A Blue Day in Delft

There comes a point in every trip when you realize you are ready to go home.  I found myself at that point Thursday in Delft.  For starters, it was raining all day, which I will take over sun just about any day (it's cold and wet but precludes me from worrying about an early death from skin cancer).  Then there was the fact that one of the families in the tile painting workshop I did included two "artists" (a mother who seemed to be a teacher and a daughter who was in college), and I swear the mom was overcompensating for something - like, you're on vacation, stop throwing the elements of art around and just paint the bloody tile!  Nobody needs you to prove that you know what you're talking about.  At the end of the workshop I went to find out about having it shipped to the States, and found out it would cost FORTY-FIVE EUROS. 

Let me take a short breather here to mention the fact that pretty much every museum I went to cost bank.  As in, ten to seventeen euros.  The first couple (Rijks and Van Gogh), I barely sneezed at it.  By the time I paid ten (payable only by card) to get into the Oude Kerk, I was using their facilities to take a huge dump as a way of justifying the cost (which amused me but made me realize - knowing as I did that this little revelation would make it into the blog at some point - that I may have been teaching teenage boys too long.  Or living overseas.  Or both).  By the time I got to Delft, the fact that admission to both the Old and New Churches was only four euros seemed like the best deal ever.  Then I got ahold of my senses, and I remembered that I've almost never paid admission to the Nelson or the Joslyn, and I felt a little horrified, but I guess if you come back from vacation with a lot of money you probably traveled wrong.

One of the Prinsenhof's interactive displays

Anywho, I was happy to get on the train to go back to Amsterdam, but I was also happy to get off the train in Delft.  I took two books with me when I moved to Korea the first time, and Girl With a Pearl Earring was one of them.  Vermeer has been one of my favorite artists since I first learned about him in an issue of Reader's Digest sometime in the 90's.  I loved the clarity of the light in his work, something that I've learned to appreciate even more as I've studied and taught art in the decades since.  Even though most of his works show simple daily scenes, there is something breathtakingly beautiful about them.  And Vermeer was from Delft, so Delft was my #1 place I wanted to see outside of Amsterdam.

Basically everything I knew about Delft comes courtesy of that book, which might be problematic for a history nerd like Time Lady, but since I care more about art and storytelling than history, we're good.  The main character's brother works for one of the tile factories, she goes to church, she shops in the markets and mentions skating on the canals.  All those things are still there to experience, but I was glad to come when I did, because 2016 was declared Delft's Year of Vermeer.  When I went to the Rijksmuseum I was disappointed to see that one of their Vermeer's was out on loan - to the Prinsenhof in Delft, as it turns out.  So I was planning to make that my first stop.

Sadly, when I got to the Prinsenhof at 9 that morning, I discovered that they didn't open until 11.  Luckily most points of interest in Delft are a short walk from each other, and the Oude Kerk was literally next door, so I started there instead.  True to my adventurous spirit of showing up and experiencing shit, I had done minimal research before getting there, so it was a pleasant surprise to find out that Vermeer was actually buried in the Oude Kerk.  His mother-in-law, Maria Thins, purchased a burial vault in the church, and when he died in debt at the age of 43, she had him buried in her vault.  Normally I don't get hung up on famous people's graves, but I admit I got a little teary-eyed, and wished I had flowers to leave.

Since the ticket included admission to the Nieuwe Kerk I figured that was the next logical step.  It's located on the central square, with city hall and the market, so I wandered through the stalls along the way, stopping for a fresh stroopwafel, and let me tell you, warm is really the only way to eat them.

I sat and sketched the nave of the church - I'm trying to do more drawing in my travel journal - but didn't really stay long.  The clock was ticking on toward 1:30, which is when I was told to show up to tour the Royal Delft factory before my tile workshop, so I wound through the marketplace and out the adjacent side of the square to visit the Vermeer Center.

I am a little ashamed to admit it, but the Vermeer Center was actually at the bottom of my list.  My third day in Amsterdam I visited the Rembrandt House Museum, and it blew my mind.  It was incredibly well-curated and had demonstrations in etching and paint mixing, not to mention it was in his ACTUAL HOUSE.  The Vermeer Center, on the other hand, is located in his rebuilt guild house, the St. Lucas Guild.  From what I gather, the actual home Vermeer lived in with his family either can't be pinpointed or no longer exists, but the guildhall makes a great second, and presents things in a distinctly different way than the Rembrandt House.  Rather than seeing the domestic side of his life, the museum focuses on a variety of aspects in his work - his use of light, whether or not he used a camera obscura, his guild mates - the name Fabritius tickled at my brain until I realized he'd painted The Goldfinch, and when I figured out it was up the tracks in the Hague, I started kicking myself for not thinking of him sooner.  It was all very interesting, but not quite on the same level as Rembrandt.

By the time I left, the Prinsenhof was finally open.  The exhibit around The Little Street was very informative and interactive - they even had a small Escape Room set up - and I really didn't give a crap.  I wanted to see the painting, so I kind of noticed what I was walking past, but kept walking.  Honestly, I don't consider myself a great scholar, and I'd be surprised if anyone else did, but I know how to appreciate a painting.

When I was in my IB workshop one of the other teachers mentioned that they didn't think the Prinsenhof was that great, and when you think in the context of the Rijksmuseum and - presumably - the Mauritshuis (which houses Girl with a Pearl Earring, as well as the aforementioned Goldfinch), I suppose it doesn't come out on top.  It doesn't have a collection to compete with them.  Where I think it really shines, though, was in the quality of its presentation.  Since I was going to the Royal Delft factory next, I looked at their exhibit on Delftware, which included technology and multimedia presentations, as well as the giant vase pictured above which you were encouraged to decorate with your own designs, although most people just signed their name.  I enjoyed testing my instincts (because I didn't bother reading most of the labels) about the values of different pieces, and designed a vase with one of their tech presentations.  I honestly don't remember anything that engaging in any of the other museums I went to (other than the Rembrandthuis, because it was seriously my favorite thing. 

After a decently long walk through the drizzle, I made it to my final stop, the Royal Delft factory.  I'm sure most people have seen ceramics painted with shades of blue.  I grew up seeing my grandparents' blue willow china when I went to visit them, and ended up inheriting it when the family got together to clean out the house after my grandma's death.  Although the Blue Willow pattern isn't Dutch, iw was traders from the Netherlands who introduced this aesthetic to the West from China, to the point where I think Delftware is more famous than Ming vases.  What I found most interesting on the tour, though, was their architectural ceramics showroom - it was not Delft blue, because porcelain is not strong enough to use for architecture elements (unless I'm mistaken - I'm not a potter by any means, so I may have that wrong, but from what I remember during my ceramics classes, porcelain is much more fragile than most other clays) but I found it had a lot more variety and creativity in it than the Delftware.

After the tour I was able to start the tile workshop.  I'd already seen a painter at work and realized the way they apply the pattern was very similar to the way we did it for the tiles we'd painted in Istanbul.at Les Arts Turcs - charcoal was applied to the porcelain through a stencil and the design was painted directly over it.  Any remaining charcoal burns off in the kiln.  Every piece of Delftware is created with two small brushes - one that has a couple of long hairs sticking forward to paint lines and a short stubby one to fill in areas of tone.  When you're looking at a single tile or a vase, that's okay, but there were other pieces, like a reproduction of The Night Watch, that were much larger.

Try to imagine painting all of those tiles with two small brushes!  The size is similar to the original, but I'm pretty sure Rembrandt painted parts of his masterpiece with bigger brushes.  Royal Delft does reproductions of Vermeer as well, and The Little Street was available for us to paint, but I went for a more traditional windmill scene.  And after I painted the hell out of that windmill, I painted some badass tulips and a little cat.  I would not have made a very good tile painter - you were definitely supposed to paint ONLY what had been designed and not make any little personal touches.  Since I'm not, I slayed with my personal touches.  And because I'd worked so hard and made it so personal, I had to fight not to cry a little when I realized I wasn't going to get to keep it, since there was no way I could pay 45 euros - more than the workshop and the tour combined - to get it sent to my parents' house.  And I guess that's okay - after all, I broke my Turkish tile.  You don't really get to keep anything but your experiences...even friendships don't come with a guarantee...but all the same, if I were doing the whole trip over again, I'd go to Delft on the first day, so that I could remember Fabritius and go back for him and my tile at the end.

Amsterdamned.

One of the things I love the most about the Netherlands is its strong bicycle culture.  I've lived in a country where people ride bikes (ahem, China), but it's more by necessity than choice, and you can tell that although people ride bikes the practice is not revered by the fact that EVERYONE violates the sanctity of the bike lane...pedestrians, motorcycles, and even somewhat cars.

That is not the case in the Netherlands.  Bicycles outnumber cars by about a million to one (rough approximation), people stay the hell out of the bike lane (except tourists and they're hardly people)...hell, there are even special bike traffic lights.  Cycling is respected here.

I planned to rent a bike, like, every day I was in Amsterdam.  That did not happen.  For starters, my first few days my hotel was outside of the fray, and then I was taking an IB workshop, and then...yes, I know the saying about excuses and assholes.  I'm also kind of...how should I say it?...fat.  Apart from teaching my ass off (unfortunately, not literally), I haven't gotten a lot of exercise this year, in spite of starting it well and being put to shame by Engrish, who has been known to run in blizzards with six centimeters of snow caked on her body.  So I spent the first week here walking past bikes and cyclists and rental shops without taking part.

To be honest, it was a little intimidating.  For so many people to ride bikes, and everything work in such an orderly way, there must be a ton of rules, and the more rules there are, the likelier I am to unwittingly break them.  Also, I'm not the most coordinated person, and I was imagining that a 17-bike pile-up would not be a pretty sight.  I did NOT want to be THAT tourist, the one who threw a wrench in the works and made the whole system go to hell.  In the end, my bike envy won over my fear and I went to Green Budget Bikes to see about renting one for Wednesday.

It seems like renting a bike should be pretty straightforward, and in theory it is.  You go in, leave your passport as collateral, and ride off on whichever bike they give you.  The problem was that I'd left my passport in my room.  On the top floor of the Hotel de Westertoren.  There are 37 stairs in the pictured flight alone (up to "reception") and another 35 more total in the next two stairways up to my room.  I was not going back up for my passport.  So I asked if I could leave a driver's license instead.  Yes, was the answer, with a 100 euro deposit.  Okay, I thought, I can live with that.  Better than climbing up all 500 stairs (especially since the steps are narrow so I have to go down in reverse, because I have a reasonable amount of fear when it comes to stairways).  Then I came to the clincher - I wanted a bike with a basket or a little rack on the front, so that I could keep my eye on my backpack and not have to wear it.  The problem was they only had one that wasn't a kid's bike, and it was 3 euro more.

I asked myself over and over in the following hour what was the big deal?  Why didn't I just say, "Sure, I can live with that."  3 bloody euro for an hour of my life?  No problem.  Instead, for some reason I said I'd go look elsewhere.  After all, I'd walked past about two dozen bike rental shops over the last several days.  Surely somewhere else had what I was looking for at a better price!  It's a buyers' market, after all.  Well, I'm an idiot.  Not because I was wrong...because I could not, for the life of me, find even a single other bike shop that morning.  So I stomped and fumed and kicked myself in the ass a little, and ended up back at Green Budget Bikes again, asking (very politely), if it was fine with them, could I still please rent that very lovely bike with the rack on the front?

So finally, around 11 o'clock, I got on my way for real.  At one point early on in the bike rental dance, the lady I was talking to asked if I wanted foot brakes or hand brakes, which were 3 euro more.  I thought foot brakes were fine, and it turned out that the bike I ended up with had foot brakes, so I guess it's good that that's what I'd wanted.  My first ever bike, back in the dim years of my childhood, had been equipped with foot brakes, after all.  In fact, there is a story about the time I missed a day of third grade because I forgot where the brakes on my brand-new Street Machine were...and I went flying off the end of the dirt road to land in the field.  Since then, as it turns out, I have gotten used to hand brakes, and it took me a few tries to figure out why it was hard to stop by dragging my feet.  Huh.  Go figure.  Luckily, I was able to get through the day without a complimentary story about the time I hurt myself because I forgot the brakes were on the pedals, but it was close a couple of times.

Anyways, I pedaled along Singel Canal, then followed the tram tracks over to the museum square.  I knew I wanted to spend a good long time cycling, but there were a couple of things on my agenda that day as well, starting with a visit to the MOCO (modern/contemporary) museum, which had Banksy and Warhol on exhibit.  After that, I biked over near Rembrandt Square (yes, that is a complete sculptural arrangement of all the figures in "The Night Watch"), to check out a burrito shop I'd been eyeing every time I passed it on the tram.  It's called The Salsa Shop, and it's kind of a Chipotle knock-off, but I didn't care for it - the barbacoa was a little too chunky and chewy, and the flavor was too sweet.  I preferred the California Burrito Company just in and up from my hotel.

After lunch I booked it over to Buikdanswinkel, where I had a belly dance lesson that afternoon.  I found Shaheen listed on Oriental Dancer (although she turned out to be listed on Shira, as well - I just like the format on Oriental Dancer a little better because it has photos).  I gave it a good hour, even if I am out of practice - I really liked Shaheen's choreography and she was really encouraging.  And then I got back on the bike...  I can't say that the bike robbed me of my virtue, because you may be assuming too much by thinking I have any in the first place, but it was not pleasant.  I had not ridden too far, but I've been out of the saddle a loooong time.  As in, I'm not sure I've been on a bike since Bagan.  Which is sad because I actually own a bike, but since its tires went mysteriously flat two years ago I haven't actually cared enough to deal with it.  Hopefully that will change since I bought some kickass saddlebags at the VanGogh museum that I'd been lusting after since I first saw a bike whiz past with them.  If not, maybe when I land that dream job in Japan, which also has a definite cycling culture.

Anyways, despite my legs and other parts whining at me, I got back on my bike and rode around some more, partly because cycling around Amsterdam, over the canals and along sun-dappled tree-lined streets was fun, partly because I'd paid for 24 hours and I was going to make my 12 euros count...but mostly because I was quite a ways from the shop.  I ended up on a street that I knew would lead me into Chinatown, and figured it would be interesting to see it again (since it wasn't pissing rain this time), but when I got there, I actually didn't care.  I'd accidentally wandered into the red light district, which was fine on that account - the hookers aren't that provocative and I don't really mind the smell of pot smoke, it's preferable to tobacco (at least when I'm on the street - in my home I'd better not smell any smoke unless the place is on fire).  The problem was all.  The.  Bloody.  Tourists.  Even if they hadn't been idiots, there were just too many of them to fit on the sidewalks, so the streets were clogged with them.  I had to actually get off my bike and walk it around, and that was more annoying and exhausting than anything.  So I ended up taking the bike back.  Because you know what's better than cycling over canals and along sun-dappled streets?  Not wanting to smack people who desperately deserve it.

Tilting at Windmills

Oh yes - the fire hair happened.  :-/

Becky is dicking around, taking two days to finish a single post, so I'm hijacking her blog.  My name is Peppermint.  You may remember me from such epic adventures as when we hiked to the Tiger's Nest in Bhutan, or the time we went to Hakone in Japan, but I haven't actually made the blog since she wrote about Flat Stanley (yes, I thought he was "pretentious," as Becky wrote, and a few other more choice words that she didn't.  She's not the only one with a colorful vocabulary, believe me).  And that kind of pisses me off, because I've been on all the trips.  I even went with her and the shitty brats to Istanbul.  But did she let me take part?  No.  I assume it's because she thinks she's too mature, but with as much time as she spends watching anime, she's only kidding herself.

Anyway, sorry, let me move on and tell you about our day trip to Zaan, the whole reason for my long-overdue guest post.  Yesterday Becky was trying to figure out what to do with herself for the next three days.  I kept telling her she had to get out of the city, because Amsterdam is fun and all, but there's only so much secondhand pot smoke you can breathe before you get high for real (although I wouldn't be surprised if she actually didn't mind the smell.  You should hear her complain about her cigarette-smoking neighbors at home, but has she voiced a word of complaint in Amsterdam???)  She was fixated on Delft and possibly a further trip into Belgium, because she's obsessed with her family history and whatever, but she found out she could do a tile-painting workshop at Royal Delft (the last of the historic factories) if she emailed in advance, and you know she's a sucker for that shit.  So finally - FINALLY - she listened to me when I asked, "Hey, you daft bint, what else is Holland famous for?  Like in that Monet with the tulips?"  It's windmills, in case you're a little slow.  Holland is famous for windmills.  And tulips, but it's the wrong season for that.  After a quick chat with Google we decided we were heading for Zaanse Schans.

Zaanse Schans is this beautiful little tourist trap of a historical village that fucking looks like Rembrandt or Vermeer would have painted if it they had time.  Some genius looked around in the last 100 years and said, "Where have all the windmills gone?" and decided it would be great to preserve Holland's industrial past.  Yep, I said industrial.  All those windmills weren't just there to look pretty (like your mom*) - they actually milled shit, thus, industrial past.  There's a pretty awesome museum that explains the whole history of Dutch milling and production, but Becky just breezed through it.

See, she gets so obsessed with taking pictures and having all the experiences - and breathing the air.  To be fair, the air was gorgeous.  I mean, Amsterdam smelled pretty good, especially after four years living in Ulaanbaatar...bikes instead of cars and the delicate aroma of hashish?  I could get used to that!  But Zaan smelled like motherloving CHOCOLATE.  When we left the station and the scent of the cocoa plant hit us, Becky started feeling nostalgic for the coffee roasty smell of a Kansas City autumn, but I told her to shut her mouth because this was, like, a million times better.  A town that smells like chocolate?   Sign me up for that!**

In the great tradition of historical towns, there are workshop demonstrations you can watch.  By the time they were ready to get started, unfortunately a shload of tour buses had rolled in, primarily populated with Chinese people, so you can imagine how well that went over with Becky, if you've read this blog for any length of time.  She would not be deterred from the clog workshop though, which I have to admit was kind of fun.  Becky got matching clogs for herself and her niece, the Princess (Bunny and Dirt Devil are likewise sorted - at this point she just needs to purchase something for Monkey, so if anyone has any ideas...)

We had a good stroll through the village, checking out the different shops (and by checking out, I mean eating free samples of cheese - it's a good thing Becky's slightly lactose intolerant or she'd be constipated.  Not that I can blame her - the Netherlands do have some deelish cheeses).  There was a weaver's house, which showed us how sailcloth was made, and the dairy, of course, and a chocolate shop, and other houses, which I guess people actually live in.

Finally we headed out along the canal toward the windmills.  We had a freebie for one of the mills, that came with the admission to the museum, so I told Becky I wanted to go to "The Cat."  They all have names, you see - the Spotted Hen, the Four-Leaf Clover - and it should be obvious that we would go there.  Fortunately, the Cat turned out to be a paint mill, so we both won.

She's been in super art teacher mode this whole time, only you haven't heard about it because she's a lazy ass.***  Someday she might tell you about the demo she saw on paint mixing in freaking REMBRANDT'S HOUSE.  But for now, suffice it to say that Rembrandt didn't go to the local Dick Blick and buy his paints nicely packaged in metal tubes, he bought pigments and then mixed his own paints, which were stored in a pig's bladder (a dead pig, that is - it might get a little messy to try and use a live one...)  The Cat was a mill that prepared and ground the raw materials to create those pigments, and it was pretty awesome.  Much more interesting than a wood mill, or a grain mill, or any other kind of mill, really.

We walked past all the others and took a ferry across the water to a less touristy but every bit as pretty street.  All the houses had their backs to the water and were in the Zaan style, so it really had a beautiful feel.  We stopped along the way for lunch, then went back to the station to get the train back to Amsterdam.  It was a nice way to spend the day, but I'm glad we did it on our own instead of getting on one of those stinky tour buses.  The roundtrip fare to Koog-Zaandijk (where you get off the train) was 11.60 euro, in case anyone is interested.  And THAT, Becky, is how you sit down and write a blog.  (mic drop)

Becky's notes (because she can't just let me do this):
*Peppermint doesn't know how to make your mom jokes.  They are supposed to be insulting.  (I do too - telling someone that their mom is only pretty and serves no other purpose IS insulting.)
**Can you imagine?  You'd be hungry all the time!  You'd never lose weight!  (And the irony is, apparently she's never going to lose weight anyways, so what's the problem?)
***Not entirely true - I had an IB workshop for three of the days.  (Whatever.  Remember how many hours you spent in that PCbang across from Monumental Paradise in Kathmandu, trying to catch up your posts from Tibet.  I don't want to hear it.)

Sunday Best

I was gonna update my blog...until I got high...  Just kidding folks.  I thought the reference to the Afroman song was apropos, being in Amsterdam and all, but I've just been shit at blogging this year (someday I will finish the two posts I wrote about my trip to Chicago in March.  Someday).  Sadly, I can't blame my laziness on any controlled substances, because even though they're easily available here, my contact with them has been purely accidental (you can take the Mormon girl out of church, it turns out, but you can't take the church out of a Mormon girl.  Go figure).  Speaking of church, after finishing up the IB training that brought me to Amsterdam this afternoon, I decided that the way to spend my Sunday was to visit some of the churches I've been walking past for nearly a week now.

So.  Churches.  They're here, and I've heard about them before.  Apparently Anne Frank wrote about the sound of the bells of the Westerkerk in her diary.  I haven't read it since middle school, but I picked that up from somewhere, probably the canal ride I took last Monday.  And I'm pretty sure the professor in my Northern Renaissance art history course quacked...err, lectured...about them, since I know I'd seen images of their interiors.  They seem as ubiquitous as mosques were in the middle east, but since I was up at 5:30 this morning, I can tell you that church bells ringing (and they all seem to have bells, fyi) are not nearly as aggressive (or as eerie, because at 5:30 a.m. the muezzin is truly haunting) as the call to prayer, even if they happen more often.

The first church I visited was the Oude Kerk, the old church.  I came across it on Monday, as I accidentally wandered into the Red Light District for the first time (more about that later).  It's been there for 800-some years, starting out Catholic and converting to Calvinism with the rest of the country after the reformation.

What I remember about whatever Dutch church it was we looked at in art history was how sparse they were inside.  There is a lot of open space and they seem rather austere, if you're used to the sorts of sensory overload altarpieces you typically find in Catholic churches.  That was my impression upon entering the Oude Kerk.  As I walked around though, the perfume of the Divine began to flood my senses.  I caught hints of old wood, the must of dying flowers, lingering traces of candlewax long gone, and well-worn upholstery.  It caught me off guard.  I think scent transports me through time more than any other sense, and thus I found myself in my childhood, in my grandmother's baptist church - another denomination, another continent, a different century.  And yet the scent was the same.

The Oude Kerk is playing host to an art exhibit at the moment called Once in a Lifetime.  It dealt with carpe-ing the fuck out of your diems and the transcendence of life, but also added a fairly creepy vibe, what with all the wilty roses scattered over the graves (aka, the floor of the church).  Also, there was this delightful sculpture, which more than anything reminded me of the mummies in the necropolis south of Nazca, Peru...although Buddhism's mummified monks were a close second.

I moved on to the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church...the Dutch are very creative when it comes to names) next.  They were also hosting an exhibition (who would have thought of using a church as an exhibition space???  Apparently the Dutch, so maybe they're more creative than their naming abilities indicate), in this case of World Press Photos.  I found these artworks actually more compelling than the existential pieces in the Oude Kerk, probably because a great number of them dealt with the Syrian refugee crisis, which is some heavy stuff.

In fact, the photography kind of overpowers the church, which is cool, because it's a pretty impressive church.  I did pick up on the continued theme of dark wood and white, which I think is an interesting architectural combination - the warmth of the wood keeps the white from becoming cold and boring.

I was planning to make it a threesome (I say hey, when in Amsterdam, make all the sex and drug references you can) by visiting the Westerkerk (given their penchant for simplistic names, do I need to translate this one for you?), which is just a little west of my hotel, but I was amazed to find out that they were closed ("Never on Sunday," I guess...).  I also got to see the line for the Anne Frank Museum, which wrapped around the side and almost all the way to where some sort of gay pride event going on in the back (literally - that's not just me making obscene references).  This finally lit a fire under me to see about buying tickets in advance, but I was disappointed to see that they are sold out...for the next two months.  Apparently you can buy advance tickets for the mornings, but starting at 3:30 it's general admission, so I went back and checked the line today at 4.  This time it actually went all the way around the church to the front, so I may not be visiting the Anne Frank museum.  This is a little sad, but I can probably live with it, given the alternative is standing in line, inhaling other peoples' weed, for hours on end.  And speaking of end, this is it.  For today, at any rate.

My Big, Fake, Greek Wedding

I've never taken a ferry in Greece before.  I've been to Santorini, but it always seemed to me like a waste of time to spend all that time on a boat when I could be there in less than an hour on a plane.  Well, I've learned my lesson.  Leaving Santorini we took Ryanair which is supposed to be a budget airline but they tack on all these fees for luggage and not doing online check-in and shit.  Ryanair sucks big donkey balls...which brings me back to Santorini.

Well, this time we took a ferry, to get from Crete to Santorini.  Bronte couldn't meet us at the port, but her friend Flora, proprietor of the Flower Pension - where we were staying - sent a driver to pick us up.  Bronte has a thing about signs and me, and wanted him to bear one inscribed similar to the one she and my Dark Lord made nine years ago.  Flora talked her down to one that read, "Slutty M_(my last name)_."

(If you are a newer reader, please understand that I am not slutty, nor is Bronte "Yellow trash," as I sometimes address her.  These are the kinds of jokes that sprout in the sweatshop environment known as hagwon teaching in Korea).

We dropped our stuff at the Pension and headed along the caldera to Bronte's apartment (which I can admit now to being very slightly worried I wouldn't be able to find.  I found it without a problem, but hey, it was 2011 the last time I was there).  Bronte and Vasilis are - let's call a spade a spade - way too cool to be my friends, and yet, they are.  They are also night owls (like I used to be before 11 years of teaching made me otherwise) which meant they'd just gotten up by the time we got over there, and we headed down to Katharos for a big, Greek feast.  It was kind of an overcast, cruddy sort of day, and Bronte was worried that it wasn't nice enough to sit outside, but the three of us have lived in Mongolia long enough that a little wind and rain ain't no thing.

After stuffing ourselves and a quick donkey drive-by (we wanted to be sure Five got that checked off her list), B and V drove us down to Ammoudi Bay.  We'd already told them how much they were looking forward to taking the hike from Oia to Fira that starts steps away from the Flower Pension, so they decided they should hike up the cliffs behind me to the windmills.  Five and Engrish were all for it (I, on the other hand, had eaten about two dozen dolmades within the hour previous and had a food baby to think of...I rode to the top with Bronte and Vasilis.  But the next time I'm in Santorini...)

I also sat out of the next day's aforementioned hike.  I've been to Fira before and Bronte and me had some catchin' up to do, sitting by the pool and eating yet more amazing Greek food.  That night, though, Flora had arranged for us all to go to The White Door, a dinner theater centered around a traditional Santorini wedding set in the 1940s.  Flora had been several times already that year, and had a blast every time.  This was a new experience for me, and even being foreigners and not that familiar with the culture we enjoyed the show.  Especially the part where we got to smash the plates.  Honestly though, the food was not as satisfying as I've come to expect from Greece, so I was happy to know that we were heading out to dinner (at the altogether reasonable hour of 9) later.

Where we met up again with B and V's friend, Kostas.  Let me be honest with you.  Kostas came to Katharos that blustery afternoon for lunch, and we all fell a little in love with him - cute, smoldering brown eyes, "the body of a Greek god!" as the mother in the White Door performance kept proclaiming.  I'm not going to try to justify the fact that all three of us were infatuated with the poor guy - I'll just say we live in Asia and leave it at that. 

I'm telling you all that as a preface to what happened next.  Five, who is the most reserved, most modest, least attention-seeking person I've ever met (I didn't nickname her "Mother Teresa" for nothing), agreed to go out dancing.  None of are exactly the busting-a-move type (although I do like a good hafla), but it was our last night in Greece and we were accompanied by the descendant of Adonis, so damned if we didn't go get our groove on, at least for a little while.  Finally Bronte and Vasilis drove us back to the Flower Pension, where we said some teary farewells (me because I love that yellow trash like my own sister, them because after weeks of me promising them how hot Greek men were, they'd finally met one and were feeling jilted that we were leaving) and extracted promises that they would come visit us in Mongolia.  Then we sat up for a while, packing and reminiscing and eating the baklava Bronte bought for me that afternoon on our joyride.

When in Crete...

One day is really not enough in Athens, if you ask me.  In one day, you don't get to experience the laid-back-ishness that is fundamentally Greek, just wandering down streets and seeing where you end up.  But that was what we had, if we wanted to see some of Crete and Santorini, too, in less than a week.

After a taxi ride from a driver with a sense of humor...actually, let me stop there for a moment.  That sounds like a good thing, but it rarely is.  I don't want my driver to make jokes like, "No, you're right, this isn't the way we should be going...I'm taking you to the mafia," or, "OH!  You wanted to go to Eleftherios airport?!?"  That is some stressful shit first thing in the morning.  I know the way to and from Athens' airport relatively well, and I wasn't sure where he was going, so I didn't appreciate it particularly much.  We should have called the driver that took us into the city - he gave me his card, but it was too much hassle to think about.  Lesson learned.  Anyways, we made our morning flight into Heraklion and stepped out into bright sun reflecting off the ocean.  Engrish booked our hotel, which was near the waterfront, and after getting settled in, we went around exploring.  We were very close to the main pedestrian area, so we wandered around and found the old lion fountain, which was conveniently located next to a Ben and Jerry's.

"It's only a model."

After a decent amount of walking we found our way to the museum, which had a lot of really cool stuff.  Crete was the center of the ancient Minoan culture, and the palace of Knossos is only 5km outside of Heraklion.  It was cool to see some of the octopus vases I studied in art history classes, and I enjoyed seeing the reconstructions of what the palace looked like (supposedly) in its glory days.

The actual site was pretty cool, and Five, Engrish, and I had fun guessing at what functions different areas had originally (none of us are nerdy audioguide people, so who knows whether or not any of us were correct).  Heinrich Schliemann, the guy who dug up Troy, originally had plans to brutali...er, excavate, Knossos as well, but he died and the privilege went to a British dude, who seems to have been somewhat less of an amateur...meaning I had to use my imagination a lot less in order to get an idea of the grandeur of the place.

Also, I had to buy a hat.  It was sunny, and I have no idea why I wasn't using the olive oil sunscreen I bought from the guy who kept telling Engrish and Five what the fragrances they were considering would do to their boyfriends...

There were other cool things to see and do on Crete.  Unfortunately we weren't there long enough to see most of them, because Crete is a bigass island.  But we did get to see the Venetian fortress...from the outside, at least.  The inside was under restoration or something.  Seeing San Marco's winged lion took me back to the summer.  Later that evening we went to the best restaurant we ate at the entire trip (I'm not counting Katharos, but I'll talk about that in my next post) - Peskesi.  If I'd had my way we would have gone back the next night as well.  They didn't have any of my favorites (tzatziki, dolmades, and Greek salad) because it was authentically Cretan, but it was so delicious that I DIDN'T EVEN CARE.  If you go there, get one of everything.  You won't be disappointed.

We also enjoyed Starbucks on more than one occasion.  You can not underestimate the excitement you feel after months (okay, so it was October and it had only been two months...DETAILS, DETAILS!!!) without it.  Mongolia's improved since I first came in terms of coffeeshops (Tom n Tom's cinnamon hot chocolate actually slays), but there's nowhere that does good frappuccinos.

Oh yeah, and we went to the beach.

Forget about frappuccinos - there is no beach in Mongolia.  Or, well, there might be a good one somewhere around Khuvsgul, but I have almost never been hot enough here to think that getting into a body of water seemed like a good idea.  Not so in Greece.  Even in October it seemed pretty damn hot to me, and even if I weren't in a beachy mood, Engrish and Five were determined that they were going to get some sun (I was not - I hid under my umbrella, determined not to blind anyone with my scary whiteness as demonstrated by the glare coming off my leg).  It was actually lovely - not crowded at all (apparently late October seems like a terrible time to go to the beach for the Greeks), hot, and yet, a nice breeze was blowing off the ocean.  We had drinks from the restaurant just inland and I had my hundredth serving of tzatziki, and it was a nice, chilled way to spend our second afternoon in Crete.

A Walk in Athens

It's Thursday and my spring break is mostly over.  I'm a little bitter about it - for the first time in a very long time I haven't gone anywhere, and instead, am supervising my students in a service project.  I was going to take them to Greece this year, but it didn't pan out, and I have no money to go elsewhere because I spent it all going to the NAEA conference in Chicago last month.  So here I am.

My darling brats were asking about the blog today (they found out about it because of last year's trip), and in an attempt to feel slightly less bitter about my lack of vacation, I decided to relive last fall's trip while pretending I'm there now.  Basically it's impossible to get too much Greece.  You might gain 10 pounds and come back with olive oil spots on your clothes, but you will always come back for more.  Or maybe that's just me?  At any rate, I convinced Engrish and Five that gallivanting amongst ancient ruins was a great thing to do in October, and away we went.

I've been to Greece many times since the first, in 2007, but this was only my second trip up the Acropolis.  Unfortunately the main facade of the Parthenon had scaffolding on it for some maintenance, but the porch of the Caryatids has always been my favorite, anyways.  It was super hot, even early on an October morning, and sweat was dripping off my hair by the time we were on top, so after a good look around we headed back down into Monastiraki where we got coffee, coke, or ice cream (depending on which of us we're talking about).

Monastiraki is great for shopping and food, and we did a little of both - including taking Engrish to buy sandals from Melissinos, the poet sandal maker of Athens (yes, that's a thing, and his sandals are the best) before heading back to my favorite hotel.  The Evripides Hotel seems like it's in sketchy neighborhood but trust me, it's actually fine.  I've stayed there several times on my own.  Along the way we got to see one of my favorite things about Athens - its awesome street art.

I actually made Engrish and Five go down this alley with me later when it was dark; I was hoping all those lamps would be lit up.  Sadly, they were not, and they really figured out what I meant when I said that our neighborhood felt sketchy when it was dark and no one was around.  After a little rest at the Evripides, we went back for more.

I led them past Plaka and over to visit the Temple of Olympian Zeus before it closed for the night.  I love the openness of the area and that you can see the hills all around (including Lykkabetos Hill, the Hill of the Wolves, which I thought would have been a good place to visit since that's our school mascot, but we just didn't have time.  There aren't any wolves actually there, but the view is killer, especially at sunset).  We walked through the national gardens and then headed into Plaka, for yet more shopping and wandering before ending up at Stamatopolous, another fave of bygone days.

It took me some work to dredge up that name.  The first time I can to Athens, Mariette and I went looking for music and food and found this taverna, which was at the foot of the Acropolis and served us a free shot of ouzo.  The three of us were offered that and other treats throughout the trip at the restaurants we ate at - we were also given a complimentary platter of fresh fruits, which - being expensive and of a limited selection here in Mongolia - we devoured with more enthusiasm even than the baklava, let alone the ouzo.