So I thought that I would give a little insight into what it looks like when we travel from one continent to the next..all the excitement, tears (not really tears, but it sounds more dramatic ;-p ) lack of sleep, and meeting new peeps.
So we left for the Colombian airport around 8 in the morning on Saturday, April 2 from our Hostel in the historical district in Bogata. We got through security with no problems (much to the relief of some of my friends that always worry they will get stopped and questioned for hours) and had to kill time til our flight at 2. Mainly this consisted of us trying to connect to the ridiculous thing the airport called their wifi (it was practically non-existent) and paying for over priced but good food. All of us are just excited about getting on the plane and getting to rest and watch movies 🙂 There’s always the fun of asking around and finding out who is sitting in what seats and who you are going to get to spend the next 10 hours of your life with. We finally board the plane and get settled in.
After a lot of conversations, laughter, food and movies we arrive in Madrid, Spain just before sunrise, pick up our over-stuffed backpacks from baggage claim and grab a bus that will take us to another part of the airport in order to again go through security and recheck our over-stuffed backpacks and wait yet again to board another plane. And yes, we did technically breath real Spanish air and watch the sunrise in the process of walking out of the airport and getting on the bus and then going inside again, so I think it counts as us actually being in Spain 🙂 We now wait again and buy extremely over priced Burger King before getting on the next plane to Istanbul, Turkey. (Side note: I over heard several Russians talking and my friends convinced me to go and talk to them…I made a complete fool of myself. I’ve been in South America for the past three months so all I had in my brain was Spanish. I stumbled over my sentences, a terrible combination of Russian and Spanish all garbled together. Eventually I became too embarrassed to continue sitting there and got up and walked away haha. Oh well. Maybe next time will be better 🙂 )
The only significant thing about our hour and a half wait in Istanbul was getting to eat Turkish delights…decent but definitely NOT all that Edmund cracked them up to be. Silly boy that one.
So we arrive in Thessaloniki, Greece on Sunday night. The squad gives out all their hugs and says all their goodbyes til we see each other at the end of the month (we all go different places all month and meet back up for meetings and travel days). My team boards the city bus taking up all the space with our backpacks and with no idea when to get off and how to get to the train station, but thankfully people are usually very helpful and told us dumb Americans when to get off 🙂 We get to the train station only to find out that it is sold out so we have to cross the street and take an over night bus to Athens instead…not exactly the same excitement level about the bus as there was with the train but my team is so great about not complaining that we carry on unphased. It’s 11:30 at night and our bus is at midnight so we get a chance to try out some Greek pastries and pizza from the nice man at the bus station.
We get to Athens around 6 in the morning, (didn’t really sleep much on the bus at all for some reason) and make our way to the ferry to buy tickets for our next voyage. But there isn’t a boat until 9 that night and the lady was nice enough to let us leave our big backpacks at the office for a small fee. So what this meant was that we got an ENTIRELY FREE DAY IN ATHENS to explore and sightsee all day!!!!!! It was amazing! We got to go to the Parthenon and to the Acropolis (where Paul talked to the Greeks about the alter to the unknown God) it was so COOL!!! It was totally a random gift from God.
So by this point though, we have been traveling for about three and a half days straight with around 5 hours of sleep in all. Julia and I were so tired that we both fell asleep sitting down on the ground in the middle of the square. Random strangers took pictures of us but we didn’t know or care. As we finally started walking to the ferry we run into a group of refugee children on the dock and get to hang out with them for a bit before boarding. They’re speaking broken English and wanting to play games and trying to “steal” stuff from us, but mainly just wanting our attention and time.
We board the ferry and I sit down on the couch and pass out for the next 13 hours. Apparently some man came by and yelled at us for being rude and sleeping before it was time…I missed all of this due to my passed out state. And I honestly wouldn’t have cared anyways, nothing could have stopped me from sleeping at that point.
I woke up to a beautiful, sunny morning feeling almost completely refreshed and renewed. We docked and were met by our hosts Reid and Hannah. After 4 days of traveling we had finally made it!!! All of this travel and our adventures in Greece were just beginning. I can’t wait to see where they lead us next!
