So Athens turned out to be an alright trip. It's not the most exciting city, but it does have some interesting bits. Like the Acropolis, not too shabby. I spent a day with three spaniards that I met from the hostel which was pretty fun. It was good practice hearing Spain spanish since it's the hardest form for me to understand. They got me up to speed on the Spain lingo, so I'm prepared. We went to the Acropolis, wandered around this small neighborhood that was the ultimate picture-esque quaint greek village on the side of a hill, and went out to dinner at a nifty place. Good times! Otherwise, I've just wandered to museums, eaten lots of pita with veggies (evidentally they consider a french fry a vegetable), and had some baklava. I did get out on a bus to the coast and saw the Aegean Sea and a temple, which was quite pretty.

The tour guide was not the most enthusiastic, but I'm finding that I'm liking the more "give you the facts straight" tour guides personally than the super enthusiastic ones. I almost feel like I can't trust the super-charismatic ones since I feel perhaps that they aren't as sincere with their sweetness. So I actually quite liked the old lady that just led us and said what needed to be said and was quite helpful if someone approached her for help, but wasn't aching for attention like I've seen with some. I guess that's how it is with most people-sometimes the most sincerest ones aren't the ones who need the spotlight.

Athens

So yesterday I arrived in Athens and so far I haven't been wholly impressed. It's got its slums, and it's really touristy/fake feeling area, and it's hard to find a good middle ground. The hostel isn't great and it's rainy and dark outside so I can't really go anywhere right now, so it's a bit blah at the moment, but I'm feeling okay since I know things will turn up and I'm leaving in a few days.

A good part of today was when I took on the alias of being an english student and got into the Archeological Museum for free, woot! The woman probably can't detect accents very well, but mine was passable and I had a youth travel card which seemed to convince her. It was a proud moment for me in any case. So I wandered around the museum and then it closed at 3, so I wandered around shops. Tourist shops are very cheesy, but the good thing is that they give me a place to wander when I have nothing else to do--some nice entertainment seeing a block of cheese in the shape of the Parthenon.

Berlin

Jewish History Museum

This was a strange experience..

Life and Times in Berlin

So I've had quite interesting perspectives of Berlin. In total on my trip in Berlin, I've hung out with a group of early 20s east germans, a group of early 30s west germans, and a group of mexican exchange students. So go figure. My friend Vanessa had a friend in Berlin, Marco, who I met up with and is a radio news anchor, so I got to see all the happenings at the German radio station. They weren't quite ready for an english-speaking American to start giving the news out, but maybe they'll change their minds in time. :)

So in any case, I spent a day hanging out in cafes and pubs with Marco and his friends who live in Berlin but one was actually Hungarian and another was Turkish, so I guess it's just like the US these days that there is a hodgepodge of people from different cultures. We went to a pub called Scotch and Sofa which was cozy and a reggaton guy tried to sell us cds for 7 euros and wouldn't leave until I started speaking Spanish with them and he was so impressed he gave me a cd for free, which surprised the other who had listened to him haggle with them for 15 minutes. It was a lingual victory for me since I had listened to everyone speak German all day and felt like an ignorant idiot as usual and so here my Spanish saved the day!

I ended up rooming with Marco for the next two days, so it was nice being in an actual apartment instead of a hostel. I went to the east gallery and saw the remains of the Berlin Wall and its graffiti, and then I saw the Jewish History Museum which was highly recommended to e. It was really interesting and really well done. It was kind of eerie to walk up to the building and see 5 police guarding it at all times as well as metal detectors. Nonetheless, the history was well-presented and the architecture was really interesting and added to the experience. Hard to describe, but some rooms were very narrow, had halls leading to nowhere, or were just empty to show the void in history when so many jews were killed.

Easter in Berlin

Yesterday I saw my german friend Tobey who I met in New Zealand which was fun. He showed me his old neighborhood in east Berlin where he used to live. He was about 2 years old when the Berlin Wall came down. We played pool and went out to his and his friend's favorite late-nite hang-out spot---McDonald's. It was quite amusing to me the idea of being taken to McDonald's by a group of germans in Berlin. Another amusing bit was when his friend said that his favorite thing at the McCafe was the "Blabber Muffin". It's spelled Blaubber or something like that and means blueberry, but they just couldn't get why I found that so funny. Oh Blabber Muffin.

Today, I went on a tour of Potsdam where the Conference of Potsdam took place. Bumped into a couple palaces because hey, we're in Europe. Anyways, I hung out with some mexicans in the group, so I'm continuing to get some good Spanish practice, it's cool that I get to speak Spanish in so many different countries. Strange! And it's Easter, so no day would be complete without being given jellybeans with my cereal at breakfast by the hostel managers, hurrah!

Current temperature: 30 degrees fahr.

Sauchenhausen

I'm feeling quite blog-happy since it's easier than writing in my journal and trying to make nice handwriting. Today I had a good day, despite it being somber since going to a concentration camp is not quite a happy affair. I went on another cheap walking tour where we went with about 30 people and I found one person that was worth talking to. It seems about right that I have a 1 in 20 chance of finding someone decent to talk to, so it's worked out well for me. Anyways, I went to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, and had an excellent guide from whom I learned a great deal. It's pretty hard to fathom the atrocities that went on there, but I guess you do your best to take it in the best you can. It was probably about -1 degrees celcius and probably less with the windshield, so everyone was shivering throughout it, but you couldn't really complain when you realized that people endured winters there wearing only cotton uniforms. Definitely made you think differently when we left and we heard people say phrases like "oh man, thats torture!" or "I'm starving!".

Afterwards, I left my hostel and took a train/bus to my new hostel which is an eco-friendly hostel that is self-sustaining in a foresty area of Berlin. Pretty spooky to find it at night when you walk for about 10 minutes on a non-lit dirt road with trees, but it seems like a great place with a nice vibe and freeeee internet. The owner seems great and accomodating and so I already feel quite at home, much more so than at the other hostel even though it was more convienent, because you felt like you were in a people factory. In any case, even if its not as great as I feel it is now, at least I'm reducing my carbon footprint a tad by staying here, and there's some great trails here to bike and hike. Hurrah!

Wow that's rough...

So as predicted, I got out into Berlin, met some people, and had a great time! Hurray less lingual isolation! I did a walking tour today which was great since its free and all you have to do is show up, and afterwards, you tip your tour guide what you deem worthy. In any case, I did the usual stand in a huge crowd of people and try to analyze who I thought spoke english. I spoke to a few people who were hit and miss, but the tour was quite lovely anyways so it didn't matter much. It was 3 and half hours of walking through Berlin and I heard so much about the history. I knew the basic history of the east-west Germany divide, but I had no idea just how bad east Germany had it. After getting beaten in two wars, suffering inflation and famine, and being stuck in a communist division basically against their will til about 1989, wow. It was crazy walking around bullet torn buildings. We went around to so many different locations where you would hardly know what the buildings meant, you would just think "oh that's interesting architecture" and have no idea about how there was a historic protest against socialism where 200 people died outside. We also walked to an area in front of apartment buildings, and then realized we were standing above Hitler's ex-bunker. Ironically, it's covered by a piece of lawn where people bring their dogs from the apartment building to take a crap. That's fitting.

In any case, it was quite lovely and then I ended up hanging out with a guy from Vanderbilt and had a good time walking around to different museums and parliment. It was so cold today, it even started snowing! I guess I'm getting my winter jollies here. Tomorrow I move out of my hostel, a big chain-hostel, into a small eco-friendly hostel outside of town that is completely self-sustaining. I thought it was the least I could do to reduce my enormous carbon footprint.

Deuschland

I'm in Berlin! Its probably good that it doesn't occur to me until the day of my travel that I'm changing countries, otherwise I'd probably get to nervous. Like realizing that I don't speak German! I forgot how isolating it is not to speak a country's language, first of all I'm having problems typing since the z is where the y is normally and there's plenty of searching time for the right symbol. First, I figured it may be harder to talk to people so I thought I'd be okay wandering around or sitting in a cafe reading a paper, but oh wait, the papers are all in German! So maybe I'll go to the cinema, nope, no subtitles. Or watch tv, nope. This is probably an obvious point, but it's been a while since I've been alone in a foreign-language country so it's a whole new form of isolation. Before I was just this foreigner wandering around cities and shops, now I'm an idiot that points at things and makes grunts since I don't know whether or not to use tid-bits of German or English and somehow Spanish seems to pop out. So, that's my culture shock which I'm sure I'll adjust to.

Anyways, I went through many ordeals arriving here and then I finally get here and start walking around and my hostel is not too close to much so I just walked for blocks and blocks until I found the zoo which has some stuff around it. I somehow wandered into an Erotik Museum, which shows the history of erotic toys and has a massive shop. It was funny to be able to look at such strange stuff in place where noone looks at you weird because everyone there is curious, but at the same time, it's strange seeing a wall of dildos with a grandfather on my right and a father with a baby carriage on my left.

In any case, I had a splendid weekend with my friend Jack in a campervan, going around the southern coast. We would just pull over to the side of the road when we got tired, and one night ended up parking near a military firing range so we heard bombs and machine guns all night. I hope that's the closest to warfare I ever get. We had many splendid times which involved walking around ridiculously quaint towns that looked just as we would imagine them in the 1800s with the cobble and old stones. We went by the ocean and went to an arcarde where I became addicted to those games where you put a coin and it falls on other coins in hopes to push out more coins. It costs 2pence and that is about the only game where I felt rich playing, so despite winning sometimes, I just kept feeding it like a gambling addict. Psychologists must have designed it and known exactly what would draw people in. You put in the coin and it slides in the right spot that you planned (first endorphine high), then it pushes just where you wanted it (it's coming, it's coming!), then the coins move (insane endorphine rush) and allllmost fall (doh). Put in another 2pence and repeat.

It was quite nippy and grey throughout most our trip, but it was still quite fun. As Jack can attest, people continually comment on the rain like it's a new thing, I thought they just wouldn't even notice. ("We do want good weather ya know" responds Jack). I'm still wondering if I can take the cloudiness of Seattle since it's on my short list of places to move to, and while it would be different, it still is kind of depressing. Anyways, for some reason I thought Germany would be a bit warmer, but it's barely above freezing. (What idiot decided to go to Europe in winter? Oh right.). Don't get me wrong, I do like brisk weather, but when all I have is a hoodie and a fleece, it gets bit nippy. So I invested 6 euros in being stylishly warm, getting some oliver-twist-esque mittens and a scarf. I may not be able to understand 99.9% of what people say here, but at least I fit in a bit better and am less cold.

Photos of Jack Roadtrip

London Fun

So I've spent about a full week wandering around London, spreading my cold as well as I can by endlessly coughing everywhere I go. It's been pretty cold and windy, so it's been harsh, but I still have had a great time. Enys has been a wonderful host and we've gone out to the pub every night with his friends. Not being able to drink anything due to my cold has been a blessing in disguise, since I just sip water with ice and lemon all night, quite cheap! We call them my 'gin tonics'. So I've been getting quite a taste of pub life in England. We even went to a bar/artsy area called London Dungeon, which was literally a old dungeon with art installations and a venue for music. Not to bad to be able to say to someone "Sorry you couldn't call me last night, I had no reception in the dungeon I was in".

I've wandered through most museums including the National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum (which should be more aptly labeled, "School children daycare"). Oh, and I've actually got the rest of my plans somewhat laid down! I'm going on Easyjet flights to Berlin, Athens, Paris, Barcelona, and Dublin, and then flying to Bangkok on April 24th, spending three months in Asia, and then flying out of Bangkok to LA on July 17th! It feels good to have a return date, I feel a bit less aimless. Though that means have only about 4 months left which is little in one way and quite a lot in another (unless I become fluent quickly in Greek, German, or French soon, I have a challenge ahead of me). So we'll see how that all works out!

It seems that the down part has passed mostly, I had a weekend full of bed-bugs bites and a cold that I'd like to forget, but at least things are looking up. I'm staying with my friend Enys now in the east end which is about 80% bangladeshi, so it's really interesting see another part of London. We are right behind the biggest mosque and muslim center in the UK, complete with a fitness center with a pool day reserved for women who want to swim in their burkas (or so I'm told). London definitely is mish-mash of cultures and economic backgrounds as Enys said, "The rich and the poor are all living on top of each other here", so it's interesting how many different types of people I see everyday and the mix of neighborhoods.

So far, London has proved to be quite expensive, but all I've had to pay for so far is transport (Oyster card!) and food, so it hasn't been too bad, but it is a shocker when I treated myself to a capuccino and a cookie in a cafe in Notting Hill and I realized that the £4 I paid is equivalent to $8. In any case, all I do all day is wander around different parts of London and wander in and out of free museums, which has actually been quite nice. I love observing people in each setting and it's relaxing to just wander alone in my thoughts. Especially having a cold and being all stuffy, it's nice not to have to make conversation when you're feeling fuzzy headed. And NOONE wants to have a conversation with you in London, at least strangers, so that's taken care of. The weather has been dreary, but I don't seem to mind it so much right now. It's ironic that I'm the least fashionable right now, all layered up with a raincoat and sweater, as I walk around swanky London, but eh, who am I trying to impress? Definitely not the people at F&M, the swankiest department store here where they even sell yachts. I wandered in for funnsies and was looked at like an ogre. I guess I don't blend in with the rich 60-something crowd.

How did I get here?

So I'm in London right now, it definitely jars my brain whenever I make a big trip, since it takes a day or two to register that "what am I doing in this kitchen in London?". Or finding myself at Big Ben and the Buckingham Palace 24 hours after eating in Little India in Singapore. Well, in any case, I arrived on a beautiful day and wandered around for hours around the big tourists hotspots. I've been told before, but they were right, London is swarming with tourists (with me adding one more to the population).

So traveling is full of ups and downs, on which I'm on a downer due to crappy weather, a cold, and millions upon millions of mysterious bites all over me, possibly from Singapore. So I'm a bit worried now about Asia since 48 hours in Singapore sucked half the blood out of me. In any case, things are bound to look up. I went to the health care walk-in clinic here since it was possible that it was an allergic reaction and they didn't even charge me, I love you NHS!

S'Pore

So I am in Singapore right now! I arrived a night ago and knew almost nothing about the place or what to expect and now 24 hours later, I have walked around it multiple times! I arrived at night and was a bit intimidated and the next morning, I met two girls while eating breakfast and ended up wandering around with one of them, an English girl named Claire. Singapore turns out to be quite a schizophrenic city, it has so many different districts that are drastically different. There's Little India, Chinatown, a very modern business district, old-style parks, and then a colorful mall-esque area with tons of crazy structures. It's weird to see a place that's run down and looks like it could be in India and then 6 blocks later, you're at a high-rise with fountains. I am currently staying a hostel with a mosque at the corner so you hear blaring prayers at 6am every morning.

Claire and I went to Little India and had a meal, which was nifty considering my greater knowledge now about the indian culture so I understood a bit more about what I was doing. So we ate with our hands on big trays with different cups of curry and random bread bits, it was delicious! That turned out to be the most delicious meal, since the rest of my experimentation turned out to be quite an "experience". There was the bowl of brown sauce with noodles that was called the "Brown Rice Box Set" (my friend continually was saying, "where's the rice?"), that was tasteless, yet spicy, explain that. Then there was the picture that looked refreshing and cold called "Papaya Dessert" which turned out to be steaming hot and with some strange clear cabbage-esque thing (not the most delicious to my palette either). I really don't know the names for most of what I ate, so that'll have to do.

The crowning winner for the Strange Food Award, was a shaved ice dessert that had fruit syrup, milk, and fruit. Sounds delicious, but the fruit was durian which turns out was banned on trains since it smells like rotting socks. And it had a mucusy texture, but was quite hilarious to try since we had no idea what we were embarking on when we ordered it. I'm leaving tonight, but more strange food experiences are sure to come today!

Last thing--it's hot and rainy here. The humidity is ridiculous, it constantly feels like it will downpour, and when it does, there's about an inch of water on the ground. It's supposedly ridiculously safe, but at the same time, they like to remind people everywhere that "Anything can happen" and on the trains, they have videos of the past train bombings in other countries. Nice. Oh, as well as an acted scenario of what to do if you see someone abandon a bag, ("oh no, we're in trouble!"). I thought the States were paranoid, but this was impressive.

Other fun facts about Singapore:
-An execution takes place ever 9 days
-Spitting and chewing gum are illegal with strict consequences
-Air conditioning takes up 1/3 of the electricity usage
-World's third biggest port
-There is free speech as long as you are Singaporean, register with the police ahead of time, aviod topics like religion and politics, and don't offend anyone.

Fun Foods I've seen in Singapore:
--Pig Organ Soup, complete with different types if you prefer Pig Liver, Pig Kidney, Pig Stomache, and so on.
--A storefront called Fishball Minced Meat Noodle. No idea.
--Sweet potato milkshakes

Leaving QT, Sydney City!

So I am in another country now! I had a good good-bye from Queenstown, I had many good-bye parties and ate tons of food at Tandoori's since I knew I'd be missing it. I'm seriously suffering through indian food withdrawal after eating it for 4 months straight. In any case, I arrived in Sydney a few days ago and basically have spent the last few days wandering around. It is a great city with tons to look at and really gorgeous. I went to the aquarium, market places, harbor, Sydney Opera House, and did a day trip today to the Blue Mountains. I haven't met anyone here really despite being in a quaint hostel, but after a bout of loneliness, I'm feeling a bit more adjusted to traveling alone.

Here are highlights:
-I found the step at the Sydney Opera House where I tripped 8 years ago and broke my foot. I was passing through Sydney that night while on foreign exchange and tripped on this step that was pretty hard to see. Eight years later, I've returned and there was a white line on it to help people see it!

-The aquarium was AMAZING. Sharks, stingrays, and turtles, oh my! The scariest animal was the screaming, destructive toddler that a woman was trying to control in the bathroom.

-Mardi Gras! The Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras happened on Saturday night, a huge event! This basically means that 80% of the male tourists in Sydney right now are gay, which would only be a problem if I was on a husband hunt (not quite). Walking home from the Mardi Gras was interesting, people were stomping on all the glass bottles and going mad. I passed 600 drunk people, saw three arrests, and got my ass slapped by a drunk girl who insisted that "it had to be done". I guess that's flattering.

-Blue Mountains Hike. I did a two hour hike down cliffs and around waterfalls, not too shabby!