England and Greece...

So I'll recap exactly what I did when I was traveling. I started out in Brighton, England, but of course you know this. It was good being there because I was with people I knew, just kind of winding down from the end of the semester. It was relaxing. After this I went to stay with Cherry, a friend from long ago when I worked at Camp Linden. I remember exactly when she told me if ever I was in England to get in touch with her...so I did. It was really fun reminiscing over old camp stories, playing odd camp games, it really was like nothing had changed at all, even though it had been 5 years. Unfortunatly I was only able to be there for three days because she just moved into a new flat.


Lyndsey and I at Stone Henge


Lyndsey, Micah and I just before I left Brighton.

After that, I flew to Athens, Greece. I made my first mistake here. I did not write down where the hostel was that I was to stay at, which in turn meant I had to take a cab. The guy driving kept making wrong turns and taking the long way around. Most of the time he was talking on the phone, every once in a while, breaking from the madened Greek to speak to me in English. The ride cost 70 euro, which I found out later is about twice as much as it should have. But whatever, I got to my hostel safely and luckily it was owned by Australians, so the majority of the people there spoke English. That night I hung around in the hostel and met some neat people. This one girl I met, Rebee, actually used to live in Ann Arbor. She used to work at the Ann Arbor 1&2 which was the theater before Quality 16 existed, which is where I used to work. Weird. But it gets weirder. She was in Ireland at the same time that I was, but she was down in the Beara Penninsula. Even weirder is that she was traveling in March around Ireland and happened to stop in Ballyvaughan, and come up to the school to see the tower house...all while I was in class at the school. And we ended up meeting each other in Athens, Greece. All I can say is that it really is a small world. Ironically enough, it was when I was in Athens that I finally realized that the world is full of people. It's hard to put things in perspective until you see it, and seeing Athens, full of people, lots of people, made me realize it.


This is the view from the roof of the hostel.


Everywhere you turned this is what it looked like.

Anyways, I was there for three days in total, which by the way is far too many to see the city. You only need about one because the only really interesting parts are all together in the center, everything else is just a valley full of smog and white buildings. The hostel that I was at was about a 5 minute walk to the Acropolis so we were in the right place. On my last day there, I went around with these two girls that I met, both from Australia. We went to all the historical sites, and the greatest part about it? They were all free for me! Since I had been studying in Ireland, which is part of the EU, I still had my student visa from there and anywhere in Greece, if you have studied in the EU, the historical sites are free. So I guess maybe that wasn't the best part, but it sure was great.


I do really miss the food.

The Acropolis is pretty amazing. You have to walk up and it seems like it is going to be a long haul, but it ends up being one of the easiest hikes ever. There are sites along the way up that you stop at and many platforms on which you are walking on flat land, so it's surprising once you get to the top. It is amazing, but it is a ruin. I really wish I could have seen it when it was in full bloom. The buildings must have been amazing. Someone told me that the whole thing is built using Pendelic marble which comes from this mountain visible from the city. The ancient Greeks knew that the mountain had odd properties, still not really explained. If you spill out some of your water on the hill, it will fall up, against the pull of gravity. Same thing if you let your car roll, it will roll up the hill. Anyways, the Acropolis is built out of this marble from this odd mountain, which gives it odd properties in itself. Birds won't fly over it. I think this is my favorite story that I heard when in Athens.


These are the girls I went up to the Acropolis with, Marissa and Emma.


This is me, duh.

After we were done we headed back to the hostel and it was time for me to leave. I bid my adieu's and left on the metro to the train station. By the way, the metro in Athens is seriously the smoothest subway I have ever been on. I got on the train to head to Patras which is where the ferry I needed to take to get to Italy was departing from. This is where it got scary. I don't speak a lick of Greek and obviously cannot read the alphabet, which in turn meant that I had to go completely on faith that I was on the correct train. I was nervous the whole way until we finally got there. For all I know I could have been on a train to Albania. Nevermind that though, everything turned out alright. I got to the ferry and was on my way to Italy.

*A few things I will miss from Greece: the gyros, the prices (everything was cheap), the people I met, the landscape, and the history.