Good and Bad

You'll see why I wasn't able to get online last night and do this post when you get done reading. I got up and tried to make the bus to Akrotiri and I missed it for the second day in a row. My watch was late and I saw the bus pulling away when I got to the station. Annoying. I was pretty angry with myself and didn't know what to do so I all the way down the cliff to the old port where a cruise ship was unloading. The path had donkey doo doo alllllll over it. Smelly. Oh well. I sat in a chair and updated my journal thing. As I was writing I saw three really cute girls get off a boat and the blond turned around. It was Alyssa!! So joke!! What a freaking coincidence. Through facebook I knew she was going on a cruise of Greece but I didn't think there was anyway that we would be in the same place at the same time (the odds are off the charts, as you can imagine). So we said hi and talked for a couple minutes but her tour or whatever was leaving so we parted ways. That totally made my day. It was so nice to see someone from home. After a while, it started raining. Yes, rain on a Greek island. I was undercover so it wasn't so bad. I walked back up smelling donkey... Yuck. It rained some more.

The rest of my day was spent doing random things to take up time. I was very antsy for the ferry to Crete. On the bright side, the rain cleared away so it was sunny. I went into a bunch of souvenir stores (only bought two things though). I walked down some streets like 8 times. I would sit for 5 minutes and then think, "I can go to the bathroom, that will take 10 minutes!!" After that was done, I would sit for another 5 minutes and then think of another stupid little thing to do. I just wanted to go which makes it sound like I didn't like Santorini or something which is completely not true. I loved it. I just get antsy when I know I am going to leave a place (I have discussed this ad nauseum). It was finally time to get my backpack from the hotel and the guy asked for money for breakfast!!! It wasn't even free!! What a freaking ripoff. No one EVER told me it costs money. He told me someone did. I assured him that that was not the case. Whatever. I just paid him the money (it was only 15 euros for the three breakfasts) and left without smiling. So annoying. I did not like that place very much, no real dorm, breakfast was a ripoff, and no free internet. None of those things are on their hostelworld.com page.

I took the bus down to the port. A girl walked by and said the ferry I was riding was broken. I asked the guy at the office and he said it was being fixed and was "90% sure it would leave today". Yeah, that didn't happen. Apparently the hull was damaged but when they fixed that, the equivalent to the "check engine" light came on and they didn't know why. I ended up talking to two people, Jessica and James, while we waited to see what would happen. James is from Wales and Jessica is from Buffalo. They were really nice. We ended up sitting down at the port for over 6 hours (from 5 pm until after 11 pm) before they finally decided they weren't going to get it fixed until morning. We all got on buses and they took us to a hotel somewhere. I didn't get into a room until after 12 because they had to arrange and find rooms for over 70 people. I had no access to internet which sucked too. What a crazy, and for the most part, bad day. Not every day can be good so it's not a big deal really. I was actually kind of happy to get a free nights rest. Haha.

Ciao!

Catching Up

Well, I know I already did that post before about me returning back to London but I wanted to make sure I just discussed a little bit about what I did today. Mostly it was spent in front of a computer catching up but I also did some catching up not in front of a computer.

I got back to my flat at around 3:00 am last night. Before I even unpacked, I went online and read some of the sports articles I had missed while I was away. Kind of pathetic but I really missed reading them and I hated feeling out of the loop. I went to bed at around 4. I woke up close to 10 and lazed around a little. Vanessa is really awesome and got some money out of the bank to loan me until my debit card comes. I eventually got ready.

I called Alyssa Samways back from the old days of Park Center. She had facebooked me and told me that she was going to be in London today. She is on study abroad in Leeds which is north of here, sort of near Liverpool but further inland. Anyway, I called her and me and her two friends met up at Harrod's. They got something to eat near there and we sat and talked about England. Alyssa had done a three week program last summer in Italy so we also talked about that a lot. I felt kind of bad because her two friends couldn't really contribute to that part of the discussion but nothing I could do. It was so much fun to see someone from back in MN here. I don't think I told her that which is kind of too bad and I wish I had. We were sitting in the coffee shop with Harrod's in the window and it just blew my mind that we were sitting there. 5 years ago, we sat next to each other in 10th grade health class. Now we were eating in London. Crazy how life turns out sometimes.

After saying goodbye, I went to the grocery store and bought a ton of groceries. I planned on buying enough to last for 8 days. There was a bunch of stuff on sale and most of it was frozen or was good in the fridge for a while so I think it should be fine. It felt so good to be back in London. I know that that is weird considering how out of place I felt when I first got here and how out of place I still feel sometimes but one cannot overestimate the worth of having a place where you are at least mildly comfortable. Its nice. Most of the rest of the day was spent on the computer organizing photos and doing those two posts below. I can't believe I have another 7 to go. Wow.

I also spent part of my day talking to the other people from my program about their trips. Another part of the "catching up" theme. Apparently some people were in Barcelona and someone came and stole someone's purse. The group got a little roughed up but ended up taking one of the guys to the police. Very scary. I am really glad that everyone is ok.

The last part of the catching up angle I have not done is hear back from people who read the blog. Any updates from people are welcome. Um, so I guess that's it. I hope everyone has/had a good Saturday and I will be back tomorrow I am sure with a bunch more posts so check back often. Till then...

Arrivederci!