Tuesday, April 29, 2008

New Adventure

I am currently writing to you from a dark, smoky internet cafe in Athens filled with boys playing geeky computer games. Of course, I am the only girl here, and of course I chose today to be the day to wear my bright green mini dress. You might be interested to know that as the language changes from country to country, so do the cat calls:
Hungary= honking or whistles
Italy= 'Ciao bella' or 'Hey baby/girlfriend/sexy' if easily identifiable as a tourist.
Greece= Tongue clicking

Is it fortunate or unfortunate to have experienced all of the above? I haven't decided yet.

So, yes, I am in Greece. My friend Skyla and I decided that we had a gap in our travel schedules, so went on a planning rampage and put together a backpacking trip through Italy and Greece in only 5 days. On Monday the 21st we flew out of Budapest to Rome, where we stayed for 2 days. From Rome we travelled to Naples for an afternoon, then to Sorrento for the evening and following day. From Sorrento to Florence, Florence to Milan then a flight from Milan to Athens, where we arrived yesterday. This afternoon we will be travelling to a port just outside of Athens where we will board our student CRUISE BOAT (!!) and travel through the greek islands for 10 days. After the cruise we will stay in Athens for another two days, then fly back to Budapest on the 10th.

It has been a whirlwind so far, as we have tried to cram as much into our itinerary as possible. We basically hit up one city a day in Italy, which means that we unfortunately only got a taste for each city and I would love to go back to fully absorb the character of each city. There are wonderfully cheap flights all throughout Europe, so we have taken full advantage of those discounts, then travelled from city to city by train. We are staying in hostels in all of the cities we visit (except those that we will visit during our cruise). The hostel experience means that we are often sharing rooms with other people from all around the world, and I have met some really cool people. I expected to have to kind of close my eyes to the accomodations that we would recieve during our hostel stays, but I have been pleasantly suprised to find that everywhere we have stayed so far has been clean, comfortable, and in great locations. The weather here is gorgeous and SPF 30 is my best friend.

I will make sure to give you many more details about my trip as soon as I arrive back in Hungary, and you will get to see lots of photos.

I am so blessed to be able to have these amazing opportunities, and I am ecstatic to be where I am. AMAZING!

Much love to you all,
Em

P.S. Look what I can do with my keyboard: ε΅ςρθΘπΠσΣδΔφΦγΓξΞλΛψΨωΩ

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