Tuscany, another day in Rome and some Greek Tales

As I struggle to adjust back to normal suburban life, the eastern time zone, and not being in the fantasy travel world I grew accustomed to I still must finish my contractual duties to describe the rest of my time in Europe (and cause I clearly want to relive them).  The Greek tales are a bit briefer (I think) than some of the others considering the amount of time I was there, but ask me more questions about Greece if you want.

I left off at around 7:30 a.m on May 21st, my sister's birthday (something I struggled to remember on and off throughout the day, but don't worry I called) where I had slept about 30 minutes the night before.  I walked with the girls I met to train station and then we dispersed going our respective ways.  I found my bus for the Tuscany tour and eventually got on.  I was probably the youngest person on the whole tour and only one of three doing it alone so I was a bit weary at the beginning.  The ride to Siena was about an hour, I struggled to keep myself awake while the tour guide started explaining everything.  We got to Siena where we met an old woman tour guide to take us through the city.  Her tour was about an hour long taking us through the side streets, telling stories of the Siena banking system and how they were the originators of a lot of important elements and ending at the Duomo in Siena.  It was real nice church with awesome marble floors filled with tons of art on the floor and solid paintings throughout the church in general.  After finishing at the church the tour group dispersed and we were given an hour on our own. For the hour I walked around the city for about 30 minutes and then headed to Piazza del Campo to explore and meet up with the group.  Supposedly it's the world's 3rd most beautiful "square", I don't know what that means, but it is quite a sight.  They also hold the famous horse race, the Palio, in the square area, which would seemingly be incredible to watch there.  

The group went back to the bus after meeting up and we were heading on to our next stop, about 40 minutes away we were going to a farm house and winery for a very nice 4 course meal and 4 glasses of wine.  They showed a video on the bus, which I was planning on staying awake for, but apparently the lack of sleep caught up to me and I woke up when it ended and we were 10 minutes away from the meal.  We took a quick tour of the farm area, saw the wine processing area as well as the grapes and then got down to business.  The meal started with bruschetta doused in extra-virgin olive oil made at the farm and garlic.  The olive oil was extremely fresh.  We were given our first glass of wine, a very nice white wine (Vernaccia Docg, I cheated I had looked it up).  The good thing about the wines was besides getting 4 different wines you could refill any of them at anytime.  The next course was handmade spaghetti and fresh meat sauce from there as well (with fresh parm of course).  This time they gave us a Chianti to accompany the course, which was pretty good.  Next up came some wild boar salami, Pecorino sheep cheese, prosciutto, another salami, fresh bread and more olive oil and another red wine (a Convivio or something from 2005). It finished with a dessert wine that tasted like brandy and Cantuccini biscuits which were dipped in it.  During the meal I talked with a younger couple from San Fran, an Indonesian couple, and a few older folks one who was a Wisconsin alum and had overheard me talking about going there.  

After the meal completed we headed off to San Gimignano, which was nearby.  It's this awesome city on top of a hill, with real tall and awesome buildings.  The place also holds the 2009 Gelato champion, though it still wasn't as good as Giolliti in my mind, so they are not my champion.  I ate the gelato, and just walked around the place.  I didn't have time to really go in anywhere because I climbed to the top of the hill to get awesome views of the whole Tuscan region.  It was about 85 degrees out with no clouds, so I struggled with the heat, but was well worth the trek.  The city has a real neat skyline too with the sky scraper type of buildings.  After the hour there we got back on the bus and with a 1:30 ride to Pisa the tour guide told us to relax a bit.  I passed out rather quickly and picked up about 45 more minutes of sleep.  I wanted to enjoy the bus ride by looking out the window a bit more than I did, but what can you do.  We got to Pisa around 5, stayed an hour, took the traditional pictures and got out of there.  It was nice, but I'm glad I was part of a bus and tour and didn't take the train ride, spend a long time there and head back.  I talked to a few of the people from the lunch for a while and we all took pictures of each other, however, the one above I took by myself and I think that's impressive.  It was about an hour back to Florence and that concluded my Tuscan tour.  I did laundry the rest of the night, hung out with a few people on the couches and tried to avoid my new found celebrity status in the hostel of being found alive, finally passing out around 1 a.m as everyone else went out.   

The next day I woke up around 9, got myself a Perini special sandwich again, breaking my rule of eating at the same place twice, but because it was a meal for a train ride I didn't count it against myself.  I waited for my delayed train to Rome and got there around 2:30. I stayed in the same hostel as before and I immediately passed out when I got there for about an hour until I had roommates enter the room and wake me.  I walked around Rome for a little until meeting up with Randy and Cari for round 2 in Rome.  We had a solid dinner, I got a gnocchi with some porcini mushrooms and I think oysters as we drank some wine.  We then went around hitting up the tourist spots one last time, including a stop at Giolitti.  The trevi fountain was packed more so than any night previous, so we quickly found a corner to throw in our coins to insure our trips back to Rome (I threw in two again, can never wish for too much love in the world) and finished at the Spanish Steps per usual.  We went through the same Paraguay incident again with fake speaking to the street hustlers and went to sleep with plans of meeting up in the morning.  

We met at the train station around 7:15 a.m since our flights were similar times.  I was headed to Athens, they were headed home.  I thought I didn't need a train ticket and in the end I didn't as nobody checked, but the guy told me my rail pass would be no good since it's considered a "first class" train, so I was a bit pissed about that, more so after when nobody checked.  We got to the airport and checked for our flights.  Mine was listed, but with the destination of Rhodes instead of Athens.  I was quite terrified and became even more hesitant as the closer I got nobody mentioned that we are actually stopping in Athens before people continue on to Rhodes until the actual plane.  It worked out well, though going to a Greek Island may have been fun.  I got to Athens mid afternoon, but knowing I had so many days there I decided to take it easy for the day.  I checked into the hostel where I met a few people as I waited for the reception guy to be ready.  The reception dude was a bit out there, only answering a certain amount of questions from customers and blatantly making fun of them and he seemed to be stoned, but I appreciated the sarcasm. 

While I waited and talked to some of the people checking in, one of the strangest occurrences of my whole trip took place.  An older Greek woman walked into the hostel and began to stare at me and then she began to talk.  "Animal, you're an animal," she shouted in my direction and quickly walked out the door.  I was pretty shocked as the kid I was talking to cracked up at what had just occurred.  I didn't really care and was still confused.  About 5 minutes later she returned and actually approached me this time.  She stared at me and once again spoke, "Baby, you look like a baby.  Baby, baby cat. You're a baby cat, if you don't mind me saying disparaging remarks."  Now first off, that's fine, I know the beard is a bit out of control, but the part that bothered me more is why the fuck this crazy Greek woman knew the word disparaging to say to me? Maybe I do look like a baby cat (hey, baby cats are cute, so I'll take it as a compliment), but come on, really?

After that I officially checked in and was actually moved to another hostel, about a minute away by the same owners with real nice rooms, however, the building was still under construction a bit so all the amenities were still in the process of being completed.  I stayed there for a bit and met a few of my roommates before heading to eat.  If there is one thing I know about Greeks, it's their food.  Since I am doing a briefer synopsis of my time there I will now list all the Greek foods I indulged myself in from the beginning with a few comments, enjoy:

Spanakopita (a solid spinach pie, but a little too much of the crust for my liking), Saganaki (no "OPA" like we're all used to, but some solid kaseri cheese), gyros (both chicken and pork varieties), chicken souvlaki (was fantastic), lamb souvlaki (solid lamb), grape leaves (both vegetarian and regular with lemon sauce. One came warm, the other room temperature.  One lemon sauce had no taste, the other was nice and mild, but both were quite enjoyable), mousaka (very nice as well), spicy feta spread (was a nice addition to bread), bird's nest baklava (awesome, got it at some small pastry shop).  I believe that is the food list for my Greece travels, overall I was definitely satisfied.  

After dinner that first night I went back to the hostel and headed over to the rooftop bar at the hostel.  I hung out with a few people I met, including this one girl from New Zealand who had a passionate dislike for anything American.  I found it entertaining because everything she hated about America didn't really make sense to me, but she baited me into arguments for about an hour and I found myself sticking up for America and Detroit. She figured I was Eminem's biggest fan cause I'm from the area he is from, I found that really funny.  She was shocked to hear that not everyone listens to him or has boob jobs or any other stupid thing people want to associate with America.  After I finished talking to her I took a few pictures of the acropolis from atop the roof and went to sleep.

The next day I took a walking tour offered by the hostel.  I don't really know if it was good or not, the tour guide was this girl who really didn't seem to care about her job, not a good sign for tour guides.  She told some good and random stories and was personable, but there were plenty of times of just silence and walking to unknown destinations until we get there.  We saw all the main attractions around the Acropolis area and she showed us the flea markets etc.  We didn't actually go in any places, we were told to come back and do it after, but at least it gave me an idea of where everything was.  After the tour ended I headed back to the hostel, grabbed some food, and headed back up the Acropolis to check it all out.  The Acropolis is real cool, but heavily under restoration, so it takes away a little bit from the overall site from certain angles. The Parthenon itself is an amazing building to think of and the way it looks, especially when you do get the clean angles of not looking at metal poles built around the area holding it up.  The other old temples and structures like the Athena Nike also give great looks into the buildings way back in the Greek polytheistic days and how amazing it is some of the creations they could put together.  I ventured around there for a while longer, the most disappointing part of the whole thing was the Acropolis museum was closed.  It was supposed to reopen early 2009, but apparently May isn't early enough.  The brand new building looks awesome structurally from the outside and I can only imagine the stuff in it.  

After the Acropolis it was getting later, I ate and hung out with people the rest of the night, but nothing too exciting.  The next morning I woke up semi early to make the trek to Cape Sounio, about a 2 hour bus ride that was definitely worth it.  The temple of poseidon lies atop a cliff, which was in better shape than the Parthenon and quite a sweet site with the old marble.  I don't think I had ever seen water that clean from below the cliff and the views out to the mini islands in the distance and other mountains were just stunning.  The weirdest sighting atop there was the Green Bay women's basketball team from the Horizon league on a weird team trip to Greece, makes me think I should've been an athlete.  I went with someone else to Sounion so we hung out there for a couple hours and then headed back on the bus back to town.  He wanted to stop at some fresh water hot springs where you swim with fish he heard about, so we got off the bus in a random part of Greece.  I walked over with him, but I didn't really feel like paying $8 to swim and the water area looked small so I decided not to do it.  We split up and I walked around the beach area for a little bit, but just didn't want to swim so I headed back to find my bus.  

Unfortunately the bus I took doesn't stop back in the area we were dropped off in so I had to find another bus back.  I asked a local what bus to get on and he pointed at the one he was getting on and for me to join him.  The only problem with this is I did not have a ticket.  I got on the bus thinking maybe I could get a ticket and for the first time my whole trip I didn't have a legit ticket for the public transportation.  I knew it was about an hour bus ride back into Athens, leaving me quite terrified someone would catch me and yell at me and fine me.  For those who know me I already struggle with anxiety in many situations and add to that the chance of being caught doing something that I didn't even mean to left me uneasy.  I contemplated getting off the bus numerous times, but the closer I got to Athens I knew I'd still end up on another bus without a ticket, so why tempt it.  Luckily, I made it back with no controversy and someone told me the correct exit and directions as to where to walk.  I took it easy the rest of the day, it was already around 5 so I did my normal get some food, hang out with random people, and got some early sleep since it would be my last night sleeping until I got home.  I didn't sleep well that night, I woke up about an hour after I fell asleep in a complete panic mode that my trip was coming to an end and I had to face the realities of life coming soon.  I considered ways I could keep myself in Europe, but I knew I had to head back.

The final day I woke up semi-early, but hung around until I had to check out of the hostel knowing I had all day to do whatever I wanted and no room to take advantage of.  I hit up the rest of the ancient ruins, including the ancient Agora, which may have been my favorite area.  It had it's own museum with stuff dating back 5,000 years and some pretty incredible ruins still standing.  I then headed around to the Roman Agora, the Zeus temple area, and the old ancient theatre that were all included for my viewing pleasure with my acropolis ticket from a couple days before. They were all very interesting sites, I enjoyed the theatre as well a lot.  I then decided I'd hang around Greece, walk to some outer areas and explore some more.  I wanted to go to a museum, but the one I had in mind had the classic closed on Tuesday museum thing going for it.  I walked around some random streets and then headed off to Lykavittos Hill, the highest point in Athens.  I was going to climb it, and climbed up until I saw the funicular and since at that point I was already drenched in sweat, I spent the 6 euros for it instead and figured I'd climb down after.  The views per usual were stunning atop the hill of Athens and I was there close to sundown so I got that nice addition as well.  I then walked down, which was very easy and headed back to the hostel after dinner.  

My plan was originally to go to the airport around midnight and hang out there, but luckily I became friends with the staff and hung out with them for like 5 hours, they were pretty entertaining.  Around 2 a.m I went with one of the guys to grab a pizza as he took me down the street of transvestite hookers to pick it up telling me not to make eye contact, but then trying to say things to get me to look.  I then got back, ate some pizza, and a couple others were getting ready to head to the airport so I joined them for the hour bus ride and we split up since I was able to check in for my flight and they weren't.  I then got on the plane to Paris, slept for two hours, waited 4 more hours, got on the plane back to Detroit, watched Milk and slept for about 30 minutes as I panicked about actually being back home and then arrived.

So, that concludes Greece and my trip. In the next couple days I will officially end it all with my final entry filled with thoughts, favorites, mental notes from the trip, and of course the 50 naked pictures, one for each day that I took.  Just kidding, I just feel nobody will have read to this part so I threw it in there to be cute, or awkward... you make the choice.  

Thanks for reading, see ya soon,

BK