Aegina Through the Back Door

Aegina is pronounced AY-gah-nah. Not ah-JYE-nah, like I had been saying it. The correct way of saying isn't nearly as funny.

Aegina is a forty minute boat ride from Piraeus Harbor. It takes the same amount of time as a ride from Long Beach to Catalina. My friend Nate recommended the island, suggesting I rent a scooter and wander the roads. When he told me he crashed twice, I thanked him for his suggestion, but yeah, I'm gonna walk this.

We walked to a nearby beach and did nothing. M and J took a dip in the sea. I crashed on a lounge chair for two hours straight. The weather wasn't beach-friendly. Clouds built in the distance. The sun came out, hid for a few minutes, then appeared again. The humidity that plagued us all day in Athens failed to show up.



With two hours to kill before boarding the ferry back to Athens, M, J and I wandered. Our Guru Rick Steves emphasizes Back Door Travel; Ditching the guide book, veer off the beaten path and explore. There isn't much to see in Aegina at dusk on a Sunday evening. Shops have closed. Families are preparing dinner. The streets are deserted, except for the occasional moped passing through.



We were heading back to the dock when we passed a church. It was like any Greek Orthodox church we've come across. Two brick-red domes on each side of the roof, flanking a bigger dome in the middle. There was a red carpet leading to the church's entrance. A small crowd had gathered. I stopped and nodded at M and J. "I think something's happening here." I thought.

And then they came. A rush of people, looking their best, coming from the other side of the street. Men in designer shirts. Young women in fancy dresses. Old men and women ambling. Children dragged by their parents. All headed toward the entrance.

The groom arrived in a black sedan. He was dressed in gray tuxedo. He entered the church to applause. An old man, also in a gray suit, stood by the outer gate. M approached him "Is this a wedding?" "Yes, yes, wedding..." The old man replied. He bolted for the church.

Thirty minutes till the ferry was to leave, and the bride had yet to show. We didn't want to leave. "Can we just wait a few more minutes?" M pleaded. The sun had long since disappeared. It was getting late.

The three of us headed for the dock. We never saw the bride. As the boat took us to Pireaus, questions ran through my mind. How did her wedding dress look? Was she young? Did she look like the woman in My Big Fat Greek Wedding?

Was our back door tour of Aegina a success? Hard to say. It was a quiet back door, with a little glimpse of everyday life on a Greek isle. I count that as success. I was satisfied.

Zeus or Poseidon?

The National Archaeological Museum of Athens was a ten-minute walk from our hotel. It's a bit away from the main landmarks, so we paid a visit first thing next morning. It's a good time of the day to go, before it gets super crowded.



I'm not a huge museum fan, but this one is worth it. It houses everything from shards of pottery (not so interesting) to broken statues of the gods (very interesting). However, of all the exhibits, there was one that surpasses them all...



This is The Artemision Bronze. It was located off Cape Artemision in 1928 (Thanks, Rick.) The statue could be of Zeus or Poseidon. The weapon that he's supposed to be carrying was never recovered. We have no way of knowing if he was packing a thunderbolt, or a trident.

The statue is a marvel. It stands 6'10" (Thanks again, Rick) and showcases the Greeks obsession with the human body.



No matter how you look at it, you just can't look away. I spent a good half hour in this hall, mesmerized. Just look at those lines! The balance! I'm still in awe.




And it wasn't just me...M was hypnotic. However, there was no time to lose. We had to make it to Piraeus Harbor to make our boat for Aegina. We bid the statue and the museum farewell, and made our way to our next adventure.

If I could spend more time at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, I would. If only to gaze upon The Artemision Bronze...

Is it Zeus? Or Poseidon?? I'll never know.

Gia Sas!

I wasn't present when this happened, but this is how M tells it:

As we walked down the Plaka, M and J stop at a store to look at t-shirts. To make nice, M greets the shopkeeper and says, "Gia sas" (pronounced "YAH-sahs"), which is "Hello" in Greek. The shopkeeper looks at M, laughs and bellows, "GIA SAS!" The neighboring shopkeepers share a laugh, and M walks away slightly embarrassed.

This was our introduction to Athens.

They tell you (and by "they" I mean HE) that you can see all that you need to see in Athens in a couple days. And they're right. While You COULD see everything in a day if you breezed through, two days is about right.

If you're stuck on finding a walking tour to go by, I suggest the Rick Steves' Athens City Walk. You can find it in his guidebook to Athens. You'll walk by landmarks that have been around for over a thousand years. Athenians go about their lives with these ruins in the background. Pass by the Temple of Zeus on the way to work? Sure, every day! Grab a latte from Starbucks with the Parthenon hovering over you? Yeah, what's the big deal?

In addition to the City Walk, you'll find tours of the Roman Agora and The "Main Event", The Acropolis. From these tours, The list of things to see in this city is long, so I'll just mention a few highlights from our first day in Athens:



Anafiotika. Away from the Plaka, which is the tourist-heavy section in the city, there's a set of stairs that take you toward the base of the Acropolis. The bustle of the souvenir shops dies down as you walk through a set of cottages, each populated by old bare-chested Greek men, who greet you with a hearty "GIA SAS!" This may sound kinda creepy, but trust me, you have to be there to fully appreciate it.



Mars Hill. Somewhere between the Roman Agora and The Acropolis lies Mars Hill. Atop this hill, the Apostle Paul got it on with the locals, engaging in a battle of ideas over God and idols. You'll find better views in higher locales, but to think that by standing on this hill, you could see what Paul saw.



The Acropolis. This is what it's all about, isn't it? While the Parthenon is the main attraction, the Acropolis has much more to offer. For example, the Erechtheum. That's the building in the foreground in the above photo.

You'll need at least two hours to wander. My suggestion: Go in the late afternoon. If you remain there until closing, Parthenon will look something like this:



Makes you wanna yell, "GIA SAS!"

Back from Mancation

Three cities in three countries, in the span of a week and a half. No arrests, no trips to the emergency room, no rogue taxi drivers swindling us of all our possessions.

While the trip produced minimal hassles, this was an exhausting trip. There's much to process and put to paper (or in this case, screen). Blog posts will soon follow. I just need to catch up on some sleep.

Cheers.

In Cairo

I'm writing this from an empty computer room in my hotel. I can't breathe through my nose.

I COULD breathe, but I would inhale the cigarette smoke, left over from the attendant who was here before, lighting up a storm.

I'm tense. From negotiating the cab ride to the hotel, to the fact that our hotel doesn't recognize the tour company that booked our reservation and we could very well have to pay, to not being able to work the phones correctly (M has magically figured this out.), to the fact that it's just plain scary outside. Cars honk every three seconds. Cairenes argued heatedly in the middle of the street. The air is smoggy. And I still can't breathe through my nose. Tomorrow we see the Pyramids. We plan to have dinner on the Nile River. I don't want to leave the hotel. But I need to eat.

I have never been so equally thrilled and terrified to be in one place.

The Mancation...Plus One - Prologue: Like a Snowball

It's like a snowball.

You want to travel. You tell your friend; the one that's always online, has the same 9-to-5 type of job, and like you, is itching to get outta here. You throw out destinations. You want to go to Latin America because it's cheap. He wants to go to Europe. You panic. Europe is way too expensive for you. You start to think that 2010 would be a better time.

Your friend says, "Screw that!" and drags you to Barnes and Noble to browse guidebooks. You insist on Costa Rica. "It's not that bad, really!" He's not buying it. You browse and browse some more, until you and friend see the Lonely Planet guide to Greece. You're intrigued.

You look online, at the site where you booked your last Europe Trip. You see packages for Athens and the Greek Isles so cheap that it's too good to be true. Out of the corner of your eye, you see packages for Greece and Turkey. You're more intrigued.

You tell your friend. He gets excited. You go back online and you see a package on the site that you didn't see earlier: Athens to Cairo to Istanbul. WHAT? CAIRO?? The Pyramids? The Sphinx?? Are you KIDDING me?

Your pulse quickens. You get jumpy. You and your friend go over the possible dates, flight info, hotels. You book your trip. You read the Rick Steves guidebooks to Athens and Istanbul all the way through. You read them again. And again. You pick up the Lonely Planet guide to Egypt, just for completeness. You read the tiny section on Cairo, and feel shortchanged.

You spend the night before your trip packing. You dust off your nemesis. You try to remember all the tricks you learned from your past trips. That's what travel comes down to, right? You get all your paperwork in order. You can't sleep. You're traveling again. You feel alive...

This time, I'll be traveling with my friend M and his sister J. What started out as a mancation with M has evolved into...a mancation plus one. The spirit of the mancation, however, will not die.

We will visit three cities with incredibly rich histories. They also have bulging populations. I have no idea what the next 10 days have in store for me. I could be riding a camel. I could be taking a Turkish Bath and be manhandled...literally. I could see the Acropolis at sunset, as the light turns the Parthenon into a golden brown. I could be harassed by Egyptian cab drivers. That's more of a certainty.

I'll be trying something new this time around. For the first time, I'll be tweeting my trip. Go to my twitter page, and you'll see what I'm up to. If I'm able, I'll post some entries here.

OK. Enough thinking...



Let's do this.

L.A. Adventures: Joshua Tree at Sunset

*Photo by: Leslie Peterson*

The stillness alarms you. You're so far removed from the city, you don't hear a thing. No cars screeching, no children screaming. No desert creatures marking their territories. Not even nature makes a sound.

This is Joshua Tree at sunset. An hour's drive from Palm Springs, you'd be crazy to visit this national park in the middle of an August day. So why did my friends and I come here? Blame the Perseid Meteors.

We tried to catch this event two days after the meteor shower hit its peak. And since you can't see much of anything in the sky while you're in Los Angeles, we needed to drive far away into the Cochella Valley. We passed the visitor's center an hour before the sun came down. The rock formations looked as if they were placed there by giants. But the quiet shook us to our core.


*Photo by: Lori Higa*

To see the Perseid Meteors, we drove to Keys View, which overlooks the Cochella Valley. There's a perpetual haze over the valley, so you don't have a great view of Palm Springs. You do get purple skies with a hint of orange. You do get rolling hills peeking out of the haze. You get one of the most stunning sunsets Southern California has to offer.

We had Keys View to ourselves, except for a pot-loving astronomer named Chuck and two Aussies playing the didjeridu. We laid out blankets and stared at the night sky. We saw few meteors. Most of my friends saw six or seven. I saw two. But they were BIG ones.

We saw Jupiter and the Big Dipper. We saw cosmic dust. We saw satellites and planes, thinking they were shooting stars. We saw the universe. And after three hours, our necks started to hurt and we left Joshua Tree and its stillness.

And as we drove back, I thought, "Who would have thought we could see the universe two hours away from L.A.?"