spring break

3/15/09
Day 55-64-Florence, Corfu, Athens

So we had a great day of shopping and packing on Friday. I watched a live chat that Honor Society did, and then we got up early on Saturday morning to catch our first train. We took two trains and ended up at the Italian port of Ancona. We hung out there for a bit to eat lunch, and then boarded our overnight cruise ship to Greece. We were glad that we ended up upgrading to a cabin room. What was advertised as fully reclining airplane seats that you would sleep in were literally crappy movie theater seats. Our room was pretty small of course, but much nicer than sleeping in gross chairs with other people in the room.

We got to our stop in Greece around 8:30 the next morning. We then walked with our heavy luggage; this was probably a 30 minute walk by the way—the beginning of my arm hurts so bad and I think I gave myself tennis elbow or something. We walked around to find food as we waited for our ferry that would take us to Corfu. We boarded the fairy and I fell asleep awkwardly on a bench thing for the length of the trip. We then met busses that took us to our hostel “The Pink Palace”. There we had our first shots of ouzo (alright, those of yall who think that jaeger is gross because it tastes like licorice…DON’T TAKE OUZO-that stuff is legitimate licorice). They told us about all the things offered at the hostel and then took us to our rooms. We then took a walk to the deck by the beach. It would have been warmer had it not been windy, but it was absolutely gorgeous. Later that night, we had a pink toga party, which was so much fun.

The next day, we went on the quad/ATV safari. I could not drive myself since I don’t carry my license around Florence or in my travels. Julia was going to take me as a passenger, but could not because when she got her license, the place made a mistake and accidentally printed “provisional” on it, even though it was her real license. Caitlin then offered to drive me, but after she took her test drive, she decided that she did not feel comfortable driving the ATV. We ended up each riding as passengers on the back of the two leaders’ ATVs. We saw so much of the island and got amazing views. It was a bit scary at sometimes because people actually fell off. Our friend Bethany did fall off and landed on a rock on her side and got a nasty scrape there and in other places. She was a bit shooken up to say the least, but handled it better than anyone I know.

On our third day in Corfu, we sat in the sun, relaxed, and read. We wanted to enjoy as much of the weather as we could before starting on our trip to Athens later that night. We took a bus after dinner to the ferry to mainland Greece. After the ferry, we had a six hour bus ride to Athens. The heaters in the bus were grilling our feet and our faces and there was no way to turn them off. I probably slept for an hour maximum on that bus ride, which spanned from past 2 am until 9 am. After that, we got to our hotel and went straight out to explore Athens. Oh, I lost a good pair of sunglasses on that bus ride, and now I’m left with my cheap sunglasses..which is fine, but not okay that I lost that pair.

Oh, by this point in time, my suitcase really does not like me at all..things are going downhill in our relationship. In Athens, we see a lot of ancient greek ruins, such as the temple to Hephaestus, ruins of the temple to zeus, ruins of the bathhouses, ruins of what a classical house that stood in ancient Athens. We then walked to the Acropolis, only to find that the workers were holding a strike and we could not get into see it. Right there was a beautiful view of the whole city of Athens. It was completely breathtaking; you could see the span of the city in complete uninterrupted panorama. That night, we had an amazing traditional Greek dinner. The food was fanstastic; I loved it! We then went out dancing, which was such amazing fun. We had a great time.

The next day, it rained all day and everyone was kind of crabby. We did not do much since the weather sucked and we were not sure if the Acropolis was closed or not and did not want to walk all the way up there and take the chance that it was closed. We ended up going to the Benaki Museum later that day, which was interesting, but none of us were really feeling it. We went to dinner later and then went out for a few hours before coming back. I ended up staying up to watch another Honor Society Live chat and went to bed soon after that.

We then had a complete travel day. We took a three hour bus ride, which I happily passed out during, and then took another overnight cruise back to the port of ancona. This was probably the most delirious cruise I have ever taken. I kept myself from napping, which took a toll on me later when we were trying to entertain ourselves after dinner. We started by playing cards, and it just went downhill hilariously from there. I could not even describe to you what we did or why it was so funny, but it was. The next day, we landed in Ancona at about 1 pm and then took a cab to the train station. We made one stop in Bologna before returning to Florence. We went out to dinner htat night and then just relaxed, which is exactly what I am doing today. Not looking forward at all to going to school tomorrow, but there is nothing that I can do about that.

So injury count and broken/lost count on trip:

My arms and back are one huge ball of soreness from pulling my luggage and sitting on the back of the ATV

I rolled my ankle again when I got off of the ATV and had to wear my ankle thing for two days, which I think made it worse instead of better

Lost my sunglasses

Sunburn

My suitcase legitimately broke. Ironically, I was telling Michaela how I wanted to throw it down the stairs because I was sick of dragging it everywhere and didn’t care how many people it hit. Then, I dragged it down the stairs and the weight finally got to it as the handles bent under the force of the weight. I was still able to pull it with the handles at this point, but then Julia tried to bend it back into place and actually made it worse. I began pulling it with the fabric handle for lifting, which made me walk even slower because it was hitting my legs since it was shorter. While walking to the bus, the metal handle completely broke. Goodbye suitcase, I will miss you.