masaba

Finally made it to Athens... I love Greece. The people here seem much more friendly than Italians. It is hotter than Haides here (is that how you spell it?). Things are cheap here!

Yesterday morning at 8am I left Naples for a small town in the middle of nowhere called Caserta so that I could change trains to go to Bari. Turns out I had to wait three hours for the train and ended up running into 3 American guys waiting for the same train. So we chatted and I found out that they were going to take the ferry to Greece. So we all got on the train and headed for Bari. After we arrived and some chaos from everyone, we found out what bus to take and WHERE to buy the bus tickets to get to the port. Arrived at the port, four hours before the ferry was set to leave (you are supposed to check in 2 hours prior to departure). We ran in to 2 MORE Americans waiting for the ferry. As a group, we decided that we needed to get some chow before getting on the ferry (it was a 14 hour ride) because we heard the food was really expensive. So 2 people were appointed to watch our bags, while the rest of us went for food. There wasn't much of a choice of food around the port but we did find a pizzaria. We went in and orded 12 PIZZAS (2 each, they weren't that big). It was really funny carrying all of them back to the port. HAHAHAHA! While we were waiting for the pizzas, I ran into my friend from Mexico City that I went to Pompei with and it turned out that she and her brother were on the same ferry!!!! We all bought some wine and boarded the ferry 2 hours before departure. We ate pizza, drank wine, and swam. It was really fun. The ship was HUGE. There was a pool, casino, multiple resturants, shops, and more. It was even hauling about 7 semi-trucks. I had pre-booked a dorm bed (which was nice, everyone else in the group was sleeping on the deck). At about 5 am, this guy came into the room and woke everyone up telling us that the ship had arrived at the first stop (we were the second). Of coarse I couldn't go back to sleep, so I got to watch the sun rise over Greece, it was very pretty.

When I arrived in Patras (at about noon), I went to the train station and took the first train I saw to Athens (BIG MISTAKE). It was the slowest and oldest train ever!! Found out from a local that it was the poor people train that stops at every single station along the way. Took 6 hours to get here (if I was on the other train it would only take 4). It is ok though, everyone from the ferry took the same train too so I don't feel so bad. The view from the train was amazing! You could see the sea the whole time! More people here speak English than in Italy. It is quite a shock to see everything in Greek because their alphabet is sooooo different! Tomorrow I plan on going to Archaeological Museum and Acropolis!!! This time next week I will be in Bulgaria where my money goes farther.