A Spartan reference no one will understand

I meant to do a post on Rome. I really did. Besides delighting everyone of the harrowing tales of traveling, I also I like to later print out and put together a small book of all the posts. A journal if you will. Unfortunately, by my own laziness in not writing enough down ever, I've come up a little short on material. Maybe Rome will come out of order like Munich. Maybe I'll sit down and really get everything down. Maybe I'll also paint those paintings of the 10 avatars of Vishnu.

Anyway, we've been in Athens for what turned into four nights. There's something I like immensely about the Greeks. Taking away all the history and battles and whatnot, I still just like being here. Though lets get real, this is the place that saw the Peloponnesian Wars, and a little something else too.

It may be though, as much as I try to detach myself from any attachment, there's still a host of refuges for them to hide. One of which is the food. My diet over the last four days has consisted entirely (no joke) of gyros. I've tried multiple places around the city, and have found the one place that has the best. The pork is better than the lamb, but I'm not sure anything wouldn't taste good when its cut off with a sword and served with a 1/2lb. of tzatziki. Oh, and the beautiful tomatoes.

I'm on a 4-5 a day habit.

In other news, Frank actually mentioned he realized he was more used to the "group travel". I've been hard at work not at accepting this difference, but bending him to the fun side. I don't know everything by a long shot, but I have much to teach him. A somewhat funny episode happened tonight when I was haggling over a bootleg movie. The guy said 5, but since we were suddenly good friends he would go 4. I knew I could probably get 2 after a protracted battle, but I was going to go for the quick 3. Just as I'm explaining thats all I have the guy says "your friend has money". I look over to see Frank counting the euros in his hand. Maybe next time.

But tomorrow, at 5pm to be exact, we're finally hoping the stupid ferries to head to Naxos, and then Santorini. Hopefully it will be a week of camping, and not evil sunburns.

You probably know Santorini from when Real World went there a few years back. The one in San Diego. The one with Jamie. You all know you think shes cute.

Anyway, here's to hoping there won't be any puking on the ferries. By me or Frank. He's already gotten a kick in the balls when the flight from Rome to Athens didn't include his bag.

Munich, more than just a terrible movie

Here's my post I had written for Munich. To be fair to Frank, by this time things had gotten pretty low when I was looking back at the fun times of the trip. After this was written though I realized something, like an episode of Full House at the end when the music plays. Frank and I are just different travelers. The short explanation is he's the more tour group variety, and I'm not. Plus I probably often judge people too harshly anyway. But its something to post. I'm in Athens and am hoping to get out something about Rome before gyros melt my memory. (maybe thats why I'm so happy):

For a long time since this cluster F of a trip began I started to set my sights on one city to redeem everything, the much heralded Munich. If this trip was a game of roulette, my fun chips would be a pretty small pile from the stack that I started out with (you cash in your expected fun and use it for chips). Bright eyed and believing that, yes, Europe could always be fun no matter who you traveled with. Several weeks of reaping the rewards of non-existent pre-planning, rain/clouds/cold, and realizing Frank is gf-sick had hit me hard. Closing my eyes, I placed the last few chips on the Munich square. Then the wheel started to spin.

My eyes lit up with excitement as the ball landed in my hopeful spot. Instantly I was awarded a delicious wurst of some sort of variety. Butcher shops and beers halls awaited me. I even succeeded in prying Frank to go to a Mexican bar. I met a Frenchman that said a 10 euro bottle of California wine was always a better buy than a 10 euro French bottle of wine. I also met a pot smoking girl with her doctorate in sociology that teaches at a law school I almost but didn’t apply to (and was kinda an idiot). It was a wonderful whirlwind of mostly how sick I could make myself on how many little sausage sandwiches I could eat.

Then, we went to Dachau, the first concentration camp. It kinda killed the meat buzz. To make it even worse we went through the museum backwards. Starting out with liberation and then going to conditions in the camp (medical experiments!) to the start of National Socialism. Half way through, you’re thinking “I want to go back to the part where they executed the SS guards.” Instead you move onto how the Greeks, Jews, Polish, etc. etc. all ended up at the camp.

To add to it, the rains came once we got out of the museum.

Then we went back to Munich and a triple wurst sandwich made me forget all that I had learned.

Berlin is the würst hahaha

Berlin is an interesting city, though seven nights in it are more than enough to see everything. Its strange here that theres really not a very many German places to eat. There are tons of the rainbow of Asian places (Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, etc.), and a billion donner kebab places. The city does though have its own little food, the currywurst.

Legend has it that a German POW came back from America (we just started shipping prisoners back to not deal with them) and told his wife about these great spare ribs he had. So she put 1) ketchup and 2) curry powder on a wurst and thus the birth of the currywurst. Yeah, you could make one at home. You'll probably only make it once though since its nothing to really write an entire post about.

But there are currywurst stands everywhere, so we eat it.

But other than that I think the best part of Berlin is definately Checkpoint Charlie, which I really can't be there enough.

I also can not wait until I get to Munich. Berlin is kinda too modern for its own good and doesnt give off the German vibe. In Munich I plan to eat kraut until I pass out, fall of the big bench, and it drips out of my mouth.