Paris>bus>plane>Rome> plane > taxi > Rafina > ferry > Tinos

Hello from Tinos! Today is my second full day here, a Thursday. I’ve finally gotten over any remaining jet lag, I think. I’m sitting on the balcony at David and Jessica and Willa Marie’s beautiful rental property, drinking coffee that has long gone cold, and itching my many mosquito bites from last night. Things are good here in Agios Romanos. 

The trip to get here was a long long day. As mentioned previously, I woke up at 2:30 in the morning to walk to the Gare du Nord station and catch the night bus to the airport. This was a bad idea. I feel pretty confident walking in cities in general, even at night, but with all my stuff and not quite knowing the lay of the land, I was definitely nervous. It was not quite a mile. I don’t recommend it. I couldn’t find the bus stop at all and simply wandered about until it was time for the bus to come, at which point it went flying past me and I had to chase it for 4 blocks. I was in the completely wrong spot. Turns out Google Maps does not accurately know all bus stops. 

Things were mostly uneventful after that, although my flight from Paris to Rome was delayed enough that I just barely made the connection. I literally walked off on plane and into the boarding line for the next without stopping anywhere along the way. The Rome to Athens flight was filled with Texans who all knew each other, and they were so loud on the shuttle to the plane (weird) that I was worried they would be loud the whole flight- but they weren’t, and I was sort of able to doze. 

When I landed in Athens I found a taxi to go to the port of Rafina, I was 4 hours early for my ferry but just did not have the energy to wander around Athens, so I figured sitting in a quiet port town would be nice. It was. Rafina is pretty run down it seems, outside of the dock area, but it was nice to explore a bit. I had lunch (a HUGE plate of shrimp, fries and tomatoes), and then walked the streets until 3:30 when they would let me board the ferry. It was incredibly windy and my taxi driver said something like “sure is choppy! Have fun!” 

The ferry was huge and I didn’t really know what to do or where to sit, so I just found a spot on the deck, put my head on my suitcase and passed out for awhile. When I woke up quite a few passengers had boarded. 

The ferry ride was nice, but longer than I had anticipated- almost 4 hours. There is a lot of beautiful scenery, most of which you are a bit too far away from to really see properly. I spent a lot of time on the deck while it was still light out, taking photos and just letting myself be blown about by the ridiculous wind. The only thing even remotely like it that I’ve experienced was when Eric Tal and I took a ferry up the fjords from Bergen to Flåm in 2005. Every photo I took ofyself has my hair blowing around like a crazy person. 

Some scenes from the boat: 

Stopping in Andros

After dark I went downstairs to charge my phone for awhile, and fell asleep again, then woke up when the captain was saying “all passengers for Tinos please disembark!” After a 4 hour ferry ride I nearly missed my stop- because if you’re not paying attention you can’t tell when the ferry is or is not moving! It rocks from side to side no matter what. Imagine waking up and discovering I was heading back to Rafina. Yikes. 

But luckily I grabbed my stuff and made it off the boat in time, and there were David and Willa Marie waiting for me! Hurray! 

For those of you who don’t know me that well, David is my cousin on my mom’s side, the second oldest of my cousins. I think he is 12 years older than me. He and his wife Jessica and their 13 year old daughter Willa Marie (some of you may remember her as the red-headed baby that used to visit our apartment in college) live in Chicago, and are taking 8 months off of life to travel the world on a Jubilee. Their trip is broken up into for parts, and Greece is the third part. They put an open invitation out for family to join them at various places, and as I’ve always wanted to go to Greece, I took them up on it. It was the impetus for my entire trip, and I’m so grateful they were willing to have me stay. It’s been so lovely here.

So that’s the story of my epic travel day between countries. Not super interesting, perhaps, but it felt so monumental at the time somehow. Woke up at 2:30am in Paris and ended the day driving through a darkened island on tight streets at “goat speed” (so as not to hit goats), then collapsing into bed in a beautiful white-washed farmhouse looking out over the Aegean. I love it here. 

More soon! 

Cameron 

Paris take 2!

Apparently not my entire post worked last night, so here is the missing second half, re-written multiple times now because this app I’m using is weird.

Picking up from getting our Lourve tickets...

We decided that we’d see the Mona Lisa first to “avoid the crowds,” and then immediately walked in the wrong direction and got lost. We ended up near the Napoleonic Apartments, though, which are worth a visit if you are ever there. Napoleon had some opulent taste, that’s for sure. Heavy on the gold and chandeliers. 

Then we found the Winged Victory, which was honestly what I wanted to see the most out of the whole museum. It was stupidly crowded but she was majestic just the same. What an incredibly elegant sculpture. 

If you haven’t seen the documentary The Rape of Europa, about the Nazi bombing and looting of artwork during World War II and the efforts put forth to protect them, it’s a really incredible film. The part about moving the Winged Victory is particularly interesting. It’s on Amazon Prime to watch for free! 

At this point Kate decided to go off on her own for awhile as she had already seen the Mona Lisa. Stuart and I battled the crowd to see it, and it was such a dense crowd that my claustrophobia wouldn’t allow me to stay for long. She is a remarkable portrait, it’s true, but it seems like they could time entry into her area or something to make it more accessible. (We all agreed in general that the Louvre could be run a bit better, but that is another discussion.) I did catch a moment where I could see the whole portrait, but most of the experience was like this: 

Side note: does anyone else remember the movie Ever After: A Cinderella Story, with Drew Barrymore? Am I making it up, or is it implied in that film that Leonardo daVinci painted the Mona Lisa based on Cinderella? I mean obviously it’s not an historically accurate film, but I’m wondering if my brain is failing me. 

Stu and I also found the Venus de Milo, after wandering through a lot of Roman and Greek sculptures. She is a nice sculpture, but I don’t quite get what’s so great about her. Stu looked it up and apparently it has a lot to do with France having to return antiquities and needing to make a statement about their art possessions, so they built her up when she was discovered. Makes sense.

We were all pretty beat by that point- the Louvre is HUGE- so even though we had just barely scratched the surface, we decided to leave. What an amazing place though. Even just the palace itself is unbelievable, with the statuary on the facade. I can’t wait to go back.

Some other Louvre favorites:

Casual head-stabbing 

The ceiling detail was incredible in almost every room. 

This guy is on a walk adjoining the Mona Lisa and looks quite disgruntled at all the attention she is getting. 

I couldn’t find a plaque for this, but it’s huge and clearly done to fit this space. If anyone knows what it is, I’d love to know. It was beautiful.

From the Louvre, we walked up the Seine and over to an island, where Kate has been given a restaurant recommendation. The restaurant was very old inside, as though it hadn’t been updated since the Renaissance (aside from the addition of beer taps and electricity). I had French onion soup, Kate veal and cabbage, and Stu lamb stew. Stu for stew. The bathroom in this place was great, very old fashioned. I wish I had a better picture so I could show you. 

At this point my camera battery was dying (the horror!) and Kate and I both wanted to change shoes, so we decided to go back to the apartment- but not before we went to Notre Dame, which was only a few blocks from the restaurant. We didn’t have time t climb the towers, which I would have loved to do,  but I’m very glad we went. I love the detail put into European cathedral facades. So many figures, and they are all different! I always feel like I wish I knew on whim they were based, especially the obscure ones that are not clearly saints. Anyway, we went inside the cathedral and a service was happening. I lit a candle and said a prayer for Vivian, my cousin’s 3.5 year old who has brain cancer (www.vivianrosedipg.org), which felt good. I don’t know much about religion, but I figure things like that can’t hurt, right? 

When we went back outside and were ogling the building again (and I got to use my 11-16mm zoom that I rented for the trip), a procession of bishops and priests came out of the church singing, carrying a statue. Apparently it was Whit Monday, a holy day associated with the Pentecost. Who knew? It was pretty cool to see though, all these old guys in white robes chanting. Kind of a unique little bit of our visit. 

16mm shot of Notre Dame

We caught a cab right near Notre Dame and were whisked back to our Airbnb, where we spent half an hour or so before getting on the subway to the Eiffel Tower. We spent quite awhile in the area of the tower, in both daylight and night, and it is beautiful no matter how you look at it. I felt like I could have stayed all day and stared at it. Stu took this photo of Kate and me, looking like we are having a very romantic weekend: 

We went to dinner just up the hill from the tower, and when we came back it was dark and  we tried to walk underneath the tower, but it was closed off from our side. It was getting very late at this point and I had to get ready for my flight, so we decided to head “home.” We watched the light show on the tower first though, where it gets all lit up and sparkly. So pretty. I felt like a little kid looking at a magical object.

When we got back to the Airbnb I packed, and we fell asleep late, around 1:15am. I then got up at 2:30 to get to the train station and take a bus to the airport- but that is for another post, which I will hopefully wrote tonight. 

For now, I’ll just say that even though I only barely made a dent in the Paris experiences I hope to have in my life, I really felt like I got a taste of the city. Staying near Montmartre in the 9th Arrondismont was lovely, and the more grand areas near the Seine were beautiful in a very different way. I can’t wait to go back. 

Cameron 

Paris!

It has been an insanely busy two days in Paris, but so wonderful. I arrived sleepy and cramped after sitting in a middle chair for 9+ hours on the flight over. The situation could have been worse, of course- my seat-mates were perfectly nice- but my legs were not happy. I’m 5’3- I can’t even imagine being taller than that and sitting in a middle chair that long. 

I took the RER B from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Gare du Nord trim station, which is huge and essentially a mall with trains going through it. Stu met me outside and walked me back to our Airbnb! What a gentleman. We checked in to our 4th floor walk up studio, which just barely could fit all 3 of us: 

That plus the teeny bathroom was the sum total of the apartment, but we made it work. We weren’t there very much. 

After settling in we got some food (I got a hot dog, which felt odd in France) and then walked to Montmartre to see the Moulin Rouge, the Cafe de 2 Moulin (from Amelie), and the Montmartre Cemetery, which was huge and beautiful. You know you have good friends when they will indulge your love for cemeteries. 

After the cemetery I was starting to give in to the jet lag, so we went to a grocery store and a patisserie for bread and cheese and salami. We ate clumped around the tiny counter in our apartment and then set up my cot, and I passed out almost immediately. I remember hearing snippets of Kate and Stu watching The Best Exotix Marigold Hotel, but for the most part I slept like a baby for 10 hours. It was lovely. 

Monday morning we got up at 8 and were out the door at 9 to head to the Louvre. Here is something dumb about Paris: The patisseries, which have all the yummy things you want for breakfast, don’t open until 10am. How do they justify this? Don’t French people have to go to work in the morning? We looked for an open one all the way the Louvre but found nothing. We ended up eating at a small cafe across from the museum, which was perfectly fine. Coffees here are so small. My American coffee addiction requires larger portions. 

Picking up our Louvre tickets was nearly a disaster. I booked them through a company called Musement, which after booking told me to meet their representative between 10 and 11am that day to collect our tickets. Sounded sketchy, but we went with it. Then at 10 this morning there was no representative. Nor at 10:15. Finally one showed up around 10:20 and a group of relieved Americans got their tickets from him. 

“You’re alarming in the breast area”

I just got really thoroughly felt up by a TSA agent because apparently the machine told them my breast area was suspicious. Thanks, underwire bra! 

Currently doing that thing you do before a long flight where you stand up for ages for no other reason than soon you will be sitting down for ages. There must be 350 people waiting in the boarding area with me. I should be using this time to figure out how to get to our Airbnb from the airport. I know nothing about Paris. Nothing! #adventure 

We'll see if this takes

I am off to traveling again on Saturday, and wish to share things with people that I love. Blogs, as mid-'00's as they are, remain the best way to do this without shoving it all down someone's throat. So... I suppose for a little while at least I will be back to blogging.

I'm leaving on Saturday and flying into Paris, where I have never been, and where I will only be for about 2 days before jumping over to Greece. In Paris I am meeting Kate and Stuart, my lovely Bristol-based friends (Kate lived in the dorm with me and then at 1705 Ridge, in the good old days), for two nights of who knows what. We are doing the Louvre, I know that, where I want to see the Winged Victory and you know, other famous stuff, but where I have no delusions of being able to see everything. Then in Greece I will ferry on over to the island of Tinos, where my cousin David and his wife Jessica, along with their intrepid 13 year old Willa Marie, are staying while on the Greek leg of their Jubilee. They have been traveling since December, with a few stops back in Chicago, and they were courteous enough to put out an open invite to family to come visit them while they are in Greece. Obviously I jumped at that opportunity. I've wanted to go to Greece for pretty much my whole life. After Tinos I will be in Athens for a few days and then home. Whirlwind, yes, but so looking forward to it.

If it pleases you, you may read the (often ridiculous) old posts on this blog, last visited in 2012 when I lived in my Hobbit Hole on Ortega Street and many things were different. Don't judge too harshly.

Suddenly and without warning

I have returned to blogging! Largely because I am indignant about this week of a) my birthday; b) the corresponding Giants game and alcohol fest; and c) my brother's wedding, which is taking place RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the first time I have actually managed to lose some frickin' weight in the last few years. There was awhile back in 2010 that I was doing pretty well losing weight. Then all went to hell, and now I have had to lose that same weight again. I'm doing ok. Tiffany and I are going to Weight Watchers and I have started bringing lunch to preschool, which helps because they feed the preschoolers Full Fat Everything (such as real butter, etc, not like junk food).
Or perhaps I'm just indignant that my brother's wedding, which will be very small but will still feature photographs galore, decided to sneak up on me when I have only lost about half the weight I wanted to lose before said photographs.
Or perhaps I am annoyed that I gained all this weight to begin with, and that I will probably gain it all back when I go eat in the frickin' dorm all summer. While I would like to say that it's easy to eat only over-cooked veggies and not go out to get beer with friends every night, it is not. I don't have that kind of willpower. Friends say "let us go to a movie and eat an entire bag of Peanut Butter M&M's amongst the three of us!" and I say "Hell yes!" rather than "Oh, no thank you, I'll just bring along my Vitamin Water."
RAWR.
But anyway yes, my brother is getting married, and I have this cool new dress that I want to look totally badass in. I'll let you know how that all goes. It will be a tiny wedding at the Muir Beach Overlook in Marin, and I am going with Jessy (Taylor's fiancé) to get our hair blow-dried that morning, which means I have to decide what kind of blow-dry I want. Options include "beachy" "straight with volume" "sleek," etc. http://www.thedrybar.com/menu/ Input welcome.
This is my dress: http://www.bettiepageclothing.com/bettie-page/ink-spots I look nothing like that model in it, but I still love it. Here's the question: Do I wear red, gray, turquoise, or black shoes? I feel like black is the boring and obvious choice, gray is fun but subdued, red is great but my red shoes aren't the best ever, and my turquoise shoes ARE the best ever but the style doesn't quite fit the dress. Gah! Help!
In other news, yeah, now I'm 29. Which is Old. I thought 28 was Old, but I was wrong. I would love to be turning 28 again. I am 29 and I live with my parents and am not meeting my full earning/job potential. Wheeeeee. My brother got all those "successful life" genes, apparently.
How are all of YOU?

Stream of Consicousness Oscar Post

Starting at the beginning and going along as the show goes...

I AM SO GLAD BILLY CRYSTAL IS BACK. Thanks, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, for being so incredibly bad that they could convince Billy to come back.

Karl Swaybo... seat filling at the Oscars for 59 years? I want that job! I'd be REALLY GOOD at that job. Probably not actually a real job, though.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE GIVING OUT CINEMATOGRAPHY FIRST? WHAT THE FUCK, OSCARS? Oh, and of course Robert Richardson won. Hey, at least I predicted it, even if it wasn't the one that I wanted to win. And at least Richardson called them out on how lame it was that they put it first. How degrading to Cinematography! Richardson's speech was short and sweet, but I do hope they get over this whole "let's give it to the most visually lavish and effects-heavy movie possible!" kick they're on soon.

Hey, at this point I'm 2/2 in predictions! I put my predictions on Facebook so people could publicly ridicule me for them.

What is this pointless montage for? Just to remind us all of how much we like movies? Iconic Movie Moments? Stupid.

It's kind of nice that they have stars talking about each of the people who did makeup and costumes and such. Why didn't they have that for Cinematography? Geez. Cinematography is so shafted this year! WTF. Also this little bit about stars' first movies is cute.

Sandra Bullock presenting Best Foreign Language Film and her joke about "speaking Chinese" was... dumb.

A Separation! I guess now I will really have to see it. It's so hard to want to go see a movie about a marriage breaking up that will probably be very sad. Pretty awesome that an Iranian movie won, given all that's going on between the US and Iran.

Hurray! Octavia Spencer! NICE DRESS too. And they gave her a standing ovation! Cute. I hope The Help wins the two actress awards but nothing else. Definitely doesn't deserve Best Picture. Awww why is she apologizing? She's so cute. I love her.

MUPPETS! I <3 MUPPETS. However, odd that Cirque Du Soleil is performing at The Oscars. Just cause it's an artsy medium doesn't mean all other artsy mediums are invited. I like Cirque and all, but not thrust upon me when least expected.

Rango won! Well, so the two awards I really cared about split- one went good, one went meh. If Lubezki had won Cinematography it would have been, like, the best Oscars ever.

Emma Stone is embarrassing. Also, she looks like a lump of yarn.

Dude, Christopher Plummer is a class act. I want him to thank all 7 von Trapp children. I'm glad they're letting him talk! Taylor says they don't cut old people off... it's pretty true.

Does anyone else think it's weird that the band is up in the boxes?

I am not a fan of the continuing jokes about Kodak going bankrupt. Poor Kodak. The movies wouldn't exist without Kodak, you'd think someone would step in to help them out.

"To all of you, please accept me because I've got so much love to give." Crappiest acceptance speech yet.

Flight of the Conchords guy wrote the Man or Muppet song! I had no idea. Somehow the fact that those two worlds collided makes me really happy.

I would love to go in the Kodak theater some day. It looks so grand and beautiful.

Girl From Precious, you may have had the best line all night: "THe fact that he was a freaking alcoholic- WITH ONE FOOT!"

I have gotten bored with this broadcast, and thus have stopped commenting on things. Lalalalalalalala oooh Best Director! This should be interesting... oh snore, Hazanavicius... clearly now The Artist will win. Lame.

The In Memorium montage is always my favorite. That sounds weird, but it's the one tiny glimpse of humanity in this giant show full of Hollywood glitz. Plus it highlights a lot of people no one knew died, like sound people and camera people. That's a good thing- they don't get enough recognition. Too bad what they do get is posthumous.

Natalie Portman looks amazing. Red dress and diamonds is a good look for her. This is kind of weird though, having her address each of the Best Actor nominees directly... she keeps looking back at the teleprompter, it's very inelegant.

God the sound on this broadcast is awful.

Oh gee, The Artist won. Shocking! Kind of a snorefest of an Oscars. I have zero witty comments. The end!