Greatest summer ever!!

I know it's been a while since I was able to catch everything up.  I've gotten several emails from people asking when I was going to wrap things up, "Soon, I promise" I've been saying for a week and a half now!  But I've been busy!!  I had laundry to do (Ok so it actually only took me 2 loads, I didn't really have that much stuff, it was all just really dirty).  People to catch up with.  Dana, Neddie, and I had dinner when I got back and they got American-themed Welcome home signs and decorations, so great!!!  Bills to pay, errands to run, work to start up again, math workshops to attend, engagements to celebrate (Congrats Dana and Chad!!) and American things to do.  USA v. Mexico soccer game with the Nash's, and randomly running into Ross and then my kickball team for tailgating, freedom gummies, random outbursts of USA chants, AWESOME night!!!  Fireworks and a baseball game is still in my back home to-do list, if anyone is interested!!


Finally, Meg told me that it was unacceptable that I hadn't posted in over 2 weeks, and she put me on a 2 day deadline.  So, instead of being on the beach on my favorite kind of day, I'm in Starbucks blogging away to make her deadline!! :)  I'm glad to finishing everything up, and sharing the last bits of my stories.  I know everyone (and by everyone I'm mainly referring to my mother) wants to see pictures.  The plan is, instead of going back and putting them in the blog, to make a book out of them, that should be accessible on line.  I've run out of time today, but hope to be working on it soon and I'll post it when I can! :)

And I couldn't wait to get back to the States...

I got up early with the girls to see them off.  They had to catch an 8am bus, and my shuttle didn't leave until 9:30.  I was sad to see them go, jealous that they get to go see more things, but I was ready to get home too.  The Rome airport is as crazy as the rumors say it is.  I really wish I could understand all other languages so that I could eavesdrop on what everyone around me was saying, especially when there's really good domestics going on!!  A 3 hour plane ride to my stop-over in Dublin.  Everyone in the airport was dressed in pants and sweaters, so I knew it was pretty chilly there!!  I didn't have time to make it out of the airport, with only a 2 hour stop-over, but I could see the beautiful green and mountainous landscape around me, and it's definitely somewhere I want to go back to!  When it was time to load the plane, I had great prime-time seating.  First row of coach, lots of leg room, first one off the plane, it was going to be great!  Then I got called to the desk and asked to switch with a lady so that she could sit next to her baby.  Yea, no problem!!  Well, now instead of being in row 10, I'm in row 42, with 300 people in front of me when it's time to unload, instead of 20.  And my leg room no longer exists.  I was not the happiest about that, but I'm hoping to put that in the good karma bank.  Before taking off, we waited over an hour on the runway, because they were trying to fix the on-board entertainment systems.  I'm not good with sitting still as it is, much less knowing that it's going to be for 7 more hours while crossing the Atlantic, but I was grateful when they finally fixed, and it only ended up being about 30 minutes later than the originally scheduled arrival.

When I arrived at JFK airport, it was POURING!!!  I had not seen rain since I left London 6 weeks before, so this was not the "Welcome home" I wanted, but I was still glad to be back on American soil.  I was super glad to see my parents.  My dad, as I knew he would, wanted to help me with my bags.  I asked him where he was when I needed him all summer! And no, I did not have the old man carry my heavy bags that I was perfectly capable of carrying!  Even though the 3 hour car ride home was not ideal, it was good to be able to catch up.  Especially knowing that my own bed awaited me! :)

ROMA!!!

This time in Rome, we opted to upgrade our originally reserved tent, into a lovely little cabin.  Whereas we are now paying more, we have a kitchen with a fridge, so our saving instead of having to buy every meal.  Cereal for brekky, packed sandwiches for lunch (no vegimite for me!!) and proper home cooked meals (tacos and stir-fry in Rome???...why not!).  Our first day, we were up and out early to check out the Colosseum.  A ride on the graffiti-covered subway.  Which surprisingly, unlike almost every other city we've been in, do not give instructions in English in addition to their language.  I would have thought that with the number of tourists here, they definitely would.  As soon as we got out of the subway stop, BOOM, there was the ginormous remains of the Colosseum.  It was so big inside, and yet so similar to any large stadium that you would walk through today.  After touring through there, we walked down to the Pantheon.  This building, although people have tried several times before, cannot be replicated today.  It blows my mind that people so many years ago was able to create something that cannot be done with everything we have today.  The oculus at the top (the hole that lets the light in) is 142 feet in diameter, and had to be made perfectly in order for it to survive it's almost 2,000 years.  It's the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. We then stopped at Trevi Fountain, and each threw a coin in to ensure our return to Rome.  Marnie actually threw in two, which means she's coming back to Italy, and falling in love there.  Then, we headed to the Spanish Step's and ate our picnic lunch before heading to our meeting spot of our Rome Tour.  If you go to Rome, I would really recommend this tour company.  The founders of this company are an American and a Canadian, and it's been running for about 3 years now.  They know their Roman history really well, and also compare past Roman Rulers and events, to modern ones that would be familiar to us now.  Our tour guide was passionate and knowledgable about Rome's history, funny and entertaining.  He was great, and re-hearing all of these stories that I'm sure I've heard before, everything seemed so much more real being in the city and around the buildings that they were talking about.  Exhausted by the end of the day, as per usual!

The following day, we used the same tour company and took a tour of The Vatican.  After we realized that leaving later meant a longer public transit wait, we decided to try to get a cab, but all lines were long.  Finally, we were able to get one, and thanks to the craziness that is Italian drivers, and that our tour guide waited an extra long time for everyone to get there, we made it!  Another great tour with stories that didn't feel like a painful history class.  The highlight of the Vatican, of course, was the Sistine Chapel.  The chapel is HUGE!!!!  I can't imagine anyone painting this, so much!!  The creation with God and Adam, is only one part of the ceiling.  Another awesome part, is a portrait of Jonas and whale.  It's painted on an arched part of the ceiling, but you would never be able to tell, with Michelangelo's genius ability. We also toured through St. Peter's Cathedral and walked around the square before heading back and getting things organized for our departure!

We had our last supper together as a little traveling family.  Got all of our things organized and then played Uno around the kitchen table for a bit.  An early departure in the morning.  Marnie and Sally to Switzerland, and me back to the states!

Southern Italy

An 8 am departure after our night in the tents to travel down the coast towards Sorrento.  We stopped at Pompeii along the way.  The city of Pompeii was covered by volcanic ash in 79 AD so quickly that most people could not get out of the city before it killed them.  It also preserved the city for thousands of years so, when they uncovered it in recent times, we were able to see almost exactly how it was back then.  We walked through the streets and saw the gladiator training areas, the theater, storefronts, bakeries, brothels, pipes and water systems, as well as houses that included original decorations.  When they were excavating the city, they started to come across bodies in the ash, so they decided that when they found this, they would fill it in with plaster to get a cast of the bodies.  These casts were so detailed, you could see the clothes and belts these people were wearing, and the one of the dog (so sad!), you could see it’s collar.  These people were trying to take cover as their last living action, you can tell because of how their bodies are positioned.    The thing that amazed me most about being there is that there is a huge city right next to it.  Our tour guide was telling us it’s where he lives, and how dangerous it is because Mount Vesuvius is still active and can erupt any minute, and if it dose, and that ash cloud comes again, it would kill most of the people in the city below because they wouldn’t have enough time to escape.  I can’t believe people still live there!

A bit further down the coast before arriving at Sorrento, our home for 2 nights, and we’re in tents again!  It’s going to be a bit annoying to charge my camera, sitting next to it at any plug I can find, but I’m going to need to because we don’t have any power points again.  We were warned that Southern Italy does things on it’s own time, so getting the bus into town that night was not as reliable as other cities.  The city is adorable, as we have drinks and hang out on the Napoli Bay for a bit, before heading to dinner and then out for a few drinks.

The following day, we took a boat ride to the Island of Capri.  This was no boat ride down the Lewes canal.  I think it was worse than the ferry ride to Santorini, but I made it!!  The plan was to stop at the Blue Grotto along the way.  This is a similar idea to the Blue Cave we went in in Croatia.  The limestone walls of the cave (that is only accessible through a super small entrance from the sea) reflects the light for an amazingly, beautiful sight.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to access it, because the swells in the water were too big to get inside.  I knew that would be the case 5 minutes into the trip!!

We got to the island, and took a convertible taxi ride to the Antecapri and then rode what is essentially a single-seat ski lift to the very top of the mountain.  Again, amazing views on the way up and in every direction!!  On the way back down, we did a lot of window shopping in Antecapri, and Capri after a short bus ride through roads that were so narrow and literally on the edge of a cliff!  Capri is an island where many of the rich and famous people go.  There were lots of expensive shops, and fancy things.  Pictures outside of the restaurants with famous people and the owners of the shops.  We then took the walking path back down to the beach to soak in the amazing water views with all the big fancy yachts.  We spent the rest of afternoon on the beach.  Another rocky one, but the water was as blue and beautiful as ever!!  The boat ride back was better than the one there, things on the water had calmed down a bit.  We had dinner that night at the restaurant that was at our camp site.  It had AMAZING views of Napoli Bay as the sun set over it.  There was even fireworks going off once it got dark.  An early night for all.

The next day we left early so that we could ride down the Amalfi Coast before the narrow roads on the cliff's edge (again!) got too crowded.  Our guide compared the Amalfi coast to Australia's Great Ocean Road.  I've been on both, and bottom line is they're both beautiful!  We went through towns that have pirate's legends connected with them, stopped at a family's fresh fruit stand (best peach I EVER ate)  Everything in Italy is so fresh!!  We stopped in Amalfi in the morning, got cappuccino and pastries from a bakery, checked out the shops and the church, then went for a boat ride, where we were able to see the Amalfi coast from the waters.  It was a bit overcast this day (later to find out possibly caused by some volcanic activity around the corner in Sicily that day).  Despite the unusually not beautiful weather, I decided to go for a swim off the boat.  Ended up climbing up on some sharp rock formations and jumping 20 meters off into the water (totally wouldn't have done it if I wasn't so close to the end of my trip).  We then continued on the coast a bit further to Ravello for another yummy Italian meal, and more amazing views. and gardens.

Due to a road being closed, we had to spend an extra hour on the windy Amalfi coast, which, despite it's beauty, I was not very happy with, but once we were on the highway I began to feel much better.  We finally back to Rome, only a couple hours later than originally scheduled due to our detour.  PS, there is no way in the world that I would EVER drive in Italy.  These roads are RIDICULOUS!!!!  Saw a woman in tears at one point when she held up our bus for about 10 minutes trying to get by her on the narrow ways

And....we did it again!!

Not checking the ticket for our exact flight time, we got to the Athens airport about 5 hours before our flight.  Oops!!  Sally needs to be in charge of this information from now on (good thing this was my last flight before heading home) Sally forgave us since we were able to locate a McDonald’s in the airport.  And, we made our flight, so that helped too.  Better too early than too late!

We made it to Rome with all of our baggage, so life is good.  We checked into Camping Roma at a late enough hour that it was already dark out.  We obviously went for the cheapest place for the night…the tents, thinking this was a great idea.  After struggling a bit in the darkness, we finally found the lights inside, and 3 beds awaited us, but that was about it.  No power point to charge our cameras, and walls that were made of a canvas material.  Perfect for eavesdropping on those around you.  Not so perfect for when you’re trying to sleep, and people in your surrounding tents are singing and chatting, or people are rolling their suitcases on the cobblestone path outside at all hours of the night. 

Athens Take 2

OK, so our final ferry ride was much better than the last one (we also took it easy the night before which helped things out heaps)  And, just our luck, the taxi driver’s were on strike when we arrived at the Athens port.  So, in true backpacker’s style, public transportation it was!  Of course there was a bit of wandering around the streets being sent in opposite directions with our huge packs on before we found out actual place but we made it! And, what’s even better is that what was described as “12 person mixed dorm" (aka 12 beds with boys and girls), was actually our own mini apartment, complete with living room, kitchenette, balcony, 3 beds and…AIRCON!!  Glorious!!  Since we were there around 6 and didn’t even have the entire next day, we decided to venture out and see some sites before settling in.  We went to the Acropolis Museum, which has a lot of statues and artifacts from the actual Acropolis.  It’s also designed identical to the Parthenon, so you can get a feel of how it would have been walking around when the entire structure was in its whole.  It also had amazing views of the Parthenon, as well as the city of Athens around it, which included other ancient buildings and landmarks.

After enjoying our cool rooms, we had an early morning ahead of us if we wanted to get in everything we wanted to do.  Even though we were one of the first ones heading up the hills of the Acropolis, it was still scorching hot!  We made our way up the hills and when we walked through the gate into the Acropolis, the sight literally took my breath away.  These buildings are ginormous! It just blows my mind that they are so big, beautiful, and old.  I think that many people have lost their imagination and creative thinking with all the technology that is available to us today, but people hundreds of years ago had to figure out how they could develop the big and beautiful buildings they wanted to, without the use of machinery or modern tools.  We spent some time checking out the buildings, and the city around us, and sweating at the top.  I got in trouble taking a picture of Ed with the buildings; they even made me delete it!  But, I had some others still! :)

We then made our way to Hadrian’s Arch, separating the Roman city from the Greek city, a temple, and the Olympic stadium from the first modern Olympics before making it to the tomb of the unknown soldier to watch the changing of the guards.  It was right on a square where pigeons gathered and people were standing there selling you bird seed so that the pigeons would come sit on you.  No thank you!!!!  We saw the soldiers in their traditional outfits, and watched the ceremony of them changing and felt bad for them in the scorching heat!  A little cruise through the shops before heading back for our bags and plane to Italy!

This day helped Athens to redeem itself for me.  If you ever go, I wouldn’t recommend staying down by the port (unless you have an early ferry!) and sticking close to the Acropolis and surrounding area instead.  I wish I got to tour the 2000 Olympic stadiums (since we know I LOVE the Olympics) but I guess I’ll have to leave that for next time! J