. It turned out surprisingly well, though the celery was a little weird (maybe if I cooked it longer so it's less crunchy?). Overall success as far as food goes.

I think, however, that I have managed to kill my aloe, which makes me feel both stupid and slightly depressed because, com'on, it's aloe. However, I took it indoors during my Greece trip, since the sun in SD in the summer can be bad enough to turn an aloe brown within three days, and obviously if a heatwave came in while I was half-way around the globe I won't be able to save my poor plant. So far, so good. The problem came in when I got back actually. More specifically, I came back, watered the aloe, and then kept forgetting to take it back out. Ugh. It was in cheap potting soil and not the special blend for succulents so decreased light combined with watering = water stress = base rotting. That was the stupid part. I have been neglecting so many of my side hobbies of late that it's a wonder that I still have two plants alive. That was the depressing part.

ANYWAY: life continues. I've moved on to focus mostly on the protein component of my project, which should be interesting since I'm an indifferent biochemist at best and my entire lab specializes in genetics...and the collaborator / PI I work with basically told me that this is risky, all proteins are different, and there's no advise he can give me in techniques except to keep trying and hope that I get lucky, and to keep trying until I get frustrated enough to give up and doing something else. On one hand, I can see where he's coming from. On the other hand? Not helpful Oh well, I can hardly expect to succeed in anything if I rely on other people, right? So much like my transition from plant bio to neurosci, I expect I'll just have to go ahead and muddle through the learning curve the best I can.

Onwards to another week!

Wait list fail

Those who are familiar with me knows that I have a "wait list" for books and movies and tv shows that I, in my infinite amount of wisdom, have decided to read / watch while maintaining my 50+ hour work schedule. (In case anyone is wondering, yes the book list is over 100+ long now.) There are some things that I will shuffle around on the list based on my level of interest and timing and mood, but this past two weeks I pretty much jumped the entire queue after reading one chapter of PUELLA MAGI MADOKA. Immediately something twigged that it wasn't quite what it's trying to sell itself as. And then came chapter 3 (equivalent of episode 3 in anime).

I was warned that it was a deconstruction.

I was still not prepared. Christ, I cried at the ending.

Why?

Exhibit A: This is what the official intro / trailer would have you believe it is. (Yes it's an anime before it's a manga, but I'll get into that more later.)

Exhibit B: This is a fan made trailer that is much closer to what the actual story turned out to be.

Those of you who remember MARY AND MAX? That movie to claymation films is what PUELLA MAGI is to the magical-girl genre. Though I suppose MARY had a somewhat happier ending. No I kid you not. There are two versions of PUELLA, anime and manga, anime came first. I read the manga first and like it better because there were a few things in the anime that bugged me enough to put me off, but it's mostly a animation-style thing. I only watched the first 3 and episode 10 and 12 (the last one). I like the fact that it didn't run on forever (OURAN the manga bugged me in that aspect. I lost my interest about 10 chapters after where the anime ended. It just dragged on FOREVER) and that chapter 10 was much better in anime, I'll grant that, because there was so much going on. And the final scene, possibly, even though it was sadder. (Though in the manga, if you think about what it means that they were actually there...it's not that happy either.) (Oh and the manga is gorier. I know it's a magical girl series, but trust me.)

Also, I definitely have to hunt down a copy of Goethe's FAUST now and read that.

A part of my brain still can't quite compute that a tv show centered around a pink haired girl wearing a dress that's frillier than a wedding cake made me cry and want to read FAUST (I know, I was very "WTF" too in that moment), but that show is full of cognitive dissonance.

I'm not really sure if this post is a recommendation or a warning. Of course mileage will vary and all that, but the general reactions are just... .

Three sentence rule

There are a lot of thoughts inside of my head right now, both in terms of things I can put into words and those that I can't. For the things that can be distilled into words, I have this blog. I'm afraid this entry will be very choppy, since I will be trying to get down everything that I've noted and wanted to mention with all the things that are constantly happening before I forget.

The store ran out of lasagna noodles this Saturday, so I was forced to use rotini instead and therefore I am currently eating something that's a cross between lasagna and casserole. Which reminds me that a) Annie gave me a recipe for eggplant casserole that I've been meaning to try, and this month I may actually find the time to and b) I don't think I've mentioned this before but now I'm reminded of this almost, but not entirely unlike a cookie thing that Annie got while we're in Athens (yes, along with Kinder Surprise and Greek TV dinner) which she had succinctly described as "If a piece of toast and a cracker ever had a baby...."

I'm so thoroughly distracted already, it's like I have ADD. No offense to those that actually have ADD.

But while we are talking about food, I have discovered that I really like yogurt covered pretzels! As in I got a box this Saturday and I'm nearly halfway through the box already. Surely, I keep thinking, I must have had this at some point in my life -- but I honestly cannot recall. They are v. additive to boot, though they are probably not that healthy, given how sweet they are. However, they are probably a lot healthier than loads of other junk food. Like chocolate chip cookie. Wendy's undergrad had her last day the past Friday as well, and she brought in cookies that she'd made. Chocolate chip cookies. Made with real wheat flower. So it's ...healthy junk food? No, not quite. Healthier than it could've been, probably. I'm not sure if this is a natural tendency of hers (she likes cooking) or if all the ribbing (when we took our undergrads out for frozen yogurt -- this is separate from our lab outing where the entire lab, PI included, went out for lunch -- this is just the grad student mentors and their students -- we were joking about our tendencies to read ingredients and Wendy had me list the commonly seen preservatives by my personal list of preference) finally got to her.

Completely unrelated to the food rambling is yesterday, when Ashley and I met up. She and her husband are buying a house! It's an odd feeling to see your friends all married and ...buying houses, apparently. They are such grown up things to do, after all. Though to be fair they are mostly buying a house because they don't like the place they are currently staying and have figured that if they have to pay the exuberant rent in this area, they might as well as get something out of it. I am given to understand that house-buying is less stressful than wedding-planning,though there's still significant amount of twitchiness enough. I have mostly gotten over my own state of twitchy-insanity, which lasted, it seemed, the entire month of July (though apparently the stress things is still something that I need to work on, as that when Karen said "now relax your shoulders" on Saturday, the entire left-side of my neck spasmed in protest and it hurt) and so spent my portion of talking time wailing about my disillusionment with the academia.

Ah the Third Year Existential Crisis. Turns out that I didn't manage to avoid it after all.

Unrelated to that is a list that I've been composing in Evernote regarding everything about Windows 7 that annoys me. I may get around to posting that this weekend. Evernote is part of a series of software I've recently been experimenting with to try to make my lab experience less insane. Or at least more organized and manageable. I should probably make another list of what I've tried and how they turned out (the Zotero vs Mendeley thing for citation was interesting and I probably SHOULD mention THAT) and post that, too. Some day.

Finally: LibriVox. Have finished DRACULA and started FRANKENSTEIN and just...gave up. Unless I've already read the book audiobooks are just not for me. Also, I didn't like the story or the character much. I mean I can definitely identify with his obsession with a project and I can forgive him when his first reaction is to run. But then his subsequent reactions? Possibly it's because I have a biologist's training and, more importantly, a geneticists training where we go over and over how if you brought something into the world, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR IT. Which includes all the things that can harm it as well as all the things it can harm. You are responsible for its well-being and all the repercussions of your choices leading to bringing it into the world. Even without considering how I find anyone who turns into a sniveling wreck at the first signs of trouble distasteful at a personal level, the actions of the doctor offends me at a professional level. I mean yes yes it's a sci-fi horror from a long time ago and I am taking it too seriously, but the point of literature, to some degree, is to interpret and make personal connections with it, and it's hard to make personal connections without reacting, positively or negatively, in some way and...

...okay, way too long in the rambling lane here.

Lucy's getting her circadian rhythm monitored! And she's going to share the graphs with me! And I can't think of anything else to type right now! So off I go!

(I've not had any caffeine today, in case anyone's wondering.)

Why is cleaning so therapeutic?

It's been my observation that I tend to go through a cleaning phase in response to periods of stress, the start of the roughly two week-long period (length of time isn't as important as the amount of cleaning, so if you condense the time it roughly equates three day's worth of cleaning) overlaps usually with the end of the "consume too much tea" phase, which generally starts within 24 hours of the onset of stress.

That being said, I have tried the sampler tea from Lucy (who received it from someone else) that smelled like cookies. More specifically, it smells, to me, like those coconut sugar soda crackers you find in the Asian foods markets. Moreover, if you tend to sweeten your tea with honey like I do with black tea, it tastes like cookies as well. Less exotic than the gingerbread-ness of masalai chai but definitely dessert.

And so I have discovered that it's possible to have cookie^2 time: you have cookie, and you have tea that tastes like cookie.

Wow the weekend is over again.

Also by my estimate the freezer accumulates 20 microns worth of frost every time we open the door.

Now to our schedule programming

My undergrad is leaving at the end of next week. At this point it's no longer surprising that the first thing I mention, upon catching up to my posts, is her -- I worried about my undergrad even while I was in Greece. She has had enough time to generate data for the 15min talk she's required to give for her program...buuuut her data isn't very clean and the negative controls (and sometimes positive controls) failed so I'm not really sure what to tell her. She does need to present something but I can't think of a way to say that the data is unconvincing nicely.

However this is a nice lead in to the sheer, alarming, amount of "advise" that I have been imparting lately to various undergrads in our lab. Most of this is probably due to the fact that I am currently the only grad student in lab. I think I may make up a list of "Things An Undergrad Who Wants to Become A Biologist Should Know", including an item along the lines of "everyone arrives to grad school at their own pace, through different paths -- don't freak out if you think your path is not the one that you originally planned."

Otherwise, I have finished my first NIH fellowship application! And by finished I mean I have submitted it by the internal deadline (as a grad student my app must be submitted by a representative of the grad student office, not me), and it got submitted through eRA Commons, the app organizing website of NIH, and despite of the flood of error messages that took over my inbox as the representative (apparently) made errors during submission, it did manage to go through! So now the only left is a reference letter, the writer of which sent me an email on Friday to let me know that he hasn't forgotten it and that he'll have it by Monday (the final deadline).

All of which led me to blink slowly in awe and astonishment because somehow, despite of the NIH agency staff being gone on vacation and my inability to locate anyone there who can answer all my questions adequately, despite of the fact that our finance manager for the lab who is supposed to help me calculate the financial aspect of my application is on maternity leave and that the temp had no idea what was going on and sent me to a website that was updated the past year, and the hyperlinks no longer worked, and despite of the fact that the rep over at the grad office who is supposed to deal with this is no longer there (she took another job and boy was that a fun discovery to make, somehow it looks like everything will get submitted on time.

It's a minor miracle. But.

Learn from me: do NOT apply to fellowships over the summer. Everyone, from staff to collaborators, will be on vacation (most infuriating experience: waiting two and half weeks for an email that came between 11am and noon, while I was in the tissue culture room, stating that the staff will be absent for the next few days -- up to the internal deadline due date-- starting at noon, because she will be at ComicCon) (of course I didn't see the email until after noon) and there will be no one there to help you. One of my favorite quotes these days is "if you can't set a good example, it's your obligation to serve as some kind of horrible warning", so let me be your warning.

Whether or not the energy taken to wrangle with paperwork has affected my written proposal remains to be seen, but in the mean time, I have time again to do things other than stare mournfully at my laptop over the weekends, and THAT's always worth celebrating.

We also defrosted one of the lab freezer on Friday. It was one of the shared ones and we kept on discovering random, poorly labeled tubes as the layers of ice thawed (there were about two inches of ice coating all surfaces and half of the sample boxes were frozen to the shelf and needed to be chipped out) (yes, it REALLY needed defrosting, but because it's shared space we need to coordinate everyone in lab to move the contents in order to defrost, so it doesn't get defrosted very often). And lots odd enzymes from who-knows-when that may or may not be expired. This left us at a loss: enzymes are expensive. Should we try them out and risk losing an experiment because the enzymes have expired? Should we toss away thousands dollars worth of enzyme because we can't tell when the expiration dates are? Should we test each enzyme and waste valuable time that should be spent on our experiments?

Mostly we just repacked everything and put them back in the freezer. Not ideal, but really, there is no ideal situation to be found.

My God that was a LOT of ice.

As I was joking to my undergrad, such is the excitement of research -- earth-shattering discoveries and sorting through unlabeled tubes of stuff in ice!

We are taking our undergrads out for frozen yogurt next Monday, before they depart.

Dear me

I am behind in terms of posts, so I'm going to do my best to finish the Greece trip (only one day left after all, since I tend to update everything the day after it happens except for the plane-ride part -- because plane-rides are all about keeping myself from going insane from boredom) (and the timing is also confusing because of the time difference so it's like...7/4/11-7/5/11-7/4/11?) before moving on the super exciting (kidding) events in my current day-to-day.

7/4/11

After breakfast today (note: the breakfast -- always set, buffet style at the sports bar downstairs -- seemed to have perfected the art of foiling eggs unevenly: as in some, but not all of the eggs are cooked. Add to the jiggly eggs the fact that they were also not washed with cold water prior to serving meant that the eggs were very hart to peel indeed). Annie and I stopped by Backpackers (name of the chain of hostel) to pick up the refund for the Delphi trip and then, at the recommendation of the receptionist, decided to go to Syntagma Square to see the changing of the guards at 11am (the performance only happens every Sunday at 11am). Since we had the time, I dragged Annie through the Zeippion Garden, past the Zeippion, and into the National gardens (of the death by monkey infamy). It was a very nice garden, shady with plenty of ponds, some of which contained a multitude of turtles and some, koi.

Koi always seems like a very Asian element to me. It's astonishing how much their popularity seemed to have caught on with the rest of the world. It's like Feng-Shui, but less annoying and misinterpreted. (Though admittedly it will harder to misinterpret a fish, I suppose).

We also encountered a small zoo-like enclosure with chickens, geese, peacocks and goats.

Trust me, we were as surprised as you are.

Note: did not spot any monkeys though.

With the remaining time we went one street norther of Ermou to track down a famous candy store (from the 20s? 30s?) but unfortunately the store was closed Sundays. Instead we went to the one next door, where I got sweets for my parents and labmates. We paused briefly at a bakery / cafe next to Syntagma where we both picked up pastries (having firmly established that we can feed ourselves quite well with Greek pastries for just under 2 euros each) (I got something that had cheese and an entire sausage inside, and Annie got a cappuccino and a chocolate croissant) and we whiled away the time sitting at the bar stools in the cafe until we went over to the suddenly very crowded area in front of the Parliament Building and saw the guards change. All the pompom'ed shoes sold in the souvenir shops suddenly made a lot more sense, after that.

And if you've ever seen photos of the guard change -- yes they do do the whole exaggerated leg movements and the uniform sleeves are really that...billowy.

From there we braved the metro (which was surprisingly nice and have reduced price tickets for students, much like the archaeological sites) to Omonia, walked up 3rd Sep. to the National Archaeological Museum. Due to the lack of guards, or so the museum informed us, the vase and pottery collection was not available for viewing. However, there were enough exhibits that, with the allowance of non-flash photography, we lingered for about four hours. There was a temporary exhibit on myth & coin that was particularly good.

We retired back to our hostel at that point, where Annie and I split a load of laundry (5 euros to wash, 2 euros to try; ridiculous yes, especially given at the second highest setting in the drier most of our clothing were still damp afterwards) before we ventured out for food. We decided to dine out our last night in Athens and managed to find fries with cheese that are actually fries, with cheese,

as opposed to the random baked potato slices that we have been subjected to thus far

as well as roasted lamb with pasta where Annie was able to identify the bone as, I believe, the distal end of a femur of a juvenile animal.

Having friends in different fields is often times awesome.

Then we tried the custard-bulee-caramel-something, which I've decided was the equivalent of flan, and yogurt with honey because I figured I should have Greek yogurt at least once while I'm in Greece. By the time dinner was over it was nearly nine, and we briefly detoured to the shop across from our hostel where I got a mini-bottle of ouzo for dad, more to appeal to his sense of humor than his taste in alcohol. Then it's to the fun world of packing before we called it a day.



7/4/11: actual date and not journal date
Departed from hostel at 9am in the morning, after breakfast. Annie walked me down to the metro and we made plans for me to visit her should we miss each other during winter break, which currently seems likely given that there's a fair chance that she will spending spending Christmas in Egypt (Egypt!). Took the metro (red-line) from Acropolis to Syntagma, switched to the blue line to Doukissis Plakentias, where it took approximately three more carts before we got the one for the airport (hypothesis: 4-5 carts is needed to generate enough passenger for one to the airport). I was nearly at the airport before I saw the sign at the end of the cart that said that metro tickets to the airport cost a lot more than the usual 0.7 euro tickets, but I saw no ticket machines at that station and so resigned myself to getting fined should anyone come to ticket check. Luckily no one did and I arrived at the airport at around 10:20am. There was an unexpected part where, upon hearing that I was traveling alone, the security guard confiscated my ticket and made wait in a chair while my fellow passengers proceeded through. It caused a few moments of panic (what about my ticket? What did I do?) before I was taken aside, my bags were taken apart, and I was told to turn on and off all my electronics, including my tiny mp3 player, and had all my things taken through x-ray again, twice. Then I was taken to a closet of a room and patted won thoroughly before I was finally allowed through. I nearly forgot my new hat in the x-ray bin, which would have been a minor tragedy, as I quite like my hat.

...and that's the end of the scribbling in my sketchbook. From this point I can continue from memory:

Aside from the part where I suddenly learned a bit more about airport security than I wanted to, the rest of the flight went smoothly. New Jersey was just as mall-like the second time around and I had to fill out a form for customs though I had nothing to declare but if we didn't have redundant paperwork I suppose a lot of people would be out of jobs. Flight back to SD also proceeded well -- despite of the fact that the flight was slightly delayed the pilot was able to make up for it during the flight so that we arrived slightly early (and SD was much prettier from above at night than it ever was on ground. The real issue came with the taxi, which my parents made me promise to take instead of public transport.

See by the time I arrived and was standing outside the airport? It's past 10pm at night. A lot of people, very few taxis. Repeat a slightly milder version of the Athens taxi experience, except I'm alone and it's past 10pm at night. There was also unexpected traffic on the Five because of drunk drivers, which was unpleasant, but I did arrive home safely, opened all the windows, showered, and collapsed into bed where I slept all the way through until next morning (did not manage to sleep on the flights back). Then I transferred my wallet and cellphone to my laptop bag and tottered off to work at 8:30 and spent the rest of the day feeling surreal.

Well, that sums that up.

Well we're almost there

7/3/11

Ventured off to Keramikos this morning with various pit stops at kiosks and shops for touristy kitsch. We went to Hadrian's Gate and Temple of Zeus first, then up Adrianou to Monastary Square, where we detoured into the flea market, which was fun and full of odd things like old coins and plates and medals from Word Wars. We stopped by a pastry shop where we got pastries -- some sort of cheese-filled thing that Annie took an immediate liking to and a chives & dill thing for me that was greasy but infuriatingly delicious, which we ate as we meandered our way to Keramikos.

It was after one by the time we got back to our hostels to break. We, joined by Patricia, headed over to the Acropolis Museum around the corner but, alas, the museum does not allow photography, so we finished at around two and a half hours and returned to our rooms. Along the way Annie picked up another cheese pastry and I an apple filled croissant-like thing, so when we got back we had something to go with the remnant of Greek TV dinner.

Sadly, at this point we learned that the trip to Delphi was not meant to be and so decided to do the gardens and the National Archaeological Museum tomorrow instead.

So every single site that I mentioned since arriving at Athens? With the exception of the Acropolis Museum, all the other sites, including access to their museums, were included in that joint ticket that we got. And we got to visit all of them. It rounded out to 1 euro per site, with its museum, and yes, it's a lot of walking, but it's amazing. Then there's "amazing", as Annie pointed out, of the type where you are staying at a place where you'd turn a corner and there's an ancient ruin of some kind. The metro there was very nice and the stations like a series of mini-museums. The Acropolis Museum's first floor has flooring material that is see-through, where you can see the ruin-excavation in progress below that will one day be open to the public. Annie said that Rome had the same "problem" with building things, where you dig down and --lo and behold -- you find more Rome.

...I can't quite process that it's the weekend already. Sleeeeep.

Hmm

7/2/11

We sat out for the Acropolis bright & early after breakfast, arriving just after the entrance opened, and got the joint-ticket that would allow us to access multiple archaeological sites. It turned out that the UC student ID is recognized and that the tickets were half price for us. We went up to the Acropolis (pausing along the way to photograph the Odeion Herodes Atticus),where we arrived just in time to watch the honor guards (there's a flag up there, of course) march down the Acropolis. From there we visited the Ancient Agora, with its museum and the Temple of Hephaestus, paused to grab an early lunch & introduce our other roommate, Patricia (who arrived yesterday), to the tastiness that is the kebab sandwich. We also got gelato at Montanella, which is next to Monastery Square. After that we visited the Roman Agora and Hadrian's Library,

Note: the idea for the latter is really awesome and I would like dearly to see a 3D model of what the predicted structure originally looked like. The ruins the mosaic and columns hinted at grandeurs long past and also: public library. In Ancient Greece. My mind obsessed over the 2D drawings like a crow becoming enamored of a particularly shiny object.

before we breaked. Later in the afternoon Annie and I made a quick grocery run and experimented with Greek microwavable dinner (and we each got a Kinder Surprise as a treat) and some fresh fruit & vegetables.

My thing assembled into a snail-shaped water gun, which Annie suggested I could use to squirt the annoying little kid in front of me on my way back, which tells you all that you need to know about our traveling experience relative to our fellow passengers.

Annie and I then had a quick snack before we went to the Pnyx, the birth site of democracy

We tried to have Annie posing seriously at the Birth Site of Democracy for a photo, but she kept on cracking up.

and wandered around for a while, at which point we discovered that the lady at the stand at the Acropolis was wrong -- the Dionysus Theatre closes at 8pm, not 3:30pm, so we went there as well.

The day was concluded with Greek TV dinner as we finished watching the Russian adaptation of "Hounds of Baskerville" (and there was much lol'ing) (also: Snoopy!) and we found out that the Delphi trip was not going to happen Saturday

Note: Delphi is quite a distance away from where we are, so our hostel had organized this day trip thing that the visitors can sign up for so we get our own buses and such. Otherwise there are only a few buses that go from Athens to there and the timing of the entire thing would be...unpleasant. Not impossible, but just not as enjoyable.

because not enough people have signed up. It may happen on Sunday though, so we'll see.

Also, Annie appears to be allergic to Athens. Certainly the air quality (read: pollution) doesn't agree with her, and she's already on medication for a pulled muscle.

More from the traveling journal

Though I should point out that all of this is scribbled out in my size 8 writing on the backside of pages in my sketchbook, because I wasn't sure if I was going to be writing this until I was (but at least it's not the Denial Until Past the Sixth Chapter, and Possibly Beyond scenario).

Right-o.

July 1, 11

Breakfast at Athens Studios consists of toast, tomatoes, boiled eggs and either instant coffee or Lipton tea, but it was still breakfast that our lodge provided. Considering the quality of our rooms, I'm not inclined to complain.

After a few leisure hours during which both Annie and I let our friends know that we were alright (via Facebook, of all things, because our internet is sketchy and does not like Gmail), we went on the walking tour (5 euros) offered by Athen's Backpackers, which took us past (but not through) Hadrian's gate, Temple of Zeus, Zappeion, Stadiou square (which was closed), and the National Gardens (closed due to strike & violence at the Parliament Building the day before), where apparently a popular president / king once died by monkey.

Interesting. Hearing it, then thinking about it, then writing about it, and then typing it up STILL does not make that particular story any less strange.

Shortly afterwards we had our first encounter with tear gas, as the streets between Syntagma Square and the Parliament Building was coated with the stuff from the stuff from the day before, and the residue alone was enough to make our noses sting and throats sore (though thankfully my eyes didn't water v. much compared to some of the others). After a quick vote, we decided to proceed through the temporarily open square (the entire area was blocked off yesterday), since we are in Athens, and we could see evidence of the disastrous riot from the night before everywhere. We went through the shaken downtown, Athen's "Fifth Avenue", and paused by Mitropoli before we were lead through the touristy area to Monastery Square, where we learned the existence of a delicious souvlaka kebab-sandwich for less than 2 euros each. (The fruit stands there also sold v. cheap fruits and so I got a kilo of nectarines.) From there we passed by Hadrian's library / Tower of Windws, Roman Agora, Ancient Agora, before ascending the hill for our last stop before the acropolis. At that point the sun was insane so we retired back to our hostels until we decided to venture to the cemetery by Ag. Theodori later, which was v. nice & tree-lined, but unfortunately also full of mosquito. That were overly fond of me. Whose bite, it turned out, I was allergic to. I'm afraid our visit there was cut short soon after. We returned to break, once again, in our hostel until early evening when we went out to hunt down the "traditional Greek cruisine" that our tour guide promised us and found that it was run by an Australian.

We wavered between hilarity and indignation.

The food was still good though, and we meandered over to Filopapou Hill after to see the Acropolis at sunset and I was persuaded

Yes, despite of my night-blindness.

to watch the lights of the city and the Acropolis come on. And I saw a shooting star.

I like cities at night, but Athens does not compare to San Francisco, but because I was not gazing at the city as much I was able to see my star, which, for me, made the entire thing worthwhile. So it worked out.

Exhausted. Sleep now.

To Athens

Survived the day! Victory is mine.

And now without further ado:

6/30/11

We schlepped down to the receptionist @ 7:40 in the morning and requested for a taxi to the airport, eating a hurried breakfast while we waited. Turned out we needn't have hurried since our receptionist was the only one who could check us out and we had to wait for her to come down (luckily she spoke to the taxi driver so we didn't get charged for the extra waiting time). (Also, though I've heard of the European greeting style, being on the receiving end of it was still highly unnerving.)

When we got to the airport, we discovered that the customer service's aborted attempts to call Annie were meant to convey flight cancellation as a result of the strike. Our new flight was @ 1:30pm, check-in counter unknown, gate unknown, and so our 50min flight suddenly acquired a four-hours wait. The lack of information with regards to check-in and gate was unnerving, but not something, as we've discovered,that could be solved from our end, so we mostly sat around and wrote / read/ drew (though I did locate an ATM to withdraw more cash). There was a bit more delay before take off and, of course, a complete lack of buses on the other end due to the strike. Our hostel is downtown but, unfortunately, that area was also closed due to the strike. What resulted was a wait in the mile-long line for taxi (over-demand)

I kid you not -- the line stretched past the end of the airport building and then doubled-back

at the airport, to which we'd arrived ~ 3pm, a very long detour to try to get to our place of residence, and us staggering into our (incredibly nice) studio at around 5pm. We met one of Annie's field-schoolmates just prior to check-in and wandered off together in search of food later.

Everything is served with bread and olive oil. Which may or may not incur extra charge, but generally they'll be there.

There were dozens of little birds around, as well, during our meal, which we fed, mostly to the disapproval (I think) of our servers. Annie and Cheyenne (the schoolmate) compared notes on traveling and archaeological studies and we coached Annie to ask for the bill in Greek, much to the amusement of the waiter who, to our bemusement, appeared to be a fan of American Idol (I mean, what?). A dispute of unknown origin broke out while we were wandering around afterwards and I was jokingly chastised by the book-seller

We took refuge in a bookstore. The people were very...loud.

who, when I told her "Good evening" in Greek, replied that it wasn't a good evening, that this place is near Syntagma Square and there is always trouble. "Well then," we thought, as we wandered past and up to the roof bar at one of the hostel buildings. It had a v. nice view of the Acropolis, which was VERY close. Then we went to a sports bar, which is the first time I've ever been in one (meaning bar, sports or not), where Annie and I bought bottled water, Cheyenne Greek beer, and we toasted to our collective insanity.

No, really. We did.

It was a rather dorky & wonderful experience, compounded by a tennis match on screen and a Scottish gentleman who insisted that in a match like this we should always cheer for the Scottish. So we did. Or at least, we cheered randomly in a game of two people (men single tennis) until we figured out which one was Scottish. Eventually Annie and I turned in early and Annie played around with our experimental wi-fi connection

...and here the entry abruptly ended. Athens was like that. Definitely not of the leisure pace we experienced on Crete and my entries got choppier and shorter for the next few days. However, in this day's entry there's not much more to add. We turned in early. Airport delays can be surprisingly exhausting. We saw people running around at intersections with white stuff smeared over their faces during our bus ride, which we found out later was treatment for tear gas. The food was very good and their photos have all been uploaded. I prodded around Annie's Kindle for a bit and then we went to bed.

Continuation!

Ah right, I WILL find the time to finish typing up the Greek trip. I have, after all, a reputation for being extremely talented at time-management. (Pffft.)

6/28/11 - 6/29/11

This morning there was the addition of nectarine for breakfast & I tried "mountain tea", which seems to consist of some blend of sage & mint. Unfortunately the receptionist had less information about how we can get to Archanes than Knossos, so we set off toward Iraklio, with the bus driver giving me helpful directions (to my -- let's be fair -- extremely clumsy queries) along the lines of "At the station. You'll know at the station." It could be that I just didn't know enough words to understand the specifics,

and I CERTAINLY didn't understand enough for the specifics of declensions, just sayin'

because the bus to Archanes WAS at a station -- just a different one from the transit center we were used to, which was apparently limited to Iraklio urban lines.

It's the Astoria Capsis station.

To get to Archanes we had to walk to the Minoan Lines terminal by the coast and take a giant green bus from there. Like Knossos, downtown Archanes was our last stop, so the overall navigation wasn't bad at all. There was more of an element of adventure this time though, since we had no map of the place, and though Annie tried to convince me that it's fine to explore a small town like Arhanes on foot without maps without getting lost, I'm afraid the idea conflicted with my control-freak tendencies. (She reminded me that we're in the Mediterraneans, and so should embrace the que sera sera attitude, to which I remarked, after hearing her descriptions of the various places that she'd been to, that perhaps I'm more suited for Germany.)

Due to unfortunate timing, the museum at Archanes was closed (and I learned later that evening that the reason the Archaeological Museum at Iraklio was small was because it was undergoing a 21 million euros reconstruction and we were only seeing 400 out of the ~ 15000 pieces usually on display -- though all the most famous exhibits were there, so that was not a total loss) and the utter confusion of signs (maybe there was an invisible one we missed somewhere?) meant that we were not able to find the archaeological site of Fourni, either. Our adventure toward the quest of the latter led us well outside of Archanes, through a very pretty area of olive groves and vineyards, before depositing us in a residential area where the stray dogs (and there were many of these during our stay in Greece) looked upon us with a sort of bemused curiosity.

Arhanes itself is referred to, by both the receptionist and my tour book (Lonely Planet), as a more traditional Greek village. Our hotel receptionist referred to as as being less touristy as well. We were lured into a bakery by the smell on one of the main streets and decided to forgo our packed lunches in favor of (very good) Greek pastries

and Annie was thanked in French because we were obviously foreigners, even if our--and by our I meant mostly Annie, since I think my ethnicity is not what most Europeans are prepared to cope with in terms of language barriers -- origins are uncertain. Apparently though the current generation tends to speak English as a second language, the older generation favored French.

and, later, following our hot but futile trek toward what we thought was Fourni, ice cream. Greek ice cream is very like Russian (or was that Armenian? It's been a while) ice cream. We decided to head back after that and to spend the rest of our day exploring Iraklio.

and so ended our foray to Archanes. It was a nice break since it was a quieter place than Iraklio. Of course Iraklio paled in comparison to the swarming at Athens that is a compounded side-effect of rioting and peaking of tourist season.

From the bus terminal in Iraklio we went past the Venetian Arches again and visited the Natural History Museum. The visit was, once again, a bit rushed because it closed at 4. (This sort of hours is apparently a common theme in these regions.) There was a "mini-zoo" on the bottom level of the museum, featuring a series of terrariums and aquariums, that was very cool. We followed the curves of the road inland after that and located St. Minas Cathedral, at Ekaterinis Square, which is the most amazing structure I've seen in Greece at this point. The number of icons decorating the beams and ceilings and the intricate details to every carved surface was fantastic.

We took a break by having gelato in front of the Mussolini fountain at that point, where we lingered and watched pigeon mating behavior.

Though I have heard of the phrase "puffed up like pigeon" before, and know what it refers to, I've never actually seen the behavior before and so ended up asking Annie, rather naively, what's wrong with that poor bird and why is it all puffed up and walking in circles.

I'm afraid I amused Annie a lot on this trip with the gaping wholes in my awareness, even before the thing with the oil lamp.

June is, apparently, the season of romance in Pigeon Land in these climates. Or possibly the season of heart break, if the number of rebuffs we witness was anything to go by (honestly, we were starting to feel sorry for that poor guy). Despite of my apparent location, eating lemoni gelato while watching pigeon in front a Venetian fountain felt very Italian. Possibly even more so than the guests at that table being serenaded by the men with accordions that we passed by earlier.

Eventually, with packing for tomorrow's 9:30am flight in mind, we wandered back to the transit center via Didoukou St.

Read: tourist trap.

Evening was spent packing and email checking -- Annie found out that there will be a strike tomorrow morning at the airport, so that should be interesting. We ate our packed lunch for dinner and packed lunch for the next day, to plan accordingly. It was time to sleep by the time everything was wrapped up.