Studying abroad is an extremely wonderful experience, but one of the things I've noticed is that I feel almost obligated to go do everything cultural and educational across Europe. I mean, we can drink and be merry at home, but you can only see THIS famous work of art or THAT particular big church while you are in Europe. So there's a lot of pressure to "make the most of it," which sometimes equates to fairly stressful trips trying to squeeze in every last work of art and architecture in the city you're visiting.
Now, for Easter break, we had a five-day weekend, which means, of course, you have the opportunity/ obligation to jam pack five days with cultural education. However, it is also about 4 times more expensive to fly during Easter break than any other weekend. (I even tried going to Istanbul thinking they wouldn't be celebrating Easter there - but alas, they got smart and raised their prices, too. And I thought I had outsmarted the system!) So there we were, unable to find an affordable trip for Easter, feeling guilty about having wasted the big break not "making the most" out of studying abroad.
But then, miraculously: as we sat defeated in the internet cafe days before the break, Tim got an e-mail advertising a 5-day, 260euro trip to Corfu, Greece: travel, lodging, food, and BEER included! This, of course, was specifically targeted at stupid American kids studying abroad who had failed to make Easter plans and who were sitting, right then, depressed in front of their computer, really wanting a beer. All of that was pretty tempting, but when my boyfriend saw "Toga Party!" at the bottom of the e-mail he was sold. So, needless to say, we had ourselves a real American collegiate vacation - just in Greece. :)
We took a bus from Rome and drove through the beautiful Italian Alps to get to Ancona, on the Eastern coast of Italy, where we took a ferry to Greece.
It was a little hectic because our guide didn't realize there was a time difference so we had to hurry for the last hour to get to the ferry:
Now, we decided that that this ferry is larger than any other other ferry we have seen, and thus merits the designation "cruise ship." And, since it was a 16 hour trip through the Adriatic Sea and we spent the night on the ferry, I thus decree that we took a cruise to Greece. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Goodbye, Italy! See? That's a pool. Granted it's not filled because it isn't summer yet, but they did have one, as well as multiple restaurants, multiple bars, a gymnasium, and a "discoteque" complete with light-up disco floor:
That most certainly counts as a cruise, no? Although, we were to cheap too "upgrade" and get an actual cabin, so we slept in the "airplane seating:"
Except for this guy, who just slept in the luggage racks:
Ah, college. Now, I was the only ambitious one to get up at 5 am and watch the sunrise on the sea:
Which was completely worth it. After about a half hour some fellow backpackers joined me:
To greet the coast of Greece:
Interesting side note - If you've heard of the actual cruise ship that recently sank of the coast of Santorini, Greece, we were on this boat going to Greece that same day. We watched the ship sink on the news throughout the night. Some people were a little bit more nervous about our own boat after that, but of course we got there perfectly safe.
So at about 7 in the morning, we disembarked, walked a mile out of the way to go through the customs building with no customs agent whatsoever, to get on another ferry that would take us from the Greek mainland to the island of Corfu:
Where we met yet another bus to take us to our world-infamous hostel, the "Pink Palace!"
All totalled, we had been travelling for about 24 hours at this point. Worth it, but it is more of a hassel to go with a big group trip. However, non of that mattered when we saw the view from our room:
Tim was one very happy backpacker. The Pink Palace was adorable:
They had EVERYTHING a traveler could need. It's sort of like a resort, except very very cheap.
There is a little bar to the left with 2-3euro drinks, and a "store" (or big shelf) with everything you probably forgot (floss, hair ties, bandaids, razors, socks, etc.) Also, there is a little cafe that serves breakfast and lunch, and a yummy dinner is included in the price of the room. Dinner is served at 8:30 in the "Palladium," a huge and very pink building with another bar, dance floor, pool tables, and many other backpacking friends to meet!
(Pardon that picture for being a little blurry. I had myself a few of those 2euro drinks.) First chance wo got, we headed for the beach:
Note the goat in the left corner. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly beach-going weather:
We spent the first day exploring the beach and collecting some incredibly cool rocks. (Yes I know that sounds geeky but it is a free souvenir for my sister.) Now, the Pink Palace also offers various activities, including the "Booze Cruise!" It's a six hour cruise around the island with stops at a few nifty places and lots and lots of beer. We, unfortunately, slept in and missed breakfast at the cafe, so we made a makeshift breakfast:
Then off to the booze cruise!
Now, we're standing on the shore watching this guy try to anchor this ship for about 20 minutes. I think the captain must have been participating in the massive beer drinking as well. I'm assuming, spoiled little New Yorker that I am, that this boat is going to dock at a pier, or get right up on the beach, so that I can step on in my dry jeans and sweater and stay perfectly dry all day long. It quickly became apparent that this was not going to be the case. After quite a long time of trying to get that boat up near the shore, the captain just gave up and started motioning people out to the boat. At this point I decided it might be a good idea to put my bathing suit on.
See that? That's freezing cold water. But after a few beers I don't think anyone minded the chill:
Hahaha. It was absolutely beautiful:
Our first destination: cliff diving!
It took the captain a few tries to actually get us anchored to the rocks. I'm not actually sure why we were anchoring ourselves to the rocks and not the ground, but hey. I'm particularly not sure why we were anchoring ourselves to the side of the rocks where the current would push us back into them instead of the protected side closer to shore... Anyway, this poor guy (in the back) had to climb up and free the anchor he threw too soon, and the captain cut the rope with a big scary knife way too close to my head:
Then these crazy people swam out to the rocks to jump off of them. I thoroughly enjoyed watching from my comfy seat on the boat:
She may be too small to see but the brave lady was the first to jump:
Bravo. Some of them weren't quite drunk enough yet, however, so it took a while for everyone to work up the nerve to jump off. They all came back bleeding everywhere and freezing cold, hahaha.
Tim had about 9 beers on this trip:
Destination 2: beach :)
Now for some unknown reason, the captain managed to get the boat all the way to the shore this time. We're all already soaking, of course, so I really wish he could have figured this maneuver out before, haha. Oh well. We all dried off pretty thoroughly in the sun here.
Destination three: hidden cove! (PS - check out the color of that water! Gorgeous.)
We just barely cleared the top of this cove, haha. You could swim into the cave:
Anchor-boy would guide you through it. I wasn't brave enough or warm enough, so I wimped out of this particular adventure also, haha. Everyone was good and wasted by this point:
This kid actually dove into the water after a fallen beer, and people started throwing more for him to catch:
Crazy captain George also went around telling all the couples onboard that there was a cabin you could rent for a minimal fee. He was pretty scary, haha.
I was one of few sober people on this trip, which I immediately remedied once we got back:
And then hopped directly into the hot tub to warm up:
And was very very ready for my warm delicious meal at 8:30. :) We also went down the list of shots:
Until the bartender cut us off, haha. Actually, he just got tired of making every shot on the list because most people were just ordering beers. (PS- drinks are half price after dinner.) Now, the Pink Palace throws the aforementioned Toga Party every saturday night. You can rent a pink toga for 1 euro and drink free shots of pink ouzo (this horrible greek liquor with a 40% alchohol content.) Tim had really been looking forward to it but the Toga Party didn't seem to start until midnight and we were pretty beat from all the alchohol and sun, so we actually bailed out at 11, haha. We're such wimps.
Evidently, Greece also has lots of huge bugs, never-before-seen to the average American. At some point Tim discovered one of these on his pants, so he locked the pants and bug out on the balcony to spend the night.
He didn't want to put the pants on the in the morning lest the creature had set up camp in one of his pockets, so I got to check all the pockets and both legs, which were by this time free of scary bugs, hahaha.
Gearing up for our last day in Corfu, we did manage to catch the free breakfast and then attempted to sign up for the "four-wheeler safari ride." Tim had hurt his ankle pretty badly, so we wanted to find a mode of transportation instead of walking. Now, this was a hectic mess. Long story short, they were completely unorganized and it took two hours to get everyone on their four wheeler and ready to go.
Us waiting for the tour to happen:
Our friends, still waiting:
I honestly don't understand what the hold up was. It was complicated by the fact that some people gave up and got their money back, so then there were more spots on the "safari" available. Then, some people who had left in the morning came back, so at that point there was an excess of four-wheelers, but they still wouldn't let us join this stupid tour. We didn't really want to go driving around an island we weren't familiar with, so I was pretty insistent about being able to join this tour.
The lady at the desk was convinced that according to her records, there were no four wheelers available, which she insisted on even after she went outside and counted the 12 extra four wheelers with no one sitting in them, and she continued to deny that they were available even after Cristo, the "safari" tour guide, attempted to explain that there were plenty of four wheelers for the tour and she was crazy. Frankly, I was just going to go no matter what, but I wanted to pay the difference in price and of course make sure that we didn't take a four wheeler that someone else had paid for if they had indeed double booked themselves. Stupid me, trying to be ethical. Cristo finally just told everyone who wanted to come to hop on a four wheeler and follow him, which we did. We paid him the difference in price instead of the front desk when we got off.
So - while I would recommend the Pink Palace, I would also recommend talking to the sweet blond front-desk-girl from Alabama instead of the Greek brunette one, and maybe finding another way of seeing the island instead of their safari tour. There is a scooter rental place down the road and I'm sure many other things to go, but this day happened to be Easter Sunday so those were all closed. So, we were persistent and got to go on the tour and had a great time, but it was a bit of a bump in the road.
That said, here are our amazing pictures from our 4 hour tour (supposed to be six) of Corfu:
We had to stop here a bit because one of the girls lost control of her four-wheeler and it flew off a cliff (luckily she did not go with it!) and exploded in someone's front yard. She was a tad shaken up, so Cristo took her back to the hostel.
But we got going again shortly after and headed up to this scenic spot for lunch:
Then we headed up another mountain for a view of the water:
There's Cristo, on the right:
This is interesting: the line between the water and the sky was hazy the entire time we were here. I live near the water in Alabama and I know that there is always a very distinct line where the water ends and sky begins, but for some reason the Adriatic just sort of blends in with the sky:
We also stopped at a cute little cafe and had hot cocoa before driving back down to the pink palace. I'm afraid I don't have pictures of most of the trip because I was driving, haha. That's a bit of a shame because we drove through some very beautiful and fascinating mountain towns. Four wheelers are fairly tiring to drive up and down mountains for four hours, however, so I got myself one last 2euro drink:
From the very nice bartender at the "Palace:"
And then we got back on our ferry to head for Italy.
:)
Best, Kate
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