Η ελληνική περιπέτειά μου

For my Thanksgiving break, which was too short, I went to Rome. I had an amazing time there, though it was a very long weekend and incredibly tiring!

We left on Wednesday night around 8.30 PM. There was a strike at the airport earlier that day and many flights were canceled, but thankfully we lucked out! We took a cheap European airline called easyJet. You get what you pay for I guess because they were always late, sometimes up to an one or two hours, and they were very incompetent at their jobs. Plus no complimentary drinks or food! Not even water or peanuts! Total rip off! The seats are first come first serve so we got stuck to less than savory people numerous times, and the seats do not recline at all. All in all, I hate easyJet.

Anyway, we arrived in Milan that night only to find out it was incredibly cold! Athens was about 60 degrees when we left while Milan was probably around 20. It was a total shock to the system. Our layover was all night, and after a futile attempt to find food in the airport, we eventually found semi-comfortable couches next to the McDondalds and attempted to fall asleep. I really only got about 4 hours that night. Next morning we hopped back onto easyJet, once again late, and arrived in Rome.

Rome wasn't that cold, but we immediately started to walk around and sight-see. Really, there isn't much to say. We went to Trevi fountain, walked past Coliseum and the Forum, and eventually wandered back to our hotel. It was Thanksgiving so we decided to try and treat ourselves nice. We went to wine bar where we got some decent wine and some strange food. I had strips of buffalo meat while the girls had a strange lasagna. We decided from then on to go to cheap pizzerias or small restaurants instead of fancy stuff.

The next day we went on a tour of the Coliseum. Again, not much to say other than I was incredibly ecstatic to be there. However, it was rainy that day so we spent the rest of our time in the Vatican Museums. There is way too much stuff to see there! We were there all day and didn't even see half of it! Mummies, Greco-Roman pagan statues, Renaissance pieces, etc. It got very boring and repetitive after awhile and I only wanted to see the Sistine Chapel, which was at the end of the mass amounts passage ways. The Sistine Chapel was pretty, but not really my taste. It's a little weird, but I was glad to have seen it. The most famous part of it, with God touching Adam, is a very small painting, which surprised me. I figured it would be huge! Anyway, that night we wandered around the Spanish Steps and then went back to the hotel.

On the third day we went on a tour of the Palatine hill and the Forum. Actually, I never got to see the Forum because we woke up late and the girls didn't really care. I was a little irked, but whatever. But then they didn't even want to go to the catacombs with me! I opted to skip St. Paul's cathedral for the catacombs. I took a bus outside of the city and wandered around the Via Appia, of which I had learned about from Latin class in high school. I think I prefer traveling alone. I get to do what I want. The Via Appia was beautiful and the catacombs were very impressive! But I couldn't take any pictures of it. I was in a tour group of a few annoying old Americans who were very loud. That night we met back up with each other. The girls weren't able to get into St. Paul's because the line was massive, and they effectively did nothing. I made the better choice it seems.

On my fourth day I again went by myself. Nobody wanted to go to Pompeii with me!! It was a two hour train ride to Naples followed by a 30 minute metro ride, but I would do anything to get there! I got up at 5 AM and hoped on the first train to Naples. Napoli (Naples) is ugly. Very ugly. And full of dirty, shady people. I felt like I was going to get robbed or jumped at any second. I attempted to find a metro, but there were few signs and the people were not nice. An hour lated I found out that I didn't want to take the metro, I wanted to take some other train that I cannot spell for the life of me. The whole ordeal was incredibly frustrating, I would have thought there would be numerous signs for Pompeii, being that it is a huge tourist destination. But instead I found nothing. It was horrible, plus the metro sucked there anyway. But once I got to Pompeii I was care free once again. Pompeii is one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life. It was well worth the pain to get there! Full houses are still intact, the streets still have marks from the carriages, bodies are intact with their facial expression of horror, walls are still painted and mosaics are preserved! For once I didn't have to use my imagination when visiting an archaeological site! The city was massive too! I spent four hours walking around, attempting to do every one of the 70+ stops on the audio tour! I got most of them, but I began to get tired and it got late.

The next day we got back onto the crappy easyJet airplanes and arrived back in warm Athens. I enjoyed my trip to Rome very much, I just wish I would have had my friends with me. I didn't really know the girls I went with too well, and though they are great people, we didn't have as much fun as we could have had. Anyway, my pictures are on Facebook. I have given up on Flickr until I go back home because the internet here is just too slow.

Oh, and too make you all jealous, today (Dec. 3) I wore shorts and sandals out since it was well above 70 in Athens! I am not going to transition well back to Chicago weather!