The Short (Yet Still Long) Review

So it's been a month since I wrote anything of substance on here. It's been a busy month too, so there's no way I can do it all justice in just one post. Therefore I'll just give you a brief update in this post and in future posts which I plan to write this week I will hone in on some of the more interesting details. Officially I was on Easter break for the past two months. Unofficially I have been on break for a month. Here's how it broke down.

March 17-27: Jeff arrived here in Athens on the 17th. I hadn't seen him since Christmas break, so it was really nice. We spent the 19-21 on Santorini, the southermost island in the Cyclades. It's a beautiful island that was created by a volcano, which is still active. The views are stunning. We rented a motorbike and cruised all over the island, which was quite fun. It was a good way to see it all. We looked cool too. Jeff was driving. I was holding on to him. And we both had on these doofy helmets - orange and blue. We looked like we had just driven out of Dumb & Dumber. I really need to get my pictures online. The 23-26 we took a roadtrip around northern Greece. We went to Meteora, these monasteries perched on these huge rock pillars (one appears in the James Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only"), which were amazing. It blows my mind thinking how they were built. Then we went up to Thessaloniki, which is the second biggest town in Greece. It's on the waterfront and so much nicer than Athens. We ended our trip in Delphi. I'd been there before, but it was still cool being at the "navel of the world". I wonder how people in the ancient times made it there. It's not exactly an easy place to reach even nowadays.

March 27 - April 2: At the airport I traded Jeff for my mom. On Sunday, we hit all the major Athens sites including the Acropolis, believe it or not my first time there. Mom compared Athens to the Louisville ghetto, which was pretty funny and also a bit true. We then went to the island of Naxos, where it was really windy but still nice. It's not a touristy island, which was nice. The next day we were going to take a bus to some sites in the Peloponnese, but all the public sectors decided to go on strike. Lovely Greece. We ended up renting a car, which worked out well because we got to see a lot - Acrocorinth, Mycenae, Epidauros, and Napflio. All of the sites were really neat, especially Acrocorinth. Thursday Mom braved the rain to do a little shopping in Athens.

April 2 - April 8: Mom and I took off for Rome the morning of April 2. Once in Rome, we spent the day seeing the major sites - Coloseum, Forum, Trevi Fountain, etc. The next day we visited the Vatican, which was quite crowded being Holy Week and all. Sunday we headed south to Pompei. I'd been before, but found it really interesting anyhow. They've started handing out a little booklet which gives great explanations. I also saw the plaster casts of the people they found there, which I somehow missed the first time. We spent Monday in Florence, having a fairly easy day seeing the major sites. Tuesday we headed to Venice and stayed there through Wednesday. It was pretty cool weather-wise, but we survived. We did some shopping, saw St. Mark's Square and the Realto bridge, took a trip to Burano island, and rode a gondola. Jeff and his parents joined us on Wednesday and we had a nice time. That night we headed back to Rome and Mom took off the next morning.

April 8 - April 12: After seeing Mom off at the airport, I met up with Jeff and re-did the Rome sites. I think Rome is a really interesting city, so I didn't mind. Friday we went to the Vatican before heading to Vernazza in the Cinque Terre. In Vernazza we were part of a Good Friday Carrying of the Cross procession which was really beautiful. The next morning, we hiked the five towns of the Cinque Terre. It's a stunning area. I'd love to spend a long weekend there. Amazing place. But we were on a whirlwind tour, and headed out to Florence Saturday night. Easter Sunday Jeff and I went on a bike ride through the Chianti region. Twenty miles in total, the first ten were all uphill. I thought I was going to die. The trip had worn me out and this was insane. The views were beautiful though. Monday we spent most of the day travelling. We went from Florence to Milan and then flew to Sweden.

April 13 - April 18: I spent this week in Sweden with Jeff. I was all set to dislike the country...especially since cold weather and I don't get along, but Sweden put on it's Sunday best, and I really did like the place. We had a pretty chill time, which was just what I needed after all the travel. We did take a boat trip to Helsinki, which was pretty neat. We went Wednesday night, spent Thursday in Helsinki, and came back Thursday night. Interesting sidetrip. In Stockholm we went to few museums, the Vassa one being pretty neat, and we did a little H&M shopping. I came back last night on a crazy set of flights - from Stockholm to London Stanstead and then from London Luton to Athens. I got in at 4:30am and slept a few hours before getting back to work.

All in all it was a great vacation. I'll fill you in on some of the more interesting details later. I really did mean for this to be short. I just did a lot of things in the past month, and I knew you wanted to know about each and every one!