AWC Going Dutch March 2019

Unconventional Travel (cont.)
Continued from page 35
projected including The Kiss, plus fellow
Austrian artist Hundertwasser’s works come
alive with sound and color on the 30-foot
(10-meter) high walls and pillars, as well as
on the ceiling and floor. It was incredible!
Little did I know then that another opportunity
to visit Ashlynn would present itself
just six weeks later. In fact, after spending
a week in England with her sister, Ashlynn
was only home in Holland for five days in
mid-October before flying to Athens for her
next “on-stay” (when a model stays in a city
for an extended time to meet local clients in
the hope of securing jobs). Athens is considered
a secondary fashion market and offered
Ashlynn a good opportunity to expand her
portfolio, which especially needed updating
since her Parisian agency (her “mother
agent” who scouted Ashlynn and makes all
major career decisions) convinced her to
bleach her blonde hair nearly white.
Athens is much less expensive than Paris,
so Ashlynn could afford to have more space
and stay longer. This worked to my advantage
as she had a double bed in a one-bedroom
apartment that she was happy to share
with me for five nights in mid-November. In
addition, flights were relatively cheap as it
was off-season in Greece. Ashlynn met me
at the airport and we took the subway into
the city. Her apartment was conveniently
just a ten-minute walk from the station. I
enjoyed visiting the bakery next door each
morning for Greek breakfast goodies.
While Ashlynn didn’t have any jobs while I
was in town, she had several castings, so I
tagged along and waited outside while she
had the short interviews. Although public
transportation in Greece is very affordable,
she prefers to walk for the exercise and to
further explore the city. On average, she
walked around 12 miles (20 kilometers) per
day. Our first walk together took over two
hours, with half of it along a major thoroughfare,
so we took the subway back.
Ashlynn had the entire weekend off, so we
set off on Saturday for Aegina, the closest
island, via a one-hour ferry ride. We had
planned to take the bus to visit the island’s
ruins, but it ran too infrequently during that
time of year. Instead we took a taxi across
the island to see the Temple of Aphaea, dating
from approximately 500 BC. After lunch
at a waterfront café, we enjoyed a wander
around the city of Aegina and the nearby ruins
of the Temple of Apollo.
It was so great that I happened to be with
Ashlynn when she got the good news that
her agent had arranged for her to go on-stay
in Seoul for eight weeks starting in early
January, likely followed by eight weeks in
Sydney. While I know that I probably can’t
visit her everywhere she goes, I can always
try.
On Sunday we met up with an American
friend that I’d met in The Hague who now
lives in Athens. We watched the early finishers
of the Athens Marathon, running from
the city of Marathon to Athens and ending
within the Panathenaic Stadium. The only
stadium in the world entirely built of marble,
it was built in 144 AD and abandoned
at the end of the 4th century. It was renovated
in 1896 just in time to host the first
modern Olympics. Later we watched sunset
from Mount Lycabettus, the highest point in
Athens at 910 feet (275 meters). Another afternoon,
for even better views looking down
on the Acropolis and the city, we walked up
the 480-foot (145-meter) Filopappou Hill,
known as the Hill of the Muses as legend
has it that nine muses were buried there,.
36 GOING DUTCH
MARCH 2019 37