Oskar(s)

Recent developments in my life:

* watched all six parts of Rocky for the 1st time. 1st and 2nd movie are great, 3rd is just about average, 4th and 5th are awful, 6th is okay.

* watched a LOT of other movies. Wolfman was bland, cried all through Dear John in spite of its many flaws, Schindler's List deserved all the awards it got, Savage Grace is as disturbing and good as I thought, Novecento is something astounding, Precious was a breath of fresh air, Kinsey was something revolutionary and great and just very much fun to watch despite its non-comedic realisation, the Red violin and the Shine were very beautiful, An American crime was bordering on too disturbing but nevertheless something unique, Vers le sud was good, Akira kurosawa's Dreams just reminded me of the unique depth old japanese lifestyle has in it and how I miss japanese movies. The Girl with the dragon tattoo bordered just between something great and something we have all seen before, however with a twist, so in the end it was good after all; Remember me was essentially better than I'd ever hoped, Melissa P. was something typical, nevertheless again with a twist of it's own, which I liked very much; Chloe was quite good in spite of its, again, typical concept; The yellow handkerchief was watchable, bordering on boring. Eddie Redmayne saved it. The Runaways is worth a watch for anyone who thinks anything of Joan Jett.

* read a lot of books, you can catch up with those on my other blog (this is for the estonian people though)

* got obsessed with playing tawla (arabic version of backgammon), although I still need a LOT of practice. But hey, why should I win against someone who has been playing this since 10 years old? Yeah, exactly.

* got back to Marburg

* improved my cooking skills even more

* got some pleasant surprises

* got some difficulties to overcome

* been very much in love


So on the whole, as mentioned in the previous post, it has been a most beautiful life.

Oscar is a good title because my favorite teddy bear is called Oscar, Schindler's, whose life we watched on wide screen yesterday, first name is Oscar and I'm reading Günter Grass' Tin Drum, whose protagonist is also called Oscar.


I will probably and hopefully be traveling some more this year, but the magical tin clump was right when it transformed into a bird on new year's eve.

Thank you, God! And everyone else I love.

Ἑλλάς

Dear readers,

please accept my sincerest apologies regarding the longitude of my recent absence. I can only excuse myself with the fact that... it has been a most beautiful life. :)

First and foremost, let me take you back a few weeks and share with you my experiences of a lovely trip through Europe with short stops in some capitals and a culmination in the beautiful country that is called Greece.


Budapest
Prague and Budapest are the only two capitals left in Europe I have seriously been aching to visit. A pleasant surprise on our trip was the suddenly offered possibility of a late-night boat ride on the Donau and a small tour in Budapest. We got a glance of the city by night in artificial light but already the architectural beauty and smell of the water made a bit of magic with me as I now am determined to go there next year, as soon as it gets a bit warmer again. Naught shall stop me!

Budapest at night was beautiful, I am looking forward to Budapest at daytime.

Belgrad
Belgrad, or Beograd, as most of Europe calls the capital of Serbia, was a strongly contrasting experience, compared to Budapest. Obviously a poor country, although mother to Goran Bregovic, Serbia from my perspective only has architectural grey-clad sadness and people with fake gold chains to offer. As we also spent a minimal amount of time there, if life takes me to Serbia, I shall gladly inspect further and focus on other, smaller areas as I suspect the small towns will be something completely different. But so far no pleasant experiences in Beograd.
Although I got some interesting pictures to add to my new obsession picture series: people at traffic lights.

The lovely silhouette of Beograd.

Olympic Beach and Paralia
We arrived in Greece at 5:22 in the morning so the natural way of action was to get the amount of rest human bodies supposedly need from the beach, lying in the sand. Our hotel room - the name of our house was Penelope (Wife of Odysseus) - was lovely, but with the Mediterranean sea 100 meters away there wasn't much to appeal to me in the horizontal position. So off I went to the beach to enjoy the wonderful sunrise and wonderful view of Mount Olympus, home of the gods. Apparently Zeus was in a good mood that day because I found a woman taking pictures with a very good camera, so I annoyed her to photograph me a bit, as I know that people like that will make an effort to take a good picture of a complete stranger (my camera is average but I count myself as one of these people).
Other than that, Olympic Beach or Ολυμπιακή Ακτή is a small village near Thessaloniki with the most wonderful people. I truly enjoyed the beach, the restaurants, the talks with the shopkeepers and the chance to just be one of many tiny grains of sand on a beach in a beautiful country.
Of course I also enjoyed the very good Greek wine and beer, both of which I can only recommend. (I remain very impartial about the Ouzo, though.)
There I also gathered some first impressions about the Greeks - they enjoy good food and drinks as everyone should, eat a lot of garlic, lemon and olive oil as most Mediterraneans, love to talk about themselves and about their country, are very charming towards you and seem sincere - this is a difference to the Italians I met, who were just too sleazy to stay sweet.
They also have a temper and love to argue, as I discovered later, among other things.
I also discovered that roasted maize is delicious. Yum in Paralia!

The lovely lady who captured me in the sunrise.

Mount Olymp, seen from somewhere between Paralia and Olympiaki Akti. Beautiful!

Me and mum with somewhat of a view to Mount Olymp

Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki is the second largest city in Greece and has an important port with a central position for the Mediterranean area. It also has some lovely architecture and nice little souvenir shops, with the endless opportunity to walk along the seaside. Furthermore, it has little coffee shops with people sitting outside and playing tawla, and parks with men sitting and discussing matters of the world.
This city has almost a million residents, however it didn't strike me with its vast dimensions or majestic appearance. It seemed quite a homey place to reside in. However, we didn't stay for long.

Orthodox church guys! A rare, but present sight in Tartu, but very typical in any corner of Greece.

As I said - discussing passionately matters of the utmost importance. Unfortunately I had no chance to photograph the tawla-players, but their presence is felt.

Meteora
The monasteries of Meteora are an ancient organism and the second largest complex of eastern orthodox monasteries in Greece. Meteora means suspended in the air and that is what they are - six monasteries built on huge rock pillars. The monks used to get themselves and other people and goods up by using a tiny rope basket, which we saw still hanging on the wall, and - man, those monks were some tough people! I would probably wet myself if I had to ride up the mountain in that tiny basket.
In any case, I found something very special in those monasteries, and the view is amazing. As we were the first people to arrive that morning, we got the privilege of quiet and the best light of the day to marvel at the monasteries.
A beautiful experience. What amazing things there are in the world, that both nature and human have made!

Now remember kids, Meteora is a holy place! Ticket to the Great Meteoron.

Meteora monasteries

Delphi
Mount Parnassus itself offers a beautiful view when climbing up to Delphi. You can see the theater, the stadium, the place of the omphalos, the so-believed navel of the world in old times. And the locusts just keep on buzzing everywhere around you.
However, for some reason, this ruin didn't really impress me with any kind of special notion or tingling - to be at the once navel of the world is truly something, but I kept thinking of my walks through Pompeii.

Delphi and mount Parnassus

Athens
Athens has something for everyone: for the culturally interested there are piles and piles of ancient ruins to walk through and ogle at, for the thrill-seekers there is the neighborhood where our hotel was located. Every time we parted from or returned to it, we saw Your Daily Friendly Neighborhood Drug Addicts wasting away, almost passed out on the stairs two houses on from our hotel entrance. Now isn't that a lovely sight!
Later I learned that the Omonia square, once the place for all the cool cats to go to have a drink and some more, has now basically turned into Africa because it is filled with immigrants, colored dark and darker. While I have no problem with people of any skin tone or origin, these were a specifically annoying kind: you walk through Omonia square at daytime - they annoy you with stupid souvenirs to buy. You walk through Omonia square at night - they have suddenly spread on their tables (which previously harbored toys and t-shirts) an impressive variety of adult movies! Although this makes me laugh as I also have no problem with visual arts of the exhibitionist kind, I have never made such an experience.
Some important places like the Parthenon or the temple of Zeus just impressed me with their massiveness, as some places like our "friendly" neighborhood endeared me to stay far, far away from them. However, I think Athens is an amazing city and as their university, academy and library are beautiful, oh so beautiful buildings, I would have no problem with studying in this interesting and ambivalent place.
For shopaholics of all sorts, there is the flea market, where I got myself some superfly headgear. However, do not be fooled with the term flea market - small shops sell exclusive merch for exclusive prices. The jewelry is b e a u t i f u l, though. If for anything, I would go back to these shops to buy 10 pairs of earrings.
And the food, the food... we thought Athens would be very expensive compared to the smaller towns and villages and prepared to devour a humble menu while staying in the Greek capital, but as a pleasant surprise the difference was fairly tolerable and we enjoyed Moussaka here and Moussaka there. Moussaka is delicious, by the way, although the general concept of it still has me confused.
One of the places in all Greece which left a deep mark in me was Socrates' prison. I found it very sad that our tour guide had to explain many times to everyone who exactly Socrates was and what he did wrong. Well, I certainly don't know all the leading names in... erm, Chemistry, so who am I to judge. But still.. I got my biggest fix of old times' savor from that small cell.
Athens will remain a city of awesome experiences because here I saw an agave plant for the first time, and from agave plants they make tequila! Whoever they are, Tequila is a great choice of drink and I felt very happy standing next to this giant bush. So thank you, Greece.

Agave plant, you are my friend! Although you look like a giant tentacle monster, I trust you, because your juice is my drug.

The Parthenon. Mostly big piles of stone, but still quite epic to experience.

Patra
Patra, another harbor town, led us to the boat to take us to Italy to start the drive back home. Patra is a small town, however has a university and seemed quite friendly to us, never mind those large numbers of unfriendly looking gangs of guys luring around at the seaside. We had our nice walk and boarded a ship called Sophocles V.


Sophocles' inhabitants treated me to some whiskey and then I found out the core characteristic of the Greek man: he loves to talk and let listen. So, no thank you, Greek men are not for me, at least if they work on boats. They do love their country, though, that is sweet.

As it was a bus trip, they tried to make our lives interesting buy taking us to some more European capitals during our trip back. So I got the lovely opportunity to visit Vienna for the fourth time, and this time we just sought out a small nice cafè called Bohéme and enjoyed some delicious Strudel and coffee.
Vienna is an old city with history, tradition, a certain flair of royalty and beauty. But for me the only reason to go to Vienna yet again would be a tiny statue of an elephant, recently placed next to Maria Theresia, in front of the museum for natural history. The cutest sculpture I have ever seen!

He is the symbol of my new found love for Vienna.

We also saw Warsaw, which is a not at all impressive city and just spreads some gray eastern European flare as Narva in Estonia would do. However this is not surprising, because 85% of this city was destroyed during the wars and, well, after them economy was not so good in the eastern part of Europe, to put it nicely.
Poland's beauty lies in it's country side, smaller towns and indeed, it's people. Do go to Poland, but not with an emphasis on Warsaw.

This old man is walking down "Solidarnošci" street. Polish history, anyone? :)

On the whole I got some interesting experiences, saw some beautiful places, managed to stay without a tan and caught up on my reading during the days in the bus.
I would most certainly go to Greece again as the people are friendly and local people mostly educated (a shopkeeper from whom I bought a vase, told me very casually she speaks five languages, which is "not much, but enough for business". I was mortified, so far I had considered the fact that I speak four quite special).

A

I have never felt thunder
And lighting like this
I have never been struck by
A wonder like this


Ich kenne nichts
Ich kenne nichts
das so schön ist wie Du

lol

snippet from the movie Dangerous Beauty.

"Mother, we cant go in there!"
-"Ladies cant. Courtisans can!"


This being a dialogue between two women standing at the entrance of a vast home library.

Oh well, Venice in the 16th century, what can you do.

p

I love love love Facebook! I found my high school philosophy teacher on there, whom I always met on the town when I was running somewhere.

Other than that today was a worst-case scenario of verbal diarrhea for me, since I snapped at everyone who did something wrong in my eyes.

But really, people in Estonia are not that friendly and only out to get some while giving none.
At least today.


I miss my friends. They should arrange their lives around me and be in Tartu at the same time than me.
Nah, just kidding.
As long as they send me something pretty from time to time, all good.

Loveya.



Oh yeah, and Greece was nice. Pictures soon.