The road to greece...

There are some really great benefits by going with Contiki. You sure see a lot and you make excellent friends that make future trips to scottland, guadalehara, chicago, or down under duty free in the housing sense. You are also protected or sheilded in a nucelus. There are some aspects that grew a little old. Like waking up everymorning at 6.45, like paying 35 euros for an excellent group meal but not getting excellent food, the hotel being a little out of the action so you only have the down stairs pub as the option. Finally the point click and move felling wore thin. But I will remember the friends (Steve Dawna, Blanca and Frenando, the teachers and the Renees among others) as well as the tour guide Hans. He was a pretty good chap that told me where to get a nice hair cut in Florence as well as did not freak out when I decided to do my laundry in Venice. He also has a traditional dutch humour that was fun to mess with.

Stacy, the oldest guy on the tour) was a true american in the sense that he was vocal, outgoing, and a bit brash. I know all three of the adjectives mean almost the same thing but when triangulated you get the Heafty Stacy. He was an ASU alumni and works in Los Angeles now. He had a great time bantering about americans and canadians and italians over cards. (he took hearts I took gin rummy).

More about the Italians...
I really wanted to get out of rome. It just felt hot sticky dangerous from pickpocketers and metro workers on strike. So I took the high speed train to Bari. Bari is my kinda a city in that there were so many familes eating on the boardwalk on friday night around 22.00 You could even see the grandmothers in their special chairs while everyone was on the bench or playing cards around a table. As well italian kids do not sleep until really late. Anyway I liked that free spirit.

I am off to Greece by ferry today. I will be in patras tomorrow.