easter is over for this year. pretty nice here. got invited to have easter lunch with a local family. very special feeling.
now it is time for the festival of saint george. raced up a mountain with the village elders. a guy who was almost a hundred took third place (and blew me away). tonight, traditonal dance.
two days in athens dilly dallying. i thought this would be a logisitics stop. but fortunately i've got enough film to (barely) survive the rest of the trip and the only thing i needed to restock on is toothpaste. 2.50 euro for 75ml of colgate total, wow thats expensive which ever way you look at it.
but its pretty budget here. spent the time bluffing that i am a student from the uk to get all my museum entries free. and i've been cooking my own meals here in the hostel.
but tomorrow back to the high life. 3 star bed and breakfast. yikes.
i am so not used to it. in my last b&b. i was wondering what was warming up my desk. surely they didn't put the heating vent behind it. it wasn't until i was checking out i discovered there was a fridge in it.
oh the lost potential.
i just made it to greece. got off the boat from bari this morning. spent the day walking around and mustering up the guts to talk to the local church officials to get permission to photograph their palm sunday processions.
finally did get the guts to, and they people in the church are going to introduce me to the head priest tomorrow morning.
which leads to the question... how do i address a greek orthodox priest?
i'm leaving italy tomorrow.
the last two days have been perfect. good food, beautiful town. good hike (ok, the town planners could have built a bridge across the ravine so wouldnt have to tack on an extra 5km each way).
if you ever get a chance check out matera in southern italy.
but now i have to pee.
bound to happen. this morning i woke up hung over.
but other than that everything is going great. spent the last week around napoli and the amalfi coast. between the new york city of yesteryear (raw, crazy and chaotic) and doing long hikes on dramatic limestone cliffs over looking a beautiful bay.
counting down already. three more days in italy. and only 19 days left all together. part of me is very tired, most people never even travel 19 days for vacation, so still consider myself lucky.
hopefully i am re-envegorated when i hit greece.
one part of backpacking across europe in hostels is communal living. shared dorm, shared kitchens. shared baths. it works out great when i need a bit of olive oil to cook with. its also great to get information about a town. or the next town for that matter.
the part that sucks would be if someone is sick coughing up a long in the shared dorm.
that person this week would be me.
probably dehydrated more than anything. but for the past 3 days i've been hacking up at random times. i feel sorry for the random people in my room. (but no more than when there is an awkward snorer)
so i shipped a big package back home. just fit into the 5kg box. its about a month worths of film -- 162 rolls. the clothes i wore during the wedding, the lonely planets that i finished using and random assortment of paper. it cost an arm and a leg, but it gets to the states on monday (i hope).
a few days ago i ran the quick number and it was actually cheaper to book a flight from rome back to new york and then new york to corfu two weeks later. and it would be cheaper than actually staying here.
but then again thats not what i am about.
back in rome now, just flew in from telaviv. i am in between stage 3 and 4. (backpack sicily, holy week sicily, israel, southern italy, and greece). two more stages to go.
my mission in rome is primarily to ship a box of film and other assorted stuffs home. and then if i can get to the tickets in time tomorrow -- see the pope for wednesday mass.