An Adventure a Day

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HHHHOK! SO, here is Jori's note! She got part 1 written out but got impatient to tell everyone about it that after 12 pages she decided to post it to get people hooked. Now you won't be able to WAIT to read the rest of our adventures! I have added in pictures that coincide with the story, so grab some popcorn and sit back to enjoy family and friends, it's a long one!

(This was originally called An Adventure a Day (Or I’m Pretty Sure We Should Have Died At Least Nine Times), but I'm pretty sure Mom and Dad would not have liked to see that as the title. So I just told them in here. Sorry Mom and Dad, remember as Jori says, I am alive and I made it! I am sitting in my dorm, studying. Wink. Wink.)


[Note: I know I have skipped approximately one month in my overseas adventure. Italy and Greece were just more exciting than school and I wanted to write about/have you read it before I forgot it, cuz, um, Easter Holiday really was fantastic. Don't worry; eventually you will be able to read what else I've done in England. So here's part one of my novel. Oh, I also didn't proofread any of this. Have fun!]


Dear Mom and Dad, as you read this, please keep in mind that I DID survive all of this and I’m sitting here in my flat safe and happy as I write this.

It’s called “Easter Holiday” in the UK, but it’s Spring Break. Only it’s two weeks instead of one, which means we have more time to get into tr- to culture ourselves. My partners in crime for the break were Cassie and Susan, two delightful young ladies from Columbus and Long Island, respectively. Together, and (as we found out later) with not quite as much foresight as we originally thought we had, we hatched up this plan to go to Italy and Greece with our glorious two weeks.

It all started early on the morning of April 10th, when Susan and I caught a train out of Preston at 07.58. We were meeting Cassie in London, who was already there with her friend Kim who had come to visit her the week before. Susan and I made it to the station in fifteen minutes and settled in on the train for a pleasant, if not a little sleepy (since we’d each only gotten about four hours of sleep the night before, probably because neither of us packed until then and I stayed up rolling my clothes to fit into my backpack and making sure I had my passport, etc.) ride. We ended up getting first class seats because they were actually cheaper than standard class? I don’t know.

Normally, the ride to London takes somewhere between two and two and a half hours. On this particular day, we found our train stopping on the tracks in the middle of nowhere. The conductor came on the loud speaker and announced that the train would not be continuing to London as there was a fatality on the track. Therefore, the train would be terminating at Rugby, they’d coach us to Kettering, and we could catch a train from there the rest of the way to London. Needless to say, we didn’t make it to London by ten something like we were planning to. It was alright though, since we didn’t have any plans for London until later that night. Some people weren’t happy at all with the delay though. I was like, “Come on, people. Somebody DIED this morning and you’re complaining about being late for your lunch date. Seriously.”

We rolled into London at about 13.30ish, and after a quick stop at King’s Cross to visit Platform 9 ¾, we took the tube to the hostel Cassie and Kim had stayed at. It was above a bar, and Cassie told us to look for an Australian guy she made friends with and he’d check our luggage for us. So we get to the bar, walk in, and this waiter asks us if we’re looking for the hostel. I said, “Where’s the Australian guy?” And he kind of raised his hand and said, “It’s me.” Haha, so I explained that we were Cassie’s friends and we’d like to check our luggage, and we did that, and then went off to buy tickets for Spring Awakening, which we were going to see later that night. I was pretty excited about it, because I’ve been hearing all about that musical since last summer, and I figured it was time to see it. I’m pretty sure we were destined to see that musical too, cuz right when we got out of the tube station by the theatre (which had 193 stairs in a spiral staircase to the top that we totally climbed up and down), this chick was there with flyers for twenty pound tickets, best available. w00t! The ticket dude said we could come as we were too (in hoodies and jeans), which was miraculous, and on the way back to the hostel, there was some guy swallowing a balloon and insulting everyone that walked by. Gotta love street performers.

We ate at the bar below the hostel, since we were super hungry by that point and we were storing our stuff there, after all. We got fish and chips (since is was Good Friday) and Cassie and Kim came in as we were finishing. I noticed it was getting really foggy outside, and thought it was because of the rain. I thought wrong. The Coke office building across the street from the bar/hostel was definitely on fire and there was smoke BILLOWING out of the top. Cassie knew that it was an electrical fire from the smell (ask her how she knows that) before the police came and told us not to go outside or open the windows because the smoke was probably toxic. Susan was disappointed because we couldn’t see any flames, just massive amounts of smoke and some falling ash.

Despite the tube station being closed since it was directly under the Coke building, Susan and I just walked a block to the next one and made it to Spring Awakening without any problems. It was really good (I love musicals so much), and it still made me wish life was a musical. OK, and London dude who played Moritz can SING. Holy crap. I mean, they’re all awesome, but he was super awesome. I definitely wasn’t prepared for the second half of that musical, but I’m not going to tell you what happens. You should just go see it too. The stage is freaking wonderful.

On the way out, as we were waking to the tube station, Susan and I realized that we had walked to the wrong tube station, and took a ridiculous way to get to the Liverpool Street station, but we made it to the station to meet Cassie with enough time to buy a ticket (which they didn’t even check, grr) for the express train to Stansted Airport with three minutes to spare. The conductor man was confusing and kept motioning for us to hurry, and then when we started jogging to get on the train, he was like, “You have to come back here to get on. Don’t run, you have time.” And then he’d make the hurry motion again. Oh geez. I wonder if he does that to mess with people cuz he has a boring job.

We got to the airport and hunkered down for the night. Our flight left at some time in the morning, and we were just going to sleep in the airport. We found this one coffee shop that had comfy couches. Great. Except that the whole airport has central air and the vent was RIGHT above the comfy couch and the arctic blast made it impossible to sleep. I seriously was curled up in as tight a ball as I could physically get, hood up, all you could probably see was the tip of my nose if that, and I was still freezing. So we moved. We found a spot outside the check-in, among all the other people that were spending the night at the airport too. Most of them looked more prepared with a mat or something. They were all over in all the little niches beneath signs and stuff. It was actually kind of cool. Anyways, we found a spot and laid down. Cassie and I ended up taking for a few hours while Susan listened to her iPod and slept using her towel as a pillow. Well, we thought she slept. She rolled over at about four and I asked, “How was your nap?” And she informed us that she hadn’t slept at all. She said, “I’m so uncomfortable,” and sounded so pathetic it was heart-wrenching. We eventually got shooed out by the guy that said people were going to start lining up, so we went back to the coffee shop and sardined all three of us on a love seat and had the best sleep of the night. It was only about two hours, but boy were they good. We made it on our plane without a hitch, and after laughing at Cassie almost giving herself whiplash from falling asleep in her seat, we were on our way to Rome!

The first thing we noticed about Rome (besides the sun and warmness) was that they were driving on the right side of the road!!!!! We took a bus to the metro, figured out how to work their ticket machines, and then took the metro to our hostel. We got to the hostel, and they didn’t have our name or reservation. Then we figured out that we were at the wrong hostel. You see, this particular hostel was one of a chain of three hostels, and back in February when we were booking said hostel, somehow… well, I got this e-mail a few days later asking me to rate my stay at the hostel I’d just booked, and I was like, haha, I haven’t even stayed there. Silly Hostel World. And then it occurred to me that maybe Hostel World hadn’t made a mistake… Yeah, we’d booked the hostel for February 11th, not April 11th. Check your dates, kids. Anyways, the paperwork, apparently was for the first reservation, and we were now staying at a different hostel, so yeah. Complications.

Since we were really close to the Vatican, we decided to go there first and pick up our tickets for Easter Mass the next day. Wow. So the Vatican has walls all around it, right? We were walking along the wall, and we finally get to the Vatican Museum. None of this looks like the Bronze Door we’re supposed to go to (I even listened into this big metal thing wondering if it was some secret door we had to give a secret knock to get into) to give whoever it is our letter to get our tickets, so I asked a museum guy, curator! That’s the word. I asked one of those guys where this place was, and he sent us back the way we came. So we walked around the Vatican again (with all our stuff), and finally made it to St. Peter’s Square. After wandering around that a billion times aimlessly because we still can’t find anything that looks like bronze doors and everyone we ask for directions just points vaguely across the square and there’s about two trillion people everywhere, I finally find the place to go. I went back to where Cassie and Susan were sitting with the stuff, and asked Susan if she wanted to come with me, since she was the only legit Catholic out of all of us, and we went to attempt to get in the door. It was blocked by this police officer guard guy, and we showed him the letter and he said, “One peso.” We were like, “What?” I mean, besides being corrupt to have to bribe the officer to let us in, they don’t even use pesos in Italy. “One person,” he said. Ooooooh. Right. So, since the letter was addressed to me and all that jazz, I went in alone and Susan went back to our stuff with Cassie and waited. You could only go up one at a time to the place where they gave you your tickets. It was right through these massive doors, which were off of the main place, in this quieter part. There were only a few of us waiting, since it was tricky to get past the crowds and guards. Behind me was this really sweet, short lady from Scotland (but she used to live in England) and her little girl, who was the cutest thing ever. They were there for her cousin’s wedding and the whole bridal party was going to Mass the next morning, but anyways, the little girl made the wait totally awesome. She wasn’t shy at all, and just started talking to me, asking me where I was from and stuff (she said I sounded like I was from California) and answering all the questions I asked her. She said she thought the guards looked like clowns (admittedly, the ones guarding the Bronze Door sort of did) and we told her not to tell them that. Then she decided to imitate them and tried not to move or speak for as long as she could. She didn’t last very long. She gave up and moved first, and then she would mouth words to me without making any noise, and her mom told her she was cheating, so she finally gave up and said, “This job’s rubbish! Do they even get paid?” It was so funny.

I finally got there, got our tickets, and we were off to find our next hostel, which’s address the lady wrote on the back of a pizza place ad. She told us to take a taxi over there; Cassie asked if the taxi drivers were good here and if we could trust them and stuff and the lady assured us they were and we could. So, we find a taxi, give him the address, he looks it up, and when we get to our hostel, he may or may not have somehow managed through confusion to overpay himself. I don’t even know what happened. But we finally checked into our hostel, changed clothes, found a pizza place (which isn’t very hard in Rome, actually), and wandered around Rome for a while. We went to the Trevi Fountain, which is wicked cool. It’d be better if there weren’t five million people around it all the time and you could hardly move, but the fountain itself was really swell. We threw our coins in over our shoulders and made our wishes, and then continued with our gelato (yesssssssssss) on our walk about Rome.

We took the metro to those famous stairs … Gosh, I’m a bad tourist. I think it’s Trinitá dei Monti or something in Italian, cuz that’s what it looks like on my map. Anyways, we went there, and on our way out of the metro, we witnessed something really cool. So you know those guys that illegally sell knock-off purses and sunglasses? They have all their stuff set out on sheets so they can just grab it and go at the first sign of cops, right? So we were exiting the station, and they were lined up all along the sides, and someone sounded the alarm and they grabbed their stuff and TOOK OFF back into the station. We just stood there in shock in the wind from them running by. No joke, there was wind. Freaking awesome. So anyways, we get to the stairs, dodge the people selling stuff (helicopter things with lights and those annoying magnet things that sound like locusts when you throw them together) and get to the top of the stairs to look out on this beautiful city. We figured out that Rome pretty much glows at night. It’s really cool. We also figured out that the thing to do in Rome is to SUCK FACE with your significant other. “Make out” is too polite a term. Seriously, I cannot tell you how many couples we saw practically eating each others’ faces all over Rome. Good grief! It was pretty intense. So, if you have this compelling desire to absolutely dominate the Tonsil Hockey World Cup in front of a crowd of several million, Rome’s the place for you!

I fell asleep in .2 seconds that night. Cassie had to wake me up to give me back my cell phone she used for three minutes to tell her parents she was alive. We woke up not-so-bright and early for Easter Mass, convinced the hostel that we should be able to leave our luggage there that afternoon, and then began our trek to the Vatican. Dude. There were SO MANY people there. I mean, obviously I expected it since it was the freaking Vatican on freaking Easter and the freaking Pope was there. Am I allowed to use the adjective “freaking” to describe the Pope? So yeah, basically it was a madhouse. We got there about 45 minutes before Mass even started, but we barely made in before Mass started and definitely didn’t get in to the place where there were seats, despite our tickets. Oh well.

But the whole thing actually made me pretty upset. It was more than the normal big crowd of people claustrophobia. Seriously, people were PUSHING to get in. Nobody could go anywhere because there were people every where, but they kept pushing to get through. Supposedly, we were a bunch of Christians there, gathering to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus together in this sacred, historical place, but hardly anybody was acting like it. It was like mad, greedy rush to get in first and get a better spot than the poor schmuck behind you. There was one point, close to the gate to the seating area, that this older woman was trying to get back in to get to her family, and people were pushing her and she got pushed into this chick (American, sadly. Way to represent your country, d-bag) leaning up against the fence and she absolutely went off on this poor lady yelling about how she ripped her $200 shirt and she was just standing there and blah blah blah blah blah. The lady kept trying to apologize and say it wasn’t her fault, she was being pushed, but the chick kept going and throwing her hands up and yelling at her. Oh my gosh, really? During the beginning of the service, Cassie and I, pardon my French, pretty much got ass raped by this guy standing behind us. No joke, like, he was standing directly behind us (not at the same time, he moved)… yeah. It just wasn’t good. Elbows were thrown and fidgeting ensued until he got the hint and took off. Not fun. The best part of the service was the “Peace Be With You” part. We all shook hands and the lady behind me told me Happy Easter, and that’s the only time it even felt like Easter all day. So honestly, as far as Easters go, this one wasn’t so much. I don’t ever want to go back there for Easter ever again.

We left after Communion to some pizza and gelato place by the Trevi Fountain. After that, we went to the Ruins (coolest part of the city) and took a tour of the Colosseum (best decision of the day). We learned cool facts we definitely wouldn’t have on our own, like people used to come steal the metal and marble holding the Colosseum up, which is why it has holes all over it. It used to have a retractable roof, and they’d have guys up at the very top to retract it to let the smell out. They’d have games there (obviously), and I seriously didn’t realize how much stadium events today are exactly like they were 2000 years ago. For real, the dude could have been describing a football game. So different emperors or senators or whatever they were would host the game, and they would try to make it the most impressive so people would like them better and vote for them, so they’d throw prizes into the stands (only they were gold coins and tickets for slaves, not some crappy t-shirt that doesn’t fit). And I’m sure there were concessions and whatnot because I remember there were other similarities, I just can’t think of them right now. The whole Colosseum is pretty cool, just read about it. They freaking filled it up and had naval battles in it before they finished the arena in it. P.S. “Arena” is Spanish for “sand.” It makes so much sense! Our tour guide was talking about how many people have died in the Colosseum, and he said, “If it were in England, there would be ghosts. Here, we have the Vatican right over there, so we’re fine.” OK, and, cue Small World theme song, our tour guide was from Italy, but his girlfriend (who he met on a tour; how cute) went to UK! She’s actually from Tennessee, but in the spirit of loving the States and my neighbors, I was willing to overlook that misfortune.

So then we continued the tour across the street on the Palatine Hill, which is where all the kings lived and where Rome is supposed to have been founded. We learned about the legend of Romulus and Remus, and how Rome was founded. It all started when this dude who was the wrongful king decided to make the rightful king’s daughter into a Vestal Virgin so she couldn’t have rightful heirs to the throne, but she got pregnant anyway. Since she was a pretty smart lass, she said that Mars was the father, so of course they couldn’t kill her or the kids because obviously that would anger Mars, and nobody wants to be on the god of war’s bad list. So after Rhea had the twins, Romulus and Remus, they got sent down the river in a basket, where it is reported that they were discovered and raised by a she-wolf. That was also slang for a prostitute, which actually makes more sense, but Rome isn’t too fond of the idea of having their origins traced back to a woman of the night, so they have pictures and engravings of the doggy wolves all over and that particular slang term isn’t talked about much. So yeah, the story goes that Romulus and Remus went to go see an oracle, cuz that’s what they did in those days, like, all the freaking time. Couldn’t they decide anything for themselves? EVERYONE went to see some oracle. It always messed up their lives too. You’d think they’d learn. Anyways, this oracle told them that one of them would be the king and founder of this great city, and naturally, both of them wanted to be that guy, so they decided to settle it once and for all. They counted buzzards. I guess rock, paper, scissors hadn’t been invented yet. Well, Romulus counted 12 buzzards in his part of the sky and Remus counted 6, so obviously Romulus was the winner. Remus wasn’t too happy about that, so he tried to kill Romulus (they weren’t very good problem solvers back then), so Romulus ended up killing Remus in self-defense. How wonderful. So Romulus was left to found Rome (of course he named it after himself, egotistical brat) and it became one of the most successful cities in all of history. Woohoo!

It’s actually a really cool hill and we got to see an aqueduct and the place where all the kings lived and Mussolini’s mansion and everything! We had to duck out of the tour early though, sad story, because we needed to go pick up our stuff at the hostel before they sold it on the black market or whatever they do with left luggage there. Susan got scolded for touching the beds. Actually, it’s a funny thing to tell, but it’s good that they were worried about that because, after all, you wouldn’t want some stranger sitting on your bed, would you? Go, hostels, for being clean. We grabbed a sandwich at the convenience store down the street from the hostel, ate it on their steps, and then headed to the Senate. It’s this spectacular building and it looks really cool at night. Our train for Venice didn’t leave until 22.36, so we were basically killing time until we could go to the train station. Susan and I played Spit and ended up each winning a game and literally tying the third. I’ve never had it happen before, but we each had one card left, no more to turn, and neither of us could do anything. Craziness. So then we decided to rock, paper, scissors for winner, best out of three, and I forget who even won that. Probably Susan. So anyway, then it was time to head to the train station.

Which is where one of the best stories of this trip begins.

We go to the train station almost an hour early - plenty of time to catch a train. Only we couldn’t find our train on the board to figure out which platform to go to. So we went to the information/ticket sales place and I waited in line while Cassie and Susan camped out with the stuff. I finally made it up to the counter, handed the lady my ticket, and asked where the platform to that train was. She studied the ticket, looked at the time (it was 22.15) and then told me, “Well, it’s too early to tell, but it’s at the other station.” Um. “What other station?!” Apparently Rome has TWO train stations, although no one, especially not the lady that sold us our ticket in the first place, from that very ticket office, thought that was an important piece of information. Ladies and gentlemen, there are TWO train stations in Rome. She said not to worry, we still had time, it was just three stops or so down the metro. So here’s where the story really picks up. Just keep in mind as I tell it that it’ll probably take you three times as long to read it as these events did to unfold.

I walked out of the ticket office and said, “Guys. We’re at the wrong station.” I started to say something else and Cassie goes, “You don’t need to finish that sentence.” She and Susan picked up our stuff and we cleared out of there like those guys selling illegal stuff running from the police, and took off towards the metro. Termini station is huge, but we finally made it to the metro … as the metro train was pulling out. We looked up at the board and the next train was scheduled to arrive in eight minutes. It was 22.18. Start the clock. As we’re waiting here, I may as well take this time to impress upon you the importance of this train we were supposed to catch. This was a night train from Rome to Venice. Once we got to Venice, we would approximately eleven and a half hours until our ferry to Greece departed. If we did not make this train, we would have to wait until morning to find a way to Venice. Train stations in Rome are scary and I wouldn’t want to sleep there. It takes about seven hours to get to Venice from Rome. If we missed the ferry, we had no clue how we would get to Patra, Greece, where our car for the next leg of the trip would be waiting. Basically, if we did not make this train, lots of bad things would happen. Ready? No, the metro train’s still not here yet. Continuing with things to think about, the lady said the other station was about ten minutes away. Whether that was counting only the metro ride or the time it’d take to walk from the information booth to the other train station, I didn’t know. Either way, this metro train was supposed to be here at 22.26. Do the math. Once we would get on this metro train and then get off again, we had no clue where to go at “the other” train station. We didn’t know which platform to go to, how far away it was, or where the information board to tell us that was. Swell. OK, train’s here.

We get on the metro train and stand there with our huge backpacks and our bundles of nervous energy. Susan had the extra bag. We were joking about the mad sprint ahead of us and pretend stretching and giving each other pep talks. Cassie caught me looking at my watch (22.34), saw my face, and shook her head at me to keep me from saying anything. Finally, the doors opened to the station and we were off! Blessedly, the information board was right there, and I yelled, “19!” without my normal double, triple, quadruple checking that’s usually involved in reading signs in different languages. I just saw 22.36 with something that started with a V next to it and a star next to that, and decided to take a gamble. So we sprinted down this huge long hallway, because of course platform 19 was the farthest one away. At the end of the hall, there was a sign with the number 19 and an arrow to the right. Once you got to the end of the hall, there was a concrete wall to the right. Literally. BAM. Concrete wall. So I was down there, confused as anything because I’m supposed to be going right only I can’t go through walls, and Cassie’s yelling at me, “Go right!!” I kind of run in circles shrieking, “THERE IS NO RIGHT!!!” By this time, Cassie’s caught up with me and goes left at the end of the hall (duh, Jori), the only thought on her mind being that someone needs to get up there to stop the train. Meanwhile, Susan gets around the corner with the huge carry-on duffel bag in her hand and (picture a scene from a war movie, please) says in anguish, “I can’t go anymore!” So I stopped running to the train and ran to go help Susan somehow and she goes, “Here’s the ticket! You’re the fastest - take it and run!” I said, “OK!” dropped my back pack, and took off down that hall like I’ve never run in a track meet ever. Haha. I passed Cassie on the part of the hallway that was a ramp leading outside to the platforms and burst out of the station in time to see the conductor with one foot on the train, whistle in her mouth, and yelled “WAAAAAAAAIT!!!!!! WAAAAAAAIT!!!!!!!!” while flailing my arms wildly. I’m pleased to announce that that translates nicely to Italian. Apparently the conductor looked pretty pissed off, but I didn’t really notice, I was so focused on just getting on the train. I didn’t even realize the conductor was a lady. Anyways, the train didn’t leave just then, and Cassie got to the train I now had one foot on the stair to and I looked over to see Susan emerging from the station with all of her stuff, the extra bag and all of my stuff and I told Cassie, “Go help Susan!” She turned around, saw Susan, went, “Shit!” and positively flings her huge heavy backpack and purse at me (luckily it only almost dented the wall of the train and not me) while she ran back to help Susan with all of the stuff.

So we finally all got on the train, on car 2, and traveled back ten cars to the car our bunks were in. You’d be surprised how long that takes. Anyways, we got to our room and probably severely disappointed this really nice Italian girl who thought she was going to have it all to herself. She didn’t speak any English either, so our communication consisted of smiling and hand gestures. It worked. I told Cassie and Susan that before we went to bed tonight, we all needed to say a Thank you, Jesus prayer, because honestly, when I wasn’t thinking about the impossibilities of actually making that train, I was praying that we would. Happy Easter! We had our own Easter Miracle.

The beds in the sleeper car had these straps that came down from the ceiling to attach to the top bunk that were supposed to keep you from falling out, I’m sure, however, they mostly just looked like they were going to strangle me if I buckled them, so I didn’t. It wasn’t too weird sleeping in a train, but I’m pretty sure none of us slept extraordinarily well either. Some train guy came around to our car at five something to tell us our train would be in the station in twenty minutes. We were already awake, but we thanked him anyway and got our stuff together. Then we started realizing that absolutely nothing would be open for several more hours. Awesome.

We got off the train, and of course nothing was open, not even a bathroom, which was a very sad story. So we did the only thing we could do: wander around the streets of Venice until something opened up. Which actually wasn’t a hardship at all. Right when you get out of the train station, you are greeted by a canal. Oh my gosh, this city is real. There’s a really pretty bridge that we stood on, and just marveled at this pretty pre-dawn city for a while. Then we decided to go farther down the street, through this winding road lined with shops. Really, most of the roads in Venice are really windy and lined with shops, but we didn’t know that yet. There were street cleaners out in the wee hours of the morning, making their brooms (That’s right - they made their own brooms, tying straw or sticks or whatever together. How exciting is that?!), washing the sidewalks and cobblestones. I swear to you, the city of Venice is magical at 05.30 in the morning. You would fall in love with it five times over. We found this little bakery diner place that was open, and stopped in there for breakfast. The lady kind of scolded us for not using the Italian names for stuff we ordered, but we got some yummy apple turnover things and juice, so I was happy no matter what those things were called. After we ate breakfast, went to the bathroom, and filled up our water bottles, we went back out to wander some more. The sun was up by this point, but there was still hardly anybody around. We crossed the major canal and explored the other side of the city. You could easily get lost because most of the streets lead nowhere or to dead ends, and they hardly connect with main roads ever, but the buildings were so colorful, and there were boats everywhere, and the warm morning sun made reflections in the water. Really, the adjective “magical” describes this city perfectly. It’s all I got, but it’s all I need.

When it became a reasonable time, we stopped at a playground on our way to the bus station to ask how to get to the ferry dock so we could check in early, which we figured was a good idea, seeing how this trip was going so far. We bought maps at the bus station, and the lady told us we could walk to the dock rather than take a bus, which was awesome because saving money is awesome. We got to the ferry line office on the dock, waited until check-in, and they said they didn’t have Susan registered. Awesome. So we bought her a ticket onto the ferry, and they told us to figure out her rooming situation once we were on board. Nice. Oh well. At least she was on the boat.

At that point, we went back to the bus station to find a place to leave all our luggage while we continued our exploration of Venice. A hundred pounds, wait, kilograms lighter, we were off in search of a ferry, taxi, or some way to get to St. Marco Square. There were three options: walk, ferry or taxi (which was a boat!), and since we wanted more time, we opted for one of the two latter. I waited in line for the ferry while Cassie and Susan checked taxi prices to see which would be cheaper. They came back saying that the taxi was only sixteen euros so it’d be cheaper. So we took a taxi to the other side of Venice, and it was a pretty awesome ride. Pretty much, anywhere that has canals instead of streets is going to be amazing. And totally free of jay-walkers. Haha. We got to the other dock, and this is where we learned another very important lesson. “Sixteen” and “sixty,” though they are very different values, sound incredibly similar with an Italian accent. Apparently, a taxi costs SIXTY euros and not sixteen. Which is bull because Cassie said she double checked and even asked “Sixteen??” before Susan came back to get me from the ferry line. We were so flustered we paid anyway; I don’t know why, probably because we were shocked and appalled and didn’t know what else to do. Sorry, Dad. So yeah, moral of the story: Never take a taxi anywhere, EVER. Ever ever ever ever ever. Never ever. Capish? K, great.

St. Marco Square was really pretty. OK, that’s a lame description. The church was super detailed and elaborate and the clock was fantastic! It had all these moving parts (like guys hitting things with hammers and animals moving), and they probably wanted to show it off which was why it made noise and did something every fifteen minutes. There were just a million billion people there. Venice was the day I figured out that people suck away magic. Cuz Venice in the afternoon definitely wasn’t magical like Venice in the early morning was. It only had the potential for magic. You could tell it could be, but it wasn’t really. Early morning Venice is where you go to hear fairy tales and believe them. Afternoon Venice, not so much. People suck all the magic away. Which I guess is why the Muggle to Witch/Wizard ratio is so high.

We ate these intriguing pizza roll (no, really, it was a pizza only rolled up) things for lunch (they were delicious), and continued our tour along the docks and roads and canals of Venice. We took a ferry back, had some gelato, and passed some Native Americans performing in front of the train station. What? Yes. Native American Indians. Susan said, “I came all the way to Venice to see Native Americans?!!”

Even though we’d already checked in, the way this trip was going, we figured getting to the ferry early would be a good thing. So we got there two hours before it was supposed to … undock. Leave? I’m really bad at ship terms. Set sail? There were no sails. So yeah, a thing about our ferry. Earlier that morning, as we were waiting to check in, we were sitting by the dock looking at all the ships and speculating on what our ferry would look like. We knew it had to be big enough to hold cars and have rooms for people to sleep in, but I hoped it wouldn’t be as big as the cruise ships that looked like a city block. Because you remember how big ships scare me? Yeah, our ferry was massive. I wasn’t so scared I was going to refuse to ride it or anything, it just made me nervous when I’d think about it. It’s so intimidating. I’d think about falling off of it, or getting run over by it. And then, when I was on it, I’d just think about getting stuck in our room and not being able to get out. Standing on the dock next to it made it kind of hard to breathe. Big huge boats are so, so scary.

Anyways, we’d gotten a bottle of wine and some crackers, only we didn’t have a cork screw, so Cassie had picked up one of those Swiss army type knives that said “Venice” on it from a souvenir cart and … it broke the cork. So Cassie ended up just corking the bottle. Classy. We drank our bottle and ate our bag of Ritz, and Susan and I napped in the sun while Cassie … did something. I don’t know what Cassie did other than take pictures of us sleeping, because, well, I was sleeping. We got a room for four when the ship got going. It was on the seventh floor (there were more than seven floors on this ship!!!!). Cassie told us the ship was basically like a cruise ship without all the extra stuff like game rooms (there was a small swimming pool, it just wasn’t open). We had dinner, which was kind of expensive, but they piled food on your plate until it was threatening to fall off. Later that night, we all kind of wanted to watch a movie, but didn’t have a tv or dvd player (obviously), so Susan and I took turns and I retold Mulan while she retold Legally Blond. It was actually really fun. Cassie played mom and gave us our vitamins for the day, and before bed we each took a sleeping pill we’d gotten from the train station in Venice. We bought them with the intention of using them for camping, but we wanted to see how they worked so we decided to test them on the boat first. They gave me one when I got out of the shower, and when I asked something about the dosage, Susan said, “We think you take one, because there’s a big 1 on the box, but we can’t really tell because the directions are in Italian.” Haha, awesome.

I woke up the next morning to this noise and some garbled message coming from the ship’s loudspeakers in the hallway. I got out of bed and made my groggy way to the door to see if they were trying to tell us anything important. The only words I could understand in English were “life jackets.” As you can imagine, that was not ok with me. Why were they talking about life jackets?? I grabbed my glasses and my flip flops (“I got my flippy floppies!” - for Susan) and went out to see how much of the boat had sunk and how much I needed to start panicking. I got out to the deck and see the crew in life jackets and asked the crew member holding the door open for me what was going on. He didn’t speak much English, but he said, “It’s just a drill.” Oh, magic words to my ears. I asked if I needed to do anything or get my cabin mates, and he said, “It’s just a drill.” Right. So I stayed and watched the drill for a little bit. OK, I don’t care if it is a drill, do you know how terrifying it is to see crew members all lined up in front of the life boats and hear “Abandon ship!!” over the loud speakers? Maybe “terrifying” is a little strong. But it’s quite uncomfortable.

Anywho, long story short, we didn’t die, and we spent the morning outside writing post cards in the sun on the deck (which was a lot colder than we wanted it to be, which meant we were all covered up, which meant we DIDN’T have to spend ten euros on a bottle of sunscreen) and the afternoon napping and reading some more. We read on the lower deck, which was sheltered from the wind and a lot warmer. They had a bar and stuff there, and they were playing music. What music? All sorts of music, including techno, pop, and the theme song from Schindler’s List? Also, the theme song from Titanic. Oh my gosh. Really?? Titanic. HELLO!

We saw land at one point (which made me feel better), so I went up top to take pictures of it. I met this guy from Switzerland named Dieter, who was vacationing with his family. When he found out I was from Kentucky, he asked if it was like it was in the movie “Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?” New favorite. I told him George Clooney was actually from KY, so he could go tell his friends now and be the cool guy with the random trivia and connections. Haha.

Meanwhile, the bartender Cassie thanked for her drink as she was coming up to find out if I died came up to the top deck and asked her if she’d like to sit down with him on a bench. Hooray for awkward situations. I told her about my blond-haired, blue-eyed friends’ adventures in Greece and how they were a big hit.

That night, we grabbed a blanket and looked at the smoke coming from the smoke stack, I mean, the stars until we got cold and went to bed, prepared to wake up at four thirty to get off the ferry by five. I woke up at three thirty, saw lights out window, and thought, oh, that’s nice. We must almost be there. At four, some guy came and knocked on our door and told us to wake up (I think, cuz I don’t know what language he was speaking). That’s when we discovered that Greece was an hour ahead of Italy. Whoops. So we grabbed our stuff and headed off the ferry and out to the grungy port city of Patra.

We knew we needed to be at the train station at 09.30 to pick up our rental car, but we didn’t know where the train station was and it was still dark. We started to look for it, since we knew it was close to the port, and quickly decided that was stupid and went back to the ferry to ask someone for directions. I asked a ferry worker and he told me it was about 150 meters down the port. I asked him if we could get to it from the port, or if we had to go outside. He said, “NO, stay inside! Police here. Outside, no good.” Good to know.

So we headed down the direction that he pointed, and sure enough, there was the police man in his little 4WD with its little blue light on top, zooming up and down the strip. We asked him if we were going the right way for the train station, and he answered in the affirmative. It wasn’t long before we noticed some guys dressed in black sneaking through the fence. Um… The police man eventually noticed, and started chasing them in his car, but they just ran around the truck trailers and away. But more were still coming. There was an open garage that they were sneaking around in and running back too, with the port and a crane on the other side and a street light in front of it. Susan, Cassie and I stopped before the garage so we would at least be in the light. The police man drove up to us, leaned out his window, said, “Keep moving. It is not safe here,” (No shit, Sherlock. He’s a rocket scientist!) and zoomed off again before we could say anything. We were all like, “Really??! Did he really just leave??” But I mean, honestly, what kind of a police officer does that? How concerned with his safety was he really? How about a ride over to the gate? Nope. Instead, we had to walk between the scary, dark garage where they all were hanging out and the ocean and a crane, where one of them also hid behind. AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

And then they all lined up and came toward us, hunched over and snapping. Just kidding. But we did make it out of the port without any encounters (except for one of them saluting us as he was running from the cop) and made a beeline straight to this restaurant with its lights on. Thank goodness for places open early in the morning. We ordered breakfast and stayed a few hours. The waitress was really nice and informed us that we needed to speak Greek now, since we were in Greece. Cassie held up our book and said, “I’m trying!” We thanked her in Greek when we left and she smiled and said, “You’re welcome. You speak Greek, I’ll speak English. Then we will understand each other.”

Other than our waitress though, there were pretty much no females in Patra. I don’t know how life continued to exist there, but it seemed like all there were were men. And they stared. Blatantly too. They didn’t even try to hide it. As we were waiting for our car outside of the train station, they would walk by, staring, and then continue walking with their heads turned behind them. We started to wonder if we had the right number of heads or eyeballs or something.

Our car was supposed to get there between nine-thirty and ten, and by golly, it actually did. Honestly, we were a little surprised about this, but it was a good surprise for once. We signed the paper work, ok, actually, I signed the paper work, since I was the one driving. Don’t ask me how it was legal for me to drive in a foreign country. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, but they knew I didn’t have an international driver’s license and they apparently didn’t care. He told me to just show my KY license if I got in trouble with the police. Great! Then he, his name was George. Let’s start using names. George showed me how to work the car (it’s like you think it would be) and then we were left with the little silver Hyundai Atos that would be ours for the next nine days. The first thing Cassie did was take pictures of it, because there were dents in it and we didn’t want to get charged for them, and Susan and I put all our crap in the trunk. Then we all piled in, and without further ado, we unleashed ourselves on the Peloponnese!

OK loves, I hope you had a great time reading about the first part of our long long string of adventures...have fun waiting on the edge of your seat for the rest of it! Who am I to push an author? I will post the rest when Jori decides to continue! I will be studying like mad for the next few days....gotta get it done!!

I miss you all, and love you MORE!!!

Happy Mother's Day to all those special mamas out there, but most of all MINE! I love you!

Love,
~Cassie Doodles~

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