5 years, 9 months, 18 days

It has been 2,119 days since I last posted anything on this blog. If anyone is still getting alerts about this, please let me know!

2,119 days. That's also how long it took me to go back through the original posts and correct most of the wonky, auto-correct spelling errors that came from writing on a smartphone.

It's odd to come back to something like this after so long. I'm glad that I have this record of the things that I did and saw on this trip. I've had several more adventures since then, and most of those have not been well recorded at all. I tend more towards being caught up in the awe of the moment than making sure that I've got the photos or the records to remember things later on. I prefer that to spending so much time trying to get the best photo that you miss the moment itself, but there's probably a better balance somewhere. Having spent a few hours reading through several months' stories, though, I do sort of wish I'd written down more since then.

My writing skills have also improved markedly since I started this blog. In fact, they improved while I was writing this blog. I now find the earliest posts to be very stilted and clumsy. But it's an accurate record of the time, so I have left everything more or less unchanged. Some typos have been corrected. A couple of the photos were causing problems and had to be uploaded again, but otherwise it's all the same.

And having just read through the whole thing, beginning to end, I find myself with the urge to add something new.

So what's new?

Well, the pattern of the last posts was to lament the amount of time I went without an update and then summarise what had happened since.

This has definitely been the longest gap yet. I'm not sorry. I've been doing other things instead.

What sorts of things? Well, I'm glad I've assumed you asked.

After I got back from that trip, I started my first full time job working for EQC managing insurance claims for houses damaged in the multitude of earthquakes that happened in Christchurch. I signed up for a 3-6 month job through a temp agency. Two and half years later, I left EQC for another grand adventure.

In 2015, I went to Canada in the middle of winter to catch my cousin's wedding, hit a few tourist stops in Canada (and also Cuba for bonus points) so that I could feel slightly less embarrassed when I tell people I'm from Canada and they list all of the places they've been to in Canada that I've never even heard of. Then I decided to go to Finland for the Northern Hemisphere summer because summer is stupid and the sun is not my friend. I spent a couple of months in a tiny town above the Arctic Circle, mostly because I saw the opportunity and thought "when would I ever do that again?" - the answer is probably never.

Some of the other new countries that I've managed to visit since 2012 include: Vietnam, Cambodia, Iceland, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile

In late 2016, I decided that I was ready to stop moving for a while, so I came back to New Zealand just in time for another large earthquake to create jobs for people with experience in earthquake insurance. I once again signed up for a 2 month temp job, not intending to stay longer than that. But I did, because they asked me to, and it's always so much easier to just do the job that's in front of you.

Plus they pay me.

I have, however, recently started a new adventure. I decided that I wanted something new and exciting but stationary for once, so I moved to Wellington at the end of July last year. So far, I love the city. I stuck with the same insurance company to move here, and insurance is not something I'm passionate about. I sometimes think about trying to find a career that I would actually love; but I wouldn't even know where to start so instead I stick with just having a job so that I can save money for adventures. It's served me pretty well so far.

And then, on Saturday, I went to the zoo.

There you go, 5 years summarised. I'm sure there isn't much else worth mentioning. Perhaps my next update will have to cover even more years. Or maybe I'll think of something to say tomorrow. Since I doubt anyone is reading this, it might not matter either way.

Last leg

Well my final week is drawing to a close. It doesn't really feel like 7 months. I spent this week in the USA. Not a lot of time but I prioritised people over stuff for this continent and there were more people in Canada. I spent 2 days in New York where I walked an insane amount and tried to fit as much as possible into not enough time. I didn't get to everything but I did see a lot. I walked over the Manhattan bridge, through China town and Little Italy, past the empire state building, through the public library, around the theatre district, times square and MoMA. I spent as much time as I could afford at the Met and wasn't all that disappointed to discover that the guggenheim was closed on Thursdays. I had already filled my art gallery quota. Instead I wandered through central park until I was completely exhausted. Turns out 6 weeks sitting on sofas and being driven around by friends and family wasn't so good for my stamina. So I headed to the library and say there for a while until I could feel my feet again. All in all New York was pretty impressive and definitely deserved more time than I gave it.
After New York I headed to Salem where I spent 2 days with family friends I hadn't seen in yonks so it was good to catch top. I got the driving tour of Salem because it was colder than expected and the baby was not happy being in the stroller. Which meant my feet got a nice break before I tortured them again in San Fransisco. I didn't really have a list of things to see in San Fransisco. I just walked. One way the first day the other way the second day. I found the big park, a part of town with lots of little independent shops and cafes, the part of town with lots of designer shops and no cafes (guess which I liked better), wandered along the fisherman's wharf (with a very cloudy view of golden gate bridge and alcatraz) and climbed many hills. 
And now I am just one 13 hour flight from New Zealand. So much fun.

Goodbye Canada

It's been fun but it's time for me to leave again. Another few weeks of friends and family; movies, games, conversation and general excitement. As always I didn't have enough time with everyone but I'm really looking forward to this last week of my trip and then getting home. I don't remember what it's like to not live out of a bag. But the prospect of my own bed and better tasting toothpaste didn't make it any easier to say goodbye to Catie for the last time (it wasn't easy to say good bye to any of you but Catie gets to be mentioned by name because she's Catie).
The adventure isn't over yet though. Coming up: New York, Salem and San Fransisco.

Did you miss me?

So it turns out that without someone pestering me to do this I don't get around to it for a very long time. And since Catie is usually the one doing the pestering and she has been with me for the last few weeks and therefore knows everything that I've been doing she hasn't been pestering me. Until the last few days when I have been talking about how I really need to write a blog and then admitting that I haven't done it yet.
But since I made it to Canada there isn't as much to tell you about. There have been great things happening but things like playing cards with family, going to movies and reading stories to children, while fantastic when you are there, don't make for as interesting tales for a blog. So despite the fact that there has been such a long gap since the last one (I shouldn't have suggested that one was the biggest gap. That was just challenging me to have a bigger one. And I succeeded) there isn't actually all that much to say.
There is a bit more to say about Europe though.
We had 3 more days in Ireland after my last post. Which really wasn't enough time. We only managed to get to Cork (with a morning excursion to Blarney) and Galway. I definitely am going to have to go back there some day with more time. We did at least get to see a fair bit of the country on the buses in between. Of all the places I've been to it was the most like New Zealand in terms of landscape. It's New Zealand with castles.
Cork was lovely. We took a bus out to Blarney and saw the castle, poison garden and a cycle race. And yes I did kiss the blarney stone. It just seemed so ridiculous to have to hang upside down off the top of the castle to do it that I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I still have no idea why they would put it there. It supposedly already had an impressive history before it got there and if you were given a fancy historically significant stone wouldn't you put it somewhere a little more accessible?
The grounds were beautiful as well but unfortunately we didn't really feel like we had the time to explore it properly. There are caves and druid remnants somewhere but we only had time to wander through the poison garden (yes, it's exactly what it sounds like).
When we got back to Cork we wandered the town. Saw the pretty churches and streets and rivers. Found an adorable cafe. Passed some people dancing to a busker on pan pipes.
The next morning we started early to get a glimpse of the much lauded English Market before catching the bus to Galway.
Galway was also fantastic in a vague just meandered aimlessly the whole time way. It has a river and a few canals that turn into a bay. It's an area where people still speak Gaelic and home of the claddagh ring so there's a stronger Irish culture there. But we didn't do anything specific, just walked around the old town and stopped by the main sights. We also stopped by the most modern cathedral in I forget which geographical area. Possibly they said all of Europe. I forget. It was pretty and cathedral shaped and had a sign for coeliac communion. Which I though was amazing. And we found the nun's island and the Spanish arch.
But we weren't there for long and the next day we got on another bus back to Dublin airport to fly back to London. We only had one more night there and then early the next morning we had to head back to Heathrow to fly to Toronto. Because it was cheaper for me to do my whole trip as a return ticket to Germany I had to fly to Frankfurt first and then on to Toronto. Which was a bit odd. Especially since there were strikes of some sort in Frankfurt and my flight there was delayed to the point where I ended up with only 30 minutes to get from one plane to the other, including going back through security. I walked very quickly and made it there with more than half of the boarding already done.
And then I got to Toronto. And since then I have been catching up with family and friends and generally doing things that are not so adventurous. And that will continue for the next few weeks. But in early April I will be doing a bit more adventuring before heading home so maybe there will be a few more stories to tell.

Longest gap yet?

So my excuse for not writing this time is that my mother has arrived and is far more interesting than writing to you. Also the hostel we are staying at wants to charge us for wifi. I refuse on principal. When I need internet I can find a cafe with free wifi. But that means I mostly only do the things I need to do and unfortunately for you writing a new update is just not as high on the priority list as finding transport and accommodation.
I meant to write this on the bus yesterday but I slept instead. We don't have internet at the moment though so even if I had written it I wouldn't have been able to post it.
So much to tell you. Last you heard I was in Scotland, now I'm in Ireland having stopped in Wales and England along the way.
Edinburgh was great. Very pretty with a really good museum and good views from the castle and from the other hill. I didn't actually pay to go into the castle because £14 is ridiculous. Almost twice what I paid to get into the Vatican museum and that's the Vatican museum and you can easily spend 4 hours there. The castle's probably only worth one and I have seen quite a few castles.
But other than that and the complete lack of colour (everything is grey stone) Edinburgh was lovely.
Then I officially ran out of time. I had to be in London by the 10th but I wanted to get over to Wales as well which would have been about 13 hours and at least one change on the bus or £150 and 3 changes on the train. So I took a train to Manchester, arriving around 9pm, and then the next morning from there to Cardiff (departing around 9.30). So I spent about 12 hours in Manchester and slept through most of it. But what I saw along the walk between the bus station and the hostel had potential for being quite nice, if anything had been open.
But I got to Cardiff early enough to have a decent amount of time there even though I only had the one night. I really liked Cardiff and wish I'd had time to see more of Wales. Cardiff was surprisingly modern. For a place that's been inhabited as long as it has it didn't have so many old historic buildings. I never did find out why. I went out to the bay and saw the fancy architecture and Roald Dahl plass and the waterfront and a whole wall covered in Torchwood posters. I wandered around the central city with all its arcades. I went to the castle. It was really interesting with a really long history. They thought it was from Norman times until in the late 19th century they uncovered walls from a Roman fortification. It was privately owned and still lived in until the mid 20th century and was used as an air raid shelter in the 2nd world war.
Sadly it rained a lot in Cardiff and I started to feel a bit damp. London, however, was fairly decent weather. I caught an afternoon bus and got to the hostel in the evening. The next morning I headed out to Heathrow to meet Mum. I had a little difficulty figuring out where to go because despite pestering from me she never actually got around to emailing me her flight details. But I tracked her down eventually.
It's great to see her and to be travelling with someone again. She wasn't very happy with me forcing her to stay awake until 9pm but since her jet lag was gone in a couple of days I think she should be grateful. The first day we didn't do a whole lot. Walked to Harrods and marvelled at the egyptian themed stairway and the number of digits on the jewellery prices. The next day we went to the museum, saw the parthenon marbles, the rosetta stone, assyrian reliefs covered in cuneiform and the gift shop. That day we also managed to get to the national library which had a display of manuscripts and an impressive rare book collection including a range from papers of notes by Leonardo da Vinci to original copies of Beatles songs. And we even managed to get to Camden market about half an hour before it closed. If only we'd had more time. You could spend hours there.
The following day was Mum's birthday and Catie and I had decided the best present would be a trip to a show. So in the morning we headed out to get the discount on-the-day tickets to Wicked. Then we did touristy things like piccadilly circus, westminster abbey (which we weren't willing to pay to see. It was even more than edinburgh castle which would be at least twice the size) and europe's biggest bookstore.
That evening we went to Wicked which was fantastic. So much fun. And the songs have been stuck in my head for days. I wouldn't even know how to describe how great it was. So I won't try.
On Tuesday morning we packed up and headed back to Heathrow to catch a flight to Dublin. We arrived in the afternoon and went for a wander around the city. We didn't have any specific goals so we just walked randomly until we got hungry. It really is a lovely city. Fairly compact so easy to walk everywhere. And it just feels nice.
We didn't have a huge amount of time there because we don't have a lot of time anywhere but we managed to see everything we really wanted to. We made it to Trinity college, St Patrick's cathedral, Grafton street, Temple Bar, Christ Church cathedral, O'Connell street and the book of kells. Our second night there we went to a pub and listened to live Irish (mostly) music with all the people singing along.
Which brings us to Enniscorthy. Probably not a stop most tourists make but it is a pretty little town with a castle, a history of uprisings and, most importantly, family. That's the thing about having Irish heritage, very distant family is still family. On my dad's side of the family I've never even met any 2nd cousins but on my mum's side I've met several 2nd cousins and now a 3rd cousin and they're all just cousins. So we had 2 days there getting to know family and hearing about family histories (not all of it ours) and seeing some of small town Ireland.
And today we came to Cork. We looked up the bus times but our cousin told us it was better to take a train then a bus because otherwise we would have to drag our luggage across a big bridge. But it turned out that required back tracking and an extra 2 hours so maybe sometimes the internet is more reliable than local know how.
And that's where I am now, yelling at my phone because it died in the middle of a sentence and was contrary about turning back on quickly.

Leaving the continent

Tonight I take a ferry to the UK. It's been a good run in continental Europe but it's time to move on. In fact it might be past time to move on since it appears I'm going to be short on time in Britain. Oh well.
And that is all that I wrote before I left. I realised I needed my phone to be not dead since that's where my ticket for the ferry was so I stopped writing to conserve battery. And then I never started again. The ferry had a tv with shows in english. It was very distracting.
So I made it to the UK. And have been doing the country on fast forward.  Today I'm in Inverness, heading to Edinburgh this afternoon.
And that is all that I wrote before I left. But this time I remembered to start again. I'm now on the bus to Edinburgh.
I don't know when I last wrote but I know it's been a long time. And if I go back and figure out where I left off I probably won't catch up to today. So instead we'll do this backwards and just go as far as I can be bothered in one go.
Today I had a wander around Inverness. Saw the biggest second hand bookstore in Scotland and decided that I might need to buy a new bag because I don't really have enough space for more books. Walked to the castle and the museum (which is closed on mondays so wasn't very exciting). Walked along the river to Ness island which is apparently home to bats and otters and deer but I didn't see any. Walked back along the river and past the old cathedral. Walked the other way along the river and sat for a while. Saw a seal swimming in the river. Went back to the hostel to phone Canada to sort out some student loan stuff (which was surprisingly easy and left me time to write some of this). And then caught a bus.
Yesterday I spent the morning on the bus from Glasgow and most of the evening sitting in my hostel planning which left only a couple of hours of walking around Inverness. The up side is that I now have accommodation and transport sorted for a whole week and won't have to do any more planning for... well, a few days.
Someone is spraying hairspray on my bus. Who uses hairspray on a bus? It's a bus. No one cares what your hair looks like.
And that is all that I wrote before my phone died.
So where was I? Glasgow. Glasgow was good but wet. I spent a fair among of time hiding in the Library and art gallery (which was the same place. The library was in the art gallery).
So the power outlet here is not working properly and my phone isn't charging right. Which means it's going to die again soon. And if that happens it will probably be days before I manage to post this so I'll just summarise a bit and finish this quickly.
Before Glasgow was York. Walled city, river, book store, seven hour bus ride.
Before York was Nottingham. Busy, castle, Robin Hood.
Before Nottingham was Cambridge (pretty with a side of snow) then the ferry (quite flash), Amsterdam (don't know how to summarise) and Rotterdam (Santa statue). And before that was Belgium which I'm pretty sure I already mentioned.
Ta da! Update complete.

It's like a fairytale

How does this happen? It's been almost a week but I don't feel like I've done anything worth writing about. So I guess this will be a short update.
I went to St Malo. Pretty city but a less than impressive hostel (they only have the one). I did a day trip to Mont St Michel. You can really believe that besides the contents of the souvenir shops it hasn't changed in hundreds of years. I went to Bayeux where the hostel was even less impressive and the city wasn't really special enough to make up for it. And I went to Rouen with possibly the worst hostel of the lot and I don't even remember anything particular about the city. I ran out of time and didn't go to the D Day beaches. To be honest I was so sick of Normandy's idea of what youth hostels are meant to be that I was just ready to get out of there.
So I went to Belgium. I got to Brussels yesterday but only stayed the one night because the hostel options there weren't so good either. So this morning I got up early did a walk around the main sights of the city (what's with the manneken pis? Why is that even worth mentioning in passing let alone going out of the way to see?) Then checked out at the last minute and caught a train to Bruges. I walked around a lot. Ate some fries. Looked at the belfry but couldn't climb it since it was closed. Got rained on. Didn't get shot at. And now I'm on a train to Antwerp. And a much better hostel.
I suppose it's a short update mostly because I don't seem to want to go into detail. That would require effort. So I won't be surprised if I get some complaints about the uselessness of this post. Or more likely complaint. Most of you seem to just put up with me being useless at communicating.

Surfing, stones, seafood and Paris

So I guess it's been a while. Internet has been a difficulty recently. But everything else has been good. Paris was amazing. We only had about 3 days there and wanted to see as much as we could in that time so we just kept moving and ended up rather tired. The first day I think I mentioned. We saw sacre couer, champs elysee, arc de triomphe, eiffel tower, luxembourg gardens, pantheon and notre dame. The next day we went early to the louvre. It's pretty overwhelming. We wandered there until our feet hurt and we were hungry. Then after lunch we went to the shakespeare and company bookstore which was a different kind of amazing. I always love those kind of bookstores where it's so packed with books on every surface that you have to squeeze between the shelves. And then the Centre Pompidou which is kind of an awesome building. We did look at most of the art there but we also found squishy chairs and by that point it was very hard to not stay in the squishy chairs reading. Sadly they had to close and we had to make our way back to the hostel and find some dinner. The following day we went out to Versailles. I don't even know what there is to say about Versailles. The buildings were amazing in various ways and the gardens are enormous. Luckily the weather was good so we could just wander the grounds. We got back to Paris in the Afternoon and went to the Musee d'Orsay. Which was also fantastic, though slightly overheated.
And then the next day we had to leave. But not until the afternoon so we had the morning to walk around some more and see a few of the parts of Paris we hadn't gotten to yet.
By the time we got to the train station we were exhausted. We'd decided to have 2 days in the loire valley so that we could sleep and recover for one day and still have time to see some chateaux. But instead we slept and read for both days and didn't see a great deal of Blois at all. But we left much more refreshed than we had been, ready to see Carnac.
We got incredibly lucky with Carnac because we managed to couch surf with a woman who was willing to drive us all around to see the stone alignments and the sunset over they ocean and a tomb and little seaside villages and more. If we had had to do it ourselves we would have found a way but we wouldn't have seen half as much as we did because it would have taken so much time to figure out how to get places.
The stone alignments at Carnac are amazing. I took some pictures and I'll try to remember to stick one in at the end but they don't really give you any idea of the scale. These massive stones are lined up in rows
There are also a bunch of tomb things where they've put these stones standing close together, more or less in a circle, and then placed a giant one over the top. We went to see one that is in a forest area and is still contained in rock and earth. You can go inside it.
Then we went for lunch for the local speciality of galettes. Very tasty. Had a look around the port then drove out to the peninsula with a dramatic coastline where we speculated on the sanity of the surfers.
That evening our host had friends over and she fed us lobster. It's the first time I've had lobster. I decided since I was planning on eating it I should be willing to watch them prepare it. Including the part where they cut it in half alive. Almost makes me want to switch to halal but I trust that most of the meat I eat goes through slaughterhouses where the aim is efficiency meaning a quick and clean kill. I was not a fan of watching a living creature be bisected but once it was dead I had no problem just seeing it as meat. And it was tasty. Though rather hard to eat.
So that should bring you up to date. I am now on the train to St Malo where hopefully there will be decent internet for me to post this.
that go for hundreds of metres. And that's just one part. There are several different parts. Thousands of megaliths covering I don't even know how many kilometres which people purposefully placed upright in the ground. And the rocks don't even come from near there! And unlike stonehenge you can walk right in among them and reach out and touch them. Or you can in winter anyway. Apparently in summer they are closed off so the vegetation can regrow. Another advantage to travelling off season.

Ich bin ein berliner

Well no, but I ate a berliner. I'm currently on a night train from Berlin to Paris. For the first time I'm doing a night train not in the seats but on the couchette thing. There are six in a compartment which means that there is another bed about thirty centimetres from my nose. Being in the middle bunk makes it interesting getting up and down. But once here it's not too uncomfortable and hopefully I will sleep better than some other night trains I've had. But even if I don't I'm not going to let that stop me because tomorrow I will be in Paris and I'm not going to waste time napping. Once we get in and dump luggage at the hostel we're going to put on our super tourist hats (which will likely be the same hat I wear every other day) and keep prodding each other awake and possibly resorting to caffeine so that we can see as much of the city as we can. Which means I'm not expecting a lot of down time tomorrow to write this in because I expect that if I sit for long I won't stand up again. So I should write this now. But I'm kind of sleepy so might not get far. Which means you probably won't get this tomorrow. Too bad. I'll be in Paris.
Since I last wrote we have been to Dresden and Berlin. Dresden was incredible. If you didn't know that only 60 years ago it was completely destroyed and most of it's population killed you probably wouldn't guess. Parts of the resorted buildings are still blackened from the fire and you can tell which parts are new because the clean blocks stand out beside the black ones but it is a vibrant city full of history. They didn't let a little thing like total destruction get in the way of that. Unfortunately it rained pretty much the whole time we were there and on the first day when we were going to the old town to be tourists the wind was incredible. Felt like we were about to be blown off the bridge at one point. But on the plus side there weren't so many people around.
I also ate one of the best burgers I have ever had I'm my entire life. Might be worth a trip to Germany just for that.
Our next stop was Berlin. And it rain the whole time we were there too. By that point it had been raining on us for over a week and I was really sick of it.  Weather patterns of any sort don't often last a whole week in Christchurch. So we ended up spending much of the first day hunkering inside reading books. But we did make the effort to go for a walk. Saw the Brandenburg gate, the dom, the tv tower thing, the holocaust memorial and book burning square. As well as a bunch of other things along the path. It's a nice city and there's history everywhere you turn, much of it not very nice but they've managed to hold on to the not so nice past and create a nice city anyway.
Yesterday we went to 3 museums. The neues museum with it's egyptian stuff, the pergamon museum with Greek and Roman and Assyrian, and the old national gallery with all sorts of paintings and sculpture.
Right so yesterday's "today" is now today's "yesterday" so don't be confused when I follow the previous paragraph with:
Then yesterday sadly required shopping. The zipper on my pants has broken twice and while I have managed to fix it both times it's clearly not going to last all that long. So I have to find new pants before they break for good. And I really hate shopping for pants. But I did it anyway. I didn't actually buy anything though so i will have to shop again in the near future.
Since it was our last day in Germany we got pretzels and also bought bratwurst from a guy with a portable barbecue. And by that I mean he had a barbecue strapped to himself so he could walk around and sell sausages. There was an umbrella sticking out of the part on his back with the tank in it too. There were actually a whole bunch of them and I felt like I couldn't not get one.
And then the night train. Which wasn't too bad. Obviously not awesome because it was on a train but even with the lack of space it is better to be lying down.
When we got to Paris we tracked down the hostel then went to a cafe for breakfast where we sat doing got chocolates and munching croissants as we looked out at the basilique de sacre couer. Sound like a good start to the day? Well it continued in the same sort of way. First we climbed to sacre couer where we got good views of the city and happened to stumble into the church in time for a mass. With a full choir of nuns. It was interesting because of course I understood none of the words but felt like I almost knew what to say because the rhythm and patterns to the mass are the same in english. Then we walked back down the hill, stopped by the information centre for the museum pass, walked from there past the louvre, along the champs elysee to the arch de triomphe. We climbed up to the viewing platform and got a few slightly foggy photos across the city and of the eiffel tower (at which point my camera died. Lucky for you because it means I actually yolk a few with my phone so you might ever see some). Then we walked to the eiffel tower where we decided we'd had enough stairs for one day and didn't go up. Then over to the luxembourg gardens and the pantheon and finally across to notre dame. At which point we decided we had managed to fit enough into a day that started out with the tired that comes from a night train. So we headed back to the hostel.
Now it's about 9.30 and I am going to sleep. I will try to remember to post this in the morning.

Ich bin ein berliner

Well no, but I ate a berliner. I'm currently on a night train from Berlin to Paris. For the first time I'm doing a night train not in the seats but on the couchette thing. There are six in a compartment which means that there is another bed about thirty centimetres from my nose. Being in the middle bunk makes it interesting getting up and down. But once here it's not too uncomfortable and hopefully I will sleep better than some other night trains I've had. But even if I don't I'm not going to let that stop me because tomorrow I will be in Paris and I'm not going to waste time napping. Once we get in and dump luggage at the hostel we're going to put on our super tourist hats (which will likely be the same hat I wear every other day) and keep prodding each other awake and possibly resorting to caffeine so that we can see as much of the city as we can. Which means I'm not expecting a lot of down time tomorrow to write this in because I expect that if I sit for long I won't stand up again. So I should write this now. But I'm kind of sleepy so might not get far. Which means you probably won't get this tomorrow. Too bad. I'll be in Paris.
Since I last wrote we have been to Dresden and Berlin. Dresden was incredible. If you didn't know that only 60 years ago it was completely destroyed and most of it's population killed you probably wouldn't guess. Parts of the resorted buildings are still blackened from the fire and you can tell which parts are new because the clean blocks stand out beside the black ones but it is a vibrant city full of history. They didn't let a little thing like total destruction get in the way of that. Unfortunately it rained pretty much the whole time we were there and on the first day when we were going to the old town to be tourists the wind was incredible. Felt like we were about to be blown off the bridge at one point. But on the plus side there weren't so many people around.
I also ate one of the best burgers I have ever had in my entire life. Might be worth a trip to Germany just for that.
Our next stop was Berlin. And it rained the whole time we were there too. By that point it had been raining on us for over a week and I was really sick of it.  Weather patterns of any sort don't often last a whole week in Christchurch. So we ended up spending much of the first day hunkering inside reading books. But we did make the effort to go for a walk. Saw the Brandenburg gate, the dom, the tv tower thing, the holocaust memorial and book burning square. As well as a bunch of other things along the path. It's a nice city and there's history everywhere you turn, much of it not very nice but they've managed to hold on to the not so nice past and create a nice city anyway.
Yesterday we went to 3 museums. The neues museum with it's egyptian stuff, the pergamon museum with Greek and Roman and Assyrian, and the old national gallery with all sorts of paintings and sculpture.
Right so yesterday's "today" is now today's "yesterday" so don't be confused when I follow the previous paragraph with:
Then yesterday sadly required shopping. The zipper on my pants has broken twice and while I have managed to fix it both times it's clearly not going to last all that long. So I have to find new pants before they break for good. And I really hate shopping for pants. But I did it anyway. I didn't actually buy anything though so i will have to shop again in the near future.
Since it was our last day in Germany we got pretzels and also bought bratwurst from a guy with a portable barbecue. And by that I mean he had a barbecue strapped to himself so he could walk around and sell sausages. There was an umbrella sticking out of the part on his back with the tank in it too. There were actually a whole bunch of them and I felt like I couldn't not get one.
And then the night train. Which wasn't too bad. Obviously not awesome because it was on a train but even with the lack of space it is better to be lying down.
When we got to Paris we tracked down the hostel then went to a cafe for breakfast where we sat drinking hot chocolates and munching croissants as we looked out at the basilique de sacre couer. Sound like a good start to the day? Well it continued in the same sort of way. First we climbed to sacre couer where we got good views of the city and happened to stumble into the church in time for a mass. With a full choir of nuns. It was interesting because of course I understood none of the words but felt like I almost knew what to say because the rhythm and patterns to the mass are the same in english. Then we walked back down the hill, stopped by the information centre for the museum pass, walked from there past the louvre, along the champs elysee to the arch de triomphe. We climbed up to the viewing platform and got a few slightly foggy photos across the city and of the eiffel tower (at which point my camera died. Lucky for you because it means I actually took a few with my phone so you might ever see some). Then we walked to the eiffel tower where we decided we'd had enough stairs for one day and didn't go up. Then over to the luxembourg gardens and the pantheon and finally across to notre dame. At which point we decided we had managed to fit enough into a day that started out with the tired that comes from a night train. So we headed back to the hostel.
Now it's about 9.30 and I am going to sleep. I will try to remember to post this in the morning.

Surprise! You're in Switzerland!

So Germany of all places doesn't do free wifi. Or at least this black forest part doesn't. We thought Frieburg was weird but Baden-Baden might even be worse. Not only do the hostels not have wifi (the only other places I've run into that didn't have wifi were in Greece and didn't seem to know about the internet at all. They didn't even have email. These places have whole websites) but the cafes and restaurants don't either (which most did in Greece). And this is Germany which makes a lot use of the internet. Unlike Greece where it was very difficult to get information online sometimes. I guess maybe it's another way for them to get more money out of you but I can live without internet for a few days or even handle sitting in starbucks for a few hours rather than pay money. Which means you are just going to have to make do without an update for a few more days. Of course by the time you read this that will be more of a past tense statement. And look! You made it those extra few days without an update! Well done.
So what have I been up to? I'm not really sure. Doesn't feel like I've done that much. Made it to Germany. Which is so far not my favourite place. Not that there's anything wrong with it (apart from the weird internet systems) but most countries by this point I would be thinking that I wished I had more time and that there was so much I was missing out on because I can't see everything. I just don't feel that way about Germany. I am looking forward to Dresden and Berlin but might even decide not to bother with Hamburg and just have more time in France instead. But maybe northern Germany will suddenly click for me.
So far we have been to Munich (where I got to see some classical statuary that I studied at uni), Fussen (where we did the tour of Ludwig II's elaborate and unfinished castle), Freiburg (where we explored the Munster and listened to fireworks) and Baden-Baden (where we didn't actually do a whole lot because it rained a lot and one of the days was a holiday so everything was closed). Right now we are still in Baden-Baden but I won't have internet until we get to Stuttgart tomorrow.
Germany is odd. It has what is generally accepted as the best website for the train system in all Europe and is well known for those trains always being on time so I expected the train system to be good. That seemed the logical conclusion. But it's either very expensive or very convoluted. To get from Fussen to Frieburg we had to take 5 different trains. Take a look at a map and you'll see that they're not that far apart. There are mountains in the way so they can't go straight there but the way we went was rather circuitous. We could only take the regional trains which meant we had to sort of zigzag. And as we were waiting for our last train to depart I decided to go to the vending machine because it was the first chance we'd had all day since at all the other stops we'd had about 5 minutes to get from one train to the next (once only 3). And I was rather surprised when it gave me back change that was not euros. It was Swiss francs. Because the cheapest way to get from Fussen to Frieburg is on regional trains which for some reason go via Switzerland.
So I can add another country to the list of paces I've been to on this trip. I hadn't planned on going to Switzerland but I spent about as much time there as I did in Monaco so I think it counts anyway.

Will a photo do?

I know I should update this but I just can't be bothered. This one way communication thing is kind of annoying at times. So will a picture suffice? What about 2 pictures. That's like 2000 words right? And I probably wouldn't have written that much anyway.

So this is the Neuschwanstein castle in Germany and a view over Füssen from the castle which we went to today.

So I hope that will satisfy you for now because you probably won't get more for a few days.

Merry Christmas!

Just a quick note to wish you all a wonderful Christmas. Especially to everyone in Christchurch. It's weird not being there. But hopefully you can all find a way to have a good holiday despite the rocking and rolling going on under your feet. Fingers crossed next year will be a little less shaky.
Since I just did an update there isn't a lot to say about what I've been up to. Yesterday we went to the zoo. It was very big and full of many impressive animals. The reindeer, however, were conspicuously absent. Today we went ice skating in the square. I haven't been ice skating in about 5 years and it turns out it uses muscles I didn't even know I had. Who knew there were muscles in the ankles?
And tomorrow will probably be full of skype. Email me if you want to book a time to talk because some people have already called dibs on certain times.
So have a wonderful christmas everyone and you will hear more from me next week when I will be in Germany.

Into the Czech Republic

So when I told my sister I was coming to a place called Cesky Krumlov (there's meant to be a little v over the c which makes it a ch) she immediately decided it sounded like a bond villain. But when I got here and saw the castle, the cobbled lanes, the brightly painted houses and the river winding through it I decided it was definitely more fairytale. But that was before I heard about the moat. Like I said, there's a castle here. A pretty impressive castle given the size of the town. And like all good castles it has a moat. But when they were making the moat they decided water was just so over done so instead they filled the moat (dramatic pause) with bears.
Yeah, that's a little bond villain.
I didn't get to actually see the bears since they are of course hibernating at this point and apparently, despite the appearance of bats last week, I don't have a magical ability to wake hibernating animals. Must have been someone else on the cave tour.
So I meandered the streets of Cesky Krumlov. Walked through the castle. The interior is closed in winter but you can walk through the out side parts. It's a good castle too. Not quite like any of the others I've been to so far. But I also got a very mild cold and to avoid letting it get worse I stayed in a bit too. Which seems to have worked.
And then there was Prague. I got here yesterday afternoon and spent much of the day trying to track down Rachael because we were not smart enough to make a plan for finding each other before she left New Zealand and she was not reachable once she left. And Prague is quite big and very very crowded this week.
But I did eventually track her down. Along the way I saw a guy making horse shoes in the middle of the square and several spots where people, candles and flowers were gathered to honour Vaclav Havel as well as several incredibly large and bright christmas trees.
Today we went to the castle. It's not really the kind of place that springs to mind when I hear the word castle. Closer to palace but that doesn't really cover it either. It's more like a collection of palaces with a big cathedral in the middle. And all the buildings here are really brightly painted which was an interesting contrast to the dark gothic cathedral. And there was this lane with little houses that looked like something out of a cartoon. We also passed a massive line of people with flowers who we assumed were waiting to get in to see the casket.
After the castle we meandered the streets of Prague for a while. It is a pretty city. Found a church. Watched the astrological clock. Ate sausage. Decided not to go to the sex machines museum, the wax museum, or the marionette museum (personally I think the first one sounds the least creepy). And wandered the markets with hot drinks.
An afternoon of rest (some of us are quite jet lagged) then back out for dinner and enjoyment of christmas lights and market crowds.
Tomorrow we might just go to the zoo.

Christkindlmarkte

I know it's been about a week since I last posted but I just don't feel like I have that much to tell you about. I went to Zagreb. It's a nice city. But I don't really remember anything particularly spectacular about it. Then I went to Ljubljana. Slovenia wasn't originally on my list of places to go but I heard about these caves that sounded worth seeing.
Ljubljana itself was pretty. It has a castle on a hill and architecture and markets and such. It rained most of the time I was there and I got caught in a hail storm at one point.
On my second day in Ljubljana I did a day trip to the Škocjan caves. I looked everything up and so I knew that it was an hour and a half train ride to Divaca and the caves are 5 km from there with buses only going twice a day at very strange times. The bus is run by the people who manage the caves but for some reason the bus goes at 11 am and 2.30 pm when the tours of the caves go at 10 am and 1 pm. So I planned on taking the 9.40 train so I would have plenty of time to walk. But I missed my train. I'm actually somewhat impressed with the fact that I haven't missed any trains or buses before this. I'm usually somewhat paranoid and arrive early (also because I've had experiences with very full trains that don't have any seats left if you get there just on time). This time I forgot how far the train station was from my hostel. There was another train an hour later but it didn't get into Divaca until 12.15 and 45 minutes to walk 5 km is not really enough time. But I wanted to see the caves so I went anyway. The train arrived late and I power walked the whole (at times slightly muddy) way but I got there just in time. The tour left less than a minute after I got there.
The caves were really amazing. It's got Europe's biggest underground canyon. And all sorts of stalagmites and stalactites. And bats. Apparently we were lucky because we actually saw the bats even though they are meant to be hibernating at this point.
From Ljubljana I caught the train to Vienna. Vienna really knows how to put on a show for Christmas. I complained before about the lack of christmas lights in some places. Turns out they're all in Vienna. The giant chandeliers were particularly impressive. I also got my first snowfall of the trip. I was wondering how far north I would have to go to find the real winter and I guess the answer is Austria. It didn't actually snow for long. Only about a minute. But it happened to be the minute when I was wandering through the christmas market with a mug of gluhwein so it was somewhat magical. I had 2 whole days in vienna to enjoy the christmas markets. Which were completely packed one week before christmas. I also did the tourist thing and saw some of the more permanent sights of Vienna like the spanish horse school and the big Stephansdom cathedral.
And today I am on my way to the czech republic. A place called Cesky Krumlov.

More than a hundred and one

And then I headed to Croatia. Dubrovnik was my first stop. It's actually pretty close to Kotor. Just over 2 hours on the bus and a chunk of that is spent at border control. The coastline between the border and Dubrovnik is littered with tiny towns only about 5 km apart. They're all squeezed between mountains and ocean so don't have anywhere to grow except sideways so you mostly go straight from one town to another. Sometimes the you are leaving sign was on the same post as the you are entering sign. Dubrovnik itself is pretty big though. I got in about 5pm and got picked up at the bus station by the hostel I had booked to stay at including a bit of a tour of that part of the city along the way. Had some nice conversation with the only other person staying in the whole hostel. I only had the one day in Dubrovnik so I started early. Left my bags at the bus station and walked to the old town. It turned out to be a lot further than it looked on my map, especially in new shoes. But I found it eventually and took the cable car up the hill for amazing views of the old town. Though in some ways it was more impressive up close. It looks a lot smaller in the pictures from the cable car than it actually is. The city walls are massive. Definitely some of the most impressive walls I've seen. You can walk all the way around them too which I did later. It's really amazing. I don't seem to have words to describe it. I took a heap of photos but they are all stuck on my camera where you can't see them.
So I did the main sights of Dubrovnik and then walked back to the bus station to catch the 5pm bus to Split. Turns out there isn't a 5 pm bus on Saturdays but there was one at 6 so it wasn't a big deal.
And then I got to Split which was all lit up with christmas lights and full of people. I've been a few places lately that are very touristy but very seasonal and are sort of quiet at this time if year. Not Split though. Granted the hostel I was staying at was still pretty much empty (I've gotten used to having an entire dorm to myself. Not sure how I'll manage when everything is packed for christmas) but the city was still a busy place. I guess it was all Dalmatians (being the coast of Dalmatia). Even the next day, the dreaded Sunday, was packed with people. I even stumbled across a square with a stage where groups of little girls were dancing. The lack of coordination of 5 year olds is awesome.
So I wandered the city and got into the Christmas spirit. Found a statue that must be of a magician. But the map said it was some saint. I also did the less fun hiding in my room trying to figure out where I'm going next. I hadn't decided what I was doing after I left Split and really had to do some proper planning. But I also went out after dark to enjoy the christmas lights some more. Most of the places before Croatia had kind of pathetic christmas lights. That's the best part of a winter christmas is having more hours of dark in which to enjoy lights.
The next day I went on a short day trip to Omiš. A girl I met in Athens said it was amazing. It definitely had potential but seemed to be mostly under construction. I headed back fairly early but don't specifically remember what I did with my afternoon. I think just wandering the market and the palace some more.
This morning I got all of my stuff organised. It spread a surprisingly long way in 3 days. That's the problem with not having to share the space with anyone. So that took a while. But since there wasn't anyone there I didn't have to worry about check out time. Once I was sorted I went to climb the hill and check out the city panorama. Not a bad view. I could have climbed higher but my lungs were not impressed with the damp it-might-rain air so I went back down and bought a train ticket instead. I got funny looks from the people at the train station for buying the ticket 4 hours early but I'm getting low on Croatian kuna and don't want to have to get more money out until I'm back to Euros so I wanted to know how much I had left after getting the ticket. Answer: probably not enough. Depends how much a ticket from Zagreb to Ljubljana costs. It's shorter than this trip which usually means cheaper but it's international which usually means more expensive so we'll see. Then I went to the grocery store (so exciting) because food is a necessity on a 6 hour train ride.
And now I'm 4 hours in and there's nothing to watch out the windows because it's too dark and the guy 2 seats ahead who was making muscles at himself in the window got off at the last stop. So I guess I'll go back to my book.
Coming up next: Zagreb, Slovenia and Vienna.

It's all cyrillic to me

Seriously, what do they need so many letters for?
Well it's been a busy few days for me. I've moved around quite a bit. Last I wrote I was in Greece. Now I'm in Montenegro. And it has been an interesting trip getting here. You can't really plan ahead when travelling in this part of the world because you can't be sure of bus times until you actually get to the bus station. You can google all you want but have to be prepared to figure something else out when you get there.
But before all of that I had a day in Meteora. They have these monasteries perched on top of cliffs. They are impressive. I walked up to about the third one (there are 6 still in use today) but then I got hungry so I walked back. But not before getting completely surrounded by cats at one point. They just appeared out of nowhere.
The next day I began the hope-there-is-a-bus part of the trip. The internet had told me that there was a daily bus from Thessaloniki to Skopje at 5.30pm. So I headed to Thessaloniki and spent about 3 hours trying to find this supposed bus. When I asked people they mostly just told me to go to a different place and ask for information there. I finally found someone who told me I had to go to a particular travel agent and gave me directions. But his directions were not very good and I couldn't find it and when I went back to ask again he had gone for the day and the other person had no clue about anything. I did eventually find the right place and there was in fact a bus that night so I got to Macedonia without too much more trouble. Just a short delay at the border because the spanish immigration were terrible stampers so the greek immigration didn't want to let me out. But they did. And the rest of that particular journey was pretty straight forward.
The next day was Sunday. I've come to resent Sundays somewhat since I've been travelling. Everything is closed. Macedonia turned out to be better than Italy because the mall with the grocery store was open decent hours even though all the independent shops were closed. When I went to the old part of town it was almost completely deserted. But it was pretty. Skopje is practically exploding with sculpture. It's everywhere. The central square has probably about a dozen statues including a giant horseman monument thing surrounded by lions. There were guys in chairs and guys in robes and women shopping and a bull about to charge a restaurant. And those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.

So, climbing a mountain in a thunder storm: not my best idea ever. But it works out well for you because now I feel the need to huddle in my bed for a few hours which means I might actually finish this post. I've been writing it for a while.
Where did I leave off? Skopje= statues. And advertising. Almost every street light had a sign attached to it advertising something. It was an interesting place. They also have their own currency, Macedonian denari, which are useless everywhere else and I have 109 denari left over. Which is less than €2 so it's not a big deal but it's all in 10s (they have 10 denari notes and coins and I have both) so it takes up a bit of space in my wallet.
After Skopje I caught a bus to Priština, capital of Kosovo, where the internet said I could catch a bus to Podgorica, capital of Montenegro. I couldn't find the  times for the buses from Pristina to Podgorica online so I took the earliest bus from Skopje and got to Pristina before noon. But the bus wasn't until 5.45 so I had most of a day to see the city. It's not the prettiest city I've been to. More functional. But I found the university and the statue of Bill Clinton on Bill Clinton Boulevard.
Then the bus to Montenegro. Not the best bus ride ever so I'll skip the actual journey. Got a few more stamps in my passport. Arrived in Podgorica at 3 am. The internet had led me to believe it was about a 5 hour trip. Not a 9 hour trip. So I spent a few hours in the bus station and caught the earliest bus to Kotor. Which is where I am now. And it's magical. Not really sure what I like so much about it. It is very dramatic with the mountains surrounding it and the fortress looming over the old city with the bay in the middle. And the old city is walled and free of cars with twisty streets and little shops. But I've been other places with twisty streets so I don't know why I find Kotor so special but I do. I've already put Montenegro on the list of places to come back to someday. All of the trouble getting here was completely worth it.
The first day I napped a lot to recover from my epic journey, yesterday I wandered the town and bought shoes and today I planned to climb up to the fortress and then continue along the old merchants' road as far as I could get in one day and see if I could make it to this famous village in Lovcen National Park. I prepared for rain and did go a bit past the fortress but after the rain got really heavy I decided I should probably start back before I got uncomfortable. Which was a good call because that meant that when the hail and lightening started I was already on the way back and when I was really drenched and wished I could teleport I was more than half way. But the walk up was mostly dry and the views were amazing. I definitely feel like I'm going to have to come back someday with more time.
I find it interesting that this may be on the short list for favourite places I've been so far but no one had ever told me that Montenegro was worth visiting. I have had a lot of advice about where to go. When you're travelling and talking to other travellers the topic of unmissable places comes up fairly regularly. A few people have said Eastern Europe in general but when asked why always first mentioned how cheap everything is. Not one person mentioned Montenegro to me. So let me be the one to say it. Montenegro should be on your to do list.

Pros and cons of travelling off season

Guess I should write one of these before I have even more to write about. I have done a bit since I last wrote. Other than the one photo I don't think I've written anything since before I got to Crete. And I'm not even in Crete anymore. Actually quite far from Crete. I've done a lot of travelling in the last few days.
But that's getting ahead and if I do that then I might never go back and since I don't seem to really be writing my journal anymore this is sort of the only record of my trip so I should probably at least make mention the earlier parts.
I arrived in Heraklion at about 6.30 am after not the best overnight ferry (on the boats that do that route the cheap seats are really not designed for sleeping) and the youth hostel didn't open until 8 so i found a bench and ate some breakfast and watched the sun rise. Or at least I watched the sky go from dark to light. The sun wasn't really visible. Then I dumped my stuff and decided to head over to Knossos. Some of you may have noticed that I tend to visit a lot of old stuff. I don't think anyone can be that surprised. I do have a degree in classics. But after a while some of the old stuff does start to look kind of the same. Knossos is not one of those. There isn't really any other site in the world quite like Knossos. For those of you who didn't major in classics Knossos was the main palace in the Minoan civilisation. And the Minoans were a big deal up until about the 14th century BC when they went down pretty fast. So Knossos is REALLY old stuff. Except for the parts that are really quite new. See Knossos was excavated back before archaeology was really a thing. Before there were rules and systems for how to do things. The guy who did the excavations (hence forth he shall be referred to as Evans) did some things that are a little controversial today. He reconstructed parts of the palace the way he thought it would have looked. The trouble being that there wasn't always enough evidence to support his theories. So he jumped to a few conclusions which he left permanently on the site in concrete. There are debates about whether his reconstructions were good or bad. Point is: these days no archaeological site would ever be treated that way which makes Knossos unique. Because Evans' reconstructions may not be entirely accurate but they tell a good story. They may not show what the palace was like but they show what it could have been like.  There are whole rooms that he put back together and repainted. When you are standing in those rooms it doesn't matter if it's not right, you get a sense of context that you can't get from the accurate reconstructions of other ruins. Knossos is full of imagination.
I spent the afternoon just wandering the city. It's a nice city. The next day I caught a bus to Chania. Which is also sometimes spelt Hania. If it was up to me I'd probably choose to spell it Khania but it's not. Probably they get more english speakers closer to the correct pronunciation with Hania. But phonetics aside, Chania was very pretty. It's got a venetian harbour and lots of beach and twisty streets in the centre of town. I specifically went to Chania because there are some really good day trips from there. But as it turns out at the end of October they stop almost all of the buses so there was only one bus to each place each day. The latest one left at 6.45 am. I didn't end up doing any day trips. But I was paying €12 a night for a room that in summer would cost €65 so Greece in winter has it's bonuses.
Instead of thrilling day trips I slept in and had a bit of a lazy day. Which I liked but doesn't make for much of a blog post. And the next day I started my way to the next place on my list. Delphi. Which required a bus to Heraklion, a ferry to Piraeus, metro and then bus to the Athens bus station (did they purposefully make it as hard as possible to get out of Athens?), and then the bus to Delphi. I'd thought I might be able to do Delphi in the afternoon and head straight on to Meteora but turns out there was only one bus a day and it left at 10 am. So I had to stay the night. Which turned out to be quite nice. It felt good to get out of the cities and apparently I'm a fan of mountains. Who knew? I headed over to the archaeological site but didn't realise it would close at 3pm. I probably should have been prepared for that because a few other things here close that early at this time of year but I didn't think to check so I showed up at 2.15 and had to convince them to let me in even though I wouldn't have time to see the whole thing. But I saw most of it and took a moment to ask Apollo where he thought I should go next. I guess I don't have what it takes to be an oracle (or hadn't inhaled enough noxious gases) because I got nothing. So today I went with my original plan and headed for Meteora. Which actually means heading to Kalambaka. Turns out it's a good thing I couldn't start the trip yesterday afternoon. It sounded so easy but ended up taking 4 buses and about 7 hours. It wasn't bad though. Saw a lot of little mountain towns (and got that harbour union song severely stuck in my head. I only know the one line) and dramatic vistas. Also saw a lot of the inside of bus stations. But I got here in the end and it seems nice enough. Tomorrow I will check out the monasteries and maybe find out what the deal is for climbing stuff. Just for a change of pace.

Chania, this is everyone

So there has been some demand for photos recently. I don't post many because I only have internet on my smartphone which means I have to remember to take photos with it instead of just my camera and the camera on my phone is not so good because if there is sun involved I usually can't see the screen at all and have to guess what I'm aiming at. But requests have been made to which I reply: Everyone, this is Chania.

Into the unknown

So I'm off to Crete tonight and I don't know what the internet situation will be like so I thought I'd do a short update before I go. Short because there's not a whole lot to report. I've been in Athens for the past few days. Got here in the evening so I just walked a bit to get the lay of the land and groceries. The next day I planned to get up really early to get to the acropolis just after it opened and manage to visit all the main tourist sights in the one day even though many of them close at 3pm at this time of year. But then I got sick so I only did the acropolis and the new acropolis museum before heading back to the hostel and spending the rest of the day resting. The acropolis was pretty spectacular. Everything I thought it would be but with more scaffolding. I don't feel like I have to say anything about the acropolis. Everyone knows enough about it already. The museum however I will mention. It's new (hence the name) so everyone who has been here before and thinks they know everything I'm seeing won't know about this if they came before 2009. It was clearly very carefully planned. 3 floors of displays, mostly sculpture but also some vases and such, with the whole thing leading to the top floor built specifically for displaying the parthenon sculpture. They set up the frieze, pediments and metopes as they would have been on the building except at eye level and with giant windows so that (from one side at least) you can see the actual parthenon while looking at it's sculptures. There were also several not very flattering mentions of lord elgin and the hope that the casts of things that they have at the moment might be temporary.
So that was my first day in Athens. I'd only planned on having 2 but decided to stay an extra night because I didn't want to have to travel sick. Luckily it turned out to be a one day thing and I probably would have been fine to travel yesterday. But I took the extra time anyway. Which meant that yesterday I could visit some of the things I had intended to see the day before including the flea markets, the ancient agora and the temple of Olympian Zeus. I also spent a  bit of time trying to plan the next few weeks and not figuring much out. I just don't like planning. Someone else decide what I should do for the next month and let me know.
Which brings us to today. Today I walked aimlessly around the city. Found the fish market and the town hall (not in the same place). Bought my ticket for the ferry tonight. Ate a pastry. Nothing that would be greatly enthralling to read about.
So now I head south once more to the Greek Islands (though getting to more than one might turn out to be too much bother at this time of year). And the rest of the story you'll have to wait for because I have yet to perfect my precognition.