A pic for mom

Just checking in quickly, I made it to Athens, now I have to find Jeff and Anne! Here is when I climbed up the mountain overlooking Palermo:

http://jarema.smugmug.com/gallery/560488/1

More travelling

Hello hello!

Greeting from Greece, I just arrived in Corfu yesterday morning and have been enjoying my stay at the Pink Palace (www.thepinkpalace.com, mom don't look at the picture galleries please!)

Since my last update I've been in Palermo, Sicily, went back to Naples to do a day trip to Pompei, then to Brindisi to take a ferry over here to Corfu, Greece.

Palermo was a blast, Jeff and I spent the days chilling on the beach while at the world festival on the beach. Their promises of surfing, windsurfing and kitesurfing weren't possible because of the low surf and lack of wind, so the festival was pretty much a bunch of rounds of "beach volley" (beach vball, apparently :). The games we watched were part of a pro series that travels around the world and has games at events like this. Beyond that, we just baked in the sun and enjoyed some pizza and pasta as you would expect in Italy. Jeff took off a day earlier, and I had a chance do see some sites solo. So I went to the catacombs in Palermo, very creepy, most of the bodies still have skin and some remains of rotting eyeballs that have sunken into the skull. It was really creepy and I had my first nightmares of the trip after that! You do get used to it though, they have about 4000 bodies on display and all of them are dressed up in (well preserved) clothing refelcting their occupation before death. Later on, I hiked Monte Pelegrino. Its a mountain (or hill I suppose, only 300m vertical) that overlooks the city of Palermo and has some spectacular panoramaic views of the bay of palermo and the area surrounding the city. It was totally worth the blisters I suffered over the next couple of days. I promise I'll post some pics when I find a fast internet connection.

A word about Giorgio's House -- Giorgio is a champ! He feeds his guests a grand breakfast (basically all u can eat) in the morning and takes them out for tours both in the afternoon and evening. He puts his heart and soul into running his business and does a damn good job. It was the most relaxed and secure place I've stayed at so far. Props to Giorgio.

Next I took the ferry back to Naples to meet up with Jeff and his girlfriend Anne. We took the train to the ruins Pompei, overlooked by Mt. Vesuvius. Basically it was a city that was buried when the volcano erupted 2000 yrs ago or so. Its pretty extensive, and its amazing to see the amount of work they were able to accomplish back then using slave labour, but I do recommend a guide if you're going to check out something like they. We were all beat from travelling so the visit was kinda boring for us. Oh well! Off to Brindisi!

Brindisi is a port town on the "heel" of Italy whose sole purpose is to act as a gateway for travellers going to/from Greece and some other countries along the adriatic. I ended up staying a night at the hostel there (carpe diem) and meeting up with two guys that we hung out with in Venice, Jon and Ryan from Regina (they always get wierd looks when telling non-Canadians where they're from :). The night in Brindisi was kinda laid back, and the next day we just hung around waiting for the ferry. The ferry ride was alright, we grabbed some boxed wine and drank a bit (a group of like 10 of us) on the way. Eventually everyone just found somewhere on the floor to crash for the night.

Upon arriving in Corfu, a bus from the pink palace picked us up and brought straight there. Its a pretty big complex with a private section of the beach, a nightclub, a couple bars, and a whole whack of activities. Yesterday me and the Regina boys relaxed on the beach playing a game of Frisbee, and eating some gyros (from what I can tell, they will make up the majority of my meals from now on :). Today we're checking out the Quad Safari, where you get a quad (+ helmet of course) and cruise the islands seeing some sites, cool little beaches and go up some of the mountains. (Oh yeah, Corfu is amazing, it, like Capri, is just basically mountains sticking out of the ocean). The food here (at the hostel) is great, the rooms are air conditioned, and its the best party I've been to so far (again, check out their website and everyone except mom is allowed to look at the picture galleries :).

Until next time!

Oh yeah, I hope some of the postcards have started arriving in Canada, more to come!

Some Photos

Here are the first of my photos:

London: http://jarema.smugmug.com/gallery/546076
Venice (not all of them yet): http://jarema.smugmug.com/gallery/546081

Roma to Tuscana to Napoli to Palermo

Lots to catch up with it seems!

I ended up staying an extra day in Rome (to make it three days total) and ended up seeing the Pope give his address to St. Peter's Square for Pentecost. Also, saw a Police exhibition (Italian cops have Lamborgini chase cars) and went to the typewriter again (Nathan still had to see it). Oh yeah, its a small world, cause I bumped into Peter from the U of T mountain biking team randomly at the hostel bar... crazy.

After Rome, I managed to figure out a route to see the Tontini's in Tuscany that involved many regional trains and a few hours of travel. They were staying out near Castellina in Chianti (the Chiani region or township or something) in a nice house in the hills surrounded by vineyards and fields of olive trees. I actually arrived in a town near this and had to wander around town until I found someone who would rent me a bike for a couple days :) I was able to leave my backpack as collateral and just take my small rucksack for the night. Liv left some signs along the way to point me in the right direction and after a half hour ride (and some walking up the hills), I made it! only to find the Tontini's were out for the day and had left a message telling me to call them on their cell.... but I was in the middle of nowhere with no phone of my own. Yadda yadda yadda, they showed up and we all had an amazing dinner and night of drinking vino, grappa and playing cards and night soccer. Cool stuff!

I took off early to spend a day on the trains to make it to Naples, about half a megameter south. Not much along the way except for a couple of Americans I met who happened to share my interest in SciFi novels and who were just returning home after a semester of studying in London and Spain somewhere... they ended up giving me a book to read (Digital Fortress) and I've been eating my way through it pretty quickly!

Napoli was kind of sketchy arriving after dark, there were about 5 cabs for each person arriving at the train station, who wanted like 20 euros for a ride that costs 1 by bus. Forget about it! I stayed at the Hostel of the Sun that night and met up with Anny from school. The two of us, plus some other people from the hostel (minus Anny's friends who just enjoy staying in??) went out for a couple drinks on the town. We ended up at the Blue Moon and just had a couple before retiring for the night in preparation for an early morning.

We (me, Anny, plus her friends Whinney (as in the Pooh) and Christina) caught the 7:35 ferry to Capri. Man its a sweet island, it reminds me of St. Martin in the way that it just seems like a mountain jutting out of the ocean. We checked out the Villa Jovis, where Roman emperor Tiberius chilled 2 thousand years ago, ate some toast (toasted sandwiches, not just a piece of bread) and rented a motor boat to cruise around the island. The boat ride was a riot for a few reasons: the ocean was very choppy, the girls were terrified basically the whole ride (obviously I was driving and making it more exciting than it needed to be!), the boat was small so those prone to seasickness didn't do so well, and there was a natural arch sticking out of the ocean that we got to drive the boat through... twice!It was an amazing use of 65 euros between the 4 of us, we would have paid 10 euros each for the same ride on a tour boat, but with not so nearly as much excitement :)

I took the ferry yeasterday at 8pm (of course, we arrived at like 7:20 back from Capri, so it was a little bit rushed) to Palermo where I've been relaxing since I arrived at the dock. I'm staying at Giorgio's House, see his website www.giorgioshouse.com . The website pretty much says it all, Giorgio is a funny guy and loves hosting the people who stay at his place... he gives free tours by day (sites) and night (partying) and also has workout days for the people visiting.

Well, until next time, I hope everyone is doing well. The plan is to hang out here and go to the world beach festival www.wwfestival.com with Jeff when he arrives here, then who knows?? I've got no plans after that!

Venice and Rome

Well, I made it to Italy after a flight on Ryanair. Their planes are pretty much public buses in terms of their feel. The seats don't recline, theres no airsickness bag (I guess you just unload on the floor, much like a public bus, but I don't know much about unloading on a bus), but they do get the job done.

I stayed one night in a single bed in Mestre, which is on the mainland directly across the lagoon from Venice. The hostel was a nice place to crash, and I woke up early to make my way into the city. It turns out that its a small world because I ran into a friend (Greg's roommate Kathleen, plus her friend Birgitte) randomly at the station while I was waiting for Jeff, pretty crazy eh?

Jeff made it no problem, and we checked into the BaxPax hostel (hard to find, their sign was 1 inch by .5 inch) and woke up Peter and Magda. We all went out to check out the city itself, which is like a fantasy come true. All the buildings look like they would have hundreds of years ago, and the small amounts of modern looking buildings stick out like sore thumbs. We took the Vaporettas (water buses) all around the first day, down the grand canal and over to Murano to watch glass blowing. We also say the Basilica San Marco plus its associated Piazza (feeding the million+ pigeons there). We tried to go out at night but soon found that everythings closed around 1 or 1:30am, including the best "club" Venice (Casanova, also an 24hr. internet cafe... which was closed?!). The next day we took our time getting started, I met with Kathleen & Birgitte for espresso, then Jeff and I went to the Peggy Guggenheim modern art museum. The art was great, but the employees were even better (Chiara, the baggage-check girl, was gorgeous)... we met up with them later on in the evening for a drink :)

After two days in Venice, I left and made my way to Rome, avoiding an Italian railway strike by flying on a Ryanair public bus again. Rome has been a blur, I met up with Nathan minutes after checking in to the hostel. We ran a blitz on Rome yesterday and today, seeing such greats as the Coloseum (on a tour), the Forum, Palatine Hill, Circus Maximus, the Baths of Caracalla, the Trevi Fountain, Coloseum-after-dark, the Spanish Steps (all that in the first day), Vatican Museum, +Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Square, Pantheon, Piazza di Venezia (with the great big white monument that the Italian saw looks like a type writer... the tomb of the unknown solider is a part of it), and some cat sanctuary in the ruins. Whew. Time for a nap then off to party tonight!

I'm potentially off to some place near Siena (south of Florence) to meet up with the Tonini's tomorrow... depending on when I leave I may go attend mass at the Vatican before leaving. If I am meeting with the Tontini's, I'll be mountain biking from Florence down to wherever they are (like 40km, and no, I won't be bringing my big bag!!). Wish me luck.

Back in Europe!!

Well, I'm back!

After 8 long months of (questionably) hard work in school, I've made my way back to Europe starting in London, England. I flew out from Toronto last night, after a traditional stop to buy new shoes on the way to the airport (nice shoes I might add), arriving at 10am. I have the usual complaints about not being able to sleep in the upright and locked position, but that didn't stop me from ennjoying a day of "lightning tourism".

First I saw the Tower of London, which houses the Crown Jewels, among other things (like an olde-time armoury). They have everything on display from royal trumpets to the actual crowns, and a staff that is jewelled with the largst diamond in the world, amazing stuff. The two or three rooms probably had almost a hundred million dollars worth in my expert opinion :)

Then before coming to the airport (where I am now), I went to the Globe theatre (hint: Shakespear (probably spelt wrong)) and got atour and saw someactors rehearsing the "Tempest".

I of course wore my backpacks throughout and was bumping into people and knocking over kids, whoops!

Well I hope to hear from everyone, email me addresses if you want a postcard (aka, rub it in your face that you're not here) and I'll post again soon. I'm off to Venice to meet up with Jeff, Pete and Magda!