Moving
The movers are here, and it's amazing because I don't really have to do anything at all! They packed and moved it all out. And now Sean's rumba is cleaning my room! Hahahaha, awesome. Tomorrow I'm heading to NY to see my grandparents, then home to Virginia for my brother's wedding this weekend. I'll be home till August 10th, then off to LA. Phew. I can't believe it's so close; I want more time off!
It's been hard getting ready to leave Boston because I've had to say goodbye to some amazing people. I hope that I will see many of them again, but not knowing when is difficult. At least LA is a place where lots of people visit, so hopefully I'll see you all soon!
I'll be flying out to LA instead of driving because I didn't want to make the trip alone. It's a shame, but here's a map of the states I've been. I have 41 so far, and while I'm in Cali, I'll try to expand my horizons even further.
create your own visited states map or
check out these Google Hacks.And here's the countries I've been to just for fun. I think I see a pattern!
create your own visited countries map or
vertaling Duits Nederlands
Home, House Hunting, and Heartstrings
A quick recap of where I've been before I get to the feeeeeelings.
After a good 4th of July in small-town New Hampshire and amazing fireworks at the MIT boathouse, I left for Virginia the next day. After hanging out with my parents Thursday, I left Friday for Delaware for my brother's fiancee's (Kristin's) bachelorette party. I had some awesome luck at the outlets (which is amazing for me since they have petite Ann Taylor on clearance!), then I spent the evening girl-talking with some hilarious ladies. I learned a little too much than I wanted to know about my future sister-in-law, but it was still great to spend some time with her.
The next morning I left for Maryland and a friend from my lab's wedding. After that, I went to DC to have dinner with Lindsay and her friends from grad school, then we headed off to VA to hang out with Leo. We played some excellent Mike's pong, even though they made fun of me for my low tolerance. I'd have to say I had an excellent time there. :-)
And finally, the next day (Sunday), I went to Richmond for Rebekah's wine tasting. It was so great to see her again after so long and get to hang out with her friends and family. We had a blast with wine, trivial pursuit, and this little grabby claw thing that you had to be there to enjoy. In total, I was in 4 states and the District of Columbia in 4 days!
I guess that's not all, because Tuesday I left with my parents for LA. After our 6 am flight out was canceled, we finally made it to LA early afternoon, which I guess wasn't too bad. We spent a number of days looking for apartments, and after I looked at pretty much everything there was in downtown Pasadena, I picked this
beauty. So come visit!
I don't quite know what to say about those pesky things called feelings, so how about a song that I can't get out of my head and is so true:
One night and one more time
Thanks for the memories
Even though they weren't so great
He tastes like you only sweeter
(Fall Out Boy)It's taking me a while to write this because I had to just listen to the song (you can at the link above).
But it's true that it keeps being one more night, and I do appreciate the memories. He made for an interesting but frustrating year, and I hope we both learned from it. I hope he learned that there are reasons to take time off of work, and you have to make time for friends because you need them. And I hope I learned that I deserve someone who's genuinely interested in me, even if only for a short amount of time.
But honestly, what was I thinking stringing myself along for such vain reasons. Ok, so he's hot, but is that worth dating someone on and off for a year? I thought I didn't want to be in a serious relationship since I knew I was moving, but it comes down to the fact that I ended up caring too much, and he didn't. There is nothing I can do to change that, but I almost feel like that was my failure. I have to keep telling myself that it's him and not me. As Lindsay put it, and I am learning:
"he was hot
but you were not a priority
therefore
you deserve better"
It's funny though because I still feel badly about writing this blog because I don't want to hurt him. But I don't even think he reads my blogs, and he knows everything I'm writing anyways. He is a nice person who cares at least a little and sort of ended things when he realized we were feeling differently. But then there was one more time. And another. I just hope he realizes that there is more to life than the lab, and I hope another girl is good enough in his mind to teach him that.
Europe Part 4: Interlaken and Zurich
SWITZERLANDLauterbrunnenWe headed to the Jungfrau Region the morning of the next day. We went through Interlaken to a smaller town called Lauterbrunnen. It was still touristy, but even touristy towns in Switzerland look like what I expected from a small Swiss town. In Lauterbrunnen, we went to the Trummelbach Falls, which is a waterfall from the glaciers in the region that is actually inside a mountain. It really doesn't look like much from the outside, but on the inside, you can barely hear because of the 20,000 liters of water that it carries per second. After that, we had traditional Rosti for dinner, which is basically hash browns that have been lightly fried and smothered in cheese. Mmmmm.
The next day we took a trek, by train, up to the top of the Jungfrau, which is a glacier 11,000 feet tall and home of Europe's highest train station. It was freezing (literally), but the view was amazing! It was crazy to have gone from 100 degree weather in Greece to 32 degrees in Switzerland. It's hard to convey with pictures, but here you are:
After coming back out of the snow, we hiked for about 3 hours through the Apls below the glaciers. It truly felt like we were in The Sound of Music. I can't describe how green and gorgeous the sites were. There were also wildflowers, cows with bells you could hear across the mountain, and waterfalls everywhere. Really, trust me, go to Switzerland to hike if you can! That evening, we enjoyed cheese fondue and had wine and cookies on the porch of our hotel overlooking the valley and Staubbach Falls. I need Jen to help me write right now and somehow convey the beauty of nature!
ZurichThe next day, we headed to Zurich, and luckily we were able to stay with Swati's friends sister. Zurich is a very expensive and nice town with a few nice churches, but not a lot of other sites. Over the next 2 days, we hung out with Swati's friends, toured the churches and walked along Zurich's 5th Avenue, and went shopping for chocolate. The best part was a bike ride we took along Zurichsee, the lake next to Zurich. We got a chance to gossip away from Swati's friend and see more of the residential Zurich. Zurich also had vegetarian restaurants, so we actually continued to find good things to eat!
St. Peter's (with the largest clockface in Europe):
Overall, the trip was relaxing and amazing. It felt like 2 vacations in 1 since we went to two completely different places, and I would highly recommend both!
Europe Part 3: Italy and Montreux
ITALYWe took an Easy Jet flight from Athens to Milan, Italy. Once we got to the train station from the airport, we tried buying our tickets for the morning train to Switzerland. After waiting 30 minutes in the International Line, the lady at the booth said "No trains - strike." But that's all she knew how to say in English, so we were left hanging. No one seemed to be able to tell us anything other than that the strike would last 24 hours.
Swati and I left and went over our choices (even renting a car), but the best way would obviously be to take a train. We had thought we could stay in Milan for the day and then skip the first town we were going to go to in Switzerland, which wouldn't be so bad. Then, a girl in our hotel said that there were a few trains running the next day, so we might be able to get on one to Switzerland, even if it wasn't exactly where we needed to go. We went back to the train station with this information, but everything was closed by the time we got there. Hungry and tired, we finally had dinner (yummy pasta with arrabiatta sauce) and gelato. I'm making myself hungry right now!
The next morning, we got up early to get in line at the train station, and after standing in line at the 2 windows that were open (and hence the line was a mile long), we got tickets to Brig, which has a train every hour to Montreux. We were set!
SWITZERLANDMontreuxWe got to Montreux at about 2 pm and walked along Lake Geneva for about 30 minutes to our hostel. The weather was gorgeous, and they had planted about 50 different types of flowers along the lake path. It made hauling the luggage not nearly as bad! I just love that path along the lake! After dropping the luggage off, we continued about 15 minutes more down the lake to the Castle de Chillon. The Castle was a fortress and a home built in the 12th century. It was simple yet elegant. One of the best parts of the castle was the view over Lake Geneva, especially from the towers above the castle.
Europe Part 2: Mainland Greece
GREECEDelphiWe got back to Athens on Monday night and got up early the next morning to go to Delphi. Delphi was considered the center of the world back in the day of Zeus, and the oracles prophesied there in the sanctuary of Apollo. There sadly is not a lot left, but it's amazing the dedication that the ancient people put into the site. They still had parts of the roads, treasuries, ampitheater, and stadium, as well as the temples, the main one of which was Apollo's. The museum did have a number of well preserved statues which helped to see the magnitude of their wealth and how talented they were. The site of Delphi was also gorgeous, on the side of a mountain, with olive groves as far as the eye could see down the valley, at the end of which was the Sea of Corinth.
AthensAs far as food, Greece has some great vegetarian dishes, but they only have a few of them. We ate a lot of stuffed tomatoes and peppers, baked eggplant, Greek salad (which doesn't have lettuce, interestingly enough), tatziki, etc. Every meal we had bread and olive oil, and the oil was quite tasty, as expected! The hostel in Athens was decent for the price, but they lied about the fact that the rooms had air conditioning! When we complained, they hemmed and hawed and said they couldn't do anything, and they wouldn't give us our money back or move us. With only one more night (and since the nights were MUCH better than the 100 degree days), we didn't worry about it much more.
The next day, we went to the Acropolis, Ancient Agora, and Temple of Zeus. The Acropolis is being renovated and partially reconstructed, so it was hard to see everything. What we could see, though, was magnificent. The citizens 2000+ years ago were much more advanced than I sometimes remember. My favorite building was the temple
Erechtheum , mostly because I think the Porch of Maidens is beautiful and simple.
Erechtheum:
I'm not sure how I feel about reconstruction, though. On one hand, it is necessary to reconstruct the ruins if we want them to last for future generations, but it's also very interesting to see the status of the buildings and how well they have lasted.
Parthenon:
After touring the Acropolis and looking down over the city of Athens, we went to the Agora (Market), and the best part were the views up to the Acropolis. The Agora was also were people really lived and interacted back in the day, and it was also the birth of democracy. Thanks Athenians! The Temple of Zeus (which is not on the Acropolis) only has about 8 columns out of 100 left, but it gives you the sheer magnitude of these impressive structures.
That night, we met up with Vasileios' brother (Dimitrios) for dinner. He filled us in about a lot of areas of Greek culture. Some (very biased) highlights include:
- Greeks get the best jobs when they have someone on the "inside" to get them the job
- College have 2 ~10-week semesters and therefore don't teach that much
- Greek families are very close knit
- The students at D's college go on strike for silly political reasons, which messes up class and their schedules
- Greek men don't hit on women in bars that they don't know
- Everyone needs to know English to get a decent job, so that's why everyone knows it
There is probably more, but that's what I have for now. These shouldn't piss anyone off - it's just what we learned from one person! We also went to a great cafe on the beach, where we could sit on cushions on the beach at tables that had teepees with lamps instead of a covering. It was very romantic for our odd little threesome.
The next day, we went to the Archaeological Museum. We didn't realize how HUGE the museum was, and after an hour, we had only done 3 rooms out of 10 (and we only had another hour). They cover from 5000 BC to about 500 AD, so there is obviously a lot of material. My favorite object were tweezers from about 2500 BC, haha. They also had some great marble status from 100 BC with Aphrodite, Poseidon, Paris, and more. Check out my pictures on ofoto.com to see all my favorites.
That afternoon, it was off to the airport, heading to Milan.
