10/31/14 – 11/2/14
(excerpts taken straight from my journal I kept during my 2014 study abroad experience)
10-31-14
Happy Halloween! Right now I’m on my way to Greece to celebrate my Halloween abroad at the Pink Palace. Wednesday night, my program took us to a soccer game. It was Fiorentina vs. Udinese at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, and we won 3-0! It was really fun to go to a soccer “futbol” game in another country and see how they reacted (they got really into it).
The next morning, I left for Greece at 7:30. We took 3 trains (it was supposed to be 2) to a ferry, where we were assigned bedrooms. We were in a room with 2 triple bunk-beds. We ate lunch, and then took a 3-hour nap.
Then we ate dinner and bought some wine for later. We drank and played cards for about 3 hours. We played “asshole”, but the only thing we had for the asshole to wear was a plastic bag, so we got a lot of weird looks from passerby’s on the boat.
We headed to the “disco”, but we realized it was older couples dancing to Greek music, so we decided to just go to bed. When we woke up, we were in Greece. I’ve never been on a cruise before, so to me it was pretty fun.
11-3-14
So this past weekend in Greece was a lot of fun but a lot of traveling. The first day we got there, I went on an ATV safari with a few of the girls I had met on the trip. We all rented ATV’s and had a tour up to the top of Corfu. We stopped and overlooked the ocean and the town of Corfu. On the way down, we stopped at a café called “Aerostato” and got hot chocolate because it was freezing out. The tour guide told us that there is always that one girl who drives her ATV off a wall, and that statement was 100% true. (I swear it wasn’t me). When we got back, we were given shots of “Ouzo”, which was an “anise (liquorish) flavored” alcohol.
We stayed in the Pink Palace, which is considered to be a backpacker’s paradise resort. That night, they threw us a Halloween party, so I met up with Paige, (my friend from college) and we got ready. I was a hippie because I had nothing else to wear. The Halloween party was a blast (from what I can remember). They gave us a huge dinner, the drinks were cheap, and there was a huge dance party all night.
The next morning, I got up and signed up for a booze cruise… then went back to bed for 3 hours. My friend and I grabbed food and headed down to the beach. We had to walk through the water to get to the boat, so we had to carry all of our stuff above our heads. The boat ride was insane. They started off with a group shotgun. Then we pulled up to a rock that was about 40 ft. tall, to go cliff jumping; but the captain said if the girls jump topless, they’d get a free drink. (Let’s just say a lot of girls drank for free that day). Then a few guys got up there and jumped pant-less. Our next stop was a private beach where we hung out for about an hour. The ride back got even crazier, as people started spraying beers, screaming, and the captain brought out whipped cream (I’ll stop there). Oh, but did I mention he was wearing tight, white underwear with a parrot on them??? When we got back, we swam for a while and watched the sun set. It was beautiful and now I can say that I’ve been swimming in the ocean in November.
That night, we had to pack up and start what has been the longest traveling time I’ve ever spent, (40 hours) back to Florence. We started by taking a bus to a ferry. Then a 2 hour ferry ride to our actual boat. Once we were on the boat, they told us we had to wait until we left to try and upgrade to a bed. The boat ended up leaving an hour late, so we had to wait 2 hours just for them to tell us it’s 106 Euro a night per person.
Our whole group decided to opt out of the bedrooms, so we all sprawled out in the “airplane” room. (I was under a shelf and behind a door, but I stuffed my pillowcase with my clothes, covered myself with my towel, and tied my bandana around my eyes). I actually got a full 10 hours of sleep.
When we woke up, we played cards for about 4 hours before we were supposed to get off, but our boat docked 2 hours late, so we had missed our train.
By the time we got to the train station, our only option left was to wait 2 hours to take a train to Bologna, and then wait 5 hours there until the train to Florence. So we took the train to Bologna and then found a bar that we could hang out at all night.
We got drinks and food and tried to stay up as long as we could, but most of us passed out on bar benches (until we were woken up by the bartender and told we couldn’t lay down).
Finally, at 5:15, we got on the train to go back to Florence. It was a very long trip but it was a fun traveling experience and definitely worth it.