Places on my list

Last time in English class we were ask to write at least two travel related blog posts over Christmas-break and it was suggested we should get creative and maybe blog about places we haven't been to yet and would like to visit. So this is what I' doing now, a list of places I really want to visit, of course it's just a small selection of them because the world is big and I love to travel but these are the top ones on my list:

Los Angeles and the rest of California

This is a trip I have been procrastinating for so long now.. The reason is that L.A. is somewhat intimidating and by that I mean transport. This city consists out of many towns who were merged together into the greater Los Angeles area. Also public transport is not developed very well and you definitely need a car if you go there. I wanna do the typical tourist things there, like Hollywood, the Getty Center, Venice beach, Griffith observatory and so on. Later on I also want to visit other places in California such as San Diego which is said to be the nicest city in the U.S. And drive up the coast-line to San Francisco.

Los Angeles

San Diego

Tehran

While what we mostly get about the Iranian Capital in the media is negative I believe there is more to it. I have been watching some documentaries about Tehran and this city somehow fascinates me. Not only I'm fascinated by Oriental culture and architecture Tehran also seems to be a modern vibrant City that is much more peaceful than it is presented to us in the West. I really wanna go there someday because it looks beautiful and exciting.

Tehran

Athens

I only have been to Athens once for some hours to see Syntagma Square and the Acropolis (I blogged about it in a previous post). Greece is one of my favorite countries to go in Europe. I like going to southern Europe in general and while western countries like Spain are just as beautiful, especially the south with the Arabic influenced architecture, the south east is what I like most. Athens is the biggest city in the Balkans that offers a lot of culture and history, seeing as Greece is such an important country historically. I'm actually just about to book a flight there.

Athens

Panama-City

I've heard a lots of great things about Panama from people who were there and the capital with it's impressive skyline is something I really wanna see someday.

Panama- City

                               

Vlorë and Tiranë

I know Albania is usually not the place that comes to most people's minds when they think of a vacation but if we are honest most people don't know much about this country. But maybe this is going to change in some years. The country advertises itself as “a new Mediterranean love” and Europe's last hidden treasure. And especially the South has great touristic potential. What many people don't know is that the Albanian riviera is actually pretty nice. While the beaches in the North such as Durrës are overcrowded and not that good the ones in the south like in Vlorë and Dhërmi offer you white sand and bright blue water. Tirana on the other hand is just my personal interest because I'm learning the language am interested in the Balkans.

Beach in Vlorë

Tirana

Dubai

A place I also wanna see anytime soon to see this almost unrealistic splendid world

Dubai

Communication problems in the suburbs of Dublin

During our junior year my class and I went on a language trip to Ireland. We stayed there for two weeks,

Dun Laoghaire

which were 10 days in Dublin and the rest going to Galway a town on the west coast where we got to see some of the beautiful nature the Emerald Island has to offer, such as the Cliffs of Moher for example. We were all placed as a pair of two in host families in the Dublinian (in lack of a better adjective) suburb of Dun Laoghaire.

While Dun Laoghaire is a nice little town only 15 minutes away from Dublin by train it was a little bit boring, since all it had to offer was a small mall and a McDonald's which most of us went to to meet up. It didn't really matter though since our teachers made sure we were entertained most of the time. Before noon we had English classes at the local language school which I personally didn't find very helpful since we only learned stuff we had already done in school years before. After school our Austrian teacher would take us to Dublin for some sightseeing or hiking or the beach.

What I found most challenging about our stay there was the Irish English. I don't know if this applies for the rest of the town or if our host family was originally from Dublin but they sported a thick dialect that was almost unintelligible to me. While in America or England I never had problems, communication with them was kind of hard. There are some phrases of the things stuck in my memory because our host mother had to repeat them at least three times until I finally got it. For instance she always said “hosh” instead of “hot” and her question if we were going back out sounded something like “ ah yoush going back awt?”. While for the first few days you felt like a complete failure at English for having her repeat everything three times you get used to it and start figuring out what they were talking about. And this is what I would have liked to work on in that language school there. Dialect and differences to British and American English and also learn something about the Irish language Gaelic. Although we touched on the topic Gaelic language in one of our lessons I think the only thing we learned was “Pog mo thoin” which is kiss my ass and can be found on various t-shirts that they sell to tourists in Dublin. Dublin itself was a nice city, it reminded me a little of Graz just a little bigger. The only strange thing we saw there was that many people “walked” their children on a leash which was a bit disturbing but yeah.

Overall staying in Ireland was a fun challenge for my English as well as a great experience and although there are place more interesting for me personally I'm glad I got a chance to visit

The Dutch Caribbean

Sunset at the Marriott beach resort

When hearing Caribbean most people might think of Islands like the Dominican Republic or Trinidad, small wonder since they are the most touristic ones and surely worth a visit. But touristic often comes with mass tourism which might ruins you picture of lying on an unspoiled beach in paradise. You might want to give the not so popular Islands a shot when you are visiting the next time, and let me tell you you don't have to go to over the top exclusive places like Mystique or St. Barths for the real Caribbean experience. Last year I visited Curacao a part of the so-called ABC Islands which consists of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao and make the most Southern part of the Dutch Caribbean. Until October 2010 these three Islands were administered as Dutch territory within the former Netherlands Antilles, but since then it's a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. They accept Dollars but you are better off if you pay in the local currency “Antilles gilders” because they charge you way more for dollars

So since this Island lies a little off the beaten track near the Venezuelan coast it's often forgotten but there lots advantages it has to offer, some of them being:

• It's outside the Hurricane-belt so you don't have to worry about the weather.
• It's easy to reach from Europe, Air Berlin has flights there every Tuesday and KLM also flies out frequently
• It's less crowded than other Islands, most tourists come from the Netherlands or the US
• It has it's own special Vegetation, a lot of parts of the Island are desert-like
  
  

  

  
  

  The biggest ethnic groups of the country are Afro-Caribbean people and Dutch due to it's connection to the Netherlands. Official languages is are Dutch, Papiamentu and English. Papiamentu is a Creole language and I found it to be very interesting since it's a mix of Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish. The people there are the nicest and will help you however they can. Like we once got lost by car and as we stopped to study the map a man stopped by and asked if we needed any help. We told him where we wanted to go and he drove all the way with us to show us. People will start having random conversions with you while you are waiting for your coffee at the coffee-shop which is a great way to get to know the culture and the service is excellent anyway. In my post about Rome I have been ranting about the worst hotel I've ever been, well the best so far was actually the Marriott Resort in Curacao which is the perfect choice for your stay there. It lies just 10 car-minutes away from the Capital, so it's not too secluded but still offers one of the nicest private beaches on the Island. I can only recommend.

Here I have summed up the tops things to do and see in Curacao:

1. Blue-bay beach: This was without a doubt the most amazing beach. It lies within a gated community, but you can get in with an ID and a 7$ fee for the lounge chairs. This is just exactly how you imagine a beach in the Caribbean. White sand, crystal clear turquoise water and a lounge chair in the shadows of the palm trees.

   

   Blue-bay beach
2. Willemstad: The Islands Capital looks a lot like Amsterdam just more colorful. It consists of the two parts Otrabanda and Punda which are divided by the natural harbor and connected via the Queen Emma bridge for pedestrians and the Queen Juliana bridge for cars.
   While Otrabanda offers you a range of art exhibitions and shops, Punda houses the market and those colorful houses that remind you of Amsterdam.
   
   

    

   Punda

   

   Art in Otrabanda

   
   

   

   Willemstadt by night

   
   
3. Diner at the market: Willemstad is famous for it's floating market, a place where mongers, mainly from Venezuela sale their goods such as fish directly from their boats. There is also a big market hall where locals prepare traditional specialties on charcoal grills, a good possibility to get a delicious and authentic meal for reasonable prices.
   
   
   
4. Curacao Sea-Aquarium: Good to go there with kids. Watch a walrus pull of a show, see the Dolphins doing ticks with their trainers or even pet a shark.
   
   
   
5. Fishalicious: A small restaurant in Punda run by Dutch people. They offer the best seafood in town. It's a little pricey but worth it! One of the best restaurants I have been so far. Try their fish-soup

   

   Fishalicious Seafood and more

   
   
6. Grote knip: The grote knip also called Playa Abou in Papiamentu which means “beach in the valley” lies in the North-west of the Island. The beach itself is not that great and even a little dirty. But the water there was the nicest and most turquoise. It's also good for snorkeling because there is a coral reef nearby.

   

   Grote Knip

   
   
7. Curacao Liquor distillery: Yes the blue liquor gets it's name from this Island. The factory lies a little outside Willemstad and you can visit it to see how the liquor is produced, what it consists of and also learn it's history. Really fun!

   

   From fruit to liquor

Of course there are many more things to do and see in Curacao but these were my favorites. So all in one if you are looking for for an authentic Caribbean experience with nice people and delicious food as well as a relaxing vacation Curacao is the way to go. Oh and you shouldnt be afraid of this little guy, Iguanas are found all over the Island and some of them are not very shy ;)

The Trail of tears

We are currently talking about American culture and history in English class and each one of us was assigned to prepare a topic and present it in class. I got a dark part of American history, the so called Trail of Tears and thought I would share this part of history with you.

Trail of tears refers to the Native American's journey to the West of Mississippi river as well as the act of the Native tribe's removal from the South East to today's Oklahoma in general. First policies to remove Indians from their land were developed in 1803 after the purchase of Louisiana (now they had the space to just send the Indians west) under President Jefferson as the white settlers desired their prosperous land to raise cotton on it. They also believed that Indians should be civilized, which meant converting them to Christianity and turning them into farmers.The Natives tried to assimilate themselves into the white people's culture to show them they were no savages in hopes that they would let them keep their land but 

in 1830 the Congress passed the “Indian Removal Act”

The new law allowed President Jackson to negotiate treaties with Native tribes under which they had to give up their land east of Mississippi river in exchange for land in the West.

Jackson tried to sell this as an act of grace the the public saying that this would allow to live Indians safe from white harassment and to govern themselves in peace. However in 1830 17.000 Cherokee people where forcibly removed from their homeland and approximately 6000 died on their way to Oklahoma.

The following years many other tribes got their own “Trail of tears” which made the term also a general reference for forced removals of Natives and ethnic cleansing all over the country

Greek food

So I decided to write about food in this post and share one of my favorite recipes with you.

My favorite cuisine has always been Greek. I love the spices they use and especially their casseroles like Moussaka and Pastizio. Last weekend I was craving Greek food and decided to try preparing some on my own. Since Moussaka was way to complicated and time consuming I went for the maybe most famous Greek dish; Souvlaki. First of all: No Souvlaki does NOT have to be served on a skewer. You grill it on one yes, and you can also serve it on one, but other than a lot of people here think it can also be served on a plate or in pita-bread and still be souvlaki, I like it best served in pita-bread with tomatoes, olives and feta. Preparing this dish is easy but you should plan ahead because it takes about two hours for the meat to suck in the marinade before you can grill it, so it's not really fast-food. Here is a recipe I found on the intrnet and always use:

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
• 1 tbsp. dried mint
• 1 tbsp. dried oregano
• 4 cloves of garlic, smashed and minced finely
• 1 bay leaf, crumbled into tiny pieces
• 1 lb. pork shoulder, trimmed of fat and cut into 1 ¼ inch cubes
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Lemon (for serving)
  

Preparation:

In a large non-reactive bowl, whisk the marinade ingredients together. Add the pork cubes, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours.
If using wooden skewers, soak these in a shallow pan filled with water while the meat marinates.
Heat the grill to medium high. Thread the meat on to the skewers (about 6-7 pieces per skewer). Season the pork with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Grill over medium high heat for about 10 minutes, turning occasionally until they are cooked through. Squeeze some fresh lemon juice on the skewers before serving or remove the meat from the skewers and serve it in a pita along with tomatoes, feta, olives and french fries.

New Immigration law leaves the fields emtpy

So today I'm posting about a political issue again, this time in the US. In my English class we were assigned to transcribe a video about American culture. The video I got was about a new Immigration law in the State of Alabama. This new law toughens the rules about social intercourse with undocumented Immigrants as you will hear in the video. What was funny though: As the law was introduced most Immigrants fled to another state and no one was there to work on the fields because Americans didn't want to do it. So it is true Immigrants documented or not are a backbone of the economy and also what makes the US. And if we are all honest to ourselves there are also many jobs that a lot of people here in Austria consider themselves to be too good for too. But it's work that has to be done! So the next time someone whines about Immigrants taking away jobs from us they might want to think about that!

Down here you can see the transcript of the video. There is one part missing tho, because I really could not understand what the second man they interviewed was saying sorry! Also I only did the first part but you can find the second on my classmate Hannah's blog here Hannah's blog

Anchor:Five states have now enacted strict immigration laws, Arizona began to upper last year but since that Utah, Indiana, Georgia and now Alabama have joined the ranks. And It turns out that they are already feeling the pitch. See last week we told you about the Hispanic populations were fleeing from Georgia before this law goes into effect on July 1^st. And farmers instantly found themselves without a work force to pick their crops. (They switch over to a field where a worker comments on the new law)

Hispanic field worker: “ Some of us is going to be on the field, going to spoil. Some people is going to lose a lot of money.

Anchor: Well now Alabama who's law is said to be the strictest in the Nation,they are expecting the same thing.

Speaker: Gathering the things we like on our diner is hot, hard work and somebody has to do it.

Man: Sometimes it's difficult to find local uh folks that are willing to do the some of these jobs.

Speaker: That's what we've found at about half a dozen south Baldwin farms, Immigrant... (switches over to anchor again)

Anchor:Alabama's law criminalizes not only employing undocumented immigrants but also assisting them, providing transportation or housing and renting. But the farms may not be Alabama’s only problem as reconstruction efforts are much needed after tornadoes tore through Tuscaloosa just weeks ago.And out of the kids of this bill said it's meant to put Alabamians back to work but really do that work. Or does this once again show that undocumented immigrants are a backbone of this economy. Here to discuss this with me is immigration attorney Eleanor Pelta with Morgan Lewis and Bockius law firm Thanks so much for being here tonight Eleanor

Pelta: You are welcome

Anchor: So you and I have spoke about some of theses laws before when it first popped up in Arizona and of course there was a lot of debate around the country a lot of people were angry there was a.. you know lot opinions that this is a prejudice law
But now it seems like that fear has actually turned into an action and that populations are fleeing these states, did you expect that to happen?

Pelta: Well I'm not surprised to see it happen particularly in Alabama. Alabama is like Arizona on steroids umm you don't have to look very far to see the venom in that particular law. Umm The law uh prohibits citizens from helping other citizens if they uh reasonably should've known that the other citizens of the state where uh undocumented umm the law requires public officials to report on school children who they think might be illegal, it really is a very vicious piece of legislation.

Anchor:That what I mean it goes is far beyond uh, trying to bring jobs back to Americans and dealing with you know what you could say with what is the undocumented Immigrant problem but the fact that.. that's just inhumane especially in areas like this where are just so many natural
Disasters you can't assist somebody if they might be undocumented

Pelta: I..That's exactly right and I think that what the Alabama law shows is that this is really a civil rights issue it is.. it is not just an immigrants rights issue. It's an issue that has to do with.. uh preserving human rights and human dignity umm I think that's really the Alabama law stripped bare.

Anchor: Well uh otherwise its sounds like it is telling you to let the person just lay there and allow them to die, it's horrible.

Pelta: And his wife and children

Anchor: where are these people going going instead they are fleeing from Georgia they're fleeing from Alabama just other nearby state that haven't enacted any of these measures?

Pelta:Well its hard to know where they're going but I don.. I don't believe that they're going home on Umm they're really just retreating further into the shadows which really doesn't help anyone it doesn't help our economy, it doesn't help us raise wages , it doesn't help people come out of the shadows and pay taxes and contribute to the economy and it really just shows the problem with this kind of state patchwork of laws umm if you have one state in enact one law and another sate enact a different law you are going to have people move from state to state instead of having one unified balance to approach that really kind of deals with the problem in comprehensive way

What NOT to do in Rome

Here is a travel blog again, it's just  what I like to write about most. Before going to Greece this year I spent four days in the Italian Capital. I had already been there four years ago with school, so this time it was fun going without teachers and stroll around the city on our own. While there is a wide range of great activities to do there I thought I would just write down the things you should rather avoid.

1. Go there by bus.
   Going there the first time we took the bus from Graz, it took about 12 hours and was tiring since the driver had to take mandatory breaks and just unnecessary. Flying to Rome is very cheap and convenient. It only takes about an hour, you board, eat your muffin or whatever they serve you and then it's already time to get off again. I don't know the price but I for sure
   did not pay more than 100€ for a flight to Rome and back.
2. Go there in August.
   I personally didn't mind but if you are sensitive to heat you might wanna avoid the hot months of July and August. Especially around 14:00 it can get very hot and just walking becomes a strain. When I was there in May the weather was perfect, way better than in Austria but not too hot, still summer like.
3. Buy water bottles from the kiosk.
   I know those bottles consisting of 70% ice can be way too tempting when you are walking in the heat of the noon but they are completely overpriced so don't let them take you to the cleaners. Buy a water bottle at a grocery store in the morning and then refill it at one of the many fountains in the city. The water is of good quality and for free.
4. Buy goods from the bootleggers or accept flowers
   There are many people over town dealing with fake designer glasses, handbags, belts etc. Those people are always on the run and gone within a second when the carbinieri are insight. A friend of mine once bought a belt for 8€ and paid with a 20€ bill when the police came around the dealer ran off of course without giving him the change. Also don't accept any flowers gypsies offer you especially girls. They first try to make it look like a present but in the End they will run after you and demand money.
5. Stay at the Arenula hotel.
   Ok first of all something good: The location of this hotel was simply perfect. It was a three minutes walk from the Pantheon and you could walk most sights like the Vatican. Vittorio Emanuelle was just around the corner and from there you could walk down the boulevard along Forum Romanum to the Colosseum. But that's it. We booked five days before leaving and very cheap, so you can say I expected nothing but was still disappointed. The rooms were very very basic but that’s something I can live with. What I couldn't live with though were the traces the former guests left in the bathroom.. and with that I mean in the toilet. It was so disgusting we always used the shared bathroom in the hall although we had an own.
   The staff did not mind to clean it for our whole stay. Will not be returning!!
6. Eat somewhere around the Pantheon. The restaurants on this square are very pricey but if you look around you might find one with reasonable prices (there was one on the boulevard to the Colosseum that had a great view and ok prices for the city). You can find a lot of nice and affordable restaurants if you walk a little through the old town in the direction of the Vatican. I recommend the restaurant Sugo at Piazza Nicosia
7. Pay more than 30€ for the cab from the airport
   If your cab driver wants more than 30€ from you for taking you to your hotel from the airport don't pay it. Roman government introduced the rule that all rides from airports to the city cost 30€. I don't think there are many who do so but still better safe than sorry so don't be fooled and maybe even set the price before getting into the car.

Those are my don'ts for a stay in the eternal City I hoped it was informative and interesting!

California-style Pizza

I want to introduce what was my favorite place to eat at when I was on vacation in New York three years ago. First of all New York City has wide range of excellent places for dining in every price class. What I really liked for example where the many Delis scattered around town. Delis are some kind of mix between grocery stores and fast food restaurants which often sell ethno-food depending on the area they are in. I liked the ones focusing on Jewish specialities like Katz' Deli a restaurant on the Lower East Side serving kosher styled food and corned beef sandwiches too big to fit into your mouth. The place is especially famous for being the location of a certain scene from the movie “When Harry met Sally”.

As cool as this place was it was not my favorite. An American friend of mine gave us the tip to pay a visit to the “California Pizza Kitchen” mostly referred to as CPK. So what about this place? CPK is not your normal Italian place serving Magherita and Calzone. They serve California-style pizzas. Which means a thin crust topped off with ingredients of the Californian cuisine. This results in very innovative and for us unusual kinds of pizzas since most restaurants wouldn't put lettuce on their pizzas.

Some examples are the Original BBQ Chicken Pizza the Thai Chicken, and the California club pizza which is my favorite it is topped with chicken, mozarella, bacon, lettuce and avocados. When my cousin went on a Canada/US-East-Coast trip this year I told her to check this place out and she ended up eating there four times. When she came home we even tried to prepare the California Club Pizza at home and it didn't turn out that bad. I'm definitely planning on going to this place again when I'm in the States the next time and can only recommend it!!

Our attempt at a California-Club Pizza

Assads chemical weapons to be brought to Europe for dismantling.

Today I wanna write about a political issue I have been following for the last week now . Everybody

Protests today in Tirana

knows that Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad has agreed to put all chemical weapons in his government's possession under international control. Although it's clear that this is just a tactical move and that he will continue killing his own people anyway it is at least something. But what happens with these lethal weapons after Damascus hands them over? They need to be destroyed of course. And the current number one candidate to do so is the south-eastern European country of Albania. While the Albanian government under newly elected Prime minister Edi Rama tries to sell this undertaking as a NATO request to it's citizens people are mounting the barricades and that with more than one reason. This Tuesday and also today hundreds of people gathered in front of the Parliament in the capital Tirana to protest against this plan.

The first reason for the protests is bad experience with dismantling chemical weapons in the past. I'm referring to the explosions in Gerdëc five years ago where they were destroying obsolete ammunition left over from the communistic regime rule 20 years ago. This all was done by untrained staff without the necessary knowledge. While it was planned to blow the weapons up with small controlled explosion it all (very likely through a human error) blew up at once causing an explosion lasting from 12:05 until 2:00 next night killing 26 people and destroying 318 houses and damaging thousands in the surrounding. The shock could be felt in Tirana as well as in the 170km far away Macedonian capital Skopje. Being one of Europe's poorest countries with big deficits in infrastructure as well as in the medical sector ( most people actually go to Greece to be treated due to the lack of medical stuff and supplies) the severity in case this catastrophe should happen again with Assad's is unbearable. 

The second thing is that Rama outed himself as a hypocrite by offering to have the weapons destroyed in his country. It was his party to organize protests against the government when the 2008 explosions of Gerdëc happened under the rule of Democrat Prime Minister Sali Berisha. 20 years after the overthrow of the communistic Hoxha regime the country is still facing big issues concerning corruption and bribery and it is questionable if the money paid for destroying the Syrian weapons will ever be used for the citizens of this country. Overall you can say that Albania does not have the resources (technical and medical) for this dangerous undertaking and that the payments would only support the corrupted system that is causing this country that strives EU membership so many problems and I hope international rulers will think twice before bringing those weapons to European soils.

Of course the internet has become the biggest tool of protest in this case as usual nowadays. The first link is an open letter to US President Obama by an Albanian citizen and former Georgetown scholar who points the major problems of this topic out pretty well. The second is a petition to avoid the import of the weapons.

http://begaa.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/open-letter-to-obama/

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Peticion_kunder_pranimit_te_armeve_kimike_te_Sirise_nga_Shqiperia_No_to_Assad_Chemical_Weapons_in_Albania/?ayeocgb

Athens for only one night? Why not?

Athens from above

This weekend I met up with a good friend of mine who loves travel just as much as I do but with

completely different opinions about it. While he says if you go outside Europe you should at least take three weeks of time I'm of the opinion you can also make a good trip out of a week. But maybe that's because I like visiting citys and he to travel around the country which of course takes longer.

So this Sunday we came to a point discussing on what too do if you have to wait for hours for your connecting flight. While he said leaving the airport would be too stressful and you can't really see anything I say talking from experience it is the best thing to do.

When I went to Santorini with my cousin this summer we ended up booking really shitty flights because we had to go on a certain date due to work. Our route was Vienna-Zurich-Athens-Santorini. With a six hour wait in Athens..in the middle of the night. Instead of whining about the long waiting I decided to make the best of it and started to plan this six hour stay. Eleftherios is connected to the city via a new metro line, but unfortunately the last metro departs at 10 pm while I got there at 12 am. Searching the internet I found various opinions on how long it would take and how expensive a cab would be so I just decided to not think about it anymore and decide when I was there. When we landed we soon found a cabman, he was currently having a break and showed us where the cabs on duty were and also told us not to pay more than 50€. It was then

Greek Parliament at Sytagma Square

when we noticed a bus that had “Syntagma Square” written on it, Athens' main square and the place we wanted to go and a ticket was only 5€!

I have to say I was kind of nervous when we got on that bus because it was a long ride and I was worrying about being back on time and if there is a bus back. What didn't really help was when I checked my cell and got a text from my Greek girlfriend who lived in Athens for some years that said:” I know there are buses from the airport but they take for ever, better be safe not to miss your flight and stay where you are” , well thanks I'm already on that bus very comforting.

After all the bus ride took an hour and it drove directly to Syntagma Square. It's a big square in the city center housing the Greek Parliament, a park and connected to the main shopping mile. Since shops were closed we just strolled around the square. We even had a nice surprise walking down the street when we turned out heads to the left and got a glimpse the Acropolis something we did not really think we'd get to see. So all in one we had a five hours stay, 2 of them on a bus, one at the airport and two in the city and I can only say it was a fun and exciting experience because driving around town on that bus and walking the the city center although all shops were closed was still better than sitting at the airport for five hours being bored and I would always do it again.

Acropolis

M.I.A.

With the 1^st of this month British recording artist M.I.A. Finally released her fourth studio album

“Matangi”. While she might is not known to a wide audience I'm sure most people have heard her song paper planes that was on Slum-dog millionaire and nominated for an Oscar.

The reason I like her is that her music is not ordinary but very exotic and most of all critical.

Just like in her last albums she addresses social and political injustices.

Mathangi so her real name was born in London to Sri-Lankan parents who moved her back there when she was six months old. Spending the first years of her life in a war torn country and later living as a refugee had a big impact on her today's music. MIA is of Tamil ethnicity, the biggest minority in Sri-Lanka that had been fighting the Sinhalese majority for years in the civil war.

Since she is the only Tamil person in western media she tries to draw attention to the ongoing genocide in Sri-Lanka how she calls it and also addresses other serious topics like the situation of Syrian refugees, women's rights in Arabia and the prey upon the poor by the upper class.

One example for her sense of picking up the right topics is a song she released in 2010 with the lyrics “Handbone connects to the internet connected to the Google connected to the government”
Back then some people might have laughed or said she was being overly dramatic but regarding this whole NSA scandal that is all up in the media lately she wasn't so wrong at all.

While critics may say some of her sociocritical lyrics like “for her Bentley is she riding your dirty dick” are pure hypocrisy since she enjoys several material privileges from her engagement to billionaire heir Benjamin Bronfman, her origins and her father a Tamil freedom fighters leader do give her credibility.

Her music is one of a kind, while she mostly raps, she uses Indian elements which paired with her critical lyrics make her songs really worth giving a try. I have a few clips added here in the End. The first to is an interview where she talks about the problems Tamil people are facing. The other is a music video to her song "Born free" a song about racism which's video had been banned banned because it had visualized the images and consequences of racism too much for some people.

 .

                                                 MIA talking about the war in Sri-Lanka

                                    

Between Shinto shrines and Robot-toilets, my first trip to Japan

Tokyo at night

So as my first post I decided to blog about my trip to Japan last April. I think travel is going to be a big
 part of this blog since it is something I really enjoy doing and writing about. Discovering other cultures and learning new languages is one of my favorite things to do and also made me study translation and interpreting. I study English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian at college and am also learning Albanian for which I want to become an interpreter as well. But enough about that.

After visiting the States and the Caribbean the years before I thought it might be interesting to travel in the other direction this time, Asia that is.

I was playing with the thought of going to Manila and visit my cousin who lives there but decided against it because I only had ten days off and if you are in the Philippines you should take some time to travel around and discover the nature and Islands. So it had to be a city-trip.

Now what comes to your mind when you think of cool Asian mega-city? For me that was Tokyo!

Lucky me a travel partner was easily found since a former classmate of mine had always been very fond of Japanese culture and been talking of wanting to visit this city in like for ever.

Since we already booked in January we got some good offers on flights and a hotel and were ready to go!

Computer or toilet??

With the trip coming closer there was one thing that made me kind of  nervous before leaving: How to get to the city? And how are we supposed to find our hotel?

You keep hearing stereotypes about Japanese people not speaking English and that everything will be signposted in Kanji characters only.. well one of them is going to turn out true, but if you are planing on going to Japan don't ever worry about transport I promise it is the easiest thing ever.

Arriving at the airport we soon found the counter that sells bus tickets to the city. From what I saw on the internet our hotel was close one of the bigger hotels there and opposite of the city hall, a new billion dollar skyscraper that offered a view around the city, couldn’t be too hard to find, right? And lucky us this was one of the stops!

Trying to purchase a ticket I saw myself confronted with a little problem I was going to have this week more than once: the language. Although I think the lady at the counter understood what I wanted it was clear she did not like the fact she had to speak English at all. She was murmuring and I had to ask her three times what the price was but in the End we managed.

As soon as we got out of the airport we realized another huge difference to Europe: unattended bags.

Thefts are very rare in Japan and as we would be going to see soon you don't have to be afraid of pick-pockets. A man just left his whole luggage at the bus stop while going to the restroom. Then one day a woman left her open designer handbag with her wallet and everything in it open in a shop while she went to a fitting room to try on stuff in Harajuku.

I have to say this was a very nice thing, I had always had a backpack with me and not matter how stuffed the metro was I was never even worried about my cell or wallet being stolen.

At the hotel we decided to pay the TMGB ( Tokyo metropolitan Government building) a visit first to have a look of the city from above to actually realize how incredible big this megapolis is. Finding our way and the elevator that takes you up to the platform was easy because they guide you through everything and I mean really everything ( if you don't believe me take a look at the sign at the TMGB restroom).

The view there was breathtaking!

View from the TMGB

It was very different than in America though. If you go up the Empire State building and look down on Manhattan you have the skyscrapers of Midtown then it's getting flatter and then up again in downtown. But since it's an Island it's all very narrow and in a row. Not so in Tokyo. You have this huge area which goes further than the eye can see. There are flatter suburban parts and then the large skyscraper districts shooting up here and there and parks, a lot of parks. Tokyo is a very green city. I experienced the air there nothing to what you would expect from Asia, also there wasn't much traffic.

For those who might wonder how this works

Restrooms in Japan are one of a kind experiences. They have attendants that stand there the whole day and hand people towels and the TMGB offered every kind of toilet from Italian to Japanese. But the funniest was the instruction signs they had there and in general the fact that toilets there are more like computers than sanitary installations. After returning to the hotel we started making plans for the week. I'm only going to write about two sights
we visited because this would get too long and maybe boring though.

The first thing on our list was Harajuku the heartland of Japanese teenage fashion and underground scene. So how do we get there? Finding your way through a city like that can be hard and frustrating but not so in Tokyo! Our neighborhood there was connected via an underground system which was really very helpful. So what we basically did: We went over to that bigger hotel next to us, went down a couple steps and entered the underground and from there everything was signed ALSO in Latin script and you could easily find your way. After following the signs for about 12 minutes we reached Shinjuku station which is actually the busiest train station in the world with an average of 3.64 million people using it per day which is about the whole population of Puerto Rico!!

One thing that was not that easy though: understanding the ticket and price system. It took us some days to figure out how it works: At every station there is a map of the whole metro and the further your destination is the pricier it gets (still cheap compared to Graz especially cnsidering how far and fast you can go.. just saying)s. You buy the ticket at a price appropriate for your destination and at the put it into the slot at the turnstile. It will spit it out again and you take it with you. At your destination the turnstile will know where you entered and if you paid the right price.

But again Japanese people are very honest in that relation, you can actually sneak through easily when there's a lot of people and even if you are seen by securities they won't say anything ( I know because I had to do that once or twice when we still had no idea how it works but maybe that was because they knew we were just mere tourists trying to cope in the big city).

Once you figured out how to get around public transport in Japan is easy and very convenient.

Harajuku was just crazy and amazing at the same time!!

It was just like you would imagine it, very crowded by young people dressed up in the Lolita or punk

Harajuku girls

style. What would have been stared or even laughed at at home was normal here. The girls had big hair, make-up like anime characters and wore everything from Gothic to ballet dresses, hair colors ranged from pink to green and no one wore flat shoes not even the guys. And besides international chains like Zara and H&M you could also find the typical Harajuku underground shops which sell Japanese and international brands. After squeezing ourselves through the incredible crowded streets and shops we decided to have lunch at a Yakiniku restaurant something I had already planned on going at home. Yakiniku is a Japanese barbecue. You get all kinds of meat and the typical Yakiniku sauce and fry it yourself on the table.

This again was an adventure on it's own. Every table had a touchscreen computer that had the menu on it in Japanese but could be switched to English and after you have picked you press a button and the waiter comes to take your order.

Ordering in English sounds great, right? Well the problem was it was “English” and not English. Which means the menu was in Latin script but still in Japanese words.

I decided to have a package; salad, an ice tea and seven pieces of meat to fry.

Our waiter was pretty young so I had some hope he might speaks some English but also here: Wrong!

His English was even worse than the ladies at the airport. Being brave I just pointed at seven random things on the monitor and prayed it won't be rat meat or anything.

Well, till today I have no idea what I ate there but I can say it was delicious :)

The same day we also visited one of the largest shrines in Tokyo which was located in a huge park.

And this is what I like about this city: old and new coexists perfectly well and once you are in a park you forget about all the craziness of the city around you. We did the ritual of washing your face and hands, hung up prayer cards and even got to witness a Shinto wedding. So we did sightseeing, shopping and culture and had an exciting culinary experience and that all on day one!

Mos Burger, a Japanese fast food chain

Dragonball Z everywhere

I could list all the amazing things we saw on this trip but I think this entry would become way too long then. So I'll just say a little about another interesting spot: Akihabara our destination on day two, a mecca for Anime lovers. I don't watch it myself but I loved Dragon Ball Z as a kid so this was very fun for me too because this series is omnipresent there. Like there was a whole shop (four floors) that sold only DBZ action figures, there were people dressed up as the characters, even Kentucky Fried Chicken advertised with them. Another thing people come to Akihabara for other than Anime are the various play dens. Also multiple floor buildings that offer everything you can imagine from karaoke to pachinko. If you ask yourself what pachinko is let me tell you I played it and have no idea! The guy there tried to explain it to us but then again it's hard to understand if he only speaks Japanese.

You basically sit in front of a pokie and once you insert money there's ten balls circulating and you are supposed to make them drop into a slot by controlling the power of the wind that blows the balls through the machine and all that while some anime character is yelling at you in Japanese. Later in the game you also have to press some buttons and kind of shoot the characters on the screen but I never really figured out how that worked. But it's those oddities that make this city such a great place. I would really like to revisit soon, the people were just over the top friendly, it was safe, it was completely different from Europe and just very special in general. All in one I can say this was one of my favorite places I've visited so far, maybe even my favorite ( And I'm saying that as a really big New York fan) and I'm looking very forward to be going again!!

View of the city from the world trade center. I really recommend it it's less crowded that the TMGB!!

Here's a video I took at Starbucks. You can see Shibuya, the most filmed crossing in the world. It might look like total chaos with hundreds of people coming from every direction but it's really not. No one steps on anyones feet, everything just flows.