Greece 1

I'm sorry Oliver. I know it's been a long time, but aren't I allowed to have a vacation? There's no need for the belligerent whining or threatening messages or disturbing videos you've beens sending me. But if the only way to make you stop is to start writing again, I guess I will. First of all, I'm not in South-East Asia anymore, a fact which I think deserves some recognition. So here is my list of things I will and will not miss about SEA.
Things I will miss:

• Rice
• Cheap food
• Cheap everything else
• Friendly people
• Warmth
• Crazy backpackers
• Elephants
• Paul and Nikko
• The Sawatdipongs
• Joe and co.
• Songtaews
• Mopeds
• Stir fry
• Curry
• Interesting roofs
• Hilarious English
• People waving frantically from the wrist with both hands
• Gratuitous fireworks
• Bad Asian TV
• Roti
• Interesting birds
• The odd monkey
• ...and much more

Things I won't miss:

• Rice
• Smog
• Humidity
• Litter
• Hawkers
• Staggering poverty
• Being looked at like a human ATM
• The gap between rich and poor
• Novelty t-shirts
• Bad Asian pop music
• Australians in Bintang tank tops 
• Overcrowding

As you can see, and as I've often written, Thailand and Bali were something of a mixed bag for me - valuable and fun, but also tiring and difficult. So it was with some relief that I boarded the plane to Athens and the developed world. The journey over was great - I had three dinners, got to stretch out in my empty row of seats, and watched "2001" at 4 am and 20,000 feet. I arrived in Athens early in the morning of a crisp, clear day, greeted by views of rocky, scrubby hills and a landscape uncrowded by hawkers - more boring, perhaps, but a lot easier. Up until this point, I've either been met by friends or made my own arrangements to get to a cheap, basic room. This time, my mom had planned everything, so the travel agency picked me up and shuttled me to my five-star hotel, where I relaxed with room service and a steam sauna before watching atrocious Greek television on a flat-screen TV while reclining in my large, comfortable bed. I love parents with disposable income. The nice room was especially convenient for me to get over whatever lingering, beer-and-nasi campur-induced illness I'd been suffering from, and I didn't really do anything for the first two days, apart from taking one short walk and playing a lot of iPod solitaire. Mom was supposed to show up around 2 pm on the 19th, but, unfortunately, her flight came through Charles de Gaulle, so she actually ended up arriving at 3 am, waking me up. We got a bit more sleep, then woke up at seven to get on our bus tour of Greece. I had been snobbishly dreading the tour, but it actually ended up being pleasant and relaxing. We saw several of the major archaeological sites in Greece: the ampitheatre at Epidaurus, Mycenae, Olympia, Delphi, Thermopylae (that's where 300 happened), and the mountaintop monasteries of Meteora. The people on the tour were pleasant, the ruins, apart from being spectacular monuments to both the ambition and transience of human endeavor, were cool and uncrowded, the landscape was the most beautiful I'd seen on the trip, and not having to think was great. The only bad part was returning to Athens; because of transport strikes, a drive that should have taken twenty minutes took three hours. But even that wasn't too bad, and it made dinner taste a lot better. The next day, we saw the Acropolis, another spectacular monument to both the ambition and transience blah blah, and enjoyed a nice Christmas Eve dinner in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant near our hotel. Christmas Day was equally mellow, and on the 26th we flew to Crete, for a six day horse ride. I went in with memories of my epic Icelandic trip fresh in my mind; sadly, the riding wasn't nearly as fun, and everyone else on the ride was above forty. But riding was still an interesting way to experience the island. The terrain alternated between steep, rocky mountains, which my horse, Diamond, had a bit of trouble negotiating, and flatter, populated olive country, where we occasionally got to canter. The villages were duly picturesque and maze-like; riding through them, I always felt like part of a gang in a Western film, as the locals would turn out to stare and everything would go quiet apart from the steady footfalls of our horses. It was a good thing that we were riding all day; the food was delicious, heavy, and endless, with five- or six-course dinners of tzatziki, bread, dakos, stuffed veggies, lamb, and much more every night. There's much more to tell about the ride, but brevity and laziness are going to keep me from writing it; maybe I'll go into more detail in a later blog entry. Basically, it was fun. After the ride, Mom went home and I flew to Milan, in order to catch a train to Switzerland. I had half a day to see a bit of Milan; after finding my hostel, I took the subway downtown, where I reveled in my return to Western culture. I saw the beautiful Duomo cathedral, proof that occasionally religion can be a good thing, along with various other picturesque old buildings and extremely well-dressed Italians. That night, I hung out with a Brazilian and a Korean from the hostel; the next morning, I just managed to catch my train to La Chaux-de-Fonds, a town in north-west Switzerland where I am now, visiting my friends Louise, Clemence, and Pascale and trying to speak only French. Yesterday, I hung out with Louise and some of her friends and understood nothing, then had dinner with Pascale's boyfriend and some family friends, and understood a little. Today, I saw their horse, the town of Neuchatel, and a distant view of the Alps. It's snowy, and I'm happy to be back in the cold. LYA