Travel At Home and Abroad

Dandies & Quaintrelles Full Moon Ride

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:25:00 +0000

I have been wanting to do an event with Dandies & Quaintrelles (also check out their Facebook page) forever. They, or really he--as it is one very dedicated guy who does most of the work (thank you!)--are the ones who organize the Tweed Ride (I have scoop that it will be mid-November this year) and the Seersucker Social (which I missed, but Cidell attended). Bicycles and dressing up? Truly, two of my very favorite things, and who would have thought the combine them? Brilliant!

Anyway, I finally caught a break with the advent of the White Night/Full Moon Ride tradition! I didn't make the first one in July, but I was determined to go to the August ride. I emailed around and my friend Donna was game (thank you, Donna!). There is never a strict dress code for D&Q events, but there are suggestions. The style guide for Full Moon Rides calls for light colors, but beyond that it is your imagination. The white clothing is both stylish and practical for nighttime visibility.

I had actually completely forgotten about my McCall 5045 50s style dress until I went hunting in my costume/evening closet (not to be confused with my regular closet, my auxiliary summer dress hanging rod outside my regular closet, or my coat closet). It is white, retro, and definitely a full enough skirt to bike in--woo hoo! As you can see, there are all manner of interpretations of the dress code--some people went full retro, others were in t-shirts and shorts...and everyone had a great time regardless of what they were wearing.

This ride was a joint venture with BicycleSpace, a great new bike shop that is really working to create a bike community. I've taken my bike there a couple times and had truly great service at a very reasonable price. We started off with a trumpet calling us to arms (or bikes, as the case may be), followed by a performance of "Night and Day." We were encouraged to sing along, but few of us knew the words so there was a lot of humming and ad lib. Then we were off!

There were somewhere between 50 and 75 people, I would guesstimate. The ride was well-organized, with both leaders at the front and sweepers behind to make sure nobody got lost. The leaders had whistles to make sure cars were aware of us.

The ride was, in a word, awesome. I have no idea how far we biked. Based on the amount of time were out and the landmarks I could recognize my guess is somewhere between 10 and 15 miles. I know that sounds like a lot if you're not big on biking, but I had taken a 40 mile ride earlier in the day out to Mt. Vernon so I was quite depleted. At our pace I did not even feel this ride.

In the middle of the ride we arrived at the Navy Yard area near the Nationals Stadium and took a break for Truckeroo, a monthly food truck gathering. What fun! There were at least a dozen trucks parked in a safely enclosed area with lots of people enjoying their wares. We had met for the ride at 8 so I was plenty ready for dinner. I got the very last portobello panini from Capitol Greenz. Bleu cheese, yum!

We resumed our ride and took a pause at the Capitol to ride around and around the roundabouts (more fun than it sounds), and did a stop at the White House to see the moon shining overhead.

We ended our ride at Logan Circle, spreading out picnic blankets and being serenaded by our trumpet player and a guitar.

I cannot even tell you how much fun I had. My only hesitation about doing a D&Q event was I feared it would be snobby hipsters who would be too busy being cool to have fun and too afraid of losing hipster cred to talk to the likes of me, but I was completely wrong. It turned out that the participants were--wait for it--nerds. Yes. They are my people. Everyone was incredibly friendly. You could pull alongside anyone and start a conversation with them and nobody would miss a beat. I talked to at least a dozen people and didn't meet more only because the evening came to an end. If you're in DC and own a bike, there is literally no reason you should not be doing this. And if you don't own a bike, there are plenty of places to rent one!

Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of photos because my camera does not take good pictures at night and I need both hands on the handlebars at all times. All my photos are here. There are photos from the previous Full Moon Ride here. It appears I'm the only one who's added photos to the Flickr pool from this ride. So it's hard to tempt you/make you jealous with pictures, but trust me you should be!

A Visit to Charming Milford, PA in the Poconos

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:30:00 +0000

My travel companion and I drove to New Hampshire over the long weekend to visit his sister. We did the drive north from DC in one very long 10 hour go (helpful hint: never, ever drive through New York City), but decided that we'd break it up on the way home and take a little time to enjoy ourselves. We looked at the map and it appeared that the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area was just about halfway between New Hampshire and DC. After a quick look on TripAdvisor we decided on the Myer Country Motel in Milford, Pennsylvania. We gave them a call (reservations can only be made by telephone) and snagged the evening's last vacancy.

The motel was easy to approach and to find, just five miles off I-84. It was founded in 1943 and keeps the old school motor inn style of the rooms being small cottages (some are duplexes) arranged around a lawn with a few picnic tables and barbecue spots, rather than the bland row of rooms you find in motels today.

It is completely adorable and we were thrilled to have one of the single cottages. The interior is cozy and clean with country style decor and a comfortable bed. The towels had been washed into a perfect softness and smelled of my favorite dryer sheets.

We settled in and then headed into town. Route 209, on which the Myer Motel is located, is the town's main drag. To walk there from the motel you have to walk on the shoulder of the road for a bit, which isn't fun, but once you get past that you're onto sidewalk and the town is very pedestrian friendly. There are only a few stoplights but there are several pedestrian crosswalks between the stoplights with signs to motorists saying they have to stop for pedestrians in the crosswalks. In DC this would be taken by drivers as a challenge to mow down as many pedestrians as possible, but we found that cars actually stopped for us when they saw us standing on the side of the road waiting for the road to clear so we could cross. Highly unusual!

Milford is a quaint little town with beautiful old buildings. Since we're lawyers, we were intrigued by the courthouse, which still performs its original function.

I was also struck by this large old castle-y looking building, which has now been subdivided into little shops (our favorite name: "Reigning Cats and Dogs"; groan with me over the pun). Unfortunately, we arrived at around 6:30 on a Sunday evening and everything was closed, so we couldn't check out the shops or the historical buildings. This gives us a reason to come back!

After walking through the town we chose the Dimmick Inn to have a drink before dinner. We sat at the bar next to some people we took to be fellow tourists but in fact they were locals who lived about a mile down the road near the llama farm. We did not, alas, see the llama farm, but they are kept for their wool apparently. They were very friendly and we enjoyed hearing about the area. The bartender was also a local, just returned from Boston where he had been studying. I had a glass of wine but after seeing him expertly working the shaker I thought I should have ordered a cocktail! The restaurant at the Dimmick specializes in steak and burgers and the food we saw coming out looked good, but since I'm a vegetarian we decided to look for somewhere else.

We decided on Bar Louis downstairs at the Hotel Fauchere. Although there is a bar, there is actually a lovely dining room downstairs. The decor is nice--pale wood paneling, an old brick support wall, indirect lighting.

I was immediately struck by the fact that (1) there was a vegetarian entree, and (2) it was not pasta. The downside of being a vegetarian is that the fancier the restaurant the less likely they have anything--even a salad--without meat in it. And if there is a vegetarian main dish, it is invariably an uninspired pasta. Not so at Bar Louis! The veggie entree was grilled halloumi cheese, an arugula and foraged purslane salad with heirloom tomatoes, and a fried egg. Several dishes featured fried eggs; I don't know if they keep chickens or what. There were also several small plates to choose from, but I decided I'd go for the entree for the novelty value of a non-pasta veggie main. I didn't think to take pictures of the food so please content yourself with random bear statues that were scattered throughout the city.

Everything on the plate was fantastic, though the salad was definitely the star, perfectly dressed in a nice vinaigrette with perfect tomatoes and greens in a generous serving. The fried egg was indeed fried....mmmm, butter. The grilled halloumi was excellent. I really appreciated that there was adequate protein, which shows a degree of thought and care that is a glaring omission in the ubiquitous pasta. My travel companion had the steak frites and also enjoyed his meal.

The dessert was the crowning glory. I had some kind of dense flourless chocolate concoction with browned butter caramel and lemon curd. Chocolate and lemon are not often paired together but here they were sensational and the browned butter caramel was amazing.

We woke up the next morning and unfortunately many shops are closed Mondays and those that aren't normally closed were closed for the holiday. We took one last walk through town and stopped for photo ops at the locations that best represent our personalities: me at the library and my travel companion at the Beer Barn.

Luckily, Jorgensen's Deli was open and we had fantastic New York style bagels for breakfast before hitting the road back home.

We'd love to come back and get a chance to see more of the town and do some hiking in the area so we're considering this our scouting trip!

All photos are here.

Biking to Mount Vernon

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 23:22:00 +0000

I had the day off last Friday and it was an amazing, glorious summer day in which it was possible to be outside, unlike the 100F+ degree days that had kept us cowering indoors the past few weeks. So I decided to go on a long bike ride. The DC area has a plethora of great bike trails (see also, Capital Crescent, C&O Canal, W&OD, Custis, etc.), but I have always been partial to the Mt. Vernon Trail, which runs 18 miles roughly alongside the George Washington Parkway next to the Potomac river from a little north of Teddy Roosevelt Island in Rosslyn (Arlington, Va) to Washington's estate, Mount Vernon. I have ridden along the trail many times, but this was the first time I went all the way to Mount Vernon. I'm hooked!

First of all, the trail is awesome. It is paved, so perfect for biking, and except where it goes through Old Town Alexandria is completely separate from the road and therefore very safe (be sure to share the trail with runners, walkers, and inline skaters). In Old Town, the bike trail runs along low-speed limit streets with good visibility.

There are a few tricky points where the trail seems to disappear. The Park Service Map sort of shows them, but when you're on the ground it can be tough to figure out. The first is when the trail enters Alexandria. You run paralell to some railroad tracks and then it seems to peter out. Stay on the street closest to the river, Union Street, for a couple of miles (look for the bike stencils painted on the road). At the end of Union Street, the trail seems to dead end at a playground. There is a tunnel to your right--head through the tunnel and the signs on the other side direct you to the left along another street. The photo is of the other side of the tunnel--coming back, this is the only hard part because you have to spot the tunnel going off to your right.

Eventually, the street you're riding on is closed to cars but continues as a trail under an underpass and then it really seems to end in an apartment parking complex. To your right is a paved inclined embankment (see photo at right). Bike up the ramp. At the top a huge medallion is embedded in the sidewalk (you can't miss it) and it points to the left for the Mt. Vernon trail.

These small annoyances aside, the trail is phenomenal. It goes through several little ecosystems like the swamp on the left and the marsh at the top of the post. There are several rest areas with bathrooms, many drinking fountains, and dozens of benches and grassy areas to pull over for a rest and to enjoy the scenery.

I pick up the trail from the 14th Street bridge (entrance to the protected bike/pedestrian crossing is near the Jefferson Memorial) in the District, but if you're looking for a shorter ride, bikes are allowed on Metro subject to a few rules--not during rush hour on the weekdays (7-10 am and 4-7 pm) and only in the front and back doors, not the middle door with one bike allowed per door. No extra fare is required. Take the Yellow/Blue line to Braddock Road (a little shorter ride down to the trail) or King Street (a little more scenic, but also more crowded) and ride downhill toward the river until you pick up the trail or Union Street, respectively. From there it's about 10 miles to Mount Vernon.

I am a slow rider; from my door (in the middle of DC) to Mount Vernon took me about two and a half hours. You do not have to be a fitness nut to ride the trail, but you do need to be in reasonable shape. If this is the first exercise you're getting in a couple of years, I can't guarantee you'll make it or that you'll be happy if you do. There are gentle rolling hills and--I'm not going to lie to you--the last mile is almost entirely uphill. The estate is called Mount Vernon, after all. Mile Marker 0 is at Mt. Vernon, so the mile markers count you down and cheer you on as you head toward your goal. Riding back to Alexandria, on the other hand, is practically a coast!

There are plenty of bike racks at Mount Vernon, though when I arrived a Bike'n'Roll tour was obviously on the premises because the rack was full! It must have been a special event because a Mount Vernon tour is not on their website. I have done their Mall tour and highly recommend the company. They also rent bikes and have a location in Old Town.

Admission to Mount Vernon is $15. They have added a visitor's center with a short film in the past few years. I recommend the film, if only to sit in a cool darkened room for a bit and see Pat Sajak in colonial costume.

The house (pictured above) is really only a small part of the Mount Vernon complex. Actually, it is referred to as "The Mansion" but is quite modest by today's standards. The objects and decorations inside are interesting, but after seeing it once I've not waited in the long line again to return. The real draw of the mansion is the one experience you *must* have while visiting: sitting on the back porch overlooking the Potomac. It is a gorgeous, relaxing, timeless experience with great views. No need to wait in line to go through the house for this; just walk around to the back.

The grounds are extensive and well-kept under the "Living History" philosophy. In addition to the Upper Garden's butterfly-attracting flowers, it is still a nominally working farm with fruit trees and a vegetable garden and a few livestock. Allegedly, costumed interpreters work the farming area of the grounds, but I've never managed to catch them even though I have been to Mount Vernon many times. There is a little climb through the forest (the sign estimates 10 minutes) with signage about local plants and wildlife, as well as a nice pier (left) ending in a gazebo from which boat rides depart. I've never taken the boat ride, but you can walk onto the pier without a ticket.

Be sure to pay your respects at Washington's tomb, set up in the location he specified in his will. Washington died with no children--it is suspected that smallpox rendered him sterile--and the estate is run by the Mount Vernon Ladies. In a sense, it is fitting that he had no children because that way all Americans sort of get to "own" him without anyone having a larger claim. The Mount Vernon Ladies definitely take a proprietary interest. During one of my visits there was a Mount Vernon Lady acting as an interpreter at the tomb. I asked her if George and Martha had any children (and thought it odd I didn't already know). She replied that "The General and Mrs. Washington did not have any children." Although nobody owns Washington's legacy, apparently the hoi polloi ought not be too familiar!

The ride back down to Alexandria is a breeze and goes by fairly quickly. Back in Old Town, I kept my eyes out for this welcome sight and stopped for an ice cream lunch (never mind it was 6:00 in the afternoon).

I had such a fun day, though I confess I was pretty beat by the time I finished my ride. I bought an annual pass to Mount Vernon ($25--only $10 more than one time admission) so I'll have to make it back eventually! Just give me a little more time to recover...

All photos are here.

Montreal, June 2010: Sights, Activities, and Culture

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 01:45:00 +0000

I went to Montreal last week for Pattern Review Weekend! I had never been to Montreal--or to Canada at all--so my friend Cidell and I decided to head to Montreal early to see what we could see.

Monday, 14 June

When my plane landed on Monday it was pouring rain and quite cold. Cidell and I were scheduled to land at around the same time but, as is the way, her flight was quite delayed. The good thing was that when I finally left the airport, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out!

We bought weeklong Metro passes--carte hebdo--and navigated our way to Marche Atwater, a large market the guidebook insisted was open until 8. Unfortunately, it had closed at 6 so we hopped back on the metro (love that unlimited pass!) and headed into the Plateau, to famous La Banquise for poutine. It has about 30 varieties of poutine on the menu. Poutine, by the way, is a regional dish of french fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. La Banquise makes a vegetarian gravy so even veggies can have the pleasure of clogging our arteries. It had been a long day of travel with an early morning breakfast and no lunch so fries, gravy, and cheese sounded just about right. I'm not sure it's an experience I could repeat very often, however.

After dinner we walked around a bit, trying to digest our meal. The row house architecture is lovely, and everyone has added their own little twist with brightly colored balconies, hanging plants, and painted doors. We got back to the Mount Royal metro stop just in time for the (late) sunset and headed back to the Universite de Montreal dorms and hit the sack.

Tuesday, 15 June

The weather prediction was for alternating days of rain and sun, and luckily our first full day was a day of sun. We decided that a bike tour would be the perfect way to take advantage of the weather and get an idea of the city, so we contacted Cycle Tours Montreal and arranged to take the City Highlights Tour.

This turned out to be a fantastic decision. Our guide, Shea, was very enthusiastic, loves the city, and tailored the tour to our varied ability levels. We started at Parc La Fontaine in the Plateau, meandered through the Plateau (stopping for croissants and coffee), headed to the Mountain where I very proudly biked all the way to the top, then went down into the city, stopping to see McGill University, biked along the Lachine Canal, and had lunch at the Marche Atwater. It was a gorgeous day and we could not have been happier with our choice!

Wednesday, 16 June

Rain was predicted and the morning started cloudy, but we hoped it wouldn't start until the afternoon and planned a self-guided walking tour of Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal) for the morning. We started at the Basilique de Notre Dame de Montreal, a copy of Notre Dame in Paris (though without the flying buttresses). I visited the famous wedding chapel, which honestly did not seem very romantic! I did enjoy its modernism, in contrast to the traditional interior of the main part of the church.

Next we meandered our way through the old financial district, stepping into several amazing banks that still serve customers, including one with a wedgewood ceiling and one guarded by gargoyles. Looking at the gargoyles I think I understood J.K. Rowling's inspiration for the goblin bankers in Harry Potter. I was amused that there used to be a Molson Bank (left), now an office building, but beer-making is pretty steady business through good economic times and bad so perhaps we should have more liquor-run banks and fewer mortgage-backed for the stability of our financial system.

We ended our tour at the Old Customs House, next to the Archaeological Museum and along the St. Lawrence river, just as it was beginning to rain. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to visit the museum. It is my reason to go back!

From there, we headed to the McCord Museum, stopping along the way we stopped by the Cathedrale Marie Reine du Monde, which the guidebook said was a 1/4 scale reproduction of St. Peter's in Rome. We went to the McCord to view their temporary exhibition of costumes from Cirque du Soleil. I love Cirque, but when I go I am in the very far away seats and the costumes are nothing but a bit of color to me. It was so interesting to see them up close. The designers put minute and intricate details into each one. I really appreciate their dedication to their craft. The museum also has exhibits on winter in Montreal and Irish-Canadians, with lots of artifacts and bits of history.

I had a late lunch at vegetarian restaurant Lola Rosa. It was so pleasant to enjoy my meal and watch the passers-by. It is very near McGill's campus so there were lots of students to-ing and fro-ing. The waiter was very pleasant and (as with our bike guide and most Canadian men) quite attractive, which never hurts.

As soon as I left it began to rain in earnest, and then it began to POUR. Cidell and I tried to visit the Musee des Beaux Arts, which has late opening on Wednesdays. Unfortunately, only the temporary exhibits are open during the late hours and we wanted to see the permanent collection. So we headed to Pullman for a glass of wine and some nibbles instead, and capped off our evening with gelato.

Thursday, 17 June

Since sun and rain were alternating days, Thursday was a day of sun. Yay!!! I returned to the Musee des Beaux Arts in the morning, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that it is free to visit the permanent collection. They have a wonderful little capsule collection of Impressionists, whom I love, and an excellent exhibit on Modern Art by artists from the Quebec province and Montreal in particular. There is also an exhibit of Contemporary Art; I must confess myself a cretin when it comes to Contemporary Art. I pretty much hate it all. Then I took the underground passage to the Decorative Arts exhibit, which has great furniture and glassware from the early 1900s through the present.

Not wanting to waste a beautiful day, I took the long metro ride out to the Jardin Botanique. I first stopped to take some photos of the 1976 Olympic Stadium, which is on the walk up from the Pie IX metro stop to the Botanical Garden.

Admission to the gardens is steep--$16 (though I got a small discount because the Insectarium was closed). But once inside I saw dozens of groundskeepers hard at work maintaining this huge and beautiful complex and realized that the admission price is actually a bargain. I had only about three hours to spend before the gardens closed, but you could easily make a day of it with a nice picnic lunch (there are restaurants on site, but I didn't see any prohibition on bringing your own food).

There is an amazing diversity of gardens--including a vegetable garden, poisonous plant garden (!!!!--I finally know what poison ivy looks like), First Nations Garden, medicinal garden, water gardens (I got to see cranberry plants! they are one of my favorite foods) etc. etc., but the real showpieces are the Japanese and Chinese gardens. I have been to many Japanese gardens, including in Tokyo, but never visited a Chinese garden before. It is gorgeous! The garden was built in China and then carefully disassembled and shipped to Montreal, where it was reassembled by the original Chinese designers and gardeners. It has water features, buildings, a Bonsai garden, and amazing views.

By this point I was pretty well exhausted. A free mini-train makes a loop around the property, the north half of which is a large arboretum. I didn't think I'd manage a tramp through the arboretum so I took the mini train for a bit of a view and a rest. I finished off at the spectacular series of greenhouses, which range from tropical to desert. I learned that bananas never ripen on the tree. Interesting!

For dinner I headed to vegetarian institution Le Commensal. There is a buffet of hot and cold foods (and dessert!). You fill your plate and pay by weight. I got a full (but not unreasonably so) plate and a bit of dessert and it was around $13. I went to the location on Rue Berri and found a secluded little table where I could observe the busy street without feeling exposed and self-conscious about eating alone and heartily enjoyed my food and the view.

Saturday, 19 June

Friday I was at my sewing conference, and went fabric shopping Saturday morning, but I snuck off to do one final bit of sightseeing on Saturday afternoon. I didn't want to miss the Oratoire Saint-Joseph, which was luckily located in the vicinity of U de M and the dorms.

I decided to save myself some time and rent a Bixi bike from the stand conveniently located at the dorm. There are tons of bike racks in the trendy and tourist areas (not so much in the working class areas), you pay $5 for 24 hour access, and can use the bikes for 30 minutes at a time. If you exceed 30 minutes, it's $1.50 for the next 30, $3 for the next 30, $6 for the next, etc. This is meant to be an extension of the public transit system and the rentals are for transportation, not leisure. DC has a similar but not as user friendly system called Smartbikes DC. The only way to use them is to pay a $40 annual membership and get a special card. On the flip side, you can keep a bike up to 24 hours (at which point you are charged a $550 replacement fee). The Bixi model is so much better! A person is much more likely to sign up for the program if they can test it out first on a 24 hours basis, and the Smartbike is no good for tourists who won't want to pay an entire annual membership.

Well, I really should have taken into account my inability to read maps or navigate! I got lost several times, each time involving bicycling up and down very large hills, and when I finally found the Oratoire I sailed past it down down down a large hill looking for a Bixi rack, couldn't find one, cycled back up up up the large hill and was afraid I was going to have to ride all the way back to the dorm to drop it off. Finally found a stand. Had I done all this smoothly with no getting lost and finding the stand immediately (it turns out at the stands where you rent the bike there is a map with all the stands in the vicinity clearly marked) it would have taken about 12 minutes. It took me about 50.

However, I had plenty of time to climb up to the oratory, visit Brother Andre's tomb and view the interior of the main chapel. There is a lovely garden with (I think) the stations of the cross, but it continued on uphill and my enthusiasm for hills had waned. Brother Andre, the founder, was known as a healer and many people seeking cures visit the Oratory. There is a large display of canes that have reportedly been left behind by the healed.

I walked over to the Cimetiere Notre Dame Des Neiges and just had a moment to pop my head in before it started raining. I raced back on the Bixi bike through the rain and managed to arrive back at the dorm before it really started to deluge.

Sunday, 20 June

I had just enough time before I needed to leave for the airport to take the metro to Mount Royal and ride a Bixi Bike over to the Mountain to try to catch the beginnings of the weekly Tam Tam festival. This time I was well and truly foiled by my inability to navigate. I picked up a bike at Parc La Fontaine and knew I needed to ride along Rue Rachel to get to the Mountain. So I rode and rode and rode and then eventually the Olympic Stadium came in view and I realized I'd gone several kilometers in the wrong direction. When I turned around I realized that I could clearly see the Mountain and the direction I should have gone. Oh well. I picked up a pain au chocolat to console myself and returned to the dorm to head back to the airport and come back home.

It was a wonderful visit and I hope to return someday and have a little more time to enjoy the city. All photos are here.

Montreal, June 2010: Accommodations and Food

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 01:14:00 +0000

Here is where I stayed and ate in Montreal!

Accommodations

As the Pattern Review Weekend activities were held on the campus of the Universite de Montreal it was recommended that we stay at Les Studios Hotel, a dorm that converts into a hotel in the summer. This option is not for everyone. The rooms are small, very small. My room was quite dusty/dirty and had an unpleasant dank smell (luckily the window could be opened and that took care of the smell). The bath is shared and there is only one toilet per sex per floor (10 rooms). The beds are rubber futon-style mattresses and the single plastic-coated pillow is rather small. Do NOT try to share one of these rooms. However, it was very cheap at $40/night (internet extra) and nicely situated at a five minute walk from either the Edouard-Monpetit or the Universite de Montreal metro stop.

Food

Poutine at La Banquise, a classic spot for a vegetarian version (rare) of this classic local specialty. $7.

Punjab Palace for cheap, metro accessible, perfectly-acceptable-but-nothing-to-write-home-about Indian food. $9.

Lola Rosa for mid-priced vegetarian fare in a quaint restaurant in a cool part of town with great service and good food. $12.

Premiere Moisson, a small chain of bakeries with locations at Atwater and Jean Talon markets. I don't particularly care for sandwiches, but their mozzarella and tomato on olive baguette was delicious. $8.

Pullman for wine and small plates. The giant olives were delicious and the goat cheese divine. The atmosphere is a little snooty and the prices are quite high. I didn't recognize any of labels on the by-the-glass list and there was no info on the varietal so I just had to guess. I could have asked but I didn't feel up to it in French (the staff spoke English and I'm sure would have helped with only a little attitude). I ended up with something cabernet-ish, which I don't particularly care for. It was good to feel civilized, though. $8 for a glass and around $5-8 per small plate.

Le Commensal for a huge variety of tasty vegetarian food at a pay-by-weight buffet. Had I eaten here earlier in the week I probably would have come back. $13.

Mid-Priced Eats in DC

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:41:00 +0000

So, I already gathered together a bunch of cheap eats. But what about somebody who has an income? I used to be that person. Then I took a new job at a pay cut of over 50% and got my life back. But I still have fond memories of the few times I was let out of my office to gather enough nourishment to get me through another 12 hour day.

Some restaurants appear on both the cheap eats list and the splurgey restaurants list. They're relatively cheap (in the cost/benefit sense) if you don't get drinks, appetizers, or desserts, and splurgey if you do the whole experience. So that's how I explain that little discrepancy away. I define splurgey as over $35/person, and cheap as under $25/person.

I am a vegetarian. I only eat at places where there's something more for me than bread and a plate of iceburg lettuce (hold the bacon dressing). There is a whole world of fancy restaurants out there to which I have never been and am never likely to go. I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding recommendations for places at which you can eat large quantities of animal flesh in DC. All my recs are veggie-friendly, which is much harder to find in upscale. They are not exclusively vegetarian unless noted otherwise, so your dining companion who will allegedly drop dead if not fed morsels of dead animal at every meal will be fine. That said, these are *good* restaurants, not just veggie-friendly restaurants. Although these restaurants are splurgey for me, it's hard to spend a lot of money on a vegetarian meal, so most are going to be under $50/person if you're going meatless and getting a glass of wine rather than a bottle. Check out the links to the restaurants to see menus; most list prices.

If you are a gastronome who can drop upwards of $250 per person and just want to go straight to the top, you don't really need my help but FYI Washington's two creme de la creme restaurants are Michel Richard Citronelle and CityZen. If you would like to experience either of these restaurants on a weekend, you must book several months in advance. You *might* be able to get a weekday table at an undesirable time within the month, but call as soon as you plan your trip. Michel Richard has established a chef's table at Citronelle which puts you in the kitchen on a tasting course of his choosing (from my understanding) at a prix fixe of hundreds of dollars per person. You probably have to book it a couple of years in advance. OK, maybe that's a slight exaggeration...but only slight.

Restaurant Week

There is a thing in Washington called "Restaurant Week." And it is good. During Restaurant Week, which occurs twice a year (February and August), participating restaurants offer prix fixe three course lunches or dinners for $20.0x or $30.0x respectively, x being the year. So last year it was $20.08/$30.08. This is a really great way to experience upscale restaurant dining without the major price tag. You're not *really* going to get out for that price, of course. DC restaurant tax is 10%, then there's a 20% tip (stop whining and just do it). If you order a glass of wine that's $8 or so. Some restaurants will offer the entire menu with a supplemental charge of $2 or $3 for more expensive dishes. But you'll still do better than $50 for a dinner that can cost twice that much under normal circumstances. Before you decide on a restaurant week location, though, be sure to browse through the regular menu. Some places it would be hard to put together a meal, especially a vegetarian one, costing $30 from the regular menu and restaurant week actually ups the price!

Reserve in advance if you're planning to do restaurant week. Most of the fancier restaurants participate in Open Table which makes reservations easy and painless to make online. Open Table operates year-round, not just during RW and I recommend it for making reservations. If there aren't any reservations left for RW check the restaurant's website--many restaurants now extend Restaurant Week beyond the official designated week. Most extend to the next week to do a two week stint, but Dino, for instance, did Restaurant Month for the whole of January.

Some restaurants cheap out during restaurant week. I tried Galileo (which is closed right now for renovation) during two separate restaurant weeks and was disappointed both time. The portions were teensy and the staff surly. Many people had the same complaint. I won't be returning.

Where I have only tried the restaurants below during restaurant week it is duly noted. It's probably safe to assume that it can only get better during the regularly scheduled program.

And now, the restaurants

Penn Quarter/Chinatown/Metro Center/The Mall
http://www.finemondo.com/ is one of my favorite restaurants in the city. It's a place where everybody knows my name. OK, not really, but there is zero staff turnover and you get recognized after a couple of visits. That's a really nice feeling. Start with the finocchio (fennel) soup in the winter, the insalata finemondo (avocado, tomatoes, and fresh mozarella) in summer. Move on to the gnocchi with asparagus and fava beans. Finish with the chocolate hazelnut cake. You can actually order anything off the menu and it will be sensational, but those are some of my favorites. My only teeny tiny complaint is that the by-the-glass menu is a little limited. If you're getting a bottle of white, my favorite is the Soave.

A Jose Andres creation, Jaleo brought tapas to DC, and continues to serve it up better than anyplace else. The small plates are divine and you'll want the server to keep 'em coming. I love the spinach sauteed with raisins and apples, the endive and goat cheese salad, the chickpea stew, the tuscarora mushrooms, and well, everything on the menu. The white sangria is nice, if they're serving it up. My only gripe with Jaleo is that the bar is teeny-weeny, way too small for a restaurant of that size and popularity. Reservations are not accepted so you'll be waiting in the cramped bar for quite a while at the weekend for a table. At lunch or dinners early in the week this won't be a problem. The Jaleos in Crystal City and Bethesda probably have larger bars, though are not likely to be less crowded.

Zaytinya offers more small plates from Jose Andres. If the squash blossoms are on special you must order them; they are stuffed with a mild feta cheese and I wish zucchini tasted as good as its blossoms. Everything is divine, although they changed the recipe for the Santorini fava recently and I don't like the new iteration as much. The old version had raw shallots, now the shallots are caramelized. It's more civilized on the breath but less bracing on the tongue. You must, absolutely must, get the potatoes fried in olive oil topped with yogurt (aka fries). The cabbage dolmades are not good, but they are literally the ONLY thing I've had there that I didn't love. The apricot yogurt dessert is not to be missed, and the sesame seeds sprinkled on the chocolate dessert are intriguing.

Tosca is another Italian place on F Street, three blocks from Finemondo. It is slightly fancier, a bit more expensive (both of which add up to less veggie friendly), and certainly more intimate with a much smaller dining room than Finemondo. It is located in the building where I used to work the aforementioned 12 hour days so I hyperventilate a little when I walk in, but the food is worth a little hyperventilation.

Zola doesn't have a lot of exciting vegetarian options; it resorts to the old pasta stand-by which is perfectly good but not, well, exciting. Apparently the burgers are very good so this is a nice place to take your meat-eating companion where they can have their meal and you won't be served a plate of iceberg lettuce with carrot shavings. The atmosphere is fun and funky and the cocktails are excellent. The server will thoughtfully provide you with a black napkin if you're wearing dark clothes. The desserts are good. I like the chocolate peanut butter one (but I'm a sucker for that combo). Zola is in the Spy Museum building, an easy walk up from the Mall around the National Gallery of Art-ish, and directly across the street from the Portrait Gallery. I love to do cocktails in the bar.

Rasika is upscale Indian street food. No danger of Delhi Belly here! The portions are delicate and the food delicious. I've only been for the pre-theater dinner special (prix fixe around $25 before 6:30 pm), but want to go back someday to try the full menu. Its D Street location makes it an easier walk from the Mall than most Penn Quarter restaurants, which are concentrated on F Street for the most part.

TenPenh is located at Tenth and Penn (note the clever pun of the name). This Thai restaurant serves up plenty of heat, though you can ask them to tone it down. The desserts are not to be missed, especially with a glass of sparkling wine. The dining room and bar are very well done; you'll feel much further from the dusty paths and hordes of tourists on the Mall than you really are. It's nice to feel civilized.

Indebleu is getting a provisional mention. The concept is French-Indian fusion, and when it opened I was quite excited about it. French food is not just veggie-unfriendly, it is veggie-hostile. Indian food, of course, has a long tradition of vegetarianism. I thought the two might tone each other down--Indian a little less earthy, French a little less involving the parts of 12 different animals in each dish. Unfortunately, the original menu had virtually nothing vegetarian on it, the prices were ridiculous, and the portions were minuscule. After our meal there, all three of us (small women) went home and had dinner as what we got there for $60/person amounted to a small nibble of appetizers. The menu has now been revamped and is a little more veggie friendly, but I have not been back yet. One of Indebleu's strengths is its cocktail menu; it's in the form of the metro map, with each line representing a different liquor. The drinks are as fun to drink as they are to order.

Convention Center
Vegetate is owned by an African-American couple doing their part to revitalize Shaw, my neighborhood. They chose to open their upscale vegetarian restaurant on a street that is not (yet) upscale. It's an easy walk from the Convention Center. The streets are "urban" and "mixed income" but it is safe--I walk through my neighborhood every day and I love living there. If you're not from an urban area you might feel more comfortable taking a cab. Vegetate's menu changes often according to what is seasonably available. This is the only fancy vegetarian restaurant in the area (there are other veggie restaurants but they concentrate more on food than atmosphere), and makes for a great meal with a nice experience.

Farragut Area
The K Street corridor is very 9-5 (well, this being Washington more like 9-8) and most of the restaurants cater to the power lunch or intern lunch crowd. There are a few sit-down gems, though, and among them is Vidalia. Vidalia's concept is upscale Southern cooking. I have only been during Restaurant Week, but they get a mention for always having a vegetarian option during RW. It's generally an unimaginative not-super-tasty rice pilaf, but they still get an A for effort. The sides and dessert are always amazing, so I suspect they can do much better than that off the regular menu.

Georgetown
I don't care for Georgetown and don't spend any time there, but I did have a memorable meal at Cafe Milano. This Italian restaurant is known more for its nightly parade of political celebrities than for its food, but they wouldn't all go there if it was terrible. I really enjoyed everything I had there. My taste buds *might* have been impaired by all the pre-dinner cocktails and during-dinner wine I had, but my palate is so discerning that no amount of alcohol...oh never mind.

If you absolutely must have dinner on the Waterfront, Sequoia isn't as bad as it could be. I was, in fact, pleasantly surprised at the pasta dish I got when taken there by a date. The draw is the view so I expected a frozen dinner brought to me still in the cardboard tray. The food is at least one step up from that. The crowd skews young and scantily clad.

I like Neyla in Georgetown, though my opinion is not universally shared. The middle eastern food (it doesn't seem confined to a single cuisine) is quite good, and if it's nice eating outside is a lovely option. It's a little out of the major hustle and bustle, which I like.

DuPont Circle
One of Washington's favorite places for sushi is Sushi Taro, which is closed for renovation until early March 2009. The location above a CVS isn't auspicious, but once you enter the dining room you'll forget that you're sitting on top of the hair care aisle. The menu offers plenty besides sushi. I got the seaweed salad, an avocado roll, and the tempura vegetables. I wouldn't recommend the tempura vegetables, but that's more the nature of tempura--it cools too quickly to be good for longer than a few minutes. I wished I had ordered two seaweed salads, though. It was delish. In the spirit of Japanese hospitality, the server will bring you a complimentary[CHECK] amuse bouche. I didn't know how much I wanted some miso soup until she brought it to me. The door is to the left of the CVS on 17th St and looks almost like a delivery entrance--don't miss it! You must climb the stairs to get to the dining room, so it's not for the mobility impaired.

Sette Osteria was conceived as a more affordable answer to Sette Bello in Northern Virginia. I haven't been to Sette Bello, but I love Sette Osteria. This casual Italian restaurant has excellent pizza from a wood burning oven as well as a variety of pasta and meat dishes and great wines by the bottle. If it's nice, get a table outside and enjoy the people watching in DuPont Circle.

Cleveland Park
Dino is at the Cleveland Park metro stop, so it's easy to pop onto the train and head out there even if you have no other reason to be in Cleveland Park. This Italian restaurant is in a strip mall, but does not suffer from strip mall blandness in decor, menu, food, wine list, or anything else. All the food is exquisitely prepared, and the owner prides himself on the extensive wine list with affordable bottles. If the strawberry-rhubarb shortcake is on the dessert menu, order it. Maybe as an appetizer and then again as dessert. As mentioned above, Dino extends restaurant week throughout the entire month. There was no vegetarian entree option on the RW menu, and they made me up an amazing plate anyway at no extra charge.

Woodley Park
Lebanese Taverna isn't quite a splurge, but it's not quite cheap either so I'll include it on this list. This local chain (with lots more locations) serves up consistently good Lebanese food in a great variety. The small plates are great for sharing with the table, and they have full plates for those who don't enjoy the communal food experience. The green beans are really, really good. The Taverna is located across the street from the metro stop, so it's a good last stop in Woodley for dinner after a visit to the zoo; it's a convivial and somewhat noisy place and therefore pretty kid-friendly.

Capitol Hill
Sonoma, a few blocks from the Capitol and a pretty quick walk from the Capitol South stop, brought California cuisine (and wine!) to DC. Start with a cheese plate or charcuterie, or end with the cheese plate if you're more European. Just don't miss the cheese plate. You can order 3, 6, or 9 cheeses and various accompaniments. You can order bottles of course, but Sonoma's space-agey wine preservation system allows them to offer many varieties by the glass. I'm sure your server can recommend wine pairings for your courses. I like the pizza, but they have a variety of entrees to choose from. The restaurant is easy to miss because the sign is just its name frosted into the glass above the door (this sort of thing drives me crazy). Check the address and look closely.

Crystal CityBebo Trattoria was opened by Roberto Donna as a more casual addition to his empire, the flagship of which is Galileo (I already gave my opinion on this one), and the flagship within Galileo is the Laboratorio--a chef's table. Bebo's space in Crystal City used to be occupied by Jose Andres's Oyamel, which has since moved to 7th and E. Because it's outside the District, the dining room is much bigger than your average DC restaurant, which I assume makes it a little easier to get a table. I've only eaten from the bar menu, but the food was great and the wine selection excellent. The service here is notoriously bad and my experience was no exception (one bartender alleged there was no bar menu when we knew there was one and finally another bartender gave us one; super super slow). If you're willing to trade good food at more affordable prices for bad service, I recommend a visit.

My wish list
There are a few restaurants I haven't been to that have been on my list to get to eventually. Some opened after I had already left the lucrative job, some I just didn't get around to before leaving. If you would like to make my dreams come true, please leave a comment. :-P If you try them for yourself, leave a comment to let me know how it was!

Restaurant Eve (Old Town Alexandria) is the brainchild of new critical darling Cathal Armstrong. Within the restaurant is the tasting room, which does multi-course meals (ten-ish I believe) of whatever tickles the chef's fancy that day. Apparently, if you call ahead they will do a vegetarian tasting menu. In the dining room, the birthday cake dessert is supposed to be fabulous. Armstrong also runs Eamonn's Dublin Chipper, a fish and chips place. Do NOT go there if you are vegetarian, as the fish and chips are fried in the same oil and there is literally nothing for you (i.e., me) to eat. If you eat fish it is supposed to be fantastic.

Cafe Atlantico Minibar (Penn Quarter) is another tasting experience, this one of the gastro-chemistry variety. The most famous (notorious?) item is probably the foie gras cotton candy. I wouldn't have this of course, but Jose Andres also says he will do a vegetarian tasting menu with advance notice. You have to give advance notice anyway--the minibar is usually booked up for months. Call far ahead of when you'd like to do it; I believe they open the reservation book two months in advance and you pretty much have to call the day the reservation becomes available to get it. Minibar is located in Cafe Atlantico. This is the only Jose Andres restaurant I don't particularly care for. It's Mexican-ish food, but I am not wowed by it. Maybe the meat dishes are better than the one veggie option on the menu. The tableside-prepared guacamole is good, though.

Restaurant Nora is a certified organic restaurant. It's quite expensive and not as veggie friendly as you'd expect a certified organic restaurant to be. I'd like to try it someday, but the price tag and limited veggie options have put me off so far.

I haven't yet been to Heritage India (Upper Georgetown/Cathedral area) more because of location than price. The only way to get to upper Georgetown is to drive or take the bus. I hate driving anyway, and I really hate not to be able to enjoy a glass of wine with my meal because I've driven. The 30 buses are fine, but buses are always few and far between at night. There are always cabs, of course, but getting into a cab to me equals getting into a car with a man I don't know who probably has nothing to lose. I really don't like taking cabs. However, it is reputed to be the best Indian in town with a lovely atmosphere and I'll bite the bullet and get out there someday.

Central, pronounced the French way, is the less expensive sister restaurant (sound familiar? this is a very popular thing among DC star chefs right now) of Michel Richard Citronelle, arguably DC's premier restaurant, and unquestionably one of its fanciest. Citronelle is not only stratospherically out of my price range, it is also French. We have already established the veggie-hostility of French food so really, there would be no point in me going to Citronelle. I would perhaps someday like to go have dessert at the bar because Michel Richard is a pastry chef by training and I hear the desserts are out of this world. Anyway, Central is closer to my price range and hell, it's Michel Richard, DC's honest to god French chef. Incidentally, if you know a little of Michel Richard's life story it makes you want to try his food even more. He was completely neglected as a child and was sent out to work around age 9. He didn't go to culinary school, but learned the art of food through apprenticeship. Now he lives a big cushy life as a celebrity chef, though a chef's life with its brutal hours and non-stop physical exertion cannot really be called cushy, but he was not to the manner born. He's the quintessentially French chef with the quintessentially American success story.

Vegetarian Buddhist Nirvana and Fountain Friends, Thursday 27 March 2008

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:08:00 +0000

I had a very brief awakening around 4 but went right back to sleep. I am finally adjusting to the time! The anti-malarial dreams are starting to kick in, though. I haven't had an apocalyptic dream in years (I was raised in a household that believed very much in the apocalypse and the dreams plagued for years and years, even after I moved out) but I dreamt of a reprise of Noah's flood. I was trying to decide to which of two cabins in which I had a share to flee. Also, the anti-malarials apparently bring references from the TV show Friends to all my dreams. Odd.

I had my yogurt, fruit, and bread for breakfast. Yay for yummy breakfast! I hadn't scheduled myself to give any presentations on the last half day, because when the trip was first planned the e-commerce seminar was set to overlap. However, they rescheduled the e-commerce seminar to accommodate me and I had an easy morning. Lunch was more marigolds. These had the flowers included, which I hadn't had before. They were a little like the tender inner leaves of an artichoke.

The minibus on the ride back was a tad rickety and I feared for its power of forward motion, but we arrived without incident. J and S were going back to the Renaissance Riverside hotel, and I was checking into the Majestic Hotel as it was my conference location. It was quite nice, with a complimentary fruit bowl and water. The lovely wooden floors did rather accentuate the endless tapping of high heels above me (I later learned I was below the ballroom, which was being prepped, I can only assume for a wedding). The bathroom was hilariously opulent.

I emailed J and S, as we had planned to go to the market together. Two hours later they still hadn't responded so I set off on my own. The market's location seems evident on the map, but I couldn't quite triangulate myself to the right location. I kept wandering down shady looking (but well-populated) streets that smelled of either sour milk or urine. I later learned that the renownedly stinky durian fruit is experienced by some as sour milk, so that mystery was cleared up. I willed myself, with some success, not to feel uncomfortable. I live in a neighborhood that an outsider might find uncomfortable, but it is not actually dangerous and I just assumed it was the same in Vietnam.

I finally oriented myself to the circle and realized I had to cross it. Here's how you cross the street: you just do it. The traffic never stops, not even for red lights. They will swerve around you (usually), but they won't stop. So you just step out into the road into oncoming traffic. Seriously, without even getting hit it really diminishes your life expectancy because of the sheer strain on your heart. By this time, the market proper was closing so only the outdoor stalls of knockoffs and such were open. I had noticed some purses covered in fabric roses in shop windows. I found one on the street and the asking prices was 100.000 Dong. I talked the girl down to 50.000, around $3.50. I wasn't sure whether this was good or bad, but later I checked out prices on the purses and they were 100.000 everywhere, so think my first bargaining experience was successful.

I also found an alley of food markets, which was full of locals. Here is where they hide all the vegetables! There was also much meat. There were no beans anywhere. They appear just not to be eaten here. I really don't think I could live in Vietnam because I freaking love beans. They are a vegetarian's best friend--a low fat, high fiber source of protein. Well, with that nutrition profile they should be everyone's best friend. As to the side effects, your body's enzyme balance quickly adjusts if you eat a lot of them and they have no ill effects on my digestion system whatsoever.

I had to re-cross the circle to get to the Tin Nghia (Buddhist) Vegetarian Restaurant. I took a break in the park that wedges into the circle, where some sort of aerobics was going on. But it just involved holding your arms above your head and waving them in time to clubby music, and then making a quarter turn and doing the same thing. There were a lot of people participating, but then they all sort of realized that there was not going to be any more to it than the waving of the arms (I, too, kept waiting for the dance portion to kick in) and people started to drop out.

The restaurant is the epitome of a hole-in-the-wall, literally. While it has a metal grate they can close at night, it does not have a wall for a door facing the street. I ordered a spring roll, stir fried mushrooms and snow peas (the latter were DIVINE), and mushrooms and wheat gluten in pepper sauce--actual spicy food! woot!, rice, and a large water. I'm sure this was more food than one person should politely order, but I'd been starving in the provinces all week! I was finally full and only felt semi-gross about it. The total was around 50.000.

I walked back to the hotel along Dong Khoi. I stopped at the little strip of park with a fountain in front of the opera house. It was kid central and the sellers of balloon animals on sticks were cleaning up. I sat at the fountain, which I later noticed was one of those abstract family sculpture things, just enjoying it.

A woman sat next to me and we had a nice conversation. Her English was impressive, though I sometimes had a hard time with her her pronunciation. She asked me if I was married, of course. We turned out to be around the same age. It was a very pleasant encounter. I think she invited me back to her home, but (1) I couldn't really tell, and (2) it felt weird. Thinking back on it, I can see that if I ran across a French speaking tourist in DC who was helping me practice French and seemed nice and normal I might invite her home so I guess it's not that weird. She let me take pictures of her daughter, who loved seeing herself on the camera.

I stopped into a store with this really cool pleated gingham silk skirts. The pleats were gathered so that the yoke of the skirt appeared to be solid and then opened out from there, similar in concept to Vogue 8353. I asked the price and was told "Ninety-five." Only later did I realize this was in USD and was glad they hadn't had my size.

I sat in the hotel lobby and had a "Happy Saigon," some sort of fruity cocktail, while prepping for my conference the next day. A hilariously mournful jazz band played and Russians sat next to me. I was so caught up in it all that I accidentally went to bed late.

You can see all the photos of Saigon, and all photos from this trip if you'd like.

Houses on Stilts and a Bride in a Box, Wednesday 26 March 2008

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:38:00 +0000

I woke at 4 and took a melatonin, but it didn't help this time. I laid there for a couple of hours, then got up and did some yoga. A rooster began to crow and workmen began to bang but somehow I fell asleep again.

I brought a yogurt and dragonfruit down to breakfast and was so much happier than I had been with the greasy runny eggs!

The morning program went smoothly, and at lunch we got the Vietnamese food rather than the "special" Western meal. I had tofu and rice to go with my marigolds this time, and it was much better.

During the siesta period we went to the market area to get S some shirts. We had all packed for business attire, but when we got to the conference they told us it would be business casual! I was all set because I could just throw a jacket over the dresses I'd brought for the tourist portion of the trip, and J (the male co-worker) is a casual dresser and I don't think brought any suits anyway. But S had only long sleeve shirts and was dying.

Judging by the fact that this was among the three questions *everyone* asked of me, being married is a huge part of Vietnamese culture. And therefore *getting* married is a big deal and big business in Vietnam. There are bridal stores everywhere and elaborate weddings every night of the week. My first night in HCMC I walked by a restaurant that was having a wedding during the processional. I didn't get to see the bride, but she was preceded by two flower girls in white dresses wearing silver angel wings and tossing white flower petals as they went. The weddings are westernized, but not wholly western. The bridesmaids all seem to wear white, for instance. This confused me the first time I walked by a restaurant with eight "brides" standing outside to greet the guests! I finally figured out these had to be the bridesmaids. Anyway, the bridal stores have these freestanding plexiglass cubes out on the sidewalks that hold a mannequin wearing an elaborate dress to advertise the store. Even though the mannequins are obviously not real people, it still weirded me out somehow to think of a person in a plexiglass box slowly suffocating. I was hoping to get a picture of one, but alas once I was *looking* for one I didn't see any more.

After lunch, unfortunately there was no participation in the practicum I was teaching. It's hard to get people motivated after lunch, no matter what culture you're in! I did a unit on consumer education, which was a little more successful because I passed out consumer ed tchotchkes so people had stuff to play with to help them keep awake. The swag was a huge hit.

We finished the day's session at 5, and were to meet at 6:30 for dinner, so J, S, and I headed down to the river. Although I had gone on the boat tour the first night and been to the waterside restaurant the night before, somehow I had missed the coolest part of the river which was the houses--well, shacks really--built on stilts on the opposite bank. Very photo-oppy. The little kids all stared and said, "Hello!"

We walked along the bank and saw a ferry loading to take people home at the end of their day.

The boats gliding through the river saw their way with eyes painted on the prows.

We crossed the bridge at rush hour just for the death-defyingness of it, and watched a little boy launch a kite from his balcony. It took many tries, but he was persistent and eventually got it up into the air.

Finally, we watched the sun go down over the colonial decay of this French-style building.

At the restaurant, same as the night before, I just wanted stir-fried vegetables and rice rather than the feast that had been ordered for me the night before. Which I got. It was perfect. They also ordered some fried dough in the shape of mushrooms; it was a little sweet and quite good. There is nothing bad about fried dough.

The translator guy sat next to me and was kind of like a really good boyfriend, making my life easier in a totally unobtrusive way by making sure I had the food I'd ordered, my water glass stayed full, that sort of thing. I could get used to that!

There were 11 of us at dinner and it was really nice to socialize with our Vietnamese colleagues. I'd been feeling like we had been missing out on the most rewarding cultural exchange part of the trip, based on what people had described from past experiences of late night karaoke and learning a few of one another's words. We had been pretty segregated for the most part and that had disappointed me.

I was less ready to drop into oblivion at 9 on the dot. I think the day before had been the worst of the jet lag. Day 3 is always the worst jet lag for me, no matter where I am or how much the lag.

You can see all the photos of the Mekong Delta, and all photos from this trip if you'd like.

Time to Work, and a Visit to the (Super)Market, Tuesday 25 March 2008

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Thu, 22 May 2008 01:12:00 +0000

I woke around 3, but a melatonin put me back to sleep. Don't even tell me it's a placebo because it's a placebo that works! My dreams were vivid, but not noteworthy. So far no anti-malarial nightmares, which was a huge relief. I am very lucky not to have many nightmares, but my dreams are very vivid and realistic so when I do have nightmares they are *terrifying.*

For breakfast we had the choice of meat-ful pho or runny fried egg. And I do mean fried. I think they were deep fried. Puke. I ate as much of the white as I could choke down plus a baguette-ish roll. I am going to be hungry yet gain weight on this trip. I asked for fruit, but it is only for dessert in Vietnam. I was told that I could go to a store at lunch.

The conference center was nice; the meeting room looked like a chapel with elaborately carved wooden chairs and quite convincing silk flower arrangements everywhere. Ho Chi Minh presided. At tea break I ate a sickly sweet roll because I knew I had to (based on my food experiences so far), plus 1 1/2 mangoes. Yay fruit!

At lunch the Westerners were served grayish-green hot dogs and fried potatoes. Double puke. Eventually we got the same Vietnamese food everyone else was having, including some stir fried marigold greens. I ate greens. I felt bad seeming like such a sourpuss for just eating greens, but I just can't eat meat. It will make me sick at this point, as it's been 15 years.

After lunch the translator guy took me to buy fruit. I assumed we'd go to one of the many stands selling the most beautiful looking fresh fruit but no, we cabbed to a supermarket at the edge of town. It's funny, I think this is always our instincts with tourists, to provide them with what we think is familiar to them rather than the local experience they crave. The produce did not look great and the stickers indicated it had been imported from Australia. I got oranges, tangerines, grapes, strawberries, and some sort of Laughing Cow-type soft cheese spread triangles and yogurt. There was no dragonfruit, which was the one thing I really wanted! I asked the translator if the dairy was pastuerized, but this was beyond his vocabulary and experience. He went off to find me a small folding knife and I paid. The cash register screen showed my change as 2000 some VND. The cashier gave me 500. I pointed to the screen and she swapped my 500 for 600. Hmph. We're talking a few cents here, but it irked me.

We got back barely in time for the afternoon session. I felt bad because Vietnamese generally have a long lunch with a siesta and he got no rest because of ferrying me around.

My first presentation was in the afternoon, the dryest one I was to give *and* the last presentation of a long day. But amazingly people were engaged and asked a ton of questions. I had whipped out a few of my Vietnamese phrases earlier in the day and I think people really liked me for it. I'm sure I was their favorite. `-)

After the day was over we went to the market. It was the same as any market in a poorer country--not rich handicrafts drawn from millenia of tradition, but cheap plastic crap from China, just acres of it. I spotted a fruit stand, where I got some dragonfruit. Yay!

We also spotted some beautiful, huge, waxy red flowers at the flower stand. The flowers were about 10 inches in diameter and the petals radiated from a central cone. The stems were about 3 1/2 feet tall. We got three of them at a dollar each and J and I shared custody.

As we were leaving a spotted a fabric stall. Yum. I couldn't resist. I got two meters of orange polka dot cotton batiste swiss dot. It is so cute! It was $2/meter.

Then we were off to a waterfront restaurant for a sunset dinner (that's the view from the table). I was ordered stir fried marigolds, tofu, and stir fried vegetables. It was a lot of food. It was as good as it could have been--though some chili heat would not have been amiss--but I just didn't like it. It was greasy, and if I'm having greasy food the grease better be coming from cheese. Otherwise I just wanted steamed or roasted vegetables. I ate it and smiled, of course! I wouldn't dream of appearing ungrateful for effort put out on my behalf.

There were tons of tiny geckos along the outside of the frosted glass upper windows. Only on the outside and only on the frosted glass. Funny.

You can see all the photos of the Mekong Delta, and all photos from this trip if you'd like.

The Mekong Delta in Half a Night, Monday 24 March Cont.

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:53:00 +0000

The minibus had a/c and the ride took less than two hours. I expected some picturesque countryside but it is suburban strip mall the whole way. Not the Old Navy and Home Depot and Target strip mall that is now all of America, but still not so exciting.

In the center median was a marsh with gorgeous purple water lilies in bloom. I couldn't get a picture of any until nighttime when the flowers were closed, but you'll have to take my word on it that they were pretty. We passed some cultivated water fields of some sort--rice, fish, I don't know. We saw some cows, and they looked pretty fat and happy. They are smaller and leaner than our cows, but in a good way, like their DNA hasn't been contorted for a preference for one cut or the other.

I enjoyed talking to J, and I tried out the words I had painstakingly learned from the Pimsleur tape on one of our translators. He said my accent was very good. I'm pretty sure that was mere politeness (and a little bit of a crush) on his part, but I felt good nevertheless.

We arrived in My Tho city in the Tien Giang province. The hotel was state run. I assumed that it was just a cheap alternative to a commercial Western-style hotel, but I later learned that it is a great honor to stay at a People's Committee Guesthouse. Only high ranking party members and honored foreign guests are permitted. It was still under construction, which appeared to require a great deal of vigorous banging on water pipes, and had a smell I found...unpleasant. To put it politely and mildly.

We checked in and somebody carried my heavy ridiculous suitcase up the stairs for me. I was simultaneously relieved and guilty. I had packed for two weeks and three completely different trips--work, pleasure, and a wedding on the way home and I just had so much stuff. It was insane. I'm never traveling with a suitcase that big again.

We had 30 minutes to unpack and refresh before our tour of the Mekong Delta. We piled into a minivan cab and drove all of 1 km to the river. It would have taken less time to walk there than it took us to wait for the cab! At the pier there were tall pikes sticking up, and kids were jumping off them to make spectacular splashes. They were so cute! I think often this kind of spectacle is put on for tourists for tips, but there hadn't been any other tourists around when we arrived and they didn't ask for tips so I think it was just for the sheer joy of it.

We got into our riverboat and headed out into the Mekong. Our first stop was Unicorn Island. It's a well-touristed island but people really actually live and make their living there, so it was kind of the best of both worlds.

We went first to the honey place, where we were invited to hold up a screen of bees, as demonstrated by the apiarist. I declined, though they were quite calm. My parents used to keep bees when I was a kid. There is nothing like fresh honey eaten off the comb. We sat at little tables and had tea with honey and the juice of tiny limes the size of kumquats. It was delicious. We also had coconut candy, candied lotus flowers, candied ginger, dried banana, and peanut candy. All of them were great. The men were offered banana wine to increase their male potency. J and I insisted on having some too. I don't know about male potency, but it was quite potent. It was like drinking sweet mouthwash. I bought some coconut candy, which was wrapped first in clear edible rice paper and then wax paper. It was pretty greasy.

We left the honey place and walked along the path to the fruit place. We had dragonfruit, pineapple, and little things the size of large grapes and the texture of tapioca pearls with a big stone in the middle to be peeled and eaten. I think maybe they were called may apples? In Vietnam, fruit is eaten with toothpicks and served with a (dry) mixture of salt and hot pepper that you squeeze a lime over and then dip your fruit into. It is so good. I never would have thought of it, but what is not to love about fruit, salt, and heat? I love all of those things. While we are busy eating the fruit we are mostly left to ourselves, except one very curious young girl. She LOVED digital cameras, because you could take a picture of her and then she could see herself.

There was traditional singing accompanied by two-stringed instruments. The adorable four year old girl who loves to have her picture taken sang first, then four women sang. The men played the instruments. There was a girl of around 8-10 "backstage" (behind the picnic tables where the singing was) but she didn't participate. I wonder if she used to be the adorable one and how she feels about it now. Somehow, as the oldest child, I really identified with her. Of course, maybe she is just shy and didn't want to sing! The women didn't wear full ao dai, but fitted shirt with raglan sleeves that are similar to the ao dai. They were cute.

Next we got into canoes and were rowed down the canals. Mostly women did the rowing. The woman rowing at the front of our canoe sat with her feet tucked under her on one side and was incredibly strong and fast.

It was very dreamy and surreal to be riding through the canoe at dusk with bats criscrossing the water, reeds on either side, and palm fronds dipping into the waves. I felt like I was in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. It's funny how a new reality feels less real than a familiar fake world!

We got back onto the riverboat and were given green coconuts with straws. I was saddened to discover that while I love coconut, I don't really care for green coconut milk. The coconuts were in honor of our next stop, Dragon Island, home of the Coconut Monk. He started his own religioun after subsisting solely on coconuts (possibly) for 3 years (or 10). As with any good eccentric, lots of stories circulated and it was impossible know which was true. During the American war his sect was quite popular, as being a monk excused you from conscription. After the war all the followers drifted off and the religion trailed to an end.

He had spent his last years building for himself a fantastic mosaic funerary urn, at least 10 feet tall. The (new) government decided he couldn't be buried in it, though. I didn't ask where his body was instead, but I was curious. It was full dark by now so we couldn't really get the full feel for it, but I love it. It's huge and gaudy. There were also nine dragon towers on what felt like a basketball court, one male and (natch) his eight wives.

Then we were back to the mainland and dinner at the hotel. There was a hotpot of fish and a plate of fish. I got an egg and fried potatoes. This was not at all good and will make me fat. If I'm going to get fat I want it to be off cheese and ice cream! I dipped a potato into what I thought was a chili sauce. Oh dear! I discovered the source of the hotel's unpleasant (to me) smell. Vietnamese fish sauce is not my cup of tea, to say the least.

Jet lag was catching up with me and I was quiet at dinner. After dinner I had a shower and ran out of hot water halfway through. Bummer. It took me several days to figure out the hot water heater situation. I was asleep in a heartbeat!

You can see all the photos of the Mekong Delta, and all photos from this trip if you'd like.

Ho Chi Minh City in Half a Day, Monday 24 March 2008

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:42:00 +0000

My coworkers S and J had arrived the previous night so we arranged to meet in the lobby at 9 for breakfast. I woke at 6 and couldn't go back to sleep. I did some yoga. Obvs, I was desperate. It helped me relax, but I still couldn't sleep.

I got up and ate the fruit that had been left in my room as a welcome. There were some tiny bananas and tiny tangerines. Both were delish. I dressed and met S and J in the lobby. They wanted to do the hotel breakfast, which is so not my style ($20!!!). I told them there were plenty of Western style coffee shops on the Dong Khoi right outside our hotel (Starbucks, Gloria Jean's) but they didn't seem interested. Oh well. I knew it would be a substantial breakfast, at least. I had an omelet, baked beans, hash browns, and some unusual fruit that was white fleshed with little black seeds that looked like kiwi seeds except for evenly dispersed. It seemed a little like a melon. (I later realized I'd had my first dragonfruit, which was my favorite new fruit of the trip.) I also had some orange fruit that I thought would be mango but I think it was passionfruit.

We headed out for sightseeing and hit the Opera house first and then on to the People's Committee Building, which is the city hall of HCMC. It is a very elaborate wedding cake style and the small grounds are quite lovely and well-manicured. I guess something is always blooming at the equator, but it sure looked like Spring here. I was missing the cherry blossoms in DC, so I had to enjoy all the flowers I could!

Next we went to the Mariamman Hindu Temple. Even from the outside it is fantastic--bright and colorful like children's blocks. My savvy traveler ego was again wounded when I had incense shoved in one hand and a flower bracelet placed on the other. Normally I am so good at Tourist Defensive Maneuvers, but Asia is getting the better of me. The key, I later realized, is to have both hands full--map in one, camera in the other. Then there are no hands in which to shove unwanted souvenirs. The goddess honored by the temple offers fertility and love, so I waved the incense around, hoping for both. It actually took a little work to get accosted by whomever had shoved the incense in my hand but I gave her 25,000 VND or whatever and moved on.

We walked over in the direction of the post office and the Catholic cathedral and stopped for some cold drinks. It was a hot day. I was drinking my bottled water when I spotted an HSBC bank across the street. I tried my ATM card there, and thank goodness it worked! Every time I got cash I had to try two ATMs. A lot of the banks are not on the international network. So if your card doesn't work don't panic! Just find another ATM.

The Notre Dame Cathedral closed its doors just as we got there (I can't believe this was merely coincidence!). It's quite large and looming, but somehow its placement on a busy traffic circle seems not quite right, especially since you have to cross the traffic circle to get to the statue of Mary and the little gardens.

The Post Office has great tropical colonial architecture, with a high arched ceiling that makes it look like a train station. But I felt very Western-centric for liking it and being impressed. It's a very Western building and I was there to appreciate Eastern traditions and sensibilities. Well, really I was there to work, but you know what I mean.

It was time to go back to the hotel where we needed to check out. We regrouped for lunch. S wanted to go to a restaurant with air conditioning, but all of the "nice" Vietnamese restaurants were quite expensive. We went to Gilray across from the Opera, a diner-type restaurant with a mish-mash menue. I got the only vegetarian item on the menu, the Spaghetti Napoletana, which was surprisingly quite good. The noodles were perfectly al dente and topped with a tangy tomato sauce, bell peppers, and possibly zucchini. With a bottle of water it was about 100,000 VND ($6). The pastries looked delicious, but as I had just eaten a whole plate of simple carbs I figured I should pass.

Back at the hotel we had about an hour before we would be met by our hosts and head to the conference site so I made a beeline for the rooftop pool. I didn't bring my camera, which was a shame, because it is just lovely. The pool area is very nice and it has an amazing view of the city. The chairs were quite comfy and I had no trouble finding shade to protect my pale self from the sun. I recommend this hotel if only for the pool!

Down in the lobby I met everyone from our host agency. The introductions were flying fast and furious and it was all names that are not familiar to me. I knew I would never remember everyone...or anyone. I am bad with names to begin with! Included in the party was J, who works for a sister agency and is living abroad for two years under the aegis of the Commercial Foreign Service (I never knew there was such a thing). She would be presenting on a topic in which the Vietnamese had great interest and which my agency doesn't cover, so it was very nice that we could get her. And plus, that way I didn't feel so outnumbered (S and J are both men).

You can see all photos of HCMC, and all photos from this trip if you'd like.

First Night in Vietnam and Australian Food, Sunday, 23 March 2008 Cont.

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:38:00 +0000

The flight to Vietnam was fine and uneventful. The seats were so spacious! And they even serve you a little snack. It was quite a luxury. In Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) you have to go through x-ray screening at nothing to declare before you can leave the airport. They weren't even looking at the screen to see if people were not declaring that which should be declared.

I had read about the taxi rip-offs in Vietnam and thought I was prepared. Ha! I walked outside of the airport and a guy asked me if I wanted a taxi. I said yes. He took my suitcase and put it in the cab. He said it would be $15. I said I knew it was supposed to be around $7 and he had to use the meter. He said, No, it's $15. You buy a card and it's $15. And flashed a little card, about the size of a business card with a little clear plastic window with a hologram. A pretty official looking card. I said meter. He said it was broken. I gave up, defeated and annoyed. I feared this trip would get the best of me, despite my savvy traveler ego.

After bidding a bitter farewell to my cab driver at the Renaissance Riverside Hotel I crossed the beautiful lobby to check in. I hit a snag when they asked for my government work ID so I could get the government rate. Well, I don't travel with my work ID! For goodness sake! I use it to get into the building but not outside of work. They were all, "Just get your husband to fax it over." UGH! I don't have a husband, people! Or a boyfriend, or a partner, or a significant other, or anyone who can do this for me. I have nobody. I am alone in this world. Do you really, really want to make that any worse? Finally I asked them whether the official passport I'd already handed over wasn't enough? Oh yeah, sure. Goodness!

I was very tired. The city was overwhelming. It was very busy and I wasn't quite sure what there was to see, and where I was in relation to what there is to see. I rallied myself to go to an ATM--where my card was declined! Oh crap. I didn't have enough cash for two weeks in a cash economy, by any stretch. My podunk credit union does not have an out-of-country collect number to call or 24 hour customer service. I went to the hotel business center to email them, knowing it was only Sunday morning in the States and it would be a loooong weekend of waiting for an answer.

I again rallied myself to leave the hotel. I walked up and down Dong Khoi, sort of the high end tourist main drag. I didn't take one single photo, so this is a very boring post.

I was foraging for a restaurant when I remembered that I kind of don't like Asian food. Hmm. I found Jaspa's, which had been mentioned in the English language magazine in the hotel. It is random foods of the world by some Australian expats. Perfect. I had a lentil, beet, and goat cheese salad, a pina colada, and a bottle of water for 250,000 VND (about $16) including tip. This is a lot to pay for a meal in Vietnam, but less than you'd pay in the States so I figured it evened out. I love legumes and they're not much used in Vietnamese cooking, so I was glad I'd had lentils while I could.

I finally let myself collapse in the hotel, where I accidentally wet my toothbrush with tap water. Dang! I rubbed some hand sanitizer on it. I took the first malaria pill of the trip, wondering what kind of trippy dreams it would give me.

I turned on the TV and proved the theory that at any given moment there is an episode of CSI on somewhere in the world. And then I went to sleep.

You can see all thephotos I later took of HCMC, and all photos from this trip if you'd like.

Hong Kong Walk of Fame and On to Saigon, Sunday, 23 March 2008

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:25:00 +0000

I had no trouble falling asleep night but jet lag woke me up at 3. I tried to fall alseep on my own for about half an hour then took a melatonin. I don't want to hear that it's a placebo because it totally works for me. I went back to sleep and then made myself get up at 8.

For breakfast I ate the yogurt I bought in the Chicago airport (I have a casual attitude toward refrigerating yogurt) and an apple from home while sitting at the little table in front of my picture window with harbor view. It's another gray day, but it doesn't seem to be too cold.

I headed out around 9, walking along the water in a southerly direction. It wasn't too chilly and the view of the Hong Kong skyline was spectacular.

My walk along the boardwalk soon brought me to the Walk of Stars, Hong Kong's answer to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. There were lots of tourists and they were going crazy for the photo ops! In addition to the stars in the sidewalk there are also bronze still-life statuary groupings, such as a director's chair, someone with a megaphone, and a light. People were having a blast posing in the still lifes. I didn't know most of the actors, but I got Jet Li and Jackie Chan, just for fun.

I arrived at the pier/harbor at the end of the boardwalk where there is a lovely clock tower and these awesome huge lanterns/balloons of the olympic figures just stacked up in front of the tower all topsy turvy. Another girl and I take pictures of one another in front of them. To horribly generalize for a moment, I love that Asian tourists are so into picture taking, because she felt no compunction about telling me exactly where to stand and exactly what she wanted included in her picture, and she did the same for me. Since I am generally traveling alone I rely on the kindness of strangers to take photos to prove I have conquered something, and Western tourists usually just snap and go without thinking about framing or scale or composition or what have you.

I headed up to the observation deck and asked another girl to take a pic of me with the skyline. Quel surprise, elle parle seulement le francais. I really need to work on mine. And after insulting Western tourists' photography skills in the previous paragraph I should say the she asked me if I wanted a face shot or "entiere," and she did a great job with the full length photo.

It's a little before 10 and nothing is open yet, so no shopping for me. I wasn't that keen on it anyway, as I don't buy expensive clothes at home and am unlikely to do so abroad. If I want something expensive-style I'll make it. The Hong Kong Art Museum is nearby and opens at 10, so I hang out on the observation deck for another 20 minutes. More French tourists, this time a dad with two little kids. I wondered if the mom was off somewhere or if he'd brought them to Hong Kong by himself.

Entrance to the art museum is $10 HKD, less than $1.50 and a small price to pay for the bathroom alone. I went first to the Hong Kong artists contemporary art exhibition, including a large installation piece by Kwok the Frog King. It's fun--very colorful street art style and I like that the museum is open to that kind of thing. The rest of the contemporary art was also interesting--lots of men leading lives of quiet despair. There were also displays of Chinese calligraphy, Chinese painting, Chinese ceramics, Chinese jade, and Chinese gold. As I wasn't heading to China, I appreciated the chance to see some of the artifacts. As would strike me again and again throughout the trip, I loved that I had gone so recently to Greece and could compare what was going on in the different civilizations at different times. The technology and even the motifs and some of the styles were remarkably similar. There have always been people with itchy feet, I guess. It is a nice space and the collections are not overwhelming. I highly recommend a visit.

In the courtyard of the museum there were the five Olympic figures representing the five Olympic rings. These girls were going nuts over them and I kept waiting for them to move aside so I could get a clear picture. But then I decided their enthusiasm was kind of cute and just took my pics with them in them. Olympic fever is definitely sweeping China and its possessions.

After about an hour at the museum I headed back down the boardwalk to the hotel. As I was crossing the pedestrian bridge I was greeted by an Indian man. Not wanting to be unfriendly I said Hi back and he then proceeded to tell me my fortune. I was annoyed that I had gotten taken in--it's not like me to be so gullible--but I listened. He wrote down something on a scrap of paper and had me hold it. He said that 8-8-08 would be lucky for me. Well, I assume it will be lucky for everybody if it's lucky at all. He looked at my palm and told me I was lucky in love. If you call 33, hopelessly single, and childless "lucky," well I suppose he's right. It is not, however, the conventional definition of lucky in love. Then he asked me my favorite color. I said "Blue, I guess." I unfolded the paper, which said blue. Considering I was wearing a blue dress and blue glasses, it was not too much of a leap. I thought he was saying something about I should go stay with his sister, but then I think he was calling me "my sister." Anyway, at the end of course he told me to give him money. I said I didn't have any local currency. He said my currency was fine. I gave him a dollar. He was pissed. I was like, whatevs. A dollar for a wholly inaccurate unsolicited fortune seems fair to me.

I went to a bakery and picked up a custard corn bun and strawberry cake for lunch, each about $15 HKD ($2.50). The bun, unfortunately, was gross--the only corn kernels were on the outside, about give of them, and the custard was a sweet orange paste. I was hoping it was a savory cheese bun. The strawberry cake was pretty good--it was filled with a thick strawberry jam-like substance that tasted like real strawberries. In fact, when I was first eating it I thought it was real strawberries until I looked. I also picked up a mango sago, which was just as good as the coconut and the same $6 HKD.

Checkout at the Nikko was easy, but I had a 20 minute wait for the shuttle bus. At the Airport Express station you can check your bags! It was fantastic! I had no problems checking in at Vietnam Air with my paper ticket and they took my bag and tagged it through to Ho Chi Minh City. It was great not having any baggage wrangling on the train and at the airport.

The train ride was quick and easy. Once I got to the airport passport control took a bit of time, but I still had plenty to buy a fashion magazine (only about $2 US) and get lunch. After checking out all the food court options I got a mushroom rice bowl and a bottle of water from one of the places for $85 HKD ($14, your typical airport markup). It was more greasy than it appeared in the photo, but I appreciated the mushroom variety and soy chicken (?-it wasn't animal, but it wasn't vegetable either). There were like 2 cups of rice in there! I don't care for rice so I didn't eat much of that.

You can see all my Hong Kong photos, including lots of Olympiana, and all photos from this trip if you'd like.

Hong Kong Trendy, Saturday, 22 March 2008

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:19:00 +0000

We left Chicago about 20 minutes late because it was snowing there (the horror) and our 20 minute descent into Hong Kong took an hour so we landed about 40 minutes late. Not that I had any pressing engagements.

Passport control in Hong Kong was easy--they have little hard candies at each station, which I thought was a nice touch--and my bag was...wait for it...the FIRST bag off the conveyor belt. Never in my life has that happened. It was amazing. I took it as a good omen.

I bought my ticket for the Airport Express train at the ticket counter, though I could have used one of the machines. A two-way ticket is $160 HKD (about $23 USD) and my eerily smooth sailing continued as I jumped on the train within moments and was on my way to Kowloon and the Hotel Nikko. The train route is pretty nice--lovely views of the water. I never really realized that (1) Hong Kong is a collection of several islands, and (2) the islands are quite small. Huh.

Several of the nicer hotels in Kowloon run shuttle service in conjunction with the airport train, including the Nikko, so I made my way to the buses. I just missed mine so had to wait over 30 minutes for the next, which was kind of a bummer but I had my book and snacks and I was trying to will my feet to unpuff.

They have British road rules--the driver is on the right and they drive on the left side of the road. The drive was only slightly terrifying as the minibus driver swerved through tight spots but I survived and less than 24 hours(!!!) after leaving home I arrived at the hotel.

It was quite nice and I was upgraded to a 12th floor water view room. The view was cool (left), though it was a bit noisy from the traffic expressway that runs along the water.

I had a shower and it was brilliant. I wasn't sure what to do about brushing my teeth but finally decided, Eh, Hong Kong is practically British. Surely the water is safe.

I dressed and wandered around for an hour or so, soaking it in and looking for food. Nothing looked appetizing. I was almost tempted to go really lazy and eat at a Western-style hotel curry buffet for way too much at $158 ($22.50) but I decided to give it one more try to find more authentic food for cheaper. I went into a little "shopping mall" of resturants, lured in by the sign for Indian food. The Indian restaurant was having a private party, so I went further upstairs to check out the menu for the Japanese restaurant Tonikaka.

It looked good so I got myself seated and ordered cold tofu ($36), a seaweed and cucumber salad ($38), and asked if the chef could make me an avocado roll. When talking with the chef about my avocado roll the water asked me if sesame seeds were ok? And seaweed? Erm, yes. I'm not sure what he thought I wanted if I didn't want sesame seeds or seaweed!

The food was really delicious. The tofu was the creamiest I've ever had. The cucumber was paper thin and well-flavored. The sushi was stuffed with avocado. Total came to $136, about $20. A little less than the hotel curry buffet and I'm sure a lot better. I don't know about tipping here and my change comes in 20s, so I just left the coins. I hope I didn't stiff my waiter.

With some real food in me I am feeling much better and wander around some more. Oddly, I don't feel like I stick out here, even though there aren't that many Westerners. It's partly height--here I'm not freakishly short, I'm just normal-sized--and partly it's that my style is Hong Kong Trendy. Seriously, I've never been anywhere where people are dressed like me, but that's all I see. It's funny. I don't know whether I'd want to move there or not. Question of the Day: Is it better to have my own style but always feel a little bit off, or to feel cute but look like everyone else?

I get a coconut sago, sort of like a bubble tea but with much smaller tapioca, from a street vendor for $6 and it was divine. I was really hoping the water was safe to drink. I wandered with my coconut sago and took some nighttime skyline pictures from the pedestrian bridge near the hotel and then finally sank into bed, asleep within moments.

You can see all my Hong Kong photos, including a couple more nighttime shots, and all photos from this trip if you'd like.

Departure for Asia, Friday 21 March 2008

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:17:00 +0000

What a difference DCA makes! Unlike my Dulles Debacle for my Greece trip, I left home two hours and 15 minutes before the flight, got on the metro three blocks from home, got off the metro at the airport, and voila.

I was booked into a middle seat for the long flight from Chicago to Hong Kong so I asked the woman working the desk if anything could be done about that. She said, "I'll put you in seat 55J!" and said it was an aisle. Only later would I learn of her perfidy.

I arrived in Chicago a bit paranoid because I thought it was 12:00 and my flight to Hong Kong was at 12:50 and I knew I'd never see my luggage again and I hadn't had the foresight to put any clean underwear in my carry on. Turns out, Chicago is on Central Time and my Blackberry doesn't automatically adapt itself to local time so I was fine. I got a pizza, which was no Chicago pizza but I think being in Chicago elevated the quality of the frozen airport pizza from "necessary calorie packet" to "edible."

I boarded the plane only to find that 55J is a middle seat. Darn you check-in lady! Luckily, the guy sitting next to me was nice so I didn't feel hemmed in. But because I had been changed to an "aisle" seat they didn't have my vegetarian meal request. Luckily, they had an extra one--I suspect it was supposed to have been mine in the first place but who knows. The luncheon curry was actually quite good and even came with yogurt to stand in for raita. There was fruit for dessert, of course. Just because I'm a vegetarian doesn't mean I don't want cake like everyone else! The later lunch-ish meal was stewed vegetables and a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese, also not bad.

I had never taken a sleeping pill in my life before this trip but had asked my doc to write me a few Ambien because I knew I couldn't survive jet lag PLUS staying awake for 24 hours. I cannot sleep on planes unless I am at utter exhaustion so I needed some help. I took one at home just to make sure I wouldn't die of anaphylactic shock (not that this was necessarily a smart move--I live alone so there would be nobody to call 911 as my throat slowly closed) or sleepwalk (I put a large suitcase in front of the door to trip me should I try to leave the house) or sleep eat (I do enough of that while awake, apparently). I had heard it fells grown men mid-sentence so I took it after I was already laying in bed in case I lapsed into unconsciousness the instant it passed my lips. It took me half an hour to fall asleep and I was already pretty tired anyway, so I couldn't really tell if it worked.

On the plane I readied myself for sleep and took the Ambien with fear and trembling of sleep so deep I would accidentally fly back from Hong Kong to Chicago because the flight attendants wouldn't be able to wake me. Nothing!!!! Ambien sucks! I dozed off and on (mostly off) for two hours before giving up. Later I drank a mini bottle of wine and the (verboten) interaction between the two put me out for a couple of hours.

There is no seatback entertainment--boo hiss. I slept through Elizabeth and the sound on Becoming Jane was bad so they switched to No Country for Old Men. I don't watch movies with violence so no movies for me.

At one point I got up to use the bathroom and we were flying over polar ice!!! It was so cool. I didn't see any penguins marching, though.

By the time we landed my feet had swollen to twice their normal size and I really needed a shower.

Vietnam 2008!

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:49:00 +0000

So feel free to hate me, but I went to Vietnam for work. I went to do a couple of seminars--one training their government people in what I do, and one open to the public on data privacy and security in the e-commerce sector. After the work part was done, I took another 5 days off to see what I could of the country in such a short time.

Because time was limited, I decided to go to Da Nang and use it as my base for day trips. Da Nang is well poised for day trips to Hue (the old imperial capitol), Hoi An (a World Heritage site), and the Marble Mountains. Well-poised, I learned when I arrived, does not mean that it's easy or excessively possible. They seem to be building a lot of luxury resorts in the area, so give it three or five years and I think everything will be smooth sailing. For now, it's still a little challenging.

Here's my itinerary:

Friday, 21 March: Leave DC
Saturday, 22 March: Arrive Hong Kong, overnight stay
Sunday, 23 March: Arrive Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon)
Monday, 24 March-Thursday 27 March: My Tho, a city in the Mekong Delta
Friday, 28 March: Ho Chi Minh City
Saturday, 29 March: Arrive Da Nang
Sunday, 30 March: Day trip to Hoi An
Monday, 31 March: Sights around Da Nang, including Marble Mountains
Tuesday, 1 April: Day trip to Hue
Wednesday, 2 April: Return to Saigon
Thursday, 3 April: Depart Vietnam

Pre-Trip Logistics

International Air Transportation

As I was traveling for work I didn't have to worry about (or have much control over) my flights. United Airlines got me there safe and sound, but that's about all I can say for them. Coach class is pretty intensely miserable for such a long flight and they don't do much to make it better.

Pros
-The flight attendants were reasonably nice and friendly
-The alcohol was free when the Ambien failed me
-I lucked out and sat next to nice people both directions

Cons
-Teeny seats that don't recline much
-The vegetarian food, predictably, was protein-free and quite inedible
-The "entertainment" is a joke. In coach class there is one screen at the front of the cabin. At my height and from my seat about halfway back I could see approximately the top 2/3 of the screen--unless someone was standing in the aisle in which case I could see 0/3 of the screen. I missed the fight to be king of the Panzerbjorn in The Golden Compass and the part where the water horse escaped in The Water Horse because of this. The sound sucked. Both directions there were two good films and two horrible schlocky films (e.g., Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks) so if you can't sleep on a plane and don't have the fortitude to carry 20 pounds of books (like me) you're kind of screwed. Even the sucky kind of seat back entertainment that is not actually on demand would be a major major improvement.

Be prepared. It took me over 24 hours each direction.

Domestic Air Transportation

I booked my flights to Da Nang and back to Ho Chi Minh through ivivu.com the week before I left. It is apparently the only website that allows booking of domestic flights in Vietnam from outside the country. I found one blogger who said he'd used it but no real information. There weren't any complaints about it being a scam. Since the score was 1-0 I decided to do it, reasoning I could challenge the charge on my credit card if it didn't work.

It worked, so I can highly recommend this. While you can book in Vietnam, both flights I was on were completely full and for one of them I had had to purchase a more expensive ticket because the cheaper tickets were sold out (I didn't get a better cabin class, though). I printed out my email confirmation that had my e-ticket number and had zero problems checking in or getting a seat. Total round trip cost was $143.90, which I suspect is a bit more than it would have cost to book in-country but the convenience of having this taken care of before I arrived and getting onto the flights that I preferred was totally worth it.

Viet Nam Air was totally modern, totally safe, and still serves food on short domestic flights (no veggie option though). Kinda made me nostalgic for the good ol' days of American air travel.

Hotel Booking

For the two hotels I stayed in that weren't for work I booked through hotels-in-vietnam.com. I didn't find anyone online who'd had experience with them, good or bad, so I took the plunge knowing it wasn't high season and I'd be able to find a place to stay if the bookings didn't work. They worked, and this is another website I can highly recommend.

For the My Khe Beach Hotel in Da Nang I had a reservation. My price was the posted price for the class of room I had--the website hadn't jacked it up to take a cut.

For the Duc Vuong Hotel in Ho Chi Minh I prepaid (I assume it's just the participating hotel's preference whether hotels-in-vietnam makes a reservation or collects the money), again at the posted price. My total was $25.75--$25 for the room and a 3% international currency fee. Most hotels charge this fee; My Khe did as well. It showed up on my credit card statement as "CTY TNHH DL TUNG NGOC HA NOI VN," which isn't exactly intuitive, but given the date and amount and the fact that Duc Vuong didn't ask me for any more money I'm certain that's the right charge.

Electricity

I didn't get a chance to get an Asian system adapter/converter before the trip and I was wary about getting one there because of quality issues. Luckily, it was a non-issue. All the hotels I stayed in--expensive Western-style, state-run, cheap backpacker-style--had plugs that would accept both an Asian plug and a European two-pin plug (example). Luckily, I'd tossed my European adapter in with my stuff and didn't have to worry. The only electronics I brought were my Blackberry charger and my battery charger. Both of them accept up to 240 Volts and generally the voltage was 210 or 220 (and always listed on the outlet) so I didn't need a converter at all.

Stuff

At this point I've done enough traveling that I bring most of the right stuff and little of the wrong stuff. Everyone has their preferences but a few things I'd brought I highly highly recommend:

-sun hat

-good sunscreen

-bug repellant with DEET (I should have gotten some more intense mosquito repellant because mine had DEET but didn't deter the mosquitoes very well)

-Cipro just in case

-Melatonin to take when jet lag wakes you up at 4:00 in the morning and you can't really take a real sleeping pill

-lots of granola bars and trail mix for when I couldn't eat the food. I brought two boxes of bars and two bags of trail mix for a 10 day trip and ate them almost exclusively for the last 5 days.

And a few things I *didn't* bring that I dearly wish I had:

-probiotic pills, in case you can't find yogurt with active cultures (if you believe in that sort of thing, which I do)

-Gatorade powder for dehydration from traveler's diarrhea (which you *will* get unless you eat only at western-style hotels)

-mosquito net, maybe something like this. I really needed one at the My Khe and it had a headboard I could have tucked one into without needing to hang it from the ceiling or have some kind of complicated frame.

New York, New York

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 03:43:00 +0000

K spent last year in Kosovo, during which time I took care of her mail and stuff (we are neighbors). Taking care of someone's mail for a year is more trouble than it sounds like, which K, being the awesome person that she is, realized. So to thank me for my services she got us tickets to ... wait for it ... XANADU! The Broadway musical! On Roller Skates! Based on the cheesy/hilarious/awful 80s movie. This movie was hugely influential on my childhood. I thought it was the height of artistic achievement and it created a dream of roller-dancing in me that has not yet died. When I found out they were making it into a musical I immediately set up a google news alert for it. So for a year I'd been DYING to see the show and was so.excited about it. In addition to tickets, K cashed in her Marriott points to get us a swank room on Times Square. It was deluxe.

I had to go fabric shopping in the garment district, of course. I saw Ricky of Project Runway fame, who was *not* wearing his signature mesh hat and therefore it took me a while to place him. The garment district has a strong Orthodox Jewish influence, so most everything is closed Saturdays. I did my shopping there on Friday (here's what I got) and spent Saturday sightseeing.

On my sightseeing day I finally went to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. Though I have been to NYC many times by now, I haven't done too much touristy stuff because I'm always visiting friends or there for a specific event like Mermaid Parade. I took the subway out to Battery Park and got ferry tickets to see the Statue of Liberty and the immigrant's entry point.

The ferry runs every half hour and once you get on the boat it's a quicker ride than I would have thought. You get nice photo ops of the shoreline as you travel, as seen in the panorama above.

Liberty is both smaller and more beautiful than she looks on TV. The island is quite small, it's just her and a path around her. The issue is that since 9/11 they have severely limited the number of people who can enter the Statue. If you don't order online ahead of time or arrive at the ferry ticket booth before 8 am you probably won't get to enter. As I had done neither, I had to content myself with walking around. It was COLDFREEZINGCOLD so it was a little unsatisfying. Had it been a nice day it would have been lovely to read a book in the park, but of course the park would have been mobbed so that probably wouldn't be possible. The Museum is in the Statue, which they should really do something about if so few people are going to get in, so I only spent half an hour there until the next ferry came. Luckily, despite the variable weather it didn't rain and I got a cool backlit photo from the strong sun. I also found someone with whom to exchange camera favors (and for serio nobody goes there alone--it was hard to find another single) so I got my photo in front of her, but it's impossible to get a person and all of her into the frame at once.

The next quick ferry ride was to Ellis Island. They have restored the main building to the form it took during the height of its use as an immigration reception center in the nineteen-teens and made it a museum. I don't know of any relatives who came through Ellis Island (I'm sure there were some, but it's not a big part of our family history), but I did spend a summer in law school researching the stories of Chinese immigrants during that time period for a professor so it was cool to go there. The building is GORGEOUS. Lots of open space inside, and elaborate gothic detailing outside.

The museum is excellent--it offers interesting tidbits but not information overload. I loved loved the large format photo prints on the second floor. Most of them were taken by an employee who was an amateur photographer and they're just amazing. I was cold and hungry so I only stayed for half an hour--one ferry cycle--there, but I definitely see myself coming back just to soak in more of the building. I mean, check out this dome!

To warm up from the cold I went to Magnolia Bakery and waited in line for half an hour for some cupcakes. I am well-aware that this is insane. On the way back to the subway I stopped at a restaurant and picked up some lentil soup, thank god.

I highly recommend the ferry trip out to Liberty and Ellis Islands. The ticket was $12, inclusive of boat and admission. It would be worth some forethought to get up into Liberty, and I'd recommend this for a warmer day than my barely-above-freezing experience.

Hotel
Marriott Marquee. Our 26th floor room had a view of Times Square. The hotel has a nice gym, though I hadn't brought my gym clothes. The Marriott family is Mormon and there was no mini-bar (not sure if this is standard as there was a spot for one) but there was pay porn. We didn't purchase any. The beds were comfortable and the toiletries outstanding. I took the shampoo and conditioner to keep in my locker at the gym.

Restaurants
Artisanal. This is the restaurant outpost of the famous cheese shop and damn did it smell like cheese. I love cheese, but the ripe odor was almost enough to give me a headache. The wine list was nice. All around us people were ordering rose bubbly but I just got a normal varietal. A friend and I split the artisinal fondue with apple pieces for dipping (yum) and the spinach gratin which was fucking amazing. Seriously, the spinach gratin warrants the f-bomb. K ordered the beet salad, of which I had an excellent bite. We were in a drama corner, apparently. The first couple near us was having a horrible fight. When the second couple was seated the girl excused herself to the bathroom and the guy put a gift box on her plate. It was a pair of expensive pearl earrings. She acted weird about them and he was obviously disappointed by her reaction.

Pommes Frites. As the name suggests, this spot serves only french fries. They are in the Belgian style. I'm not sure what that means really, as I didn't have fries in Belgium, but they are medium sized and frenched. Frenching is the practice of frying twice with a cooling period in between; this results in a crisper fry. That is why the whole Freedom Fries thing was SO DUMB. French fries are named after the process by which they are cooked, which is named after the chef that invented it, NOT after the country. Dumb. Anyway, the fries at Pommes Frites were quite good. I actually favor skinny limp McD's fries but I wasn't turning my nose up at these. Their schtick is dipping sauces. Basic ones are free, fancy ones are 75 cents each or three for $2. I got parmesan peppercorn (best), sambal olek (a nice spicy chili dip), and bleu cheese (too creamy for my taste--it tasted like bleu cheese mixed into mayonnaise). There aren't many dine-in spots, but for the few that there are they have holes cut in the bar and tables to hold your paper cone of fries, which is cool. The small size was plenty--the portions are American sized, not European sized.

Juniors. This is a Brooklyn diner with a location on Times Square. It was good for a quick bite after the show, but I wouldn't seek it out. The mac'n'cheese looked and tasted orange. However, the grilled aspargus was delish and the complimentary beets and pickles were yum. They are "famous" for their cheesecake. I got a strawberry piece to go. The "strawberry" goo was horrible, but the cheesecake itself was rich but not too sweet. The crust was cardboardy.

Show
XANADU!!!!! I don't think it's actually capitalized or followed by exclamation points, but I must shout its name. OMG it was so funny. It perfectly treads the line between being ironically hipster cool about the movie, and being flat out campy fun about the movie. And it's on roller skates. Can one hope for anything more?

Transportation
The Eastern Travel Chinatown bus. It picks up near Gallery Place metro stop in DC, drops off near Times Square in NYC four and a half hours later (with a stop in Baltimore to pick up passengers). At $35 round trip (well, $36.50 with a fee for booking online), it's cheaper than tolls, much less gas. And the train? It's two.hundred.dollars. When I was in private practice and therefore rich I took the train. Now it's bus all the way. The only bad thing is that you have to either dehydrate yourself or use the scary, awful bathroom on the bus because there are no stops (the stop in Baltimore is just for passenger pickup).

All photos, including many more of Liberty and Ellis Island, are here.

It's All Greek to Me

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 21:41:00 +0000

You knew that heading was coming.

I try to learn a little of the language of the place I'm visiting before I go, which is one of the things that causes me to shy away from China and India. The languages seem much too daunting for me. Greek was also daunting because, well, it's a whole other alphabet! The pain is a little eased by the fact that it is related to the Roman/English alphabet (referred to as "English" for ease), or more properly our alphabet is related to it. In fact, Greek was considered the first true alphabet because it was the first to have symbols representing vowels. It has not changed much over the years, centuries, or millenia. It was fascinating to see old grave markers and other written items (generally not documents as the Greek climate is not amenable to the preservation of papyrus and paper) that have the exact same letters as the road signs of today.

Anyway, I had all sorts of good intentions about learning some Greek. I bought a course with a handbook and CDs. I lasted about two lessons. When I found that nouns come in four cases--nominative, accusative, genitive, and vocative--I gave up. I know, I have no fortitude. I studied Latin in junior high and I know it has the same sort of issues going on, but frankly I'm pretty sure I didn't understand the intricacies of its grammar back then and I *really* don't remember it now. My excuse is that I moved from California to Texas in the summer between 9th and 10th grade and because of different curricula in the states there are some things I missed out on in my education, including reading Dickens (which I eventually got around to on my own) and diagramming sentences (which I never got around to). I love words, reading, and writing (the latter being obvious from the voluminosity of this blog), but my formal grammatical knowledge is not as strong as it probably should be. Presumably I should be able to easily identify something genitive with a hearty "it's-nothing" chortle. I can't.

And thus I was defeated by the nominative, accusative, genetive, and vocative cases.

One thing I *did* do, which I can't recommend highly enough, was thoroughly learn the alphabet. It's not that hard, I promise. OK, it's kind of hard but if you give it five or six hours (not all at once) you'll get it. Upper case is easier because the letters bear more resemblance to the letters of the English alphabet; the lower case letters are trickier. The good news is most road signs use the upper case. The bad news is that not all of them do and you really can't get away with only learning upper case. I learned the letters, practiced writing them, practiced their sounds, and learned the tricky combinations. For instance, the letter beta makes a "v" sound, not a "b" sound. To get a "b" sound you put mi and pi together (μπ), but only at the beginning of a word. If the combination appears in the middle of a word it's generally pronounced "mp" like we would (e.g., amplitude). Delta is pronounced as a soft "th" dipthong, not a "d"; to get a "d" sound you combine ni and taf (ντ). There are a few more, but these were the trickiest to me. Then I worked on reading words. It was slow going at first, but after a bit of practice I gained a reasonable facility. This helped not one iota with comprehension, of course, but if you can read a menu item you can pronounce it and order it. If you can read what the next city is you can figure out where you are on a map.

Here is a basic Greek alphabet link, with upper and lower cases, letter names, and pronunciation, including the ability to play the sound. This link has an interesting feature--it shows you how the upper and lower case are hand-written, and gives a pronunciation.

I also tried to memorize the numbers 1-10. The challenge with that is that several of them vary according to the gender of the word they are describing. I got a little bogged down in that (as I knew there was no way I'd be able to memorize the genders of words). This link conveniently does away with that ambiguity and presents one number, one word. That makes life easier. I'm not going to tell you which ones are gendered.

As my trip got closer I felt guilty about my paltry effort, so I went to the library to see what kind of tapes I could get. DC Library's collection is not the most up-to-date, but they had a Pimsleur course with 4 CDs that I loaded onto the mp3 player I bought just for the occasion (I'm not a very gadgety person). Pimsleur is convenient because it is all audio, so I could do it while walking back and forth to work. The lessons are 30 minutes and my walk is about 25, so it worked out perfectly. However, Pimsleur has very limited vocabulary. Very. No grammar. And is not particularly tourist oriented. For what it does, which is teach you a few specific phrases, it is very good. The interactive format requires you to answer questions and do rapid-fire translation, which is very engaging. The 12 vocabulary words on the tape I learned quite well (Ok, maybe there were closer to 30). For the most part they were useless, though I did once get to use "Thellate;"/"Then thello, efharisto" ("Do you want it?"/"I don't want it, thank you.")

If this resource is available to you at your local library, I recommend it. If you don't have a library card, get one! Most libraries, even DC, now have online libraries where you can virtually check out audio books and movies without leaving the comfort of your home. There was a Greek vocabulary set available online that I checked out, but it was a bizarre and useless quick recitation and translation of random words, with "soothing" background music that I assume was somehow meant to stimulate the memory portion of the brain. I guess it was produced before Baby Einstein was discredited.

To my totally untrained ear, the Greek accent is a bit like Spanish, especially in the sound of the "r" (there is no rolled "r" in Greek, however). I wonder if this is due to Moorish influences in both regions. Of course, I pronounce every foreign language with a Spanish accent because it was the first foreign language I studied, back in high school when my mind was still plastic and receptive to new languages. I really do believe there is something to learning a language when you're young. Too bad the window on that closed long ago for me!

One of the hard things about Greek pronunciation is that the stressed syllable is often the last and words often end in a vowel. In English we have very few words that end in a stressed vowel. The words for please (parakaLO) and thank you (efhariSTO) end with stressed vowels.

When I got on the plane I suddenly started to get very worried about how little effort I'd put into the language. I had my little phrasebook/dictionary so I knew that in the worst case scenario I could pull it out and haltingly communicate. But that wouldn't be the optimal way to spend a vacation.

I need not have worried! Everybody speaks English, and I do mean everybody. It's not just that all the Greeks speak English to the American and British tourists, which they do. It's that *all* non-Greeks communicate with Greeks in English. A French person is thirsty? "A bottle of water, please." A German wants to go to a museum? "One ticket, please." An Italian wishes to buy some stamps? "Four, please." Apparently English is the new Esperanto. It's quite humbling to realize that this essentially means that English speakers are the richest (making it worth it to learn English) and laziest (making it necessary to learn English) peoples on earth. I felt guilty taking advantage of everyone else's hard work to learn English, but it did make things easy.

We only ran into a few people who didn't speak fluent and flawless English, and pidgin sign language was just fine. The farmer from whom we bought grapes and figs made a "ssss" sound to indicate we could use his outdoor sink to wash our fruit. The garage station attendant held his hand waist high to indicate half-full, shoulder high to indicate full. We wanted full. Store clerks showed us the receipt with the printed total to tell us how much we owed. When you're using gestures to communicate, remember that in Europe 1 is a thumbs up; 2 is thumb and pointer; 3 is thumb, pointer, and middle; and 4 is the same as American (thumb turned down, four fingers up).

I think the Greeks are so used to speaking English that they don't even realize when English speakers make an effort. At the first few restaurants we went to I tried to order in Greek. The waiters feigned incomprehension. My accent is not anything like a real Greek person's, but it's not *that* indecipherable. I gave up and switched to English. In Athens, which has a more tourist mindset than elsewhere, the waiters were gracious when I tried to order dishes by their Greek names.

All in all, I ended up using only five Greek phrases consistently:
Kalimera-good morning
Parakalo-please/you're welcome
Efharisto-thank you
to loghariazmo-the bill
imei hortofagus-I'm a vegetarian

I also had occasion to use:
kalispera-good evening
kalinichta-good night
signomi-excuse me
yia sas-hello/goodbye

I didn't have to say even once:
then katalaveino-I don't understand
then milao Ellenika-I don't speak Greek

I got the most mileage out of asking for the bill in Greek. In the food section I described the Greek restaurant experience, which involves asking for the bill at least once and often twice. Saying it in Greek made me feel culturally sensitive rather than rude (asking for the bill in DC can be rude). It also netted me a lot of smiles and an offer for free wine!

You'll still need a phrasebook to muddle through the occasional menu. They're all translated into English, but some of the translations are puzzling and the phrasebook helped. I had the Lonely Planet phrasebook, which was small enough to carry in my nighttime purse and is worth the price for the hilarity of the "Sex Phrases" section alone, which teaches you how to say both "It's my first time" and "Will you marry me?"

A TINY LANGUAGE LESSON

I am in no way qualified to offer a language lesson. My only qualification is I'm doing it for free. If you can figure out how to download the podcast to your iPod, have at it.

You can find lots of more comprehensive language lessons on the internet. The BBC has excellent traveler/beginner lessons for many languages, including Greek. However, I didn't find the Greek as useful as the Italian had been; it jumps immediately into complicated sentences and you must first learn the alphabet and pronunciation on your own. The sentences are too complicated to actually retain for longer than it takes to go through the unit and its quiz. Though I got 5/5 right on most of the quizzes, it didn't significantly increase my knowledge of Greek. It is fun nevertheless, with lots of pronunciation to listen to.

No means...yes?

Yes and no, very basic language building blocks, and easy, right? No. Or do I mean yes?

Yes is Nai.

No is Ohi, sometimes transliterated Okhi.

So yes is no, and no is OK.

I tried to get these to feel right in my mouth. I practiced saying "ohi" while frowning and shaking my head. I practiced saying "nai" while smiling and nodding. Eventually I got Ohi to feel right because at least it has the same vowel as no. I tried to get Nai to feel right by rhyming it with "yeah," but it really doesn't. It's just "Nay." I never did get used to Nai meaning yes. Hopefully you'll do better than me.

Greetings

As in most languages, there are many, many ways to greet someone in Greek.

Allegedly, "Herrete" is the all-purpose greeting. The Pimsleur tapes were big on Herrete, and the other tapes I listened to also purported that this is the all-purpose greeting.

These people have never been to Greece.

I *never* heard it on the street, ever. And I traveled through a fair bit of the country so I don't think it's a regional thing. I tried it out a few times to gauge reactions and did not get an enthusiastic response. I mean, people knew what I was saying but they didn't say it back. If you say Kalimera to someone they will always say it back.

Another all-purpose greeting, one that is actually used, is "Yia sas." This is less formal than (the alleged) Herrete, like Hi as compared to Hello. It comes in two forms, "Yia sas" and "Yia sou." Like many languages, Greek has a formal and an informal "you." Yia sas is the formal (and the plural) you, Yia sou is the informal you. As someone coming from a language without a formal/informal you, I have never had a handle on when the informal is appropriate. It is my philosophy that you can't offend by being too respectful--think of how awesome it was when you were a kid to get a card addressed to Ms. Such and Such--so I just skipped Yia sou altogether.

Good morning is Kalimera, and it is liberally used. Say it with a smile to the people you pass on the street (within reason of course) and you'll get a smile and a greeting back.

Good afternoon is the dreaded Herrete. I just didn't say anything in the afternoons.

Good evening is Kalispera, though it is used less often than Kalimera. It's a nice way to greet the host of a restaurant before you ask if you can sit.

Good night is Kalinichta. I had occasion to use this only with hotel front desk personnel, but maybe you'll have a more amorous adventure than I. The Lonely Planet phrasebook will come in handy if you do.

Niceties

Please and you're welcome are both "Parakalo."

Thank you is "Efharisto." I never got a good pronunciation on this one. It is sometimes transliterated "Efkaristo," and I couldn't work out whether the "k" was added to make it easier for the English speaker to pronounce, as "h" is not a hard consonant for us. I was understood either way I pronounced it.

Signomi means both "excuse me" and "I'm sorry."

Eating and Drinking

You can always order your food and drink in English with no trouble. If you want to get fancy you can order your Greek salad as a "horiatiki," your water as "nero," and your wine as "krasi." Ouzo, luckily, is the same in both languages.

At the end of the meal, ask for "To loghariazmo, parakalo." You can even get really fancy and say "Signomi, to loghariazmo, parakalo."

My specialized phrase, which I made sure to learn very well, was "Imei hortofagus," I am a vegetarian. it was understood by everyone I said it to.

Language Barriers

I didn't run into any language barriers, and if you don't stray too far off the beaten path neither will you. Nevertheless, you can tell someone you don't understand Greek, "Then katalaveino Ellenika," and ask if they speak English, "Milate Anglika;" In Greek, a question is signified by a semi-colon and officially the question mark doesn't exist. I saw it used everywhere, of course.

Smile and Nod

If you're at a loss, just smile. Smiling is universal, and universally appreciated.

Food Glorious Food! Eating (vegetarian) in Greece

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 02:08:00 +0000

I am a vegetarian (yes to eggs and dairy, no to fish or any kind of animal), so eating when I travel usually requires a little bit of research and forethought, and in less veggie-friendly areas food is not the highlight of the trip, to say the least. In Scandinavia I survived mainly on cottage cheese and Wasa crackers, apples, and chocolate bars. I lost four pounds in two weeks. My food restrictions are a personal choice so I accept that fabulous eating and culinary adventures will not always be a part of my tourism experience. Which made Greece all the more of a pleasant surprise!

I had read many trip reports describing the wonderful vegetable side dishes other visitors had enjoyed, so I wasn't worried about being able to get a decent meal. I didn't know if I would be looked at askance for not ordering a "main" course, and thought that I'd have to seek out specific meze restaurants to be able to order several vegetable sides without a meat focal point, but I figured I could just wait and deal with food until I got there. I learned the Greek phrase for "I am a vegetarian," which is "Imei hortofagus."

I had no idea what awaited me. Namely, the best food I've had in my entire life. I'm sure I've had individual meals that have topped the individual meals I had there (though nothing specific comes to mind), but as an overall culinary experience I have never had it so good, not even in my own kitchen. And I love to cook and greatly enjoy my own cooking! In fact, when I got back home it took me several days to readjust to the food. I could barely bring myself to eat anything because it was never going to be the same as in Greece. I was sure I had gained five pounds but when I weighed myself the scale hadn't changed an ounce. I should've eaten more!

Despite my pre-trip impression, all the tavernas and restaurants I went to offered small plates. In fact, most didn't offer "main dishes" except in the more touristed areas such as Athens. Greek families, many of whom dined at restaurants in areas I would have expected to be tourists-only (always a good sign!), always had lots of small plates on their tables, never individual meals. This made food ordering easy in some ways--no worries if there's one thing on a complete meal plate I can't eat because everything is ordered individually--but harder in other ways. Usually as a vegetarian I'm confined to one or two menu items. Having to choose from among a dozen or so was a challenge for me! But I suppose that's the good kind of challenge.

THE FOOD

I didn't find a lot of variation in terms of taste from North to South or on the island of Naxos (the only island I had a chance to visit). Though I'm sure there were some dishes that were indigenous to each area, the reliance on fresh vegetables and olive oil, with maybe a little parsley or oregano for flavor, was the same throughout the country. Greek cooking is not spicy, and I don't think the Greeks have the palate for it. I like black pepper a lot but at some places the ground pepper was so old it had formed a giant clump inside the shaker. I took that as a sign to enjoy my food the way it was prepared.

There were some (vegetarian) dishes that were common to most menus:

Horiatiki Salata, which literally translates as "village salad" but is known to the world outside Greece as Greek salad and listed as such on the English menus. Its ingredients are very standard: tomatoes, cucumber, green pepper (usually bell pepper, but sometimes another mild variety of pepper), red onion sliced into thin rings, a few black olives of the local variety, and a slab of feta cheese, with dried herbs (oregano and thyme usually) sprinkled on top the cheese and olive oil poured over all. Occasionally large chunks of raw garlic were also included. I read that originally horiatiki was just sliced feta with red onions, and something about the two is an amazing combination. My habit was to load the fork with tiny bits of feta and little slices of onion together. The saltiness and creaminess of the feta were perfect with the aromatic bite of the onion. It didn't make for the most socially acceptable breath, but I would hate to miss out on a culinary adventure just because of worrying that my exhalation might be overly fragrant at very close range.

Spanakopita/Tiropita/Hortopita: Spanakopita is one of the Greek dishes that has caught on in the States, but actually it isn't that big of a thing there in restaurants. It's more commonly available as a quick lunch or snack from a bakery. We did order it from restaurants occasionally, when it tickled our fancy. A tiropita is basically a spanakopita without spinach; it literally means "cheese pie." A hortopita is a spanakopita made with wild greens rather than spinach; because the overriding experience of a spanakopita is cheese, filo, and butter, I didn't find that a hortopita tasted any different than a spanakopita.

Yiyandes, sometimes rendered Gigandes: Giant white beans, about twice the size of canellini, are prepared in a tomato-base sauce that has a little garlic and onion in it, probably some thyme and bay leaf are used for flavoring. I also detected cinnamon one of the times I had them. They were always perfectly cooked, firm but not at all underdone. I am a big fan of the legume, so I was always happy to see these on a menu.

Zucchini patties, sometimes called "zucchini burgers" on the English menu: Shredded zucchini is mixed with creamy cheese--probably feta and something else, flavored with dill, and probably a little bread crumbs and/or egg to hold it together and deep-fried. This is a favorite dish of mine at a local Mediterranean restaurant in DC, Zaytinya, and the experience in Greece was even better. The dill was kept in check so it just provided some color rather than tasting like a pickle, the inside was warm and creamy and the outside crisp. The cheese provided a tang, but it didn't overpower entirely the taste of zucchini.

Gemiste: For gemiste vegetables are hollowed out and stuffed with a rice mixture. The most common vegetables were tomatoes and peppers; I had read of zucchini, eggplant, and other vegetables being served in this manner but I didn't run across any. I don't like rice, so I'm not a good person from whom to take advice on this dish. I ordered it twice. Once was a disaster--emotionally and culinarily (see my account of dinner at Albatross in Galaxidi for details)--when the wonderful tomato and pepper were stuffed with what tasted like minute rice in tomato sauce from a box that seemed to have expanded to fill my plate and all nearby plates when I took the tops off the vegetables. The second time, on Naxos, it was actually quite lovely with the rice filling having a texture closer to risotto, creamy and cohesive. Ground lamb is sometimes added to the rice filling of a gemiste, so if you're vegetarian be sure to ask your waiter.

Fried potatoes: self-explanatory, though at one place (Elaias in Athens) instead of having french fried sticks the potatoes had been cut in rounds about 1/4 inch thick. French fries were usually not a standout dish, mostly because they had been standing out (har har). Fries must be served directly from the fry basket and eaten in a reasonable amount of time to be worth their calories, but the Greek pace of meals often meant they were cold by the time you got to them.

Oven potatoes: A much better way to enjoy Greek potatoes is from the oven. I don't know how they make them and I really wish I did. Potatoes (don't know what variety) are peeled, tossed in very lightly flavored olive oil, and baked to absolute perfection. I tried this at home with some yukon golds, but I overcooked them and they were too sweet when roasted in this manner. I just got some mixed fancy potatoes from Trader Joe's to try; I'll report back. Everyplace I tried oven potatoes I was not disappointed.

Mushrooms: We were lucky enough to be there during mushroom season, and a lucky happenstance it was! The Greeks appear to use only seasonal ingredients, so if you don't see mushrooms on the menu I apologize for getting your hopes up. Everyplace we saw grilled mushrooms we ordered them. Most of the time, we were served what appeared to be a variety of Oyster mushroom, lightly tossed in olive oil and cooked on a hot grill (I don't know whether it was a fire grill or an electric; I suspect fire). The delicate fluted edges were just singed and crackly when they were brought to the table with a half a lemon for squeezing over. They were the most sensational mushrooms I've ever had. In the US, such mushrooms are $8-$16/pound fresh; a big plate of prepared mushrooms (half a pound at least) ranged from 6-8E. Bargain! In Meteora the grilled mushrooms were white button, which wasn't as exciting but they were equally as well-prepared. I caution you to stay away from mushrooms on Naxos, however, as they were white buttons served in a gloopy, greasy, congeal-y cheese sauce. After trying them once, I stayed away when I saw them listed on the menu at other restaurants. It appears that's how mushrooms are prepared on the island.

Tzatziki: A dip of yogurt, feta, and shredded cucumber flavored with dill. I'm not a huge fan, as I my palate is overly sensitive to dill and I don't like cucumber enough to care for it shredded.

Yogurt/eggplant/fish roe salad: We learned this one the hard way. Except for the Greek Salad, most things called "salad" are really dip. Yogurt "salad" is yogurt mixed with feta. When we had it the feta was so briny it was hard to eat any of it. Eggplant salad, melitzanesalata, is pureed eggplant mixed with yogurt and feta, sort of like a less flavorful baba ghanouj. K and I ordered it only once, and it tasted of mayonnaise to me (*shudder*). Fish roe salad, taramasalata, which I knew enough to stay away from, is a puree of fish eggs, yogurt, and feta, and is an alarming 1950s shade of reddish pink. I half-expected to see it heaped into the center of an elaborate jello mold and surrounded by tiny sausages on colored toothpicks. Perhaps it is delicious and I should not unfairly malign it, but I don't think I can ever get past the appearance.

Eggplant: In addition to eggplant salad, there will probably be another eggplant preparation on the menu. I think the key is to have grilled or roasted eggplant served warm. Fried is not good. Cold is not good. Warm, drizzled with olive oil, and served with tomatoes and/or feta is good.

DINING OUT

Eating out is a great tradition in Greece, or so it seemed to me. There were many, many family-owned non-chain restaurants everywhere we went--which was admittedly tourist areas. Until we got to Athens, at least half the patrons were Greeks who appeared local, half tourists. In Athens the proportion veered wildly toward tourists, but there were just so darn many of us it was hard for the Greeks to compete!

Technically, there are several different types of sit-down eating establishments in Greece. An Estiatorio (easy to spot it's a cognate with "restaurant") is more formal and slightly more expensive, a Taverna is more informal, and an Ouzerie serves ouzo with food incidental to it as the Greeks rarely drink without eating. I observed this on Naxos when even at the beachside bar a beer was served with a small bowl of peanuts or chips. While these divisions may still be going strong in non-tourist areas, I didn't see any difference in price, formality, or menu among the establishments that called themselves by the various demonimations in the places we visited.

In tourist areas, it is common for the owner or a waiter (usually a family member) to stand outside the restaurant and try to get you to eat there. The most aggressive behavior we observed was in Thessaloniki in the restaurant alley off to the right at the top of Aristotle Square. The touts were actually grabbing K by the arm and pulling her into their establishments. It wasn't scary or anything, but it was quite annoying. Everywhere else it was just talking, no touching. While I am normally very averse to the hard sell, and will walk away from anyone who gives it to me out of principle, you'd never find anyplace to eat if you did that in Greece! We actually found our favorite restaurant in Athens, Ksenios Zeus, when the owner solicited us so it just takes adjusting your mindset a bit. But I wouldn't recommend putting up with being grabbed!

Generally the menu is posted outside a restaurant with prices listed. Menus are almost always translated into English. This makes it easy to scan and see if you're interested and if the restaurant is in your price range. In the tourist areas we didn't find great variation in prices among the restaurants in a given area. I know there are fancy restaurants in Greece and particularly in Athens, but you're unlikely to find yourself in one accidentally. I found the prices for food to be extremely reasonable. The prices were much less expensive than eating out in Western Europe (UK, France, and even Italy), and were actually cheaper than an equivalent meal in DC.

As in most of Europe, the Greeks go out to eat late, but not as late as I thought. K and I generally went out for dinner at 10, but we came after the bulk of people had already been seated. Some would arrive after us, of course, but we seemed to be the tail end of the rush. The earliest I ate was 9:30 and I didn't feel like I was an Early Bird Special by any means.

When you enter the restaurant, you can usually choose where to sit. It is best to travel while it's still possible to eat outside because that way you are not enclosed in a box of smoke. While all restaurants are theoretically required to have a non-smoking section, "non-smoking" and "section" are both interpreted very loosely. Our favorite was our visit to Albatross, a narrow restaurant with three booths on each side. One side of the tiny restaurant is non-smoking. I am not sure if smokers are contractually obligated not to blow smoke directly in the faces of customers seated in the non-smoking section. We were seated on the non-smoking side, and a full ashtray was whisked off our table as we sat. Since most of the places we ate were at least half tourists, we actually had no trouble enjoying a relatively smoke-free meal. Only at a stop in a cafe in a non-tourist town were we surrounded by smokers.

After you've been seated a little while, the waiter will bring you the menu and after a while a basket of bread, usually with no butter and definitely not with olive oil. You will be charged a "cover charge" for the bread whether you eat it or not, usually around .80E. It may be that you can ask for the bread to be taken away and not to get charged the cover, but at 80 cents I never felt it was worth making an international incident of it. Unfortunately, bread is one of the few things that does not appear to be a strength in Greek cooking. For the most part, it was white bread with the taste and texture of Wonder bread. Not very appealing. There were a few exceptions, but only a few. That's ok, you don't want to fill up on bread anyway.

After a while the waiter will come around for your drink order. The tap water is perfectly drinkable in Greece, but all Europeans, Greeks included, drink only bottled water in restaurants. Again, I'm sure we could have asked for tap water, but we wanted to do as the Greeks did so we got bottled. A liter and half is 1.50 to 2.00E. Getting bottled worked out well as it made us hydrate. We would get a liter and half at lunch and at dinner and drink the entire bottle between the two of us. When I was on my own it was harder. Sometimes I'd get a whole liter (and drink it!), which was a bit much, but a half-liter wasn't quite enough.

While most restaurants have bottles of wine we never bothered with that. You can order house wine, red, white or rose, by the half-liter or liter. A half-liter is the perfect size for two moderate drinkers--you get about two small glasses each. We loved that. The house wine was always drinkable and sometimes very good. If you're a real oenophile, you'll probably want a bottle, but for those of us who just like to enjoy some wine with a good meal it was perfectly acceptable. And did I mention it's 3.50-6E for a half liter? The half-liters were served in adorable copper or glass carafes.

After another while, when you've closed the menus and put them aside, the waiter will come take your order. For two people who have been sightseeing all day, three dishes was enough, though we often ordered four because we couldn't decide! In the States, or at least in DC, tapas, meze, and other small plates are literally that--small plates about four inches on each side with a small serving that's enough for two people to each get a taste. In Greece, a "small" plate is enough for a single person's entire meal.

The food comes out as it's ready, and you serve some onto your little plate and dig in! Don't eat too quickly, though. No real Greek would finish dinner in under two hours. K and I managed to stretch it out to an hour and a half each night, and even alone I usually stayed put for an hour. It's a nice exercise to be leisurely over a meal. Quite a difference from scarfing something microwaved in front of the TV (not, ahem, that I would ever do that). "Turning the tables" is not a concept in the lexicon of the Greek restauratuer.

After the food is gone, the wine drunk, and the conversation thoroughly conversated, you must ask for the check. No matter how obvious it is that you're done, the waiter would never be so rude as to bring you the check without asking, thus implying that you should vacate your table. This is weird for an American. Where I live, it is rude to call for the check, as it implies that your server is not paying sufficient attention to your cues that you're done. When your plate is pushed back, silverware arranged in the universal symbol for "I'm done," and napkin placed on the table, the server comes over and asks if s/he can bring you anything else, and then you say just the check, thank you. To summon the server shows impatience and is a de facto criticism that your server is too slow. So it really took me a while to be able to ask for the bill without feeling uncomfortable.

Especially because you often have to do it twice. It is a tradition in Greece to provide a sweet finish to dinner gratis. Normally this is fruit--watermelon and grapes were in season while we were there. Some places served a proper dessert, I assume as a nod to tourist preferences, cake and ice cream being the norm in those instances. In Athens this custom had fallen off for the most part, and we got fruit or dessert only once. If you do receive dessert "at the home" (a joke between K and me based on a doesn't-quite-translate experience she had in Kosovo), after you're finished with that you have to ask for the check *again* and then it will be brought to you.

After you recover from your shock at how cheap it is (around 24-32E for two people, including wine, water, bread, and food), you pay the bill in cash. I never saw anybody paying with a credit card at any restaurant and I don't know if it's even possible. Americans tip, and everyone knows it. I don't know how much Europeans tip, and I don't think Australians tip at all, but a tip is expected from us and I don't mind. We usually left 10%.

Then you wander back to your hotel, trying to maintain the slower pace of life by strolling along. Also, because you're so full you can't move very fast.

INFORMAL EATING

If you don't want to eat a full sit-down meal, you can grab something from a bakery or get a souvlaki. I never had a souvlaki, as they are meat, but the people walking around eating them seemed to enjoy them just fine. Bakeries will generally have a spanakopita or tiropita, often in two different sizes, which is nice. They are usually heated by microwave, which is not optimal. All that work to put together the flaky phyllo layers and then gum it up in the microwave! Even with the microwave, though, they're still good. But not health food by any stretch--lots of butter or olive oil, lots of cheese, and a weeny bit of spinach. A large piece will run you about 2E, though if you sit down it will cost you more.

I believe historically there has been a difference between bakeries that sell savouries and bakeries that sell sweets, but most of the bakeries that sold spanakopita also had some sweet pastries. I didn't get a baklava until my last day in Greece. It was quite good, but very rich and sweet. I am allergic to walnuts, but there was enough variety that I could find one that was all pistachio. Depending on the bakery, you can also get cakes and chocolates. A sticky farina cake was available in the middle and southern half of the country; I liked it very much but I love the grainy farina (Cream of Wheat) texture. K wasn't as much of a fan. The bakery-made chocolates were all very high quality.

There are, of course, tons of little carts and corner shops where you can pick up snacks. A popular brand is 7 Day and I got some sesame bagel chips to have as a snack on the ferry. They were delicious! I wish I'd discovered them earlier in the trip. Well, on second thought, I ate quite enough as it was. I also got some "gemiste," little sandwich cookies (gemiste means stuffed, which is why it has the same name as stuffed tomatoes and peppers). They all sell ice cream novelties as well. I adored the Choco Magnum drumstick-like cone.

There are a fair number of little shops that sell what looks like gelato. I tried a couple different places and was disappointed every time. For all the give and take between the Italians and the Greeks, the Italians have clearly kept their secret gelato recipes secret. The ice creams I had were icy and thin and too sweet. Jess said the gelato shop in the square with the fountain in Naxos town was good, but I didn't get a chance to try it.

One kind of shop I didn't find was a Galaktopoleia. Literally translated this is "milk shop" (I'm guessing the name is related to the same root as galactose, a type of naturally occurring sugar in milk). These legendary establishments offer single servings of yogurt and all manner of dairy products. No such luck. We didn't see any anywhere, and believe me I was looking. I would have loved to have a yogurt snack in the middle of the day. I suspect this cultural relic has disappeared entirely, displaced by the more global preference for ice cream. We can't blame McDonalds for this one, though; it's not very popular in Greece and I only saw a few. Thank goodness for that!

CAFE CULTURE

There appears to be some sort of disconnect in the Greek tastebud and/or psyche. The food is fantastic, fresh, and unadorned. But their taste in beverages leans toward the terrible and the artificial. Colored sugar water abounds and it's hard to find real juice. And then there is...the frappe. The frappe is made with Nescafe (yes, instant coffee) and foamed milk, served cold. The cafes are full of people, not only in the afternoon but all day, drinking the stuff. It looks so wonderful, all creamy and foamy, and people relax for hours and watch the world go by over them. I am not a coffee drinker but K dutifully tried one. She said it was awful. I tried it. It was awful. The good news is you can get a cold chocolate, sokolata kria, instead. Yum! Grown up chocolate milk is nothing like the Nestle Quik I drank as a kid. It was rich high-fat content milk (I only drink skim at home) mixed with chocolate syrup and a few ice cubes to keep it chilled. It was sometimes topped with foamed milk or cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup. Let's not think about the calorie count. I found it a much better way to participate in cafe culture than the dreaded frappe!

RESTAURANT RATINGS

I'll use a three tier rating system. Recommend means I would absolutely go there again, even for two meals in a row. Neutral means the meal was totally fine and I wouldn't be averse to returning, but if given the choice I'd try someplace new. Don't Recommend means stay away. Luckily, there's not much in the latter category and for the ones that are the quality of the wine was generally inversely proportional to the quality of the food, oddly. Where the restaurant's signage is in Greek characters, I have given them in the form they appeared (all caps or title case) so you can recognize it. Where it is in Roman characters/English, I haven't transliterated back into Greek. Unless indicated, the cost is the total price for two if I was with K or one if I was alone and before tip.

RECOMMEND

City: Pristina, Kosovo
Restaurant: Home
Meal: Dinner
Dishes: antipasti (artichoke, grilled bell pepper, grilled zucchini); mushroom pasta with bechamel sauce
Dessert?: Honey crepe
Cost: 7.90E per person, plus water
Notes: The food in Pristina is wonderful, especially the bread. My favorite thing on the plate was the perfectly grilled zucchini. Servings are huge and when you can't eat the whole thing (which you can't), the waiter will ask if you didn't like it.

City: Pristina, Kosovo
Restaurant: Marche
Meal: Brunch
Dishes: Vegetarian breakfast of beans, egg, mushrooms, and the most amazing grilled tomato, with fresh squeezed orange juice.
Dessert?: no
Cost: about 8E per person
Notes: This was the perfect filling breakfast, and again with the amazing breads. I think I have paid the equivalent of 8E for just the fresh squeezed orange juice stateside.

City: Thessaloniki
Restaurant: Opto Pyri (Oπτo Πυpι)
Meal: Dinner
Dishes: horiatiki (Greek salad), yiyandes (white beans), fried zucchini patties, grilled oyster mushrooms, tzatziki, 1/2 liter white wine, bottled water.
Dessert?: lemon cake sprinkled with coconut served with gelato
Cost: 23.70E
Notes: What a wonderful first meal in Greece! Everything was just delicious, but my favorite was the grilled mushrooms. K was full at the end so I got most of the dessert. Heh. It would have been rude to leave it there, right?
Location: Go to the top of Aristotle Square, turn into the restaurant alley on the right (can't miss it). At the end of the alley is a square with a fountain, and Opto Pyri is on the square.

City: Dion
Restaurant: Isida (IΣIΔA)
Meal: Lunch
Dishes: Horiatiki, melatzanesalata (eggplant salad), water
Dessert?: no
Cost: 11E
Notes: We did not really know what eggplant salad was, but we decided to take a chance and order it. Lucky chance! In Dion, and nowhere else, eggplant salad refers to a whole eggplant that has been grilled, probably over a flame, then peeled and topped with olive oil, crumbled feta, and large chunks of raw garlic and served while still warm. It was one of the most delicious things I've ever had and K actually drove back through Dion (off the main road) while taking the car back to FYROM so she could have it again.
Location: Right across from the Archaeological Museum.

City: Meteora
Restaurant: To Kipos
Meal: Lunch
Dishes: horiatiki, grilled mushrooms, two bottles of water
Dessert?: no
Cost: 14E
Notes: With the suggestion of To Kipos, my guidebook redeemed itself after our bad meal at Paradeisos. The food was simple and the grilled mushrooms were white button rather than the oysters we'd been spoiled by, but it was a perfectly nice lunch and the owner didn't seem put out that we were there during an off hour and were the ONLY customers in the place.
Location: Drive down the road from the monasteries in the direction of Kalambaka. It's at a fork in the road.

City: Galaxidi
Restaurant: O Tosos
Meal: Lunch
Dishes: horiatiki, hortopita, water
Dessert?: Watermelon (only time we got dessert at lunch)
Cost: Didn't record, probably around 12E
Notes: Our Greek salad was served to us with the feta slab on the side, the only time we ever saw it that way. The Greeks in the restaurant were getting theirs the same way so I don't think it was a special tourist thing. The food was good and it was a nice location for a leisurely lunch.
Location: Waterfront. Look for the bright yellow tablecloths.

City: Athens
Restaurant: Ksenios Zeus (ΞENIOΣ ZEYΣ)
Dinner 9/7/07: horiatiki, grilled mushrooms, zucchini patties, spanakopita, oven potatoes, 2 bottles water, 1/2 liter white wine. 32E. (This was way too much food for two.)
Lunch 9/8/07: horiatiki, roasted peppers served cold with garlicky yogurt sauce, oven potatoes, water. 14.5E
Dinner 9/9/07: horiatiki, oven potatoes, grilled mushrooms, eggplant merakles, water, 1/2 liter white wine. Free dessert of walnut cake and ice cream. 24.5E.
Notes: This was our favorite restaurant of the whole trip. The food was divine, the bread (in stark contrast to most of the bread we had in Greece) was fantastic--rubbed with a cut garlic clove, grilled, and then drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt. The service was great. The location is great--right at the Acropolis, though you can't really see it through the trees. The oven potatoes are the best 2E you will ever spend on a food item.
Location: To get to the restaurant from Art Gallery Hotel, walk up Erechthiou toward to the Acropolis, and make a left at Areopagitou, the pedestrian path. Pass Areopagus rock and keep going along the pedestrian path (which is completely unlighted at a stretch; we were glad we'd brought our flashlights). The pedestrian path ends at a steep, slick, horizontally scored driveway that goes down and a little to the right. Ksenios Zeus is almost at the bottom of the driveway. To reach it from Plaka, walk uphill on Tripodon. When you reach a set of stairs off the left with a church at the top (where To Gerani restaurant is), take the stairs and go right (continue the same direction you were going on Tripodon). Ksenios Zeus is the equivalent of a couple blocks up from the church on the left.

City: Naxos Town
Restaurant: I Kali Karthia (H Kαλι Kαpδια), The Good Heart
Meal: Dinner
Dishes: Vegetarian plate, with stewed eggplant and squash, stewed green beans, oven potatoes, yiyandes, tomato gemiste, water. Wine was complimentary from the owner.
Dessert?: No
Cost: 6.50E
Notes: I was drawn to the vegetarian plate advertised on the sign board. It was nice to have a variety of foods even though I was eating by myself. The food was good, but very stewed and swimming in oil. It would have been nice to have something fresh on the plate. The owner was very nice and didn't charge me for my 250 ml of wine. I was wavering whether to put this in recommend or neutral; the service keeps it in "recommend."
Location: Waterfront

City: Apollona, Naxos
Restaurant: One of the ones on the waterfront--I didn't write down the name
Meal: Lunch
Dishes: Horiatiki, water
Dessert?: No
Cost: 6E
Notes: I took a bus tour of Naxos and we stopped in Apollona for lunch. The Greek salad was your standard Greek salad with its excellent tomatoes and cucumbers and good quality feta.
Location: In front of the tiny sand beach.

City: Naxos Town
Restaurant: Dolphins (Δελφινιας)
Meal: Lunch
Dishes: Organic potato salad, water
Dessert?: No
Cost: 6.70E
Notes: This was one of the best individual dishes I had on the trip. Potatoes are one of Naxos's primary crops. It was served room temperature, with potatoes, tomatoes, capers, olives, red onion, garlic, and olive oil. This is the one dish I have attempted to make at home (not quite the same, but still good).
Location: Waterfront

City: Naxos Town
Restaurant: Trattoria di Susanna
Meal: Dinner
Dishes: Pizza, called "Frescuria" and toppings were mozzarella, parmesan, cherry tomatoes, and fresh arugula; glass of red wine
Dessert?: No
Cost: 11.40E
Notes: As the majority of the Greek food I'd had on Naxos was so-so at best, I branched out into pizza. It was fantastic! The sign bragged about their good quality mozzarella, and there was no false advertising involved. The single serving pizza is huge, but somehow I managed to eat most of it.
Location: I have no idea. Go up to the square with the fountain and wander around for a really long time.

City: Athens
Restaurant: Elaias (Eλαιας)
Meal: Dinner
Dishes: grilled mushrooms, fried potatoes, two moussakas, tomato gemiste, water, wine
Dessert?: No
Cost: 50E for four people, including tip
Notes: This restaurant has a lovely rooftop with Acropolis view. Although it appears fancy, the prices were only one or two Euro above normal. The food was quite good.
Location: On Tripodon up from Plaka, across from To Gerani (I think).

NEUTRAL

City: Thessaloniki
Restaurant: Zythos
Meal: Lunch
Dishes: horiatiki, zucchini patties, water
Dessert?: no
Cost: Didn't write down; probably around 11-13E
Notes: Although it was late for lunch, when we sat down at 5:30 it was clearly too early for dinner. Despite the hour and the fact that the restaurant was mostly empty, the waiter seemed put out by the smallness of our order, which was uncomfortable. The waterfront location added a few Euro to each dish, though the food was no better than anywhere else.
Location: Waterfront strip between the White Tower and Aristotle Square.

City: Thessaloniki
Restaurant: Agora (AΓOPA)
Meal: Dinner
Dishes: Grilled mushroom, stuffed squash blossoms, arugula and parmesan salad, meatballs, water, and wine.
Dessert?: a slice of a moist cake, a farina square, grapes, and watermelon
Cost: 29E
Notes: Agora didn't quite live up to the Opto Pyri experience we'd had the night before. The grilled mushrooms had been soaked in too much lemon juice and were so sour they hurt my teeth and I couldn't eat them. The squash blossoms had been battered and fried, which I wasn't expecting. The wine, however, was excellent.
Location: In the Ladadika neighborhood in a little nook I could never find again if my life depended on it. K and I found it by wandering. The address is 5 Kapothistriou (Kαπoδισtριoυ).

City: Galaxidi
Restaurant: Albatross
Meal: Dinner
Dishes: Gemiste (two orders), tiropita, yogurt salad, meatballs, water, wine
Dessert?: What seemed to be a smooth molded plum pudding, maybe made of ground tapioca or arrowroot.
Cost: 28E
Notes: Our experience at Alabtross was quite dramatic, as I failed to ascertain that the gemiste would be made without meat. When the grandma asked me why I wasn't eating I had to explain that I was a vegetarian. Grandpa then proceeded to berate her loudly for several minutes, she spent the rest of the night crying and made me some gemiste without meat. Ironically, I don't even like gemiste and ordered it only because there wasn't much else available from the menu. Emotional drama aside, The food was ok but not great. The yogurt salad was way too salty to eat and the gemiste seemed to be made with minute rice.
Location: Up on the hill across from the church.

City: Galaxidi
Restaurant: Maritsa (Mapitσa)
Meal: Dinner
Dishes: Roasted eggplant with tomato and feta, baked potato, shrimp fettucine, wine, water
Dessert?: No
Cost: 32E
Notes: Maritsa was one of the more expensive restaurants we went to, and the only one K and I went to together where we had our own main dishes. I was sick as a dog with a cold and the baked potato hit the spot for me; I couldn't much taste anything. Though Galaxidi is a seaside village, the seafood was still quite expensive and K's fettucine with three head-on shrimp was 12E. The decor is adorable. We were given an all English menu, which I don't paricularly like. I enjoy being able to puzzle through the Greek. This place gets a neutral for the price and for the way they treated some Spanish tourists, banishing them outside on a chilly night under the pretense that locals wanted to watch the political debate--and then switching to music from the debate as soon as the Spanish couple was outside. It has great decor.
Location: Waterfront.

City: Athens
Restaurant: Museum Cafe
Meal: Lunch-ish
Dishes: Tiropita and an espresso
Dessert?: No
Cost: 6.50E (the coffee was 4E!)
Notes: The Museum Cafe is across the street from the Archaeological Museum. There's not much else there, especially on a Sunday, so we stopped in for a quick bite. It was fine, but nothing to seek out. I will say that they brought us glasses of tap water without us asking and kept them filled, which was a nice gesture. It costs more to eat in. I got some ice cream to go for 3.50E, which was not very good and not worth the price.
Location: Across from the Archaeological Museum.

DON'T RECOMMEND

City: Meteora
Restaurant: Paradeisos
Meal: Dinner
Dishes: Eggplant salad, saganaki (breaded fried cheese), yiyandes, stuffed peppers (meat), wine, water.
Dessert?: Grapes
Cost: 20E
Notes: After a long drive to Meteora and an even longer drive within Meteora to find our hotel, which was up on a hill with a wonderful view but with nowhere to walk to for dinner, we were ready for something easy. Both of our guidebooks (Lonely Planet and DK Eyewitness) concurred that Paradeisos was good so it made our decision easy. Yuck! Apparently this restaurant is now resting on its laurels. After our Dion Eggplant Experience we wanted another so we got the eggplant salad. This was partly our fault as everywhere but Dion eggplant salad is a puree of eggplant, yogurt and feta and, well, that's just not great. This one tasted of mayonnaise, which was not our fault. The yiyandes were cooked very well but oversalted. The saganaki was too much breading, and too soft of a cheese. Overall, this was probably our very worst meal. The waiter refused to meet our eye so we could ask him to bring us the check at the end and we finally had to call out to him across the (now empty) restaurant.

City: Athens
Restaurant: To Gerani/Scholarcheio
Meal: Dinner
Dishes: yiyandes, horta (sauteed wild greens, served cold), fries, meatballs, fried eggplant, wine, water
Dessert?: I'm pretty sure, but I didn't write it down and I'm blanking
Cost: Prix fixe dinner for two with 5 dishes, wine, and dessert is 24E.
Notes: Another guidebook recommendation, another bad meal. We should have learned from the first time. I was nervous (and yet secretly excited) that the menu was wholly in Greek. It was going to take me a while to get through it with my slow reading and dictionary skills--I can't keep track of what order the letters come in the Greek alphabet--but still, fun! But it doesn't work like that. A waiter brings a tray of prepared dishes, everything the kitchen has on offer that night, and you choose your plates right from the tray. This doesn't result in the most freshly-prepared food. Even if they had been freshly prepared, the dishes weren't that exciting. The restaurant was packed, but it was all foreign tourists, not even Greek tourists, much less locals.
Location: Walk through Plaka up Tripodon. When you get to To Gerani take the stairs on your left and keep walking to Ksenios Zeus.

City: Naxos Town
Restaurant: Meze
Meal: Dinner
Dishes: Mushrooms in garlic sauce, fries, water, wine
Dessert?: No
Cost: 17E
Notes: I went to Meze with some people I had met on the bus tour. We each got our own dish, and we got 1/2 liter carafes of wine in both red and white. The good is that the wine was *excellent,* some of the best house wine of the trip. The food was terrible. The "garlic sauce" on my mushrooms was gloopy, greasy, and congealed. The fries were cold. My dining companion's octopus was undercooked, and my other companion's chicken was sort of grayish.
Location: Waterfront. The waiters wear orange t-shirts with the restaurant's name on it. This makes it easier to spot and avoid.

Sleeping in Greece

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 01:43:00 +0000

Hotels in Greece are pretty standard European affairs. The rooms are small and the beds only have one flat pillow. The ones we stayed at were quite clean and, despite ashtrays indicating otherwise, did not smell of smoke. I was very relieved after having bad hotel experiences in Italy with the smoky rooms.

All my rooms had en suite bathrooms, with tiny showers that may or may not boast a curtain and likely had a handheld shower nozzle with nowhere to rest. I am petite, but I imagine someone larger than me might get claustrophobic in one of the little shower cubicles. If you have a shower with a handheld nozzle and without a curtain, the key is to always keep the nozzle pointed toward the back shower wall. And to remove the toilet paper roll from the holder and place it somewhere where it will stay dry! Only our 90E/nt luxury hotel in Meteora had a bathtub, though even that didn't have a shower curtain. Bath and hand towels were well-supplied, but (as is standard in Europe) there were no washcloths.

Breakfast is generally included in your room rate, though at our Athens hotel it was a separate 8E charge per person (not worth it!). Standard Greek-style continental breakfast is yogurt, muesli, cereal flakes, boiled eggs, bread (possibly including croissant or pain au chocolat), sliced cheese, sliced ham, feta, sliced tomato, sliced cucumber, coffee, and orange drink (NOT to be confused with orange juice). You can definitely get the right balance of foods to last you through a long morning of sightseeing at a hotel breakfast--be sure to eat the eggs for protein.

All the hotels I stayed at get a "recommend" rating, meaning I would stay there again. There is more information about the hotels in the individual blog posts for the days we stayed there.

City: Thessaloniki
Hotel Name: Hotel Tourist (aka Tourist Hotel)
Rate: 75E/nt for a double
Breakfast: Standard Greek continental, but no yogurt!
Notes: This hotel is in a great location one block from the water. The room was adorable, with "gilded" molding along the ceiling. The bathroom was clearly an afterthought--it was a little hut that had been constructed in the corner of the room, the ceiling about four feet below the extra-tall room ceiling. The desk clerks were very friendly and helpful.
Location: Waterfront

City: Meteora
Hotel Name: Meteora Hotel Kastraki
Rate: 90E/nt for a double
Breakfast: Excellent, hot dishes of scrambled egg, mushrooms, and sausages in addition to standard items. Beautiful view of Meteora sandstone cliffs from the breakfast room and hilarious cheesy 80s slow dance mood music.
Notes: This hotel was pricey, but if money is no object I highly recommend it. It's on the other side of the rocks from Kalambaka, so you don't get a view of any of the monasteries (which are on the Kalamabaka side), but the view of the backside of the cliffs is just as breathtaking. All the rooms have access to a balcony that runs the length of the hotel. They are putting in a pool.
Location: On a hill. Look for the signs.

City: Galaxidi
Hotel Name: Poseidon Hotel
Rate: 45E/nt for a double
Breakfast: Served up by the owner as he cooks it in a small kitchen. Per person you get a boiled egg, bread with jams, grapes, and a homemade donut, with orange Fanta and Nescafe. I would have liked a bigger breakfast, but you can't say the service isn't personal.
Notes: We did not book ahead in Galaxidi, and the Hotel Ganimede, recommended by both of our dueling guidebooks, was full up. The owner of Ganimede hopped on his motorbike, young daughter in tow, and led us to Poseidon. The elderly owner fussed over us like we were his own kids and sent us off with a bottle of ouzo.
Location: To get to the hotel, enter the town by the main road (the only way to enter the town, as far as I can tell). At the first big road you get to, turn right. It looks like the road dead ends at a little yellow house, which is the Poseidon.

City: Athens
Hotel Name: Art Gallery Hotel
Rate: 100E/nt for a double
Breakfast: 8E; standard Greek continental with particularly bad bread and croissants
Notes: You can't beat the location for the price of this hotel. It's three blocks down from the Acropolis on the unfashionable side, not the Plaka side, in the Koukaki/Marygianni neighorhood. The room was even a bit large by European standards, and the shower cubicle had doors. We found staff unfriendly and unhelpful at times (like when it was time to pay), however.
Location: At the Syngrou-Fix metro station exit toward Drakou, walk up three blocks and it's up on the left.

City: Naxos Town
Hotel Name: Hotel Galini/Sofia Latina
Rate: 35E/nt for a single
Breakfast: Greek continental with a few interesting additions, such as cinnamon sesame seed rusks.
Notes: This hotel was delightful. When I arrived the owners told me to sit down, have some water. When I finally told them I had a reservation they laughed and said they knew, I was the only single they were expecting that day. It is just steps from St. George beach and a quick walk to the waterfront and pier. My only complaint was the fire exit indicator lights. They were so bright I had to hang a towel over the ones shining directly in my eyes, which was quite an operation involving a very precarious sideways tiptoe perch on the refrigerator (oh yes, there's an in-room refrigerator).
Location: come off the ferry, walk down the pier to the harbor, and turn right (away from the Portara). Walk along the water always (DON'T TURN ANYWHERE), rather than going up to the main drag. Eventually the road will turn into a wide flagstone drive. You'll pass the Naxian Sphinx on your left. Keep going while the road winds around. After the bend there will be a driveway and the tiny church of St. George on your left. You can see the hotel behind the church. Make a left and go up the driveway and you're there. This is probably about 500 meters. A cab is 6E if you're not up to it.

City: Athens
Hotel Name: Athens Backpackers
Rate: 25E/nt for a six-person single-sex dorm, inclusive of linens but not towel, plus 5E refundable cash deposit for the key
Breakfast: Provided, but I didn't have any as I left in the wee hours of the morning for the airport
Notes: This was my first hostel! It had excellent reviews for cleanliness and safety so I wasn't concerned. In fact, it turned out to be a blast meeting the other travelers (all of them a decade younger than me, of course). The cleanliness and safety were very acceptable. The rooftop bar has an amazing view of the Acropolis, and of course I did not bring my camera, so no visual aid for this location.
Location: Akropoli metro, exit toward Athinasios Diakou, walk 30 metres, turn left onto Makri Street, 15 meters on the left

"The Facilities" in Greece

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 01:28:00 +0000

So this is an indelicate topic, but you know you want to know. I did. My bladder is approximately the size of a walnut. This is ironic because I am allergic to walnuts. In planning a daily itinerary, making sure there will be adequate restroom availability is a prime concern for me. In Scandinavia, I loved the city passes you could buy (Oslo Pass, Copenhagen Pass, Stockholm Pass) that gave you entrance to most museums because I was always near someplace I could duck in and use the restroom so I didn't have to worry about it. Every site, museum, and restaurant in Greece is fully equipped, so my mind was at ease.

Greece had a state-of-the-art plumbing system installed...two thousand years ago when the Romans came in. It's still going strong but it requires some special care. There are signs in most bathrooms telling you "Don't Throw Paper in the Toilet." The one at left is pretty standard. I guess the signs are trying to be discreet by saying "paper" instead of toilet paper, and picturing plastic bottles and whole newspapers as items not to be thrown into the bowl (who would?) but they are sort of defeating the purpose by being delicate.

The biggest thing for the American to get used to is that the septic system can't handle toilet paper. That's right, NO toilet paper in the toilets. There are little foot-pedal trashcans by every toilet and you put your used toilet paper in there. As I say, it takes some getting used to, but when in Greece, do as the Romans would have you do. It may seem "gross," but it's a lot less gross (and embarrassing) than a clogged toilet!

Bathrooms are usually easy to find as they are almost always marked with the universal "WC" symbol. Allegedly, the Greek word for toilet is "toualeta," which is a nice easy cognate to remember. I only saw this once on a sign (in Greek characters) and only used it once, but the one person I said it to had no trouble understanding what I meant. It doesn't *really* matter because everybody in Greece with whom you will come in contact as a tourist speaks English. Even if they don't, they will recognize the standard non-English "vay say" pronunciation of "WC" and point you in the right direction.

Many of the restrooms have fancy pictures of women and men instead of the standard skirt-ed and pant-ed symbols, which is fun (and it's always clear which is which) although sometimes I felt like I was too schlubby to enter into a bathroom with such a sophisticated siren on the door!

I didn't use any unaffiliated public toilets, only those in hotels, restaurants, museums, and the airport, so I can't say how they work. Now that I think of it, I don't recall seeing any unaffiliated public toilets so they may not be very common. I can only assume that it's similar to the rest of Europe in which there is a small charge, usually less than 1E, to use the facilities. Some such restrooms have coin operated stalls, but it is more common to have a restroom attendant who takes your money.

I had expected to run across a substantial percentage of Turkish (squat) toilets, but in fact I think there were only two. The first was at the Archaeological Museum in Dion, the second at the monasteries in Meteora. Wearing a skirt is invaluable in case you run into a Turkish toilet. I wear them because I find them comfortable (I never wear shorts anywhere except the gym) but ease in squatting is certainly another point in their favor. So, don't worry too much about this, but think of your strategy because it's probable you'll have at least one on your trip.

I also ran across a few what I call "Italian toilets," meaning the toilet seat was missing. I think it must be that somewhere in Italy there is a giant mountain of toilet seats that have been removed from every public toilet in the country. It is probably an installation piece by a conceptual artist to make a statement on the Western obsession with elimination. It was a much less common phenomenon in Greece, so the toilet seat art installation in Greece is more like a hillock than a mountain.

Toilet design is not as standard in Europe as it is in the States, where the handle is always in approximately the same place...unless it's an automatic flushing toilet in which case all you can do is flap your arms wildly and hope for the best. But that is another story. If you can't find the flush mechanism, look up and look down. Sometimes there is a tank above, like old-fashioned toilets, where you push or pull a little knob to flush. Sometimes there is a foot-operated flush. Where there is a foot-operated flush, the sink is often foot-operated as well. If the sink looks like it has an automatic sensor because there's no faucet knob but it doesn't turn on when you put your hands under it, look under your foot. The placement of the foot pedal by the sinks is remarkably ergonomically precise to capture the natural human stance and you're probably already standing on it.

All the toilets I ran across--and that is quite a large sample size, believe me--were clean and had toilet paper and soap (with the single exception of a gas station bathroom, but that's an unpleasant experience the world over). I highly commend the Greeks on their public restrooms.

Driving in Greece

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 01:20:00 +0000

K and I met when we were in law school, she at Cornell and me at Texas, when we both worked at the same law firm in DC over the summer. This particular firm billed itself as the alternative biglaw. "Biglaw" is the term lawyers use for the megafirms that charge their clients hundreds of dollars an hour for the privilege of working their young attorneys to, but not beyond, the point of death. I have not yet heard of any firm requiring billable hours from the other side of the grave, but on the other hand I wouldn't particularly be suprised to hear that a firm had Sylvia Browne or John Edward or some other star medium on retainer to figure out if it is possible.

Anyway, the firm we were at had cultivated a reputation as the kinder, gentler biglaw that believed in work/life balance, family time, and overall serenity and happiness. This reputation, which I found not particularly well-deserved when I joined full-time after law school, rested largely on the strength of the personality of the managing partner.

The managing partner was (he is not deceased, but is no longer the managing partner) truly a good man, devoted to his family, charismatic, amazing with names and faces and places of origin, and--believe it or not--humble. Humility is a rare quality among lawyers in general and among the partners at biglaw, with their connections and their millions, it is elusive indeed. Some of the ways in which the managing partner kept it real were maintaining a relatively modest home and driving a modest car. I believe it was a five year old Honda Accord. It was easy to pick out in the parking garage among the Jaguars, Mercedes, BMWs, Towncars, and other vehicles costing more than the annual salary of the average American.

Because the car was utilitarian rather than compensatory, the managing partner was comfortable allowing summer associates to use it while he took his family on a two week vacation (usually to the woods for hiking in Maine or New Hampshire, rather than five star resorts). It was generally his practice to have a drawing for use of the car, winner take all. For some reason he changed it up a bit our summer. I think one person wanted it for most of the time, but K and I ended up with it for a weekend. I wanted a car so I could drive some of the things I was mailing home to myself to the PO and we wanted to see Mt. Vernon and driving is really the only way to get there. I believe there is a bus that goes there, and you can bike or hike 18 miles or so on the Mt. Vernon trail but car is the easiest.

So, we're in the car of the managing partner of the very fancy, very well-known, very blue chip law firm at which we are working, driving through the streets of Washington, DC, and both had this simultaneous epiphany that to the other people on the road we appeared to be any old car that had the right to be there, but we were totally lost, didn't have a handle on DC traffic, and just generally did not feel like we belonged.

The point of this story is that this is how I felt in the beginning while driving in Greece. From the outside, we looked like just a regular car with regular girls (the picture was taken while we drove down the street in Thessaloniki). On the inside, I felt a little crazy and sort of wished I had a public address system I could use to alert other cars to be careful of us!

But then, very quickly, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. The whole earth is a giant strip mall and driving through Greece, especially between the Macedonian border and Thessaloniki, is pretty much like driving the New Jersey turnpike. I had been very nervous about driving in a foreign country. I had never driven in a foreign country and at home I drive maybe twice a month (I walk to work and everywhere I can, take the Metro most other places, and only drive when absolutely necessary). I am not a natural driver. I'm a cautious driver, make no mistake--I drive like an old lady and am very safe. But behind the wheel does not feel like my milieu, and add in some sort of je ne sais quoi "foreignness" to the mix and I thought it would be overwhelming. I was relieved that it was not so.

K and I rented a VW Polo in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It had AC and was a standard five-speed transmission. Luckily, it gave us no trouble so we didn't have to find out whether Europcar has good roadside assistance! Most European rent cars have standard transmission, so work on your clutch-and-shift skills before you go. We needed all five of the gears for mountain driving. As with many European cars, reverse was a bit of a mystery. It was up and to the left of first, which is the opposite of what I'm used to (all the way over to the right and down) but it was clearly mapped out on the stick shift so how hard could it be? Luckily, when we tried to figure it out we were pulling out of a parking place in a deserted parking lot, not on a busy street! After much finagling and lurching forward we finally realized you had to push the stick shift down and then put it in reverse. It's nice that you can't accidentally go backward, but we were sweating it there for a minute or five.

We were baffled by the gas cap although the rental agent had demonstrated it for us. We got gas twice (and remember when you think it's less than a dollar per gallon--it's sold by the liter, which is about 1/4 of a gallon) and both times the gas station attendant pumped for us. We couldn't tell if it was full-service, or if they just had pity for our inability to remove the gas cap and took over. Greece is very much a cash-based economy and though you might be able to pay for gas with credit at chain gas stations cash is much more common and what we used. The gas station attendant will be able to make change for you right at your car.

Greece uses standard European road signage, which really didn't mean that much to me but K knew what all the signs meant and you can find information on the internet http://www.ideamerge.com/motoeuropa/roadsigns/. A stop sign is a stop sign, identical to what we have in the States. Parking is indicated by a big "P" even though what looks like a P in the Greek alphabet is actually an R.

The speed limit sign is round with a red border and white in the middle with a number. This was the only one I had a hard time catching onto because it's just a number--no km/h or other designation. The speed limit in Greece is exquisitely calibrated...and widely ignored. On some of the mountain roads each individual bend had its own speed limit, but most cars didn't even deign to treat it as a suggestion, much less a rule.

The vast majority of road signs are provided in Greek with a Roman alphabet transliteration. Sometimes it is on the same sign, and sometimes the transliterated sign is posted 50 m after the Greek sign. However, you will occasionally run into a sign that's not translated (mostly in smaller towns and more rural areas), as in the photo. I *highly* recommend learning the Greek alphabet before you go and practicing to get your reading speed up. My Greek vocabulary is virtually nil but I had worked up to some level of facility with the alphabet and being able to read the characters with reasonable speed was immensely helpful on the road.

Passing is a national pastime in Greece, and it's a sport that allows everybody to get involved. We quickly discerned that it is polite to drive on the shoulder to allow the person behind you to pass. When you move over, you're indicated that it's clear for them to pass. Some trucks will helpfully let you know it's safe to pass them by putting on their right blinker for a few seconds, but this was not universal. Even on roads with multiple lanes going the same direction, slower drivers still veered onto the shoulder to allow passing, and on the six lane highway (three in each direction) into Athens I was constantly moving between lanes to manage the delicate passing dance--in the States I would have stuck in the middle lane and let everyone else go around me but that is just not done in Greece.

Passing is the biggest issue on the winding mountain roads where every driver has a different comfort level with the curves. Trucks necessarily go slow. Some roads had two lanes going up the mountain so you could always pass safely, but on those that didn't I relied a lot on the person in front of me pulling to the shoulder to indicate it was safe to pass (and doing the same for the fearless cars impatiently tailgating me).

Archaeological and historical sites are well-marked on the road with standard signage. The signs are brown and have a little picture of a broken down column, the name of the site in Greek, the name in English, and an arrow. If you drive through the country you'll see just how many of them there are!

You'll probably spend most of your drive in Greece on the National Road, or Egnatia Odos (EΓNATIA OΔOΣ). It is technically the E75, but Greeks don't use the number system and it rarely appears on a sign. It is a toll road and toll is 2E for a car as I recall. We actually only had to pay the toll once or twice; the other toll plazas we reached had Free Pass day.

All roads are well-maintained and safe, if not well lit. At the border with Macedonia was a magnificent row of streetlights that were completely inoperational. I assume they were part of the sprucing up for the Olympics that never quite got finished. Mountain roads are well-banked and almost all roads had generous shoulders.

It's generally easy to find your destination from the roads in Greece, though it's important to take to heart the advice of the desk clerk of the Hotel Tourist in Thessaloniki and DON'T TURN ANYWHERE. There will be signs and they will be accurate, but there is no hand-holding. When a sign tells you to turn to get to some town or sight turn and then just keep going until there's another sign that tells you to turn again, no matter how long it is. I am used to having reassuring signs every 500 feet telling me I'm going in the right direction. You won't get any of that. Just don't lose your nerve and turn back, thinking you've missed something. Every time we did that we got lost, and had we just kept going (for many kms in some cases!) we'd have gotten to the destination.

The only time it's hard to find your destination from signs is when the sign has been completely covered over in stickers, which is unfortunately common. Sometimes the directional arrow is obscured, sometimes the English transliteration, sometimes the whole thing. When we first entered Greece I thought it was a protest against providing English translations of everything for lazy foreigners and that the transliteration was deliberately obscured, but after seeing more it just seems that people like to put stickers on road signs.

An interesting cultural difference is the way in which road deaths are commemorated. In the States, families generally put up small white wooden crosses on the side of the road where there has been a fatal accident. In addition to commemorating the deceased, they are also a small reminder to drive carefully. In Greece, they go for a much more permanent system. I kept seeing what looked like church-shaped postboxes and finally asked K about them. They are put up to commemorate people who died in traffic accidents. The one in the pic is more elaborate than most (and was put up in front of a church; as we were driving while passing those on the roads I didn't get a picture of any roadside ones). The family's economic standard is clear by the quality of the church postbox. Some are stone, some are simple sheet metal. But the basic idea is always the same. A post, a little box with a cross on top, and items inside to honor the memory. Usually inside there is a picture and a bottle--Coke, whiskey, or both--plus other miscellaneous items like dried flowers. The postboxes are much more enduring than our white crosses, so on curvy mountain roads they are often closely spaced, maybe one every 50 feet. Their presence doesn't seem to slow people down, though.

All in all, driving in Greece was easy, safe, and painless. In fact, it sometimes made it a little surreally *too* familiar. Driving is driving and K and I would be going along and chatting comfortably and then suddenly I would have a small epiphany that we were in Greece, not home in Washington DC.

Friday, September 14, 2007 The Long Flight Home

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 01:14:00 +0000

I managed to fall asleep for a bit at the Athens Backpackers, but was able to get up and head out in the dark in a timely manner. On the walk up Leoforos Amalias to Syntagma Square I kept panicking that I had left things behind (my pashmina, my air tickets), but I hadn't. I got to the Square to wait for the 4:30 X95 Airport Express Bus around 4:15 and there were a few other people already there. I realized I was still drunk (duh) and was glad there is no breath test to get on an airplane!

I started worrying because I had meant to go into a metro station and validate my ticket, as I hadn't been clear on whether there were validating machines on the buses. The bus arrived around 4:20 and the driver let us get on and there is a validating machine on the bus where I stamp my ticket. I was glad I'd been there early as it filled up almost completely and pretty quickly--I'd already been able to snag a seat in view of my suitcase on the luggage rack. It took off at 4:30 on the dot and though it is an "Express" bus it makes an awful lot of stops. At every stop more and more people got on and it was absolutely stuffed. People were standing every which way.

There is no traffic and we arrive at the Eleftherios Venizelos Airport around 5:20. I found the Austrian Air ticket counter based on the signboards (which tell you which counter number to check in for which flight). There were lots of people already in line...and no staff at the counter! So much for getting to the airport two hours before your flight! Some staff rolled in around 5:30 and took about 15 minutes setting up, and finally started checking people in around 5:45. Security is quick and easy and I was in the waiting area by 6:00, boarding not until 7:05.

Oh no! There is no real foodservice in the waiting area! Only a coffee cart with some wonderbread-looking sticky buns and a newstand with chocolate bars. I really wanted something to eat to help me sober up but I couldn't stomach the thought of either of those items.

When it is boarding time a bus takes us to the plane and we get on. As we go into flight we are promised a "small snack." I am praying for a dry packaged croissant or a cakey muffin with indeterminate bits of "fruit" rather than pretzels. Well, god bless Austrian Airlines, operated by Vo Tyrolean! I was handed a warm box with scrambled eggs and tomato, with the slice of ham way over to the side so it didn't "contaminate" the eggs (I'm vegetarian) and a warm roll. Perfect hangover food...except I was still drunk and as it soaked up the alcohol in my system I feared I could feel the hangover setting in. I was very surprised and pleased to have had a real breakfast. I sletp fitfully on the flight in 30 second spurts. During the final descent I could see the airport below us, and then suddenly I was awakened as we jolted onto the ground.

In the Vienna Airport I wandered the duty free with my 6E in change in search of protein-rich foods to supplement my upcoming airline "meal." The woman at Starbucks told me I could take the yogurt parfait through security as long as she wrapped and sealed it in a duty-free bag with the receipt showing. Indeed, security scrutinized the date on the receipt through the layers of plastic, but once satisfed with that let me carry it onto the plane. I also got some chocolate-dipped biscuits and a Milky Way Special bar.

Boarding goes without incident. The flight attendant directs me to my seat in German. I got a lot of that. The food was much better than on the way over. I appeared to have gotten the dairy meal this time instead of the vegan meal. Lunch was noodles in red sauce with some vegetables and topped with cheese and chocolate cake for dessert. Second lunch was a caprese salad with fancy greens and surprisingly good panna cotta. No dessert was as good as that Milky Way bar, though. Man, why can't we get that over here?

It had appeared I was going to be alone in my row (window seat!) but at the last minute a man came in and dropped his bag into the center seat and sat down with some profanity. It was sort of every single woman's fantasy, in that he was attractive, age appropriate, and not wearing a wedding ring, but he had walked in smelling like the floor of a frat house and immediately proceeded to have a glass of wine, a beer, and a giant scotch (in that order) in the hour before I fell asleep (yay! sleep on a plane!) and the only words he uttered throughout the flight were angry swears. But hey, the alcoholic with anger issues is single! (Or at least not married. Or at least pretending not to be.)

So about 20 minutes before landing I initiated conversation with him. He is a government lawyer like me, though about to leave to be a law professor, which is every lawyer's dream. He'd been abroad for work and visited Estonia, Latvia, and Prague. We had the DC versus Virginia debate and found out that we both prefer the DK Eyewitness Travel Guides and made fun of the Lonely Planet's backpackerier-than-thou world-weary tone. It was an enjoyable conversation, but we didn't exchange any personal information, not even names. To demonstrate what a how small DC is, I later was talking with a good friend and told her this story and we have identified him with 97% accuracy as the guy who was jerking her around for a couple of months earlier this year. So it's a good thing he wasn't interested in me.

We land at Dulles at 2:46, so there's no way I'm going to make the 2:50 A5 metrobus. It took forever to get off the plane (had to wait for a second moon landing vehicle), go through Passport Control, and go through Customs. I decided to splurge on the commercial bus to West Falls Church Metro for $9. The A5 is $3, but the Washington Flyer bus has luggage stowal below rather than unattainably high luggage racks inside; that's worth some amount of price differential. Unfortunately, it doesn't run any more often than the A5 and I had just missed it so I had to wait 30 minutes. I finally made it home around 5:00 (ugh, I HATE Dulles), hauled my suitcase up the stairs to my third floor walkup, and collapsed. I was home. It was over, my wonderful trip to Greece, but oh, the memories!

Thursday, September 13, 2007 Athens & Ouzo

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 00:47:00 +0000

I have set my alarm to wake me, but I kept waking early because I was nervous about missing the boat (9:30 am). The church bells ring very early for service, around 6:45 am. The church is right behind the hotel but I hadn't heard them other mornings. When I left the hotel I wanted to take pictures of it, but the doors were still open and people coming out of it and I felt awkward treating their place of worship like a tourist attraction so alas no pics of St. George church.

I got up and had more yogurt with muesli and honey and reluctantly checked out. My rate was 35E/night. A steal!!!! Hotel Galini accepts credit cards.

I left the hotel around 8:45 and made a leisurely walk to the pier along the sea road, stopping for phictures along the way. I buy some more postcards and a magnet and the boat (Blue Star Ferries this time; 29E) arrives about the same time I do. I am directed up to coach class. There is a small nonsmoking indoor portion with reclining seats so I snag one. Most people are outside on the deck. All is well until Paros when all the children of Greece get on the boat and sit next to me. I put in earplugs and dozed until about 1:30.

We were about an hour from Athens so I decided to spend the rest of the time outside. First order of business was to find a bathroom, which is not easy! There are ship maps everywhere, and they have the bathrooms marked, but there are no signs directing you to the WC. I kept trying to orient myself to the map and then find the bathrooms but I couldn't. I finally located some on the uppermost outdoor deck at the front of the ship.

Now I was hungry and bought a small spanakopita from the Flocafe (the same concession as on the Nel ke) for 1.90E. Despite repeated announcements not to put your stuff on a seat so others may sit, it's hard to find a seat with all the bags piled on them. I ask a Greek family if I can sit at their table and they kindly indicate that's fine. The spanakopita is actually good, if overpriced, and the 7 Day Sesame Bagel chips are delightful! I couldn't stop eating until I finished them all.

I go to the railing to watch our arrival into Piraeas and am again struck by how gigantic and dense Athens is! I really hate to think of what the commute is like. It wasn't as evident in person, but in the picture you can also observe the city's legendary smog.

While we were approaching the port some birds were flying alongside the boat. They were going at a slightly faster speed than we were and it took me a while to figure out what was wrong with this picture. It finally dawned on me--they were gliding. no wings flapping, just riding the wind. It was really cool looking (even if I am totally freaked out by birds), but I couldn't get my camera out fast enough to get a picture. Now that I'm familiar with Piraeas it's a cinch to find the metro when we arrive.

On this trip I decided to do something I had never done before, something that felt very daring and maybe even a little scary...stay at my first youth hostel. At the age of 33. My flight out of Athens was set for 7:35 am. The airport is about an hour drive from the city, so to be there two hours before my flight I was going to have to leave Athens at...4:30 am. Ugh!

I looked into staying at the airport, but the Sofitel, the only hotel on the airport grounds, was 220E/night, way beyond my budget. There is a Holiday Inn "near" the airport that offers a free shuttle, and rooms were only 110E/night, but I had no sense where it was really located and didn't know if the shuttle would be running as early as I needed to.

Given these circumstances, I decided that rather than pay for a hotel for just a few hours I would try a hostel, and use the money I saved to get a cab, which would be about 50E at that time (cab rates double in the off hours, and 4:30 am is an off hour fo sho). I was very happy with my decision When K and I passed the Holiday Inn on our metro ride from the airport when we first arrived in Athens. It's not really that near the airport and is in the middle of cruddy nowhere. I'd rather take a little longer ride to the airport while staying in the heart of Athens.

Athens Backpackers had good reviews online, so I took the plunge. I had to pay a deposit, but it was only $5, which I could afford to lose if I chickened out at the last moment. I had no trouble finding it from the Akropoli metro stop using the directions on the website. It's an additional 22.50E on top of my $5USD pre-payment, plus a 5E cash deposit for the key, to be returned when I check out and give them back the key. The guy at the desk is friendly and cute (if 10 years younger than me), and the cute Aussie girl with him compliments my "sunnies." I love the Australian slang, it's so adorable! Jess kept talking about putting on her "swimmers" to go in the water. Cuteness!

I'm on the third floor (fourth floor to Americans) and I was vastly relieved when the desk guy told me I could use the lift to get my suitcase up there. I had really not been looking forward to hauling my suitcase up the obligatory marble spiral stair. I don't carry anything nonsensical with me, like a blowdryer, and I had half as many clothes as days, but everything still adds up and the suitcase was around 35 pounds by then. I'm assigned to Dorm 7, which was nice and clean with three sets of bunkbeds and an en-suite bathroom. There are a few other suitcases in there but no people, so I refreshed myself and headed out. Linens are included on the beds, though towels are not, and can be rented for 2E according to the website. I wasn't carrying shower flip flops with me and had planned to just be gross and not shower.

My first mission was to walk to Syntagma Square. My Plan A had been hard core: stay at Athens Backpackers and take the bus to the airport. Then I looked at the map and realized it was about 400 meters between the hostel and Syntagma Square, where the airport bus picks up and I thought I'd go with Plan B, take a cab. But I wanted to make sure Plan B was necessary. Really, not even so much for the money. A 50E cab ride to the airport was not going to break me financially, but it would wound my pride in being a self-sufficient traveler a little. In Italy I took a cab only from the train station to the hotel in Rome when I first arrived. For everything else I used buses or trains. In Scandinavia I didn't take any cabs at all. I had already ruined my no-cab record in Naxos, but still. So far no cabs on the mainland.

I arrive in Syntagma and decide the walk is far, but doable. I buy my bus ticket in advance for 3.20E (versus 50E for a cab!), again thinking it's so little that if I chicken out and do a cab I won't have lost much (except my pride). I should have researched it more, though; I could have saved myself .80E at Piraeas! The 3.20E gives you unlimited rides on metro and buses plus one-way fare on the airport express bus for the 24 hours after it is validated, so if I'd bought it Piraeas I could have started using it then for my metro ride instead of buying a .80E single ride ticket. Again, not the money, just a blow to my "savvy traveler" ego.

That taken care of, it was time for my last sight-seeing in Greece. Across from Syntagma Square is, well, the Syntagma (parliament), with its ceremonial guards. To get to them I had to walk through a giant field of pigeons. I am very creeped out by birds, but they were not in the least disturbed by me.

The guards' patrol is a very elabroate routine performed by two officers in perfect unison, involving high knees and kicks and pauses and making the most of the taps on their shoes. They are in traditional costume, which is warm and they are sweating on this hot day, but it's their lack of sunglasses that gives me the most sympathy. Ouch on the eyes! After they finish and go stand near at the guardhouses (where their heads are shaded, at least) a woman goes and stands next to one of them for a picture and he doesn't flicker an eye.

After that spectacle I was off to the Benaki Museum. I knew they had free admission and late opening hours on Thursdays, and was glad this day just happened to be a Thursday. Although it's free ou still have to get a ticket at the admission desk, and also turn in your camera at bag check. It is a really wonderful world-class museum focusing mostly on Greek history from pre-history to the mid-19th century. It was the private collection of the scion of a wealthy shipping family so there is some mishmash going on, with several Egyptian artifacts mixed into the collection. There is a lot of jewelry and clothing, as well as elaborate Byzantine carved wood.

It's a really big collection and you could spend all day here, but (again with the nice chronological arrangement) you can breeze through in about an hour or two, stopping at the pieces that interest you. At this point in my trip breezing was all I was up to! Also, it was hard to stay in because the smell of smoke just permeated the museum. I think it's that the museum cafe, on the third floor, had the doors open to its balcony where people were smoking and the wind just carried it through the whole building. Priceless treasures, people! Can we not refrain from smoking for a couple of hours??? The museum shop has some lovely pieces in it...none of them with prices. They just have numbers and I suppose you're meant to ask the cashier how much things are. I figured it was an "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" situation so I retrieved my camera and crossed the street to the National Gardens.

I sit on a bench in the National Gardens, enjoying (for the first time that day) some fresh smoke-free air and the greenery. I see some attractive men jogging in tank tops and little shorts and stumble upon the obligatory unmarked ruins, picturesquely overgrown. I enjoyed wandering all the little paths, knowing there was no way to get lost because I could just head toward the noise of traffic and find myself on a busy street. I wound my way trhough and emerged near Olympian Zeus and headed up into plaka. I bought a baklava (1E) because I hadn't had one all trip, I realized. It was rich and delicious.

It was my final shopping excursion, so I bought some evil-eye pendants to make into necklaces for gifts. The teenage girl who was working the shop pointed out some bronze figurines made by her father; they were cute but I just don't do figurines, unfortunately.

Then it was off to buy my glass! I stopped into a shop that had some pieces that caught my eye (really, all the shops in Plaka are the same and I don't remember the name or location). The owner is friendly, very slightly pushy but not too much with the hard sell. Good for him because I would have walked out if he was. For some reason he thinks it is important to me that he has sold to many other Americans, and he pulls out his shipping receipt notebook and starts reading off destinations--New Jersey, Oregon, Texas. I dithered between red and blue and finally decided on red. The marked price was 69E, but he gave me a "discount" (I assume everyone gets the discount, and I might have gotten more of one if I was at all adept at or comfortable with bargaining) to 62E and wrapped it well in bubble wrap and packing tape.

I was hungry, but it was about 5:00, too late for lunch so I got an ice cream cone, vanilla and pistachio for 3.50E. Not worth it, not great ice cream. I wandered back to the hostel looking for postboxes for my last postcards, but there were only express postboxes. Curses!

In the dorm room, three girls were sitting around chatting and I totally inserted myself into the conversation. They were Anna and Justine, two Polish girls with absolutely perfect English. They were beyond fluent and into native speaker level. It was just phenomenal. If I'd had to guess I'd have thought Anna was Scottish (where she's studying) and Justine Australian. There was also a Canadian girl, Christina, who was having a little trouble adjusting to travel ("Athens sucks" was her conclusion).

We talked about our travels and our lives and they were suitably shocked by my advanced age (they ranged from 23-25). We decided to head to the hostel's rooftop bar, which is one of the features mentioned by all the reviews. It really has a stunning view of the Acropolis! This was not like Art Gallery's lean-over-the-railing-and-crane-your-neck balcony, it's got an unobstructed lovely view. Of course I hadn't brought my camera.

Shots of ouzo were .50E so we took turns treating. I hadn't had ouzo yet (despite the gift from our Galaxidi Poseidon Hotel host) and I *never* do shots, but it was actually quite nice. The anise taste isn't overwhelming and it warms, rather than burns, its way down. The bar appears to own only six shot glasses. We had to wait for our first round until the shotglasses were available, at which point the bartender rinsed them in a little running water and filled them up. We reasoned that the alcohol surely killed any germs that might linger. We met some other travelers and the atmosphere was very convivial.

It was getting chilly so we went back to the room for wraps. There were rumors of a pub crawl starting at 11, but then it was pushed back to 11:30 and we decided to go off on our own (for which I was much grateful; three shots of ouzo was quite enough for me, especially on an empty stomach). I had the most cartographic knowledge of the area, which wasn't saying much, so I was in charge of navigation. I went to Plaka the only way I knew how, by finding Olympian Zeus and walking up. It was a very quiet night. I hadn't realized Plaka was ever that dead.

I managed to find Ksenios Zeus but the owner told us he was closed! Sob! We wandered back down and saw a restaurant with a rooftop dining area, called Elaias (Eλαιας), Olives. There were only one or two tables filled, but the waiter said they were still open so we headed up. It looks fancy but the prices are only one or two Euro above the norm and the view is quite nice. I had the grilled mushrooms and the fried potatoes, and both were delish. The potatoes were rounds about 1/4 inch thick rather than fries, and the mushrooms were the fantastic Oysters. Justine and Christina had moussaka, and Anna had the stuffed tomato. The bread is warm rolls...that have clearly been warmed all night and are quite hard by the time they get to us. There are also some little crackers with sunflower seeds on them with olive oil for dipping and some really nice, not-too-salty olives.

We all enjoyed our food and conversation, but it was getting cold and the waiters were clearly ready to close up. The girls were amazed when I asked for the bill in Greek, which really amused me. Here Anna and Justine are telling me IN ENGLISH how impressive that I can say one sentence in Greek! Actually, it's not even a sentence because it doesn't have a verb. It's just a phrase, "The bill please." {To loghariazMO parakaLO.) While they speak English as though native speakers! I don't think one phrase is particularly impressive. I had 35E remaining in cash, so I threw it down. I wished I had more so I could pay the whole bill, but they each only had to pay 5E, so the total (with tip) for the four of us was 50E. I remember how much that sort of thing meant to me when I was that age and broke, someone unexpectedly paying for a nice meal, relieving me of the little pit in the stomach at the cost.

We got back to the hostel around 1:10 am and make our farewells. We were all a little sad I would be leaving so early and wouldn't be able to hang out with them the next day.

You can see all my photos from Athens, and all the pictures from this trip to Greece if you'd like.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007 I finally relax on Naxos

noreply@blogger.com (The Slapdash Sewist) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 22:22:00 +0000

I slept until 9:30, which was a record for this trip. At home I am a champion sleeper. I think nothing of the clock reading 11 am when I wake up Saturday mornings. But on a trip I am more keyed up and have a hard time sleeping late. I guess nobody else has trouble sleeping late as it was quite a popular breakfast time when I arrived.

I found the yogurt this time--you know, in the big bin at the front of the table? I swear they must have removed the yogurt tub for refilling the first morning when I was getting my breakfast. Could I really be so dense that I missed it? I had yogurt with muesli and honey and it was delicious. The yogurt at Hotel Galini seems to have slightly lower fat content and a more mild taste (all cow's milk versus some goat in others?) than other yogurts, and goes down nice and easy. I also had a sesame seed-topped cinnamon rusk, which was not too sweet.

I thoroughly sunscreened myself and headed to the beach. There are chaises and umbrellas on the beach and on Monday I couldn't figure out the situation. They seemed attached to cafes, but the vast majority of people using them didn't have drinks on their little tables. Then I thought maybe they were connected to a particular hotel. Then I thought maybe it was just a public service of the town. At any rate, I had just laid on the sand on my big silk chiffon scarf that was doubling as a towel rather than deal with them.

However, as today was my beach day I wanted a chair so I decided to just sit on one and see what happened. Eventually a woman came over and asked me for 4E. I hadn't brought any money with me so I asked her if I could go back to my room and get some. She said that was fine, and I could take my time. When I came back and paid her I asked her if that hired the chair for the whole day and she said yes. Yay! That seems pretty cheap to me. I traveled for business to Myrtle Beach a couple of years ago and took the afternoon off to go to the beach. To hire a chair with umbrella was $25 for the day there.

I read my books and finally went all the way into the water (well, I didn't put my face in, but I got my hair wet). I floated well in the salty sea, but I couldn't quite get used to the chill and relax. The sandy beaches of Naxos are lovely, or at least St. George beach at the town is. St. Anna and Plaka, further south, are supposed to be even nicer I believe and are easily reached by bus but I was content with St. George. The water is perfectly clear and the sea floor almost entirely bare; there were a few plans and sea sponges rolling around. While I was there the Aegean was quite calm anyway, but the water at St. George beach is almost entirely flat because it's in a protected little alcove. The only waves we had were wakes from the motorboat taking people for a ride on the banana. The combination of perfectly clear almost still water and a blank sea floor make perfect conditions for refraction of sunlight to be projected onto the sand. It had been absolutely gorgeous the day before during sunset; during today's fitful sun it was hard to get a strong enough image to capture with the capture but I stood in the water as long as it took, camera at the ready, for the sun to come through the clouds and finally got my picture.

More sun and reading. I hear somebody ask what time it is and get the response that it's 2:00. The morning flew! Having a book is key. I decided to head for the main drag to get some postcards and lunch.

I spend a long time choosing non-cheesy postcards, and buy some more stamps from the store. I love that all the tourist stores sell postcard stamps! I had lunch at Dolphins (Δελφινιας), and ordered the organic potato salad with tomatoes, fresh parsley, capers, olives, red onion, and some sliced raw garlic. It was sensational! By far the best thing I'd had on Naxos to date.

I don't know if I chose poorly, but the food on Naxos was, on the whole, the worst I had on the trip. Meze had been pretty awful, and The Good Heart merely ok...I had been too spoiled by the wonderful food on the mainland to enjoy merely ok! After he takes my order, the English-speaking son of the owner at Dolphins compliments my sunglasses and touches my shoulder. The flirty non-Irish bartender the night before had done the same (touched my shoulder). That morning I think some guys had whistled and called hello from a cafe, though I wasn't sure if it was directed at me. This is the most action I've gotten all year--two touches on the shoulder and some possible whistles! Ay me.

I wrote my postcards, including one to myself to remind me of how great Naxos was and to remember it when I'm stuck in my workaday real life. The bill at Dolphins was 6.7E.

I wandered through the town and up to the Kastro, the old Venetian stronghold to take some pics. It looked properly weathered and old.

I loved the beautiful pink flowers against the white stucco and blue doors and windows! I know the white and blue originally started as a ward against the evil eye, but I wonder now if it is maintained for the benefit of the tourists and people wish they could paint their doors yellow or purple or fuchsia (my front door is fuchsia).

I was going to go to the Kastro Museum, but I saw that clouds were rolling in so I hurried back to the beach to get the last bit of sun. I didn't learn anything of the Venetian occupation while in Greece, so I think that will be my excuse for going back.

On the beach it was still a little warm but clouds were covering the sun most of the time. Then some threatening gray clouds came in and it was too cold to sit on the beach anymore. I was sad as I had planned to spend sunset by the water for my last night. Oh well. I went back to my room and finished my books. Without knowing anything of the books other than their covers, I had somehow managed to choose two books (Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner and Swallowing Grandma by Kate Long) with the same theme of abandoning mothers and fantasy fathers. Odd.

I took the books back to Papyrus, the used bookstore, where I got back 6E, half the 12E I had paid. Quite a tidy profit for him. Too late I had seen that the hotel had a few lending books in various languages. I didn't check them out since I was all fixed up with the ones I had bought and didn't want any book-buying remorse! I read fast and I read a lot so I *never* buy books. I can't imagine what my house would look like if I had bought all the books I've read! I am all-library, all the way. Buying a book is quite an occasion for me.

By this time it was dark. I walked up to the Portara and then really wished I had my flashlight. The path is not lit except where the spotlights on the Portara blind you. The path that is so well-marked and well-maintained during the day becomes a bit scary at night! I tried taking some photos but my camera does terrible night photos and plus I am not good at holding it steady during the long exposure, and I couldn't find the post I had used for my self-portraits to use the timer to take a steady picture. I wandered back through town and bought some more little bottles of Kitron for gifts and then dropped them off at my room and headed out for dinner.

Since I'd had so little luck with Greek food on the island I kind of wanted to try the East-West Cafe, which has Pan-Asian and Indian cuisine. However, the only way to get to it appeared to require passing in front of the Irish bar. I knew the bartender would recognize me from the night before and for some reason (yes, I'm neurotic) I felt awkward, and knew I'd have to go talk to him and he'd want me to come in for a drink but really I just wanted dinner and I would feel bad saying no. So I tried to approach East-West from the other direction but I lost the trail. I stumpled upon the Trattoria di Susanna, whose sign advertises its pizza with real mozzarella. Pizza sounds good so I get a table. It was great! I had the Frescuria, with mozzarella, parmesan, cherry tomatoes, and arugula. The real mozzarella is fantastic. When the pizza arrives it seems gigantic, big enough for two, but suddenly there was only one piece left. The house red wine comes in a real wine glass with a generous pour and is very drinkable.

There's not a whole lot of foot traffic near the restaurant, but the motorbikes are zipping up and down the hills. There is nearly an accident when a car pulls out of an alley too quickly and the motorbike has to come to a swervey, skiddy stop. The guy on the bike merely gave the driver of the car a dirty look and started back up. I would have had (1) a heart attack, and (2) a screaming fit, in that order.

The bill was 11.40E, and it was presented to me with an orange-flavored "Jelly Pop" candy, a small fruit chew sort of similar in taste and texture to an orange slice or...I am blanking on the name. I always loved them as a kid. They are round patties, maybe 1 inch diameter, sugar coated, and very soft. Anyway, this candy was really good, not too sweet with a strong orange flavor. I looked for the Jelly Pop brand to bring some home but didn't find any in the stores or the airport.

After dinner I walked back to the square with the fountain as I had seen a small grocery store there and wanted to pick up some food for the ferry ride the next day. There is a small concession on board, but I assumed it would be overpriced and not good. It was slim pickings, unfortunately, and all I got were bagel chips and a chocolate bar. I helped some German women who came in asking for olive paste by its Italian name, which the clerk didn't know. I said to him, knowingly, "Elie," and he corrected me, "Elia." Oh well, I was close. Anyway, I had seen the olive products and led the women over there and we concluded our quadri-lingual search for olive paste.

I had grabbed my flashlight when dropping of the Kitron and walked back up to the Portara. While the walk was much easier and safer with the flashlight it was now completely deserted and I felt a little creeped out, as I couldn't see anything but the path in front of me and who knew what loomed out there in the darkness, beyond the reach of my feeble penlight. I found my self-timer post--it was much further toward the edge than I remembered and it would have been really stupid of me to attempt to find it without the flashlight. Unfortunately, it was so blustery that even putting the camera on the post and using the timer function the picture was still blurred from the wind jarring the camera during its exposure. When I came down from the hill a woman was walking toward me and I was so keyed up that I admit I gave a tiny little scream because seeing another person startled me.

Back at the hotel I packed up for my ferry the next morning. At this point I was practically having to sit on my suitcase to close it!

You can see all my pictures from Naxos and all the photos from this trip to Greece if you'd like.