Greek islands, Selcuk, and London

This is the last installment of pictures from the Europe leg of my trip.

Santorini. There are lots of dogs and Annalisa likes them.

Oia, Santorini.

Oia, Santorini.

Naxos. First sunset.

Naxos.

Mykonos.

Mykonos.

Ferry from Samos (Greece) to Selcuk (Turkey), and the first sunset in Turkey. Samos is only an hour away by ferry from Turkey in the Aegean sea.


Tourists at Ephesus.

LONDON AND LONDONERS














These are anti-war protesters outside Parliament in London. One of them, I think his name is Brian Haw (not pictured), has been there for six years, before the Iraq invasion. They have permits for twenty people to camp out there.







Monty Python's Spamalot is playing!

Island hop to Turkey and a bus to Istanbul

Fire Chicken

The Lonely Planet guidebook for iStanbul says that the word "Turkey" probably comes from Chinese, who apparently referred to "them" as "Tu Kues" (with an umlaut over the U). The word for the animal "turkey," in Chinese, translates to "Fire Chicken."

-Apparently buses in Turkey are really nice. I keep thinking about the buses in Chile, i.e., with waiters and attendants, who give you blankets and tea and breakfast on the bus. We'll see.

-There's a lot of interesting stuff in Turkey, biblical things, religious things. I don't think I'll be able to see the whirling dervishes.

-Flipped through the Istanbul guidebook and it seemed like it could have been describing Beijing. Huge migrant population, not much green space, old political and cultural capital of an empire, and so on.

-There are Chinese clothing stores in several of the Greek islands. I think we saw at least three clothing outlets, selling Chinese imports and owned by Chinese people, in Samos.

-Ferry schedules changed, and last night we took a ferry from Mykonos at midnight that arrived in Samos at 6:15 in the morning.

-One new Turkish Lira is equivalent to 1,000,000, that's right, one million, old Turkish Lira.

-Off to the Fire Chicken in about an hour!

greek roundup

So: I'm not going to make you jealous quite yet of where I've been recently, i.e., no photos for now (I don't have my USB cable on me).
But, here's a quick roundup of what comes to mind:

-Vietnamese restaurant in Paris is cheap, and delicious. The Pho reminds me of the Vietnamese restaurant in Middletown Connecticut where I go to university.
-Met up with Sunny, one of the program participants while in Paris, if only for a few hours.
-Chinese men and women peddle "traditional Chinese massages" on the beaches of Santorini and Naxos, both Greek Cycladic islands in the Aegean Sea.
-I continue to slap myself for not trying the Chinese food in South Africa; we went to a Chinese restaurant in Santorini called "China H Kina." The owners were from Hong Kong, and the last page in the menu said "For Chinese People" in Chinese (and not in English or Greek), for no apparent reason. As far as I could tell, the Chinese menu consisted of simple things like noodles with fatty chicken/beef meat on the bone. Interesting.
-Naxos is beautiful. Really beautiful. Apparently they don't ride as many Vespas as I thought they did in Greece, but they are quite plentiful in Paris.
-Am reading "Red Dust" by Ma Jian, an "On the Road" (Kerouac) taking place in China in the early to mid-eighties. Highly recommended.
-Read "Disgrace" by J.M. Coetzee, a South African author. I got the book at the airport in Cape Town and the book has perpetuated my fascination with South Africa. I find myself talking about South Africa a lot.
-Greece is far more "developed" (I quote this because I've realized that development is highly subjective) than I remember it being when I came seven years ago.

Soon, I am off to Turkey. This journey ends when I return to Concord, Massachusetts on June 12th, but it also continues when I spend two months in New York City starting June 18th.