Mount Olympus, take 2

This weekend's adventure: Mount Olympus. We (my fellow fellows Missy, Mia, Evan, Danny, and Danny's sister Diana who was visiting for the week) set off on Saturday afternoon, with an uneventful train ride to Larissa, a happy few hours wandering the "city" (large town, relatively deserted because it was 5pm on a Saturday) trying to find a restaurant that was open, luckily stumbling upon a place that sold whole roasted chickens, potatoes, rice, and salad. Pretty much a hiker's dream pre-hike dinner.

 (And I found a kitten)

Then the suburban rail to Litoxoro, the village at the foot of Olympus. When we arrived, just before 10pm, we were somewhat disgruntled to find that in fact the railway station was a good five miles from the actual town...but conveniently, the family renting us their Air BnB farmhouse also possessed a big old red pick-up truck, and I got the distinct pleasure of riding in the back, letting the illicitness and sea breeze blow through my hair, trucking along at 50mph.

 The farmhouse:

Apparently the family found out that the government was subsidizing solar energy, and started building a house with solar panels, stopping as soon as they received the government money, leaving them with a half-built house on a piece of farmland. You know, just your average Air BnB find.

I would've given it an A until Danny found a baby scorpion in his towel, giving me the unique (at least until this point in my life) dilemma of choosing whether to suffer sleeplessness from the heat (it was an exceedingly hot weekend and there was neither fan nor air conditioning), or from the fear that my skin would be exposed to angry scorpions if I didn't swaddle myself in my sheet.

We had an early morning start on Sunday, up with the sun (I tried to open the porch door to take a picture and the door broke).

Again in the pick-up truck, to the trailhead...with one extra very welcomed member, in the shape of an adorably photogenic pup

And the beginning of our ascent (3000 feet elevation gain over 3 miles) to the refuge where we would spend the night

And our attempt to summit the mountain, before getting spooked by the ominous dark clouds glaring at us as we stood exposed on the bare top of the mountain

(it was beautiful, even if we didn't make it to the top)

And then a relaxing late afternoon/evening hanging out at the refuge, playing cards and eating satisfying, heaping bowls of spaghetti bolognese and drinking hot cocoa. And meeting a fascinating individual, a total Coloradan bro, complete with bivy sack ("Um...A what??" "It's basically a garbage bag..." "So is it like a sleeping bag?" "Nah...it's like a garbage bag." "So it's like a tent?" "No, it's like...a garbage bag.") who was "so out of shape" (yet took less than half as long to climb to the refuge as we did) who was in Greece for the year....studying to become an Orthodox priest.

And then another sunrise Monday morning, over the ocean:

And our long descent, down the mountain

To the trailhead:

And then continuing down through a gorge all the way to Litoxoro, just above sea level (a difference of over 6000 feet from where we started the day). This was intended to be an easy (if 10 mile) downhill walk. It instead ended up being one of the most strenuous hikes I've ever embarked on--and we had packs on, to make things harder.

The beginning led us into a false sense of the trail, meandering gently through meadows

 

and a tiny church tucked into a large cave, next to the springs of Dionysus.

We were therefore very confused when, after an hour and a half, we found a sign saying:

Litoxoro   7.7 km

                4 h

We spent the next hour trying to grasp how this sign could possibly be correct. Did it originally say 17.7 km and the 1 had faded? Was the h actually an m, for miles instead of hours? Was that the distance to Litoxoro as the crow flies, but the trail was really much longer? I mean, that would be absurdly idiotic, but it is Greece and they're not big on hiking.... 7.7 km is 4 3/4 miles. For a 4 3/4-mile hike to take 4 hours seemed impossible. Unbelievable. Inconceivable.

But, as it turned out, it was spot on. Our easy, mellow, downhill walk turned into a strenuous hike with a trail that took us down to the river bank 

and then climbing steeply to the top of the ridgeline, and back down again and then up and then down and then up and then down again....

Offering stunning views! And working my calves so hard that even now, five days later, they are still tight--though at least I no longer visibly hobble.

At every turn of the ridgeline, we hoped that this would be the one offering us a view of the ocean, the end of the gorge, and the village. When that turn finally came (many turns after we expected), the bliss of seeing those orange roofs...well, it's hard to put into words.

And when we finally reached Litoxoro, we had a victorious taverna meal (moussaka, fresh grilled fish, fresh fried calamari, Greek salad) and then awaited our ride to the farmhouse. Which offered me the sight of this man pacing on his balcony, talking on his cellphone...in his tighty-whities.

Then Tuesday morning, started the trek back to Athens.

From the train tracks, with Olympus in the background:

The train ride back to Athens was much more eventful than going the other way: we walked up to our carefully pre-selected seats (3 out of the 4 facing a table on each side of the train) only to find that there was an old woman and old man sitting in the two window seats of one side, and a couple sitting in the two window seats on the other side. We spoke sharply, and waved our ticket numbers in their faces, but the old woman just flat-out refused to move, and after a minute or two Danny didn't feel like arguing in Greek with an old woman any longer. Everyone else just moved to other seats, but  before I had the chance to the old woman insisted that I sit, patting the seat and tugging me down next to her. My tired frustration quickly dissolved with the pleasure of interacting with the old Greek woman, Sophia (and her son Yiannis), through my broken Greek (which absolutely delighted her). Within 20 minutes, she had offered me her soda, given me a large chocolate-wafer bar (my favorite Greek candy), handed me a pen to keep (just because?), wrote down her phone number, and insisted I come to Thessaloniki and stay with them as soon as possible. While Sophia pampered me, Yiannis, who spoke enough English to fill in the gaps in my own vocabulary, expressed shocked that I had just climbed Olympus ("You??") inquired extensively about my iPhone, and bleakly commented on his life. At one point Sophia got up to smoke (in the train. Yes, there are "No Smoking" signs everywhere. But the connecting area between train cars doesn't count, right? It's not, like, inside. Not reeeeally. Or if you really want to be responsible about it, you stand in the tiny WC, open the window slit and hang your cig out of it). Anyway, Sophia got up to smoke and Yiannis turned to me and said abruptly:

We don't have money

                                    We don't have health

                                                                       We smoke

                                                                                          We take pills

                                                                                                                We are lost in space

And then as we were getting off the train in Athens he told me to give him good luck and pray for him because he was probably getting fired and didn't have any money (and continued expanding on the problems in his life).

Sophia seemed much more positive (though apparently very sick, hence their visit to Athens for the first time in upwards of 15 years--which explains their lack of comprehension that train seats are now assigned), apparently happily satisfied at talking with and pampering a 23-year-old American girl for an hour.

The unsolicited sharing of problems--and elderly affections--with strangers is something I have really come to appreciate in Greece.

They were quite disappointed when I left with Danny, Diana and Evan to go play cards, though I welcomed a break from the intensity of attention that had been turned on me. Danny and Diana taught us Durak, a Russian card game which translates to "idiot". In the game, nobody wins--one person just loses. And in the subsequent round, the loser is placed in the least favorable position for gameplay, because "the idiot must learn". Great game!

All around, a beautiful adventure and a weekend that makes it hard to think of leaving this place.

Hungary for Eastern Europe, two more cities to Czech off my list

This past weekend I went to Budapest, with these two lovely girls:

Where the money is for[e]i[g]nts, and the metros are adorably old (and less adorably, terribly marked)

Started off at the Grand Central Market

Then went to our hostel, Avenue Hostel (two thumbs up, just how a hostel should be!)

And then Mia and I took a free city walking tour with a charming and charismatic young Hungarian, complete with a helicopter hat and a wide smile. We learned a bit of the history of the city, which was very interesting (for example, I didn't realize that the vast majority of the buildings on the Pest side are less than 50 years old, due to a devastating flood in the 1800s followed by the world wars in the 1900s; I also didn't know that Buda and Pest were two separate cities until the late 1800s).

This is the Buda side (hillier, much more upscale, less touristy):

Day 2, found the fanciest McDonald's I've ever seen:

From the outside (attached to the train station):

Then we went to the Schneyi baths (a series of indoor and outdoor heated pools and saunas)

And then walked through the Jewish quarter

to one of the "ruin pubs"--an expansive bar built within a deteriorating building

We liked the restaurant from the first night so much that we went back for a second time, and were not disappointed. (On the first night, we each got a soup--goulash, cream of garlic, and pumpkin soup--and split schnitzel with potato salad. Truly excellent.)

(The "classiest" meal I've had abroad, and so cheap! Called "Spicy chicken", served with a strawberry salad, with watercress and a honey vinaigrette)

And then we took the overnight train to Prague!

Got into Prague on Monday morning, and hit the ground running,

starting with the Museum of Communism

And then to Old Town Square

with the Glockenspiel

And then Mia and I went on another free walking tour--this one led by a young expat with quite the flair for the dramatic. His stories were quite memorable. For example: the building below, which now houses the philharmonic, was at one point the Nazi headquarters in Prague. When Hitler's right-hand man, who was in charge of Prague during this time, found out that there was a statue of Mendelssohn, a Jew, on the roof (along with the other famous composers of the time), he ordered his soldiers to take the statue down and smash it in front of the building. The soldiers, not knowing what Mendelssohn looked like, figured that the best way to determine which statue was the right one......measured the nose sizes of all the statues, and picked the one with the biggest nose.

And smashed it in front of the building.

And it was Wagner.

A German and Hitler's favorite composer.

This is the oldest synagogue still in use in Europe

The next three statues are by a controversial Czech artist, David Cerny.

A statue alluding to one of Kafka's lesser-known works, but one that mentions Prague specifically.

Entitled "In Utero," the statue's torso is hollow and there is a hole in the bottom through which passerby can enter her "womb" (big enough to sit all the way inside)

"Piss": two figures standing in a pool that is in the shape of the Czech republic. Depending on interpretation, this is either representing how the Czechs "piss all over things" OR how previous occupiers of the Czech republic (the German Nazis represented in the left figure) piss all over Czech civilians' rights.

The statues' pelvises rotate, and their penises move up and down to simulate peeing as realistically as possible. Apparently you can also send a text to a certain number and the statues will spell out your message in the water.

Day two, headed across the river:

Charles Bridge

A Starbucks, perched right outside the castle wall

Within the castle walls (not what I expected when I heard "castle"; due to its continued construction from 880 to the 1900s, it is an often-clashing mix of architectural styles)

Including a Gothic cathedral

(It had some really incredible stained glass, creating vibrantly colored light that reflected on the walls of the cathedral)