Finale...

Of all places... I´m in the Madrid Airport´s business lounge for platinum fliers for American Airlines, in between Iberian flights on my way from Athens to Minneapolis... and I´ve never even signed up for frequent flyer miles... Turns out one of the dudes I met in Corfu was on my flight to Madrid and is on my next to Chicago, and he can bring a guest in. I gotta get hooked up with a platinum membership- free internet, grub, cocktails, tv, newspapers... the only way to pass the time in a layover.

With my last day in Ios to myself, as Ben headed home a day before I, I took it easy: chilled on the beach, went it to town for some last-minute gifting, and went on a date with a Belgian girl who was also traveling alone. It was quite a pleasant farewell.

The trip on the whole- pretty much what I´d expected it to be once the plans were in place.

I have been pretty damn successful living my life with minimal regrets to date. This trip has not steered me off course. Nonetheless, there are a few choices I would made done differently given my budget and time...
- spent one day in athens and seen another island
- bought the right train ticket to the athens airport (painful story)
- purchased a 6-day eurail pass and coughed up extra dough if we needed to, rather than an 8-day pass to give us (unnecessary) cushion
- brought a female - not ben - to santorini... i love you man, but seeing you topless on the most romantic beaches i´ve ever seen just isn´t the same
- taken more EMAIL ADDRESSES. so stupid. i met so many people, made some pretty solid connections given the circumstances (relaxed atmosphere and condensed time frames...and aboundnig inebriation), but I was a compelte and utter failure at doing what was necessary to maintain those relationships. it´s so valuable to have a connection in san francisco or athens or london or wherever. idiot.

Biggest learnings/takeaways?
- a much more realistic grasp on how big the world is. I now know that I literally CANNOT imagine in my mind what places like Egypt and Laos and South Africa and the Philippines are like.
- don't travel with anyone who loves good food as much as you... otherwise the food budget stretches its belly a bit.
- when backpacking... don't try to get by on a used bath towel for 5 weeks - especially when hitting the beach.
- language is power. both ability to speak multiples and the accent you carry - it speaks volumes about your world and your worldliness.

athens...again?!

t minus one hour from my second of three departures from athens' airport. currently getting all my pictures from my memory card dumped onto a CD, serving two purposes- 1) backup. 2) ability to use my camera since benny SAT on his screen a couple of days ago, keeping the camera in tact but destroying the screen. shit. hopefully our pics have been turning out. technology- can't live with it nor without it.

lazy night in athens last night... we'd seen all we needed to see and a full day on the beach left us pretty gassed.

looking forward to more sand in my toes later today. tomorrow is either volcano and hot springs tour or more 4-wheelers.

not really looking forward to coming home. after meeting all the different travellers i have hearing about 3,4,5,9 month expeditions.... i wish i had that kind of time. everything in moderation i suppose...

don't have to be royalty to stay at the PINK PALACE!!

what a time in corfu... our recommendations to stay at the pink palace could not have been more spot on. while it's not the cheapest place in the world, they see thousands of backpackers a year and know exactly what you need (seeing as how 30 of the 100 person staff are backpackers themselves). 3 days jam-packed with cliff jumping, booze cruising, 4-wheeling, bat caving, sun-bathing, wave-playing, toga partying, plate-breaking, greek dancing, yamas-ing.... what a great island. throw a few hundred english-speaking backpackers together with sun, beach, and booze... the kind of fun i've found nowhere else. shame we have to leave. and back to ATHENS of all places!! (we've got a 20-hour layover on our way to santorini, so are spending the night in a different-and cheaper- hostel than before)

in hindsight, i might have not booked our entire gretian tour before we left. time is a hot commodity for us, but we've got LOTS of first-hand advice from fellow travellers to take a slightly different path than we are. but... we're in gretian paradise so i'm full of nothin but smiles.

off to island number 2

ooooh ooooohhh ouzo

ouzo is baaaad news-o my friends. actually... if you drink it correctly (on the rocks) it's not all that bad... plus, if a cute athenian is having trouble opening the little bottle she just bought from the bar, ouzo can make for a perfect conversation starter. i have heard it called mathematics, science, and music, but... is alcohol truly the ultimate universal language?

got home at 4am last night after a much more successful night life than the night before. Psiri appears to be the one district in athens with places open late. ONE?!?!? what the hell? hasn't this city been around for like... longer than lots of other ones? and they STILL haven't got partying right yet? ben and i are both confident the beach scene is going to drastically contrast this ancient, congested city. we have heard that ios will be party central. we are there longer than any other island. shucks.

the next 10 days are pretty well laid out (layed? lied? i never know), as we booked the last of our lodging/transportation needs yesterday in a travel agency. (no idea how they make money by the way, because the prices we paid there are the same i found online. weird. we leave for corfu tomorrow for three nights. then back to athens for a night for our 20-hour layover before getting to santorini. 2 nights there (only one full day but we will make it one to remember), then early morning ferry to ios for three full days there. the last night we take the 11:00pm ferry getting us to athens by 1:30am, taking the 2:00 or 2:30 bus to the airport getting us there around 3:30 for my 7:30 flight.

i. love. traveling.

Good mooooorning... athens.

10:30am - Tuesday.

Ben is taking a post-breakfast nap on our first full day in athens. After arriving in the afternoon yesterday, we took the rest of the day to explore the area around our hostel, absorb the city, and throw back a few Mythos (the only greek beer we've found... so far). The afternoon and evening were pleasant... we accidentally stumbled our way to the acropolis, but opted to not walk the entire height... we'll save that for wednesday. The night was a bit of a disappointment, as there seems to be only one part of town in athens with decent night life - a tidbit we discovered a little too late in the night. It'll be there tomorrow....

This city fits every description I've heard of it... times 10. Uber-crowded, tiny sidewalks, garbage EVERYWHERE, tons of scooters/motorcycles, graffiti galore, and a smattering of ancient ruins amidst half-finished construction projects. Oh, and be careful on the sidewalk- condensation from air conditioners in the rooms above provide a less-than-refreshing daytime shower. Thankfully the gyros make it all worth while.

We're making today a beach day, taking the metro to the south of athens where a string of sandy beaches is calling our names. Time to go buy benny some shades and a beach towel, and we're off!!!

so long miller... hello ATHENS!! (and ben too)

well well WELL.... been a while. i was typing a quick mini-post on the first day in amsterdam, but my time ran out literally as i was moving the mouse to click submit. ANYWAY....

since i last checked in, miller and i cruised from berlin to kiel (north germany, port city, baltic coast) to amsterdam.

brandon and i spent WAY too much time deciding on which out-of-the-way coastal german city we would visit (we wanted some saltwater). back and forth between rostock, lubeck, kiel, puttgarden... the list goes on and it gets more obscure as you go. finally we decided on rostock. then we got to the train station to find out our train didnt exist. kiel train was leaving in 20 min. decision made. we had one helluva time finding a hostel. ate some dee-licious seafood- butterfish and mackeral. found a semi-pro beach vb training station. i love traveling.

amsterdam treated us well. the two of us stayed in a hostel near the city center on thursday night, and then switched places a little hike from the center (near the van gogh museum) to stay in a quad room with our boys a.t. and mike. checked out a few museums. all of us buckled down here and did some serious souvenir buying. i was the worst- getting gifts is so tough because everything you see looks like... a souvenir?! too predictable? cliche? whatever it is i don't like it. problem is... the souvenir shops are where all the stuff is. vondel park is a HUGE and beatiful park that was just a couple blocks from our room, so we spent a bunch of time there yesterday, tossin the fris and just soaking up the sun and the view (finally some damn SUN!!!). gorgeous canals, willow trees, zero clouds and a slight breeze- glorious.

now i am taking a relaxing night to recouperate for leg 2 of the journey. i had a competely stressful morning this morning, as i'd opted for the cheaper yet more complicated of getting my ass to the schipol airport for my flight to athens early this morning (i.e. not taking the 35 euro airport taxi, and taking the tram to train to airport route). after not taking the less-frequent tram times into account (sunday), i took the tram too far, only to have to turn around to reach the connecting stop for the train to the airport. luckily the layover was virtually nil, and i got to my check-in desk with 70 min. before flight time. but then, the group in front of me was this enormous italian family (not large people, but there were 10 of them)... their luggage weighed too much, they didn't want to pay, i'm pulling my hair out looking at the security line in the distance. nevertheless... i made it. i love traveling.

i'm finally in a city where people wear shorts. and sandals!! about time.

absinth and bitch breakfast

1:30 in the afternoon... sunday.

we are just wrapping up a weekend in berlin with our friend a.t. and his friend mike from madison. they got in later on friday, leaving us not too much time for anything else other than checking out the weekend night life here. in a word... wicked. miller had apparently spent a good deal of his "studying" time in berlin perusing the night streets, because he directed us to a killer part of town on both friday and saturday nights. friday put us in a 4-story graffitied grunge club, with a bar on the top floor and various ecclectic art galleries and haphazard jam sessions in the art studios on the floors below (picture 3 guitars, a 3-piece drumset, and a tenor sax, smoke-filled room, fifth of vodka at everyones hip... like it was taken from a book)

last night ended at seven. yikes. we started the evening in potsdamer platz at the Sony Center-- this a part of town where all the architecture and commerce is post '89. after a traditional german meal (yes from a brewery, yes with a bock beer. the picture is amazing) we went from hookah bar to a foosball bar to an absinth bar to a dance club until 6am. the music was a pretty awful mix with a few decent tunes thrown in the mix (think high school dance... YMCA and all). got to chatting with a few locals in the trainstation at 6am, and got invited to breakfast. which i later learned was (some german word for) a bitchbreakfast- i.e. coffee and cigarettes (minus the nicotine in my case)

ok a.t.'s getting anxious to do some tourist stuff in this town before we head to hamburg tonight. hamburg until thursday, then amsterdam until flights out on sunday.

i love europe.