Greece

I had planned to be in Greece for two and a half weeks, but I left after only 4 days.  It's hard for me not to view that as some sort of failure on my part.  Like I did something wrong by cutting my time short in what is a undeniably beautiful country.

My first day exploring the beach near my hostel

Arriving in Greece was invigorating.  After arriving at the tiny airport on the island of Crete, I caught the bus into town.  We passed olive groves, open-air fish markets, signs in characters that were completely alien to me, and lots of flat roofed houses with Greek flags flying out front.  My senses were buzzing and I could not wait to begin to explore this new and fascinating country.

I met a group of wonderful travelers in the dorm and we immediately hit it off.  None of us knew anyone else, so we all went out to dinner together that evening.  It was the oddest assortment of countries covering everywhere from Pakistan to Sweden, and there was something quite poetic about the fact that not a single country was repeated in our group of nine.

Chania's harbor by day.  We ate dinner at a restaurant along the water

Dinner was wonderful.  I ordered grilled mushrooms which were slathered with olive oil and lemon. Simple but delicious.  We were served by the owner of the restaurant himself and even treated to free fruit, semolina orange cake, and alcohol after our meal.

The next day was spent exploring Chania (the main city of Crete) with my new international friends.  Chania has a wonderful Old Town and harbor and we spent some time just lounging by the bay, soaking in the sun and enjoying each other's company.

Chania's Old Town has the most wonderful, narrow streets

We asked locals for recommendations and found fresh cheese and local wine to bring back to the hostel for a backpackers feast.  A candle was fashioned out of the book binding thread I had (yes, I brought some) and some olive oil.  As the sun set behind the hotel, it was one of those moments I couldn't believe was actually my life.  It was like something out of a novel.  Sun soaked backpackers from completely opposite corners of the globe become fast friends over a delectable, locally produced meal.  Only days into my time in Greece, my trip felt luxuriously endless.  I had plenty of time to lounge around on the beach and explore many of the amazing sights Crete had to offer.

Our very, very local wine

And then I got sick.  Really sick.  So sick I could hardly move and couldn't even keep water down.

My roommates were so sweet about having a delirious, vomiting human in their midsts.  Through out the day they checked in on me periodically.  My English and Irish roommates brought me tea on multiple occasions.  My Polish roommate gave me medication in a package I could not read and advised that I take a shot of hard liquor.  My Swedish roommate cut up an apple for me and also made me tea.  Apparently tea can cure everything.

I woke up the next day with a wave of depression like nothing I'd experienced in a long time.  It knocked to my feet and for a second day I couldn't get out of bed but for a completely different reason.

The beach minutes from my hostel.  The most beautiful windflowers were blooming all over the island. 

Suddenly the smells, sights, sounds of Greece became too overwhelming for me.  I couldn't handle the pushy local restaurant owner or the frail-looking stray dogs that followed us everywhere.  The thought that I was hours away from home took the breath out of me and nearly everything made fat tears well up at the corner of my eyes.

I also woke up to the knowledge that my roommates had completely changed their travel plans and would be leaving that day.  In that moment, I realized two very important things about myself: that I don't let people in easily and I certainly don't let them go easily either.

The backpacker culture of meeting people, spending an intensive few days with them, and then jetting off to different corners of the globe doesn't sit well with me.  Yes, we're now friends on facebook, but the idea that I would have to do that over, and over, and over was too much.  Even worse was the thought I could end up at a hostel like the one I stayed at in Nuremberg where I hardly anyone would talk to me.

Even though I had yet to see the blue roofed houses of Santorini, the stunning pink sand beach hidden in a corner of Crete, or the Acropolis in Athens, I left Greece for London after only 4 days.

At the time I wasn't sad.  I was desperately homesick and all I could think about were the non stop flights from London to San Francisco flying out every day.  In hindsight, it's hard not to wish I had pushed through it, that I had stayed longer.  One thing I am struggling with my trip so far (among many things...) is not letting the regret get to me.  Already I feel like I have a list miles long of the things I missed, while the list of the things I did get to do seems much shorter.

But at the end of the day, I know I did what was best for me.  Flying to London was the right decision to take care of my emotional well being.  It's been over a week and only now am I recovering from the depression that took ahold after I got sick.

I don't want to define my time in Greece as either being all amazing-things-that-I-should-have-stayed-to-see or all horrible-I-was-miserable-and-sick-the-whole-time, because neither captures my time there.

There are spectacularly beautiful moments that I don't want to forget.  Like one night when myself and two of my roommates were going to sleep at the same time.  They shared how to say goodnight in their languages and after I turned out the light, my Polish roommate started talking about a cartoon he saw as a child with a Polish lullaby.  He pulled up a video on his phone of a claymation teddy bear wearing a nightcap and hesitantly sung the song in Polish while we drifted off to sleep.

But my time in Greece was undeniably challenging.  It was the most desperate emotional pain I've felt in years and as hard as that was to experience, I don't want to forget or wash over that either.

It is all a part of my experience.  Traveling is the most challenging, invigorating thing possibly that I've ever done.  Some days I feel on top of the world and never want it to end.  Other days I would seriously consider cutting off my own arm if it meant I could instantly be at home with my family.

I'm not sure where that leaves me for the rest of my trip.  I am equally scared by the thoughts that I might push myself to hard and go through another intense depression, or that I might keep myself too safe and miss out on some amazing experiences.  For now I am resting, fighting off another cold, and trying to experience as much of London as I can handle.

Αντίο Ελλάδα! Ελπίζω να σας δούμε ξανά κάποια μέρα.

Tschüss Deutshland!

I've been keeping a running list of the little, everyday things that I don't want to forget from my time in Germany.  Things that, over time, are likely to slip away from my memory slowly enough that I likely won't even remember they were ever there.  Here are some of my favorites that I pulled from my notes...

10 Things I Don't Want to Forget About Germany:

1. Understanding my first German swear word ("scheisse"- shit!) on the bus to Stuttgart from Berlin.  (A car cut us off and the driver had a few choice words to share.)  
2. Feeling somehow comforted to see lilacs, wisteria, buttercups and dandelions (yes, they're the same here!) during my stay.  At least some of the flowers are similar when so many things are different.  (On a side note, I'm planning a visit to the Porsche museum when I return in June.  Mom and Dad, did you guys ever doubt you had an influence on me??)
3. The fact that a slow watch could be detrimental.  In punctual Germany on time is already late.  
4. The look on Claudia's mother's face when I replied to her heavily accented "good morning" with "guten morgen!" (probably also heavily accented)
5. The first German song I heard after being in Germany for more than two weeks.  The music video was a boy band wearing lederhosen and t-shirts while dancing on a beach with bikini clad girls.  
6. The Turkish restaurants that are everywhere here, and how I was confused when everyone was talking about "kebab" which was not, as I expected, meat or veggies on a skewer, but a giant (and I mean giant) rotating cone of meat that is shaved and put into flatbread with veggies and sauces. Turns out it's actually spelt kebap and is completely different from kebabs.  
7. That, despite passing many vineyards and orchards, I could never lay my finger on what distinguishes them from California vineyards and orchards.  Something about them is unmistakable different but still reminds me of driving through Sebastopol or out to Sonoma in a bittersweet way.  
8. My friend Ramona's slight Irish accent from her time studying abroad. 
9. The fact that it rained after I left California.  Then it rained when I arrived in Frankfurt.  And it rained when I left Berlin.  And it rained again the day I left Oppenweiler.  Every other day has been warm and sunny.  In the car, I told Claudia that it's because California and Germany are sad to see me go.  
10. My favorite German word, tschüss! Pronounced like "juice" with a "t" at the beginning, it means "bye!"  So much fun to cheerily reply with the right phrase when leaving a shop. 

Meeting Claudia

On a shopping trip together the day after I arrived

I met my penpal Claudia.  In person.  I gave her a hug.  We went on a walk around her neighborhood and ate dinner sitting at the desk in her room.

This moment was in the works for years.  For months and months and months we have been dreaming of meeting in person--making plans and imagining what it would be like to be together at last.

Town Hall in Backnang, a town near Claudia's village where we went shopping

She was not my first penpal, or even the first penpal I'd met in person.  And really there was nothing remarkable about our friendship in the beginning.  I never would have guessed it from our very early letters exchanged so many years ago, but through many letters and postcards, packages and skype calls, we've grown extraordinarily close.

She's the penpal who sends me boxes and boxes of candy when she knows I am struggling, just as a reminder that "you are not alone."  She's the penpal who regularly posts inspiring quotes on my facebook wall with long messages explaining how grateful she is for our friendship, just because she was thinking about me on a Monday afternoon.  She's the penpal who's letters have grown to a record 32 pages long, discussing everything from what we ate for breakfast to out deepest thoughts and fears.

From our evening walk together around Claudia's village

Sometimes I sit back and marvel over just how unlikely, just how surreal it is that I'm writing this update from her house in her little village in Germany.

Born nearly 6,000 miles apart on different continents, our paths should have never crossed.  We grew up with different languages, different cultures, different realities.

But somehow we both decided to look for a penpal, and somehow we ended up on the same website at the same time.  Somehow I posted a message and she replied and I wrote back.  Somehow her first letter to me didn't get lost along the way, like so many letters do, and somehow the million things that could have prevented us from becoming friends didn't happen and we kept writing, and writing, and writing.

Somehow we were exactly the type of friend the other one needed at exactly that time in our lives.

A beautiful protestant church in Stuttgart, the biggest city near where Claudia lives

On the 8 1/2 hour bus ride from Berlin to Stuttgart I had plenty of time to cycle through a complete range of emotions about finally meeting Claudia in person.  I had time to go from complete exhaustion and "I can't handle this right now" to complete giddiness, practically bouncing up and down in my seat.

For months I wondered how I would react.  Would I start sobbing uncontrollably?  Would I run up to her jumping up and down?  Would I be so overwhelmed I would shut down and not respond at all?

New Castle in Stuttgart

In reality I didn't do any of those things.  In reality we exchanged a long, warm hug, a few giggles and seamlessly moved into place beside each other, as if every Wednesday afternoon I came by for a visit.  As if every Wednesday I flew halfway across the world just to have dinner and spend the evening chatting with my dear friend.

This time together hasn't been at all like I imagined.  It has been marred by health problems and difficult family situations and life obligations, but in many ways that is how it should have been.  Our friendship is not one created on unrealistic expectations, or molded through imperfect, fairytale versions presented of ourselves through carefully crafted letters.  Like my "real life" friendships, ours is one formed through messy circumstances and misunderstandings.  Life has gotten in the way of our best laid plans and we have been forced to readjust and replan.  I won't lie and say my time here has been easy, because it hasn't.  It's been emotional and challenging every single day as I see someone I love dearly struggling.

The good news is I will be back in June and hopefully some of these difficult circumstances will have past, and Claudia and I will finally get to enjoy a few carefree moments together.  But still, I'm incredibly grateful for these few days where I got to be a physical presence in Claudia's life.

To be able to sit down together and talk about what's going on without waiting weeks for a letter to arrive has been an enormous blessing.  To be able to call her without calculating the time difference and to see her face without battling grainy video delay on skype is not something I have taken for granted.

I consider myself very lucky to have a friend like Claudia in my life, and despite the difficulties, I am so grateful for the time I've gotten to spend with her these past few days.

Berlin

Brandenburg Gate

Berlin and even Germany as a whole actually were never places I never specifically set out to visit.   Somehow I ended up here almost accidentally, and I'm so glad I did.

I wouldn't necessarily have gone to Germany if it wasn't for my friend Claudia, and I wouldn't have necessarily gone to Berlin if it wasn't for my other friend Ramona.

Me and Ramona at the East Side Gallery,  where murals are painted on pieces of the Berlin Wall

Berlin is a difficult city to describe.  Many parts of it reminded me of San Francisco, especially the little vegan/vegetarian hole-in-the-wall restaurant I ate at most nights for dinner.  Naan pizza, burritos and teriyaki tofu under one roof?  So Bay Area.

But the history that penetrates Berlin is unlike anything I've ever experienced, and it adds a certain somber tone to the city.   A palpable loss that is impossible to ignore.

At the Jewish museum, in one of the "memory voids" that represents the missing Jews of Europe due to the Holocaust.

My first full day in Berlin I went on an 8 hour walking tour.  Yes, that's not a typo.  EIGHT hours of criss-crossing Berlin, but I'm so glad I did it! Although I couldn't feel my legs for the next few days, I learned so much about Berlin's history and got a good feel for how I should spend the rest of my time in the city.

The tour guide pointed out a lot of things I wouldn't have necessarily noticed, like how many buildings still had shrapnel damage, or how just by looking at the architecture you could tell that some entire city blocks were obliterated by Allied bombing in WWII.

WWII shrapnel damage 

WWII history is fairly well covered in American high schools, but I knew virtually nothing about what happened to Germany after the war.  Through out the day, we crossed from East to West Berlin multiple times, and it was hard to imagine the little line of cobblestones in the middle of the street was once a heavily fortified border.  

From West Berlin looking East

Chilling graffiti on the wall

I'm an avid reader of dystopian literature.  It's definitely my guilty pleasure genre.  I've read 1984 more times than I can count, and finished the Wool Silo Saga just a few days ago.  My hostel was located in the Eastern part of Berlin, which was once part of the GDR (German Democratic Republic, the Soviet occupied part of Germany during the cold war period.)

Former Stasi headquarters

During my stay in Berlin I was able to visit the former Stasi (East German secret police) headquarters and the GDR museum, which was wonderfully interactive.  The museum was quite a surreal experience.  Every plaque and exhibit felt like it was right out of the pages of 1984.  From the diary of a GDR resident who kept track of unobtainable items to the bugged apartment,  it reminded me of the overwhelming feeling I always get reading about Oceania and Ingsoc. 

In one part of the museum you could listen to what visitors were saying in the replica East German living room

While I still know very little about the GDR, I am definitely planning on learning more.  I've already downloaded a book on the subject and am already enjoying it--as much as one can enjoy reading about a brutal communist dictatorship I suppose.   

Memorial for the Jewish victims of WWII.  A whole city block was taken up by towering, gray columns. 

But my time in Berlin wasn't all serious all the time.  On the tour I met a wonderful group of Americans who so generously included me in their photos and explorations that afternoon, even though they were traveling together and it would have been easy for them to remain an exclusive group.  And a few days after I arrived in Berlin I was joined by my penpal Ramona and her friend (who is now also my dear friend) Lucy.  

Even though I had already experienced Ramona and her family's generosity, I was still blown away by how accommodating and encouraging her and Lucy both were.  Ramona even arrived with a gift for me (seriously?!?), a very handy German phrase book.  

With Lucy, enjoying a radler after a long day of sightseeing

I'm trying hard to look forward on my trip and not start counting all the things I wish I'd seen.  It's only been a little over a week and already there are multiple sights in Nuremberg and Berlin I'd wish I'd made time for.  It's hard to not think that I could have fit more in, that I could have rested less and pushed myself to go out and explore more.  But I know with more than 3 months to go, I definitely need to keep a slower pace than travelers who are only in Europe for a few weeks.  I can't just push through the exhaustion forever, and I'm working hard on being okay with that.

Sunday morning flea market.  I managed to find some unique souvenirs.
GDR stamps and coins as well as "inflation money" (100 million marks notes)

Ramona kept reminding me that I'll have to return to Germany one day.  After all I have to visit Bamberg's Christmas market sometime.  And who knows, there are a few portions of my trip where I don't have anything planned.  It seems silly to go back to a place I've already been when there's still so much of Europe to see, but Berlin is the first city I've really fallen in love with in a long time.  There are definitely places I've enjoyed, but there was something impossible to describe about how I felt in Berlin.

I always expected it to be wandering through in Montmartre in Paris, or relaxing on a beach in Santorini, Greece where I would find my passion for travel.  I didn't foresee that it would be entering the stuffy U-Bahn (metro) station, hurrying down the steps to catch the train in the middle of Berlin where I would pause and think to myself that even with all the stress, the anxiety, the panic...

I wouldn't rather be anywhere else but here.