 GREECE WINS THE COOPA!! |
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well sweet me oh my. GREECE HAS WON THE EURO CUP!!!!!!!!!!!! make no mistake about it. i left my parents at lake como on sunday, the morning of the 4th of july, to fly on a cheap ticket to athens (more about como in a second. first - GREECE AND THE EURO CUP.) i arrived in athens about 5:30 pm and just planned to sort of endure what i'd heard was a gross big city for a night until i'd leave the next day for the *islands*. (i write now from Santorini.) i did think it was a bit neat i'd be in athens, my one night ever and probably ever again to be in athens - on the night they were playing in the finals of the euro cup. but oh my goodness i never thought it would be such a night!!! so i go to a 9 pm show first at an ancient greek ruin open-air theatre right there by the Acropolis - the Herodus Atticus Theatre. it was traditional japanese music (three instruments - percussion, 3-stringed instrument, and a bamboo type wind instrument) and traditional japanese dance. the music was beautiful. the dancing was totally random and structure-less, like a bunch of people just literally MOVING around on the stage doing odd contortions with their hands. i have to say, it sort of reminded me of .... myself ... dancing. take what you will from that. but the theatre was freakin' awesome and the night was breezy and it was just beautiful. but anyway as i left i went to try to find this canadian dude named Tiko (Japanese by origin) that i'd eaten with earlier to catch the second half of the euro cup. never found him (can't say i was too sad about that. Tiko was honestly one of those *talkers* that makes one appreciate one's solitude.) (of course i ran into him the next day and he had someone take a picture of us at the parthenon which he said i can check out on his web-site which he is updating throughout his trip. whatever dude.)  ANYWAY people were PACKED in the streets watching the match, and i arrived among them just as the one and only GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL was scored and let me tell you -- CRAZYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!! people spinning everyone around and SINGING the same SONG over and over and over until the end of the match. FIRECRACKERS. SPARKLERS. CHAMPAGNE being shot open all over everyone!!! it was awesome!!! so there were these two adorably nice greek guys who i met and we visited during the second half of the match at an outside restaurant/bar place, and i asked them what the cheer said, and i couldn't understand (still can't) why they don't leave in the corner of the screen how much time is left in the match, as one would find on FOX or ESPN football americano. this is BAFFLING to me. but whatever. anyway we just totally hit it off. when the match was over, i say, "Congratulations!" and in their pretty-good-but-amusing-english, they say, "why?! why you congratulate me, it is them!!" pointing at the tv. we ended up roaming the streets all night long. CARS AND SCOOTERS circling the PARLIAMENT ALL NIGHT LONG, HORNS BLOWING. FLAGS EVERYWHERE. TOTALLY INSANE. they said that they do this on independence day and on certain saints' days (so funny!) but this was the biggest celebration they'd ever seen. people climbing up on street lights.  and the cops do nothing. one of the guys said, "here - cops are ONE with the people. they have FUN with the people. they are just here to make sure everything is ok. see, they are blowing their horns WITH the people." it was very amusing. the greek guys were chock-full of info like, "in greece, this. and in greece, that." they made fun of how i would say, "ohhhhhh" in response to anything interesting that they told me about greece, and one said, you sound like the "sensei" making fun of mr. miyagi in the karate kid movie - "ohhhhhhh!" they bought me coca-cola lite and ice cream and we stayed out til 5 am and it felt like midnight. it was beautiful. i love the greeks. and let me tell you, that night, the greeks were loving each other. strangers hugging and kissing. men kiss each other on the cheek here in celebration. it was beautiful.  then the next afternoon before boarding the night ferry i wandered to the old olympic stadium where the first modern olympics was held in the late 1800's, and LO! it was Greece, welcoming the team home. the stadium became PACKED and they played the anthem and they also played "We are the Champions", as in "I paid my dues, time after time...." and it was so reminiscent of certain recent events (football) and less recent (baseball), of that feeling of welcoming home the team that everyone loves so much, and so collectively, and i just thought the absolute universality of that emotion was such a beautiful thing. i will forever be indebted to nico and minos, the two greek guys who totally adopted me for the night. i have a great 2 minute video of us ordering ice cream along the crazy greek streets at 5 in the morning from my digital camera which is too big to email from this yahoo account. :( they called "flavors" "tastes", pronounced "tast-tes" if that makes sense. they call the Cup, as in the Euro Cup, the "coopa" in English. ANYWAY. i think the last mass-email i wrote i was dodging the spanish hostel owner. luckily, a fellow from colorado named randy showed up at the spanish hostel right after i wrote that email. he said, "hello, how's your trip been so far?" i said, "great. would you like to have drinks with me and the hostel owner at 9:15?" he said, um, ok. i said, "great." we left the hostel to go roam around seville, saying bye to the hostel owner. we came back at 9:15... no hostel owner. he stood us up. next day, i said to hostel owner, "what happened to you last night?" (i was leaving that day so it was safe to investigate without sounding like i wanted a rain check.) he said, "you leave with him. i figure, you with him. i do not come back for drink." so randy was a relief as far as saving me from the solo date with the hostel owner. we hung out the next 2 days in seville and a precious southern spanish hill town called Arcoz where all the houses are white with a million flowers and it reminded me SO MUCH of the spanish architecture of the french quarter. totally beautiful. after two days with randy i was, just as with Tiko, grateful for my solitude. randy could talk for hours about ... randy ... and how he is going to be an engineer on a nuclear submarine and he was so in love with himself that he even said - i kid you not - this: he said, "looks like the sangria here is a lot cheaper than the soft drinks." i say, "i think you're right." he says, "ha, well. it wouldn't be the first time." CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE?!? OBNOXIOUS!!!!! so i thought i would spend 2 or 3 nights in switzerland - spent seven. the alps were just so wonderfully beautiful and i hiked a lot and loved it. you hike through people's back yards on the way to the peaks, it is so incredible. cows everywhere, and if you couldn't see them grazing, you could hear the cowbells. i spent 2 nights in Luzern on bonnie's recommendation - i LOVED IT!!! hiked Rigi and Pilatus and the town was beautiful. then one night at Gimmelwald, a Rick Steves Europe thru the Back Door suggestion - one hostel, one hotel, one restaurant. up high in the mts, middle of nowhere. hiked through snow to the rotating restaurant at the nearest peak -- total rush of a hard hike sinking in snow in my tennis shoes and i totally loved it. THEN i ventured on to the oh-so-remote town of ... Zermatt - to summer-ski. so remote that i think it took me about a full day to get there. I went to Zermatt solely on the recommendation of my dear friend ellen. OK ellen, YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU. ADORE you. But sister - Zermatt did not bring me the karma it brought you, i think, mainly because, no one was there!!!! a beautiful, SPOTLESS hostel, just like everything in switzerland, but no one but me!!! it sort of creeped me out, and my legs and butt were sore as all get-out from hiking, so i opted to leave the next morning and not ski. i am sorry!!!! i am still glad i went though because it made me feel bonded to you to know that i went to a place you had loved so much! i just pictured you getting all choked up about it, putting your hand on your heart, going, "Zermatt!" and it made me less lonely in the BLEAK DESOLATE SPOTLESS hostel!!!! oh i hope you know i really mean all this lightly and was quite amused by the desolateness of it!!! i love you ellen!!! Then on to another bonnie suggestion - Chamonix - in french alps. there i met 3 girls from home!!!, one of which knows my little brother. they were college--age and totally precious and i wanted lauren to be my sister-in-law but she's already dating my brother's fraternity brother!!! oh well, Chamonix was beautiful and wonderful and crepes and more hiking. then I met my parents at their lovely hotel at lake como in italy, and it was like elysium! we spent 3 days there. and what i can say about those 3 days is that i think i had actually underestimated the absolute treasure it would be to spend that time, in that place, with those two. they were wonderful and it was beautiful and nearly perfect, and all that was missing were their other 3 kids. i will never forget it. then athens, which i'm still high over, and now the islands. it is hot as all get-out in greece, but there is a nice breeze in the islands. today i tried to rent a scooter because the restaurant manager at the restaurant next door to my hostel - cool guy - told me last night, when i told him i was queazy after getting off one of the buses on the island, that i should get a scooter, and he would get me "good price." so we went to the scooter place across the street today and he talked for me in greek, told the scooter man i had ridden a lot of times before and all this greek jazz. the scooter man then gave me the how-to's of this scooter, and i think he saw the panic growing on my face, because the roads are LITTLE and WINDY and HILLY here and there are BIG BUSES and i really was worried and i have never driven anything REMOTELY CLOSE to a motorcycle, other than a bicycle, ha ha. so scooter man goes, "you sure you have driven these before?" and i said "no" and restaurant manager looks at me with DISDAIN and GREAT FAILURE. so the scooter man said, "we should cancel your contract, it is dangerous on these busy roads. come back in off-season and you can practice." i said, "ok great!!" i was relieved honestly. then restaurant mgr said, "you did well til you told him you never drove before. come back, we have greek coffee." then we went back to the restaurant and he made me a greek coffee (i.e., iced sweet yummy frothy coffee) and we visited about greece and "the states" and what-not and as they were delivering the watermelons for the day, i said, "oh, yum," and he said, "oh you like watermelon? one second." and came back with a big plate of watermelon with feta. i asked him later how much i owed him, he said, "you ask me that again, i throw this water in your face." the point is, he was cool, and the other point is, it is really not bad being a girl alone in europe! anyone will strike up conversations with you! you just have to get out of dodge if they get creepy but this one never got creepy. neither did the guys in athens. they like to talk about greece and "the states." ok well that's about it. just in case you forgot -- GREECE WINS THE COOPA!! GREECE WINS THE COOPA!!!!! i will try to attach a few pictures in an email in a minute. i'm sorry this email got so eternally long!!!! love to all.  About this time in ...
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