All things Roman and Greek

Before I continue my travel stories, I have to include my great experience with Luca. After eating lunch and yummy gelato with his friend Lorenzo in Pisa, I made my way to Sarzana in an attempt to see the area where Luca the couchsurfer lives in. Unfortunately for us, we had about two hours before my train departed for Germany earlier than we expected, so Luca spent that time making sure I had everything, hopping with me on his scooter to grab provisions for the road, and even put his sister up to the task of making sandwiches for me. This is one of the coolest guys I met on my trip, and he deserves a huge shoutout. Though short and essentially uneventful, the rides around Sarzana on his scooter and seeing his house in the country complete with his Nonna (grandma) and her pet chicken, made me have the best reason to come back to Italy.

Rome

When I got out of the subway after arriving once more at Roma Termini, which seems to be my meetup point with myself for the next leg of the race, Rome did not look promising, and I assured myself I made the right decision to leave it to the very last and spend only one night there. Diego, my host, was really nice, and picked me up from the airport and planted in front of his computer, where I wrote my last blog post from. However, after writing my blog post, I went to an evening on the town with Diego. Just like with Florence, I realized how wrong I was. Oh my...I had only half a day in Rome, and it all looked magnificent. We found soy gelato and walked to a couchsurfing meetup in front of the Colosseum, which left me in awe. Awe. How could it not... I talked mostly with a couple of typical SoCal guys (Sorry Ri, if you're reading this...are you not?) which were pretty cool, and despite waking up so early, went to bed past 2 am. I literally collapsed on the bed and changed into my pj's sometime around dawn. I got up for real at 9 and we took our time getting ready for the day, looking up veg restaurants and planning our route. It was a very simple one; with such a limited amount of time, we were looking at the bare essentials. The Colosseum, get lunch, walk around the city center.
[Anecdote: The night before I was looking to store the remains of aforementioned pizza, and asked if I could put it in the fridge. "The what?" Asked Diego's roommate, asking Diego to translate. Diego indeed translated and Fabio's suspicions were confirmed: I asked to put the pizza in the fridge. They both gawped at me and said: "The fridge? You don't put pizza in the fridge. Maybe the oven." Italians vs. the world].

And so we embarked on our journey through the city, looking forever for parking until Diego decided to fork up the euro for a lot. We made our way to the Colosseum and I was ready to hang myself on the thick rope of despair in sight of the endless line. But, ladies and gentlemen, for an extra 4 euro I sneaked past it, asked to join a tour group, and was inside the Colosseum in about 2 minutes (Diego kept trying to make me stand in line and was staring at me open mouthed and stuttering as I strolled past the masses with success). The tour was worth every cent, informative and interesting, the Colosseum indeed colossal. I was filled with awe inside it, even though I don't exactly agree with anything that went on in there (it's hard to step out of modern thinking patterns and accept history despite its obvious clashes with everything I believe in). After that, we had a healthy, nutritious, delicious and extremely reasonably priced lunch at a posh vegetarian restaurant (was that even real?), and Diego took me to the Trevi Fountain. I admit, I did not know what it was (oh my). But when I saw it, I was close to tears (I know it's sappy). It's HUGE and MAGNIFICENT and you just stop. And gape. And take a deep breath. And then you start taking pictures. According to the tradition, if you stand with your back to the fountain and throw a coin, you will return to Rome one day. By now you should guess how thrilled I was that there was such a guarantee; Rome wasn't built in a day, and can surely not be seen in a day, therefore I shall return.
After the fountain we found the best gelato I'd had yet. The flavor was called "berries" but it wasn't a dark red sorbet; instead, it was creamy white flecked with berry colored swirls. I tasted it and it tasted divine... a mix of cream and berries, the creamiest cream and berriest berries I've tasted. I got it in a vegan cone (was this place kickass or what) with banana sorbet and left feeling full-bellied and elated with yumminess on my taste buds. Diego and I headed towards the train station (yet again), where we picked up my luggage and, to my surprise and delight, Diego gave me a ride to the airport (ah, Diego.) The flight was changed to an hour later ("nobody called you?") and I slightly regretted not being able to see more of Rome, but I was also grateful to sit down and rest my legs; I was exhausted.


Greece

I landed in Athens. And so starts the last leg of my trip, Athens to Santorini, back to Rome for a night (Roma Termini again), then a connection through Paris, then home. But between home and the bus to the city center and haggling for the cab price to the hostel lay the last rays of my glorious vacation time before returning to my awesome, yet bustling, routine back home. The cab ride was amusing, as the driver didn't speak much English (I'm embarrassed to say I don't speak a word of Greek, an official first in my world travels), but got across that Mykonos is a party island, all you do is "drink, beat, drink, beat, party beat, drink beat, drink. Beat." At the reception desk of the hostel, shortly after, I was greeted in silence by a little old man. "I am here", I said, and he replied: "and I am here". "I am also here", I said, and he replied "and I am here". Then we both started laughing and he asked for the name of my reservation. This little old man was amusing without doing anything special, but we made each other laugh at least five more times before I went to find my room and made a bunch of unnecessary yet unavoidable noise to the ears of my sleeping roommates. (Later I walked up and was looking for something in the hostel, and ran into a few French kids. I asked them about it and they said: "I don't know, ask the bizarre old man". That pretty much sums it up)

I woke up late this morning and went downstairs to take care of business. Forgot my quickdry towel at Diego's (this is a tradition as I forgot my first one at a hostel in Costa Rica, sob) so I dried myself with one of my skirts. I found out shortly after waking up that my new roommate was a girl from California who spent her childhood growing up between California and Israel. Sound familiar? Yeah, I know. Sharon turned out to be a kickass traveling companion, and we spent the day touring the National Archaeological Museum (most of the art isn't behind glass and you can take pictures of everything!) and the Acropolis (which is under heavy renovation but still impressive). I bought more postcards (If you want one from Greece, send me your home address) and a couple of magnets, a habit I picked up in Italy and thought more cute than tacky. In between we had lunch at a good, cheap vegetarian restaurant, and the lady serving food at the buffet turned out to speak 5 languages: English, French, Italian, Arabic and Greek. Amazing :) The health food store next door housed a hilarious Greek guy who lived in the States for a few years, and provided full minutes of entertainment. After our Acropolis adventures we ventured into the center of town, where it's at, and came back to the hostel to see if Sharon could cancel her obscenely expensive toured guide to Delphi tomorrow (we couldn't, so I might join her in the morning). We had dinner at the center and I befriended a sweet, old, fat stray dog, which was so dirty by the time I was done petting her, the layers of grime felt like a velvet glove on my hand. Walking back to the hostel, we found a Gelateria that sold soy ice-cream popsicles. I got pistachio (which I've been fantasizing about since the beginning of my trip) and Sharon got hazelnut (yuHUM), and we walked back to the hostel, chatting half in English and half in Hebrew. My bunk bed awaits, as it is 2 am, and I wake up at 6:45, but I felt obliged to write about my travels before I forget the small details that bring a smile to my face and make this trip special.

Mosquito update: Vampire mosquitoes do exist. I have a huge cluster of about 12 bites on my neck and about 7 more next to my shoulder. They are small and annoying and I'm grateful for my Fenestil gel. But they have not conquered me yet! I shall fight to the death! (You know, until I run out of Fenestil gel).