When we last met our hero...

When I last updated, I was in the artsy world of Madrid. Nowadays I'm in Athens, but I shall retrace my journey a bit, with pictures.

I'll start with Barcelona, even though I've talked about that a bit, because I need to post some pictures from there. It's a beautiful city, very lively with art and what not. The most interesting part is probably La Rambla, which is the main shopping/cultural street. You can find anything there that you'd find in Barcelona, including live animals.

I've already gone into detail about the art I've seen lately, but the most unique work of art in Barcelona was Gaudi's Parc Guell. It was full of really random things.

Anyways, as I said I took the AVE train to Madrid after a few days of Barcelona beauty, and I got to see the beautiful Spanish countryside.

Madrid is a different kind of city from Barcelona. It's more like London. There are lots of things to do in Madrid, but it's less about the character and more about the power of the place. I had a great time there, but it's less unique. However, unlike in Barcelona, they actually speak Spanish (Barcelona speaks Catalan, which is quite different) and I was able to manage a lot more there.

The first places I went to were the Botanical Gardens and El Prado. Since I've already discussed El Prado, I'll describe the Botanical Gardens a bit. In spite of the cold, and in spite of the fact that it was a day away from snow, most of the garden was green. I know they were mostly evergreens, but it was kind of beautiful.

I know the picture's crooked, but you get the idea.

The other main photogenic area of Madrid that I got pictures from was Parque de Buen Retiro, a beautiful and gigantic park near the museums. Everything in Madrid is rather close together; it's nice. But yeah, the first time I went to this park (I went twice, it was too pretty), it was snowing. And it snowed a lot. The entire park was covered in a layer of snow/ice/sleet that was extremely slippery. And I went twice.

Like I said, the park was lovely. Madrid was a very nice place. Spain in general was awesome. The food, the culture, everything.

After Spain, I took a flight from Madrid to Mallorca, and then a flight from Mallorca to Copenhagen, where my friend Eirik lives. I've always wanted to go to Scandinavia, and Denmark was a fantastic start.

Most of the places I've been to like to overwhelm you, but Copenhagen's not that kind of a city. It's large, it's beautiful, and it's cold, but it's got a great charm. The town within a town, Christiania, is still the most unique place I've ever been. It's a society independent of society. Unfortunately, this counter-counter-counter-culture area doesn't allow photography. Instead, I'll show you what everyone goes to Copenhagen to see:

Yes, she's there. Although she's not easy to find. Eirik gave me some directions to it and I found the general area, but it took me about 40 minutes to find that tiny statue. Still, it's a very peaceful place.

After seeing Eirik in Copenhagen, I flew to Istanbul to meet up with my former roommate, Vefik. Vefik lives in Ankara, but he encouraged me to meet him in Istanbul. Turkey is another world for me. It's easily the furthest from home I've ever been. Hell, most of it's in Asia, which is completely foreign (relatively speaking, I'm the true foreigner wherever I am) to me. But yeah, Istanbul is awesome.

We stayed near Taksim Square, one of the major hubs of the gigantic city. It's huge, and usually quite crowded. Istanbul in general can be described by that sentence. Take, for instance, the Blue Mosque.

It's from the 1500s, and it's so different from the rest of Europe in that it's a MOSQUE. But yeah, the architecture in Istanbul comes from all over. It's one of the oldest cities of all time (used to be Constantinople), and a lot of its architecture predates that of Europe. For instance, the Hagia Sophia:

This building was originally a church, before churches were supposed to look like cathedrals. It's older than most West Virginians (I said MOST). When the Ottomans took over, they painted over all the Christian images and turned it into a mosque, and most Turkish mosques are modeled after this one. When Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, secularized the country, he turned it into a museum. They recovered some of the ancient Christian art (the paint preserved it quite well), so half of it's a mosque and half of it's a church. It's insane.

We also did the Basilica Cistern, which was a beautiful underground water reservoir. It had an old statue of Medusa. The place in general was creepy as hell. Vefik was really creeped out by it. We also had a lot of really good Turkish food, and for an hour or so we went to the Asian side of the city. Oh, and the Grand Bazaar was ridiculous.

(not in Asia)

But yeah, with Copenhagen and Istanbul I had great people with me. Vefik and Eirik are incredible awesome for all the help they gave me. It's been so weird travelling by myself, and they made it awesome while they were with me.

And so after getting used to having a travel companion, I set off to do Greece on my own. Given all that's been going on here lately, I was a little bit nervous about being in Athens alone. But as long as you stay in the tourism areas, it's fairly safe. I'm still being very careful.

After the awesomeness of Turkey, I wondered what their Greek rivals would have for me. The answer: more awesomeness (I'm a great wordsmith, I know).

Yesterday, I attempted to go to the Acropolis (and the Parthenon and all that), but they recommended that I come back today because it was free. So I walked up the Hill of the Muses instead.

Today I went to the Acropolis, the Parthenon, Ancient Agora, the Temple of Zeus (and other ancient things in the vicinity) and then the old Olympic Stadium used in the 1896 Olympics.

The Parthenon is being reconstructed again, so there was a lot of scaffolding around. The museum was also not reopened yet. Still, it was amazing.

This was in Ancient Agora. It was built sometime around 400 BC, and it's one of the best preserved temples of its kind. It's for Hephaistos.

This is the Hadrian Arch, which was built as a border for Athens. Now it's in the middle of a modern looking street.

I'm a big mythology buff, so this place brought a lot of that back. When I was in Junior High, I loved reading the Iliad and the Odyssey. Seeing where those gods were actually celebrated is unbelievably freaking cool.

The highlight for some reason was the Temple of Zeus. I was able to get this picture by asking some German tourists. That's the Temple of the Olympian Zeus, with the Parthenon on the hill behind it and the Hadrian Arch slightly hidden.

After all the mythology, I headed over to another side of town taking the train to the site of the first modern olympics. It's a still functioning stadium, and although I'm not a sports fan, I can appreciate it. The only thing that's weird about it is that there's nothing there. No museum that I could find, just a few statues.

So yeah, this has obviously been an amazing trip so far. One more full day in Greece, and then I move on.