My first Roman Catholic mass (San Giovanni's Cathedral)

4 drops of holy water are still clutching onto my forehead, slowly evaporating into the nave of San Giovanni’s Cathedral. I’ve been sitting here for about fifteen minutes, waiting for my turn to speak with the priest.

I’m not catholic. I’m not even Christian. Yet I’m sitting in the pope’s own church, waiting near a confession booth. I’m not here to confess (some things are best kept between me and God), but I do have a question I’d like to get his perspective on.

“How do you know if something is true?”

“As in… ree-sahrch? A thei-sis?” His Irish accent catches me off guard.

“No… how do you know if something is… true?” I emphasize words in an attempt to get past our semantic barrier. But I was having a lot of trouble putting it in words.

“The Bible is the truth,” he finally says.

“What about the things the Bible doesn’t cover?” I’m trying to be extremely careful in not offending him, I’m not here to pick a fight, just curious.

“We can interpret what we see and experience from the word of God…”

Interpret the text to cater to changing times… Scalia wouldn’t like him. Just when I begin to question whether I’m speaking to an automated machine, he surprises me.

“…but perspectives are important, is that why you’re here?”

“Yeah”

“You seem to be paving your own way to the lord, but if you want to see how the Roman Catholics see it, you could consider attending mass a few times.”

How do you know if something is true? I mull it over and let the thought go when I can’t figure it out. I wish I had more time to just talk to him, but the line behind me for confession was growing longer and longer, so I thought it’d be best to leave.

He blessed me, and I joined the others already sitting in the pews listening to the mass. I listened carefully to what the priest was saying and was having trouble being able to tell whether it was in Latin or Italian. This being my first experience at a Roman Catholic mass, I just followed what I saw others doing. Next thing I know, I’m in a line and approaching another priest.

“Il corpo Christi” the priest says, pushing a wafer into my mouth. il… so that makes this Italian? But Christi seems genitive… though I suppose Christus isn’t a word… But Italian doesn’t even decline their nouns, so this has to be Latin… but why would he use an article?

I mull it over and let the thought go when I can’t figure it out.

Just couldn’t figure anything out today…

Harry Potter 7, World Premiere

July 5^th

I arrive at Trafalgar Square at night and my name is placed on a list of people who are arriving early (so that, I am told, Warner Brothers will let us go into the actual red carpet area first, in order of longest-camp-out to shortest-camp-out). I am told that the list was actually organized by the Canadian fans who have been camping out for the entire week, and that Warner Brothers isn’t even here yet. I am told that Warner Brothers likes their idea and will be using it instead of whatever they had planned earlier. I sleep in a small tent with 2 friends, around others who are in similar circumstances. This is what I imagine a refugee camp feels like. I have a blanket, but the heavy rain manages to seep into the tent somehow anyway, leaving me damp, cold, and with a mild fever in the morning.

July 6^th

I leave the camp to go get Bianca from the hostel in the morning, and come back to find that everyone has been herded into a pen like animals. There is little to no room to sit, and I am told that wristbands will be handed out “soon”. 5 hours later, someone starts calling out names from The List, in an attempt to let those who were here longer get into the area sooner. The man doesn’t have a microphone, and it’s hard to hear my name. After a few minutes of trying to listen, I just go get my wristband and go inside to find a camping spot. We end up about 5 people away from the railing in front of the red carpet, so it’s a pretty good spot, I might not be able to see them but I might get their autographs. It rains throughout the day and night, off and on, but the excitement pulls us through.

July 7^th

Anyone who likes anarchy is a fool.

At 5 am, I feel feet stepping on and around me, people from the back were already starting to push forward. With no regard to the people who actually slept here in the rain for 2 (or more) nights, people who arrived this morning are just stepping over and rushing the red carpet at 5 am. The premiere doesn’t start until 5pm, do they expect to just stand here for 12 hours? We power through a few hours, but standing and struggling in a crowd that will not think twice before punching and kicking their way past me (which they spared me from, but others were not so lucky) is not how I wanted to spend the day.

At noon, I realize that the only way I’m going to get closer to the carpet and past this human wall is by being just like them—violent and just rude. When I was a child, I was taught that cutting in line is bad. I was taught that kicking and shoving to get what I want is bad. These, along with other components, constructed what my parents called ‘manners’ and ‘politeness’, neither of which I planned on losing today. And as much as I love Harry Potter, people I’ve never met who live thousands of miles away don’t have that much control over me. Besides, if it was Harry Potter I had a chance to see, then I might pull through, but it’s not. It’s Daniel Radcliffe, a person just like any other person who happens to play a part in one of the best stories ever told.

When in dilemmas like these, a good rule of thumb is this—act with grace, and you’ll never be disappointed in your actions.

Instead of “doing what it takes” to get to the front-ish area (with over 7 hours left until the premiere starts), Bianca and I peeled ourselves out from the wall and examined from afar. We sneaked around on the red carpet and took photos around the area.

20 minutes later we found ourselves at Pret, an incubator of good coversation.

“J.K. Rowling is seriously such a genius,” I say, taking a sip of my mocha, “the amount of time and effort that she put into creating a whole new world that ties everything together so seamlessly… gah I love Harry Potter so much!”

Bianca nods, and the conversation moves to other brilliant people we like. I bring up Titian, the painter who painted one of my favorite paintings (Bacchus and Ariadne), and then realize that the National Gallery was right there. As we walk past the growing herd of people slowly shoving into Trafalgar Square, girls screaming, people crying, people shoving and kicking and punching their way past each other, I'm reminded once again--

“All this for people who play characters that are cool?” Bianca says. 

We don’t go into Trafalgar Square, instead, we go to the National Gallery.

After 2 brutal nights of sleeping on concrete in frigid rain, I ended up leaving before the premiere ever started because I didn't want to have a miserable time fighting people over silly things. I took a few moments to watch the premiere while walking through some rooms with large windows (Emma Watson’s dress was just as pretty in person), knowing that I might not have gotten to see anything if I was still down there in the hovel.

Today, I chose to value Monet over Tom Felton, Van Gogh over Daniel Radcliffe, Da Vinci over Rupert Grint. And I regret nothing.

The Last Night in Florence

Imagine the movie Quarantine (or Rec, if you’re a horror movie connoisseur, live in Spain, or a hipster). Imagine that apartment building, where crazy-zombie-virus was set loose and infected the residents of the upper floor.

Remember that little girl? The one who (extremely graphically) attacked her mother? Imagine her.

Now imagine sitting in near-pitch-blackness in the stairwell at the top floor of that apartment building. Yeah, the floor where the crazy guy did all his genetic experiments and where the most ferocious zombies were. The floor where the camera woman was dragged to a mysterious and presumably gruesome death.

That’s where I’ve spent the past 90 minutes. Well, there’s no zombies here (that I know of), but every noise is terrifying. Despite the darkness, I can make out the silhouette of a cat, which has been staring at me the entire time I’ve been here. Does it smell panic? Does it know how close I am to entering into a fear-induced coma? Can cats catch zombie-viruses? Are my wives here in spirit, the cat-lovers they are, and guarding me?

Ben finally comes back (to my absolute relief), and I leave to take a walk and shake off my tension. 

As I meander through the narrow roads, I find a side of Florence I didn’t know existed. Florence had its glory days as a major producer of art long ago, but tonight, I saw more than ever how art never left Florence.

In the piazza near the Uffizi Gallery, there are statues from the Renaissance scattered around shops and fountains. Tonight, there was a stage, loud music, and dancing like I’ve never seen. I caught the latter half of the performance, and couldn’t take my eyes off of the stage. It was dramatic, powerful, and thoroughly captivating.

Eventually, night melted into morning, and as I walked towards the train station at 4am, the wheels from my suitcase steadily clicking against the cobblestone streets, Florence gave me her goodbye present. She tucked in the herds of tourists, the traffic, everyone, and let me see the city as someone would see a museum or basilica if they were the only ones there. The initial awe soon wears off, as I realize that I’m looking at nothing more than a skeleton. What I see is a shell, there is no context to this place. Without people, the city looks like a movie set, or a peculiarly large section at Epcot. It was while walking through these streets for the last time, when I had spent the past week thinking about how much I wish it wasn’t “peak tourist season” (as if I’m not a tourist myself, right?) that I realized that the tourists were as much a part of this city as the locals.

If I lived here, perhaps I’d converse with my neighbors as such:

“Buongiorno, Francesco,” I’d say, grabbing my morning newspaper off the urine-streaked streets, “Ci sono molti turisti recentemente. che spettacolo...”

We’d laugh and discuss their funny accents; it would become a yearly tradition. June and July, I think, would belong to the tourists.

Italian Thunder

I already remarked about how intense Greek thunder is, and Italian thunder is no different. It's equally intense, but the biggest difference is in the size of raindrops. The raindrops in Arizona range from the size of reset buttons you find in toys and electronics (you know, the ones you need a pencil or pin to push) to the carbonation inside soda. Italian raindrops range from the size of skittles to marbles. We have no one living above us in our apartment, so the entire night felt like we were under attack. These weren’t the gentle sounds of rain you find in cheesy CDs at craft stores; this was an extended drum solo CD being played simultaneously in 300 stereos at 40% volume.

I have slept through television noises, barking puppies, people knocking at my door, et cetera. But this boisterous storm woke me up at least three times during the night. I was cranky because of my disturbed sleep, but I couldn’t even imagine how upset I’d be if my laundry was drying in the patio, like Emily’s was. She had been trying to dry her clothes all week, but the humidity of Rome was keeping dry clothes from her as long as it could. And now, it rained all over her entire wardrobe.

She was up before me, and before I could complain about my restless sleep or empathize about her re-wet laundry, she breaks me.

“Wasn’t that just the most beautiful rainstorm?” she says, smiling widely.

“I couldn’t really sleep… and your laundry, that sucks Emily…”

“Oh it’s no big deal, that rainstorm was just. So. Beautiful.”

My shining light of optimism, she falls back into bed, still smiling.

I guess it was a beautiful storm after all. When else will I feel like a World War is taking place around me? 

Conversazione in italiano a suo "meglio"

When you try to translate Latin, it’s like a wrestling match. You tackle it, you twist it around, and you conquer it if you have been doing it long enough. Trying to speak Italian, on the other hand, is usually pretty straightforward (hand gestures fill in the spaces for words I don’t know yet). But sometimes, like the server at McDonalds found out today, speaking to me in Italian is like trying to tango with a baby deer.

(Note: The McDonalds here have a promotion going on right now where they give away these really cool cups if you buy a meal. I barely even eat at McDonalds in America, but I really wanted this cup, which is why I was here)

 “Vorrei numero sei… ma insalata. No, no fries. E l’aqua,” I say, squinting at the menu. The server looks like he knows what I'm talking about, but ends up putting fries and a coke in my order.

“Uh… no, no coke. Aqua,” I say, refusing to take the bag when he held it out to me.

“No coke? Perche?” 

(No coke? Why?)

“Non mi piace coke, vorrei aqua…” 

(I don’t like coke, I’d like water…)

He looks at me like I’m crazy, and gets me water instead of my coke. I then notice that he’s given me the green cup, but there’s a black one nearby that looks better. I already knew this would be choppy…

“Posso ho nero cup?” 

(I can I have black “cup”?)

He takes out the green cup and gives me the black one.

“E insalata” (and salad)

“No fries?”

“No, no fries.”

“Sono deliziosi!” 

(They’re really good!)

“Ho mangiato fries, vorrei insalata.” 

(I have ate fries, I’d like salad)

Avete mangiato! That’s how you say it! Too bad I remember this when it's too late.

“Signorina, i fries sono buoni!” 

(Madam, the fries are really good!)

Apparently, no one gets a salad here. Figures though, who goes to McDonalds for a salad? The line behind me was getting really long, and I had the cup I wanted, so I just took the fries, thanked him, and headed home.

Practice is good for me though, right? Giusto?

The Vatican Museum; Ceilings

“Oh this is a French style, from the time of George the… something,” I say, taking an interest to the ceiling in the tapestry room at the Vatican Museum. It looks just like a particular French style of interior design I like (enough to recognize it when I see it, but not enough to be able to classify it) which usually has walls that are pastel shades of light blue or light pink (sometimes light yellow, but rarely so) with white borders and outlines on top. I think it’s simple and clean, but my architect-friends and design-friends usually find it disgustingly posh.

“George the something,” Ben repeats, mockingly.

“I don’t know what specific style, but the relief-sculpture-thing they do is really pretty,” I elaborate, only managing to make myself sound that much less like I knew what I was talking about.

“They’re all paintings,” Cherylene says, reading out of Rick Steves’ pocket Guide to Rome.

“Wait, what?” I take a closer look at the ceiling. “What?! WHAT?!”

People begin staring, so I turn off my vocal cords.

“WHAT?! WHAAAAT?!”  I continue to whisper-shout, walking down the hallway, ignoring the tapestries and keeping my eye on the ceiling that is so precise, so immaculately painted that it appears 3-dimenstional.

“WHAAAAAAAAAAT?! This is amazing! Why do our ceilings suck?!”

I’ve seen intricately planned ceilings, like at the Pantheon. I’ve seen ornate ceilings, like the ones in various churches and basilicas scattered throughout Rome. I’ve seen gilded ceilings and shiny ceilings and ceilings that would make the sky envious. But I have never seen a ceiling like the one I am looking at now.

Ever.

Then, when I thought I had seen the ultimate ceiling, I saw the ultimate of ultimate ceilings. The optimus maximus ceiling. The end all, be all of ceilings.

“Oh my god I can’t believe we’re looking at the Sistine Chapel!” Cherylene says, “My neck hurts, I wish we could just lay down…”

“Why don’t we?”

“Grishma, we can’t lay down here…”

I’m unsatisfied by her response. “When else are you going to be here?”

“With my future husband, he’ll need to see this.”

“But… but now. Right now. This moment. Take it. Take it, Cherylene,” I say, already sitting down. I can be very persuasive when the mood strikes.

As we descend onto the floor, time and us untangle. Like fish deciding to leave the ocean-currents, we sink out of time as we know it. Feet, so many feet and legs are walking around our sprawled bodies at a thousand miles an hour. My eyes don’t leave the roof of the chapel, lingering on each panel and studying it's colors, it's style. Almost 7 years pass, and I have finally gotten my fill of the ceiling above me. As we shuffle together and rise, melting back into time as we knew it 7 years ago, we were happy to find that only 19 minutes had passed.

My future house will have intricately-planned ceilings.

la nostra famiglia italiana

“Okay, who’s good at eyeing measurements?” Adam says, holding up a box of muffin mix.

“I’ll do it,” I spoke up, having baked a fair share of confectionaries over the years.

“We need 100 milligrams of water.”

“Milligrams? I can do pints… or cups, or—”

He had already moved on to assist some others with the bruschetta. I look around the kitchen for full bottles of liquids. After sifting through the shelves, I settle on a bottle containing 250 milliliters of olive oil. A few squints of the eye and sips of water later, I think I have the right amount.

“Here,” I say, watching as Adam was trying to eye 70 milligrams of butter from a stick containing 2 grams.

Visitors in London try to fit as many people into phone booths as they can. Visitors in Rome, it seems, try to fit as many people into a kitchen. There are 4 of us near the stove—two making pasta sauce, one heating butter, one boiling pasta—3 near a table assembling bruschetta and slipping pans into the oven, 2 cutting vegetables and making the salad, 2 drinking wine and offering to help when needed, and a few doing homework one room over.

“Hot butter, coming through!” Adam says, weaving around the stations of preparation through this 4 by 11 foot kitchen, and pours it into the pot I was sifting the mix into.

We bake the muffin in a giant cake pan while we eat, la nostra famiglia italiana, and 20 minutes later, it looks disgusting. It’s burnt around the edges, raw in the middle, and bubbling in places.

No matter.

We all grab spoons and devour the dough in the middle, the cakey ring once the dough runs out, then the burnt edges once there’s nothing else left.

La nostra famiglia italiana would, like the muffin-cake, appear to be a hot mess if someone was inspecting it from afar. But once you have a taste, you realize that you wouldn't want it any other way.

Greece, Final Thoughts

It’s not often that my mind can relax at 4:37 am. 4:37 ams, if I’m awake to experience them, usually involve sinking eyes, coffee, open textbooks, and a steadily decreasing speed in my typing. This 4:37am, I am sitting inside a cold, ceramic tub in a decadent bathroom. A long day of travelling and hiking around Delphi had left me so exhausted that I fell asleep before sunset. I woke up early, and figured I’d just get started with my day.

The floors are tiled with veiny marble. The lights are reminiscent of an art gallery. There are 3 towels for each person. There is complementary shoe polish.

The walls are embroidered.

It’s chilly in the room, and I’m gradually increasing the water temperature from scalding to boiling. There is no shower curtain, so I can’t drench myself in a steaming spray of water without flooding the entire room. I can’t figure out how the drain in the bathtub works either, so a warm soak is out of the question. My only option is to leave the shower head running and hold it in place (leaving it unbridled would make it spray everywhere in fervor, also leaving the bathroom floor soaked).

So here I am, sitting cross-legged in a cold bathtub, at 4:37am, my arms and back covered in goosebumps. I’ve strategically nuzzled the shower-head in the joint of my right knee, my calf and thigh holding it in place. The head is pointing towards my torso to provide maximum area of warmth. A few tiny spouts of scorching water are hitting the inside of my thigh, slowly cooking them. “Scalding…” I mutter, “just like Blanche likes her baths.”

If she can do it, I can too.

Think warm thoughts.

I’m inside an oven… basting myself in soapy water.

Ugh, gross.

I’m relaxing beach-side, sunlight flooding into my every pore.

Better…

But no matter how hard I try, I am cold. I accept my fate and begin shampooing my hair. The shampoo smells musky, like old perfume. I wouldn’t have expected anything else from such a posh facility.

Something about this doesn’t feel Greek. It’s in Greece, sure, but this isn’t Greece. Greece is graffiti and litter and grime and pollution. Greece is dust. Greece is minimal, basic. Greece is clear waters for miles, the only vivid color in the water coming from swimsuits. Greece is plain white walls, a small tv, a hard bed. This isn’t Greece… is it?

I decided to check.

This tub was made in Italy, according to the inscription near the tap. And the tap, the tap! It’s made in Germany! The glasses on the sink are made in France.

I am cold, wet, soapy and taking inventory of the conglomeration of posh items from all across Europe in this decadent bathroom.

And as I stand here, shivering in a symposium of bathroom appliances, my memories of Greece meshing together—ruins, beaches, ruins, ruins, ruins, beaches, ruins, gyros, ruins—the water trickling down my calves and pooling around my feet on this veiny marble floor, I only have one thing on my mind. 

Italy.

A presto, mio amore.

And goodbye, Greece.

Rebellion (or, Cape Sounion)

“This is what I imagined when I thought about Greece,” I say, gazing at the clear waters of the Aegean, my face pressed against the glass of the coach treading along to Cape Sounion. The bright magenta exterior of our bus is exactly the shade of printer ink. We are a giant, traveling ink cartridge.

Mountains—some the shade of okra, others more like stale cilantro leaves—burgeon from every side. To their probable dismay, they found it difficult to hold my attention. My eyes scan the pristine mountains as quickly as when I search for something specific through stacks of old papers. I search for the prize, the temple where one of the most famous ancient statues of Poseidon once stood, and no more than acknowledge the presence of natural beauty around me.

I could hear her sigh from Phoenix. My dear friend, a connoisseur of biology, would have spent more time analyzing the invasive plants in the ruins than the stones themselves. “There is so much intrigue in what’s living,” she always says, “there’s nothing quite like it”.

My brief knowledge of geology allows me to notice the folding layers of sedimentary rocks on the cliffs and off the shore. As we hike up to the temple itself, I’m a little disheartened when I notice it’s built on top of folding layers as well. “This is just waiting to sink into the water,” I think to myself, unwittingly reminding myself that, despite the endurance of all the monuments I’ve seen over the past week, they will eventually erase into nothingness, and no will be able to know of their majestic history outside of books. It was like noticing a loose strand around the hem of a dress, the trivial thread steals all attention away from the other fibers.

“Everything is temporary,” she told me as we sat outside her lab that winter afternoon. She was shaken up and upset, but her wisdom was unclouded. “You really have to embrace the present. You don’t know how long you have it. You have to enjoy it while you can,” she said. She was right in more ways than I realized.

The strand of melancholy breaks away, letting my eyes focus on the bigger picture. There is a thrill in this moment. In knowing that the temple standing before me, in its suburban-house-beige glory, is only here for a limited time. And I am lucky enough to experience looking at it before it erodes completely, or before the Greek government becomes so poor that they began selling these away to the highest bidder.

“Hey Cassie, you wanna get in trouble?” I say, approaching my roommate. I already knew we weren’t allowed to pose in front of monuments or statues because it was considered offensive (the screaming woman in the National Archaeological Museum made that extremely clear). But we were only here for an hour, and I had recently learned that Greece doesn’t deport anyone. So I figured… the most that could happen is that we’d get kicked out of the temple. 

This temple is only here for a limited time, I’m only here for a limited time. So with a big, metaphorical raise of my middle finger to the Greeks’ policy on posing, I stood in front of the temple, outstretched my arms, and took the stance of the famous statue of Poseidon that previously graced this Cliffside. 

The shutter clicks. 

The moment is captured. 

I am victor.

Brief Encounters with the Agora

After class ended at 12:45pm, my friends and I headed over to cross some things off our “Athens scavenger hunt” (an assignment we have to do, where we document certain things to get ourselves oriented with Athens). The two major things we hoped to do were go to the flea market and the Agora. We wanted to spend more time at the Agora, so we figured we could hurry through the flea market to get our picture, have a quick look, and spend the rest of the afternoon frolicking in the Agora (an ancient marketplace).

The flea market was a huge waste of time. Everything was ridiculously overpriced, and the stuff I could barter for, I didn’t really want. Most of it was gross, and groping hands were reaching out everywhere. We hurried around and got to the Agora by around 1:30, 2 pm. 

After spending some time in the Stoa of Attalus (which was recreated and now houses a small museum), we made our way through the ruins of the larger stoa, heading towards the Hephaesteion (temple of Hephaestus, and possibly the best preserved temple in Ancient Greece). 

Then, it happened. 

We heard the shrill sound of a whistle. Some… guy… was blowing on his whistle and telling everyone to leave. At 2:45pm. When the place is supposed to be open until 5pm. Was there a fire? Were bandits in the area, looking to seize the artifacts? No, no… it was nap time.

Alright, guy, I know you want your siesta—I want naps all the time, trust me, I understand—but you can’t close the Agora at 2:45pm! It’s kind of a big deal and a lot of people come from all over the world to see it, and you’re turning them away because you want to leave! You are not more important than the Agora!

We decided to sneak in some time between a class and a field trip tomorrow to come back and finish seeing everything. Because this is just ridiculous.

I had a consolatory gelato before heading back to the hotel. There's nothing like ice cream to cheer me up.

Civil Disobedience

“Do you hear that? Sounds like a protest,” my roommate Cassie says as we wander into the Temple of Olympian Zeus. “Wanna go check it out?” I say, enticed by the opportunity to observe civil disobedience. We followed the noise and chants for about 15 minutes until we finally arrived at the source:

(I took videos, which I'll upload (hopefully) soon, here are pictures for now)

The police were standing nearby with riot-gear on, watching patiently and giving the protesters plenty of room to march. Even the traffic diverted itself so the protesters could use the street (and this is a major street, equivalent of a highway), which was pretty impressive, since Athenian drivers don’t stop for anything. We tried to figure out why the protest was happening, but figured we could just ask one of the participants.

After asking around until someone vaguely understood English (even though they didn’t speak it very well, they could understand our questions), we found out that they aren’t happy with the current man in charge (he’s very dictator-like, apparently) and want to see changes in the government union.

What I found most fascinating about this entire event was the relationship between the police and masses. I’ve personally never had a bad experience with an American police officer, but I do know plenty of people who hate the police (most often because of how strictly they enforce drug laws, next most often because of how strictly they enforce traffic laws). Athenians and their police have a completely different dynamic—likely because the police officers here are extremely lax in enforcing drug/traffic laws, which I think they consider petty—and the protesters seemed to appreciate having the police around. The officers stood afar and observed, ready to intervene if things got violent but offering plenty of room to protest. They were even redirecting traffic instead of breaking up the protest!

The Greeks seem to be much less apathetic about their politics and government than Americans, too. Protests apparently happen very frequently here, though I can't say how effective they are. It’s also interesting to see “The Socialist Party” and “The Communist Party” in the playing field, instead of “The Conservative Party” and “The Slightly Less Conservative But Not Too Much Because We Don’t Want to Offend Party”.

Μοναστηράκι (Monastiraki)

“This… is the best gyro… I’ve tasted in my entire life,” I say, standing amidst a local piazza. The pita was soft and warm. The tzatziki and dill mixed together perfectly with the tomatoes, beef, and onions. And all this for 2 euros! My palette was enthralled to add this to the list of things it’s experienced. I chewed my food almost twice as long before swallowing each bite, savoring every facet of flavor hitting my taste buds.

I’m in Monastiraki, a city-center-esque place with live music, dancing locals, food vendors, and a wonderful gelateria nearby (where, I might add, I got to practice a bit of my Italian). The food is cheap, the mood is warm and inviting, and the scenery… oh the scenery. I have never been this close to the Parthenon, and I’m going there later this week, but watching it lit up at night… It’s love at first sight.

I can still see it from my room and I can’t help but stare. I keep looking back, as if I have a crush on this magnificent piece of history.

Who am I kidding? I do have a crush on the Parthenon.

And I can look at it as much as I want. 

Athens, First Impressions

“There will be another protest today. Yesterday there was 20,000 people, it was peaceful, but more are coming today, I think,” my cab driver says in a thick accent, the reflection in his aviators showing the endless sea of buildings as we make our way into the heart of Athens.

“Why are people protesting?” I ask, having only a vague idea. My neck was stretched so that I could see outside into the city.

“The economy… it’s screwing everyone over. We should just sell off some islands, we have so many already!” he says. I laugh, and he adds, “They’re just some rocks! We have like 1,500 islands!”

He teaches me some basic Greek on the way to the hotel, laughing occasionally at my accent.

“I thought I was doing pretty well with my accent! Is it that obvious?” I ask, somewhat disappointed that my accent was so far off that I roused laughter.

“No, no, it’s not that bad. You just sound unsure of everything,” he says, still chuckling. My inflections, that’s what gave it away. That, and I was speaking at the pace of a sleeping sea cucumber.

I feel like I’ve been to Athens before. The familiarities are unsettling. The city looks like it was plucked out of India—the apartments and houses are remarkably similar to those you’d find in large Indian cities. The geography looks just like Arizona, Athens is in a valley surrounded by sloping hills and the drive from the airport was eerily similar to rides home from Sky Harbor. The physical similarities land me at quite literally the midpoint between my two homes. And the parts that don’t look like Arizona or India—the Acropolis, Hadrian’s Library, et cetera—are still connected to me. A lot of it, I’m sure, is because I’ve studied them for so long, but I also feel like I know them.

But Athens, I’ve come to learn, is a city of contradictions. It’s so familiar, yet completely unfamiliar at the same time. The smells are completely unique. The combination of food, people, locale, humidity... it's very unique. The color is a pale yellow, not as bright as I was anticipating. The language barrier isn’t as bad as I anticipated either, because almost everyone knows English. Reading signs, however, is extremely difficult because I can’t read Greek. I don’t know how to pronounce signs when I see them, nor would I be able to identify places on a map if I became lost. The subway system here is fairly straightforward, but not being able to read any of the signs is still a handicap. I’m still getting a feel for the culture here, I’m watching people interact with each other to get a better idea of what it means to be Greek, and the painting is filling itself in slowly.

Oh, and it’s been raining off and on all day, but the weather is fantastic. The light patters of the raindrops against out balcony door sound like applause. I’m sitting in my hotel room, comfortable, warm. After an uncomfortable week at a hostel and hectic week making sure everything (and everyone) was safe, I am at peace. 

I am in Greece, mere kilometers away from the Acropolis, and I am at peace. 

Greek Thunder

...is not like American thunder. Or Indian thunder. Or British, Irish, Scottish, what have you. No. While thunder and lightning in the rest of the world I've visited so far is, well, what you know and expect, Greek weather doesn't allow the clouds to merely clap a little and shed some tears.

Greek thunder is like being under attack. 

It’s like being inside a drum, around a curious 2-year-old. 

And it's not even raining. Maybe a light drizzle. It’s not difficult for me to imagine why the ancient Greeks attributed these sounds to some divine origin, because normal sky doesn't make these sounds. 

But hey, who knows? Maybe Zeus is really happy to see me. 

Or really angry. 

Let’s hope for the former.

Modern Art (read at your own risk)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m not a fan of modern art. I like it sometimes (well… okay, rarely) because I think a great majority of it is complete BS. But, a day at Tate Modern finally showed me the light. Modern art is just so profound, how could I expect to understand it without the helpful descriptions next to the pieces explaining why I should feel awe at this means of expression? Just looking at art doesn't cut it anymore, I have to be told why I should appreciate what I'm looking at. And my usual reaction—any combination of eye-rolls, deep sighs, shaking heads, and traces of rising vomit in my throat—is as outdated as the styles of art I enjoy.

No. No, this was too deep for a mere plebeian like me to understand. Take this, for example:

It's a ripped, plain, framed canvas. Upon reading the description (I'm not making this up) I was informed that "the tear took so long to plan, but only a moment to execute", which "speaks to the enthralling feeling of rebellion"

Oh, or how about this?

This is a white piece of paper, cut into an uneven hexagonal shape, and taped to the wall. Brilliant.

And of course, the one which really speaks to the viewer was this:

A mirror. The ever changing picture.

Pieces by Constable, Waterhouse, they can't even compare to the brilliance I saw at Tate Modern. 

I can't even type this with a straight face.

I think I need to visit the National Gallery again and cleanse myself. Here's some at-home ointment for you, dear readers:

Haywain, by John Constable

Bacchus and Ariadne, by Titian

I hope that helped. I had entire day of modert art "experiences", and would appreciate a consolatory hug once I return. 

Soho

“This way,” I say, “I think…” not completely sure of my sense of direction. I must have sounded convincing enough, because Hermes followed. The irony that I was the one leading Hermes through this land was ironic, but I’m certain I was the only one who noticed.

Soon enough, we were at the gates of a land I had never heard of before he informed me of its existence. People were waiting outside; two nymphs guarded the door. They let us through after Hermes informed them of who we were. I was observing this new place, quietly following my guide.

The stars twinkle red here. The weather is like a warm, oceanic breeze. The earth begins to shake as a most unexpected voice greets me. It sounds like a machine, a robot. A vine slithers out from behind me and wraps itself snugly around my arms, lifting me up and carrying me carefully.

“Come”, the voice says, “let me show you around.”

I have no choice—my arms are tied—and I begin observing the collection of machines housed in this place. I  follow the voice as it leads me through hallways and rooms.

Hermes whispers “We’re in a different room now.”

I hadn’t noticed.

“Now we’re back!” he continues, thoroughly impressed. He frequently gasps in delight, but I can’t see any walls so I have no idea what’s so impressive. Like a child taking a walk through a modern art gallery, I don’t know what I’m expected to feel about all this, nor do I care. I’m enjoying this ride for what it is—a jazz concert in Soho. 

The National Gallery. Or, how much I like offending other artists.

“It’s bullshit on canvas, that’s what it is,” I say, hoping the noise of the subway drowns out the scene my friend and I are making.

“No way!” he responds. I’m not sure if he truly believes this or if he’s disagreeing with me for the sake of argument. Either way, I don’t mind.

“It totally is. Renaissance paintings, classical paintings… they need so much technique. They’re not just random brush strokes on a canvas—“

“RANDOM BRUSH STROKES?! Grishma, they’re expressing what the artist feels!”

“Who cares about what the artist feels? I'm the one who has to look at it!”

2 months ago, we were having a similar conversation, where I was arguing that it was all about expression, not interpretation and he was arguing the opposite. A few months prior, we were arguing the inverse.

We walk off the subway and begin our ascent to the street.

“I just don’t want people 1000 years from now looking back in time and thinking Pollock was the best we could do. We’ll be dubbed the double-dark ages or something,” I complain.

“Grishma, are you really letting the opinions of other art historians shape the way you view modern art?” he says, his eyebrow raised as it often is.

“No, I just agree with them. Realism is just… on a whole different level. It’s so brilliant.”

20 minutes of debate later, we enter the National Portrait Gallery. A short walk into a hallway, and we’re staring at a horrendous finger-painting of a man and a house. Made by a grown man, no less.

“See what I mean?” I say, drawing out my words so he knows I’m implying I was right all along.

“Okay, but there are realistic paintings that are boring!” he says, and our debate echoes down the hallway as we make our way past other paintings.

Then, we come face to face with the most realistic painting I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s a close up of a man’s face, and it looks like a photograph. Black and white. Acrylic on canvas. Both of us stop talking and stare. It is the most brilliant painting I’ve seen that was made after I was born.

About a half an hour later, we’re strolling through the National Gallery, looking at pieces by Monet, Van Gogh, Titian, in awe.

“This one,” he says, pointing to a portrait of some cardinal. “This one’s realistic but I wouldn’t want it in my living room.” It was a pretty boring painting, I admit. I’d much rather have modern art pieces in my house than the Ugly Cardinal Painting.

But, of course, I don’t admit concession when I debate with this particular friend. So, I say “You wouldn’t? Oh come on, you could talk to it every morning with a cup of tea… pretend the cardinal is right there with you…”

We laugh, immersing ourselves in all the different brilliant paintings this building houses. Hours later, we finally finish and head outside in search of a café. I’d been craving a mocha all day, and he was hungry.

We finally end up at Pret, a café just a block away from the Gallery. I sit down on a counter with my mocha and fruit bowl, he sits next to me with a pasta dish and sandwich. The rising steam from my coffee draws my eyes to the view in front of us.

“Where else can you have this view while you eat?” he says

“Only in London,” I say, taking a sip.

My cup is 80% full.

“And he brought out a book and showed me this equation, and he told me that it’s up for debate, that it’s just a theory. It threw me off… how could a human construct invented to make sense of the world  (math) not make sense of something? I wish I could just be okay with not having any real answers…”

My cup is 60% full.

“First day of class—he just sat there. And he didn’t say anything for like the longest time. Then he says ‘I always like to start the class off with an awkward silence.’”

My cup is 40% full.

“Wait I really like this song. Let’s just listen.”

My cup is 30% full. I’m drinking a little more slowly now because I want to keep the conversation going.

“And I mean, I have this conversation with people a lot, I tell them what I think about art. What is art? Can anyone put it in words? I’m just trying to be okay with not knowing.”

My cup is 15% full.

“It’s so interesting that you one word can conjure up so many different things depending on who you say it to.”

My cup is 3% full.

“That was when I realized that I couldn’t relate to Indians the way I did when I was last here. And it took a lot to be okay with this… hybrid culture I was now a part of.”

The remaining coffee has dried at the bottom of my cup, but the conversation doesn't stop. Here, in front of a magnificent building, I enjoy great conversation with a great friend over great food. And, like any other day I would have had a heated conversation with him, we ended the day in lighthearted conversation and a walk.

Oh, but in London this time.

[Suggested further reading here]

Camden

“All the anarchists live here,” my friend says, as we make our way through crowds of tattooed, pierced Londoners in front of shops and pubs.

“This is where me and Kelly are planning on living,” she says and laughs, leading us to an area which used to contain horse stables, but now has cheap thrift stores and food vendors. A familiar smell hits my nostrils and I immediately begin salivating.

“We’re near Indian food. Good Indian food,” I say.

“Right over here,” she continues heading down a slope to a vendor’s shop and getting a plate of rice, vegetable curry and chicken curry. I take a bite and my taste buds do a double take. This can’t be real. London has been the closest to having provided me with delicious Indian food outside of my mom’s kitchen. Honestly, delicious doesn’t do it justice. 

I think the first minute in this video might do the trick:

We walk over and sit by a canal, enjoying the view. In every school (middle school, high school, whichever) there's a group of maybe 6-10 edgy goth kids that keep to themselves. Dyed hair, studs, lots of eye-makeup, you know what I'm talking about. Some of them decided to come to a borough in London and thrive, attracting others like them to come and live here too. That is Camden.

It’s calm and busy simultaneously. It’s grungy and crowded and amazing. Just when I think I have a grasp on understanding London, when the feeling of newness becomes a feeling of familiarity, I encounter things so new that I feel like it’s my first day here.

That, I think, is what draws me to this city so much—there’s always change, always new. 

Why I’m Wearing Lipstick Every Day

“I’m looking for a matte red… not too deep but not too bright, something that’ll complement my skin color, but still pop against it,” I tell the saleswoman in the MAC store. It’s mid-April and I’m here with my friend on our weekly retail therapy session. The woman was slender—making her fake breasts appear that much odder—and presumably beautiful under all that makeup.

“Why do you want to get red lipstick?” my friend whispers to me as the saleswoman looks through the array of colors on the table in front of her.

“Because I want to look different. For Europe,” I say. I've traveled before, but this trip already felt much more different, and I needed a physical way to distinguish that. I'm relying much more on myself this time, and as much as I want to believe I'm an adult and can do everything for myself, a part of me knows I'm only 19.

I'm only 19. 

I turn my attention back to the woman when she holds out a tube. 

“How about this one?” she says, handing me Russian Red. I put it on, making a face of dissatisfaction.

“Something a little less blue…” I say, staring into my magnified lips in a nearby mirror.

“They’re all red, Grishma…” my friend says, refusing to acknowledge the subtle tone differences in the wide array of red lipsticks. “You look like a clown.”

“Like I want to take fashion advice from someone who dresses like that…” I tease, and he huffs and walks over to the blush aisle.

“This one?” the saleswoman says, handing me Scarlet Rose.

“Mm… this one’s a bit more intense than I’d like… I want to look sufficiently different to feel new… but not so different that I’m not recognizable.”

“Then just don’t get red lipstick! Your lips look fine the way they are!” my friend chimes in, still looking at the blush collection. He turns around and mouths “clown”.

I turn my attention back to the saleswoman, and apply the new tube she handed me. “Oh, I love this one! I’ll take it!”

I glance at the name—M.A.C. Red. The original. I pay for the lipstick and toss it into my purse.

“I was hoping for one with a cool name…” I say, walking out with my friend.

“Clown.” And a short pause later, he continues, “let’s go to Hollister.”

Hostel (Still have both my kidneys... so far)

A drop of sweat makes its way past my brow, eager to meet its companion. But their meeting was too much for them to handle. They fell off my cheek and onto the bed.

The fan has a consistent tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat when it works, if it works at all.

“It sounds like an air strike… like machine guns,” Ben says. The Portugese man was attempting to make the fan work in our room—one of the blades had broken last night when the man from New Zealand accidentally tipped it over in his sleep. The Portugese woman and I were trying to make the blinds work so that we could get some light in our room, and get rid of the obnoxious, piercing red color that permeated into everything from these horrendous window coverings.

The light in our bathroom is broken.

At least it’s not noisy on the 6^th floor. And for a group of 20-somethings (and at least one 19 year old), who’re looking for a shower and a safe place to sleep, this is more than enough.  

If you’ve lived in a dorm, you’ve lived in a hostel. Let me clarify. If you’ve lived in Barret, The Honors College, you haven’t lived in a hostel. If you’ve lived on North Campus, you’d be a little closer. I think “dorms” only exist in America, from what I remember, places to live in at school in India are called “hostels” anyway. I wonder if that’s true everywhere else. I wonder what kind of image the word “hostel” conjures up for Americans versus Europeans… the world of semantics is so interesting (and always aggravating).

In any case, there are 8 of us in this room—2 Americans, 2 Portuguese, 1 New Zealander, 2 Germans, and 1 Frenchman. Some are here on vacation, some are using the hostel as a temporary residence while they go house-hunting, the Frenchman is here pursuing a record deal, the New Zealander is from a small town and just up and left to try his luck here.

I have never been among such a diverse group of people in my life. My curiosity is a glutton, and it’s extremely satisfied.

On a side note, whenever anyone asks us where we're from, we always say “America”. Then, they always ask us what state, which is interesting because I don’t imagine people having that much of an interest in American geography. Some know where Arizona is, some don’t, but all ask. Is that a custom? Am I being rude in not asking them which states they’re from in their respective countries?

Natural History Museum

“Wait! Grishma! Come here. Stand right here. Ready?”

“Yeah…”

“Turn to your right.”

“What?”

“Turn to your right!”

“Oh my! What shall we name this mineral?! How about…”

Several bad puns later, my friend and I walk out of the treasure trove of minerals and towards the largest dinosaur-bone collection in the world.

“Hey wait, the world’s oldest human skeleton is here if you want to see it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

These kinds of conversations can only be had in one of my favorite places in London—The Natural History Museum. It's still as grand and wonderful as the first time I visited, and never ceases to leave me in awe. The Nettle Festival has unfortunately passed, but I couldn’t have found a better way to spend my day. The new exhibits were really interesting, and I got a chance to visit some exhibits I missed last time.

Oh, and I found a fossilized Lapras. No big.

One of my More Embarrassing Plane Journeys

The only other person on the plane wearing a hat today is a middle-aged, extremely overweight, cheerful woman. She is wearing a lime green dress with no embellishments or shape. Her hat is made of pale- colored straw and has a white daisy in the front. I think I had an outfit exactly like this when I was six. Her cheeks are red and she’s smiling the brightest smile…

…as she argues with the airline attendant about which seat she is allowed to take.

“Ma’am you have to sit in the seat assigned to you on your boarding pass!”

The woman, let’s call her Daisy, merely laughs and says, “no, I think I’ll sit here,” still smiling.

“Ma’am! Your seat is in that row!”

“No… I think it’s right here…” she continues, chuckling every now and then.

Where is her self-assigned seat? Where, oh fate, oh karma, oh great wheel of life, is the seat she wanted so extremely badly?

If you said “Grishma! It’s got to be your seat!” You’re wrong, but close. She wanted to sit in 25C, and my seat is 25A. No one sat between us.

I am so sleepy at this time that, as soon as I get into close proximity with my seat—when my butt enters the seat’s electron cloud, if you will—my eyes start glazing over and everything becomes blurry. The last thing I remember seeing is Daisy smiling and waving at me from her seat.

4 hours later, Daisy nudges me and says, “we’re going down…” I assume now that she meant the plane is landing, but at my time of sleep-induced delirium, “we’re going down” could only mean one thing.

“Basement,” I mumble, “fri—yawn—day the thirteenth”

My head is still leaning forward against the seat in front of me. My neck is incredibly sore.

“and guess who’s play—yawn—ing Jason.” I continue to mumble to myself, and as I finish up the verse (I can’t stop. I just can’t stop part way. It feels sacrilegious), I realize then what I was doing, pause, and turn my head to look at Daisy. She’s still smiling at me as if I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary.

“S-Sorry…” I mutter, leaning back into the seat and stretching my neck.

“Oh no, it’s great! I loved that third one you were mumbling!” she says, still turned towards me.

“What?”

“Yeah, you’ve been mumbling songs for the past 4 hours.”

A wave of consciousness hits me instantly and I become wide awake. According to Daisy, I was sleep-singing-along to songs playing on my ipod as I tried to sleep. I was too tired to realize what I was doing, but too uncomfortable in my seat to legitimately fall asleep. She only woke me up because I’d have to turn off my ipod for the landing. Mortified, I turn off my ipod and put it in my bag. I attempt to laugh it off as the plane begins its descent.

After landing, I go through the potential culprits—everything from Gaga to Weezy had played in the 63-song symphony I quietly mumbled to those around me. Even a song from Arsonists Get All the Girls had played. I wonder what that sounded like.