My Backpack's too Heavy

We lıterally had to be dragged out of our hotel ın Santorını to take the nıght ferry! At thıs poınt our budget was gettıng dangerously low so we dıdn't even splurge for our own seat! Thıs meant that we ended up ın the food court of the boat, not redecorated sınce the 70s (mırrored ceılıngs people!) pullıng chaırs together to make a bed. Needless to say, through vacuumıng and announcements for dıfferent ports every half hour, whıch they felt they had to repeat 3 tımes each, we dıd not get much sleep.

We zombıe-walked ınto Rhodes and lack of sleep led to lack of judgement and we sıgned on for a 12 euro a nıght hostel. We learned what those extra euros payed for once our heads hıt the...pıllow?? They felt more lıke cement blocks. To quote Lız "Are we ın Pompeıı?" (Pıctures to explaın comıng soon. Uploads take tıme people!)

After a day of sıght seeıng ın the old town, we decıded to check out the nıghtlıfe. In our search for a club, we learned that people ın Rhodes don't dance! In a club blastıng dance musıc that would make even the shıest wallflower bust a move, there they stood, packed lıke sardınes, smokıng and attemptıng conversatıon. Despıte odd looks we decıded to have our own prıvate dance party anyway!

Another 2 hours of sleep nıght and we were on the mornıng ferry to Turkey! Thıs blog wıll be short as what follows are several hours of catchıng up on sleep. We slept on the ferry, we slept on the bus, we slept whıle waıtıng to be pıcked up from the bus...

Anyway, Turkey ıs amazıng but unfortunately our ınternet cafe ıs closıng! More about Turkey later!!

To all of those who (including ourselves) who were beginning to think (and worry) that nothing in this trip would ever go right, Hallelujah! We have arrived. It is called Santorini and if you haven't been then you should go. You may not return. We're not sure if we will. But I believe we have skipped part of the story...to recap...

Athens! We did have a day exploring ruins and thought we must be hallucinating when we saw cupid on the rock of judgement but it turns out we had run into a photo shoot! This buff man in head to toe silver makeup, wings and a diaper was posing on the rocks for women's enjoyment everywhere. We ate at a traditional greek restaurant where we had the most disgusting wine (out of a tap) ever that they kept refilling "on the house." Ya. Thanks. For nothing! They then tricked us into trying some greek moonshine. "That's not ouzo!!" Gag.

June 4th
We had an early morning ferry to Santorini which was going quite swimmingly until the boat began to rock on our last stretch. Julia began to regret getting cocky and not taking her gravol but alas, it was too late. After a mad dash to the bathroom she realized that all stalls were full...of people throwing up! Panicking, she stood outside the bathroom looking frantically around and dry heaving until people finally came to her rescue. After this incident, she decided that the cruise in the South of Turkey was off.

When we arrived in Santorini we were suddenly not so sure about our decision not to book a hostel ahead of time. For those of you who have been to Santorini you will know that the ferry port is at the bottom of the cliff, while the town is at the top. After a moment of "Dear god how are we ever going to get up there?!" we managed to compose ourselves long enough to realize that the ferry port was full of people trying to sell rooms. We chose a hotel that looked good in the brochure, but were still hesitant as we were driving up there. I think we jumped around the room for 10 minutes after we realized that where we were staying looked exactly like a postcard!

We headed into town (by foot!) to get something to eat but unfortunately got distracted by all of the little shops! This brings us to our first backpacker tip for this blog!

Backpacker tip: Do not wait until you are starving to find a place to eat. You can and will sit down at the crappiest joint in town.

Here we were in Santorini eating cold meatballs and getting circled by flies. However, even this did not damper the day. Donkey riding tomorrow!

May 31st

OK! This blog does require some movie research, so should you not have seen Eurotrip, please do so before reading on. As we got on the train in the morning hoping to be on the ferry to Greece that night, we knew the setup was too good to be true. At our first stopover (where we would be staying for 3 hours) Liz could not help but let out the first Eurotrip quote..."Dear god, we're in Eastern Europe!!" Taranto, while sounding an awful lot like our hometown, looked like something out of a Western. Flies hung in the air and very strange looking men were sleeping in the train station and didn't appear to be waiting for a train at all. It probably didn't help with our first impression of the town that the moment we stepped out of the station to potentially search for lunch, a cabbie was playing music that sounded like the slow emo portion of a metal song with gongs. Liz would not let us leave the train station after that.

As we continued on our second train, we discovered Eurotrip reference number 2! For the first time, no lights came on while we were going through tunnels. We immediately started giggling and saying "Mi Scusi, mi scusi!" It was all fun and games until Julia started screaming "It's down my shirt! Something just went down my shirt!!" We came into the light where Julia had just enough time to yell "I see it!!" before entering another tunnel "Noooooo!!" Turns out it was a giant bug..."Mi scusi!!" (If you have not seen Eurotrip, check out this scene! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_KACgT-ZD0)

Thinking that our karma had to be coming to our side sometime soon, we strolled into Bari thinking the worst must be over. Although there were no ferry strikes, there were no ferries to Patras on Sundays!! We were stuck in Bari until the next night. We were both starving at this point so we decided, after checking into our hotel, that we would check out the town a little! Well, everything seemed to be closed, until we got to this one street and it turns out that the president of Italy was in town that day! There was a parade going down the street in his honour, but they had decided that the best way to handle the music situation was to play a recording of a man and child choir singing the same song over...and over....and over again. We decided that even if we could find a place that was serving more than gelato at that time of day (around 6-7pm), we didn't think that we could handle repeat #10.

After a delicious McDonalds meal we made our way back to our hotel. When we walked into our room, we had a chance to better inspect our lodging and realized...the shower was actually in the middle of the bathroom! The drain sat in the middle of the floor surrounded by a puddle of water that looked as though it had been molding there for weeks, while the shower-head hung somewhere between the toilet and the sink. They had tried to spiffy it up by adding some awkwardly placed kitchen tiles with pictures of fruit...2 tiles for the entire bathroom to be exact. Aside from the neon lighting and our beds being the width of balancing beams, we looked and realized that we had a nice balcony! We went out to enjoy the birds singing...only to discover...those aren't birds...they're BATS! As if to emphasize this discovery, at that very moment 3 bats swooped towards us screeching. Julia ran into the room and closed the door (only to keep the bats out of the room while she got her camcorder) while Liz continued screaming (but videotaping) on the balcony. After a lovely night of watching The 6th Sense in Italian (yes, we really were that bored) and trying not to think about where the stains on the walls came from, we did discover the true meaning of "paper thin walls."

Backpacker tip of the day - Always wear flip flop in the shower or you can, and will, get hepatitis. Warning: In some showers, not even flip flops will save you. Better to be dirty!

June 1st!!

Bari was a cute enough town by daylight and we managed to get some sight seeing done even though our packs had to come along for the ride! We were very thankful to finally be able to get on the ferry that night.

June 2nd

We are currently in ATHENS!!! While there wasn't time to do much today, we did manage to eat our first Greek meal and see the Acropolis at night! Very pretty. Time for bed now as sleeping on a ferry is, well let's say challenging.

First Backpacker tip of June - Get sleep where you can (trains, buses etc)! Planned sleep is not for those staying in 1 star hotels.

OK! So sorry for the long hiatus, we have decided that for our next trip, if we plan to blog it, we will need to bring a blackberry or laptop along because waaay too many things can happen along the way. So, epic blogging, HERE WE GO!!!

May 24th
After Interlaken we had a huge travel day to get to Cannes, made longer due to the last race of the Grand Prix being on the same day. When we finally got there we got dolled up to go star stalk, but ended up getting stalked ourselves!! The B-list paparazzi are quite aggressive. BEWARE!!! (ps - we did not see anyone that we recognized, only French movie stars...maybe...)

May 25th-26th

While we were still in Cannes we saw the millionaire boats, but discovered that touring around the city in our packs, combined with ridiculous heat was a VERY bad idea. So, after indulging in our second Haagen Dazs in as many days, we went to the train station to continue on to NICE! While we were in the train station we bumped into two girls who were backpacking as well who were on our flight! Random! We decided to meet up later and found a place with 0.30 euro glasses of champagne. Oh yes, 0.30 euros. We also stayed an extra day in Nice due to a train strike (oh no!) and since we planned that day as a beach day, of course it rained. We tried to get onto the computer to blog to you guys but the computer decided it did not like this website and would not let us on. Otherwise we would have written sooner! Sorry!

Random backpacking tip! - Always be open to plan B, C, D and possibly E, as your plan A can, and will, be thwarted (Julia's word as Liz thinks Julia is an old British lady trapped in a young body).

May 27th
We arrived in Rome late at night and made our way to our BnB by the train station, only to be told that he had accidentally overbooked and we would be staying in his apartment...while he stayed with his mother. Parents, I know you're freaking out right now, and rest assured, so were we. However, it was the final soccer game between Barcelona and Man U, and with hundred of bodies lining the train station with sleeping bags, we considered ourselves lucky to even have a roof over our heads. Since we were still a bit freaked out and had so little time in Rome, we met up with a big group of people and did a tour of Rome by night covering the Pantheon, Trevi fountain and several other squares.

May 28th
Due to our nighttime adventure this day got started a little later than planned. After waiting in the wrong line accidentally (for St Peter's instead of the Vatican museum) we were so worried about the infamous line to the actual museum that we were shocked and confused but pleased to discover that, the day after a huge soccer game, nobody is interested in the Vatican. So, power tour of Rome on day 2 included the Vatican, Spanish Steps, speed shopping (15 mins ppl) up to the Piazza del Popolo where we Audrey Hepburned for a minute before sprinting to the train station...again. On to, SALERNO!

May 29th
Deciding to take it slow due to a mild migraine interruption (mild being a relative term only) we made this our Pompeii day. We tried to take a bus or cab to the train station, only to find out that Italy's version of the tour de France was passing through Salerno and therefore all main streets were closed until 5pm!!

(In case you people are keeping track, our plans have now been affected by: A French holiday weekend, the Grand Prix, a Train Strike, a soccer game and now the Tour de Italy!!!)

We walked the whole 45 mins to the train station and got Pompeii where we learned upon ordering lunch that price does not reflect size. After attempting to finish a whole pizza each, we hobbled our way up to the ruins. While Liz had come here to site see, Julia had her tripod and video camera in order to do a full blown video shoot in Pompeii. Poor Liz had to put up with stopping every two seconds for "the perfect shot."

May 30th
First and foremost, HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATHRYN!!!! YAAAAAY!!!! ps - you're old.

Back to the blog. As we decided to make this (TODAY!) our next beach day, of course it's raining again!! We're going anyway and have also planned to do an epic hike. Let's hope there are no mudslides!

Tomorrow...off to Greece! Unless there's a ferry strike...because that would be our luck.

Signing out backpacker tip - If you are near a beach and find your day full of sunshine, do your beach day! If you plan one for later, it can and will get rained out. Ciao!!

So blogging every day...not going to happen haha! We never see computers and when we do, we have to pay for them. So, here is an amalgamation of the past five days in one blog. Aaaaand GO!

May 19th and 20th

We arrived in Paris only to have Liz discover that...her wallet was missing! Such things are really better handled on more than 2 hours of sleep (which we can thank the turbulence for). Luckily we had not left the airport yet so after a minor meltdown by Liz, Julia decided that it had to still be on the plane so ask she did (in French!). We recovered the wallet minus 80 euros and learned a valuable lesson...

Backpacker tip for day 1 - Guard your wallet with your life (even on a plane!) because it can, and will, get taken out of your bag.

Relief of recovering the wallet took away most of the sadness of losing the euros so we continued on to Paris where Julia miraculously remembered how to get to Giulianas from the subway though it had been 10 yrs, but somehow neither one of us could manage to open the door to the building (which was not locked)! We finally got in and spent the next couple of days in the lap of luxury exploring Paris while staying in a beautiful clean apartment with our own room!! Highlight, eating lots and lots of crepes. In fact, we do not remember eating anything else...

May 21st

After discovering that it was a long weekend in France, and that consequently all trains and hostels in Nice (and to Nice) were fully booked, a change of plans was in order. What better place to add to the itinerary than Amsterdam?! We had two stopovers on the way there where we discovered a beautiful French town, Lille, that had giant black glossy human baby gargoyles randomly lining the street, and Brussels where we learned an important lesson...

Backpacking tip of day 4 - When entering a city you know nothing about, even when the train ticket man says the station is downtown, do not start wandering aimlessly. You can and will end up in the shadiest part of town. (So much so that a Scottish backpacker has to stop you and point you in the opposite direction.)

We had our first mass meeting of fellow backpackers on the last stretch to Amsterdam where we learned that even if your reservation for the train says that you have no more stopovers, nothing is set in stone. We finally arrived at 10pm to discover that our centrally located hotel (and I guess we should have known from it only being a 1 star) was actually on the opposite end of town from downtown. Our room was clean, but only big enough to fit the bed...literally we slept with our backpacks. We did go out on the town for a bit that evening but much preferred our daytime exploring the next day. Amsterdam is a beautiful city in the daytime, super fun in the evening and totally sketchy after 1am.

May 22nd

After a night train ride to Zurich, we made our way to Interlaken where we currently are nursing our bruises from the super fun but super crazy CANYONING!! Tomorrow...to Cannes!! Star stalking here we come.

Over and out. LiznJules