Spring Break: Part Two

Things are getting surprisingly busy here in Egypt, especially since we're entering the time of year when school is actually challenging, or at least time consuming. Final papers are popular in Egyptian classes, so in the next few weeks I'll be writing three 10-12 page papers and several smaller ones, while fitting in a trip to Jerusalem(!) in between. So if I'm a little tardy in posting, please forgive me.

With that note, I'll try to give a few more happenings from Spring Break:

Least Time At A Major Monument: The first day we were in Athens we the Acropolis perched on its hill, so naturally enough we decided to check it out. By that time it was past 6:00, which in Athens is apparently way too late to be open. No big deal, we would come the next day. So the next morning we followed a Lonely Planet walking guide that was supposed to take 2 hours, 4 if you walked slowly, and included the Acropolis. Apparently we are exceptionally slow walkers, and that combined with a lovely hour and a half long lunch put us at the gate of the Acropolis at approximately 2:35, where we told that Athen's most famous destination was closing in 10 minutes. There are two major problems with this: nothing closes on the quarter-hour, and unless its a tea time break why would anyone close before 3:00? But there was no time to argue, so we spent the next ten minutes sprinting frantically around the top of the hill, barely stopping to snap the occassional picture or glimpse at the wonderful scenery below us. Despite the rush, I could appreciate some of the wonder of the place, which I think is much more impressive in person than pictures, like many ancient monuments. The size of the building, like the pillars of the Temple of Zeus we had visited earleir, was truly impressive.

Least Touristy Destination: Skopje, Macedonia

This is definitely not a tourist-oriented city, and it would be difficult to spend more than one or two days of sight-seeing here. Almost none of the major sites had any sort of booth, and the fortress doubles as a sort of park for locals. The only time we bought a ticket it turned out rather poorly; it turns out that the Art Gallery in the old Turkish baths is 60-70% blank walls, with a few pictures in one wing of the building. There is a nice "bazaar" in the town (anyone who has been to Cairo or even Istanbul would probably laugh at the idea of the orderly town market being compared to those cities), and there I bought my only souvenier of the trip, a nice beret. All around, the best thing about Macedonia was the mountains; on the train ride into Skopje we were able to see a gorgeous moonrise over the hills behind us.

The Goofiest Outfit Award:

Easily goes to the Athenian soldiers at their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This is a case where a picture is worth a thousand words, apologies for the pigeon wing in the foreground.