Picture dump

1. Me on the top of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona
2. Me at the Colloseum
3. Casca stabbing at Caesar's grave
4. For Danny, here is something made out of recycled trash
5. Budapest's Dahony Street Synogogue, largest, in capacity, in the world
6. Tango dancers at the Budapest castle
7. Me and Marie-Eve in a Transylvanian rainstorm
8. Train breakdown somewhere in Bulgaria
9. Me at a mosque in Istanbul
10. The red sunset at Ia, Santorini (Pop Art Setting)
11. Me at the top of the active volcano in the Caldera of Santorini
12. Me and Meagan at Poesidon's Temple of Sonuion
13. Me at the Theatre of Dionysus

There are no words...

Actually, there are a lot.  Like 35 minutes of monologue to do it, followed by another hour and ten minutes of play.  And thus the glory of "La Bete", soon to leave the West End and head for Broadway.  The play starred Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce, and Joanna Lumley.  Three phenomenal actors, as were the rest of the cast.  A piece on art versus ego, the play begins with Pierce and his adviser discussing the mandate by the princess to include the fool, Valare, in their company.  Then Valre enters and begins what was essentially a 35 minute monologue.  It was all so fucking amazing.  The play is hilarious, but actually rather sad in th end.  And unresolved of course.  I got day seats for me and Hermione and we sat in box A of the dress circle, which meant that we leaned over the railing sometimes to see one side, but it also means that I was a scant 10 feet from David Hyde Pierce!  Oh, love!

plays seen: 2
plays loved: 2

So far so good.

Now if only stores that refuse to carry my size in jeans would stop playing that Eminem song I can't stand.

AND SO IT BEGINS!

Saw an amazing interactive, modernized, musicalized, Fringe as fuck version of Lope de Vega's Fuente Ovejuna (The Sheep Well) tonight at the Southwark Playhouse.  Walking on clouds after that.   No really.  How many times does an audience get to stone a man to death with water balloons?  If you know the play, you will understand what sort of position that puts you in as being responsible for standing by for rape.  The show was so funny and also so arresting.  The actors so nice and the use of modern music, rewritten songs, and the altered prologue from Henry V among other Shakespeare, I could not have asked for a better time for 8 quid if I tried.

On the way back a horde of loud men and boys of massively varying ages dressed in ties and school boy clothes came on to the ube car that I was alone in.  They were friendly and hilarious to watch be ridicualous.  When I asked where they were going they said they had no idea.  I think they were going to what one said was "a school disco".  Or whatever.  Amusing beyond all belief.

Yesterday, after days of not sleeping well or much each night in Greece.  I looked forward to a nice bed.  When Hermione called and invited me to go to a bonfire with her Mark and Nick, I was stoked.  Mark was even bringing me a jacket, since I have no warm clothes.  When I got to Kilburn Station to meet Mark, I discovered that bonfire meant camping.  I contemplated leaving.  I didn't.  I had a great fucking time!  We ate so much food.  So much that I have felt like throwing up all day.  We drank so much alcohol.  We got so little sleep.  We had so much fun.

Tomorrow, I will brave the Primark zoo to buy myself some warmer clothing.  No immediate plans.  Just loving being here.  Even the air is home.

Island sun to island rain

The lack of updates is attributed to the exterme difficultly of finding internet on the Greek Islands for less than 2 Euro for a half our. Not worth it.  Because there was so much sun. 

On the quick:
From Santorini I went to Mykonos which was much worse, and from thereto Delos for the day which was great.
From Mykonos I went to Athens and stayed with Tammy and her sister.  Finally, I was clean and sleeping in a real bed.  Not sleeping much, but still.  Saw the Acropolis and etcetera and Temple of Poesidon at Sunion.  Basically what I came for: really old shit.

I am now in London at my hostel waiting to be able to check in.  Well, actually looking up plays to see this week before Scotland.  Was about to step out for a new SIM card and some food and fucking downpour.  And this purse from Romania is gonna bleed color everwhere if I go in the rain with it!  Will have to wash it tonight and let it dry and hope that works.  Must get coat from Hermione today or tomorrow, obviously.  Also in need of a few new clothes from Primark.  Most everything I have in stained or has been thrown out or left elsewhere.

Will update later and pictures I hope.  For now, a break in rain.  Off for food.

SO HAPPY TO BE IN LONDON!

No man is

I am on the Greek Islands. So far the hardest internet to find. Love
it. Everything is very beautiful. Except that I am sick. Of course.
But it is okay because I mainly lie around on the beach with this
girl Meagan I met on Paros. We are now on Santorini. I am going to
Mykonos after this, but I am trying to change my ferry so that I have
another day here, rather than on Mykonos. But that would still give
me 2 days on Mykonos. It is so expensive, but I really want to go to
Delos, the island of ruins, and it is the only island I can go there
from.

I will be back on Athens on the 10th and I am staying with Tammy, this
awesome woman from South Africa who is the wife of the cook at the
campground I was at on Paros. Ont he morning of the 12th I will meet
up with Mark, Molly, and Meagan again to go to the Acropolis. Yeah,
we are a band. The M Band. We are working on some children's books
about kittens who eat pasta and a cd.

I am now off to the beach with Meagan, then to swim in her pool, then
to the sunset in Oia. Tomorrow, a trip out to the volcano and hot
springs for me. And thank God she has internet at her place because I
just saw that Prop 8 was struck down. FUCK YES, CALIFORNIA!!!!

Officially

Erasmus in Istanbul is the worst hostel I have ever been in. 
Dirty, hot, smelly, and bugs everywhere.  I am also sure that several things have died in the fridge and it reeks when opened.
And the guy who runs it?  Wore the same dirty clothing for five days, even though he was covered in mortar from putting up a wall in the gaping hole.  Now if only he could do something about the holes in the floor or take out the trash or SOMETHING.
So gross.

Tomorrow, night train to Greece.  No plans yet to speak of.  Am in possession of phone numbers of hostels in Athens and the islands I want to go to, but nothing past the first train is known.  Who knows how long I will wait to transfer to Athens.  Book is very good, thank God.

Not Constantinople

Not anymore.  Churches that became mosques that are now museums.  Stuff like that.

I got permission to visit some synagogues here in Istanbul.  Not realizing I could basically go to all of them, about 20, I only asked about 4.  I should have asked about the Italian Synagogue, too.  Tomorrow I will have an adventure to find the last of three that I have permission to see.  I have no idea how to get there.  It is not on my map and the guy at Information who was so good my first day, was a total asshole today.

I saw the AyaSofia and was kind of unimpressed.  Dont get me wrong, Maggie, it is big and impressive.  But kinda boring inside.  I liked the random mosques I went into instead.  Though the idea of making that thing all out of marble is ridiculous!  I guess I expected too much.  The Blue Mosque was also nice, but I expected it to look much different than the others, and it was about the same just more blue and bigger.

Today at the Ashkenazi Synagogue, the guy who let me in did not speak English and I did not speak Turkish or Hebrew, so Spanish was badly settled on.  I think he was angry I only had 5 Lira to donate.  I went to get change before going to the Neve Shalom, but they did not ask.  I thought it was very weird that the guy offered to open the ark for me to take photos.  Like, no big deal.  No prayers or anything, he just opened it.  They have like 30 Torahs.  Saw the Jewish Museum, too.

Chelsea, the girl on the bunk below me, left today and I dont know her last name to find her on facebook.  We had a lot of fun and weathered what is the worst hostel I have been in together.  And now two days without her.  Boo.

She is 28 and I am fully aware that everyone I have really hung out (and liked every minute) with has been my age or older.  On my awful night train from Bucharest to Istanbul I was stuck in a car with three 18 year old British boys who were, ugh, Tories.  And boy what an obvious age gap that was.  My Eastern European Experience really peaked with that train ride because,

There were no toilets, just holes and nothing to hold onto while using them
Intense rocking back and forth
No dining car or food available
An awful smell
A guard with a gas stove making soup in his compartment, no really
A leaking car, we had to move
An electrical failure...on an electrical train
An hour where we stood in the forest watching them attempt to fix the train
An hour stop at the Bulgarian exit border
An hour stop at the Turkish boarder for visas and passport stamps
An hour and a half bus ride to finish the trip because the rails are washed out
And all in all, a 23 hour trip.  I think I should have shelled out the money to fly.

Approved!

I have been approved for a visit to three synagogues and the Jewish Museum in Istanbul! 
So excited.

Tomorrow, bath!  Be jealous, Litza!

No real internet in hostel often, so updates may not be until Greece.

The full Eastern European experience

And here's what it involves (Melanie style):

Meeting a Quebecois couple in my train compartment who was also staying at my hostel

Getting lost finding a synogogue

Finding video of a communist dictoator`s execution

Ugly Communist Blocks
Seeing German summer palaces in Romania
Throwing up on the side of the road
Getting caught in a rainstorm in Translyvania
Taking cheesey vampirey photos at Bran Castle which may or may not have inspired Bram Stoker and may or may not once have housed Vlad the Impaler (or Dracula) for a while

 

The photos are the obligatory Dracula based photo of Marie-Eve biting me, and the entry I left in the guestbook because I love Gabe so much.

Soup

Today for my last day in Budapest I went to the Kazinczy Orthodox Synogogue.  I was the only one there until a family and their guide came.  It is beautiful, but no one visits.  Connected is a girls school, a boys school, apartments, and a Kosher resturant.  I got a private tour from the main guy as I was the only one.  Afterwards I had lunch at a Jewish resturant known for being vegetarin-friendly across the street.  I had Cold Strawberry Soup and it was amazing!  I could taste cinnamon, but I dont know what else was in it.  For my main I had Saffron risotto with vegetables and fresh grated parmesean cheese.  Oh so good!

Then I tried to find the flea market in the park and got lost.  Wandered in the park for an hour and a half before somehow finding myself back at Heroes' Square. 

Yesterday I spent the day being Jewish.  I went to see the Dohany Street Synogogue, so named for the street name which means Tobacco.  So the Tobacco Synogogue.  I kid you not.  It is the second largest synogogue int he world, after New York's Temple Emanu-El.  But this one can actually seat more than the one in NY.  It is gorgeous, too.  It is too modern for the orthodox because they use music and let men and women sit together except on High Holidays.  Otherwise, the services are the same as Orthodoxy.  But they are considered liberal.  I could have laughed. 

Out back is the Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park.  Raoul was the Swiss Embassay dude during World War II and he issued thousands of fake ID papers for Jews to help them escape the Holocaust.  I took some gorgeous photos there.  And my favorite part of Jewish Budapest?  JEWISH STAINED GLASS WINDOWS!!!!!  Yes, Meredith, Lilia and Melissa, I finally own photos of awesome Jewish stained glass not just lots of Jesus window pictures!  So stoked.  Took a ton of photos.  There are windows at Dohany Street's Jewish Museum that depict all sorts of Torah stories in detail.  I took massive amounts of photos.  I also saw the coolest Sedar plate ever. 

Budapest is shockingly metropolitan.  It was massively bombed at the end of the war and so every building is new and very citylike.  In fact it is like ever other major city excpet I dont speak the language.  Nothing sterotypically Eastern European about it.  It is modern.  Except smoking.  People still smoke everywhere, even around their childrena nd pregnant women.  I was eating dinner alone somewhere (it was the only place open besides McDonalds) the other night and a couple asked if I wanted company and moved to my table.  The woman, Hungarian and pregnant, and her boyfriend, Welsh, were so nice.  They are having a girl in a few months.  When the woman was in the bathroom I asked Mike what he thought of the smoking around children and he was just as shocked as I.  He said he would not be above telling people to smoke away from his kid.  But they are raising the kid in Hungary because in Hungary women are gaurnteed TWO YEARS OF MATERNITY LEAVE and can sue if their employers give them a worse job or less money when they come back.  I SHIT YOU NOT!!!!  It was three years before the last election. 

I went up to the Buda Castle last night to see Pest lit up (thanks Randall!) and found a group of about 25 people Tango dancing on the balcony of the palace with some speakers.  I watched for an hour.  It was magical.  I wrote a poem about some girl's ass.  She danced like Christine.

The other day I treadted myself big time to a 20 minute Swedish Massage at the baths, which I sat in for 4 hours.  It was amazing.

In two hours I am catching a night train to Bucharest Romania.  I splurged for the sleeper car (a whole 40 Euros more) since it looks like Istanbul to Athens and maybe even Bucharest to Istanbul will be bus rides.  Fucking flood washed the lines in Romania out and Greece is still ahving all sorts of strikes.  So that will be an adventure. Ugh.  Night train.  Got a middle bunk.  No bottom ones left.  But at least not a top bunk.  I guess I will see if I get all dizzy like last time.  I think I will take a tour out to the countryside one of the days are go see Bran and other places that are only remotely related to Dracula at all.  But if I go, I promised to find something terribly tacky for Gabe.