flying was flying, we went through security screening checkpoints in every airport we visited. frankfurt has poorly designed bathrooms. dulles made me wait in a line for an hour to get my ticket and then i had to pass through homeland security screening. and in general the movies sucked – until we got on the plane home where we lay back and were the only people on board laughing out loud at kicking and screaming.

twenty four hours of travel later we arrived in seattle, with clear but cool skies and stories to share.

after a bit of dawdling and some snacks, we returned to the national museum to pace through it’s many halls. we spent four hours going through it and finally seeing in one place all the greatest treasures and stories of the sites we’d been visiting over the past two weeks. the effect was a bit overwhelming, and it was hard to stay focused. i gave the immense pottery collection a particularly cursory overview. i can’t really say i am all about pots. we had seen reproductions of several of the finest friezes and statues elsewhere, but there were a number of unique pieces that were awe-inspiring, particularly in the statuary and roman sections.

after four hours of walking around the museum i was throughly exhausted, and welcomed a brief nap when we returned to the hotel. we went out again and on the athens guide’s recommendation found a delicious taverna only a few blocks away. we ordered our favorites and sat back and enjoyed ourselves. at the end of the meal katharine wanted ouzo, so of course we had to order some.

the 20cl bottle prominently displayed “46%”, but you could tell it was strong from the alcohol odor itself. in fact, the only thing stronger than the alcohol odor is that of black licorice, as ouzo is flavored with anise. of course katharine and martin did no research as to what ouzo was like, and as they hate black licorice it was soon clear who the task of consuming the bottle was going to be incumbent upon. i poured them glasses anyway, dropped in the ice cubes and watched as the liquid turned a milky white. then, drink! the taste is as you’d expect a combination of cold vodka and black licorice, not altogether unpleasant from my point of view. the strength though was definitely noticeable, and i refrained from finishing the bottle and instead brought the remainder home with me.

anyone interested in a taste of greece?

we headed north into athens and the traffic and navigation was just as horrible as we had expected. we did eventually find the exarchion hotel, park our car, and get settled for our last day. after a drawn out debate about whether we should drive to the airport and return the car tonight or in the morning we settled on our hunger and let the car sit while we sought out food. cheap gyros and expensive crepes fed us well, and while katharine and martin took advantage of the free internet at our hotel i went and scouted out a seat in the nearby bar to watch greece in the eurobasket 2005 championship game against germany. they won handily and though the tv later showed photos of celebrations and fireworks we didn’t really see or hear any of it.

there were more people and tour busses at meteora than i had thought possible. combine that with the fact that each individual monastery is actually quite small insite and everything becomes crowded to the point where you can’t even get in. still, we managed to see a substantial portion of the more crowded ones before heading to those further from the road to savor more deeply. the iconography and painting in the sanctuaries was simply stunnying. i wish had a better understanding of the orthodox saints and their representations to better follow the themes. we made it to five monasteries in all, with the best being the last two since they were almost completely vacant. though we had to do yet more hiking to see them, it was well worth it for a chance to really soak in the experience – and to get some photos without seventy people in them!

we headed back to town and headed to the discount market to get some snacks to tide us over until dinner. we ended up getting a bunch of crazy european / greek foods:

• yogurt with chunks of nuts in it
• french-fry shaped cheetoes with a sharp cheddar flavor
• paprika pringles (yum!)
• potato chips in thin mini-fry shapes

it was all quite tasty despite the strangeness. we snacked and watched arsenal v. west ham tie their game and then a little more euro basket, figuring out that it’s actually the semifinals of greece vs. france. go greece! for dinner we headed to the town square and saw some live traditional folk music and dancing while we ate yet another fantastic meal. sensing a trend here? greek food is so good.

delphi was surprisingly high up in the mountains – i guess that is a reasonable place for an oracle but for the center of the world? not surprisingly, it was jam-packed with tourists. we hiked to the top passing all the fine monuments and eventually reached the stadium. i tried to interest my compatriots in a foot race or perhaps a pickup game of soccer but they were more interested in taking pictures and the like. we headed back down the hill to the gymnasium and the three columns of the sanctuary to athena. we then hiked back up to the road again and went through the museum. it had a number of very impressive sculptures and friezes; in particular the roman work was exquisite. we grabbed a lunch of sandwiches and paprika pringles and continued on to kalabaka.

we made it to kalabaka with little incident and quickly found our hotel. exceptional for the price, and we made it early enough to have some time to kill. unfortunately the town seemed mostly dead, so we settled in to watch a little hercules the legendary journeys (with greek subtitles) and eurobasket 2005. we also found out that a day before the structure at akrotiri had collapsed killing a german tourist, quite chilling considering we had just been there not three days prior. we finished off the evening with a simple dinner at the taverna next door, and chatted basketball with the propreitor while eating fried cheese and baked lamb.

unfortunately my clever use of sms didn’t work out with the soccer team calling zoom to wish martin a happy birthday this morning (a clever surprise it would have been!) but dana was kind enough to mms along a picture of an even fancier dessert than we had the previous night. yay for global communications!

we decided to give corinth a miss and spend a rest day in nafplio. the last few days had a lot of driving (or riding in the car in my case) and our longest day – nafplio to kalabaka – is yet to come. a rest day meant decent breakfast, a quick call to arrange our hotel near meteora, and then hiking to the top of the palamidi fortress here in town. the palamidi boasted a number of excellent views and hidden cisterns. unfortunately most of the views over the old fortifications also overlooked an abandoned hotel, which had i known about before hand i would have seriously considered squatting in. after hiking all over the various bastions and redoubts, i decided to count the steps on the way down and reached 340 before i met a pair of french girls (the firebreathers from last night) doing the same on the way up. they had 550. so roughly 900 steps in all. i think that takes the cake for me, stair-wise.

after the fortress we made our way out to the boutrzi island fortress in the middle of the harbor. it used to be the home of the town executioner, but lately appears to be a disused party rental and minor tourist attraction. i would like to own such an island fortress, or at the very least it would make an excellent venue for a wedding and reception.

we did a little shopping but our hunger quickly caught up with us and we completely one-upped my meal from tuesday. roasted lamb, fish soup, baklava – perhaps the best meal i have ever had. we sat under the umbrella as it rained and ate & drank until full. we finished the night of with a bit more shopping and returned home joyfully.

we then hiked back down and had lunch before driving to mystras. though it was to close at 6pm and we arrived at 530, we still went up and saw as much as we could. we saw a number of cool churches and palatial ruins that were undergoing reconstruction. unfortunately we didn’t make it to the museum or the fortress in time.

we made better time on the national road back than we had on the mountain roads on the way in, though it was an additional 30km. once we got back to nafplio we headed out for snacks and then capped the evening off with dessert in honor of martin’s birthday. the main square was entertained by a pair of travelling french students who spit fire and danced with flaming ropes for tips.

epidavros is a massive construction, and features one of the best-preserved ancient theatres in greece. the acoustics there are so ideal that you can hear almost flawlessly from the top row, a fact which the tour groups continually demonstrated with various songs and calls. the theatre is in such good condition that it is used for local music festivals and theatre events. the rest of the site is an ancient shrine of healing, where the sick would come to be healed by the gods, and later, medicine. parts of the site were being restored and it will certainly be a better site in a few year’s time.

from epidavros we took a few wrong turns attempting to head towards ancient corinth.. it worked out alright, until we actually reached corinth. then we accidentally got on the national highway and travelled for about 45 minutes and through a tollboth (€2.00) before the next exit. after considering how time-consuming backtracking would be, we decided instead to continue on to mycenae and perhaps leave ancient corinth for another day.

we headed back towards nafplio and the massive fortress of ancient mycenae. situated on a hill between two mountains it has an impressive and easily-defended location. unfortunately, with the pacification of the greek countryside the location became simply inconvenient. the site is famous for several large grave sites that had not been looted, as well as impressive tholos tombs. we hiked down the dark, treacherous stairs into the cistern but unfortunately i had brought my zipka a few thousand miles just to leave it at the hotel. we toured the impressive museum and got our requisite shots of the lion gate before hiking a few hundred meters down the road to the treasurey of atreus. we were lucky enough to see it empty, as we were leaving two tour bus loads were entering the tomb.

after we got back we had some daylight left so we decided to check out half of the fortifications in nafplio. we hiked up and got some excellent views of the city and saw the sun setting behind the clouds brilliantly. we then hiked back down to the beach and into town for some lunch. with a few more hours to kill, i wandered off and saw the city outside the square. after i got bored of sightseeing i found a taverna and had rabbit stifado and house wine for dinner, a delicious bargain at only €8.30!

once we arrived in piraeus we took the familiar metro to omonia and then caught a bus to our car rental. after filling out some paperwork and a bit of confusion on everyone’s part, we left the proud renters of a hyundai accent. to say that this car was underpowered would be generous. regardless we headed out for the two-plus hour drive towards corinth and eventually nafplio. due to an error in my part on reading the map we had to hunt to find our hotel but it was to little benefit, as when we did discover it the lobby was unstaffed. so we headed to dinner and when we returned we were able to check into the hotel kapodistrias – our home for the next few days.

we then hiked our way down to red beach and swam in the mediterranean. salty! there were quite a few folks out, topless sunbathers included. europe? regardless we got a bit of swimming in before we realized that we’d have to catch the next bus back if we hoped to see the museum. meanwhile i was swimming my way back in and gave my toe a serious stubbing, ow.

the prehistoric museum of ancient thira was quite good and well-laid out, though a great many of the original artifacts and best finds are in the national museum in athens. the reconstructions of the frescoes at akrotiri are worth it though.

later i wandered around and collected food to prepare dinner, a simple dish of spaghetti with sundried tomatoes in olive oil and feta cheese. it was quite tasty despite not entirely being what i had intended. i was also corkscrew impaired, so it took us a good while to get into the bottle of vinsanto i purchased. eventually that and some desserts katharine purchased capped off our meal and we took advantage of some well-earned downtime.