Catch 22

Well, it's that day again, the day of my birth. It's the 22nd time that it's been this day. Unfortunately for me, I have 6 hours of lecture followed by a night filled with essay writing, an essay that is not coming along so well, I might add. 

However, I'm supposed to be going to a bonfire party on the beach... a party for me. So, the Catch 22? Party like it's my birthday and forget writing the paper or write the paper and pass the class [the paper is 50% of my grade so I really might not pass the class if I don't finish it].

I think we all know what I'm more than likely going to do. Can you guess the likely outcome of this story??

Home sweet home

I'm baaaaaaaaaack, in beautiful Swansea that is. My home away from home. I traveled for 36 consecutive hours and made it safely home last night around 1030. I had to go from Florence to Zurich to Paris to London to Swansea. So, for those of you who made yourself a nice wall map of my travels the other day, that's how the journey ends. I have now come full circle, or fill squiggly shape as I didn't really travel in a circle per se.

  

 

  

Now, I have the daunting task of adjusting back to University life after so many days on the road. My first essay is due Friday, the day after my birthday, lucky me. I did make it to lecture and seminars today. So far so good, we'll see if I can pull the papers off though. Well, I guess there's nothing too exciting to say now. No fabulous stories of grand adventures in far off lands... well except that I'm technically still in a far off land. I'll be putting the rest of the pictures up soon. Until then, I will let your inboxes have a rest.

  

Firenze (AKA, Florence)

I'm now in Firenze, which is pretty much the last stop on my race through the best Mediterranean cities (and a few others thrown in for good measure... I guess it's good to leave the sandy beaches and see the historical sites for a while). If you want to make a large wall map homage to my journey, you could buy yourself a nice map of Europe and then draw in the crazy route I took. You know you want to... consider it a souveneir from me, hah. Unfortunately, it might be the only souveneir you receive (aside from my lovely photo installations) as I am not what you would call wealthy at this point or even what you would call moderately able to afford 3 meals a day for that matter. Do know that I always see things and tell the people I am with... Man, I wish I could buy that for (insert your name here if I see something I know you would like).


So, I know you're saying to yourself, I think I'd like to buy myself that wall map. And so for you, here is my gift... You'd want to start your line in the lovely city of Swansea (that'd be in Wales, no not wHales... it's a place in Britain... but don't tell them that); then you'd want to continue your line through Cardiff and on to Bristol (this is the route I took the train to get to my plane); now you're going to want to draw that line to Barcelona; and then south to Valencia; keep it going south to Alicante; then you're going to draw the line more inland towards Madrid; then back to the coast to San Sebastian; then that line will loop back to Barcelona; and then it'll race off to Nice by first stopping in Montpellier; afterwards it will move on to Venice with a layover at the dot on the map known as Milan; afterwards it will head through the Adriatic Sea and into the Ionian Sea to the Greek Island of Corfu; then you'll loop it back up to Venice and immediately off to Rome; then finally you'll bring it to Florence; to finish the line that completes the Holy Grail, I mean completes the full circle you'll have to wait eagerly for my last few updates.


Today, I went to see the Duomo and the Gates of Paradise that adorn the Florentine Baptistery doors, and then I went to Galleria dell Accademia where David stands at an astonishing height... seriously he's huge.


Well, my frequent updates that I know you all so love to read (hah) will be coming to an end soon. Thanks to all you guys who read them and special thanks if you responded  thus giving me something to read when I paid (up to) 8 euro an hour (Venice is sooooo expensive) to get on the computer. There was always something to look forward to reading, which made 6 weeks of being virtually homeless not seem that way at all. When I get back, I'll make sure and respond to any of the messages I haven't had a chance to respond to yet... sometimes I only can get on for about 15 min and so I run out of time reading emails and trying to send out a post to say where I'm currently located. But never fear, I read every word of every email!

Roma

After a looooong day and a half of traveling, I am now in Roma... Rome for those of you not from Italy ;) I rode the ferry from Corfu to Venezia (Venice) for 24hrs, followed immediately by a 7 hr train ride from Venezia to Roma. Needless to say, I am a very tired girl right now.

  

 

  

Tomorrow will be the 5th week since I've been gone from Swansea, which sadly means I have just under a week left to travel around Europa free from the burden of school. That's probably a good thing, though, since my bank account most likely wouldn't hold up much longer. hah. It will actually be quite nice to have a bed to sleep in again that I can call my own. And, it'll be nice to have some clean clothes that I haven't worn in awhile. By this time, I've worn every piece of clothing I have with me about a bajillion times, as you can all probably tell from the pictures.

 

  

I will hopefully be going to Vatican City tomorrow to see the Sistine Chapel and various other sightseeing worthy things. Tonight, I'm going to get to try to make it over to the Colosseum before getting some much needed rest. Other than that, the plan is to be here until the morning of the 21st when I will head to Florence for a few days before going back. Annnnd then, it'll be time for papers, but more importantly, it will be my birthday. I always luck out with the papers being due on my birthday, but I'm sure I'll find a few minutes to celebrate. (I've had a 6 week pre-celebration already, hah).

Greece

So, Greece, where to start? It really is quite amazing here. The place I am staying is nestled in the side of one of the mountains and has a great view of the sea and the other mountains. The price of the room comes, not only with free breakfast, but also with a 3 course dinner and lots of other cool stuff like pool tables, a basketball court, etc. And, it's right near the beach which doesn't hurt. Last night, in true Greek fashion, there was a toga party. Needless to say, I slept in today.

Yesterday, however, I spent 7 hrs riding a 4 wheeler around the island... 4 wheelers are street legal here. They take group trips up the mountains and around the town. The roads up the mountains aren't paved and there's not a railing or anything stopping you from going over the side of the huge cliff. The width of the road is just about the size of a 4 wheeler. At one point, I hit a big rock and the steering kinda stopped working; it didn't help that my front brakes were bad. I had quite the religious experience almost falling off the side of the mountain, hah. No joke, I almost went off it. But, I did get to see a lot of cool things. You could see the mountains in Albania from the top of one of the mountains we stopped on. I have lots of pictures of the whole excursion, but unfortunately this computer doesn't have a USB port that I can use. 

I'll be leaving here tomorrow morning and taking the ferry back to Venice. After that, it's off to either Florence or Rome. Pictures from Nice, Venice, the ferry ride, and Corfu will hopefully be up sometime next week!

Going to Greece

I'm currently onboard a posh ferry on my way to Corfu , Greece . I've never been on a cruise ship before, but I must say this ship is quite nice. And, thanks to my lovely eurail pass, this journey is completely free. Since it takes 24 hours to get there, that also means that I have a free night of accomodation (however it is only a reclinig chair... the actual rooms with beds cost money).

I will be in Corfu tomorrow at 2pm. Plans are to stay there until the 17th. Then, I'll be stopping through  Venice again (because that's the route of the ferry) on my way to Florence to meet my flatmate. After Florence , I'll head to Rome and then to Paris to head back to Swansea via London.

Sadly, my extremely long vacation is almost over. Soon, I will be back at school writing lots of papers. How very sad. I will try to forget about that for now. Right now all that's in my future is Greece.

Venice

In Venice now. Staying on the Grand Canal. Going to Corfu tomorrow or the next day hopefully. More later cause the internet here is expensive... actually everything here is expensive.

Nice is nice

Bonjour!

I am currently in Nice, on the infamous French Riviera. This keyboard is a French one, so just ignore all the mistakes I am sure to type... its more difficult than you think, especially when you only have 10 min to type and most of the letters are rubbed off the keyboard, guess its a good thing I once lived in France and had to use these keyboards everyday. Anyways, on to the point of my story.

I was in Barcelona for 2 days but did little more than sleep this time around. I managed to get sick just before leaving San Sebastian , but I think I am pretty much well by now. Today I took a train from Barcelona to Nice via Montpellier (one of the train stations I once spent a freezing cold night in... looks about the same). The ride was quite nice indeed... 10 hour train ride accross the Mediterranean coast. I wanted to take pictures. You really wouldn't believe it unless you saw it, but I refrained from photos... for once. (Oh speaking of photos, I did get some good ones of a palm sunday service inside one of Barcelona's famous churches... they had real palms and everything).

So, I am staying here in Nice tonight and most likely tomorrow night too. Then, I'll be taking a train from here to Venice via Milan . Hopefully once in Venice , I will take a ferry to Corfu . We'll see how it all works out.

Hope you all are doing well! I miss you all!

Au revoir!

The lead up to Easter

I don´t have much time left on here as I have used it all to upload photos. The 2 new albums are Madrid and San Sebastian... there´s one labeled Museo del Prado, but it doesn´t have photos yet cause my batteries died. They´ll be up in the future, as well as a few more from Alicante that I never got to put up.

I´m most likely leaving here (San Sebastian) tomorrow and heading back to Barcelona for a day. Then, I´m planning on taking a sleeper train from Barcelona to Milan to start the Italy leg of the trip. It´s been an amazing month in Espana, but I guess it´s time to move on.

This next week it´s going to be a challenge to find a place to stay, especially an affordable one. The week leading up to Easter (known as Semana Santa here in Espana)

is a huge event in Europa. I will probably be in Florence for Easter and in Corfu for Good Friday. Most places will be rolling out the red carpet for the holy week, so I will hopefully have some good photos to email out. It really doesn´t matter where I am though because every country near me is extremely Roman Catholic (or Greek Orthodox in the case of Greece), so there's sure to be a spectacle to see around every corner... I may be sleeping on the corner, so I´m sure to see them all.... hahah... don´t worry Mom, I´m only kidding, I´ll find a place to stay.

More later, as always I hope you enjoy the photos!

San Sebastian

I´m in San Sebastian now, which is on the coast in northern Spain. Still haven´t had a chance to put any photos up from Madrid, but they´ll be up in the very near future hopefully. I rode the train for most of the day yesterday, and I´ve been at the beach most of the day today. So, there´s nothing too exciting to tell. I went to a lot of cathedrals and parks while I was in Madrid and a couple of museums too, including the Prado (which is huge and ended up taking up most of the day). Well, I guess that´s it for now.