Adventures on the Way Home

Ok. So, here are the compacted version of my adventures. I just ask that you actually IMAGINE going through these situations, and you too can feel my pain (though it is good to be home).

I left Paros, crying, on the night boat to Athens on April 30th. This was the day before Easter, and I would have been able to stay one more day if the boats had been running on Easter, but that's beside the point! The boat was nice, much nicer than the one that I went in on, and I found a little nook in a hallway and fell asleep. At about 11:00, we got into Athens. Two hundred people poured off the boat only to find that the Greek transportation had been closed. There were no metro lines or bus lines running. People asked for taxi assistance, but they were charging between 100 and 150 Euros to get to the center of Athens. We deiced to find a hotel (we being some girls from Slovenia that I ran into). However, none of the hotels were open either, and when we got back to the port, there were no more taxis.

We were kind of sitting at the station trying to figure out what to do when four men from the Ukraine came up and tried to pick us up as their whores! Needless to say, it wasn't a good night.

Some people that saw how much "fun" we were having came over and invited us to stay with them in their "hostel" basically, it was the space outside of the metro station that they had set up. We planned to sit there all night until the metro opened at 5 the next morning!

And stay up we did. I called my husband and tried to sleep, but it was basically a waste of a night!

When the metro did open up, the two girls invited me to have coffee with them at their hotel, which I did, and it was very nice. After that, I headed to the metro and just went to the airport. I was going to see if I could get on an earlier flight to Rome.

I WAS going to go and leek at some of the museums, but they were all closed as it was Easter Day.

I made it to the airport, and discovered that the only other flight to Rome took off 10 minutes from then, and it was impossible to get me on it. So, I had another 8 hours to wait in the airport. I slept.

When I woke up, I found a man sitting next to me. We got to talking, and I showed him my art and gave him some of my prints. It was nice to have someone to talk to, and he seemed really nice!

I finally made it on my plane and ended up sitting next to two girls from Rome. I was to spend the night in the airport in Rome, but they told me where to go and how to get there, so I decided that I would follow their advice and go out.

I had the hardest time locking up my bags, but when I did, I went into Rome. I saw the Roman Forum and the Colesseum and then I went down to a piazza. When I got there, there were about a million people in the square listening to a concert. I hung out for a while and took some photos, but I then made my way back to the airport.

I slept in the airport for a while.

The rest of the day was ok. I got on a plane in Rome at 7 Am and got off the plane in Portland at 6 PM 21 hours later!

I stopped in Paris, and Cincinnati. But at least I was on my way home.

Needless to say, I was hungry and tired. I've spent the last week catching up on my time, but other than that, all is pretty well!