Greece and Italy, Summer 2004

Written Tuesday, July 13th, 2004

After three wonderful weeks of touring through Europe, I am back atwork. For those of you with whom I have not recently spoken, I have taken a new job in Bellevue and began this week. I'm sorry that I didn't have a chance to email you all earlier with the highlights of our adventure in the wild blue yonder..... It's quite long, I admit.

I arrived in London on Monday morning, June 20th. I met Anders at Victoria Station, so I had a little time to "freshen up" from the hours on the plane which only grant one crumbled clothing and misbehaved hair. As I walked down the steps with my suitcase, an airport worker came over to help me,"would ya like 'elp wi that, love?" Ah. English accents. Cute men with English accents. It was then I realized I was indeed back in Europe once again! I navigated through Victoria Station and found Anders. We stopped by a market on the way to Katrine's (Anders's sister's apartment, oh excuse me FLAT) so I could find some "safe" food to feed my hunger. For those of you who remember, I have my reservations about London food.

That night we cooked dinner together and watched that night's game of the European championship. Katrine had a fabulous place. Her three bedroom flat is divided on two floors (right, so we'll just call it an apartment from now on) and the second floor houses the kitchen, an expansive space with vaulted ceilings and skylights looking out on to other London rooftops...I just loved it. The next day was our London sight-seeing day. Anders and I walked from Katrine's place (near Victoria for those of you who have yourLondon bearings down) up through Hyde Park and across over to Notting Hill,where we spend a most splendid few hours. Yes, Notting Hill is incredibly enchanting! That evening we met up with Katrine and her friends at a pub to watch the Sweden vs. Denmark game. It was awesome watching soccer with others who are equally enthusiastic. Although they tied, Sweden still moved forward. We hustled home as we had a 6:30am flight to Athens to catch!!

Tired, cranky, and half-asleep, we stumbled to the train for Gatwick around 4:30 in the morning. After a few hours we landed in Athens! As we got off the plane, I was immediately reminded of what greek writing looks like---um are those letters? Thankfully, the english translation was right underneath it. Anders was hilarious, "You see Hillary, Greek is simple. Everything ends with 'anopolous'. Anders-anopolous, Hillary-anopolous. Go over there and
give them your passport-anopolous." He was quite the travel companion with his jokes... We took a long hot bus ride into Athens, hopped on the subway and got off at the stop which was located near our hotel. It was a hot, dusty trek. Yes folks, we're talking 100 degrees outside while tugging luggage through the city. And once we arrived at the hotel, Anders thought he would so kindly inform me that apparently a hint of perspiration had been absorbed by my pants and was visible. Oh super. I was then referred to as the oh-so-loving "sweaty-ass". Isn't he so charming? It's really only funnybecause that's what he was the entire trip. For those of you who may get to meet him, ask him what he'd do if he could change the world.... HAAHAHAHA!!!!!

Despite the heat, my overall impression of Athens was very positive. People were incredibly kind and helpful, and most people knew enough English for us to communicate easily. It was so hot during the day that we would go out early in the morning and do our sight-seeing bit, come back and nap for the hottest hours, then go back in the evening for dinner and more adventures. I really enjoyed the food in Greece--I don't think I've eaten so much pork in a long time, but it was quite good nonetheless. The Acropolis? Amazing.Wonderful. Powerful. Huge. Awesome. We went relatively early in the day so it wasn't horrifically crowded (it was horrifically hot!). It was an amazing feeling to stand in front of the Parthenon and know that I was experiencing one of the most amazing things on this planet. While it's size and perfection were enough to shock anyone, the fact that it was so old and built without our modern capabilities was truly the most amazing feat. I took a ridiculous amount of pictures of all the structures at theAcpropolis, it was all so incredible.

One of my favorite nights of the trip was the dinner we had in Monastiraki, a neighborhood close to our hotel. It was an area lined with sidewalk cafes on cobblestone streets, kebab skewers twirling in the windows. We finally sat down to eat about 1am, but the streets were still busy with people and the restaurants were still populated. We selected a table close to a live band where a family was dancing. It was awesome to watch: The family danced around to the music side-by-side in a line with their hands clasped together and held above their heads as they scooted back and forth. The nice waiter taught us to say "Yah-Mahs!" (greek for cheers) and how to say thank you. He asked us where we were from and after a disgusted look when he mentioned Bush (it happened a lot throughout the trip), he brought us two glasses of ouzo to try. Uh, it's strong guys, trust me! Kinda tastes like Jager. A young vender came by selling roses, and Anders was quite the gentlemen. This is where you all go, "aawwwwww" and I blush. Just an FYI to you all: Girls love flowers :-)

We hopped a ferry to the greek island of choice, Kithnos. I'm actually laughing to myself as I type that word. Kithnos was great. Once we found a small little room to rent, we walked through the town to contemplate our dinner options. Dinner options were slim as there were only a couple restaurants in this tiny little harborside village. The views were what we all see pictures of: Bright white stucco-like structures with crisp blue trim. Boats of varying sizes in the harbor, and miles of Mediterranean sea in the distance. I am so lucky! We settled on the Yialos restaurant after the waiter (Costos, our soon-to-be friend) came out to convince us to eat there, throwing up his hands and exclaiming, "food very good! My mama make it!" I was convinced. He sat us at our table--our table and chairs were so close to the water's edge they were on the sand! He said to Anders, "her smile is very beautiful. She is your wife?" I laughed and waited to hear how Anders would handle this awkward situation. And he responded, "oh, YEAH". Oh really? Oh great, so now the guy thinks we're married.....this gets funnier later on"wine night".

We spent the days on Kithnos cruising around on the scooterand going to the beaches. Anders was a pretty safe driver, thankfully. But even if he wasn't, I was officially the ONLY person on the island to wear a helmet! Nerd? Hey, it's cool to be safe. A couple nights later we found ourselves back at the Yialos restaurant. By the end of the meal, Costos kept bringing us more and more carafes of the house wine. So we kept drinking more and more. Funny how that works. It was a most enchanting night, Anders and I were chatting aand Costos joined us and chatted too. Eventually the conversation turned to what we did for a living and where we lived, and of course Anders and I had different responses for a home (do remember he thinks we married still). "What? You see, that would not work for me. Me? I like a lot of woman!" Yup, classic quote for the trip, classic quote. We enjoyed ourselves, walking around town and dancing in the streets. It was a fun night.

I myself didn't feel particularly super the following day.Too much sun and a ridiculous amount of wine were too much for the system. We took the ferry back up to Athens, spent one night before heading to the port to take the ship to Italy. That night in Athens was wonderful. We ate dinner in Plaka, a neighborhood right underneath the Acropolis with streets lined with unique buildings with upstairs window balconies overlooking candlelit sidewalk cafes on cobblstone streets, all lit up by white lights in thetrees. To me, this is Europe and symbolizes everything I love about it. We selected a restaurant outside which looked in on a live band and people dancing. Amidst tatziki, greek salad, souvlaki and wine, we watched an amazing display of greek culture. One person would dance in a circle of friends who would all be kneeling on the ground and clapping to the beat (a slow beat). Each person would take turns dancing all by him or herself.

Getting to Patras was.......adventurous. Silly me, I wanted to do some quality shopping so we got a bit of a late start to the train station. Yeah, we missed the train by 20 minutes--the only train that afternoon that could get us there in time to make the 6pm boat to Italy. Oooooops. So we grabbed the magic book (and when I say Magic...seriously though, when travelling buy
the "Let's Go" series. They are incredible) and discovered that somehow there was a bus that could get us there quicker. Odd? I think so too, but whatever works. We hauled ass out of the train station because we knew we had to catch a bus within the hour. Unfortunately there were many people in front of us in the taxi line. Two of whom were Swedish backpacker chicks who
kept glaring at me. Either they knew that 1.) we were in a crunch and were about to jack a taxi out from in front of them (we HAD an emergency here!) or 2.) they knew I was stealing one of their own.....HHAAHHAAHAHAA. Either way I was annoyed, so Anders and I took off down the street to see if we could grab a taxi BEFORE it reached the train station taxi line. What do the drivers care anyway? Well, apparently they did, because none of them would stop for us! We finally got one and were whisked off to the bus station.

The bus station was a cultural experience to say the least. It was pretty dirty, crowded and the luxury of English signs were gone. Do you know what Patras looks like in Greek?Yeah, neither did we. Once we bought our tickets, they were all printed in Greek, so we couldn't even figure out where to go to find the correct bus stall. True, we could look at the destination signs on the buses......uh, they were all in greek. It was like comparing drawings or on Sesame Street 'one of these things is not like the other, which one is it?' We finally found our bus, got on, and rode three hours to Patras whereI hauled ass to the ticket office to buy our way to Italy with only a few minutes to spare. So there I was in my tank top, skirt and Old Navy flip-flops sprinting to the office because we only had a few minutes to get it all done. I flung open the door and jogged up to the desk panting, "can I get two tickets to Bari on the 6pm boat." "Sure. Passports?" Oh shit! So out I ran to find Anders safely with the bags laughing at me running down the street.

Anyhow, we got on the boat and made the 15.5 hour journey toBari. The boat was like a cruise ship and quite comfortable. We both slept a lot, read a lot, and were in Italy by the morning!
Bari. Yep, laughing as I write this one too. The thing I like about travelling in Europe is that everything is very logical in terms of transportation. The subways go to all the train and bus stations. Thebus stations are right by the ports. It's very obvious where to go and maps are always posted. Okay, not in Bari. In fact the dock was so large that I wasn't quite sure which way the town was. As we got off the boat,everyone piled right on to tour buses. Anders and I just looked at each other, confused; do we need to get on the buses too? So we tried, but they were full! We just laughed at how stupid we felt because everyone else seemed to have a place to go and we were there just standing around with our luggage(me the drunk driver and him with the lard ass--yep you develop petnames for your suitcases when you haul them around for three weeks!).

After walking back and forth a few times and eventually asking someone, we found a bus to take us to the train station. Of course we had no idea where it was because my Italy book was not-so-magic (Italy in under $70 a day fromFrommer's SUCKS!!! Don't buy it). After a sweaty bus ride, we got to the train station. We decided to go to Reggio, a town just across from Sicily so
we could do some day trips to the Eolian Islands. A six-hour train ride it was, however, you could almost think of it as a day spa (with dirty bathrooms)--and we were in the sauna the whole damn time! I busted out my little wetwipes to freshen up....It was a fun ride, I did my nails, Anders slept. Then we did Swedish 101 and I practiced singing the Bamse song.

Although we didn't really reach our touring ambitions in Reggio, I really enjoyed it. It was a genuine Italian town in the truest sense. No one spoke English at all. However, they were all very kind and willing to try. One waiter realized we didn't speak Italian and brought us to the deli with the menu and pointed things out. I had the most amazing pasta I've ever had at this cute little restaurant which overlooked the street.They squeezed a table in the window balcony and Anders and I sat there to take it all in. The best part of Reggio was discovering one of earth's greatest gifts: Gelatto. Wow. I'm not sure it really qualifies as ice cream.
It's like a cross between soft serve and mousse but flavored as well as Ben and Jerry's. The gelatto was amazing in Reggio and I think we got some two or three times a day. We spent our afternoons on the beach and swimming in the Med. If I have one complaint? TOO MANY SPEEDOS!!!!! I'm sorry, it's just wrong. We'd be laying there in the sun all relaxed and I would start snickering like a six-grader. "What are you laughing at now?" Anders would ask. Eeewwwwww.

After a few days in Reggio, we went to the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life, Positano, Italy. We stumbled on it accidentally, and it'squite ironic that Anders had the audacity to pretend to be annoyed that I just went ahead and "decided" we would be going there. He loved it. Positano is on the Amalfi coast, and while I like to think I'm letting you all in on a big secret--I'm not. America has discovered Positano. That town had flocks of Americans. Loud ones too. It was actually a bit embarrassing. The Amalfi coast is comprised of huge, jagged mountains and cliffs overlooking gorgeous beaches. All the buildings are embedded into the rock--or so it seems. It was charming and enchanting---so much that I think my definitions of those words changed as I walked through the streets. We stayed at a really cute bed and breakfast a little walk outside of town with a beach just 250 steps below (ooooh, guess who realized she needs to work out more!). On our last night in Positano we bought pastries and champagne and took a water taxi to the beach for a little "picnic unders the stars." I know, I know, cheesy as hell, but we had a great time.

From Positano we took a ferry to Napoli so we could hop on the eurostar to Roma. Napoli is where we had a near death experience in the taxi--a taxi driven by a guy with a bedazzled shirt saying HORNY. Really. I'm not kidding. You see, in Napoli there is the left lane, the right lane, and the center lane is a free-for-all, so people dodge in and out of each other going both directions. Seriously, their head-on collision rates must be sky-high. It was the scariest thing ever.

We arrived in Roma relatively late, and took the subway close to our hotel which brought us right out onto the piazza with the Spanish Steps. It was impressive......and it was covered with people. Our hotel was up a million steps. Anders was a trooper for carrying both our bags, oh he is just so, so, so strong that Swede. :-) The next morning was the big sight-seeing day.
Off we went to the Vatican. Roma was a close contender for the SweatCity2004 Award, however I think Athens won. St. Peters was incredible. I was in awe at the size, the sculptures, the paintings, everything. There was so much to see in every single nook and cranny of that place. Amazing. We also went to see the Capella Sistina. That itself was mind-blowing, and nothing short of it. However, we had to go through a little over-populated maze of unairconditioned hallways stocked with (ahem) American tourists. The amount of people really took away from the experience, which was a bit of a shame because the artwork was simply phenomenal the entire way through. That evening we went to see the ancient Roman ruins, including the Roman Forum and the Coloseum. It was so amazing to see such historic places, and their age was something I have never even tried to fathom.

Our last day in Roma was devoted to shopping (at least it was for me). Although there was still so much to see, it was just too hot to continue trekking up and down the streets. Anders and I did our own thing that day,then met up later for the evening. We had the most amazing meals, and I think that night was one of my favorites of the trip. The restaurant we found was tucked in a cobblestone piazza underneath a large cathedral, and hidden from the tourists. Only the locals were dining there. We had some fabulous food and a couple bottles of wine. It was a great night.

We flew back to London the next morning for my final night in Europe:-(. Going home was certainly the last thing I wanted to do. Anders--a most talented chef--made dinner and we hurried out the door to go meet up with Katrine to hit the pubs. We found a bar and had a great time sharing stories from our trip and ganging up on Anders.......they were playing great music,I was quite impressed. Anders and I stumbled home to conclude our wonderful adventure. He left about 5am to catch his flight to Stockholm. I got on a flight to Chicago for my cousin's wedding, which was wonderful.

So here I am in the new job, which is great so far! It always sucks when you have to learn the ropes of everything, but that's the way it goes. Everyone is SO nice and very helpful. No more "throw her to the wolves on day one and see if she survives" like certain unmentionable experiences.....I'm completely overwhelmed with getting my arms around a whole new life. New
job, getting ready to move, etc. I'm still a bit jet-lagged, but somehowI doubt any of you feel sorry for me! There was a bit of a mishap with my camera in Chicago, but I hope to get printouts of this trip (ok, and last trip too--ooops) soon in additon to getting them on shutterfly or something.

I hope that everyone is doing well and having a great summer, and I look forward to getting in touch with all of you soon!