Nov. 17
So yesterday we woke up and it was my turn for this metro pass that we were given by this random American angel. This guy who was traveling through Rome for like 20 days, he spent 30 Euros on a month long 30 day pass for the metro and only used 20 days of it. The guys had to call their family and Shaina so I decided to take the pass and get some use out of it while I had the time. So I cruised down to the Coliseum area. It was so crazy I got out of the metro station and it was all right there in front of the station. SOOOOO big!!!. There were people just hanging out around it taking in the fact that they were at the coliseum. I was pretty blown away. I got to take some amazing pictures and think a lot. It was so good to have that downtime by myself. So I wandered around some famous ruins for a couple hours taking it all in as I strolled through ancient Rome. The center of the once most powerful empire the world has ever known. It was so trippy I was trying to seriously take everything init was pretty surreal. But the sun was about to go down so I was trying to snap as many pictures of the sunset as I could. I got some really good shots. After the sun was down I decided to cruise around, I stopped in front of these ruins and just took some time to gain some context to my life and all that was just flying by. It was soo good to get some downtime. I walked back to the coliseum and took some pictures of it in the dark.
Today we went back to the ruins, the same spot and just wandered around the same place, just hung out.
Nov. 21
So right after the last post we cruised back to the camp and spent about four hours talking to this guy from Texas, we called him Texas but he was from Taxas and he was with his wife and his friend from high school. We just chatted about America, food, he was a butcher for like four years and than he moved to Dallas and a became a regional developer for Panera Bread. So that was kind of cool to hear about how much he knew about food. We talked about traveling and just found a bunch in common. He is a pretty cool guy. But we were trying to get on the internet, but didn’t get to.
The next day we went to the Catacombs which was amazing!!!! That was our best day in Rome. We got on some buses and adventured of the city to the catacombs, It was a brisk morning, the skies were clear and we had to wait a couple of minutes to get on the tour. The tour blew my mind! We got to see the earliest Christian art and meeting places. This was where the early persecuted Christians hid, lived and did church, there were tons of old painting on the walls and different earily Christian art. I was stoked on seeing all of that.
So after we got done with the tour we hung out for a little bit and wondered around the catacombs, we had the whole rest of the day and we didn’t have anything planned. So we got on a bus back to inner Rome and we wondered around for a while. We got off at this one stop that looked familiar to the stop that we changed buses at earlier in the day and we cruised into this random huge cathedral. The cathedral was similar to most of the ones that we saw when we were in Rome so I didn’t think to much of it. I realized that there was a tomb in the middle of the church because it had a huge like alter thing in the front that the other cathedrals didn’t have. So we we didn’t know it was in the middle the last one that we saw supposedly had Peter’s body but we weren’t too sure of that. Clay said something about a church near by having relics of near by but he didn’t know who of and where. As he started asking people I began to analyze the alter. There were twelve huge statues surrounding the whole layout of the church, those were twelve apostles and I read the names of the first two and the first on the lleft was Paul who had a book in his hand and a sword in his other. The first to the right was labeled Peter and he had two keys in his hands. So I walked further away from the alter and could see two little like golden statues on top of the alter in this like barred off area perched above the alter. One statue had keys in his hand and the other was holding a sword.
Anyways as we were walking out of the Cathedral we asked some nuns who the tomb was of and they really didn’t know supposedly this third century martyr by the name of M…M something I cant really remember. I guess that he was buried there so we didn’t really pursue the whole thing verry much after that. Other than the fact that when we went out the front there was a massive square and the front of the building made the Whitehouse look like and shack! It was massive and there was this huge statue of Constantine and we were like WOW what’s the deal.
So we read this little pamphlet and it said something about the heads of Saint Paul and Saint Peter! So we run back in and ask some more people and sure enough in that little barred in area was where the heads of Paul and Peter laid! Blew our minds! We sat there and just took it all in. I don’t know…that was a heavy time. We just kind of cruised around after that awestruck.
We jumped on the bus and just jumped off at random stops and check out the town. That day was such a laid back time. That was our last real day in Rome so we tried to make the best of everything. McDonalds euro menu for the last time in Rome! That was a pretty big deal, like everyday going into Rome and coming out of Rome we would stop at Micky D’s because it was cheap.
We woke up and checked out of the camp spot that was almost like home after a full week of roaming Rome. We got to the train station really early and checked out our options for cheap tickets to Bari. So we checked out the automatic ticket pickup and it showed the cheapest train ride by about 20 Euros to be taking off at around midnight so we got that one, and spent the whole day in the train station. I was stoked for that. There was a book store in the station and I spent like 12-16 hours reading up on India and Bali and getting numbers of hostels and just finding info. It was good to get some down time. Then our train came in and it was a sleeper train, we had our own little nook and we could fold down the chairs into beds. So we did that and slept the whole night. The train got in at 6 in the morning. But we weren’t quick enough so had to stay ride the train out until it stopped in the next little town which happened to be Monopoly! Haha. We took like a 2 euro commuter train back. There were tons of college ages kids on it with us. So us sleeping in on the train put us back like an hour and a half which we were worried about at first. We got off the train and ran to the bus ticket outlet and got a city bus ticket to the Port area of Bari. Bari is a decent sized city, it’s a city non the less, you can walk across most of the downtown area in about an hour. So we were waiting for this bus for like a half hour not knowing if the ferry was leaving without us. So our bus came and on the bus this lady needed to get off and was kinda telling the bus driver to stop in Italian, and he was telling her in Italian that he had to stop at the next stop. She wasn’t too happy about that so she started yelling in Italian and that escaladed into them cussing each other out in Italian. She was all the way off the bus and down the street and they were still yelling at one another, which I thought was pretty impressive. But yeah we got to the port and the next ferry didn’t take off until around 8 at night and it was about 9 in the morning by then so we bought them, they were about 40 Euros for a 7 and a half hour ferry ride. So we bought those and then went outside to catch this bus to the other port terminal because they had some places where we could store our bags. We got on this bus and sat for like 15 minutes. They brakes were kinda stuck shut on it, from what Josh was explaining to me. If you have a leak in your airlines on those types of busses then your brake can stay clamped and not get enough pressure to release themselves. So Josh picked up on it and we were sitting for like 10 minutes on the bus and the driver didn’t know what to do he was revving the engine and then trying to release the pressure from the brakes…anyways it ened up not working out for the bus driver and we walked over to the other side of the port, which wasn’t a big deal at all but just kinda funny at the time because all day long were rushing for time until we bought the ticket and found out we had all day to burn and we take this bus to save some time, and end up sitting in it for the time it would take us to walk there when it time really didn’t matter at all…lol I don’t know I was kind of amused by it all.
We dropped our bags at the Albanian ferry port and cruised out of the major port area to see a bit of down town Bari. As we were walking we noticed these two divers that were getting ready to go fishing and they had there two propeller machines, the hand held like underwater jet skies. We watched them all get set up and they took they propeller machines and cruised out with their spear guns and gear hooked up to the machines and they were going fish hunting.
We kept walking and Clay walked us through old town Bari. Which is this cool closely packed old part of town with a few churches in it. Which ended up being the reason we were there, but anyways it was cool to see this part of town because it was like the whole section of town was one building, the whole section was built in who knows which century, but so much earlier than the other part of downtown, and it was situated right between the port area and business/shopping modern metroplise city area Bari. So you come out of this ancient feeling, homey, almost mafia feeling old town Bari with a small little wheel barrow style market of some sort on every corner, with each street being named after the family that has lived there since it has been, to raging downtown. It was a very different dynamic. So we found this catholic cathedral that Clay said held the relics of some earily Saint and he told us he was going to be spending some time there venerating the relics of that Saint, so Josh and I went off and cruised through old town and new Bari. I am stoked on Bari. We could see most of old town after a few strolls through it so we spent most of our time walking the streets of downtown and that was so fun. The whole city isn’t as raging as most downtowns in the states it was a pretty mellow Mediterranean atmosphere, and we were kind of blown away by how active and influential all the elderly were, they were all out and about and fully interacting in almost every part of the city scene that we came in contact with. I was so so stoked on that. It brought this extra sense or dynamic of life into perspective, that I never really have been apart of. Elderly couples everywhere, that in and of itself is scarcely seen in the states. Grandmas out running errands, going to market, going and doing it all still. What I saw that kind of hit a big chord somewhere in me was to see grandpas out walking there grand sons, or granddaughters. Both with huge smiles on their faces. Grandpa sooo proud! Ahh so cool. Family is soo soo soo big there and it is so evident. The history is alive and walkling the streets fully apart of the present. It is a lot more intricate than we could tell than by merely observing it. I hope I get to be apart of that before I am old. Seeing the comparison in dynamics made me really not want to grow old in the states.
Anyways back to Bari. Josh and I walked for a couple hours and found this big square surrounded by markets and apparently that is were all the students we saw on the train were headed. There was a university building adjacent to the square. The students swarmed the square and market area. So we noticed this book store, after spend the entire day in one the day before we felt we owned on another vist, we had the whole day to kill so we walked back across town were we saw Clayton last and chilled on the stairs to the cathedral for a hour just talking about Europe and religion, Catholism, Orthodoxy, life an extension of the conversion we were having the entire time. We got to have three or four hours to walk through Bari and chat through life. Clayton found us and we cruised told him we had to show him this square that we found. We got back to the area we were a few hours before and realized that we were a few blocks away from the train station that we spent a half hour waiting for the bus at. So those markets that we found earlier were still up and we rolled through a few of them, these African boys were running a lot of the booths and they had so really cool looking rings so I bought one of them. This really basic silver band, o yeah I bought another ring while we were in Rome and it was this piratey looking thing that we found in a Bali store right next to the Vadican. It has this weird purple and green looking glass in it. So I picked it up, 3 euros.
We spent about two hours in that book store looking at books on art and pop culture, crazy festivals around the world, big feats that people have done all over the world, just random stuff. Clay found this one book on this crazy photographer that had all these really vivd black and whites of hundred and thousands of people working in these mines in Peru, hauling dirt in burlap bags wrapped around their heads up several 100 foot ladders out of massive pits full of people doing the same thing. Then tons of pictures of the crisis in Darfur, pictures of people skinnier than anything! People men women children, old to new. All walking dead style. The entire book was very graphic but very necessary.
So yeah we did that and then walked back to the port to get our bags from the guy who stored them for us and he wasn’t open yet, so we went to the room and by that time he was open. Then we figured we would stock up on food for the trip, Clay and Josh went to this café bar thing across the road and I went deep. I went so far into what was supposed to be old town but ended up being downtown scrounging for specifically cheap but more just a variety, like a supermarket is always a good call cause you have a choice. I wanted a choice really badly before I had to get on this boat for a 8 hours. So I spent like an hour battling my will to find a market. It didn’t fully happen, I went into this deli looking place to ask if there were any supermarkets around, and the thing is I was probably in the purest form of a supermarket asking that question but I didn’t fully realize it at the time, I just had my American street sense fully raging because I didn’t know how long I had. So I asked the manager of this store. I was like “groceria?” “market” but I got nothing “bakeria?” nope. He responded “bread” I was like “yeah yeah”, and handed me some bread from behind the counter for like .79 euros. I took that and ran still purposing that big supermarket but got discouraged and headed back, found a ligit deli and got two goood sandwiches and some peach juice for the 7 hour trip. When I got back I fell asleep in the Greece ferry terminal and Josh woke me when they were heading to the ferry. When we got on the ferry I was ready to pass out!. But we got on super earily and at first put our bags in the back. Then we went on to explore the layout of the huge boat, where we could and couldn’t go. It was so sick. We came back and there were more people there then there were before. So we condensed our stuff to the left side of the big seated area that had a back part where you can place your stuff and then go sit down where ever. So we put our bags in the back and there was this gap between the luggage shelf and where the seats began. The seats were divided into about three different rows with like five seats deep in each row and the seated section went about a third of the length of the boat down the left side half of the boat. So anyways the back left section is where we set up camp pretty much. We reserved the back row and put our bags in the rack, then layed our sleeping bags bellow the last row and they came out the back so we put down the tray tables on the back row and laid out Joshes mat along the length of the tray tables, creating this onning that shaded us from the intrusive lights that no one else could really get away from.
So as we were setting this base camp contraption up there were people rolling in…lol looking at us weird at first and then you could tell they realized we thought the whole dynamic through. This Austrailian couple came through and they were fellow backpackers and we kinda said hi to them. Acknowledged them and they were really jealous of our camp cause they didn’t have a pad or the corner that we had so they slipped their bags underneath the chairs like we did and tried to bear the light. Anyways I was stoked on sleeping so after setting up camp we went to sleep and I woke up once because of the announcement of this stop that we made at like 6 in the morning at an outer island. Clay woke up and went outside to get a look at his new home. He was obviously wanted to take in as much of Greece as he could and Josh and I went back to sleep. We woke up and went to find him. That was our first impression of Greece as we walked out on deck to be blow away by the sun low in the sky and behind all these low clouds woven between these mountains spread as far as we could see raising up out of the water. The water was soo soo clear. Probably the clearest water I have ever seen and every time I looked into it it was so clear. I could see the bottom from most of the places I looked through while standing on land. The island layout of Greece is so unique and the way it influences its culture is very unique to Europe. Every country we went to was pretty connected with it self through land and train, which were pretty cheap. The islands in Greece can really only be reached by boat, and the most common form of transportation between them is ferry which can add up, so I don’t know if many of the people travel through them all. Leaving the islands very isolated and unique culturally.
Anyways we got to port and the Australian backpackers didn’t know how they needed to get to Athens and Clay having done it all before brought all of us to the train station. We got to chat it up with the Ozzies a bunch about Europe, Italy, Australia and Montana some. The train came and it was pretty small compared to the ones that we saw in the rest of Europe. It was gas too so that was weird it had a horn and it braked a lot. But we cruised through the bay of Corinth and got to see where Paul wrote letters to and traveled through. The country side was amazing. So homey feeling, small little country houses that all had orange groves. The nice little quaint country towns on the water were so so cool. The train tracks were being repaired so the whole train had to get on a bus. We all got on a bus and went into the outskirts of Athens and took a commuter train to this other track where we had to get on another train/subway because the Metro line was on strike, which made everything scrambled and crowded. So we were just following Clay, it was me and the Ozzies on one train and we slipped into this other train and had to wait for another. And then it was me and Clay on and Josh and the Ozzies. But we got to where we needed to go and we said good by to the Ozzies. They were a cool couple they moved to London a couple years after they went to University together. Garret was the manager of a Fitness Gym in Melborne for a while and then Kat moved to London to get this job as a company psychologist for HSBC (the bank of the World, essentially). So he decieded that wanted to see London and the World so he headed out to London and became a personal trainer worker at this gym in London. So they worked there for two years and I think she got layed off because HSBC is pretty much dead, well dying, because all the banks of the world are being bought out by their governments, that’s all we heard about on this trip so far, we ran across a lot of people who work for or are connected to HSBC, HSBC is everywhere, every terminal that you walk through to get to the plane, all around the world in every airport is owned by HSBC. I really don’t know what that means, but we have been seeing it a lot, and have been having a lot of crazy conversations with people about bank, and the global economy.
They Ozzies though quit their jobs are cruising around Europe and are headed back to London to send their stuff back home and then cruise out to Thailand for a few weeks just in time to be home for Christmas. We will be missing them in Thailand by a few days which was weird to hear. It was weird to meet travelers that had a similar destination as we did. We were stoked to have met them, so when we said goodbye Clay brought us through the Acropolis area to the rock where Paul stood when he taught at the Acropolis to the Greeks he stood there. So that was super cool to see. He went on to tell us about the Acropolis and how it got blown up. Back in the day Greece was possessed by Turkey and that ended about 200 years ago. So while the Turks owned Greece the military used the Acropolis as their military base. They had huge armories and canons up there and they used the perch of the Acropolis to keep control. So anyways there is this church about a half mile away and the name of the Church is the Church of Saint Demetrius to commerate the saint. There is also a feast day to commerate the saint. So as the story goes on the feast day the Turks made an agreement with the people that they knew went to this church and said that all Christians could celebrate that feast day. So the day came and as it was planned by the Turks, the moment that the Christian went through the part of the service where they made the oath for communion, someone was to give a signal to the acropolis and at that point when the Turks were to light this huge massive cannon called Lumboreo, or something like that, (that had a huge range). At that moment a lightning bolt fell from a dry sky on the huge massive armory scattering the Acropolis and shutting down the Turkish evil scheme to martyr a huge chunk of the Christians in the city.
I thought the story was neat. He went on to bring us to that very church. It was a pretty cool church in comparison to most of the ones we were seeing. Most of the stuff that we have been seeing has been like stadium status and this was a thousand year old stone shack with a wooden deck surrounding it. Everything in the Acropolis area is like not just hundreds but thousands of years old. Clay showed us this pilar head stone that was from 2000 B.C.. I started to think when he said that, I was like wait that’s the oldest thing I have ever seen, in some ways. I don’t know it blew my mind a bunch just to be around the places where the Acropolis was.
We went to the church and were discussing a lot with Clay about the church and the area. Then we climbed this hill right across from the acropolis and right behind the church. It had this trail on it and the cave/ jail were Socrates where he stayed before he was put on trial and his defense was recorded by like Aristotle and is like a book that is super influential. So as we climbed this hill Clay was explaining to us how this wall that was to the left of us was 2000 years old and was the ruminants of this old fort that was on the hill. The entire area was packed full with this type of stuff cause Athens is the hub of Greece 6 million and we could see where they all layed from the top of that hill that we were climbing, the hill is called Theopopu. So as we climbed the hill he were looking for a place to drop or bags and then to stay later on tonight. So we hid our bags behind the old wall ruminants that were like three foot tall marble blocks, in some places like 6 double stack 6 foot tall. So we dropped the bags and went scrounging for a market or place to eat. As we walked around I realized how glad I was to drop the bags after caring them the entire day. We were kinda noticing how there were tons of dogs in the area. The dogs were their own masters and rolled in possey’s so we were like wait one sec we haven’t in anyway encroached on or disrespected the Acropolis area cause these dogs are fully following us. This one that we called Ellah, which means come in Greek, was the Alpha female she started following us from when we were at Paul’s rock and she knew the Acropolis area real well. She stuck with us as we went to eat and she was kinda llike a shofur for us. She stuck by our side for a couple of hours until we left he jurisdiction(territory), and from there we were on our own. But we thought she was beta cause all the other dogs didn’t really question us when she was around, they would bark at some people and run after certain bicyclists, but she ignored all the other dogs and did her thing.
Anyways after we ate we cruised around the surrounds Acropolis area, there were tons of little shops and an really old all marble made part of town right around the Acropolis area. It was a pretty “Greeky” area. Jewelry shops, icon shops, souvener shops, soaps, scarfs, magnets, statues, tea shops, local greeky stuff in greeky style. We walked down a few streets and then headed back to set up camp. It was kinda windy on the side of the hill that we were camping so we went to the other side and set up on the side that we could see the Acropolis from. So we set up right next to this like desert plant thing and when I put my sleeping bag down I noticed that I was staring right at the Acropolis. Perfect view. So we all fell asleep the first night in Athens taking the idea of that in. We woke up and Clay was gone, Josh and I figured he was probably at church, which he was, but I went to the top of the hill and took some pictures of the Acropolis and the city which you could see all of. I came back and Josh and I brought Clay’s stuff to him, and we meet the posse at from the Church. Papa Yoryeos, Thomas, and a few other great guys whose names have slipped my brain right now. We hung out in there for a while kinda discussing what our next plan was. We talked on Zionism a little too so that was interesting. Drank some tea, clay made some coffee, we were in the little office of the Church. It is a small two room little nook behind the church.
After that we took off to find a little internet booth and clay was talking about how cool it would to go to some islands so while they were looking that stuff up I decieded it would be great for out camping situation in general if we found some gas for our stoves, which we hadn’t done yet. So while I was wondering around Josh and clay were stetting up a room and a hostel. I didn’t know what was up there so I kinda freaked out in my head and was trippin on why some of those decisions were being made without me, which in a big way I shouldn’t have I guess, but we had a little conference kinda deal on it, and allot of things were brought to light that were kinda hidden expectations and it was good to see where we were all at. The church bells rang and that ended the discussion, Josh and Clay went to Church and I went on the hill and thought about life pretty heavily. When I got back they were over and and we all rolled out to the hotel that I was considering ditching out on. But as we traveled around the city I was still a little stiff in, but we came across this guy from Holland or Denmark and he was a burly lumberjack of a man, and he wore paid two deep, white hair white beard, hit stuff was minimal, a pad, some pans, and some stuff in a plastic bag and it was all tied to his huge burly upper body by this rope. He was a minimalist who found some initial commonality in us and started talking really heavily about life to us, he talked to us about Obama and his family and how Obama’s heritage represents how it life is about seeing as much of the world as you cam and to spread your seed. His points were escaladed in their poiniency, and he told us stories of different places he has been in the world as we stood on the streetside next to this square. He told us that he has been traveling much of his life and then asked us if we wanted to know/knew what meaning of life was. And we told asked what? He said “When your hungry eat, and its good; when your sleepy, sleep and its good; and when you lay down and look up at the stars you can know that is where we all came from! We are all star dust!” Then he looked at us like we were gonna be stoked any freak out for him or with him. But he said it a couple more times and we were kinda like dude this is not the time or place for that. Non of us were really in a place to even approach the comment. The guy had so much elderly passion and just straight burliness to him and kept us so in the conversation by his body language and gesturatures that we couldn’t slip from the conversation. So he talked to us for about a half hour and then we said peace out and he went on to do his deal, he was tring to find a place that he could stay and we told him Theopopu treated us well. If you are looking for that sort of natural stardust fuzzy feel. But yeah we said later to that guy and then started looking for our hotel which was a sort of ordeal. But after about a half hour we found it and apparently the internet management department want working on Thursdays so he didn’t get it, but let us in the room anyways. We got into the room and we were on the top floor, which was cool, we climbed on to the roof and could see a bunch of the city. That was fun! But Josh and Clay had to go find an internet café and found what the deal was with the reservations, the card didn’t get charged so they cruised back and we payed the guy when we left, but it was good to be sleeping indoors for once. We all took two showers and got to chat it up for a bit.
We woke up and got free continental breakfast. That was good to get, we got seconds later on and headed to find the hostel, Clay left at 8 in the morning for church so we weren’t positive where we needed to be going, the hostel was close to the Acropolis. So we just headed over to the church and found and we all went over and found the hostel together. We dropped off all of our bags and the manager wasn’t ready to check us in so we were hungry and we went hunting for good cheap food. We walked downthe street close to the Acropolis and found so really interesting little shops. Clay and I checked out a bunch of different little icon shops and I learned a lot about Greek culture and the Orthodox iconography. We found all these crazy crazy little greek antique stores that had ancient jewelry and Greek things in it. We found these old rings that swiveled and had really unique little seals on them. These seals I am sure were used for letters each hand a very simple design or outline on them. I was amazed at a lot of them. Some had amazing little intricate icons on them. That had all these specific meanings. I was stoked to learn about the Greek culture in that format. We walked all around still looking for food and found this really cheap gyro shop. We all got them, they were so so amazing. So much meat, some spread, and tomatoes, French fries if your lucky. So we bought them and found this little square hidden behind this market and I was definitely enjoying Greece! We then went on through the area surrounding the Acropolis, we found this coffee shop like ten minutes later and I promised Clay that I would buy him a cup of coffee, so stopped again and drank coffee and talked about life the states and stuff. By that time were figured we should keep on roaming through the Acorpolis area and that whole area within a couple block surrounding the entire Acropolis area is like village style setting. So we found this little artsy icon shop and it was a hole in the wall, closet sized but we cruised in not knowing really how big it was, and we turn the corner when coming into the door and we almost run into the owner behind the counter. He was a very interesting man. He most likely was Turkish and his hands were full of rings. Each finger on his hand had a massive massive really simple ring with a Greek style face on it. His finger were spread pretty wide with all the metal between them. But by that time we kinda lost Josh, he knew how to get back so Clay and I talked about the stories behind all these different Saints that there were so many specific icons about. It was really interesting to learn about Orthodoxy in that format. So we went up to this camping store that we thought Josh would be at and bought this tank of gas that we needed for the rest of the trip, specifically the island area. Josh wasn’t there so we thought we better head back to the hostel because we were apart from him by about two hours at that time. We got back to the hostel and he was there so we checked in and got this huge room all to ourselves and by that time Clay had to leave for church. So it was just Josh and I and we talked about this conversation that he had while waiting for us to get back. He talked to this girl from Tennessee about some heavy stuff. It started out being just on life and ended up being really being about this book that this girl was reading called like Celestian Prophesies. She was telling him how this guy wrote this book about this one person’s spiritual journey and how this person is prophesying that this one big spiritual leader is going to come and bring everyone together and give all these people direction. So as Josh was explaining this to me my mind was being blown. I was like wow that a trip. So we had a huge discussion about the end times. Josh and I paused the conversation and went to grab some food. The hostel facilities were free to be used by anyone so Josh and I went and cooked up the noodles that we bought. We bought these really long straw like macaronis. We cooked them up in there and that was cool. The whole vibe of the hostel we pretty legit. There were tons of people from everywhere just chillin together. They were playing Constantine on this wall through this projector. So we cook up and were cleaning up getting our food ready and all of while I was putting these dishes away I noticed these two people looking over at Josh and I as we were wrapping it up and there they were. The Ozzies! Again. I was stoked. So so stoked so we sat down and talked with them for a few hours. I was so glad to that we ran into them again. I don’t know it seemed like it should have been a bigger deal than it was, but we had such a good good conversation with them. They were getting ready to leave the next day and told us all about the stay that they had in Athens all the stuff that they had done, yeah it was cool. I didn’t know what to think Clay rolled in and we all had such great conversations about life Montana snow, skiing and the winter season in general. We talked about crazy winter stuff, crazy high school times, all these amazing things that we would do during the winter during high school with cars with fourwheelers, just how good the snow is.
So we said goodbye and Clay and I picked up where Josh and I started on the Apocolyptic talk. The whole conversation was pretty dramatic and really intense. We talked for like hours, just Clayton and I. Josh fell asleep. So clay and raged on in context of this conversation on Theology, the trinity, the Holy Spirit, relationships, marriage, and I a lot of different ways I am still at this time in that conversation relating to it, bumping things up against different statements. It was good for us to relate on that level.
The next day we woke up and ate breakfast at the hostel, I met this Asian girl from San Francisco and she commented on not have seen Rainbow sandals in forever, so I was like “Yep, where good ol Rainbows”, and I asked where she was from. She told me and said that she goes to school in San Diego and I asked her where and she goes to SDSU! So we chatted and she was studying abroad in Prague and I told her my sister was going to be studying abroad there next semester and that she went to Point Lameo I mean Point Loma and this other guy that she was with was from Point Loma also. So that was cool to see have that San Diego interaction. But yeah there was that and then we went back upstairs packed up our stuff and said good bye to the Ozzies, they were going to go to a museum and then catch the flight back to London. So yeah we had a ton of clothes to wash, o yeah the night before I found these demon socks! They were this pair of socks that I took of for the first time since the beginning of the trip when we got to Florence had they gotten wet when and rained out that one night. So yeah this pair of socks was so so moldy and pretty much had formed its own somewhat living rotten soul and voodoo mind tripped me into taking a huge wiff of, without even the chance of a second thought. It was a pretty heavy encounter. I almost passed out on the bed like gagging tring to some how scratch and hack the spores or little stench demons out of the depths of my sinuses. Like to years of working at a taxidermy shop and that was the heaviest stench battle that I have had to deal with in my life! Seriously. So we put them in Clay’s pillow, hoping that he would pull the whole instinctual sniff trick which I was skeptical of, cause if I were to have tried that on like Chris or Forrest they would have caught themselves before putting it to their nose. But yeah he fell on the floor for it. And got no shame from us for being stupid enough to put the thing anywhere near his face.
Yeah that was kinda a diverson but to say all that we had to serious wash to get done. I hadn’t done any wash the entire trip so my whole bag was getting pretty full of rank crappiness. We walked down to the local laundry mat and nooked up in that little place for hours. That was such a good time, we talked more on home and Greece and what it would be like for Clay. I think we talked on marriage and getting married, about Josh’s dynamic and just stuff. It was good we got all of our clothes cleaned and then we were off to the Islands. We had a stop at the super market to stock up on food for the trip, We all got pasta, clay bought this 30$ burner with a case of gas. So we were ready to eat anywhere we were at, as long as we had something to cook and we all had plenty to cook.
The next step was to find this bus to the port that was on the other side of the Peninsula from Athens, so we got a few different directions and ended up trecking half way across town to get to the station and the bus left as soon as we got there. Like the laast bus to that part of Greece for the day and the last ferry of the day left as soon as we got there. The bus ride was like 2 hours, and we didn’t think we were making it. But we did, it was only a 2 euro bus ride. The ferry was like three hours and it was 20 euros. But the ferry ride was amazing. Clay and I were on top of the ferry at the front, and the wind was so intese that we were like leaning into it like 60 degree angle and not falling. It was so fun we plugged into our ipods and just soaked the moment in as we slowly cruised through the islands.
It was getting dark so I headed down stairs and Josh and I sat and watched these little kids running around on all over the ship and I kinda thought about parenthood and what that whole deal means and looks like. I was stoked on being around some free kids! They were playing tag running everywhere they went screaming thrashing. Just living life. Josh and I kinda chatted along those lines. I asked him if he ever sees himself as a dad. We talked a lot about Dad stuff brothers and sister realms, highschool, and yeah it was good. Then it got boring so we plugged my laptop in and we watched this movie “Endless Summer” that I have on my laptop. Then we were there.
We got to the island like at ten and it was kinda windy, but we wanted to stay on the beach so we cruised around looking for places to stay. The best place ended up being off the water a bit behind some of these rocks in this protected place but it was kinda we so we were worried about that initially but it never ended up being a real issue.
We used the burner for the first time that was sick, clay made rice because he was on a fast until Christmas and Josh and I made pasta and sause. But yeah clay woke up first and we packed up camp and moved to this really cool other spot pirched above this cliff about 500 yards from the first place that we camped. So we dropped off our stuff and headed into town. The town was so so so amazing. Every house was concrete and white. With blue shutters or a blue rook if it had a roof. The towns were so so homey feeling. It seemed like the whole town was on building, because besides the main street all of the streets were hallway sized with plants and vines and flowers spread between them. It was one of the most beautiful little nooks that I have ever seen, super super simplistic but really really clean, organized and family orientated. Clay was headed to find this church that had been made around an icon that was found in a well, so yeah that had a pretty intricate and amazing story behind it. We got some danishes and bread at this little nook backery and from there we headed to the church were Josh and I just sat and talked. We had the most amazing setting in the world to chat it up at. We sat of the stairs of this church and kinda peered off into the ocean with the other islands off in the distance and the beautiful town below Josh and I talked for the whole day. We climbed up the hill a little further and found this water storage house. The house was made of brick it was at the same level as the bell tower of the church and it was perched about the entire town. I was stoked on it cause there was this pipe that you had to walk out on to get to it. So it was kinda isolated. But it was made of concrete so the roof was like a patio, patio setting above an amazing little Mediterranean town, islands in the distance we chatted the whole day away about everything, I think it started with just talking about females in general, we were chatting about how women sisters, mothers, girlfriends, prior relationship stuff history. The conversation really blew my mind, cause I kinda realized that I had had that unique sort of converation in some way with two other people in the last year and while on trips. It just put a lot of the past year in a bit of perspective for me. It was so good to talk to Josh specifically in that conversation I think we learned a lot about one another, at least a lot about our past and perspective on those deals. I don’t know, it was really long, like 7 hours maybe. Just stories on top of stories, we carved our names into the top of this water storage bunker, so the conversation is set in stone if you ever want to go check the context out you should.
We didn’t see Clay for the whole day until we got cruised back to the place where our bags were. We got some cheap gyros and some food at the super market for Josh as we walked back to the spot. So when we got back we talked with Clayton a little about where he had gone and what he had done, he told us some history on the church as we cooked up our food. We went down on the water beneath this huge overhanging rock slab. It was a neat place to eat, but we had to climb back up this slippery steep trail in the dark to get out which was kinda shady.
The night was crazy. We spent all night fighting these demon mosquitoes. They were super small and came out as the wind died. Josh and I were talking until all hours of the night. We talked about him and Mal and when he gets back and jobs and the economy and all that jazz. We talked forever about that, and that lead into the Powell clan, talking about them relatives and how Mal was gonna meet some of the broader Powell clan during Thanksgiving time and we talked on Holidays for some time. Until we figured we should be sleeping. But we couldn’t because of the stupid mosquitoes. So we put the tent up and that solved that problem but we slept in until like 11 I think. The ferry left at 2 so josh had to use the bathroom he went into town earlier, Clay and I finished packing up and took our time just cruising in. We got some pastries and then found this pink pelican. That was trippy. The pelican tried pretty much ruled the island it was attacking this little car, a bunch of pigeons. and then was tring to clean itself. But yeah Josh found us so we went and bought our tickets. The guy there let us leave our bags for a couple hours but we went to the grocery store and stoked up on food for the trip and then went back to our gyro shop and got some grub gyros.
So yeah we sat down and took our time eating them, talking about stuff. We saw this grandfather and grandson cruise by which I was so stoked on. The grandfather was so so proud to be walking around with his grandson at hand. The little boy was like post toddler but not by much. So it was really neat to see. They were both spiffed up and glad to be alive.
So we walked over to this other little coffee shop and clay ordered some greek coffee which he was plent stoked on. We watched the very intricate very gangster game of backgammon or rummy, I cant remember which but every greek is addicted to it and its like the cultural pastime. So there was this little trinket shop right next to the coffee shop and these two older like late 60s early 70 year old guys decided that they would start a game up right here on the little street corner. So they had three crates out, one for the table and one each for a chair and they were just doing their, what seemed like daily thing, on the corner. So the usuals came cruising through, the mail guy, the bakery delivery guy, the this guy the that guy, and all the usual paid their respects to the daily game of backgammon. Some guys got really interested and took about a half hour and studied after the ways of the learned old wiseguys. Others spent like 5 minutes, but about 10 people while we were there not only just said igh but would spend a couple minutes silent just being part of the game that was being played. This other old friend came through and he gave his two sense and they dialoged a bit about it all. I was fully blown away and felt really fortunate to be apart of something that home grown and community orientated. The whole entire culture is like that all the time though. Just that open and fluid, ready to relate and learn and ‘”learn you”(teach) whatever there is to be experience at the time. I was so so amazing for me to see that. This one dad stopped by with his daughter and she was like three and she was stoked fully involved too. She was just staring at the game as they both stopped by the game. It was nothing flashy though, simply just two old men and a board game.
That was that and we had to go, we saw the ferry coming so we got some bread from a friendly bakery and headed out to board the ferry. The ferry ride was smokey but we got to see the islands as we rolled by, we didn’t get to do that on the way out. But I tried to sleep some, we got back and it was already dark. The buses were waiting for us so we rushed out and got loaded up on them. We spend the two more hours on the bus getting to Athens. But when we got there we were heading to the metro and clay ran into some friends that he went to Mount Athos with. They were with this guy named Father Peter I think. He knew clay so we waited for him to come back from where he was. He was stoked to see Clay so we met him and they talked for a few minutes about what Clay was going to be up to, and we went our separate ways. We took the metro back to the Theopopu where were reunited with Ellah the dog, she had a friend with her this time, but they hung around while we cooked up some food up across from the Acropolis. That was such a good last might with Clay. Him and Josh talked about good old times at Church, we talked about VBS days when the Richards were around and how Clay got ticketed when Nick met Forrest he totally changed and ignored Clay and Josh. He explained how he was bitter about that whole issue. We talked about those day and some of the people who were around but cruised out of the Cardwell community. We talked about Axon’s(sorry Axon I butchered the spelling of your name) and how she baby sat us some, and we talked about some of the different friends that she had who never came back. We set up the tent and then just fell asleep know this was our last night in Greece.
When we woke up we packed the tent up and cruised down to the church to find Clayton. We hooked up with him and then we headed out to this internet caffe initially just to get our etickets printed out. That turned into something way bigger. I was just about to get off the internet when Josh read a recent email from his mom that simply said I love you be safe and don’t go to Mumbai if you can. We were like wait we will be in Mumbai in a few hours… so I Googled Mumbai and read that there were terrorist bombings there in the last few hours that hadn’t ceased and were still raging on with 125 dead and the toll was rinsing by the hour. Everything escaladed from there. I started looking at maps on where the airport was in relation to where the attacks were going on and how we could get out of Mumbai as soon and as safely as possible. Then Mallory poped up on facebook and said Hi so Josh talked with her and then Josh’s family was up and about. They called my mom and I got to talk with her a bit. So we got stuff straighted out there, we told everyone that we were going to go to airport and see what the airlines could do for us, and we would go from there. The computer clocks told us that it was 10:36 am, with our flight leaving at 2:10 told ourselves we needed to be at the airport by and checked in by 12 just to be safe. The airport is like a half hour train ride from the Acropolis. So I logged out printed out my eticket and asked the internet guy what the time was and he said it was 11:36 am. Panic mode on! Josh 11:36 and he had to say goodbye real quick and we were off to maybe catch a flight to one of the most intense crisis zones in the world right now, and hearing that Bangkok our next destination is the next most heated current crisis zone in the world. Sweet! We were both kinda excited but really worried about how our families were taking it. So we told them all before we left that we would be in contact as much as possible, in Bahrain(our 5 hour layover) and then as soon as we could when we got to India.
So we got to the airport and people were checking in for our flight so we were kinda being rushed. We presented our situation to the guy behind the desk and he checked out our options for us. We asked him first if we could get a flight into a different location and the wasn’t an option so we asked if we could get a flight in for another time, like delay a flight for a couple of days. He said we could do that for a small fee, so we had him research the fee price and that ended up being 65 euros for a day. So we thought it through and we realized we could put it back a day or a week and we still wouldn’t have a clear view of the state that Mumbai was in or would be in when we got there. The airports could be shut down and then we would be really struggling. By that time everyone was checked in and we decided just to go for it. People have been praying for us this whole time and we have been fully protected from harm and have had a peace about why we were where we were doing what we are doing. So we had a two or three hour flight to Bahrain in the middle east like across the gulf from Duhbai. That whole area is just a trip, like Las Vegas of the world, people from everywhere for every reason, working, vacationing I don’t know what really. I know that the magazine that was in the back of the seat was fully of adds selling business space and condo space in these huge skyrise development that were the next big thing. All the articles in the magazine were just about these next big situations and big deals that the Gulf region was just buying itself into. Luxury from oil barrens, Sultans, kings, building dynasties around the trendy big thing to be involved in. Like this one article was describing how this one United Emerites group bought the Manchester soccer team for 500 billion Pound, which is like a trillion dollars. No big deal. Who does that. The magazine was full of how these countries were manufacturing their cities and countries that they just got, around the most uppity things in the world, so that people with money would start investing in their economies and give them back all the crazy kind of money that they already have so much of. Like this one article was on how this new city just set up a Formula 1 race course through the city streets, and are now part of the famous elite Formula 1 scene and that just the tip of the iceberg, all they are putting in a new circle track mega stadium and it gave all the contact numbers for the upperdeck elite ticket holder boxseats and shares in that endevor. Building islands, sponsoring the best elite athletes, banking dynasties, skyrisers with windmills in between them elite million dollar luxury vehicles, and just bigger and better. It was such skin deep flashy deal and all it built on “sand” on nothing. For millennium there was nothing developed there. It was just thousands of square miles of dessert. Now they have their own ski hill.
So to the say the least it was all really hard to believe but the airport in Bahrain proves a lot. Just stuff everywhere, buy me, buy me, that whole trendy buying feel was pretty heavy there. They were pushing Christmas, Santa and his elves this and from what I know the Islamic religon is anti any Christian. Jesus was a prophet supposedly I guess that kinda meshes but its seems have a fairly unique Christian meaning behind it. Saint Nicolas was probably martyred by Muslims for all I know. The Santa and his elves in the North Pole thing too seemed like a bit of a stretch. It’s kinda demented to see how far a lot of American marketing schemes have gone in parts of the world that have really uniquely different culture. I am always seeing an American looking white or girl modeling American or European style stuff. Materialism is ruling our world in a heavy heavy way. India is head over heals about it.
So anyways we get to Bahrain and get on the internet as soon as we could. We found this little free wireless signal but it was super slow so Josh bought a calling card for the phone booths in the airport. So he called the family up, he called up Mal and let me use the rest of the minutes to talk to my mom and Evan. I was so stoked to get to chat with them. It was Thanksgiving there and yeah weird not to be there. Josh was telling me about all the activities that the Powell clan have planned. Evan was telling me about Tait’s birthday and all that was set up and planned out for that little (huge) occasion. Who knows the kind of wound we will be hearing about after the fiasco of an airsoft battle. It might make the news right beside the stuff going on in Mumbai.
Anyways got that whole deal done with we kinda got a reality check on it being turkey day so we were like sweet, what are our options, and McDonalds was the first thing we saw. So Josh and I both got a McArabian. Look it up. You probably have never heard about it, probably never will again, and you definitely will never be having one for Thanksgiving, but that could have been said for most of our thanksgiving options McDonald just seems like it was the right place for it to happen at. So that was that. We got one the plane and had a three hour ride to terrorist ridden Mumbai. We got in and it was still dark so we couldn’t see much of the 18 million people city from the air but we landed. The plane showed this really trippy really dramatic Indian film and the whole place was full of Indians that were essential building these crazy structures in Dubai and the Gulf area. So we landed and got through customs no problem and our first intention was to get our bags and then get to the bus station. Clay booked a hotel room for us and it included a ride there from the airport. So we had to deal with that also. So I withdrew a bunch of rupies. And then we got a map to the bus station. Outside there was a taxi waiting for us. This taxi was for the reservation clay made so we meet up with this guy and he told us we should go with him to the hotel first to cancel the reservation so on the ride there we were explaining this all to him so he called his boss up and we got the room canceled while we were in the car and he found a taxi for us to the bus station. From the bus station we got on the bus and cruised out to Pune where Daniel is situated. Daniel is one of out main contacts here in India and he is dong mission work in this company that manufactures chair candles and other small little mass quantity little things. So that is where we are now, we got a rickshaw ride from the bus station to his work and we got to see the factories that they are renting out, it was good to see it all and hopefully next few weeks we will be able to do some hands on work helping his crew out and getting a good grasp on the type of ministry they are apart of. I am also stoked to learn about the Indian culture and life. I have much to learn and see. So yeah we made it to Pune we are hanging out with Daniel living in his apartment with him an his room mate and yeah we will be hopefully give more frequent updates. Daniel has the internet! So that’s new realms for Josh and I. O yeah the food is super super cheap so we wont have to be spending much here either like minimal a few dollars a day to live. So we are pretty pumped dynamic as well. I really really apologize about how long it has been since we have updated to blog. The day after we got to India we took off and just rested from Jet lag and I started writing as soon as I got up like 12 or 1 and have been writing most of the day, maybe like three hours of a break and its like 3:20 am right now. This is defiantly the longest straight writing session I think I have ever experience, Definitely the longest document I have ever written in one sitting now that I think about it and I have busted 20 page reports out in school a few time. This is 16 pages single spaced, and the twenty page papers I wrote were double spaced. That would make this 32 page document if it was double spaced! Pretty heavy deal. Just took a day and wormholed the journal realm! Hopefully no one has the time to read this all in one sitting! Wow. Cool. Later.
A protected,
Austin Lewton
