Ephesus, Turkey and Patmos Island

I am almost out of time at the internet cafe but I wanted to post something. The Greek Isles cruise has by far exceeded our expecations. I am just loving my time here and never wanting to leave these gorgeous islands. The water is crystal clear near the shores, but blue like sapphire when you stare out across it. Absolutely splendorific! Mykonos was an island of white buildings with cobalt blue, turquoise, deep red, or green doors and window shutters. Saw an amazing sunset there and passed time wandering through the windy pathways. There were only a couple of roads with cars. It was a bit like Venice in that way. Really a uniquely beautiful place. Yesterday we went to Ephesus in Turkey early in the morning. That was a truly awesome excursion. The ruins there have been extremely well preserved. We actually got to stand on the very stage that St. Paul would preach to the Ephesians from in the theatre. It was a huge theatre with seating for about 25,000. Ephesus was quite a thriving city back in the day. Definitely the best ruins we've seen since Pompeii. In the late afternoon we stopped at the island Patmos and took a hike up to the highest point to visit the grotto where St. John wrote the book of Revelation after he had been exiled from Ephesus. Also visited a monastery there. The views from the monastery were magnificent. Today we are at the island Rhodes for the day. We are about to have lunch and then go to the beach. Only one more full day on this great cruise and then back to Athens friday morning.

Have I got a story for you!

We'll start with 7 p.m. Thursday night. Nikki and I were bored out of our minds in Olympia (because once you've seen the ruins there you've done it all and there is NOTHING else to do) so we went to the internet cafe. Well, the co-owner guy, Tassos, was talking and talking to me because he's very friendly and was probably bored out of his mind too...and he asked us to come back around 9 for a drink. He didn't speak great English, but we could sort of communicate. I speak no Greek. Anyway, we went back and had a coffee and he asked us to come celebrate his sister's "happy birthday" at his house in Lalas (10 km away) with his family. I was like, "okay we are 2 random Americans that your sister doesn't know, but you want us to come to her birthday celebration with your family?" This seemed kind of strange to Nikki and I, but he was relentless. He was begging us to come and he said there would be lots of good food and Greek music and dancing and everything. Sounded pretty fun and we had nothing else to do, so we thought, what the heck, let's go. The only problem was that he seemed to be in love with me and would occasionally touch my arm or hair. It sort of weirded me out, but whatev. He was 28 by the way and his sister was 21. Okay, we don't even leave Olympia until a little past 10 and get to Lalas around 10:30 and there's like a dozen people at this huge table eating...so we just come in and they are extremely welcoming (though no one actually speaks a word of English) and sit us right down and start piling on the food. Everything was delicious and made by his mom and sisters. We had meat and potatoes and Greek potato salad and fresh bread and tzaziki and little fried things and baklava and all sorts of yummies! And I was seated right next to his 96 year old grama, yai-yai. I loved her. She was absolutely precious. Nikki and I just could not get over her! She was the tiniest thing ever and looked like mother Theresa or something. So adorable. She kept talking to me in Greek and she would laugh and grab onto my leg and hold onto it. It was so cute. We were instant friends. I think she was telling me to marry her grandson. He kind of said that she was saying something about him needing a wife and such....scary! Throughout the rest of the night he kept trying to put the moves on me, put his arm around me a couple of times, liked to touch my hair, etc. I made Nikki stick close by though. Then Nikki and I did lots of Greek dancing with the fam. Good times. We had a really fun time but we were tired and ready to go around 1 a.m. (yai yai and the kids were still up!!) but we didn't get to leave until 2. Greek people are crazy! They are night owls. Who eats dinner at 10???? Oh, and Nikki and I told his sister happy birthday, but she told us it wasn't her birthday but her name day celebration. She didn't speak much English either. We were thinking...okay, what does that mean? Wouldn't your name day be the day you got your name, aka birthday?? Who knows. Anyway it was fun. And toward the end of the evening his 70 year old father and this other guy were singing this Greek village song together, just at the dinner table. It was so great! Very "my big fat greek wedding." I liked to dance and say "Opah!"
Went to Ancient Corinth today which was cool but there was like no information on anything so we couldn't really know what we were looking at or what significance anything had. That was unfortunate. Tomorrow we'll go to Athens and meet our cruise group in the evening and leave out the next morning for the isles. We are pumped about that! Take care!

It's all Greek to me

After almost 20 hours on the ferry, we finally arrived in Patras, Greece. The ferry ride was overnight and luckily it was pretty empty so we were able to lay down on the seats and get some rest, sort of :-) I used my towel as a blanket. The bathroom was absolutely disgusting, but other than that it was good. We are excited to be in Greece. We ate lunch at TGIFriday's and it was so great to have some good American food! We were excited about it. The menu was in Greek mostly, with some words written in English randomly. But the food was great. Now we are in Olympia for 2 nights. Tomorrow we will see the archaeological sites. Olmpia is really small. It seems to be a pretty happenin place though. Our hotel is good and we are happy to have our own room and bathroom (Nikki didn't find a hostel for here or Corinth online so we have cheap hotels). Our last day in Italy was spent at Amalfi. We did some shopping and laid on the beach for a little while. Amalfi was nice, but Positano was definitely my favorite town. That afternoon we were looking for a restaurant at about 3:15 because in Italy most restaurants close between 4 and 7...but apparently in Amalfi they all close at 3. Unlucky. We finally found THE ONE restaurant that was open and I had Ricci pasta! I was so excited. Then the waiter thought we were beautiful girls so he gave us free limoncello. Limoncello is the alcohol of the region that is made there. It's basically pure alcohol with some lemon flavour. It was very strong, but we choked it down. I got a great pic of Nikki's "limoncello face." Oh, and we almost didn't make our ferry. We left at 7:45 a.m. from our hostel in order to make a 9:30 train from Naples to Brindisi. That train was late and then our connecting train was like an hour and a half after we arrived in the other town...so by the time we got to Brindisi it was 6 p.m. and the ferry was to leave at 7. We barely made it out to the dock at about 6:30 only to find out that the reservation she had made wasn't in their system...so we ended up just paying cash and literally getting on the boat at 7. Close call. Speaking of...we had a similar experience when we went to Capri Sunday and we were actually running to the boat and were the last ones on. It's great fun!

Soakin up the sun

Well...we have been busy girls. Let's see...went to the ancient city of Pompeii with Paul (Australian hottie) Saturday and it was really great. I mean, it's a pretty amazing place. I don't know if you know the history at all or not, but Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79 and basically covered Pompeii and all the inahbitants. So the city was pretty well preserved, and then excavated I think in the 1800's or so. Anyway, it's really quite big and fascinating. When they were excavating they found bodies that were covered in the hardened ash and even the expressions on their faces were preserved, so they poured plaster of paris into the cavities and were able to capture the positions and expressions of the people. It's kind creepy, but also pretty awesome. Paul acted as our tour guide and led us around with the map. It was really HOT though, so we didn't see absolutely everything, but we did spend a few hours there. Yesterday we went to the Isle of Capri which I absolutely loved and would like to visit again later. I would love to rent a boat there (which you can do) and a scooter to ride around on. It's so beautiful!!! We mostly soaked up the sun on the beach, which was really nice and relaxing! Last night we were in Sorrento walking around thinking about finding a restaurant and then we ran into this girl Laura that Nikki had met at the hostel in Rome, so we went to dinner together and then randomly were seated next to these 2 American girls that I had seen at Capri but hadn't talked to. I noticed them on Capri because they were reading Rick Steve's guide to Italy and were clearly American. So we sat by them and I said "weren't you at Capri today, I saw you there...." and they were so precious. Twenty years old and studying in florence for 6 weeks this summer. One is from Dallas and was just the cutest thing, reminded me of Nikah actually. They had some good travel stories and stuff, so we ended up hanging out with all these girls in a piazza in Sorrento until after 11-there was live music and folk dancing going on in the square for some festival. Then we caught the last bus back to the hostel. Today we are gonna go soak up some more sun at Amalfi. Good times!!

I'm in LOVE with Italy

If I could marry a country, I think it would be Italy. My goodness there is just so much beauty here...such fantastic places to see. I thought Cinque Terre was the best place EVER, then I went to Lake Como and thought that was heaven on earth, but then I visited Tuscany and decided that it was a slice of heaven. Sometimes I think you find a piece of heaven in different things...like in a person or a place or a food or an idea or anything...you just discover these little pieces of heaven. I've had may pieces of heaven during the past 2 weeks.
I can't believe this place. I have so much to say since I haven't been able to post in a while...but I'll try to condense it!
So I stayed at this place called Fattoria Basseto in Certaldo in Tuscany. It was amazing because it was this 300 year old farmhouse kind of place...very rustic and simple. One building was the villa with private rooms and the other had the hostel rooms. It was really cool and relaxing there. I took a couple of hammock naps which were fabulous! They had a little pool as well. This place is so great that several people there were return visitors and others were there on recommendations. I would definitely like to go back. The second day I was there I did a cooking class with my new canadian friends and some others. It was so much fun! We learned how to prepare bruschetta, a spaghetti dish I can't remember the name of, and Tiramasu. The food was ridiculously good. This chef, Guiseppena, makes everything, even her own olive oil from her olives on her trees. It was so cool. We had wine and cheese as well...and we got to wear chef hats and everything. Loved every minute of it! That evening 4 of us went up to the old town on the hill (Certaldo Alto) to this radical festival called Mercantia. It just happened to be this week, so we were really lucky. There were loads of musicians walking around or sitting playing instruments like accordians and fiddles and such...it was awesome. There were lots of crafts and artsy things and it was just really cool and really random. I saw some amazing bellydancing. I mean wow. And I ate this pork sandwich, which was pork straight off the pig that had been roasted on the spit. I kid you not. The whole pig was sitting right there. It was the best pork I've ever tasted. And it was on focaccia bread, so yum. And the next day me and my new friends went on the Tuscany tour...went to Volterra, San Gimignano, Wine tasting (Chianti), and swimming in a river thing with big, deep water holes. So we were jumping off the rocks into the water and everything, way fun!! Volterra and San Gimignano were both really cool old hilltop towns. It was like the greatest day ever. If you ever go to Tuscany, you should definitely stay at Fattoria Basseto. Yesterday I met up with Nikki in Rome and we headed down to the Amalfi Coast. We are staying in Sorrento. Today we went to Positano which was beautiful. These are towns built up into the side of the mountains, and with the coast at the bottom. Really pretty. We met a hottie Australian today and so tomorrow we are all going to Pompeii. I gotta go sleep now! We are having a blast!

My week of bliss came to a grinding halt...

Everything was absolutely wonderful in every way...until Sunday. It wasn't a completely horrible day, it was just a wasted day really. Bologna is not my favorite place. Basically I woke up early on sunday and was hoping to leave the hostel by 8-8:30, but the guy was late arriving so I wasn't able to checkout. But he was there are 8:30 which meant I could check out and still catch the ferry, but he said no the ferry was going on strike at 9 for the whole day and I couldn't get it. But I saw the ferry and I said "it's there, i can still get it" but he said "no it will not leave Menaggio because of the strike. I needed to get the ferry to get across to the train to make for a shorter trip than taking the bus all the way down to Como. Well he was wrong and the ferry did leave, without me. So I had to wait 2 hours for the bus, then an hour trip down to Como, then wait another hour for the train to Bologna, changed at one place and had to wait half an hour...so I finally got to Bologna at about 5 on a Sunday and Sundays in Italy are not a lot of fun-everything is closed. So I didn't even know where to go to see anything and so I gave up and went for the hostel. The hostel was actually more like a hotel which was pretty sweet and I made a new Australian friend. We played some mean table tennis and watched the Italy v. France game and Italy won!!! You should have heard the cheers and then the fireworks. Then this morning because of staying just outside of town and because of busses and everything I did not make the early train to Tuscany, so had to wait a couple hours...so thought I would go to the old town center in Bologna and see what there was. Turns out I don't care for the city much. It has some really nice and beautiful and interesting buildings, but it also mostly smelled of pee or poo (haha) like everywhere I was walking. Dirty. I'm sure it has some charm to offer but I was in a bad mood I think because of my wasted day and a half. I finally arrived at my hostel in Tuscany though and it's quite a place. I'm lovin it and I sooooo wish I had just skipped over Bologna altogether and come straight here. Oh well, no use crying over whatever. But I think tomorrow I am going to do a cooking class and go on a bike ride. Then the next night I will meet Nikki in Rome. So, one wasted day isn't so bad in the grand scheme right?? Thanks for reading.

I can't believe this is my life!!!

Sometimes I feel like I must have stepped into someone else's life! Oh my good heavens, I am so stinkin in love with Italy, it is just unbelievable! Where do I begin?? I haven't been able to use the internet because it's extremely hard to come by and it does not come cheap!! So I'm sorry if you've been waiting to hear how things are! I absolutely LOVE traveling alone! It's so great because you meet new people everywhere you go and if you want to be alone you can, but if you don't want to, you usually don't have to. Today is actually the first day I have been alone...so I've been wandering around aimlessly and loving every minute of it. Let me just say that life is pretty good when the most stressful moment of your day is trying to decide what flavor gelato you want :-) So...what have I been doing? Let's see...day one I arrived in Genoa and met some Brits from Cambridge on the bus up to the hostel, so we hung out that day with another American girl who had been living abroad in Paris for the past year. We walked around the beautiful old town center and ate some amazing focaccia while sitting down on some steps in a piazza and listening to a man play the accordian. How nice. Liguria is the region where focaccia is from, so it's pretty tasty and cheap! Tuesday I headed to Cinque Terre and arrived at my hostel during closing hours, so wandered around the very small village of Biassa. It was precious and I really enjoyed it. It was just outside of the Cinque Terre, so much quieter and very tranquil. After checking in, I immediately met a Candian girl called Emily and we headed to the beach at Monterosso. We had a really nice time and then went to Vernazza (Rick Steve's favorite of the five villages...) for dinner. A friend had recommended La Torre (the tower) to me, so we decided to find it. What an adventure! It was up at the very top of a whole heck of a lot of stairs...we would come to a restaurant or house or just see someone and ask "Dove La Torre?" And they would just point up...so we carried on climbing until we arrived to this tiny ristorante with the most incredible view. Oh my word, it was truly breathtaking. We dined al fresco of course and were seated next to some really friendly honeymooners from Montana. Had the best bruschetta I've ever tasted and then some amaznig pesto lasagne. Wow. Pesto actually originated in Vernazza, so you can imagine how fabulous it is there! The next day Em and I hiked from Biassa (our small village) through the Cinque Terre towns. We had quite an adventure the night before (long story!!) and were really tired, but we made it to Vernazza. Had some fantastic pizza there after we spent an hour kayaking. We had the best day ever and I think we'll be friends for life. We make great travel companions. The next day I came up to Lake Como-to Menaggio. I almost didn't because it was quite a trek up, but decided to anyway and AM SO GLAD I DID!! I was riding the bus up to Menaggio from the train station at the bottom of Como and as soon as I saw the lake surrounded by the majestic mountains, I seriously almost cried. I don't think I've ever had such a reaction to a place...I just can't even begin to describe how gorgeous it is. You'll just have to see my pictures. There are plenty! Yesterday I thought I'd probably go hiking and these 2 California boys (Santa Barbara) invited me along with them to do a hike...and it was quite a hike. We ascended 600m in 1hr 20 mins. That's pretty hefty. I got freaked out about the heights and turned back close to the end, but I ended up finishing after lots of encouragement from my new friends, Gurie and Nate. It was great and we had the most incredible views throughout the hike. Today I've been wandering around aimlessly through Bellagio and Varenna on Como. Tomorrow I'll head to Bologna for a night, just one because I decided to stay an extra night up here. I have so much more to say and so many stories to share already...but I know this has already gotten quite long and my time is about up anyway. The best 3 words that could sum up my thoughts and feelings through this adventure thus far would probably be opportunity, possibility, and liberation. That's what I feel and what I see ahead. I hope you are each doing well and enjoying your sunshine and friends! Email me or leave comments please because I miss you!