The Black Lung Boosts the Local Economy! Part 3: The Black Lung Considers a Change of Venue

Previously, on The Black Lung: Italy at last.

When we first booked our trip, we were supposed to spend 1 day in Greece and 2 in Turkey, but because of unrest in Turkey, that got switched to 3 days in Greece. No offense to Turkey, which I've heard is great, and of course I would never wish unrest on anyone, but Greece is the best. Seriously, it's amazing, and I will go back there one day.

The first place we went in Greece was Olympia. We actually docked in Katakolon, which is a tiny town that was super cute when we drove through it. But our big excursion was about 40 minutes away by bus, in Olympia, the site of the Ancient Olympics!!! The modern Olympics are just about my favorite thing ever, so the ancient Olympics totally seemed like my jam. Sure, there was no swimming, but all the sports were done naked, so it balances out. JK, women were not allowed to watch the Olympics in ancient times. :(

First things first-the financial crisis in Greece is real. As we were driving to Olympia, we passed a lot of very scenic countryside with lots of bags of trash along the side of the road. Our tour guide, who was super proud of being Greek (a theme amongst Greek tour guides), was also super embarrassed about their trash problem. I guess having no money means not having all of the awesome civic workers you and I take for granted. Say what you will about the trash in the Greek countryside, but these people know how to maintain some awesome ancient ruins. The remains of ancient Olympia consist of some awesome partial temples to Zeus and Hera, plus places where the athletes trained and performed. I think it must have looked pretty amazing in its heyday. There were remains of stone columns, giant stone blocks, and pedestal bases for statues all over the place.

In front of what I think is the athlete training area. According to our guide, many athletes in the Olympics died from dehydration. Drink lots of water, guys. Also note the pretty trees! 

BTW, we were not anywhere near Mount Olympus-apparently when the Greek pantheon made its way to this part of Greece, they named the city/sports stuff in honor of the Olympian gods. Also, I have had more than one person ask me if the Greeks still worship those dudes. I totes laughed, because I'm a terrible person. But no, they absolutely don't. As we learned on a different day in Greece, 97% of the country is Greek Orthodox, which is pretty darn similar to Catholic as far as I can tell.

I also really loved the flora in the area. The trees were great. They probably weren't ancient, but they were really pretty. One of the coolest things we saw was the actual ancient stadium where the sporting events were held. Apparently some events from the 2004 Olympics in Athens were also held there! I think it was discus, or possibly shot put. We also saw the location where the Olympic torch is lit every time there's an Olympic Games. We had just missed it by a couple of days, too. The actual location is very lame looking, but it's a cool tradition.

Leanne is also super into the stadium. The Ancient Greeks did not run in circles like modern people. They ran back and forth in lines. Whee!

After we saw all the coolness of the ancient ruins and had to wait for the stupid tourists who got lost (is it so hard to stick with the guide???), we got to boost the local economy by shopping! I bought the most delicious pistachio creme there. It's kind of like peanut butter, but a lot less thick. It's so good. I wish I had bought more, even though it was $$$. I also got some great earrings (and resisted buying the matching necklace, something that I would fail at later in vacation) and the most delicious baklava at a little cafe. I have made it my new goal to learn to make baklava that tastes even half that good.

The Temple of Zeus! That guy was the worst.

Did you know that Greece (which is totally not called that by Greek people-it's called Hellas) has about 10,000 islands? Most of them are super tiny and not inhabited, but about 200 have people living on them. The next day we went to one of them, Mykonos. Apparently, it's super touristy, but I can totally see why, because it's amazing, and Bonnie and I are going to move there someday. We just need a librarian job and an occupational therapist job for English speakers.

On the water taxi. We were so happy/seasick!

Anywho, because of the specific excursion we went on that day, we took the water taxi from the port to the main town, and even though the water was choppy, the weather was windy, and people were legit getting sick, it was a wonderful view. After we got to town, we took a half hour boat ride to the Island of Delos, which was our tour. Fun fact-when I went to use the boat bathroom, a lady ran in front of me and started barfing. JK, it wasn't fun, it was the worst.

Anywho, in case you didn't know, Delos is the mythical birthplace of the twin god/goddess Apollo and Artemis! Apparently, Hera was super ticked that Zeus had an affair with Leto, the twins' mom, and she forbade anywhere on earth from sheltering Leto. Poor lady was just pregnant for a long time. Eventually, Delos offered her shelter because it was already a sucky place, so it had nothing to lose. But Delos became super great, so it worked out. The island is pretty small, about 6 km long and 2 km wide, but about 25,000 people used to live there! That's a lot of people! It was a very prosperous place, too. One way they made all their $$ was from the slave market, which is a bummer. The island basically has no natural resources. They relied on rain water for drinking, and they got their food from other islands nearby. And it was against the law to give birth or to die on Delos. So if you were way pregnant or looked pretty terrible, they would row you over to a neighboring island to take care of things.

Apparently we visited at exactly the right time of year, when there were beautiful flowers on the island. The rest of the year, it is brown.

The House of Dionysus! It's called that because this mural is totally Dionysus riding a leopard. 

This was another super fancy house/maybe a bank. They don't really know. And look, a dove!

Our tour guide told us that about 25% of the island is currently excavated, but archeologists still live on Delos, and are slowly but surely working on more. Apparently, a lot of the island's artifacts are gone, some because of looters after the city fell (they thought Apollo would protect them, and he blew it), and a lot because of neighboring islanders. During plague times, people thought they would be protected from disease if they whitewashed their houses with lyme, which you totally get from burning marble. So a bunch of the awesome marble was carted off and used to make people's houses white, and probably not safe from the plague at all.

In front of the Temple of Apollo! Maybe it's because I don't know that much about him, but he seems pretty cool for a Greek God. 

In front of the Terrace of the Lions. These dudes are guarding the sacred lake where the gods were born (since drained because, mosquitoes). And look how windy it was!

After we left Delos, we spent the rest of the day on Mykonos. What a great island. According to a friendly shopkeeper, they get cruise ships pretty much every day for about 8 months of the year, and the other 4 months, nothing happens there. The town looks like the stereotype of a Greek town-all white buildings with beautiful blue accents. And there are cats everywhere! We really enjoyed wandering around the town, especially after we turned off the main drag and explored the tiny side streets. We also got some delicious chicken gyros (they don't taste the same as the ones I've gotten in the US). I got a vanilla milkshake that was also super different from what you'd get here but delicious anyway, and we all got some ice cream. Hours after the milkshake, don't judge me. I was very excited to see that they sold Kinder Bueno ice cream. If you're not in the know, Kinder Bueno is my very favorite candy ever. And it is delicious in ice cream. We were very sad to leave Mykonos at the end of the day. I think we could have happily stayed there for several days and had an awesome, relaxing time.

Mykonos! One thing we loved about Greece was how incredibly beautiful the water was.

Wandering the streets, we met a clown on stilts, and he made me this balloon dog. I named him Killer.

Cats of Mykonos. I started a photo series of street cats and dogs in Greece, and I decided I shall turn it into a calendar to benefit homeless pets. I'm not sure if all of these cats were actually homeless, but some of the did look really sad.

The sign that prompted us to go exploring the city. We never did find the library, but it was worth it anyway.

With Bonnie on one of the little side streets of Mykonos. And this was one of the wide streets! It was really pretty there.

On the hills above town. Seriously, you can all come visit me when I move there.

And that's it for the relaxing parts of Greece. Stay tuned for next time, when the Black Lung sees some super foxy Greek policemen.

The Black Lung is on a Boat! Part 2: The Italian Job

Previously, on The Black Lung: everything goes wrong.

At last 24.5 hours after we were supposed to arrive in Venice, we finally made it! And I must admit that I dig their airport. Mostly because it was a breeze to get through customs. Those Italians really know how to do it. Also nice, the bowl of not great but not bad candy by the baggage carousel. Plus the fact that you can get a taxi to take you directly to the port. Since we were super late, we had to go straight there for our boarding time, but since we took a taxi, it was insanely fast to get there.

To preface, when we were in New York, it somehow came up that I had never ridden in a taxi before. The whole idea of taxis is super creepy to me, probably because I have seen more than one TV show where the murderer turned out to be a cab driver who was choosing his victims based on who he drove around. So we joked a lot about murder cars, and then immediately had to ride in one. I have rarely if ever been more afraid than I was while taking that ride. This man was speeding, tailgating, swerving in and out of traffic, and generally driving in ways that would get you pulled over and arrested here in the states. I had to close my eyes for a good part of the drive so that I wouldn't see my imminent death coming. But amazingly enough, we did not die! We didn't even crash! So good job, crazy guy. Still never want to go anywhere with you again.

The ship we were on was the MSC Magnifica! I always feels like you have to say it with an exclamation point. I guess it was pretty nice. We all kind of laughed when we saw how tiny our room was. It worked out OK, and technically we could have had 1 more person in the cabin with us, but we were all really glad we didn't. It would have been crowded! The one thing we didn't like about the ship was that there were mirrors everywhere. Seriously everywhere. It all made you feel kind of narcissistic and/or gross, depending on how much you had done to look beautiful before you started looking at yourself.

Magnifica! Our cabin was on the other side of the ship (and inside so no portholes or balconies for us) on deck 8.

Our tiny home away from home. The bunk was mine! I think Bonnie only hit her head on the ladder that first night. And you can see that another bunk also could have been folded down on the other side if we had wanted to bring a friend.

There was some fun stuff to do on board, although a lot of it was really geared more toward the drinking/gambling types. The best thing was the theater, which put on really weird live shows every night. Since people spoke all sorts of different languages on board, the shows were always dance related. My favorite one/the one that made the least sense was Ike: Raised by Wolves! Seriously, it made no sense. There were people dressed like wolves and elk dancing around, and then there were some contortionists who did some stuff, and then some acrobats who were amazing but had nothing to do with wolves. Also, a lady came out and sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water." All of the shows were at least kind of like that, which was neat. The last one was Harry Potter themed, and it was adorable. The best part was when Voldemort really just wanted to dance. Reader, I LOLed.

One thing that everyone has asked me was how the food was. It was OK, I guess. We made a friend our last day who said that this cruise had the worst food of any she had ever been on, so there you go. It was really plentiful, so that was nice. I got a lot of fresh fruit, which I enjoyed. And I think if I had liked seafood, this would have been very exciting for me. We mostly ate in the buffet, because the restaurants were very seafood heavy and because our dinner time was at 9:45 at night. I did get cannoli one night at the buffet, which was very exciting. And one of our ship friends, who was from South Africa and had never heard of cannoli before, was convinced by my praise of them that she should give it a shot. Basically, I can't believe they don't have cannoli in South Africa.

Anywho, back to the good stuff! Our first full day on ship was rough, because we were super tired. And kind of bummed that the far off view of Venice is all we got to see. But Venice was super beautiful. I'm pretty sure it would have been awesome. I hope I get back to see it before it sinks into the sea. The other rough thing about it was that they took our pictures on the way onto the ship, so that every time you came or went and got your card scanned, your picture came up to identify you. Unfortunately, we had jsut been on an evil plane ride, so we all looked tired and gross. Every time my card was scanned, I wanted to yell, "Look, see how I'm normally much less gross than that???" But I didn't. I just hoped they would figure it out on their own.

 Why are you so picturesque, Venice? Why must you taunt me so?

I have heard that Venice has a bit of a smell (not surprising considering the location), but with views like that, who even cares? Also, I just watched The Italian Job, the one that came out when I was in college, and I'm pretty sure this building was in it. 

Whoops, I went right back to the bad stuff. Really the good stuff now. The next morning, we docked in Bari, Italy. It's down near the boot heel of the country. We didn't see too much of Bari itself, because the excursion that we signed up for was in Matera, a town about an hour's bus ride away. Truthfully, Bari looked pretty lame, but Matera was awesome. Only complaint-we didn't get to stay very long! I'm not sure why, because after we got back, we sat on the ship for more than an hour before we left, so they definitely could have let us stay longer and go shopping or something.

So yeah, Matera is the third oldest continuously inhabited city in the world according to our tour guide. I have no idea what the other two are, and the internet cannot seem to agree about it, so who knows? Basically, there's a new town, which is mostly where people live now, and then there's the ancient cave city, the Sassi, where mostly people don't live now. There are two parts of the caves, too. There's the cave caves, where people started living in prehistoric times, and then there are the cave houses where people lived for hundreds of years until the 1950s. These houses look like stone houses from the outside, but inside they are totally caves. The government forced everyone to move out of the Sassi in the 1950s, because they were basically living in caves, with all that entails. No plumbing, no electricity, 12 or more people living in just 2 or 3 rooms with cattle. Today, the government owns most of the Sassi, and residents of Matera can get long term leases on the houses if they want to live there. But since it's now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, apparently you have to do all sorts of crazy expensive but historically accurate renovations to live there. So I think it's mostly a tourist place now. We did see some people who seemed to live there though. Pretty cool. We did not find out if the insides had to be historically accurate. But probably not. I'm pretty sure they can put in plumbing. And they probably don't have to let cows stay with them.

 The Sassi in Matera. Isn't it amazing? The inside of those buildings are totally caves!

 Bonnie, Me, and Leanne with the Sassi in the background.

The ancient cave part of the Sassi, which is across the little valley from the cave house part. It was really pretty. A lot of people were exploring over there, which made me somewhat jealous.

The Sassi was basically breathtaking. It's almost unreal how amazing and beautiful it was. Apparently a lot of movies have been filmed there, like The Passion of the Christ and the remake of Ben-Hur (did we know about this, internet? Has this alleged remake been released into the wild?). And I'm not surprised at all. It's not only super historical looking, it's just amazingly beautiful. I would have loved to spend more time there and explore.

And that was it for Italy. Stay tuned for next time, when the Black Lung does some naked running and other very Greek things.