Winter Break... now I am in Rome

Whats today, the 9th? (Sorry in advance for all the typos, I have to get used to this Italian keyboard.) I'm safely in Rome, on the second day of my European Odyssey with Maddie.

It has been an incredible week. Its Saturday, and today I went to the original site of ancient Rome. How cool is that? Maddie and I saw the houses of Augustus and Livia, and the alleged home of Romulus. We went to the Colusseum, and the ancient Forum. (No, nothing funny happened on the way there...) And do you know how we know that the site is officially cool? Because it rained when we were there... just like it rained at Delphi, Pergamum, Ephesus, Mycenae, etc. Rome, too, is worthy of rain. Anyway, this is how we got here: we left Athens, took the train to Patra, took the boat to Bari (on which I slept because I used my sleeping bag, which I hadnt used yet on this trip but which earned its keep that night by keeping me warm JUST THAT ONCE; totally worth it), then in Bari we went to the Tomb of St. Nicolas (as in, jolly old) and then took the train from Bari to here. And now we are in Rome. Wheee... Tomorrow we go to Vatican City, then for a day trip to Florence. We both ended up bringing enormous suitcases, which we intended to ship home but which we found out would be too expensive, so we just put our small ones inside the big ones. When you live on the fourth floor of the building that your hostel is in, you want to stay there as long as possible. So we did three nights in Rome instead of two, and we will see Florence in an afternoon, I guess. But we're actually HERE. Astounding.

I cried SO HARD when I left my Athens apartment for the last time. Greece has been my home for three wonderful months, and who knows when I'll be back, if ever? So it was like, I was almost mourning for my trip gone by like it was this dead thing that will only live on in my memory. I didn't cry when I said goodbye to my friends, because I can never cry around them, they make me so happy. I am going to miss everybody so much, especially Wendy and Alex, they've become my two closest friends on this trip. Oh my gosh, Im going to miss being silly with Wendy, her saying Syndagma so funny, dancing, and just walking around with her talking about everything. Oh man, all the dancing we did, her me and Alex, in Mytilini and a little bit in Athens. I'll miss Alex so much too; us trying to sing and play guitar to songs we both knew, smoking hookah in Istanbul, and just sitting around talking about music, movies, books, and people. The night before I left, we and a few other people went to Mikes Irish Bar to do karaoke (after a failed attempt to get into this Schmaltzy party that Haileys topnotch political connections almost got us into), and even though there wasnt karaoke they were playing awesome music so we just hung out, drank beer that was too expensive, and danced. After that we hung around outside Mikes, and I had a really good (though extremely painful) goodbye with Wendy. Wendy left, and Alex, David, Sam, Chris Scheffler and I went down to Psirri. There we had an awesome conversation about the trip and how we would make it better, the changes we would make, like how we were always given the option to postpone the due dates for our papers and that screwing us up and making this last month so work intensive. (I still have to write my capstone, it's due January 22nd because I got an extension so I wouldnt have to work as hard. I think I finished my other classes with all A's though. Score.) Anyway, back to Psirri. We left around 3 I think, and I said goodbye to Alex, which was really hard. I know that he, Wendy and I will still be friends when we get back to America, but while we were on the trip we were always in such close proximity, always in the same classes and never more than a few blocks apart and always on the same schedule, that we saw each other all the time and had so much in common that we got really, really close. When we go back to school it wont be like that, with them living off campus and us all taking different classes, which makes me kind of sad. At least we got to say really good goodbyes, though. I never feel, at the end of the semester, that I can say the kind of goodbyes that I want to say, because everything is so rushed and everyone is so busy. With Wendy, though, I got to spend a good ten or fifteen minutes on it, and with Alex it was kind of rushed because I had to get into a taxi, but I felt like we had such a good conversation in Psirri, and right as I was getting into the cab as we waved each other bye it just felt really right. I mean, I never get to say goodbyes like that at the end of school. I dont know. It was just really cool, we got to have really good closure, the kind I dont usually get. I guess we just had such an amazing trip, it had to end really well like that.

I hope I recorded all my emotions properly on this trip. Ill probably write more as this European Odyssey continues, because I want to remember how I felt, years from now when I read this journal again. Other trip journals Ive kept for trips in the past have been so bland, I can hardly tell what happened on them, apart from just events. So Ill probably write some supplementary entries, if I get the chance. Just for posterity's sake, you know?

It's going to be hard, getting used to not being in Greece anymore. I mean it was just. So. Amazing. I've tried my best to describe it, but I think that so much of how I thought and felt about it will be best recorded in the relationships I made with the rest of the people with me. And we will have to stay in touch to help each other remember it; we will have to be each others journals, I think. We have this weird little language with each other, of quotes and sayings that make us laugh and remember certain people and things... you know what I should do, I should make a list of all those sayings and put them in this journal so I can remember them. That's exactly what I'll do. It will take a while, but I'll post it eventually. Oh my gosh, I can feel I'm already about to cry just thinking about how much I'll miss being in Greece with everybody, I gotta stop for now. Ciao :)