Wilhelm Tell

I woke up and showered. They have holders for the shower head! One of my few gripes about the hostels in Greece was that you had to hold the shower head in one hand to get yourself wet. It was incredbily annoying. In Switzerland, that is not a problem, thank God. I packed up and left my big backpack until I came back for it before I left. I decided to walk down to the waterfront one last time. It was drizzling a little while I walked but not too much. The mountains were obscured by clouds (view from near train station piture 1). I am glad it wasn't like that when I arrived yesterday. I bought an almond cake thing and some orange juice for breakfast and ended up not finsishing it so I had for lunch on the train as well. I ate my breakfast in a bus shelter on the lakefront beause all the benches were wet. Haha, that must have been a sight to see. I hopped on the scenic train up to Fluelen which is on the end of Lake Lucerne (picture 2). There are four scenic train rides in Switzerland and this is one of them. The train ride is called the William Tell Express because this was the area in Switzerland he supposedly came from. William Tell is a folk hero for the Swiss like Daniel Boone is for Americans. The train ride was quite scenic and actually passed through a tunnel that was 10 miles long. Geez. You couldn't totally make out all the mountains because of clouds but I saw enough to get a pretty good idea (picture 3). There were lots of valleys and I could watch the architecture change from Italian to German influenced. The train ride took about 1.5 hours.

I arrived in Fluelen and decided to call a hostel in Lucerne. I called the hostel and got a reservation but accidently left the Rick Steves Switzerland on the garbage can. I walked around trying to figure out where to buy tickets for the ferry and when the ferry left. This was easier said than done because everything was in German. I finally realized I didn't have the book and found that it was gone. Huge, big, large, bummer. I was pretty depressed about that. It was from the Kensington Library which makes me feel bad because they are never getting it back now. Oh well. I bought a ferry ticket to get across the lake. It was kind of expensive but I figured that I would probably never be able to do it again. The boat had restaurant like seating inside and benches outside. I sat outside the whole time (picture 4). That was pretty cold especially since I was so used to eighty degrees and sun in Greece (it was windy, fifty, and cloudy). I survived and looked at the scenery. The boat trip was 3 hours long so I looked at the scenery and read more of The Lost World. Super good book. The clouds were hanging low in some places and not in others (picture 5). I got to Luzern (the way they spell it here) and started to walk to my hostel. On the way, a young guy asked if I needed help. That was nice of him. He said that he went to school near the hostel and backpacks would always walk by it looking lost.

My hostel is ok. One of the guys in my room is from Canada and another is from Beijing but speaks English fluently. I was hungry so I used my Let's Go (thanks Amy) and ate at a, what else, kebab restaurant. I swear, I can't escape them. I got a Hawaiian kebab. It had ham, chicken, pineapple, and lettuce and tomato with some amazing sauce. Eating it was messy but delicious. I walked around Luzern a little bit after that. I walked along the river that cuts the town in two. I walked up one side and down the other. There were not that many people walking around. I saw the famous wooden bridge (picture 6). Very cool. I also saw the awesome fescoed walls of the houses (they painted the outside of teh buildings). The architecture just makes me want to smile (picture 7). Gingerbread houses or whatever. I went back to the hostel and went online. I bought a ticket for Sunday night to Amsterdam so it looks like I am going there. Haha. No turning back now I guess. I finished reading The Lost World. I am going to Jim's tomorrow.

Bye!

Tragedies and Comedies

So after finishing that post yesterday, I found out that Katherine's name is actually Catherine. I should have known, she's from Canada. Haha. Oh well. I changed them all to with a c now. Anyway, we left the internet cafe and went to the grocery store. You might be thinking, "Wait, didn't Jeremy already go to the grocery store on Tuesday?" You are thinking correctly then. Haha. I went twice. I bought some white chocolate, some puffy things that were flavored with peanuts and hazelnuts and some cookies. I already had petit-beurres (butter flavored crackers). Catherine bought some petit-buerres as well but a different brand so that we could compare. Then we ventured over to the big indoor municipal market and I bought peanuts and she bought banana chips (dehydrated bananas). It sounds like a lot of snacks and it is, but it really wasn't very expensive at all. It was 5:30 but we were bored so we got on the bus to the port even though our boat didn't leave for 3.5 hours. The bus ride was uneventful. We got to the port and it was 6 but we were able to board the boat. We did even though, again, we were 3 hours early. Haha.

We had deck tickets but a guy from PA who worked for the boat told us to just sit in one of the lounges because they weren't going to fill up. The lounges were filled with airplane type seats and had a 40" big screen tv in each one (picture 1). There were over 6 lounges on the boat. The worker guy told us the boat caught sit over 1000 people. Jeeeeez. We sat down and watched House with Greek subtitles. We couldn't figure out how to turn the volume up so it was not that enjoyable. Right after the show finished we figured it out. D'oh! Then we watched a show that is like Entertainment Tonight, it reported all the celebrity news. We tried to guess what they were talking about because it was all in Greek. While this was going on, we were talking and snacking. She said I was to blame for her eating all those snacks. I told her she was to blame. We could not come to a consensus. Fire Down Below, a Steven Seagal movie came on when the boat started moving. HILARIOUS! We made fun of the movie the entire time it was playing (while still snacking, haha). Then Matrix Reloaded came on but it was after midnight so I laid down and so did Catherine. I split off and on for the rest of the trip but Catherine told me (after the fact otherwise I would have tried to remedy the situation somehow) that she was too cold to sleep so she didn't. The ferry arrived at 5:30 am and we got off and found the subway.

We got off Line 2 at the same stop but I was going to walk to the bus and she was going to the train station so we said goodbye. I was super sad about it. The burden of loneliness was squarely back on my shoulders. It is one of those situations where you don't know what you are missing until you try it. I was used to traveling alone (after doing it for 18+ days) but once I tried traveling with someone who is cute, funny, smart, female, and nice, traveling alone is not so good anymore. Honestly, I hadn't felt that alone since my mom left back in March. Part of traveling is moving on and stuff. One of those "Better to have loved and lost" things except more like "Better to have traveled with and split up". The dumb thing is that I could have changed my plans and traveled around Athens with her today but for some reason I didn't. I don't why I didn't. It wasn't because I was afraid of changing my plans because at that time, I had no firm plans so I don't know. Oh well. I still had a really good day even though the whole time I kind of wished I wasn't alone.

I took a city bus to the Coach Terminal. I bought my ticket and waited for an hour for my bus to leave. The station was pretty dirty. The bus ride was only 2 hours and it went through some extremely pretty scenery. I arrived in Nafplion at around 10 am. Nafplion is a town on the Peloponnese Peninsula. It is small but very pretty. I went to the place in my Let's Go book (thanks again Amy, that book freaking rocks) and left my bag while my room was getting ready. I walked around Nafplion. There is a section called the Old Town that is awesome (picture 2) and has tons of these big red bush/vine things hanging all over. The buildings have windows and balconies just like Venice as well. There were some statues of Lord Byron and some other people who have visited (picture 3). I scoped out some possible dinner places because I didn't have anything else to do. Two places looked good. I walked along the waterfront as well. There is a little castle out in the harbor. Very cool. There is alsoPalamidi Castle up on a rock way above the town which reminded me of the Alhambra in Granada (view from my hostel's terrace picture 4). I went back to my hotel and showered and watched CNN for a while. Then I left and waited for my bus to Epidaurus.

Epidaurus has some very famous Ancient Greek ruins that are about 30 minutes south of Nafplion. The most famous part is the theater. It has 33 rows and can fit about 14,000 people. Not as big as the one in Ephesus but still very spectacular. The view from the top is amazing. The acoustics of the theater are very famous as well. If you stand in the middle of the stage area, people in the very top row can hear you rip a piece of paper or drop a coin on the ground. The acoustics are that good. There are also some ruins of the healing temples and stuff near by the theater. Back in the day, Epidaurus was more famous for it's healing powers than for it's theater. I spent 4 hours there wandering around and watching people in the theater. One guy started singing opera which was sweet (picture 5). Some of the ruins were of a stadium built 2,300 years ago that the local high school still has track meets at now (picture 6). There was also the bathhouse where people got healed (picture 7). I met two couples (one of them took my picture) who are guidance counselors in the US somewhere (I didn't ask). Both had heard of SJU though.

I took the bus back to Nafplion and wandered around for a little bit. The picture I took of the red bush things is one of my absolute favorites (picture 8). The sun was setting as I walked. I know I have said this before but this was quite possibly THE BEST SUNSET EVER (picture 9 and 10). The sun was shining through the clouds onto the mountains across the water, there were some little boats going back and forth in the harbor and the little castle was there... The whole thing was almost too beautiful for me to look at. I know that that doesn't make sense but it's true.

I ate dinner at an Italian restaurant. My table was under some of those red vine things. I had mousaka in honor of Catherine. She told me she had mousaka in Santorini and liked it a lot. I had not had it yet. It is minced meat and vegetables (mostly egg plant) topped by bouchemal sauce. Really good. Then I had ice cream for dessert. Second best ice cream ever (after that almond stuff in Granada). The caramel ice cream was the PERFECT consistency: not too soft, not too hard. Completely delicious.

Phew. That was a lot of writing and a long day. Tomorrow I am going to some more ruins. Mycenae and up to that castle on the rock.

Toodles!

Travel Days

I forgot to mention that yesterday my shoe lace broke on my shoe. I was prepared with new shoe laces to put in today which I did. That's pretty exciting I know. I spent the morning getting ready and packing and then hanging out by the harbor in Chania (picture 1). I went to the grocery store to get some snacks for the day and for the ferry ride tonight. Guess who I ran into in the store? Ben. Haha. He said, "Stop stalking me." I replied, "Likewise." I can't believe I ran into him again. I walked back to the harbor and watched some fish eat bread. People walked by and watched them as well (picture 2). Catherine and I met up and walked around. We sat and snacked and talked. We sat by a fountain and we sat by the harbor and we walked out to the lighthouse. Lots of sitting and waiting going on. Time goes by much faster when you have someone to talk to though, that's for sure. We talked about our families and friends. We discussed what traveling is like (likes and dislikes about it). She said something about how pictures are cool but don't capture the whole experience. Like while we were sitting by the lighthouse, there was a slight breeze, the sun was shining, some accordian music drifted over the harbor. All that stuff is not in that picture of the guy who was fishing right by us (picture 3). Anyway, it was fun to talk with her because we had even things in common to connect but enough things different to make it interesting.

Now we are at an internet cafe. I don't think I will have access again until later tomorrow so I figured I would do my post now. This morning I was woken up to the sound of jack hammers, that was nice. Later tonight, at nine, we are getting on an overnight ferry to Pireaus, the port of Athens. From there, I am going to go to the bus station and ride a bus to Nafplion which is a small town on the Peloponnese Peninsula. I am staying there for two or three nights. So there you go.

Sorry I don't have a more interesting day to speak of but this is one of those "travel days" where I am just sitting and waiting to get to the next phase of my trip. I realized today that I am exactly half way done with my trip (my trip being when I left London for Istanbul). That's insane. It seems like it has been shorter than that and longer at the same time. I can't believe I still have 18 more days left. Crazy.

Bye!

The Heat in Crete

We got woken up at 4:30 am (SO EARLY!!) and herded back onto the buses down to the port. The boat was fixed and left soon after. I slept the whole ride. I got to Heraklion, Crete and did my usual routine of asking a tourist office where my hotel is. I got there and ate breakfast. I walked around Heraklion and saw all the sights. I did a little siesta and then came to this internet cafe. Hopefully I can update this entry more tomorrow. My time is running low. Tomorrow I am going to Knossos, one of the best archaeological sites in the world. Till then, bye!

Miss and love everyone!!!

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!

Island Hopping

Hello again. I am reporting from the beautiful island of Santorini today. It turns out that the stupid hostel that I reserved lied about a few things on their hostelworld.com account thing. They do not have free internet and the "five person dorm room" is actually a three bed room that I have to myself. I am not really complaining about the room thing but it would be nice to actually have a hostel so I could meet some more people. It's almost impossible to meet people when you all have your own rooms. Anyway, back to what happened today.

Last night, I wandered around after going to the internet cafe soaking up the atmostphere and looking at how amazing all the houses in Mykonos look. There was a nice buzz around the town as well. There were locals and tourists walking around. It was awesome. I came to Mykonos at the perfect time. Still some locals and low season prices but warm weather. So I went back to my hotel and watched Day After Tomorrow on the tv. Then I fell asleep. I set my alarm to maybe go check out the sunrise again but I was too tired so I just fell asleep again. I woke up at 9 and got ready and left. I ate breakfast (mini croissants and juice) at the windmills. It was windy but fabulous. I love the windmills and I loved the view from there. I spent the rest of the morning walking up into the island for a little bit, just exploring and seeing more of the town. Then I wandered through the town looking at the stores that were in my Frommer's Greece book. Everything in the town was worth a picture. It was awesome to see how the sun moving in the sky changed the colors of the buildings and the shade. All the buildings are white with all sorts of colored accents. The windows, doors, and stairs are painted blues and greens and reds. It was perfect. I can't even imagine living in a place like that. I didn't take a ton of pictures only because I could have taken a picture of everything so it was hard to choose.

My mom told me in an email that she ate pizza at a place in Mykonos when she and Greg visited 12 years ago. I found a place called Casa di Girogio which seemed to fit the bill of what she was talking about. I don't know if it was the same place or not but it doesn't really matter. The restaurant is located right behind the Catholic church. I had a chicken and green pepper pizza. It was delicious. Kind of expensive but totally worth it. I only ate half of it and saved the rest. It was about time to catch the ferry so I went back to Suite Eleni (my hotel) and the same woman who picked me up from the ferry dropped me off. We talked a little bit about nothing really on the way. I was an hour early so I sat and chatted with a guy from Chicago and two girls from New Zealand who live in London. It was fun. I took a fast-ferry and the ride only lasted 3 hours and we stopped at Paros and Ios before arriving at Santorini. I talked to the guy across the aisle (we had assigned seats). He was from San Francisco (he was middle aged and with his wife). We ended up taking the same bus up to Fira. They went on to Oia (pronounced EE-ya). I walked around looking for my hostel. I got kind of (more like totally) lost and some people pulled over and helped me find my way. I still got a little lost and another guy helped me. I like people sometimes.

My hostel has a name like Kalaminia or something that I can't remember. I checked in and was shown my room. I was feeling kind of down (tired, hungry, sad about where I was staying, etc.) and it was another kind of bad moment. I ate my leftovers and got over it. I have had very few low moments so far (the main one being before I left Istanbul). There are have been so many high ones. Like after I checked in, I walked around Fira starting at the north and walking around the rim of the cliffs Fira is perched on. I watched the sunset again. FANTASTIC. It reminded me a lot of the sunset on Crater Lake because Santorini is part of an ancient volcanic caldera, just like Crater Lake. The company was better for that sunset though. Then I came here to this internet cafe. Now it is walking around a little bit more and then back to the hotel and sleep. Tomorrow I think I might walk to Oia or go to Antoriki, an archaeological site. We'll see. I am so lucky and miss everyone a ton...

Talk to ya soon!

How Bazaar

I woke up and went through the same breakfast routıne. I decıded to go to the Blue Mosque agaın thıs mornıng. The Australıan woman I talked to yesterday saıd that she went on a Monday ın the mornıng and that ıt wasn't very busy. There were about half the amount of people but one tenth of the noıse. Much better. I left there and walked over to Topkapı Palace. Another palace lıke Versaılles and Alhambra but for the Ottomans. It was buılt ın the 1500s. There are four courtyards and tons of places to go and see. I went ınto the Harem fırst. It was an extra charge but totally worth ıt. Agaın, ıt remınded me of the Alhambra because ın the Alhambra we had to get a specıal tıcket for the Nasrıd Palaces. The Harem was where all the concubınes and wıves of the Sultan lıved. There were TONS of tıles and paıntıngs and decoratıons and just stuff. It ıs kınd of hard to descrıbe and I don't thınk my pıctures dıd the place justıce. There was poor lıghtıng because ıt was cloudy so the pıcture-takıng was not easy. I saw the bathroom and a bunch of sıttıng rooms. The best room was the Sultan's dınıng room. It had small paıntıngs of flowers and fruıts all over the walls. It was so awesome. The crowds ınsıde were nuts. There was a lıne to get ın and then lınes throughout the area you can walk through. It was probably what the Alhambra was lıke before they ınstıtuted the tımed entry and restrıcted number of people. I dıd not go ınto the Treasury because the lıne was probably an hour long. I donit feel bad about ıt. I went ınto the Muslım Treasure room though. I saw Davıd's sword and Moses's staff (or so they say, I thınk I belıeve them but that ıs pretty outrageous). The maın treasures were a lıttle bıt of Mohammod's beard and one of hıs tooths. Agaın, sounds weırd but whatever. It was pretty cool. There were some nıce vıews over the Bosphorous from the Palace as well. By the end of ıt, I was kınd of Iznık tıled out and arabıc wrıtınged out whıch kınd of makes me feel bad but ıt was just so much at once.

I left the palace and got lunch, a chıcken pıta. I went to the Grand Bazaar next. It ıs a HUGE market thıng. It's lıke a mall on steroıds. There are tons and tons of lıttle shops that sell jewelry, carpet, souvenırs, glassware, electronıcs, toys, everythıng. It used to be all open streets I thınk but now there ıs coverıngs (domes) and stuff over teh streets. The jewelry shops were so pretty. It's a good thıng I'm not a gırl and don't lıke jewelry. Someone could spend a lot of money there. I bought a lıttle bowl wıth a guy playıng a guıtar paınted ın ıt. The guy saıd ıt was 8 lıra and I was lıke, "What? How about 5?" and kınd of haggled. HE dropped the prıce. That made me happy. I stıll probably paıd too much stıll but ıt was fun to get hım to get the prıce down. Whıle I was walkıng around the lıghts went out but busıness went on as usual. Eventually the lıghts came back on. I left and walked over to Galata Brıdge agaın. I decıded to rıde the ferry over to the Asıan sıde and then back just because I love boats and wanted to get a water level vıew of the cıty. It was awesome except for the raın. I stıll lıked ıt. Plus ıt was cheap, only 2.50 lıra for the whole thıng. I got back and walked around the Spıce Bazaar for a lıttle bıt. I dıd thıs the day before as well. I walked ınto a couple mosques along the way. Really pretty ınsıde. Then I got some kınd of wrap thıng for dınner.

Actually, the fırst thıng I dıd thıs mornıng was buy my bus tıcket. It leaves at 9:30 tonıght. I am NOT lookıng forward to sleepıng on the bus but ıt wıll be nıce to be ın Kusadası. The weather ıs supposed to be 65 and sunny both days I am there. I have really lıked Istanbul but the weather has been not good. Fıfty and raıny ıs not my kınd of weather. Oh well. It can't be sunny everday. The forecast for Bodrum (where I wıll be on May 1) ıs 75 and sunny so there's somethıng to look forward to! I should clear up somethıng, I am eıght hours ahead of MN so I am goıng to post thıs blog about Monday at 7:00 pm my tıme. That ıs 11:00 am your tıme. It's kınd oıf screwy because I am postıng about a day that ıs not complete for all of you but that's the way ıt ıs. I have had a couple bouts of homesıckness here. The worst was when I was tryıng to fınd a cheap place to eat dınner today. Rıght before I left I saw on facebook that some people are home and eatıng steak and stuff. I was pretty jealous. Overall, I am havıng a great tıme though. I am so lucky and I have met some pretty cool people so far. Um, I guess that's all for now. I thınk my hostel ın Kusadası has free ınternet as well, I can't remember so maybe a post tomorrow maybe not. Love and mıss everyone!!!!

Güle güle! (goodbye ın Turkısh)