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!