Category: Uncategorized

Jon Stewart is hosting the Oscars. Excuse me while I *SQUEE*. I’m wary, yet absolutely thrilled!

Whedonverse meme! Comment here with your user name and then people can comment anonymously or not about what Whedonverse they think you would fit into best as well as who would be your best friend, arch nemisis, etc.

And to continue another meme: Don’t you think Bush looks tired?

All sorts of fannish glee awaits me!

Blue Sun BioDiesel! Aaron points me to the first sign of Alliance domination. And horror–they’re targeting the liberals first! And speaking of Firefly, I am positively gleeful about the Penn Movie Channel’s shedule for January — they’re airing Serenity nearly every day. And Serenity won the BBC 2005 Film of the Year! Shabooyeah.

Next, Will tells me that Neil Gaiman is coming to Temple! Thursday, January 26, at 8:00 PM in Room 222 Temple University’s Center City campus (1515 Market Street, entrance is between Market St. and JFK Boulevard). He’s going to read from recent work, and I assume sign as well. I wish I’d known earlier, so that I could have brought my Mirrormask book from home! Oh well. I could get him to sign Anansi Boys, which I finally finished in Greece. OOH! I could make prints of some of my Sandman images and give them to him! Mmm, good idea, me! Vote in the poll and tell me what I should do.

In addition to Anansi Boys, I also finished Jim Butcher’s Furies of the Calderon (quite nifty, but I’m not as big on High Fantasy as I once was) and John Hodgman’s Areas of my Expertise (read it NOW). Speaking of Jim Butcher, we have the cover for the 8th Dresden Files book, Proven Guilty! Also, I’m trying not to dance around my room and squee over Jim’s endorsement of my idea for the “name” for the fans/fandom. I took a leaf from the X-Files’ book and jokingly suggested “DresdenPhiles,” only to have the list rally in its favor! I’ve been in this fandom a couple months, and I’m already naming the fen! So amused.

I’m not surprised they lost my bag again. I barely made my connection through Rome as it is! In fact, I shouldn’t have made it at all. I guess the whole Meteora pilgrimage thing earned me a mini-miracle.

Full story later!

Off to Meteora this morning! Athens was a bit of a bust yesterday–for reasons unfathomable, the Acropolis was closed. Fortunately, many photographic opportunities still presented themselves, and I found a very cute satchel-purse thing in a nearby market.

When I blogged last night, I’d totally forgotten that we’d gotten tickets to visit Aegina this morning. We were supposed to visit the island in our Saronic Island Hop, but the touring company visited Aegina after Hydra rather than before, as Chungy was led to believe, and we already had hotel reservations in Hydra and couldn’t exactly leave.

So that brings us to today! Now, first off, Chungy and I have very different ideas of how one travels. She plans exactly how much time a certain thing requires and then crams in as much sleep time as possible. I, on the other hand, prefer to move at a more leisurely pace, and give my travel plans plenty of padding. In this morning’s mad rush (we go by Chungy-time, to my chagrin), I realized that my digital camera wasn’t in my big camera bag. I did a quick scouring of the house and quickly found it, juggled my stuff in order, and ran. It wasn’t until we were on the train to Piraeus (Athens’ port) that I noticed that my digital camera was still not in my camera bag.

I was fairly sure that I must have just left it on the bed when I was juggling all the rest of my stuff, but as I didn’t remember seeing it in my cursory glance around the room before running off to catch the train. As we rode further and further from the house, blind panic and visions of worst case scenarios won over common sense. We scrapped our Aegina plans (my two minutes of searching had apparently pushed us into “we might not make the boat anyway” territory, cough cough) and went back to Chungy’s cousin’s house in Kiffisia, a Northern suburb of Athens, to put my fears to rest.

As we both expected, it was there on the bed all along. It had been covered up by the umbrella I decided not to bring. So instead of visiting Aegina, we’ll be doing what I wrote we’d do in my blog anyway! Today, we take Athens! Chungy is going to take a short run while I pore over the travel books I finally have access to, now that I have my bag back, and pick out what we should see. Then I’ll drop off my film to be developed, and we’ll be off!

In a way, I’m glad this happened. I’m sure Aegina would have been awesome (I saw pictures of the Temple of Athena–I would have loved to visit), but it would have meant two hours of boat travel each way, and we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to really investigate Athens. So yay for my absentmindedness and paranoia, and yay for Chungy’s down-to-the-wire system of travel planning!

Bwee! Our day trip in Delphi was fabulous. The trip was much more structured and we didn’t get any time to walk around on our own, but I still loved it. I just wish I’d had the chance to photograph in the nearby village!

The city was at the level of some of the clouds, high in the mountains, and the result was pure photographic glee. I can’t wait to get my film developed. Delicious atmosphere! No wonder the city holds so much mystic significance to its inhabitants–the clouds practically writhed.

But first, the bus ride! Our tour guide was a native Greek woman with a relatively strong grasp of English, but there were certain words that she definitely didn’t know how to use. The most amusing was probably her obsessive over(mis)use of the word “precise” when no adjective was necessary, ie “This road precisely connects Athens to Delphi,” and “unique” when she meant “only,” such as “Apollo’s unique sister, Artemis.” Also, she kept referring to things as “anonymous” when she probably meant “eponymous.” (Mad props to her for attempting vocab I didn’t even learn until a few years ago!) Additionally, she felt compelled to point out the most random things on the 2-hour bus voyage, the most noteworthy being a lengthy lecture on Greek aluminum production, and a repeat of the Oedipus myth at least four times. I found it hilarious, though somewhat distracting as I ploughed through Anansi Boys. Poor Chungy, on the other hand, was trying to sleep! She still has her cold, which I managed to skirt thanks to the powers of Echinacea.

First, we visited Delphi’s archaeological museum, which was chok full of ancient goodness. It’s one thing to see drawings and diagrams of the city’s layout, but it’s difficult to grasp the sheer scale until you realize that stone sphinx atop a giant pillar could eat you and your dog in one bite.

Next, we got to tromp around some of the ruins. I stood on the stage of their acoustically fabulous ampitheatre and wished I could remember my Eurypides. I took lots and lots of photos that I am positively gleeful about getting developed. One of my Christmas presents was the Lensbaby 2.0, and I’ve been playing around with the different aperture rings and squealing over what I’m seeing through the viewfinder. I think I’ll get some of the film developed tomorrow instead of waiting until I return to Philly.

Tomorrow, Chungy and I finally investigate what Athens has to offer! Hurrah! Also, hopefully my grades will be posted tomorrow!

Back from Island Hop #1! The weather was utterly perfect, and I got along quite handily without my bag. It’s so nice to have it back, though! Apparently, it didn’t make the connection from Munich, which is pretty silly, as that was the longest connection I had!

Spetses, while lovely, wasn’t nearly as charming as Hydra. The people were rude, and there was very little to do, not to mention surprisingly few places to eat anything beyond a sandwich or an omelette, a far cry from the authentic Greek cuisine we sought. We ended up changing our boat reservations and returning to Athens a few hours early.

My New Year was surprisingly nice. After dinner, we crashed in the hotel room, intending to wait for midnight to approach before heading out to a bar. We watched bits of “Finding Nemo” dubbed in Greek and a chunk of Ralph Bakshi’s animated Lord of the Rings. It was rather funny, as LotR had Greek subtitles, and Mordor’s Greek equivalent looks to an English speaker like “Moptop.”

All the bars were closed (?!), so Chungy and I sat on the porch of the hotel and just talked, which is the best way to celebrate the New Year I can think of.

And now I’m off to prepare for tomorrow’s day trip Delphi! Happy New Year to all! Khronia Pola! Or my mneumonic, “chronic polio!”

I’m in Hydra! I found a pharmacy where I could check my email and purchase some echinacea, as Chungy, my dad, and the world are conspiring to get me sick. I’m still feeling more-or-less fine for the moment, though, so hopefully I can keep it at bay until Little Shop of Horrors auditions.

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous: perfect sun, deliciously warm! I took a ridiculous number of photographs, which I look forward to sharing with all of you. I woke up early this morning to try to get the sunrise, but unfortunately, today is very overcast. Hopefully I’ll get some good light before we leave for Spetses tomorrow.

Must be off now! Loff to all!

I’m in Greece! Note: About 90% of this entry is me whining about travel. Skip to the end if you don’t feel like being subjected to my angst.

Highlights of my voyage:

Dallas to Philadelphia flight was an hour late. Had to sprint from Terminal C to Terminal A, which is a lung-achingly, stomach-crampingly long way. Resolved to exercise more in the new year.

Upon arriving (a sweaty, breathless, exhausted excuse for a human being) at the correct gate for the Philadelphia-Munich flight, I was informed that I needed two ticket-things to board, rather than just the e-ticket. I was only given the e-ticket in Dallas, and had no idea what they were talking about. Eventually, in order to make the flight, I had to purchase a second ticket (the full round-trip shebang: $600+), then apply for a “lost” ticket thing, with the hopes of eventually getting a refund. SO much more complicated and angstridden than it needs to be.

Upon boarding said flight, flushed with quasi-victory, found a twentysomething male in my seat, asking if he’d be willing to switch seats with me so he could sit with his girlfriend, who “didn’t travel well.” Stupidly, I said yes. Later, after being fed gruel and hay by the flight attendants, I remembered why I request window seats for trans-Atlantic flights: I had nothing to fall asleep against. I eventually got about three hours worth of sleep, after endless tossing and turning and being awoken by my loud seatmate who wanted to tell me ad nauseum about the medication she uses to treat her MS. Awoke to the protesting cries of every muscle in my body.

The Munich airport had a lingerie store. I found this hilarious as I sprinted to make my next connection.

The next connection I sprinted to make ended up being delayed an hour, due to snow. Of course, if they had told us that it was going to be delayed an hour, I would have bought a pastry or something, as “breakfast” on the transatlantic flight consisted of a cold roll.

Lunch on the Munich-Athens flight was decently good, as airline food goes. Deutchland, Deutchland, Uber Alles!

Arrived in Athens, yay! Was immediately filled with a sense of foreboding, as I didn’t see Chungy at the baggage claim. She was supposed to pick me up at the airport. Did she get my flight number wrong? Did she not get the message about the delay, and give up on me? Could she have lost my itinerary? With no internet available, I couldn’t access my email, where Chungy had sent the address, and I didn’t have a phone number or even a last name for Chungy’s cousin’s family. To my further joy, the airport lost my bag. ARRRGH.

Left the baggage claim close to despair, only to see Chungy outside the doors! Apparently I am a moron, as the baggage claim is part of the secured area, unlike the situations in Dallas and Philadelphia. We rejoiced and did a little dance a cursed the airlines with pox and boils. The joy begins!

Joy:

Chungy and I zoomed by the travel agency where she had organized a grand, four-day tour of the islands, leaving tomorrow morning. We’re visiting Aegina, Poros, Hydra, and Spetches. We’ll chill in Athens for a day, then visit Delphi, then Meteora. BWEEEE! Let’s hope it doesn’t rain.

Then we went on a brief shopping spree for socks and underwear for me, so that I won’t have to walk around naked for the next four days. I borrowed a few tops from Chungy’s cousin.

We had some great chicken souvlaki and Greek salad for dinner, and a few bites of chocolate mousse cake for dessert.

And now, I sleep! I’ll post again when I return from the island tour January 1st.

I’m off! Those that sent me their addresses will get postcards! I’ll still have email access, but I won’t have time to check my flist, so if anything comes up email me at priscellie (at) gmail.com.