Spring Break Stop Two: Palermo

Our next stop was Palermo in Sicily. Sicily is absolutely beautiful and amazing and everyone who goes there falls in love with the countryside, etc, but Palermo is not. The airport flies you in there and you’re supposed to use this port city as a jumping off point for other locations in Sicily, but because we were cheap and had limited time, we just stayed in Palermo and the nearest beach, Mondello. The weather wasn’t even nice enough for the beach to be as fun as it could be—it stormed every night and each day was cloudy and overcast, though we tried to tough it out and get what sun we could.

Our first night, we got off the bus at the station in Palermo and it was absolutely pouring rain, and we had a 15 minute walk to our hostel. It was miserable, and the sidewalks were so slippery we almost ate dirt every other step. After checking in and drying off a little bit, we were starving but didn’t want to go far to find food. We were hurrying down the street but everywhere we looked we just found bars—however, as we were about to dash by one place we noticed plates and plates of food set up on the counter and jumped in. The middle-aged lady behind the bar didn’t speak any English, but we eventually figured out that if we bought a drink we could have as much food as we like. We loaded up our little plates with some of the most delicious dishes ever; it wasn’t Italian food, but it was just a mix of great stuff. Since it was early, Kelli and I were the only ones there, and we sat there for two hours enjoying the food and the warmth while the owner brought us more food, pretzels, chips, crackers—we left stuffed! When we finally got up to pay, there were two younger girls working the bar with her who spoke a little English, and we realized that we had run into a lesbian bar! No wonder they liked us so much, they thought we were lesbians too! We should have realized when we saw the sign outside, but we were so hungry we didn’t even see it, just the food. It was the funniest thing, and became something of a joke for the rest of our spring break. Whatever, they were really nice and we had mounds of food super-cheap; those lesbians really knew how to take care of us!

In Palermo we also met a British family who was staying in our hostel and saw them literally everywhere we went; they were practically family by the end. The father is a photographer who spends a lot of time in Sicily taking pictures and tries to bring his family every once in a while. He was showing us his work and talking about his business and matter-of-factly said, “And, we give a small percentage to the local mafia…not much, but enough…” There were two daughters, one tiny blonde one with a really thick accent who was adorable, and an older one who we joked was our daughter when we were one the beach. We saw them one day on Mondello, and she hung around us and talked to us, or would run into the water and wave at us to make sure we were watching her do whatever trick, and then run back. She practically buried herself in the sand and was completely coated, her skin looked like a rhinoceros, and then she said, in her little British accent, “Yeah, the worst is when you get sand in your bum. That happened to me when I was little, but I don’t do that anymore.” Meanwhile, she’s got sand everywhere, not just her bum, and we had to try really hard not to laugh.

Also on Mondello, we were getting lunch and I caved and bought this amazing-looking cookie. It looked sugary and sprinkly and had a huge lump in the middle, filled with what I assumed would be some type of pudding or custard…It was a hard-boiled egg, shell and all. Luckily I didn’t just bite into it, but as I came across the egg I was completely flabbergasted. What was it doing inside my cookie? I peeled off the shell and ate it, since I paid for it, but it was the weirdest cookie I ever had. The cookie portion was good, but it just made no sense as to why the two would be together. If anyone knows why, please enlighten me, I would like to know!

Pictures from Palermo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachelgoesgreek/sets/72157626612678422/

Spring Break Stop One: Venezia

First stop on EuroTour 2011 was Venice. We actually flew into Milan and then took a 2 1/2 hour train to Milan, so I guess I can say I’ve been there too now, although we really only looked around outside the train station. There was a crazy amount of traffic and although I thought we’d left plenty of time, we missed our train. We tried to switch our tickets to a later time but apparently had missed the cut-off to do that by about 15 minutes—luckily, a cute old man took pity on us (on the verge of tears) and stamped it anyway. Then there was all kinds of delays because of a burn on the track (?) and we didn’t get going until late, and didn’t get to our hotel until around 12:30. We actually stayed in Mestre on the the mainland, where it was cheaper, but it was very simple to take a 30 minute bus ride into Venice.

We pretty much walked the whole city of Venice. We spent over 7 hours walking, just wandering around, heading in a general directions towards what we wanted to see but exploring down side-streets, stumbling into courtyards, residential areas, canals. Venice is so beautiful but I can’t imagine living there; it would be so difficult! I also loved the time I spent there, but I don’t think I could have stayed for more than a day—we literally saw the whole city in a day, and everything we passed was shopping; there wouldn’t be enough to fill your time with.

Gondolas were very expensive, so we didn’t ride one, but it made me sad to think I’ll have been in Venice twice and not been on the water. Fortunately, we read about tragettos, which are sort of like gondola ferries—old gondolas that transport a bunch of people at once for 50 cents. We found one and were so excited, bouncing around happily as we loaded. We were the most excited ones on the boat, until, mid-canal, we realized that the destination was the other side of the canal, directly across! We laughed and felt a little foolish, but it was so funny. And hey, at least now we can say we’ve been on the water in Venice!

Later in the day we sat by some steps leading down into the water for a little bit. The sun came out a little, and it was peaceful and beautiful. We spent a good 20 minutes waving at all the boats that went by, and the good-natured drivers waved back or jokingly asked us to swim out to their boats. One guy even blew a kiss, which Kelli snatched out of the air and put in her pocket…

It was just Kelli and me all two weeks. Everyone told us beforehand that we would be so sick of each other by the end of it, and I was afraid we would be too, but it was luckily and surprisingly not the case. Occasionally one or the other got a little grumpy, but we got along the whole time, I think because we are both so similar, and also because neither one of us needs to be constantly chattering; we could be together but in a comfortable silence. We were very cheap the whole time and tried to spend as little money as possible, which had it’s pros and cons. Sometimes we would walk around for a really long time looking for the cheapest food, and by the time we found it we’d be starving. And then, of course, it would either be really crappy or tiny portions an d we would have been better off just eating at one of the first places we found. Or sometimes Kelli wouldn’t want to pay the entrance fees and we’d miss out; it broke my heart not to go inside the Sagrada Familia. It worked out well sometimes too—on our beach days or hobo nights we would go to grocery stores and get ingredients for sandwiches and make them really cheap, or we’d get sodas and waters there for 48 cents instead of 2 euro.

Ryanair always seems to fly to weird, out of the way airports, and we left Venice by means of Treviso. It was a good hour and a half away from our hotel, but it turned out great because we left early so we could explore the town of Treviso. It was so beautiful, and we spent a nice two hours walking around the river, looking at the architecture. It was just nice to get another flavor of Italy.

Since it’s really difficult normally to insert pictures, I’m going to try and do something new with the volumes of spring break pictures I’ve amassed: I’ve opened a Flickr account and will make albums there and post the links with the appropriate blog post. If anyone knows of a better site, let me know! I’m still new to the Flickr, thing, but I think I have it figured out. I’ll post the specific link at the end, but in general you can go to www.flickr.com/photos/rachelgoesgreek/sets/ to see all the albums I’ve created on the account—simply click the one with the corresponding blog title. You can see pictures, explanatory captions on some of them; I think it even pinpoints the general location of where the photo was taken.

Whew, this is exhausting! I’m going to try and churn out these posts as fast as I can, but be patient—I’ve got a lot of material to go through. Around 2000 pictures to sort through, plus all my memories, so I can bring you guys all the best stories! Hope you enjoyed my first SB post, keep an eye out for more!

Photos of Venice: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachelgoesgreek/sets/72157626485907149/

Guess Who’s Back?

Whew! After a completely exhausting two weeks, I’ve made it back to Thess alive! I’m more tired than I’ve ever been before, but I had a lot of fun. It was incredibly hectic running around so many different cities, I almost wish we had picked fewer and stayed there longer so I could really have gotten to know the cities. At any rate, I’m back, and have lots of stories! I think this best way to do this is over the next couple days I’ll upload a post for each place I visited, with what I thought, a few stories of things I did, and of course, some pictures. I have about a million things to do to get reorganized, get ready for school to start again, etc, but I’ll try to let you know what’s happened to me.

Viva Espana!

Hello all, greetings from Spain! I´ve just completed what I consider to be the middle leg of the trip, Barcelona and Mallorca, and it´s on to Sevilla and finally Madrid for the next four days before I go home to Thess. Internet access is limited, so this will be short, but again, stories and pictures to follow!

We got up at 730 from Rome to get on our plane, and arrived in Barcelona around 3. We spent the whole day running around as much of the city as possible, but it was actually really dissapointing, because the city isn´t as walkable as some of the others and we really didn´t have time to see even close to everything I wanted to see. And, we had to carry our packs around with us the whole time, which was more tiring. After dinner, we changed in the restaurant bathroom, went to a club, and at four left to catch the early bus to the airport for our flight to Mallorca. We were up for more than 24 hours straight, going hard the whole time!

Mallorca is beautiful, but it´s not Spain. It´s pretty much a vacation destination for British people. I´ve heard more English than Spanish, and every meal is traditional English food. We talked with one shop owner who had an intense British accent, but was born here and has lived her whole life here! We´ve had some nice relaxing beach days, though the weather is less than we would have hoped for. It´s been nice anyway, we got to do laundry--much, much needed!--and just readjust ourselves for the last part of the trip, when we´re staying in larger dorm-style hostels. I´m excited to see Sevilla and Madrid, but I´m definitely getting tired, and a little homesick; I can´t wait to get back to my own bed, my own shower!

That´s all for now. Talk to you again soon!

Italian Adventures!

Hey all! Im writing from the road and dont have much time, so this will be quick. (I also cant figure out apostrophes on this Italian keyboard, so bear with me). Im in Palermo right now, about to head out on my last day. Heres a quick summary of what Ive been up to so far, more details and stories (as well as pictures) will follow when I finally get home!

We flew into Milan and took a bus to the central train station. Although we had planned it so we had plenty of time, the bus got stuck in massive traffic and we missed our train by 5 minutes! We had all sorts of problems getting to Venice; missing the train, then intense delays because of something wrong with the track. We probably would have had to buy another ticket if it wasnt for a kindly old Italian guy who just sort of winked at us and stamped our ticket anyway. We got into Venice way late and had to take an over-priced taxi to our stop in Venice.

We stayed in Mestre, a 25 minute bus ride from the island, and spent the next day walking around Venice for a good 7 hours. It was suprisingly exhuasting and we slept well that night. Venice was pretty, but I couldnt have spent more than 1 day there--there wasnt enough to do, except walk around.

The next day we took a bus to Treviso, where we were flying out of, and walked around thier downtown, which was gorgeous as well. The airport there was tiny; it only really serviced RyanAir, and the bus dropped us off across the street it was so small! When we landed in Palermo, we landed to some of the darkest, most murderous-looking rainclouds Ive ever seen. As we arrived at the train station, it started pouring and we had a miserable walk in the rain to the hostel. And this is our beach stop! After checking in we ventured out for food, but it was pouring and we didnt want to go far, so we went into the first place that had food on the counter. It was a bar, but we finally figured out all the food was free, we only had to pay for drinks. We spent a really fun two hours there, the only people there, chowing down on this food and sipping a drink. It was super cheap too--as we were leaving we realized that we had run into a lesbian bar; its probably why the proprietor was so nice to us! Whatever, we were cold and soaked and starving, and they fed us really well!

Yesterday it looked like it would be stormy again but turned into a nice day on Mondello Beach. Were heading back there now.

Thats what Ive been up to, in summary. I promised more detailed and entertaining stories will come; weve been having quite the adventure already. On to Rome tomorrow morning, and then  Spain! Ill write again as soon as I can!

See You In Two Weeks!

7:30am Wednesday. My flight to Milan leaves at 3:00. Yesterday it looked like my room had exploded; there were clothes and toiletries and anything I thought I would need strewn about. Now everything I’m living on for the next two weeks in carefully packed into my backpack, weighing a tidy 7.2 kilos, and I still have a little space left at the top! I also cleaned my room so hopefully it’s still neat and tidy when I get back, and wrote myself a little note (with shopping list attached) reminding me what I need to do when I get home again.

I’m going to ELEPAP this morning, then to school to take a test/go to one of my classes, and then taking a taxi with a couple other kids at one. Even though we’re all going different places, a lot of us are on the same EasyJet flight to Milan and using it as a starting place to get where we need to go. Kids are going everywhere over this break; Spain and Italy like me, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Morocco, Israel—you name it, ACT kids will be there.

So for the next two weeks my internet access will be pretty sporadic, but I’ll try to update you every once in a while on what I’m up to. Have a great two weeks, wish me luck on my trip!

Spring Break Prep

Today I worked harder at school than I have in a while, but not on anything for my classes: During all my breaks, I worked for what was probably a total of 4+hours on making sure everything was ready for spring break. Printing out e-mail confirmations, typing up an itinerary, getting directions from train station to hotel to airport to hotel…..it was a lot of hard work but I feel much better knowing everything is organized and I know where I’m going. Tomorrow I’m packing; I have to fit everything I want to bring for two weeks, clothes, camera, purse, toiletries, into my backpack. Luckily I have some little pouches of tide stuff so I can wash my clothes in the sink. I’m only nervous that it will be cold at night or there will be a chilly day and I won’t have brought enough to keep me warn since it wouldn’t fit—I plan on bringing mostly shorts and T-shirts.

Because of spring break I really don’t want to buy food and am just trying to eat up what I have, but it’s hard to make a meal. I have tons of pasta (which doesn’t really go bad) and cheese, but not much else. I still managed to make a successful go at it; I made fried noodles with a three-cheese sauce, leftover spargel, and part of an eggplant Abby brought up to me, and it was actually delicious.

Apparently Mom sent me a package a week ago—I really hope it comes tomorrow, because if it doesn’t I won’t get it until I get back from spring break! I just got back to Thess and now I’m prepping to go away again, for a really long time. Spring break will be tons of fun, but I know I’ll be happy to come back home at the end of it. Time flies by so quickly; after spring break there is only a month left in Thessaloniki! I plan to spend most of those weekends here in the city, and I know a lot of my friends feel the same way—trying to suck as much as we can out of our last days together!