Magic Jewball

Wow, it seems weird to type a post on an actual keyboard and not have to scroll through pages of checkboxes to get to my input text area. But enough of my jetlagged wonder at being home, it’s time for the photos! After a couple of weeks of words alone we’ll now have a few days of photo-essays to accompany the previous posts. This is partially because I fall asleep an hour after arriving home each night and also because my post-containers will only hold so many pictures, so we’ll have to break them up.

So let’s start at the beginning. The first photo I took was of the pit that is the Delta Terminal at JFK. Why? Because I previously wrote that it was hideous, then updated later to say that I read that it had been redone, and now it can be said, I see no signs of refurbishment whatsoever. Seriously, it’s dark, dirty, ugly, and seems to have very few amenities. So I took a picture of this but when I got home I realized that the shot doesn’t convey all that. This is all to explain why I’m not posting this photo. Also, who really needs to see a photo of the Delta Terminal? What was I thinking? Oh right, I hadn’t seen Greece yet.

OK, so next up, I told you about my cute room at my pension in Nafplio. Here it is. Adorable, right? And you can’t even see the chandelier!

Here was the view from my balcony. Not shown: non-stop Greek music from the shop below.

Satellite receiver on balcony-right is to receive 30 channels, all in Greek.

The old part of Nafplio is really small, which is one of the reasons I chose it. It was walkable and manageable. So the first day, I popped home in the middle of the afternoon to, er, refresh myself. How did I miss this sign which was in the entranceway of the pension? So convenient! I never figured out why this was.

One of the things I liked to do most was to just wander the streets. And not just when I got lost. Because the streets there are mostly pedestrianized and all really pretty.

Here’s another. It’s a cross street, you can tell because of the steps (Nafplio is on a hill, more on this in a later post). If you squint really closely, you can see two cats sitting in the doorway of the second house on the right. It’s vacation charm!

Well, that’s it for now. Tomorrow, we’ll have some of that pretty water and stuff that makes everyone think Greece.

I’m back in Athens and boy is my watch confused! At the moment, the pilot says we are delayed in order to load additional baggage. Because a ten hour flight isn’t long enough. But I’m pretty sure that they’re just trying to keep us here a sufficient amount of time to avoid getting home in time to witness the Yankees blow the series. How merciful.

Hey, I’m home! No, not in NY, silly. In Jerusalem. That is, I’m in my family’s apartment in the Katamon section at the end of a narrow little cul-de-sac that the sherut drivers can never negotiate. A sherut is kind of like a shared taxi, a bit like Super Shuttle, and so I got in at like 5am as I was close to the last one dropped off. But it’s fun to abandon hotel living and give an address authoritatively, like “this street off of this street, no not there, od, od, po” (further, further, here). Yes, I did not get lost today.

However, other problems exist such as finding the grocery store closed at 2pm because tonight is a Jewish holiday. Somehow that never happens at the A&P. “Sagur!” the guy yelled at me through the closed sliding doors. Closed! Well, happy holiday to you too. I had to go to the bodega which is called a makolet here and they didn’t have my favorite brand of hummus to go with my fresh bakery pita and no large size of mint lemonade. D’oh! I was so dismayed I almost gave the storekeeper a 2-euro coin instead of the 10-shekel one. Must sort out my wallet.

Tomorrow the holiday goes on and then it’s another half day in Jerusalem before taking the bus to my cousins in Hashmonaim which is helpfully midway between here and the airport in Tel Aviv. Did I mention my flight was at 6am? What a perfect time for a Kosher Big Mac at the airport Mickey D’s. Then just a billion hours later I’ll be back in my own bed. Unless that thrombosis thing you get on long-haul airplane flights kills me first.

Good morning, everyone! Today I’m having breakfast in a whole different square in a whole different city. I’m in Omonia Square in Athens (Greece, not Georgia) and along with my frappe I’m having a peach-jelly donut. I chose peach because the woman described the other one as “it’s like cherry.” No sale. This one’s a little bizarre but not bad. As I type this, two elderly ladies approach me with religious materials but although they have passable English skills, there’s no sale there either.

I arrived yesterday afternoon and got immediately lost. Again, this was not my fault as it seems that several of the main streets have two names and my map designers evidently decided to go with the less common one in each case. I did ask several people and although I actually showed them a map and we were literally 5 blocks away it turned out, no one could help me. An hour later, I found my hotel, which I nicknamed Big Brother Inn because you can’t turn on any electricity without their permission, you must leave your key when you go out and retrieve it upon your return, you sign for a remote control, and the free Internet is only servicible in their one IE window (I brought a USB drive with portable apps - useless). They also gave me 10 minutes of instructions at check-in which I promptly forgot.

Anyway, I spent the afternoon exploring the city and today I will attempt the Acropolis and Parthenon before heading to the airport en route to Jerusalem. So far it’s been fun and interesting except everyone forgot to tell me that Athens is full of stray dogs running in packs. Marvelous! In case you’re worrying about me having a heart attack, they’re actually kind of comical, really. They wait at lights right next to the people before bounding across the street. Nice.

Oh, and after a pleasant long weekend in the country, we’re back to chain restaurants, especially the Greek ones, Goody’s and Everest, but McDonald’s and Subway too. I popped into Starbucks just to see if they had frappes but they did not. Just frappucinos and music from Starbucks Records. Bleah.

Lastly, just a reminder: only a few short days till my birthday so get your song-gifts in, should you want to. Nothing from Zorba, thanks!