Athens, Greece - Summer 2012

When I first arrived in Athens, a man asked me where I was from.  When I said New York, he said "Well, New York might be the center of the universe now, but Athens was the center of the universe many years ago."  That framed my visit.  Interspersed with modern day Greece are stories of so many waves of history: the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire...  Christianity vs Islam.  It was all very powerful.  There is something so inspiring about standing on such historical ground and listening to the stories that are told in a matter of fact sort of way but capture important historical moments.  Plus in Athens history continues to be excavated.  

But Athens is also very much a living city.  As an avid, street art explorer, I was thrilled to see a vibrant colorful canvas.  Click here to see my Athens Street Art online album.  I also just enjoyed being with the direct and hard working Greeks who are slogging through this hard economic time, doing the best they can.  Greece is the center of the EU crisis these days, and getting personal insights adds depth to all the headlines in the beautiful way only first hand travel can.

Photos from Greece

Click here to see my photos from Greece

Athens Street Art

 

Click here to see more Athens street art

Journeys in America: Utah

A mural of pioneers in the state capitol building

Utah?  You might be asking why?  Well, as much as I love going way off the beaten path as much as possible, I have also made a pledge to be sure to mix in trips to other parts of America along the way.  When I travel its hard to really understand the cultures I roam through.  There are language barriers and different histories and as a foreigner passing through I'm just never going to really see all the nuances. But all the travel really has refined the way I look at things and what I see.  With that wiser lens I find it interesting to travel around America, a place I should be able to understand a little better.  The world's differences make me more and more interested in what it means to be "American."  Where did that myth come from and who lives it in what way, what motivates them and what history defines them.

Visiting the Site of the 2002 Winter Olympics

Lately I have Olympic fever.  Walking through Beijing's Olympic Park last year filled me with the energy of the worldwide games and gave me the desire to learn more about what it takes to be an Olympic athlete, so a visit to Park City, Utah gave me the perfect chance.  Utah was the host of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Park City hosted the skiing, bobsled, luge and a few other events.  Now the site is a training facility where world class athletes train for future contests.  It also hosts international competitions every February. 

The most interesting thing I saw is that somehow even in the summer downhill skiers and ski jumpers can train at the facility.  Instead of snow covered slopes they speed down misted slopes and land in a big pool or just glide to a stop on the big slopes.  They wear their regular outfits and come out of the pool dripping in their big ski boots.

The young athletes also can go to high school there over the summer and meet their educational requirements so that they can travel the world and compete during the winter.

While I was there I got to watch the US Olympic Team practice. We were told it was one of only 14 facilities in the world and that athletes from far off places like Australia, South Korea, Jamaica and more also train here.

Photos from Utah

Click here for the full online photo album

Guatemala - April 2012

Outside Santo Tomas Church in Chichicastenengo, Guatemala

Revisiting Guatemala 21 Years Later

Posters on the Guatemala City walls are reminder of those who "disappeared" during the civil war

Going back to Guatemala 21 years after my first visit brought back a lot of memories.

In 1991, me, a college student specializing in Central American human rights, went off to study Spanish in language school in Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala's 2nd largest city.  At that time the country was deep in an ongoing civil way that began in 1960 and tore the country apart with opposition guerrilla fighters trying to take down a brutal military regime. Death squads killed "more than 200,000 people died and nearly 50,000 went missing." (pri.org)  After having visited 6 months before Nicaragua and seeing their post-revolutionary society I had studied so much, I once again realized how much one can learn first hand in travel and headed to this other country that I was also learning so much about.

Ornate churches speckle the streets of Antigua, one of Guatemala's colonial capitols.

Semana Santa in Guatemala

Processions went from early mornings and to at night.

This year I decided to celebrate holy week in a totally different way.  I left Easter bunnies and baskets behind and headed to Guatemala where deep Catholic traditions reign and big festivities commemorate the significant events of the week.      

         

In Antigua, the well preserved colonial capitol, the week is filled with large religious processions.  Different churches and their congregations carry floats and effigies of Jesus, Mary and other saints through the streets.  1000s participate in each and walk for hours as they wind through all the streets.  Multiple processions happen each day.

The main floats weigh up to 7000 pounds

I had no idea what to expect and frankly am still overwhelmed by the grandeur of it all.  

In some processions, people act out the important scenes and on the first day, we arrived just in time to watch an elaborate reenactment of Jesus getting sentenced to death.  It was a pretty dramatic start and made me relive the other steps along Jesus' route to crucifixion and resurrection in a way I never have before in years of Easters in the US.

Christ has risen!

I woke up on Easter Sunday to the sound of church bells and anxiously waited for the Easter procession where a risen and glowing Christ would be paraded through the crowd as if he was really alive.  That procession did not disappoint.  Jesus was guided by brightly dressed kings and shepherds and a cheering crowd greeted them along the way.  Jesus was followed by a happy marching band that filled the air with joyous music which was a nice change from the somber marching music that accompanied processions on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

Saw dust carpets like this covered the streets

Alfombras (carpets)

  

One component of the celebration that is different from anything I have ever seen before was the alfombras or carpets that local people make for the processions to walk on.  These carpets are made of colored saw dust or pine needles and covered with flowers, fruits and vegetables.  The patterns are elaborate and communities plan the designs throughout the year and get together to create the carpets in the 12 hours before a procession passes through. Some of them line full streets.  Many have religious designs.  All are colorful and a feast for the eyes and give tourists a locals a reason to wind through the streets all day every day and see what is being created.  It’s incredible to see the amount of work these temporary gifts to Jesus take to make and then to watch them get walked over in the processions and quickly swept up by the sanitation crew at the end of the procession.  I worked on one and felt proud to see it finished and pained to see it stomped on.

I kept thinking someone should start art festival in New York where people created sawdust carpets like these.  The art work was amazing in Guatemala so I can only imagine the creative ways my favorite New York street artists would design.

At the end of Semana Santa, I left Guatemala with the desire to learn more about these celebrations that exist all over Latin American and Spain.  Maybe my new Easter tradition will be following religious processions, wherever I can find them?

Photos from Guatemala

Click HERE for a Slideshow of my photos of Guatemala

One of the religious processions in Antigua during Semana Santa

The Singapore Zoo

I don't get to go to Madagascar this year but I did get to meet some lemurs

While I was in Singapore I got to visit the zoo.  Its a pretty incredible place all around.  They have managed to take down many of the usual fences that separate visitors from the animals so people can get really close to some of the animals.  This lemur was in the rainforest section.  He is used to being surrounded by humans and pretty much ignored me and let me look him right in the eyes from a few inches away.  Amazing!  Just amazing!

Photos from Singapore

Scenes of Singapore

On the way home from Indonesia, I decided to stop over for a few days and experience Singapore.  

Click here to see my online photo album

Link to my Indonesia online photos

Click here for the link to my Indonesia Photo Album. 

A Short Indonesia Tutorial

I figure you all know about as much about Indonesia as I did before I left so I'm starting this off with a few basic details.

Indonesia is:

- the world's 4th most populous nation with 238 million people.

- the largest Islamic nation where 86% of its population is Muslim, though Christianity still has a strong hold on some of the islands that were colonized by the Dutch and Portuguese in the height of the spice trade.  Also Bali, the most popular tourist destination in the country, practices Hinduism.

- made up of over 17,000 islands, about 6,000 of which are inhabited.  As one flies over Indonesia's waterways, you look down and see speckled below lovely little spots of land wrapped with white white sand and a ring of deep blue water and dream about tropical paradise.  I visited Java, the central island, where over half of Indonesians live.  It’s the world's most densely populated island.  I also went to Sulawesi, Bali, Lombok and the Gili Islands. (Before I went everyone would ask, which islands I was going to and the question would seem overwhelming, but after a trip there the main islands roll off your tongue easily. One of my favorite outcomes of travel is the way the unusual becomes usual and then I can read and understand places and things so much better when I return home.)

- located, in simple terms, below South East Asia and above Australia, along the Equator.

Memories of Indonesia

Now that I have traveled to so many places, its hard to wow me.  Instead I try to enjoy the simple pleasures and slower paces of places.  In Indonesia, that means:

-hearing Islamic call to prayer echoing from multiple mosques over ripe lush green rice fields in Lombok as the sun sets

-seeing how coffee, cashews and cocoa are harvested in different villages sprinkled among other crops, trees and houses at different climates and altitudes than I've seen before

In Bali there are many little Hindu temples where people leave daily offerings to a variety of deities

In every village in Bali, there are several temples and at least one small one in each home. Most of these temples are shrines and might not be regarded as actual temples, but the number of walled compounds are believed to reach to a total of 10,000.  As you walk around you can enter the temples and admire the carvings and characters.

The Beaches of Bali and Lombok

The beach at Gili Air

Sorry for the lack of updates or blog posts.  Honestly I'm not sure what to write.  It seems like bragging to say I spent this morning by a lovely pool after a breakfast of fresh juice and fruit and then had fresh seafood on the beach for lunch while watching fisherman bring in their catch.

Bali is lovely.  I'm not sure it is an untouched as I may have thought before.  There are plenty of tourists and hotels...  but the beach I just visited, Sanur, is smartly developed with a brick walkway all the way up the coast for perfect morning walks and enough, but not too many, bars along the way to get fresh juice or a Bintang depending the time of day.

Feeling like a Superstar in Indonesia

My white face sticks out in many of the places I travel to, but something special happens in Indonesia.  I was warned ahead of time but it happened even more than I suspected.  What, you ask? I was made feel like a glamorous beautiful superstar!  Yes, on a recent trip to Borobudur, a soaring ancient Buddhist temple I was constantly asked to be in photos.

I think the bombardment is more here because it seems like Indonesia has a swelling middle class and with that many many more people with cameras who want my moviestar like mug on them.

All I can say it is was loads of fun and now that I have reached touristy Bali where I am just another common looking face, I miss it.