nowhere land

Its funny how we went from exotic island hopping to winter wonderland.

 We stayed in Zurich Switzerland for two nights and realized we couldn’t afford to stay there any longer. We went into a Starbucks (only because they had wireless internet!) and my mocha was around eight Swiss franks, which is six fifty in the US. We found a cottage/chalet/cabin/thing online and booked it for a week. We only had written directions on how to get there and retrieve the key. We took a small train through the mountains to a tiny random village. Once in the village we were to ride a cable car up to another village where we didn’t really know what to do after. There was nobody inside or around the cable car and after staring at it for a while a voice came out of nowhere and screamed something in German. I tried to reason with it but all I could make out was, “cabin!! cabin!!” I was like, “yes we have a cabin!!” Then Dawson told me he was probably trying to tell us to get into the cabin. OH. So we got in and shut the thing and it started moving. After a very sketchy ride up the mountain, some cranky guy took some money from us and there was a woman waiting there to take us to our place. Was she waiting there all day? Our place ended up being a basement of a house that was built in 1776. The owners lived above, the mystery women and some mountain man with a beard that reminded me of frayed Velcro.

Once settled it occurred to me that we were literally in nowhere land. No contact to the outside world. We played a lot of cards. We found a sled that seemed to be a community sled. It was a piece of wood somehow nailed to a single snow ski. After shreddin the slopes with that thing we took it back to our basement for the night with a plan to use it first thing in the morning. Not a good idea. Do not take a random sled you find in the Alps. You will get yelled at by the cranky guy and have no clue as to what he is saying.

We did enjoy our time in nowhere land. Velcro beard knocked on our door the last day and screamed, “Santy Clause is hew!!” and he was baring gifts. Goody bags with fruit and chocolate! He was truly our hero, if only he knew we had been living off rice the last three days.

Now we are in Munich Germany and back on the Euro. We are days away from coming home. This may be the last blogy blog, although Dawson keeps saying hes going to write one so we will see. K well thank you for following along and we are excited to see everyone!! LEAVE COMMENTS

Real prepared with jeans, there was snow all up in my pants at this moment. 

Dawson in one of the cable cars, hes pointing near our place

Swiss Cheese

 

            Unfortunately there was no sighting of the Pope. Yes Mom I looked for him on the bus, but without the hat I wouldn’t recognize him. Where does that guy hang out?

 Rome was amazing, but exhausting. We stayed there for over a week and still wanted to see more. We visited countless museums and churches including St Peters Church, and the Sistine Chapel. Rome seems rather small now. We walked all day, and by the end of everyday I noticed I was limping back to our apartment.

 It was a sad day leaving Rome. I might just have to move there.

 We met some travelers from Rhode Island on the train. I think they were a little shocked at our fairly impulsive traveling technique. They gave us a map of Italy, Switzerland and Germany which will come in handy considering we only had maps and books of Greece.

 We stayed a couple days in Venice. Didn’t do any boat rides although I envisioned myself on one of those skinny boats with the guy in the back singing and rowing with his black and white t-shirt and long skinny paddle. We did see a couple of those go by, but the guy was not singing. I guess they only sing in cartoons where either a frog is rowing the boat or Peppy La Pu.

 It is officially freezing now! Rome was chilly, but Venice makes me want to wear a full body wool sock. I wouldn’t care if it were itchy. I did go into the first clothing store that I saw and purchased a blanket size scarf.

 Lindsey, that hat you made for Eric that I stole really comes in handy now.

 We rode the train through the Alps in Switzerland yesterday and now we are in Zurich. Our room that we booked ahead of time has bunk beds and pictures of Joe Cocker everywhere.

 There is snow here. I have yet to discover the Switzerland snowman. They must have a traditional snow creature of some kind. Once I find one I will build the American kind next to it and they can hold hands.

 K well once again we expect comments.

 Emily, that is exciting your going to Greece. We have books and maps for you.

 

 

Venice

Pantheon

On top of St Peters

Inside St Peters

Roma

 

Brindisi was our first destination in Italy, only because the ferry took us there. It is located right on the heel of the boot.

There isn’t a whole lot goin on in Brindisi.

The Italians don’t speak a lot of English, actually most of them don’t at all. We went into our first pizzeria in Brindisi and I asked the guy behind the counter if he spoke English and I am pretty sure he said, “yes, but I prefer not to”. Another time, at a sandwich shop,  I got handed a cell phone with a guy on the other end that knew a little English and I ordered through him. At least I knew a LITTLE Greek in Greece, but not knowing any Italian in Italy can be frustrating, especially when they refuse to speak English.

Dawson however thinks its easier getting around because Italian words sound similar to English or Spanish, So he plays the guessing game.

 Our second stop was Naples.

 I just finished a book called, "eat pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert, and in that book she goes to Naples and eats at a place called Pizzeria Da Michele and makes your mouth water with her description of it, so of course we went there. It was one of the best pizzas ive eaten. 

Naples invented Pizza and still makes it the way your "supposed to get it". You don’t share pizza here, you get your own pie, uncut, with a ton of marinara and just a few slices of mozzarella. 

 Other then the food, Naples was gross. We think maybe the trash people were on strike because the streets were littered with garbage beyond repair. People just threw their napkins, and wrappers and whatever else on the ground when they were done with them. Im not going to lie, it was disgusting.

 We are in Rome now. Rome is a WHOLE different story! Amazing amazing amazing. Everywhere you look is architecturally stunning. Rome is clean and upscale, which means a bit on the spendy side, but worth it. During the day it’s a peaceful walk along the river. At night it’s a classy style of Vegas without the prostitutes and nastiness.

 They really take pride in their fountains here. They are enormous and I find myself staring, like almost being hypnotized. The Italians just walk by them like they don’t exist.

 We didn’t have a clue of where to go or stay once we got here. We ended up staying at this grotesque hotel by the bus station. The guy running the joint looked so familiar and I couldn’t figure it out till the night we left, finally, he looked identical to the grinch who stole Christmas. The cartoon version, not the Jim Carrey wannabe.

 We went on a hunt to find a place to stay for more then just a night or two. We ran into a guy (sort of a tricky fella, with extremely tight pants and his fly always open) who had a few apartments to rent in the heart of the city. We ended up taking one for a week. He somewhat forced us into a two bedroom apartment, after we asked for the studio, but he made it a cheaper stay… weirdo. It is nicely located down town away from main streets, right next to shopping and attractive little squares and fountains and stuff. Anyways we were so happy the first night with our kitchen and cute all equipped bathroom, until we wanted to sleep. This is where Vegas attacked us. The bedroom might as well been in the center of the fountain of the noisiest square. Imagine an earsplitting murmur with the occasional idiot yelling above the rest… it was worse then that. The murmur stopped maybe at 4am, then the street cleaning came and drug the broken glass through the streets. I sound like an annoying neighbor, but trust me it was bad. So the next day we took desperate measures. We hauled the mattress from the guest room into ours and propped it up on a dilapidated armoire and shoved it against the ten-foot window. It’s quite the contraption.

 

At least we are in the center of Rome! We have visited quite a few museums and seen some interesting street acts. Yesterday we went to a museum that was displaying Picasso's art for a limited time, it was exciting to see his stuff in real life.

 The weather is getting colder. I cant complain to you guys in Alaska though. I am sure Washington is getting a bit breezy as well, and Oregon im sure is a soggy bottom. K well let me know how things are going!! Miss ya!! 

 Standing in front of The Roman Coliseum 

(Josie I know you'll appreciate this)

                                                                           
                                          This is another picture of Balos Beach in Greece.

This abandoned ship is where we ate lunch. 

                      

meat on stick

So we left Crete a week ago to come to Corfu, which is the most northern of the Ionian Islands. Our 24 hours of traveling here included a nine hour ferry, an eight hour bus, and then another ferry. We have been staying in the old town of Corfu Town. It is a very trendy place, but still gives off a historical feeling, maybe because its built around a fortress. For most of the week here we’ve been staying in a rather chic hotel on the waterfront, where the receptionist with good English has become our main source of information. Corfu Town is bustling, but not with tourists. Actually we haven’t met one tourist here, which is odd.

            Greece has one specific menu. There are four different places to get food, the market, the restaurants, the bakeries, and the to-go windows. The markets all carry the same thing: bread, pasta, nuts, beer, and Ouzo. The restaurants all have the same menu: fried cheese, fried potatoes, mousaka (which is a potato meat lasagna thing that Dawson really likes), slovauki (meat on a stick), and spaghetti. The bakeries have all the same choices: cheese pies, spinach pies, seseme cheese donut thing, and baklava (a traditional greek sweet that is delicious). And our favorite, the to-go windows: A Crepe place or a Gyro place. We have been trying to stay away from the restaurants now because we kept forgetting that no matter what there is a down payment, which is the bread that comes, without choice, before anything else appears. And water is not automatically assumed, you have to ask and that cost money too.  We have been eating a lot of crepes lately, you probably already know that its an extremely thin, huge pancake. They make it into a wrap and put cheese and veggies and whatever you want on it and grill it to perfection. Or you can have a sweet one with melted chocolate and cookie crumbs and good stuff…

I have to say that I am done with the gyros now.

K sorry about all the food talk, but im hungry.

 We hitch a ferry to Italy later today. Yes its random, but in our original plan we would have found a place to settle for a little while by now. So since we cant stop moving around, and Italy is sooo close it is hard to pass it up.

 

Anyways get back to us with comments.

Kelsey thank you for showing the love so well.

Mykla you need to be more specific with what kind of cat you want, there is quite a selection over here.

And mom you would really dig Corfu town with all the tall buildings and wrought iron balconies. 

Crete

                            HANIA

                                                                     

   

                     Balos Beach

                    So we arrived on Crete a few days ago in a huge ugly city called Iraklio. Just the size and the site of the city made it unfathomable, and we looked for the nearest bus station out of there. All we wanted to do was find a room somewhere being eight in the morning with no sleep. We got on a bus to Knossos, which I remembered had a massive palace we wanted to check out. On the way over Dawson opened one our books to read about it and informed me that Knossos is not a town, its just the Palace. We’ll check out the palace later, we got on the next bus back to Iraklio.

 

We ended up staying in a city along the coast, Rithymno. I found a Mexican restaurant there! Ya I should be enjoying Greek cuisine to its fullest, but if you know me at all then you understand. Even Dawson agrees it was amazing… Not even the biggest grocery stores here have tortillas let alone beans of any kind.

 We are in Hania now for our third day. It’s another city along the coast, but much more appealing. It is very Venetian in the way of the streets, and the water surrounding everything.

 There are a couple beaches here that we had to visit, according to Lonely Planet. We cant get to either of them by bus, so we rented a car for two days. 

Let me tell you about driving in Greece. First of all Dawson made me drive, which was probably a good idea on his part givin the circumstances. Imagine one road, a narrow or slightly big road, no lines, and a million cars. Nobody is obligated to be on a certain side, and there is no limit as to how many cars can be side by side. People are weaving all around traffic... no signals. Pedestrians are jumping out of nowhere and motorcycles are in every blind-spot. Lets just call it a cluster of maniacs.  

We went to one beach yesterday called Elafonisi. It is in the most south western part of Crete, the closest point to Africa. Very pretty, my only complaint is that the wind made it cold and when we sat on one of the many lawn chairs a man came up and tried to charge five euros... for a lawn chair. 

Today we went to Balos, which is at the tip of the northwest. Our car barley made it... The only road to Balos was a narrow, rough gravel road, to the left of it was mountains with mountain goats, and to the right was steep cliffs down to the ocean. People were ditching there cars and walking the rest of the way, for us, we shredded our rental all the way there. Once we parked at the end of the road there was a 45 minute hike down to the beach. Balos was worth it... The view is shocking when you finally turn a corner and see it. We stayed all day and on our way back to the car we got stopped by some travelers from Holland who had ditched there car and we gave them a ride. They kept telling us how brave we were to take our tiny little car on that nasty road, considering there was another rental parked next to us with two flat tires. 

 Both beaches had islands so close that you could walk through the water to get to them, and the deepest it got was waste high. It was so clear you could see the bottom and fish swimming along with you. 

K well keep in touch... miss everyone!! Especially my niece Rylee!! 

 I want to write a little note to my dad, he was worried about us coming over here in the circumstances of our country. Everyone should know that the Greeks are so welcoming. Hospitality is everywhere. All they want is for us to feel at home. 

 This thing is hard to post pictures on sometimes!! So ill post more pics later. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

The Caldera

Once upon a time a volcano exploded and made Santorini island, a tourist haven. I can see why this place is so touristy.. its gorgeous, but im over it. Its no place for a travelor on a budget. We have been enjoying the "Caldera View" for almost five days now, and have stayed on both sides of the island.

All the islands except this one had cats everywhere, like they were producing them. Santorini has dogs... all along the walls, following people, walking on top of buildings...etc.

So Halloween is just around the corner and it still feels like summer here :) but I am bummed, becuase Greece does not celebrate it like we do. Let us know what you all are doing for it, we are curious. I would like to know what some of you are dressing your young ones up as... Lindsey....Nicole...Steve.

We leave for Crete at 3am (the cheapest ticket we could find), so we didnt see the point in getting a room for the night. The Siesta is from three to six then the shops, restaurants and everything else opens up again and the city stays up till dawn. K talk to ya soon, and leave some comments!!

Bearded Lady

The first night in Naxos was not very enjoyably. Our somewhat unpleasant room was invaded by starving mosquitoes, and I could hear them feasting off Dawson’s face and neck throughout the night. I was sick from too many Gyros and stayed under the covers with a fever shivering. The next day we anxiously packed up and headed for the main town. We found a typical Greek woman, with a beard, who had a “room to let” in the center.

           

We rented a scooter yesterday and explored the inner island of Naxos and the other side from which we were staying. The scooter was not my thing. I was a little terrified at first, not only because Dawson was the driver but I was also scared that we were going to get hit by a bus.

We moved onto Paros Island today.

Lindsey, you wanted to know if it was easy getting around here? For the most part yes, most people so far know at least a little English. If they don’t know any English we resort to my few words in Greek, and sign language.  

MYKONOS NOS NOS

 

            The biggest difference between Andros and Mikonos is that there is so much more life on mikonos. Everywhere you look there are white buildings all stacked up to the top of the hill, as for Andros, not so much. This place is a maze and how some people find it back to there room is beyond me. Cars are not aloud for the most part because its just too narrow for even a motorcycle in between some places. Also stairs… everywhere, zig zagging all through this town, (not quite sure of the name of the town). It was quite a site to see me rolling my pack through while trying to find a room. It was so hard to find someone that knew anything about a place to stay for the night. After a long while of searching, Dawson made me wait at the bottom of a long steep hill of stairs while he ran up and looked around. 10 minutes later he comes flailing down the stairs with the biggest smile and grabs my bag. He found the perfect room with the most amazing view, for cheap!

            Why is Ouzo a big deal here? Oh well its good and its cheap. We were having a hard time finding something good to eat for a good price, but then we had our first Gyros here and they were awesome and really inexpensive. My Gyro was only 1.80 because theres no meat, but Dawsons was only 2.50 with meat. We are living on those the rest of the time! Anyways we are in search of the perfect Island to settle and stay a while. Tomorrow we are headed for Naxos. Once we are settled we expect visitors!

Andros

We arrived on Andros yesterday by ferry then took a bus over to Batsi (a cute coastal town). We pretty much got forced into a room immediately after exiting the bus. Some guy was waiting there desperate for tourists to rent his room, because this time of the year is so slow. We checked it out, bargained and got the room for 20 euros, which I believed was a good deal considering it was really cute and had a relatively good view from the balcony (Dawsons standards are set much higher). The off season gives us the upper hand because people NEED our business, so we looked around today and got an even nicer room for tonight with an amazing view. (post pictures of that later). ANYWAYS, this place is the prettiest site ive ever seen. Everywhere you look its just surreal... The pictures are right on the postcards with the boxy white houses and the white chapels. Andros has a huge white church with a tower of bells, and they get really excited at random hours of the day and ring the bells forever and SO loud! We dont really understand it, becuase it sounds like they want all the islands to hear.. its weird. So ya heres a few pictures...  

Up the stairs to the left is where we stayed the first night

view from balcony

Dawson basking in the sun

Click on these pictures to blow them up. K we look forward to hearing from you!! 

Athens and the Acropolis

Part of an ancient theater, pretty creepy without heads...

About to order some Greek cuisine, well Dawson is, im ordering pasta.

Statue of a Greek Goddess 

The parthenon

We have arrived! Currently we are in Athens staying at a hostel. Luckily we do have our own room with a bathroom, most of the rooms here are dorms with a toilet down the hall. We are somewhere downtown on a street called Sotabriandov, we think. It is a relatively easy place to get around, with buses and metros everywhere. And even though most of the signs are in the Greek alphabet we seem to get along well. This city is HUGE, people from all around speaking everys language... for some reason people keep speaking spanish to Dawson. The city is built around the Acropolis, which you can see from miles away. Today we took a little venture there and took some pics...

A view of Athens from the top

Another view of the Parthenon, GORGEOUS 

An ancient theater

We walked around up there for hours upon hours, such a nice day!!

Look at the city beyond... this was really amazing

Tomorrow we are traveling to the island of Andros. Its part of the Cyclades Islands. First we are taking a bus to Rafina then riding a ferry over. We may be stuck there for a few days depending on the weather, the ferries do not run when it's windy or rainy, and the weather does not look good for the weekend, oh well. Please sign up on our blog and leave some comments!!

We really look forward to keeping in touch!!

3 days before departure

Anxiously waiting!!!