Liz:
We are a city, many mysterious countries, another city, and three islands away from where we last wrote. And there's a spewing volcano between us and our next destination- only kind of metaphorically. So lots to update you on.
Salzburg-- pronounced Salz-borg (city) as opposed to the Salz-berg (mountain), which we also visited. Confusing to us plebes. We were there for awhile, which meant two days of doing basically nothing-- for recuperating purposes. Though Christine did heroically find a German-speaking doctor for herself, and managed to get a prescription after a lot of animated miming. I, meanwhile, was sleeping (Christine- only at the beginning, when I couldn't find the English speaking doctor. Liz coordinated with the hostel to help me find a German speaking physician). I feel quite bad about that. Besides the doctor outing, we also managed to go get some vaguely dodgy Indian food, and some less dodgy but not out of the woods Italian food. Most importantly, we watched Sound of Music, which was AMAZING. I had forgotten just how hysterical Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer are together-- all snarky and dry and adorable. She has *perfect* timing. And Christoper Plummer is downright dreamy.
Por ejemplo:
Captain von Trapp: It's the dress. You'll have to put on another one before you meet the children.
Maria: But I don't have another one. When we entered the abbey our worldly clothes were given to the poor.
Captain von Trapp: What about this one?
Maria: The poor didn't want this one.
or
Captain von Trapp: Now, when I want you, this is what you will hear.
[blows whistle]
Maria: Oh, no, sir. I'm sorry, sir. I could never answer to a whistle. Whistles are for dogs and cats and other animals, but not for children and definitely not for me. It would be too... humiliating.
Captain von Trapp: Fraulein, were you this much trouble at the Abbey?
Maria: Oh, much more, sir.
Captain von Trapp: Hmm.
[starts walking away. Maria blows her whistle and the Captain turns around]
Maria: Excuse me, sir. I don't know your signal.
Go watch it, watch it right now. We'll wait.
Ok, so. Sound of Music took place in Salzburg, and they actually filmed on location. So, naturally, we went on a Sound of Music tour. Our tour guide was this gleeful mix of Eddie Izzard's humor with Jon Lovitz's voice. He acted out bits of the movie for us, Maria in this ridiculous, melodramatic falsetto-- quite fun. We drove past the facade of the Von Trapp house and the lane where the kids hung in the trees (Is it possible - or could I have just imagined it - have my children by any chance been climbing trees today?), took pictures in front of the gazebo- in which we were not allowed to have a little frolic because someone busted their hip in the process, saw the abbey, went inside the church were Maria and the Captain got married, and had Apfelstrudel in Cafe Braun. Lots of strudel was consumed in Austria. Important trivia: the Von Trapp family did not walk over the Alps to Switzerland. Switzerland is 500km in the wrong direction. If they had walked over the Alps, they would have ended up in Germany at Hitler's personal Alp retreat. Hopped on a train to Italy instead. Hollywood lies and cheats and steals, but oh how we love them.
We had a terribly busy day, because after that we went to the salt mines-- and Bavarian mountains, which we belatedly realized were in Germany. Very sneaky, taking us out of the country like that. The salt mines were great fun-- sort of like a central European Disneyland. There was a ride on a little train into the mine, where you had to straddle a bench, and we felt like our kneecaps were going to be lost in the tunnel. Not for the first time in our European travels, I wondered how Nate (Liz's 6'8'' cousin) would possibly manage. Europe is height-ist. Also featured at CE Disney: two giant slides into the abyss, which we were instructed to get on in German, and kind of thought we might die, and a ride across a salt lake which was cool- but Fran and Warren (dear family friends) had told me about a similar trip- and I had made it into some great voyage in my head, which this was not. Later that day, more dessert, and thoughtful consideration of buying some traditional Austrian dresses-- very cute, and we officially never want to look at the clothes we brought on our trip ever again. We will give them to the airplane to burn for fuel on our way home, and apparently make dresses out of airplane blankets, as we did not invest in dirndls.
We visited the Mirabell Gardens on our own (-- where they filmed bits of Do Re Mi). It was really gorgeous-- lots of flowers in bloom. Magnolias everywhere. But the best part was the playground, where we found a crazy treacherous slide and lovely hammock chairs. The tower leading up to this slide went on forever. The pictures don't do it justice. You have to visit Salzburg, and see for yourself. We said our goodbyes to each other and flew down. I went down first, and besides some screaming, made it out ok. Christine managed to vault herself off the slide, skidding to a stop a few feet beyond. She would win the playground slide Olympics-- very aerodynamic, that girl. Nice form. (Christine: I really thought I was going to die, I had my eyes closed the entire time).
We never managed to see anything of Mozart in the city-- though we did eat the chocolate/hazelnut creme/marzipan ball things which were quite delicious. Our excuse is that we saw some Mozart things in Praha and Wien, and we hummed Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to ourselves while walking over his bridge. But, as a few of you know and seem to heartily approve of, we stayed in to watch Glee. We miss TV, ok? Elphaba and Melchior were on. Our hands were tied. Rather, our butts were glued to our hostel beds until we saw our Glee.
We had great roommates our last night in Salzburg, which was too bad, as we had to abandon them at 3am to go catch our 4am train to Budapest. We didn't get to stop there, which I was bummed about-- I wanted to go find my shtetl. From Budapest, we went on to Belgrad, then to Thessaloniki, then to Athena. All in all- a little over 40 hours traveling. Egads. Very disorienting, because we didn't know exactly where our train went. We think we went through Bulgaria overnight, and ended up in Macedonia. Now we have a bunch of Serbian and Macedonian stamps in our passports, and we don't have stamps for places we have actually been. We are none too pleased about that. Macedonia is beautiful though, so I'll give them a pass. And we met some nice Serbian high schoolers, so they get a pass as well.
We arrived in Athena, and met up with Norma and Julie. That is when we found out about the volcano-- cryptic notes from Dad not withstanding. Lisa and Kristen (Christine - my Aunt and cousin) were supposed to meet us on this trip, but were grounded by volcanic ash. We are so very sorry! I was really excited to meet the two of you.
I won't go into detail about Greece for now because the computer is dying, it's one in the morning, they turned the lights off in the lobby we're sitting in, and Christine already fell off the couch she's perched on once (Christine: I was sleeping not that klutzy) -- maybe we'll wait until we make it to Berlin (or you know, tomorrow morning)-- which actually seems like a possibility (knock on wood). I'll just say that we are having a lovely time, Norma and Julie are wonderful travel partners, and we've been to Athena, Mykonos, Delos, and now we're on Santorini. It's completely gorgeous here- maybe even beautiful, Eric. We want to Pocahontas dive into all this turquoise water.
Christine (the next morning) -
We spent the first day in Athens. We were driven around by an interesting taxi driver who went on about the wonder of the Soviets and a deal between the Vatican and the CIA (Liz: Interesting is a very kind description. He talked about how much he liked the Soviets-- not communism, the Soviets. And he tried to claim that Dionysus was the god of thieves, as opposed to Hermes. Liar pants.). But we made it to the Parthenon and then the new Acropolis Museum, which was very cool and not nearly as passive agressive as I expected about the British Museam having so many of their artifacts. They just kept mentioning that a certian missing artifact was at the British Museum in every other display. (Liz: I waved to the Evzones for you, Grandma, while driving out of Athena.)
Next we took a very choppy boat ride to the island of Mykonos. We stayed there for a couple days. The highlight was visting the island of Delos (the mythical birthplace of Apollo and Artemis).
(Liz: I learned a few of the less obvious Greek letters to facilitate getting around, but then no one believed me when I said what things were. It was really entertaining.--
Me, semi-quietly in my only mostly convinced voice: 'This is Alegra. See that's a lambda and the p is a ro. And that one is probably a gamma because it makes me think of Mr. Azhar.'
Julie, poking her head in the restuarant 'Alegra? Is this Alegra?'
Random dude nods yes.
Julie, asking other people at the restaurant 'Alegra?'
People in the restaurant say yes.
Julie, 'It doesn't look like Alegra.')
Now we are at the Island of Santorini. Lisa, I do not know how much you would have like this island. The majority of the island is on a huge cliff including our hotel which is practically hanging over the ocean way down below. My mom/Julie rented a car and has been driving nice and slowly around the cliffs at the extreme annoyence of the Greek drivers who do not even stop at their own stop signs. (Liz: Which are all in English! We think only the tourists are supposed to stop.)
We went down one scary road to a port and stopped to take pictures. I had just a 2 second time period to wonder how so much water got on the land before a huge wave came crashing from behind us over a Little Mermaid rock soaking all of us. (Liz: And then Julie asked Christine and me to go back down near the rocks to pose. One of the times we could tell she was joking.) (Christine: I didn't realize she was joking, I said "no!")
There has been lots of wine drinking while we have been here. It has facilitaed many stories. Norma and Julie will have many stories coming home and we have a quite a few interesting ones to take with us on the rest of our travels. Liz learned a ridiculous amount about our family and the traditions and/or rituals (there was a very heated debated about this), specially our very competiive Easter egg toss. Liz took the chance to ask all the questions about Catholics that I couldn't answer while we were touring every Cathedral in Western Europe (and Liz explained all sorts of random pieces of Judaism in return. Julie was terribly impressed that some mitzvot [good deeds] were good deeds and not sins). Amusingly Norma couldn't really answer the questions any better. Aparrently the Holy Spirit relationship to the Holy Trinity and Catholics is not supposed to be understood (My History of Religion teacher is getting an angry letter, 2000 words on the relationship between the Holy Trinity compared between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, "in the words of a not so famous magician, come on!"). And I heared some fun stories I had never heard before from Babysitting to Lobster Fests to Radio call ins. Last night we ran out of wine, when my mom/Julie acting like she was going to split it poured a generous amount into her glass leaving a paltry amount for my Grandmother/Norma, who paused in the middle of her story to glare at Julie as a her wine glass was only filled by a few drops. Mom/Julie explained that sometimes the wine glass just tips accidently, there is no controlling it (Julie - we are talking the difference between 1 inch and 1/2 and inch here not drops!).
It is very luxiourious here because we are staying in hotels with Norma and Julie (Liz: Christine has picked up this entertaining but useful habit of calling them by their first names ever since Switzerland). Liz and I our not quite used to it. Mostly the fact that our rooms are cleaned while we are out and we can't find anything when we get back (they do not really clean the rooms at the hostels).
We are hopefully leaving for Berlin tomorrow. Volcano ash willing. Hopefully the Greek gods have decided we have been good to them here (especally at helping the Greek economy) and will allow us to finish the rest of our trip. (Liz: We've been giving them proper respect everywhere we go. Asking their permission for things and such. Making sure not to leave anyone out. It's all good.)
To Lisa and Kristen - I am so sad that you guys couldn't make it out. We (Norma and Julie included) miss you and hope we will be able to do somethig with you soon. We wish for no more volcanos in your future (though we generally wish that for everyone).
A note before I come home: in case you haven't picked up on it from my writing.... I now totally talk like Liz. I can't quite explain it. It is a kinda of pause between the sentences I am saying. I am completly aware of it. No need to point it out. We have been staying together for 2 months and telling shared stories to people we meet so it is to be expected. I do not know if it will go away or if I plan to speak with Liz pauses for the rest of my life. I still pronounce words with an accent from another planet though (Liz: or Wisconsin), so I don't think anyone will get Liz and me mixed up, but we will see when we get home. Maybe by the end of the trip Liz will start pronouning 'museum' as 'museam' (Liz: What just kills me is that she can't keep straight which is how she says it, which is how she spells it, and what it actually is. She says 'muse-ay-um.' I will never say muse-ay-um.). (Christine - Liz thinks that, we will see...)
Julie and Norma have been terribly patient, but we want to see more of Fira before we leave-- so we will deal with pictures later. Hopefully.
PS:
Liz: By the way, we are here at your urging. We heard your calls, gentle readers-- which made us giggle, and they were repeated to Norma/Nana/Christine's grandmother and Julie/Christine's mom, who were also quite entertained. There were dramatic reenactments and everything.
Manual antonio igauna
The first day back less white, a much less energized considering how much sand I have to carry everywhere it makes sense.
Proof that I am in the right place. 