Well, I'm back home now after 8 weeks of travel through 10 countries and over 40 cities. This trip has been a life-changing experience for me, and even if there were some hard parts, it was always exciting. But it's been a good run, and I'm glad to be home. All that constant walking around with my pack(s) has taken its toll, and towards the end there I was always tired. Now I need a vacation.
I want to thank you for reading my blog. Knowing so many people were keeping track of me was great motivation to see everything so I could share it.
Friday, June 1, 2007
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Picture Post 14
THIS IS ATHENS!!!!!
Probably the most famous piece of Greek art, it's either Poseidon throwing a trident or Zeus throwing a lightning bolt
The temple of Olympian Zeus (the Northeast corner anyway)
Here's a perspective view so you can see how massive it was
These are Persian arrows found at Thermopylae, possibly in enough numbers to blot out the sun
The Roman agora, but not much left here
Temple of Hephaestos, probably the most intact Greek temple 
This used to be an ancient shopping mall, but it was refurbished into a museum
The Olympic stadium that was the site of the first modern Olympic games
This is the only view of the Parthenon on the Acropolis where you cannot see scaffolding
Here's what it actually looked like everywhere else
The Acropolis has lots of rubble strewn about or placed together in piles
The Odeon (theater) of Herodes Atticus, once used for ancient musical concerts, and now famous for Yanni Live at the Acropolis, the second best-selling music video of all time
Greek churches are really small, which was quite different from everywhere else I've visited
The whole Acropolis
On this stage Demosthenes once orated to his audiences
A guard at the Ministry of Silly Walks (Monty Python reference) 
The Temple of Apollo at Delphi where the Oracle once resided
The Stoa of the Athenians
A lot of the carvings were removed from the buildings and tranferred to museums for preservation. They were also all quite violent.
Sunset over Athens
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Picture Post 13
The famous covered bridge of Lucerne, called the Chapel bridge, made in the 14th century. The tower used to be an oubliette
Found him!!!
This lion is dedicated to Swiss Guards who died trying to keep an angry mob from the French monarchs King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette during the French Revolution. Without a doubt the saddest sculpture I've ever seen. 
Lucerne has many buildings with painted frescoes
This is the Allgau
Castle Neuchwanstein, also surprisingly one of the candidates for the seven wonders of the modern world.
A view from inside the castle
This is the Allgau
The town of Fussen
This is the Allgau (during a storm)
The small village of Zell where I stayed
Breitachklamm canyon and the path that winds through it
This is the Allgau
This is the Allgau mountains from a higher vantage point
Looking down the ramp for an Alpine ski jump. It's pretty scary.
In the morning, the region is covered with mist giving it an etherealness
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Athens
Athens is hot, dirty, polluted, and filled to the brim with people. However, the people are surprisingly friendly and English is commonly known, so it makes traveling a little bit easier. For such a large city, there's not much to offer tourists. A few museums and the Acropolis are really all the city has to offer, so most people just stay a day or two.
On the museum front, Athens only has one museum that anybody goes to see, the National Archaelogical Museum, which has all the old sculptures and pottery that they've managed to find in the Greek ruins of Athens. It is unfortunate that I visited this place last in my trip around Europe since the art here precedes anything else I've seen and therefore appears much cruder and less refined. So even though I got a lecture from an archaeologist that I shared a room with about looking at the art as "developing" the way you would look at cave drawings, I wasn't really able to appreciate it.
Athens does have a large amount of ruins lying here and there around the city, but like the Palantine in Rome, most of it is just building footprints and an occasional pillar. The Agora and the Ancient Agora were such places, old Roman markets that were destroyed and rebuilt many times over. The Temple of Olympian Zeus stands by itself, where only about 10 pillars remain standing but still give an impression of the great size of the temple.
And finally there's the Acropolis, one of the possible seven wonders of the modern world. Acropoli are collections of buildings that stand higher than the rest of the city, and many ancient Greek cities had them. But Athens has the Acropolis with a capital A, because it had several temples, all dedicated to Athena (hey, it's Athens). This includes the great Parthenon, which, as you can imagine, is a large temple. I went to the Acropolis twice, the first time when I first got to Greece, and the second right before I left. The first time I was not impressed at all because it seemed to me like there wasn't much left to the ruins, which were covered with scaffolding and were lucky to be standing upright. But after seeing other ruins around Greece, of which virtually nothing remains, I was able to look at the Acropolis with new eyes and see that what is left is really quite an accomplishment.
Well, this marks the end of my trip. I spend the night at the airport then head back to Munich for the third time and then on back home.
On the museum front, Athens only has one museum that anybody goes to see, the National Archaelogical Museum, which has all the old sculptures and pottery that they've managed to find in the Greek ruins of Athens. It is unfortunate that I visited this place last in my trip around Europe since the art here precedes anything else I've seen and therefore appears much cruder and less refined. So even though I got a lecture from an archaeologist that I shared a room with about looking at the art as "developing" the way you would look at cave drawings, I wasn't really able to appreciate it.
Athens does have a large amount of ruins lying here and there around the city, but like the Palantine in Rome, most of it is just building footprints and an occasional pillar. The Agora and the Ancient Agora were such places, old Roman markets that were destroyed and rebuilt many times over. The Temple of Olympian Zeus stands by itself, where only about 10 pillars remain standing but still give an impression of the great size of the temple.
And finally there's the Acropolis, one of the possible seven wonders of the modern world. Acropoli are collections of buildings that stand higher than the rest of the city, and many ancient Greek cities had them. But Athens has the Acropolis with a capital A, because it had several temples, all dedicated to Athena (hey, it's Athens). This includes the great Parthenon, which, as you can imagine, is a large temple. I went to the Acropolis twice, the first time when I first got to Greece, and the second right before I left. The first time I was not impressed at all because it seemed to me like there wasn't much left to the ruins, which were covered with scaffolding and were lucky to be standing upright. But after seeing other ruins around Greece, of which virtually nothing remains, I was able to look at the Acropolis with new eyes and see that what is left is really quite an accomplishment.
Well, this marks the end of my trip. I spend the night at the airport then head back to Munich for the third time and then on back home.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Best of...
Alright, so here's my "best of" list. Thanks to the two of you who put in suggestions.
Favorite hostel: I'm gonna have to award two best hostels, one to the castle hostel in Bacharach for great views, the best breakfast ever, and the coolness factor of being a castle. The other goes to the Jetpak hostel in Berlin which, although small, had great social interaction between visitors and the staff were awesome. Also best bathrooms I've seen and great internet connection.
Least favorite hostel: Most hostels in Greece. They're all small and dirty and disgusting, especially the Argo. One night there and I was covered in bed bug bites. Outside of Greece: the one in Madrid for being a smoke-filled sewer in the red light district.
Favorite meal: A Parisian ordered a sweet cinnamon couscous with beef filet skewers and mint tea for me at a Moroccan restaurant in Paris. I'll be salivating over that one for a long time.
Favorite street meal: My guidebook suggested a takeout gyros place in Athens, saying it was the best in the city. They weren't kidding, it's so good and so cheap. I'm pretty sure that after leaving I'll go into gyro withdrawal.
Favorite church: St. Peters in the Vatican because it's just so awe-inspiringly big.
Favorite art museum: Not the Louvre but the Uffizi in Florence for having lots of all the greats.
Favorite castle/fortress: Chateau Chillon in Montreaux for live demos
Favorite palace: Versailles all the way
City I most wanted to spend more time in: Montreaux, that it is a place meant for relaxing in.
Most hated European phenomenon: Smoking, it's everywhere and everything smells like smoke. Honorable mention: Eurotrash sunglasses.
Things I packed but did not need: Swimming trunks and short pants in general. People just don't wear them in Europe.
Thing I most wish I had: European GPS!!
Thing I packed that was most useful: My guidebook. I definitely recommend Let's Go guidebooks as it is specifically for students or people on a tight budget. They're suggestions are spot on 90% of the time.
Best way to travel: I was forced to travel by sleeper car once, which I usually avoid since it's quite expensive. It's a train car that has individual rooms with three bunks to a room. They run it like a hotel with an attendant who takes care of customs for you and brings you breakfast. But it's by far the most comfortable way to travel, considering everytime else I was sitting up in a chair on a train or bus. Budget airlines are the fastest and, at times, cheapest way to travel, but a lot of the time airports are much harder to get to than the train station. So I would say usually the best way to travel is by hotel train, but if the airports in the departure and arrival cities are accesible by metro, then budget airline is the way to go.
Best bang for the buck: Athens gives you the most for your money since all public monuments and museums are free for European students. So you just flash your student card, say you're from some European country like England or Spain, and you just go right in. You don't even have to get a ticket or anything. This worked in Delphi too, so for my entire time in Greece I didn't pay anything for attractions.
Best credit card to use: None. Apparently Europeans don't like using credit cards and it isn't widely accepted. I haven't seen a non-traveler use a credit card.
Best English speaking city: Most people in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Greece were good at speaking English.
Best internet access: Germany, by far, is ahead of the curve in terms of hostels providing good internet and ubiquitousness of good internet cafes. The Sony Center in Berlin also gives free wireless to anyone in the area.
Worst place to visit: They're all good, but I would say my least favorite place is Brussels because there's nothing to do there.
Most interesting traveler: So I was walking through a public square in Athens and saw a clown performing on a unicycle. After the act ends he sees me, walks up to me, shakes my hand and greets me by name. I probably had an extremely stunned expression on for a good five seconds before I recognized him through his clown makeup as a Venezian that I roomed with a few nights previous. When we talked at the hostel he neglected to mention that he was actually, I kid you not, clowning his way across Greece to get to some kind of festival in Istanbul. So I went to dinner with him and a guy from Scotland who has been juggling here professionally for five years, yet still can't do more than three at a time. Anyways, the dinner discussion of the economics of street performing is not something I'll soon forget.
Favorite hostel: I'm gonna have to award two best hostels, one to the castle hostel in Bacharach for great views, the best breakfast ever, and the coolness factor of being a castle. The other goes to the Jetpak hostel in Berlin which, although small, had great social interaction between visitors and the staff were awesome. Also best bathrooms I've seen and great internet connection.
Least favorite hostel: Most hostels in Greece. They're all small and dirty and disgusting, especially the Argo. One night there and I was covered in bed bug bites. Outside of Greece: the one in Madrid for being a smoke-filled sewer in the red light district.
Favorite meal: A Parisian ordered a sweet cinnamon couscous with beef filet skewers and mint tea for me at a Moroccan restaurant in Paris. I'll be salivating over that one for a long time.
Favorite street meal: My guidebook suggested a takeout gyros place in Athens, saying it was the best in the city. They weren't kidding, it's so good and so cheap. I'm pretty sure that after leaving I'll go into gyro withdrawal.
Favorite church: St. Peters in the Vatican because it's just so awe-inspiringly big.
Favorite art museum: Not the Louvre but the Uffizi in Florence for having lots of all the greats.
Favorite castle/fortress: Chateau Chillon in Montreaux for live demos
Favorite palace: Versailles all the way
City I most wanted to spend more time in: Montreaux, that it is a place meant for relaxing in.
Most hated European phenomenon: Smoking, it's everywhere and everything smells like smoke. Honorable mention: Eurotrash sunglasses.
Things I packed but did not need: Swimming trunks and short pants in general. People just don't wear them in Europe.
Thing I most wish I had: European GPS!!
Thing I packed that was most useful: My guidebook. I definitely recommend Let's Go guidebooks as it is specifically for students or people on a tight budget. They're suggestions are spot on 90% of the time.
Best way to travel: I was forced to travel by sleeper car once, which I usually avoid since it's quite expensive. It's a train car that has individual rooms with three bunks to a room. They run it like a hotel with an attendant who takes care of customs for you and brings you breakfast. But it's by far the most comfortable way to travel, considering everytime else I was sitting up in a chair on a train or bus. Budget airlines are the fastest and, at times, cheapest way to travel, but a lot of the time airports are much harder to get to than the train station. So I would say usually the best way to travel is by hotel train, but if the airports in the departure and arrival cities are accesible by metro, then budget airline is the way to go.
Best bang for the buck: Athens gives you the most for your money since all public monuments and museums are free for European students. So you just flash your student card, say you're from some European country like England or Spain, and you just go right in. You don't even have to get a ticket or anything. This worked in Delphi too, so for my entire time in Greece I didn't pay anything for attractions.
Best credit card to use: None. Apparently Europeans don't like using credit cards and it isn't widely accepted. I haven't seen a non-traveler use a credit card.
Best English speaking city: Most people in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Greece were good at speaking English.
Best internet access: Germany, by far, is ahead of the curve in terms of hostels providing good internet and ubiquitousness of good internet cafes. The Sony Center in Berlin also gives free wireless to anyone in the area.
Worst place to visit: They're all good, but I would say my least favorite place is Brussels because there's nothing to do there.
Most interesting traveler: So I was walking through a public square in Athens and saw a clown performing on a unicycle. After the act ends he sees me, walks up to me, shakes my hand and greets me by name. I probably had an extremely stunned expression on for a good five seconds before I recognized him through his clown makeup as a Venezian that I roomed with a few nights previous. When we talked at the hostel he neglected to mention that he was actually, I kid you not, clowning his way across Greece to get to some kind of festival in Istanbul. So I went to dinner with him and a guy from Scotland who has been juggling here professionally for five years, yet still can't do more than three at a time. Anyways, the dinner discussion of the economics of street performing is not something I'll soon forget.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Delphi
Delphi is a small town once centered around an oracle, and now is centered around tourism. The entire town consists of hotels, restaurants, and souvenir shops in alternating order. Oh, and the Greek ruins. A single path leads sightseers past the museum, through the archaelogical site where old Delphi remains, then winds down through an ancient gymnasium and finally ending at the Sanctuary of Athena. So there's really not much to see here, since I really have just described the whole place, and no reason to stay more than a couple of hours except for the scenery (Delphi is in the side of a pretty high mountain).
Like all Greek museums, the Delphi museum was not large, nor did it contain anything of particular interest. I had the misfortune of going during a Greek holiday when the museum is free, so there were loads of people. It may also have been because it was rainy outside. I really lucked out with the weather though, usually Greece roasts during the day but on the day I went to Delphi the rain (very light) gave ample cloud cover and kept things cool.
The archaelogical site is the main attraction. The old city was about the size of a high school. It boasted an agora (Roman marketplace), treasuries that are kind of like small shrines, a stadium, an amphitheater, and the large Temple of Apollo where the oracle once was. Only one building has been somewhat rebuilt, the treasury of Athena, whose walls have the earliest known written music. Everything else is just rubble. A model in the museum of the city as it was makes it look fantastic, so when you actually get there the reality of the present is disappointing. What a difference 2500 years makes!
The Sanctuary of Athena is the show stealer. A good amount of the structure is standing, giving a good idea of its former grandeur. At least with this one it's easy to imagine what it looked like back in the day. So that's Delphi. I originally wanted to make a two-day trip to Olympia to see some more ruins, but now I am very glad that it didn't happen since it would have been much more effort and time than it would have been worth.
Like all Greek museums, the Delphi museum was not large, nor did it contain anything of particular interest. I had the misfortune of going during a Greek holiday when the museum is free, so there were loads of people. It may also have been because it was rainy outside. I really lucked out with the weather though, usually Greece roasts during the day but on the day I went to Delphi the rain (very light) gave ample cloud cover and kept things cool.
The archaelogical site is the main attraction. The old city was about the size of a high school. It boasted an agora (Roman marketplace), treasuries that are kind of like small shrines, a stadium, an amphitheater, and the large Temple of Apollo where the oracle once was. Only one building has been somewhat rebuilt, the treasury of Athena, whose walls have the earliest known written music. Everything else is just rubble. A model in the museum of the city as it was makes it look fantastic, so when you actually get there the reality of the present is disappointing. What a difference 2500 years makes!
The Sanctuary of Athena is the show stealer. A good amount of the structure is standing, giving a good idea of its former grandeur. At least with this one it's easy to imagine what it looked like back in the day. So that's Delphi. I originally wanted to make a two-day trip to Olympia to see some more ruins, but now I am very glad that it didn't happen since it would have been much more effort and time than it would have been worth.
Going solo
I wrote this a couple of weeks back, but held on to it to see if my perspective would change. It hasn't, so I'm posting it as it stands.
Traveling alone is not an easy thing to do, but after the first few jumps you get used to it. Even though I travel alone, it is not a lonely journey. There are many other people on the road, and plenty of them are going your way. Right now I am sharing a six-seat train cabin with three others: two austrians and another american. It is an overnight train from Venice to Vienna, and we have twelve hours stuck inside this eight-foot-square room together. As usual, we make introductory conversation, then move on into more in depth topics before lapsing into introspective silence. Eventually, in an attempt to sleep we switch around like a jigsaw puzzle, finally pointing our feet at one corner and radiating outwards like spokes in a square wheel. It isn't by any means comfortable, but it's good enough to last through the night.
There are surprisingly few people traveling solo and many people are surprised to hear that I am doing so for such a length of time. I had thought it would be much more common. However, after talking with other people, it seems that those who are traveling with others wish they were alone, and those who are alone wish they were traveling with others. I guess we'll always just be unsatisfied. I tried spending the day with others a couple times, but it was awfully restrictive because you have to consider what the other person or people want. Sometimes they want to eat when you don't, don't want to go to a place that you do, or need to wait in a long line for the bathroom and you just kind of stand around.
I would say the best scenario is to travel with someone, but split up during the day once you reach your destination. That way you have a wingman to guard your stuff during traveling and help you orient yourself, but then you're free to explore as you will after that. Also, eating meals alone in a restaurant is pretty awkward and getting people together to go out from the hostel can take too much time and effort, so knowing someone gives you an automatic dinner buddy.
But I haven't been too worried about security. I always feel very safe in hostels (even when someone punched out a window pane in the middle of the night) and don't worry about leaving my stuff unlocked and unguarded. The backpacker's code is universally followed: don't touch someone else's backpack, first come first served for picking bunks, and don't touch someone else's backpack (it's in there twice).
Traveling alone is not an easy thing to do, but after the first few jumps you get used to it. Even though I travel alone, it is not a lonely journey. There are many other people on the road, and plenty of them are going your way. Right now I am sharing a six-seat train cabin with three others: two austrians and another american. It is an overnight train from Venice to Vienna, and we have twelve hours stuck inside this eight-foot-square room together. As usual, we make introductory conversation, then move on into more in depth topics before lapsing into introspective silence. Eventually, in an attempt to sleep we switch around like a jigsaw puzzle, finally pointing our feet at one corner and radiating outwards like spokes in a square wheel. It isn't by any means comfortable, but it's good enough to last through the night.
There are surprisingly few people traveling solo and many people are surprised to hear that I am doing so for such a length of time. I had thought it would be much more common. However, after talking with other people, it seems that those who are traveling with others wish they were alone, and those who are alone wish they were traveling with others. I guess we'll always just be unsatisfied. I tried spending the day with others a couple times, but it was awfully restrictive because you have to consider what the other person or people want. Sometimes they want to eat when you don't, don't want to go to a place that you do, or need to wait in a long line for the bathroom and you just kind of stand around.
I would say the best scenario is to travel with someone, but split up during the day once you reach your destination. That way you have a wingman to guard your stuff during traveling and help you orient yourself, but then you're free to explore as you will after that. Also, eating meals alone in a restaurant is pretty awkward and getting people together to go out from the hostel can take too much time and effort, so knowing someone gives you an automatic dinner buddy.
But I haven't been too worried about security. I always feel very safe in hostels (even when someone punched out a window pane in the middle of the night) and don't worry about leaving my stuff unlocked and unguarded. The backpacker's code is universally followed: don't touch someone else's backpack, first come first served for picking bunks, and don't touch someone else's backpack (it's in there twice).
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Picture Post 12
The city of Montreaux, right on the lake
A view of the lake from the walking promenade of Montreaux, with the Alps in the background
One of the many convenient piers for sitting around or jumping into the lake from
Montreaux building
The Chateau Chillon!
Main dining hall of Chateau Chillon with super huge fireplace
Armory
More latrine-y goodness
Sword fighting demonstration
The Olympic museum in Lausanne. That small bar in front is the high-jump bar from the current world record
The city of Lausanne
Lausanne's town hall
For some reason, Justice is a very common design motif throughout French Switzerland, and she is not blind
The Lausanne marketplace/bazaar
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