Greece is the word

Well, I'm either having some weird fraternity/sorority
dream, or I've finally made it to Greece!

But first: London and Paris:
(It's been a busy couple of days.)

Monday was spent recovering from a bug I picked up
along the way. Of course, it was also the sunniest
day of the week. But I was content to just hang out
with Joey while she worked. (Joey and I worked
together at the camp in NY for those who have asked.
She's currently living in London, working as a nanny.)
Anyway, so Monday was a quiet day. On Tuesday, we
woke up super early, caught a 6:30 bus into the city
where we met Becky (one of Mills' dozen or so good
eggs--she's at the tail end of her semester in
Scotland and getting ready to head to NY to work at
the camp with Joey). After getting Becky back to the
house and settled with a short nap, she and I headed
back into town and almost repeated the same circuit
Joey and I had done on Friday. Only this time we
walked to Buckingham Palace (saw the guards with the
fun, furry hats) and around Notting Hill.

Wednesday was another early morning. I caught the
same bus into town with all of my stuff and took my
first bus ride with BusAbout. We drove to Dover and
hopped a ferry across the English Channel and into
France (waving at the white cliffs as we left the
harbor). We arrived in Paris right on time (5:30
p.m.) and I dumped my stuff on my hostel bed and
headed down the block to find Becky (who had caught a
train to Paris and was going to stay for a few days).
We spent the evening fighting off a scam-artist at the
train (I wasn't sure how to tell her "I don't want
your over-priced ticket, I'll buy mine from the
machine, thanks" in French, but I managed to convey
the meaning with body and sign language.) :) After
that we got onto the Metro and came up at the Arc de
Triumph which is HUGE. I was thinking it would be the
size of the arch in Washington Square, but no. This
thing is a monster. A beautiful monster, though.

From the arc, we strolled down the Champs Elysse (I
think I'm spelling that wrong) for a while, then
crossed over the river (Siene, I think) and walked
back up toward the Eiffel Tower. Since it was nearly
sunset time, we splurged and bought the ticket to the
very top. Amazing. Took lots of photos and video and
found all the landmarks and monuments we cared to see
without having to walk to them. And the sunset was
beautiful from that perch. Interesting side note:
there's a restroom at the top of the tower. :)

By the time we got back down, the tower was all lit up
and beautiful against the night sky. As we crossed
the street to walk back towards the Arc, the crowd
walking towards us gasped and shreiked in a way that
made me think the tower was falling over behind me. I
turned around and was happy to see that it was just
"twinkling." It's been outfitted with tons of strobe
lights and every hour they go off and make the thing
all sparkly for 15 minutes. I don't know if that's
Paris' attempt at making the city more desirable to
the IOC or what. (Paris, like London, is bidding for
the 2012 summer games.)

A(nother) long walk later, and I was saying goodbye to
Becky at her hostel, and heading back to mine for a
short night's sleep. You know how it is when you have
to wake up early and you're super tired and all you
can think is that you're going to sleep through your
alarm? Yeah, that was me on Wednesday night. So I
probably only got about 3 hours of erratic sleep
before getting up at 4:45, hauling my stuff to the
hostel lobby and repacking (so as not to annoy the
other three people in my room). Then at 5:30 I was
back on the metro, heading towards a shuttle bus that
would take me to one of the Paris airports. I was
told by the BusAbout guide that it would be about a 30
minute ride on the metro and that the bus would leave
promptly at 6:10. "Oh, and it's really confusing to
find once you come up out of the Metro station."
(Maybe that had something to do with the restlessness,
too.) But I found it. Had a little "Amazing Race"
moment when I realized that I'd come up from the metro
at the farthest possible exit from where the shuttles
were, and I ran. For about 10 steps. Then opted for
power walking. But I made it, and we got to the
airport about an hour later, boarded the flight to
Rome and was soon flying the friendly European skies
of RyanAir.

RyanAir is a budget airline that makes Southwest seem
fancy. No frills, for sure. But it was a great
flight over Paris, the Alps, and northern Rome. We
got a bird's eye view of the Vatican as we made our
final approach, and *poof* I was in Rome. (Originally,
I had a direct flight from Paris to Athens, but the
airline went out of business a few weeks ago, so I had
to make other plans.)

I got the grand tour of the city (outskirts) by
landing in one airport and traveling to the other.
This meant another shuttle bus ride, a long, LONG walk
through Rome's train station, and then a train ride to
Fiumicino (the main airport). I considered leaving my
luggage at the train station and exploring the city (I
had 6 hours to kill) but the line for luggage storage
seemed to start in Florence, so I just decided to
catch the train and hang out at the other airport. I
whiled away the time at an airport cafe, eating cheap
(but yummy) airport food, watching planes take off,
and reading an abandoned copy of the Herald (the NY
Times "Global" issue). It was in English, that was
all I needed.

Hours later, I finally checked my luggage and headed
toward the gate for my flight from Rome to Athens.
That was pretty uneventful. I'm not sure what the
in-flight meal was, but it tasted good. We landed in
Athens at 11:30, hopped another bus to the city center
where my directions said to then take the Metro for
two stops. In Athens, the metro stops running at
midnight. :) So I went to a bus stop and checked its
map against mine to see if another bus ride would work
(the bus system runs 24/7). While I was looking, an
off-duty cab driver came up to me and asked (well,
mimed) where I was going. That led to a conference of
him, me, and two other cab drivers, my maps, a lot of
broken English (them), and pointing/sign language
(me). Finally, the first guy put his hands up in the
international sign for "I give up" and offered to
drive me there since it would be quicker than walking
and/or explaining. And it was. He was a super-nice
guy, and I spoke my one word of Greek "Effaristo"
(Thanks) as he dropped me off. I think it was about 2
when I finally climbed up into my bunk at the hostel.


Today, I'm lying low. I might head out towards the
Hard Rock Cafe for a t-shirt. I'm definitely going to
find a Greek-English dictionary (it's confusing
here... "yes" sounds like "no" and "no" sounds like
"okay"). But otherwise, I'm roaming around with just
my wallet. No bags, no cameras, no nothing.

And I think it's time to head out now. :)