Dame Alice
(Here's a bit about the most famous Irish witch, Dame Alice Kyteler, adapted from a Moon Ireland sidebar.)Easily the most colorful character in Kilkenny history, Dame Alice Kyteler was a businesswoman in the early 14th century who gained more money and power with each husband she acquired. There were four in all, and since each died under mysterious circumstances it was inevitable that Dame Alice should be accused of witchcraft. According to Peter Somerville-Large in Irish Eccentrics, Dame Alice allegedly led her coven in parodies of the Mass using dead men's fingernails and the shrouds of unbaptized boys. "She sacrificed nine red cocks and nine peacock's eyes to her incubus, Art, or Robert, who had carnal knowledge of her in the shape of a cat [or] a hairy black dog..."Though formally charged in 1324, her influential friends (her brothers-in-law, mostly) had the offending bishop, Richard de Ledrede, imprisoned for seventeen days. The trial commenced upon his release, however, and Dame Alice and her servant girl, Petronilla, were sentenced to burn at the stake. Dame Alice fled the country the night before the execution, leaving loyal Petronilla to her fiery fate on the third of November, 1324. (Somerville-Large gives the 3rd of September, 1325 as the date of execution.)Alice Kyteler's firstborn son, William Outlawe, agreed to give alms to the poor and re-roof the choir stalls at St. Canice's Cathedral to avoid the gallows. Dame Alice was never seen or heard of again.If this story captures your imagination as it did mine, you'll want to hunt down a copy of Emma Donoghue's The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits (Half.com link here). "Looking for Petronilla" is the best of the collection.
Eastern Europe retroblog: Sighişoara
Sighişoara, a medieval citadel town in Transylvania, was easily my favorite stop in Romania--by turns tranquil and spooky. Plus, Sigguhshwahruh rolls so satisfyingly off the tongue! (We have been informed that this pronunciation is not quite correct, which fortunately does not make our way any less fun to say.)
On the train from Budapest. I'm reading The Pesthouse by Jim Crace, my own personal Santa Claus. (Got oodles of compliments on that t-shirt, including a marriage proposal from another American tourist in Dubrovnik.)A view of the 14th-century clock tower from the center of town; the view from the top (doesn't it make you want to live here forever and ever?); allegorical clock figures; a shot of the handrail.
It's a long way from Jersey.Next is Sighişoara part 2: the covered staircase and the Church on the Hill.
Eastern Europe retroblog: Budapest
Kate and Elliot and I went backpacking through Eastern Europe in May and June 2007. We wanted to combine travel with some sort of service project, and while that part didn't turn out exactly as we'd hoped (more on that in the Bosnia installment), we still had an amazing time. Just looking back over the photos is thawing out my toes (more snow tomorrow, says the weatherman, and these days the weatherman is always right), so I think I'll start retroblogging a bit before the three- year mark.(Three years! How did that happen?!)We did Budapest for a few days, then Romania--Sighişoara, Braşov and Rasnov, hiked in the Piatra Craiului mountains, back to Braşov, Sinaia, and to Bucharest to meet my Romanian publisher--then a night train to Belgrade, one night in Kotor in Montenegro; then Dubrovnik, Split, and Hvar Island in Croatia; then a night each in Mostar and Sarajevo, where we split up--Elliot had to go home, so he took a train back to Budapest, and Kate and I went on to Brčko (still in Bosnia) to volunteer at a summer camp for ten days.There aren't as many descriptive journal passages on this trip; I was focused on taking notes for stories and working on rough drafts of answers for a Mary Modern Q&A, because the book was coming out two weeks after we got home. I also read even more than I usually do when traveling--three Angela Carter novels, The Pesthouse, and a bunch of other good books. I copied this little gem from Wise Children (one of my very favorite novels) onto the first page of a new journal:"It doesn't matter if what happens next spoils everything; the anticipation itself is always pure."(So true, it hurts.)
(Kate going for attempted drowning #2 at the Gellert baths.)I have to say, apart from the baths Budapest wasn't my favorite stop--we had a weird hostel experience, and all the supposedly quaint and old-fashioned bars and cafes the guidebook recommended turned out to be tourist traps.Of course, the middle-aged men in speedos at the Szechenyi baths made up for all that...
And here are a few shots from Castle Hill (the painting is a detail of Klára Zách I, on display at the Hungarian National Gallery; better view on Wikipedia):
Elliot: "It's not that I'm being contrarian. It's just that I'm right."
Outside the opera house--we did the tour, which was worthwhile. (I have a thing for sphinxes. I don't know why, except that they're awesome.)Next installment: Sighişoara, Romania (my favorite!)
Snapshots from Galway
St. Nicholas' Collegiate Church; a double rainbow (view from the Bridge Mills); the prom at low tide; boats on the Claddagh.
We pray for those we have loved, and see no more.
While I was in Rye I entered St. Mary's Church during the daily service, and decided to sit down in the back and pay attention just for curiosity's sake (I'd never been to an Anglican service before). This line from the prayers of the faithful has stuck with me--we pray for those we have loved, and see no more.Today would have been my grandmother's 87th birthday. She's been gone nearly fourteen years but I still miss her every day, and every time I pass the cemetery I think about the day they bought the plot, how she told my parents they could wave whenever they drove by on Route 130. Then, according to my dad, she started laughing hysterically, which kind of weirded him out; but if I'd been there, I know I would have laughed too.
Anyway, every so often doesn't it feel good to celebrate the people who have helped make us who we are? My grandmother was kind and smart and patient and wise. She was selfless to a fault. She made the best meatloaf (and I say that as someone who hasn't eaten meat in almost ten years). She was one of the few adults who would play games with us--Old Maid, Go Fish, Trouble, and swimming races. She always let me win.And she was, of course, a voracious reader.
Now this portrait looks over my writing desk.
Adventures in London, part 4
(Here is the fourth and final installment, unfortunately rather short in the picture department.)
I'd been hoping to meet up with the lovely Emma of quelle erqsome, and we finally managed to get together for coffee at Foyle's when I got back from Rye (the day before I flew to Dublin). When Seanan got off work the three of us went to this amazing vegan Asian buffet before catching The Woe Betides at Bush Hall. We felt very old in the midst of so many scantily-clad fourteen-year-olds chugging from vodka bottles stashed in their purses (heck, I would have felt old if I'd been fourteen myself), but it was very good fun and of course The Woe Betides are terrific. (Check them out on iTunes too...I hope that link works.)Anyway, Emma is one half of Made by Loumms, and I have admired their sock patterns and Etsy goodies for awhile now. I finally treated myself to a sock WIP bucket bag, which came in the mail the other day. It's awesome--really well made using adorable fabrics and nifty buttons, and each bag comes with a little lavender sachet (which I could smell as soon as I opened the envelope). I love that they use every last scrap of fabric to make these sachets--very make do and mend-y of them!(The project inside the bag is my almost-finished Julia Socks, and the two hanks next to it are my prize yarn (squee!) from the Electric Sheep podcast for being The Funniest Person on the Internet.Er...okay, One of Two People Who Submitted a Link to The Funniest Thing on the Internet, to be slightly more accurate. (It was the "literal version" of "Total Eclipse of the Heart," which is no longer available on Youtube, alas!)
Rye
I'd had a vague and way-too-ambitious notion of going to both Oxford and York while I was in England, but in the end I just decided to spend a couple nights in Rye, which is about two hours south-east of London. I'd read a little about medieval churches dotted along a spooky coastal marsh, though in the end I couldn't travel any farther because of the weather.Rye is enchanting, especially under a liberal dusting of snow. I went to St. Mary's, but the tower was closed for fear of ice on the steps; all the most interesting shops (antiques, secondhand books, vintage clothing, YARN) were closed; and Lamb House (where Henry James lived while writing The Wings of the Dove) doesn't open until March or April. So there was absolutely nothing to do but walk around in the snow taking pictures, but that suited me fine.Above: St. Mary's churchyard, mid-morning.Below: the Landgate right after it had started to snow again; another view of the churchyard; at the bottom of Mermaid Street, mid-afternoon; the view from the top of Trader's Passage at 4:30pm; the Old Borough Arms (which I can't recommend highly enough).
Adventures in London, part 3
(A view of St. Paul's from the Millennium Bridge.)On Seanan's day off we went to the Victoria & Albert. I spent the most time at the fashion exhibit, which was of course fantastic, although it was pretty hilarious to see a pink velour hoochy tracksuit behind glass like it was some precious artifact. When you go to the V&A you must have lunch (or at least tea) in the cafeteria, which is full of splendid tilework and stained glass windows featuring clever quotations about food. The other really memorable thing was Elizabeth Parker's needlepoint autobiography, which I feel sure I read or heard about in a blog or podcast awhile back, because reading the embroidery felt awfully familiar.Then there were incredibly delicious fruity cocktails at Beach Blanket Babylon in Notting Hill, which were worth every cent of £9. (Just don't pay by credit card, because the waiter will try to confuse you into leaving a bigger tip than he deserves.)The next day I went to the National Gallery expressly to see Venus & Mars (not that I didn't see a lot of other amazing paintings too--being able to view The Ambassadors in person was a really cool experience!), and then to the Royal College of Surgeons Museum, which is the final resting-place (er--of sorts) of the 'Irish Giant', Charles Byrne. (I'd recently read The Giant O'Brien by Hilary Mantel, a fictionalized account of Byrne's life as a professional oddity in London. Very well written, of course, but stinkin' depressing--his "friends" were all sitting around waiting for him to die so they could sell his body to John Hunter for an exorbitant price.)
Now to the juicy part of this post: the magical print shop that is T. Alena Brett on Cecil Court, off Charing Cross Road (there's no website). Thousands of odd or otherwise special little antique prints, most of which are £3-5. I can't say enough good things about this place, or its owner. The building has a fascinating history as well--a long time ago it was a barber's shop, and as a boy Mozart had his hair cut there; and in the early 20th century it was a tea room frequented by several of the war poets (Rupert Brooke, et al). The tables were set up along the tiny balcony where I took the photo above.
Above: the Christmas window display at T. Alena Brett. Below: two of the prints I bought, 'Princess Fiorimonde' and 'Fair at Westminster in the Fourteenth Century'.
Adventures in London, part 2
New Year's Day was pretty lazy--after hanging around Foyle's for awhile (Seanan was working), Deirdre and Diarmuid and I went to The George for some mulled wine. The building dates to the mid-1600s; Dickens drank there, and Shakespeare at an earlier tavern on the same site. Very quaint and surprisingly untouristy.On the 2nd we went shopping at iKnit (Diarmuid was a real trooper) and Persephone Books, and eventually we got to the British Museum. I picked up some violet cremes (out of this world!!) at Hope & Greenwood to have at The Woman in Black, which was every bit as spooky as we hoped. Afterwards we met Seanan (who was just getting off work) and had a terrific dinner (with margaritas) at some Mexican place I can't remember the name of.Above: a medieval grotesque at the British Museum.Below: the main hall, and the Easter Island statue.
Deirdre and Diarmuid had to leave early on the 3rd, and Seanan was working, so I spent the day (mostly) browsing. There was yarn shopping--oh my, was there yarn shopping--and there was fabric, too, at the hallowed Liberty's, although I didn't end up buying anything because that place is so overwhelming it's impossible to make a decision!
Above: the Columbia Flower Market on a Sunday morning; graffiti art on the back of a truck at the Brick Lane market; Regent Street just before 5pm.
Adventures in London, part 1
On the 31st I flew from Knock to Stansted. Seanan, Deirdre, and Diarmuid met me at Liverpool Street station, and after I'd dropped my bags we romped around town for a bit--browsed at The Tea House and Hope & Greenwood, which has to be THE best sweet shop in the whole world.
The amusements at Leicester Square.
Then we went to Fortnum & Mason, the poshest department store ever, where I felt like a street urchin drooling over the candy counters.
Then we went home and Seanan cooked up a delicious dinner (spicy parsnip soup! in a bread bowl! an olive bread bowl! and filo pastries with spinach and brie and apples and pine nuts! and some no-doubt-yummy chocolatey thing I was way too full for! and he even got me amaretto and cranberry juice!!) It was a lovely laid-back New Year's Eve.
Westport!
Shelley and James had their wedding in Westport on December 29th. She wore the shawl I knit her, which was perfect because the church was positively glacial. I had a fantastic time getting to know Shelley's friends from Dublin, Arizona, Michigan, and New York. Also, the Wyatt Hotel is outstanding--the staff were nice, the room was lovely (a double bed in a single room, yay!), and the food was much better than I expected. (The vegetarian breakfast came with fried goats cheese. Squee!)
(I love this picture. Most of my photos weren't very good, so I got this one from James' Facebook album. Shelley's friend Carolyn Tacey was the official wedding photographer.)
The day after the wedding a bunch of us drove out to Croagh Patrick (thanks for driving, Lorraine!)--after a delicious lunch at The Tavern, we just walked up to the statue of St. Patrick at the foot of the mountain--and after that we ambled around Murrisk Abbey for a bit.
Next post: adventures in London, part 1.
Then & Now
The field behind our house, 17 September 2009:
The field behind our house, 20 December 2009:
(Both of these pictures were taken around 4pm.)And look at this drift outside my bedroom window--isn't it beautiful?
the Aran sweater myth
(Teach Synge, Inis Meáin.)I'm always embarrassed to discover a mistake in my guidebook. I may be well traveled in Ireland but I'm certainly no expert, and I am aching to get back to work on the revision so I can correct all the gaffes I've found so far. (Alas, it's been postponed indefinitely because of the economy.)The latest error concerns the Aran sweater myth, which is so pervasive that it was even included in some of the cultural history books I used for reference. I propagated it thusly on page 339:
In John Millington Synge's heart-wrenching one-act play set on the Aran Islands, Riders to the Sea, a young woman realizes that the clothes of a drowned fisherman (found on the shores of Donegal, and buried there) are those of her missing brother when she notices the stitch she herself dropped while knitting his socks. Art imitates life on these islands, for each family used a unique pattern when knitting pullovers (called báinín, "baw-NEEN") for their fishermen in the all-too-likely event that one should be lost at sea.You probably won't see any shawls, crios (woolen belts), mairtíní (stockings sans feet), or other traditional garb outside the Aran museum, though the scarves and gloves sold in the shops are no less cozy for their lack of authenticity. Of course, the most popular seller remains the fisherman's sweater, knit in the traditional unbleached wool or a variety of jewel-toned yarns, but you have to wonder if the sweater pattern used by Sarah Flaherty and other speedy native knitters is one designed specially for the tourists.Otherwise, as Pat Boran wryly notes, Aran jerseys are "now worn almost exclusively by German hippies, University College Dublin science students, and on RTE soap operas."
This story (about cable patterns being used to identify drowned fishermen) was circulated by the head of an Aran knitwear company in the 1930s. Kate Davies, the very talented knitwear designer and textile historian, has enlightened me here. (The distinction must also be made between a family cable pattern (false) and identifying one's own handiwork.)
Glendalough
(Continued from Waterford retroblog.)I have a fond memory of the first time I went to Glendalough, in May 2000. I'd started chatting with an American guy on the bus down from Dublin, and once we'd checked into the hostel we had a drink at the hotel pub, then went for a walk in the graveyard in the dusk. It was deliciously spooky--and that night I stopped feeling homesick. (It was my first time traveling on my own, which admittedly took some getting used to.)These photos are from May 2006, when I was researching the travel guide: two views of 'St. Kevin's Kitchen' (so called because the little tower reminded somebody of a chimney), and a view of the round tower, which is 30 meters tall. St. Kevin founded a monastery in this valley in the 6th century, but most of the ruins of the 'monastic city' date from the 11th and 12th centuries.
The Cloisters
I'm in New York all this week, and taking the opportunity to do a few things I don't usually have time for when I'm only up for a night or two. I can't remember if this was my third or fourth visit to The Cloisters, but at any rate I love being able to pretend I'm back in Europe for a few hours. It was gloriously warm and sunny out, entirely too spring-like for late November.
The Bonnefont Cloister and herb garden.
These ladies have always been my favorites of the collection. They're early 16th-century reliquary busts; here's a better photo.
One of many spooky characters carved in the capitals of the Cuxa Cloister.
Tomb effigy of a knight in the Gothic Chapel.
(I'm skeptical.)
Waterford retroblog
Last week I got my tickets to Shannon for Shelley's wedding in Westport (and general catch-up in Galway), plus Ryanair tickets from Knock to London to hang out with Seanan over New Years. This got me thinking about the little road trip he and I took two years ago, when we spent a couple nights in the guesthouse at Mount Melleray Abbey outside Cappoquin, County Waterford.I'd got the notion of a monastic retreat from H.V. Morton's In Search of Ireland, published in 1930. (At the time I was working on a story idea, and though that story's on the back burner now my experience there was still very worthwhile.) The English travel-writer outlines the history of Mount Melleray like this:
In 1830 a band of Trappist monks expelled from France arrived on the slopes of the barren Knockmealdown Mountains with 1s. 10d. between them! They made some kind of shelter and a little oratory. The peasants came from the hills to do a day's work for them. Their farm-lands grew. They became known for their good works. Rich men made wills in their favour, and so, gradually and within one hundred years, the penniless settlement has grown into a large, prosperous, and obviously wealthy community. Their farm-lands are a tribute to their energy and their knowledge. They have made what was once a wilderness a place of corn and fruit; and grass, where fat cattle graze...We went out into the garden and into the grounds. There are rows of open graves. At first the visitor does not understand what they are. He has to be told that it is part of a Trappist's duty to dig his own grave...
(I hope that, like the vow of silence, this excessively morbid practice has been discontinued. At any rate, we walked the grounds and didn't see any ominous holes in the ground.)Long after Morton's visit to the abbey, in August 1985, three local children claimed that the Virgin Mary appeared to them in a grotto just down the road. We took a walk down there too, where there's a sheltered area for masses and all the usual religious bits and bobs, candles and prayer-cards and suchlike.The whole time we were at the monastery I only took pictures of the splendid old windows in my room. I wanted to document our visit, but not at the risk of offending the monks; after all, we were meant to be pilgrims, not tourists.
The first night we got up at 4am to hear the vigils sung in the chapel. I think it was more of a chant, but at any rate it was a rather surreal experience to be rising at the sound of church-bells in the middle of the night. I was too lazy to get up the following night, although I'd wanted to.In H.V. Morton's time, the monastery offered more than just a quiet retreat; the writer describes being woken in the middle of the night by another guest gone delirious for want of a drink.
Father Brendan, the guestmaster, I have been told, is one of the greatest living experts in the treatment of dipsomania. I believe that when a drunkard goes to Melleray he is given the amount of liquor to which he is accustomed, but in reduced quantities every day until, at the end of the cure, he is drinking water. But it is the moral influence of the monastery which pulls him through.The voice whimpered on for half an hour or so and ended in silly babbling laughter.
The monks we met--those few who were delegated to interact with the guests--were such lovely old men, warm and welcoming, with a great sense of humor. We had simple, filling meals in the guesthouse dining room, and at the end of our stay we just slipped an envelope into a box on the guestmaster's door.
After Mount Melleray we drove to Ardmore, where we'd planned to spend the night, but it turns out absolutely nobody (save us) visits Ardmore in the low season. The lovely B&B I'd stayed at in May 2006 wasn't open, nor was the old hotel. But we visited St. Declan's and did the cliff walk before leaving, of course. Ardmore is far and away my favorite spot in County Waterford.
So we spent the night in Dungarvan, where we had a delicious dinner at The Tannery (the portions were rather dainty though), and the next day we drove to Glendalough.
Seanan had never been to Glendalough, which surprised me--I figured it was the sort of place you'd visit on a school field trip even if your parents never took you. It's one of those rare tourist destinations that somehow manages to feel completely unspoiled; but that probably has much to do with it being so near Dublin, so most people only come for the afternoon.
Anyway, we had very nice eating and sleeping there too, at the Wicklow Heather (a great meal every time I've been there) and at Heather House, which is owned by the same folks. The village of Laragh is only a kilometer away, and that's where most of the accommodation is, plus a convenience store and petrol station. I've never been to the pub in Laragh, but I've heard the grub isn't very good. Eating at the Wicklow Heather is a no-brainer. And we got to have breakfast there too!
(I'll post better Glendalough photos at some point. The foliage was really pretty--we were there at the beginning of November--but my pics from this trip don't do it justice.)
Get Psyched for Halloween (#1)
One of my favorite travelogues is H.V. Morton's In Search of Ireland, published in 1930. Here's a short excerpt on the spooky St. Michan's Church in Dublin, where you can descend into the vaults and see for yourself:
Coffins lie stacked one on top of another almost to the roof...the weight of the dead pressing on the dead has caused the coffins to collapse into one another, exposing here a hand, there an arm, a leg, or a head. The idea of dead men pushing their ancestors from their coffins is worthy of Edgar Allan Poe. But what does startle and horrify is that these men and women, many of whom have been dead for 500 years and more, have not gone back to the dust...
'Yes, they do tell a ghost story about it. It's about a thief who went down one dark night to take a ring from a lady's finger, and, as he was working away, the lady sat up in her coffin and stepped out over the side and walked away. Yes, she did! And they say she lived for years after. But that's all blarney, sir...'
Apple-Picking
Last weekend I went apple-picking with Angela, Matt, Kelly and Jeff at the Warwick Valley Winery.
We got cider (I had raspberry, yum!) and took our cups into the orchard for some one-handed picking. (Kelly also picked up a bottle of pear liqueur, which unfortunately tasted like turpentine, or maybe rubbing alcohol. However we described it at the time was very hilarious to me, but unfortunately I can't remember what it was. A couple pints of cider makes one very merry, but rather forgetful.)
We spent the night at Matt's family cabin in Highland Lakes in Sussex County, which is an absolutely gorgeous part of New Jersey-- especially with all the fall foliage--and Kelly was finally forced to stop calling it "Dirty Jerz." Bwahahaha!
We got to the cabin late in the afternoon, and went for a walk by the lake.
There was a wedding going on in the clubhouse, and we considered crashing it, but contented ourselves with frolicking on the tiny beach:
(What a ham.)
(The view from the road.)Things I neglected to take pictures of: inside the oh-so-cozy cabin, with an old wood-burning stove; apple pie and apple turnovers; rock-climbing in Montclair on Sunday afternoon (or attempted rock-climbing, in my case. I wimped out of climbing and only rappelled down, while Kelly kicked butt both up and down, and Matt and Angela of course made it look easy-peasy.)One more awesome thing: Matt's grandmother's collection of owl figurines.
Greece retroblog, part 2
(Greece retroblog, part 1.)This post is rated PG-13. You might want to skip this one, Ma.
(See?)There were cases full of such durty sculptures at the Delos archaeological museum. Delos, home of the Athenian treasury once upon a time (and equally renowned for its orgies--see above), is an uninhabited island, which is why we stayed two nights on Mykonos (party central, jacked-up prices for the tourists). The food was mediocre and most of the folks we met were entirely too old to be dancing on tables, but as you can see, we made the best of it:
Minster salsas with a crazy Albanian who was bartending at this place right on the beach.(Speaking of Greek food: apart from Mykonos, we would get the most amazing vegetarian meals everywhere we went--stuffed peppers, dolmades, flavorful baked veggie dishes, and/or fresh salads with lots of feta, and baklava for dessert--plus a carafe of white wine for like €20 total. We had retsina and the most amazing 'zucchini flowers' on a balcony at Betty's at Mithymna, Lesbos...so many memorable meals!)And now for something completely different:
Poor gawky pelican wandering the streets of Mykonos picking at the rubbish.
One of the Naxian lions (the originals are on display inside the museum at Delos).Then we took the ferry to Santorini for fun outdoorsy stuff, scuba-diving and riding an ATV all up and down the island.
We stayed at this awesome domatia at Perissa for €35 a night (for both of us). Went swimming in the pool every morning. Great idea to visit Santorini toward the end of the season!1:25PM -- 2 October 2006 -- Monday, Perissa Beach...Our diving excursion off the west coast of Santorini turned out to be one of the coolest, most worthwhile things I've ever done...[skipping over the complaints about the sketchy diving company]...but once we were on the boat, speeding past all these breathtaking cliffs formed by the volcano, I felt really happy and peaceful--and that feeling only increased when we went under the water. This flamboyant middle-aged guy from New York told us it felt like returning to the womb--it did!--and another really kind and friendly guy from Long Island said he figured that space and sea were the only frontiers left, and since most of us will never board a rocket ship we might as well explore the bottom of the ocean. He was clearly addicted--they all were...
Our instructor would lead us to different places and point out the fish and sponges and suchlike--he even cut open an anemone (with a knife in a sheath strapped to his ankle) and fed a few fish with it. Saw a red-and-white 'poisonous fireworm' too. Sounds cliched to say it was profoundly peaceful on the ocean floor--not that we went all that deep--but how else can I say it? You could look up at the surface and watch your own breath-bubbles rising, shimmering like mercury beads in the light. The second dive was more fun--we were down about seven minutes longer and swam through an underwater cave--the walls were covered in electric blue and orange algae, and to swim around a corner and find the daylight shining through an elegant crevass--oh, it was bliss.I am sorry to say that the ferry passage to Crete was not at all blissful. Yes, that's right. I lost my lunch.
The Minoan palace ruins at Knossos, Crete, which were much more touristy than we were expecting. Many scholars take issue with the restorations executed by the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans: Coach tours are offered to Knossos, the disneyland of archeology, where Evans poured concrete to recreate his ideas of what this fine civilisation meant (from this site, which has some interesting info despite a few small bloopers...Evans discovered the site at the turn of the 21st century? Really?) Sir Arthur should have left the ruins just as he'd dug them up instead of reconstructing them based on his own imagination. Anyway, I hope this explains the following exchange:
Min: Sir Arthur Evans, the no-talent ass clown. I f****n' hate that guy.Me: Would you like to exhume him and pee through his eye sockets?
Minnie & Mealey's Greek Adventure (part 1)
Traveling with my friend Aravinda (a.k.a. Min) is never, ever dull. We traveled around Greece for three weeks in September 2006, island-hopping on and off the tourist track. My journals from that trip are full of what Min and Leah call the 'liturgy'--a string of inside jokes and assorted nonsense, which we would sometimes recite out loud and add to each time. Here is but a brief sample:
HOT CHOCOLATE + COINTREAU = SEXUAL BLISS. [Written at charming cocktail bar on Lesbos.] This music is making me sterile. "Oedipa came to, to find herself getting laid." "She's sniffing his armpit. He's dry-humping her. That's real sexy." [I believe that refers to a pair of turtles we found tussling in a cemetery.]
A walk through olive groves outside Plomari on Lesbos:
Minnie Minster chillin' on the ramparts of an amazing medieval fortress, Mithymna, Lesbos:
We went to a hot spring near Mithymna as well, in a small building that reminded me of an igloo (hah!) You would hang out in the hot water for awhile (trying to avoid looking at everyone else's boobs--we were the only women there in one-piece bathing suits), then go straight outside and dive into the sea. So refreshing, I can't even tell you.
Pretty much the only places we visited on mainland Greece were Athens and Delphi. The Acropolis is as touristy as you'd expect, but I found it funny that once you're up there, you look down at the city and you realize just how hideous all the modern architecture is. The only good view is looking up at it. Delphi was almost as touristy, but the scenery was fantastic.
(Above: the Erechtheion on the Acropolis; below, Delphi.)
We visited six islands in all: Lesbos, Ithaki, Mykonos, Delos, Santorini, and Crete. We'd originally wanted to visit the Peloponnese, but realized we didn't have quite enough time, and Ithaki was plan B.9:30PM--Friday, 22 September 2006Ithaki is lovely. Min says it's her new favorite, but I can't decide which place I prefer. This afternoon we walked a couple kilometers past darling terraced houses and hills covered in olive trees to a small secluded harbor and pebbly beach. The water was clear and warm and I quickly waded in up to my neck. Then I noticed movement beneath the surface--a few (at least three) schools of fish swimming all around me! It kind of freaked me out at first--I had this hilariously stupid idea that these tiny black fish were carnivorous (TEE HEE!) Took loads of pictures in the dusk. I didn't want to leave...
Last night, when we got off the ferry at 12:30am--having failed to secure a room, but unconcerned, seeing as we're always approached by some legitimate domatia owner--I had quickly decided I liked the place. A clear sky full of stars, the air heavy with jasmine--there's definitely a timeless quality to this island I haven't noticed elsewhere. The dull chime of bells around goats' necks in the distance, the old man waving from his veranda on the hill above us, the dogs half-asleep in the road, the colorful rowboats bobbing in the eerily clear water--(I pictured whole rooms beneath the surface, furnished in algae and shaded in green and blue)--yes, timeless.
