Kazakhstan - Part I

I arrived in Kazakhstan yesterday morning following a red-eye from Istanbul. For the last half hour of the flight the sun was rising and it made for a beautiful sight, with bright reds, oranges and yellows blanketing the landscape. To the left of the plane seemed to be a never ending plateau or steppe, while to the right were the mountains at the border with Kyrgyzstan.

I have to be honest…prior to learning that I’d be traveling to Kazakhstan, I knew almost nothing about the country other than the fact that it is a former Soviet Republic and that it is home to the character Borat. With the help of the knowledge crutch known as Wikipedia, I was able to learn a little more before my visit, but my familiarity with the country was still superficial at best.

The following are a couple of the facts about Kazakhstan that I learned:

- World’s largest landlocked country
- Larger geographically than Western Europe
- Home to the Semipalatinsk Test Site, where the Soviet Union tested its nuclear weapons

Here are some pictures as well, which I took after checking in at the hotel. On the other side of the mountain range is the border with Kyrgyzstan, where there happens to be some political turmoil at the moment given the ousting of the former president this past week following deadly protests throughout the country.

Kazakhstan - Part II

My three days in Kazakhstan flew by, and I unfortunately didn’t get to experience a ton of the local environment given that I spent the majority of my time on work obligations at the hotel. That said, I did get to spend a little time downtown Almaty and am able to make a couple of observations.

First, the city definitely had a former Soviet – or at least former communist – feel to it. There were tons of bland government buildings and wide avenues, and the city itself was very spread out. Second, there was a ton of traffic. Every street seemed to be a parking lot of cars moving at a snail’s pace (and this is an observation from someone who grew up in Los Angeles…). But the streetlights had timers on them, so you always knew when the light was going to change (I really liked this for some reason…).

The most interesting part of my visit was speaking with many of the locals who I had met through work. It was particularly interesting hearing about their experiences in Kazakhstan during the 1980s, prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain. I asked a ton of questions and the following are some of the most interesting things that I heard in response:

- Many ethnic Russians who live in Kazakhstan (roughly 23% of the population) more closely identify with their former country (particularly those who were born before the Kazkahstan’s independence), but are caught in sort of a no man’s land given that they’re not viewed as truly Russian in Russia (where many still have family and friends) but don’t feel truly Kazakh either.

- Almost everyone that I spoke with had a deep fear of the U.S. during the Cold War and was convinced that the U.S. was going to attack them.

- A girl that I met was one of the first Russian foreign exchange students allowed to attend school in the U.S. during the Cold War. Overall she had very fond memories of her time in Madison, Wisconsin and found all the people that she met there very nice.

- Even though communism fell nearly 20 years ago, most people felt that the country is still trying to figure things out with respect to capitalism. There are still a lot of inefficiencies (particularly within the government) and the capitalist mentality hasn’t universally set in.

- There was also a common view among the ethnic Russians that while outsiders typically think of Moscow and St. Petersberg as representative of Russia as a country, those two cities are really small islands within Russia that don’t represent the broader populace well at all.

Before I get on my plane to Istanbul, I have three more quick observations. First, lines are not very well respected in Kazakhstan (or at least within the airport). It basically felt like every man, woman and child for him/herself. This is a bit hard to adapt to when you’re used to some general level of respectfulness.

Second, there are absolutely no McDonalds in Kazakhstan – at least that’s what I was told and I definitely didn’t see any. Someone said it had to do with a meat quality issue, which I don’t buy at all given that the steaks that I had at the hotel were phenomenal. In my opinion, if the “no McDonalds” claim is true, then Kazakhstan is much better off as a result.

Third, my flight leaves at 3:30am. There is nothing fun about arriving at the airport at 2am for a 3:30am flight…

Ash Cloud / Airline Security

I’m not sure how much you have been following the ash cloud spewing from the volcano in Iceland, but it’s been wreaking havoc on air travel throughout much of Western Europe. I was fortunate to leave Switzerland before this whole mess started and haven’t been impacted as the airports in Greece remained open and I was flying east to Kazakhstan via Istanbul rather than returning home.

Some of my colleagues weren’t as lucky, though, and were stranded in Greece for the weekend constantly going back and forth between the hotel and the airport waiting for air travel to resume. Emilie also got stranded – in the West of France – and had to resort to renting a car for a full day of driving back to Switzerland.

Hopefully things work themselves out over the next week as I’ll be flying back to Switzerland next Sunday.

***

My olive oil purchase didn’t end up working out quite as planned. Given the size of the bottles, I couldn’t put them in my carry-on. I also didn’t want to check my bag and pack them inside because I’ve heard too many horror stories about broken olive oil bottles in checked suitcases (from my Greek colleagues) and couldn’t risk having all my work clothes ruined before our meetings. Thus, I went with option C, which was packing them in a small bag and trying to check it.

All was going well at the check in counter until I was asked what was in the bag that I wanted to check and naively responded “olive oil”. This raised an immediate red flag and I was subsequently told that given the level of damage that olive oil has caused airplane cargo areas and other passengers’ luggage, I wasn’t allowed to check it. This left me two options: (1) accept defeat and throw it out or (2) try to sneak it on the plane in my carry-on luggage.

As thoughts of worst-case scenarios danced through my head, I approached the security checkpoint with a plan. If the security guards discovered the bottles, I intended to play the ignorant traveler role and pretend that I was merely oblivious to the security rules regarding liquids in carry-on baggage. After successfully passing through the metal detector, I anxiously awaited for my bag to go through the x-ray machine. And then on the screen I could see the picture of my bag with two gigantic bottle-shaped outlines.

Amazingly, the guard didn’t seem to notice…at least at first. Then all of a sudden he called his colleagues over and I knew my plan had failed. When approached about whether my bag held the contraband, I did my best stupid American impersonation and tried to give of the impression that I had absolutely no clue what I did wrong. I’m pretty sure that they didn’t buy any of it.

In the end, though, they recognized that I wasn’t a threat to air travel and simply threw away my precious Christmas gifts. I guess all things considered it could have been a lot worse – I made my flight and my only loss was the €10 that I spent on the purchase. And at least I did my part to help out the Greek economy. It’s also comforting to know that airport security is doing their job. It actually would have been a bit worrying if I had been able to get two large bottles of liquid onto the plane so easily.

Athens - Part III

My final day in Athens also began early as I had to depart for the airport around 3pm. I started the day at the (new) Acropolis Museum, which opened its doors in June 2009. The museum is located just south of the Acropolis itself and contains nearly 4,000 artifacts from the Acropolis archaeological site.

The museum is actually built on an archaeological site itself, which includes selected ruins from Roman and early Byzantine Athens. The building was constructed to effectively blend in with the archaeological site, as there are some open sections and clear panels on the floor so that the ancient structures below can be easily seen.










It was interesting to learn about the history of the Acropolis – I never knew that the Parthenon had been converted to both a church and a mosque over the years, depending who was in power – and see many of the original artifacts. It was also interesting to overhear to museum guides talk about the foreign museums (namely the British Museum) that house many artifacts that were “stolen” from the Acropolis. I don’t know enough about the related history to have an informed opinion, but it was nonetheless interesting to hear their stories and passionate views.

My favorite item in the museum was the “Nike Adjusting Her Sandal” marble relief. The picture below definitely doesn’t do it justice, but I wanted to give you a feel if you’re not familiar with it (I wasn’t).

When seen in person, the level of detail is incredible – particularly the folds of her dress, which literally looks like wet silk clinging naturally to her body. I also particularly enjoyed seeing five of the original six Caryatids (the remaining one is in the British Museum) as well as the various original pieces of the Parthenon’s frieze and pediments.

After leaving the museum I walked around Plaka to do some souvenir shopping for a few x-mas gifts before heading to the hotel for my departure. The main purchase that I wanted to make was olive oil, as some of my colleagues are Greek and had told me many times how great authentic Greek olive oil is. Unfortunately, however, every place that I found selling olive oil only had the tourist versions – for me, a bottle whose label is in English doesn’t quite scream authenticity.

Given my lack of success, I finally decided to ask one of the store owners where she would go to buy olive oil for her family. At first she was a bit confused given the language barrier, but finally she realized what I meant and took me to the back of the store. As she lifted the curtain in the storage area, I finally saw the goods that the locals used – I couldn’t read a thing, but it was definitely authentic.

By this point it was time to head back to the hotel and then to the airport in order to (hopefully) catch my flight. The Icelandic ash cloud had been causing some major air travel issues the past few days (more on this in a subsequent post), so a flight to my next destination (Kazakhstan via Istanbul) was far from certain despite its “on time” status.

As a parting thought, I have to say that I have mixed feelings about Athens. From a cultural and historical perspective, the city was incredible. And the people and food were great. But on the other had, it didn’t leave me with the “longing to return” feeling that I’ve had with many of the other European cities that I’ve visited. I kind of feel like I saw what I wanted to see and now I’m good – no need for a return visit anytime soon. Though a trip somewhere in the Greek islands instead would be nice.

Athens - Part II

After lunch I did a quick tour of the Roman Forum – an ancient Roman marketplace – and the Ancient Agora – the so called heart of public life in ancient Athens. The Ancient Agora was particularly interesting and the Temple of Hephaestus was in remarkable condition.

The Ancient Agora also offered very nice views of the Acropolis.

I then walked to Kerameikos, which included the pot makers’ quarter of ancient Athens (the English word “ceramic” is apparently related) and an ancient cemetery dating back to 3,000 BC. As I was running short on time before it closed for the day, I asked a local for directions to “care-A-MY-kos”. In response, I received a completely blank stare as if he had absolutely no idea what I was referring to. Fortunately, after about five minutes of inefficient dialog a light bulb went on for him and he finally said “oh…’care-AM-EE-kos’” It was clearly a “po-TAY-to” – “po-TAH-to” moment.

Kerameikos had a number of interesting sights and it was much less crowded than the other ancient areas. The most interesting sights included various cist graves and ancient buildings.









To conclude my tour of the ancient sites, I went to the Temple of Olympian Zeus (the remains of a massive temple dating back to the 6th century BC), Hadrian’s Library (literally an ancient library created by the Roman emperor Hadrian around 100 AD) and Hadrian’s Arch (a monumental gateway supposedly built to “celebrate” the arrival of Hadrian). They were all interesting to see, but there wasn’t a lot to them like the other sites.

















The temple of Olympian Zeus also offered a nice view of the Acropolis and the Parthenon.

I then headed to the Panathenaic Stadium, which is actually quite ancient as well – it dates back to nearly 600 BC (at least its initial form) and is now constructed entirely of white marble. It has played a role in five Olympic Games and is constructed in a horseshoe shape with one end completely open, thus allowing for some pictures.









Finally, I made the short walk to the Presidential Residence and happened upon an interesting scene due purely to opportunistic timing. Right as I was arriving the two guards in front (called Evzones, apparently) were beginning a ritualistic ceremony that can best be described as slow motion marching combined with high leg kicks. The uniforms were a trip as well – particularly the cogs with their giant black “pompons”. Here are some of the pictures.















For dinner I found a nice outdoor restaurant in the Plaka, which is the historical “old” neighborhood below the Acropolis. It’s an interesting area with narrow, pedestrian-only streets that are lined with small shops and restaurants. The weather had been quite hot during the day, but by evening it had cooled down and become much more comfortable.

Athens - Part I

On Friday night I arrived in Athens. The drive from Anavyssos is a beautiful one that takes you along a winding coastline with beautiful views of the Aegean Sea. It reminded me a bit of driving along PCH, albeit with a Mediterranean feel.

I arrived at the hotel at the exact same time as two bus loads of Greek middle schoolers who were apparently on a weekend field trip to see Athen’s historical sights. It took me a good five minutes to carve my way through the sea of kids, and when I finally got to the front desk I politely requested that my room be as far as possible from the prepubescent masses. No disrespect intended, but I was their age once and I knew how the next couple of days of parental freedom would evolve. Needless to say, I did not envy the chaperones one bit.

To beat the masses, I was out of the hotel by 8:30am on Saturday morning to see as many of Athen’s ancient sites as possible. The first stop was the Acropolis and after hiking to the top I was a bit surprised by how barren it was. Don’t get me wrong -- I was thoroughly impressed by the Parthenon and other temples (most notably the Erechtheum and its Porch of the Caryatids). It was just much more barren than I expected.



















The views from the Acropolis were pretty impressive as well.










After touring the top of the Acropolis for a bit, I made my way back down and walked around the perimeter. It was particularly interesting to see the caves where ancient Greeks prayed to the various Gods such as Zeus and Apollo, as well as the Theatre of Dionysus, which dates back to 300 BC and was the site of plays by Sophocles and Euripides.









By the time I finished with my visit to the Acropolis it was around noon, so I stopped for some lunch at a small restaurant that I saw while walking. As everyone there was speaking Greek, I figured that it must not be very touristy – unless everyone there was a Greek tourist, of course. I don’t remember the name of what I had, but I’m pretty sure that it was made of lamb. And was quite good.

Look Both Ways

While the last couple of days have been spent primarily on work, I have nonetheless had some opportunities to get out and experience a bit of Greece.

For potential visitors, let me begin with a warning: don’t cross the street unless you absolutely have to. In stark contrast to drivers in Switzerland – who yield to pedestrians if they even remotely look like they intend to cross the street – drivers in Greece seem to place no value on the lives of those brave enough to attempt a crossing.

I grabbed lunch with some colleagues in a suburb of Athens called Glyfada, which is pretty lively and showed no indication of the broader economic turmoil that is currently affecting the nation. The food itself wasn’t particularly notable (basically international cuisine rather that any sort of Greek specialty), but the lunch nonetheless provided the opportunity to get some locals’ perspectives on what was currently going on in Greece.

It was particularly interesting to discuss the many parallels between the underlying causes of the economic malaise within both Greece the U.S. As I heard the stories of excessive consumer borrowing, property bubbles, house prices that “would never go down”, it became readily apparent that the U.S. wasn’t alone in its economic naiveté over the past couple of years.

After lunch I had an interesting experience. It began with a common occurrence that I had already observed multiple times during my time in Greece – someone double parking. As a quick aside, it was pretty interesting to witness the parking protocol in place given the limited availability of public parking spots and the excessive cost of private parking lots. Basically, people park wherever they can (spot or no spot), simply throw on their hazard lights, and then hope to return before receiving a ticket.

So back to my story…While I was standing on the sidewalk after lunch, a driver returned to his car to find that it had been blocked in by a rogue double parker. To remedy the situation, he decided to start honking his horn until the other driver returned. Unfortunately, this went on for a good five minutes with no success. And then all of a sudden an enormous Greek guy who resembled Rick Rubin and was wearing a Hard Rock Munich t-shirt yelled “SHUT THE F*CK UP!!!” at the top of his lungs. I’m pretty sure we have that saying in English too…

It’s all Greek to me

I’ve heard the saying “It’s all Greek to me” countless times, but it wasn’t until I arrived in Athens that I could truly relate. After getting off the plane, I saw a couple of signs in the airport and had absolutely no clue what any of them meant. Though I recognized most of the letters from a Greek mythology course that I took in college, it didn’t help one bit.

Καλώς ήλθατε στην Ελλάδα.

(“Welcome to Greece”, at least according to Google Translator…)

I’m staying about an hour outside Athens in a beachside town called Anavyssos through Friday for work and then will be heading to Athens for some sightseeing over the weekend. As can be seen from the photos, the location is pretty impressive. Apparently the town is a summer vacation spot for Athenians and is more or less vacant in the off season.










During the check-in process, the concierge came by with the following drink as a welcome gift. I trust that they either confused me with someone else who is actually important or they simply give these drinks to all of their guests. I’m usually not one for sweet drinks, but it was actually pretty refreshing and reminded me of the fruit drinks that were served in Indonesia during my visit in December.









For dinner I went out with a colleague to a local fish taverna that was walking distance from the hotel. We had difficulty deciding what to order, so the waiter decided to make things simple and brought out a large platter with the various fish that he recommended. I’m not overly knowledgeable with respect to fish, but I could tell that they were fresh as the only thing you could smell on them was the ocean.

I can’t recall the name of the fish that I ordered for the main course (I’ve included a camera phone pic for anyone who would like to hazard a guess) – my only criterion was that it wasn’t overly “fishy” (if that makes sense). As many of you know, fish isn’t typically (err…ever) my first choice when ordering for dinner, but I have to say that everything we ordered tasted incredible.

Moving Day

Yesterday I helped Emilie move into her new apartment with her mom, sister and sister’s boyfriend. I have to say it’s a pretty incredible place and I’m a bit envious. The location is great (just a 10 minute walk from the lake towards the center of town), it has plenty of space, it’s on the third floor so she can leave the windows open, and there’s even a balcony. And, oh yeah, the price is a bargain. In fairness, though, her apartment search began a year ago.

It took us a couple of hours to transfer all of her stuff from the moving van to the apartment. For the most part it was relatively painless, but the couch was a bit of a struggle. It’s not so much that it was heavy (which it indeed was – there’s a fold-out bed), but instead the fact that we had to navigate it up a narrow stairway that had two switchbacks per floor. Needless to say, it was an effort that required all five of us and resulted in multiple jammed fingers, pinched arms and scraped legs.

After getting everything moved in we took a trip to a shopping center not far from Lausanne to buy some miscellaneous items (TV, lights, bedding, etc.). The TV purchase in particular was quite efficient – perhaps 10 minutes in total – and served as a stark contrast to the hours of time that I wasted before picking out my new TV last September. For whatever reason, I’m just not able to go out and make a purchase like that so quickly. And in the end, our TVs are nearly indistinguishable…

A unique aspect of the Swiss rental market requires new tenants to buy (and self-install) new lighting fixtures after moving in. (I didn’t have to do this with my apartment by pure chance.) While some rooms like the kitchen and bathroom generally have lighting pre-installed, most other rooms do not. Fortunately, everything is standardized given how commonplace the process is. As a result, you simply have to buy the lights and connect a straightforward plug that’s inside a small hole in the ceiling. Nonetheless, I’m glad that there were others with me who had gone through the process before.

Once we were back at the apartment and finally off of our feet, I finally noticed the best part of the apartment. Since the building is located at the corner where two streets meet (kind of like a “Y” shaped fork in the road) and the living room / balcony are right on the corner itself, there is a great view. Plus, there is plenty of afternoon sun given that it faces southwest. Unfortunately, I left the camera at home so there aren't any pictures to share.

Roman Holiday - Part IV

As we had seen all of the main tourist sights on our list during the first three days, we were able to spend our final day in Rome just wandering the city at a relaxed pace. The weather had returned to mostly sunny, which was nice, though there was a lingering chill to the air.

We first headed to the Campo dei Fiori area in order to check out the open air market there. Unfortunately, the market wasn’t open so we headed to the Piazza Navona, which includes a couple of Bernini’s statues: Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi and La Fontana del Moro.

We then spent nearly an hour trying to find a nice authentic pizza place for lunch. Though we had pizza a couple of times already during the trip, it wasn’t really authentic and instead was the average pizza by the slice that one could find anywhere in the U.S. Here are some pictures that I took along the way on some streets that we happened to take by chance.

Finally we found a nice restaurant that specialized in pizzas and we were rewarded for our patience. I got a pizza margherita and added some prosciutto di parma.

After lunch we headed to the Villa Borghese park, which was not far from our hotel. On the way we passed back through the Piazza di Spagna and hiked up the Spanish Steps again. The view was fantastic – bright blue skies with puffy white clouds.

Villa Borghese park was very nice and there were tons of people enjoying a relaxing holiday. In a way, it reminded me of El Retiro Park in Madrid. Not by the look, per se, but in the general relaxed atmosphere and local feel. We unfortunately didn’t have time to visit the Villa Medici, so that will have to wait until next time.

Roman Holiday - Part III

As per the forecast, we awoke to rain on Easter Sunday. While our initial plan was to attend Easter Mass with the pope (and who knows how many others) in St. Peter’s Square, we had to change our plans after learning that tickets were required. As a plan B, we decided to head to one of Rome’s other three basilicas – Santa Maria Maggiore – which definitely didn’t disappoint. The atmosphere of an Easter Sunday mass in Rome was an incredible experience. Here are some of the pictures.

After the service we grabbed a quick lunch (pizza again) and then headed to the Forum to see the ancient Roman sites. Though the rain was still coming down lightly, we figured it still made sense to go as the weather would likely keep the crowd at a tolerable level. Unfortunately, the light rain turned into a downpour and we proceeded to get absolutely soaked. The fact that we were sharing an umbrella definitely did not help. It was still pretty incredible though, and I managed to get some nice pictures.

Just when we thought we couldn’t go any further, the rain finally stopped. At this point we had reached Palatine Hill, the centermost of Rome’s seven hills, and the improved weather allowed for some nice pictures of the ancient structures (some dating back to “BC” times). There was also a nice view of the Colloseum, which is where we headed next.

As expected, the rainy weather had one major upside – less tourists. We had already bought our ticket as part of the Forum and Palatine Hill visits, so we were able to walk right in. The structure itself was very impressive, particularly considering that it dates back to around 80 AD. At one point someone yelled “Are you not entertained?!?!” in his best Russell Crowe voice from Gladiator. It was pretty funny…

We then decided to head back to the Vatican in order to (hopefully) get into St. Peter’s Basilica. The only issue was that by this time we were completely exhausted and didn’t want to walk across town. So we searched…and searched…and searched for a cab, but with no luck. And then it happened. Out of nowhere a public bus approached with a large “San Pietro” on the marquee. If that’s not a sign (from above) then I don’t know what is. So we jumped on and headed off on our way.

The line to get into the basilica was long but moved fairly quickly. Fortunately, the inclement weather seemed to have kept the masses away there as well. The following are a couple of pics that I took while in line, including one of a Swiss guard.

I don’t think there are words to describe St. Peter’s Basilica. The architecture is amazing and the artistry inside is absolutely incredible. I won’t waste your time with words – here are some of the pictures. One of my favorite sights was Michelangelo’s La Pietà.

The basilica is so large that they’re able to hold mass in the front while thousands of sightseers are walking about the rest of the basilica virtually unnoticed. By sheer luck we were at the front of the sightseeing area when the guards allowed a small group into the front to participate in Easter Mass. We of course took advantage of the opportunity. While it wasn’t being led by the pope himself, it was still a very interesting experience to say the least.

After St. Peter’s we made our way to dinner, which ended up providing one of the more memorable experiences of the trip. The waiter asked if we wanted to get the “house specialty” for an antipasti. This consisted of various cured meats, cheeses, etc. and sounded good, so we decided to get it. Little did we know, however, what was in store for us.

As can be seen from the pictures, the cured meats portion was “do-it-yourself”. Carve whatever you like, the waiter instructed as he handed the knife and cutting board to me (it’s the man’s job he also said). Everything tasted great, and it definitely made for a unique meal.