Ios Ios Ios

So getting to Ios was quite the drama. I left Venice at 10am, caught a train to Milan, then another train to Malpensa airport. There was then a 9pm flight to Athens, which arrived there at 1:30am, I slept on a bench for 3 hours then caught a 4:30am flight to Santorini, which arrived around 5:30am. I caught a bus to the central terminal, slept on another bench for 3 hours (and got eaten alive by mosquitos), then caught a bus to the port where I got on a ferry to Ios. I think I was nearly dead by the time I arrived there at midday 26 hours later.

Nevertheless it was worth it, when we found ourselves staying at an incredible hostel, with an amazing view (I was staying there with my friends Sarah and Alicia).

Ios is an interesting place. The town itself is tiny, with just a few shops and lots of hostels.

Basically the lifestyle is as follows: eat dinner around 9, go to pre-drinks at the hostel bar at 11, go out till 4am, sleep till 2pm, go to the beach and repeat.

I particularly enjoyed the Greek food, lots of Greek yoghurt and fruit for brekkie, souvlaki, Greek salads and stuffed tomatoes!

It was a bit crazy, and I don't know how long I could've kept going for, but it definitely is a good party island. Our favourite place to go was a shot bar, which made different flavoured shots that were delicious. Chocolate flavours (Snickers, Aero, Mars), Apple Pie, Cappucino, Strawberry Cheesecake (they even gave us free T-shirts because we spent so long there).

Then all too quickly it was over, Sarah and Alicia left a day before me so I checked myself into a nice hotel on the beach for my last day before meeting my family for the first time in 6 months! Crazy.

Venezia

After fairly chilly weather in Berlin I was greeted in Venice to a bit of a heatwave, over 30 every day! This was a bit draining but I met my friend Belle at a cool hostel relatively near the Rialto bridge. I was also very excited to catch the ‘vaporetto’ (waterbus) to the hostel instead of a metro or bus!

Venice is completely packed with tourists, and is becoming almost a ‘museum city’, because the actual residential population is dwindling so rapidly. However it is still breathtaking to see all the old houses along the canals, and the city is maze-like and very easy to get lost in (even with a map!)

The first afternoon we went to visit the Doge’s Palace on the Piazza San Marco. It was an amazing building, with huge council rooms painted in incredible detail. I was however extremely concerned by the number of people feeding the pigeons. Disgusting.

We then wanted a real Italian dinner and we certainly found it. A delicious caprese salad and then amazing gnocchi. We also got to see a lot of Venice by night, which is beautiful.

The following morning we caught the vaporetto to Murano, the small island just off Venice which is famous for glass blowing. We saw some of the maestros at work, and wandered through the glass shops but everything was wayyy out of my price range.

In the afternoon I had a quick visit to the Gheto Novo, the place to which Jews were restricted under the Venetian Republic from around 1500 - 1790. The English word ‘ghetto’ was derived from here.

On the way home we stopped in at the Basilica San Marco, which has an incredible gold tiled roof.

By then we were melting and decided to head back to the hostel for dinner in preparation for our arty adventure!

The final day was an artful extravaganza. We crossed the Ponte del Accademia to the Peggy Guggenheim collection, which I absolutely loved. Lots of surrealist work, and my absolute favourite was L’Empire des Lumières, the Empire of Light, by René Magritte.

Then it was time to explore the 52^nd Venice Biennale! In the main section each country has a pavilion and exhibits the work of one artist. Australia’s representative Hany Armanious was quite interesting, but I liked the USA’s ‘Liberty on a Sunbed’ and the treadmill-powered tank, and France’s ‘Roule de la Chance’ (Wheel of Chance), which was a huge metal structure rotating faces of newborn babies. The installation ‘The Impostor’ in the British pavilion was also quite interesting.

There was so much to see, but aside from the exhibition in the American pavilion there is the coolest ATM ever. It is inside a pipe organ, and plays a different tune every time a card is inserted according to the pin code and transaction required. There is also a rumour that the bigger your bank balance the longer it plays for…

After seeing the main part of the exhibition we headed over to a second part of the Biennale where there are individual artist exhibits. We didn’t have much time as it was closing early, but I really liked the giant candles (including one of an office chair) that were slowly melting.

The final exhibit was the best though. It is a movie called ‘The Clock’ by Swiss-American artist Christian Marclay. The Clock is a 24 hour movie, composed of short clips from thousands of films and each clip has to do with time. Every time you see a watch or clock it is on the right time. We watched it for over 45 minutes and it was mesmerising, as he has even managed to have the clips flow into one another. I think I could literally sit there and watch it for the whole 24 hours, but here is a snippet from 4:07-4:12...

We had dinner with Laurence, a lovely French Canadian girl from the hostel and then I tried to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for 30 hours of travel, but the explanation of that epic adventure will come soon!

No sprechen le Deutsch

I don't speak German. Everyone who read my name off my passport immediately tried speaking to me (for those that don't know, my last name means 'Son of a Lion' in German). The lady at the front desk of the hostel was in hysterics when she read it... 'Ohhhh... that is the cutest last name everrr'.

But back to the trip, after our tour we had a quick stop for a German lunch (schnitzel and currywurst) and then decided to go to the Pergamon Museum, which houses Greek and Roman ruins as well as some of the Gates of Babylon, which were beautiful.

On the way home we found that is was the Gay Pride march near the Brandenburg Gate, and it was like Mardi Gras on steroids! We saw some crazy floats, danced in the street and enjoyed a few mojitos. I also found my friend Rohit (from Sydney).

We were pretty tired by about 10pm so headed home via a schnitzel restaurant (gotta have schnitzel and strudel in Germany) and Zoe and I decided to share given the ridiculous size of the portions!

The next day we did some more eating, this time a “German breakfast”, which was amazing, cheeses, meats, veggies and fruit with lots of brown bread. From there it was only a short walk to the Mauerpark markets where I managed to do a fair amount of shopping (luckily not at Paris prices).

It was my last afternoon so I then decided to visit an exhibit next to a section of the wall called ‘Topography of Terror’. It is located at the empty site of the former headquarters of the Gestapo and the SS . After the war it was decided never again to build on the land. It was a very interesting and scary exhibit, as it was here that the administration for The Final Solution was initiated, but it was a lot to try and take in.

I got back to the hostel exhausted, then headed to the airport at the crack of dawn. Berlin was definitely one of my favourite cities so far, so much to learn, cool things to see and so many interesting people. Hopefully next time I can stay a bit longer!