July 16

(11:00) Last night was pretty interesting. Two tents over there was quite a ruckus being stirred up. The tent walls are obviously pretty thin, so we could hear everything. Our neighbors, two tents down had their tent walls shaking for quite some time. It sounded like the couple inside were on their honeymoon or something. However, I’m guessing this wasn’t the case since I could hear them introduce themselves and exchange contact information after they were done. Another interesting thing happened when we got back to our tent late that night. The girl who had moved into our tent with us was already in bed. She woke up before we did and took off, so we never actually saw her face.

When we woke up, it was about 7:00 am. We wanted to get to St. Peter’s Basilica early in the morning in order to beat the line. The day before when we arrived there, there was probably a two hour wait to get in. We walked to the train station and rode the train to the Vatican. When we arrived at the Basilica, there was hardly a soul there. We were able to take some nice photos and walk right in. The cathedral was the biggest and best we have seen by far. It was huge. It didn’t even seem that big from the outside, but once we stepped in, it was monstrous. Every inch was covered with detail. I took a three or four minute video just to capture the general beauty of it. We happened to be there right as a morning mass was starting so we went into that room for about fifteen minutes to watch. We couldn’t hold our attention very long since we didn’t know Italian. It was a neat experience though. Once we made our way through the Basilica, we went to check out a couple other things, but they cost money so we decided against it. However, standing in line we saw a guy we had talked to the night before at the Coliseum. We talked to him last night because Ben had to apologize for getting his big head in one of his pictures. He was pretty cool. He told us how he was a history teacher now living in Cairo and was finally experiencing the things he was teaching about all these years. After he gave me a hard time for wearing the same shirt two days in a row (and I explained that I had already worn one shirt seven days in a row), he wished us luck and we were on our way back. We walked back to the train station and hopped on the first train thinking it was ours. It turned out to be going the wrong way down the fork, so we had to turn around and come back. Then we went to the wrong platform and missed our next train. We are now in the midst of an hour wait until the next train comes. We will then have to walk back to the campground to get our bags, go get some food, and walk back to the train station to catch our train to Brindisi. The train is already late, so hopefully this doesn’t turn into a colossal error.

(24:00) Well we made it to our train in plenty of time, and this is was the beginning of the weirdest day yet. I actually remembered thinking that morning how it’s been a while since something crazy had happened. This has topped them all.

It began on the train ride to Brindisi. About a third into the trip, the air conditioning quick working on the train. Everyone was pouring with sweat (even the Italians; that’s saying something) and complaining in Italian. Pretty soon, it turned into a dull roar and people almost started freaking out. It was probably close to 100° F outside so it was at least that hot in the train. Finally, at the next stop, they shut off the train and restarted it and somehow got the AC to reset. Shortly after this, an old woman sitting next to me had to get off. While she was sliding by, she knocked over my computer and exclaimed “Mama Mia!” I thought that was pretty funny. Earlier in the ride, Ben had to grab her as she walked back from the bathroom because she was about to walk right on by her seat. Apparently she couldn’t remember where she was sitting. However, once we finally arrived was when the fun started to happen.

Shortly after arrival, we went to a couple places that sold ferry tickets. We couldn’t find any that would give us the price we were looking for so we kept looking. We decided to stop to see if we could pick up the internet anywhere. Just as we were sitting down, a young Australian lady came up to us asking if we spoke English. Once she realized we did, she was so relieved. Apparently she was having the worst day of her trip so far (which had been a couple months already). She asked us if we knew of any place to stay in the area. We told her that if she stuck with us, we were trying to find internet and would then be able to tell her. We picked up a signal from a hotel, but it wasn’t strong enough. She told us where the hotel probably was and then said that she was going to get a bite to eat. We told her that if we found anything we would come back and try to find her. I pretty much expected to never see her again.

After failing to bring up the internet, we happened to be walking by a diner when she saw us and grabbed our attention. Once we told her that we were unsuccessful, she told us that we could leave our bags in her car if we wanted while we walked around. We were hesitant at first, but then she gave us her keys to get into her car, so I figured she was the one taking the risk here. We took her keys and went and found her car after quite a search. On our way back, we found another ferry place that was closing in a few minutes. We decided that we should try to get our tickets before we went back. The ferry place ended up taking a long time to get us taken care of, but we ended up getting a pretty good deal. In the mean time, we were pretty sure that the girl thought we had driven off with her car, so Ben went to find her while I took care of the tickets. Once he found her, they came and met me at the ferry place and we began plotting our next step. We had told her earlier that we were planning on sleeping on the beach, but we didn’t expect her to want to partake. We offered to possibly find a cheap hotel and split the cost three ways. Then she shocked us by saying that sleeping on the beach sounded like a good idea. She later informed us that she had made a little pact with herself to try anything at least once while on this trip. We then all piled into her tiny compact car and began searching for a beach. We had found the water with out a problem, but unfortunately, everything was an industrial port. Since she knew a little Italian, she was able to muster up enough charm to get some directions toward the nearest beach. We started off toward where we thought the beach was, but ended up driving around for a half hour before coming back to our original starting point. We were driving around lost in town for a few minutes when she actually turned the wrong way down a one way street toward oncoming traffic. This wasn’t even the worst part. The oncoming traffic turned out to be a police officer. She pulled us over and got out to talk. She spoke hardly any English, so it was hard to understand the conversation. Eventually, I guess our friend was able to change the subject quick enough to get them to understand we were lost in foreignland. We told her we were looking for a place to stay the night. The lady cop then gave us a police escort to a bed and breakfast. Our friend got out and the cops helped her ring the bell to try to get in. Apparently the place was closed because no one went in and no one came out to greet us. After another lengthy conversation with the cop, we then got another police escort back to the main drag and then we split off and were on our way again. We eventually found a place to park and then walked back into town. We went to a local party store and our friend and Ben went in on a bottle of lemon spritzer just incase we ever found the beach. The guy at the party store knew decent English so he was able to direct us toward the beach. We learned that it would be about a fifteen to twenty minute drive, but we had nothing better to do, so we went for it. We started walking back to her car before we realized that none of us could remember where the car was parked. We ended up walking around for nearly a half hour before we finally found something that looked familiar and found the car.

We then started on our journey toward the next town over to find the beach. I started taking video footage of our car ride when I realized that I didn’t even know our Australian friend’s name. I actually videotaped our formal introductions; probably about two or three hours after we met. Her name is Rebecca.

We drove for quite some time trying to get as near the water as possible. Eventually, we stopped and asked a gentleman on the side of the road where the beach was. He directed us down the road a little ways but told us that the beach had already been closed for the night. We went anyway to check out the scene. Once we got there, we found that the gate was still open and we could walk down to the beach. We started getting our stuff all set to go down when a man walked out with a flashlight to meet us. I’m not sure what was said between the Italian and Rebecca, but it sounded like we were getting kicked out. After they were done talking, she came over to us and told us that he was going to open the beach back up for us. He went and turned the light on down on the waterfront and everything. We were ecstatic.

After hanging out down by the beach for some time and covering many topics of conversation including politics (particularly gun control), cultural differences between the US and Australia, and religion, the man with the flashlight came back down to the beach. Again, it sounded like we were getting kicked. The only English I recognized him saying was “Let’s go!” We then followed him back up to the parking lot. Rebecca and the Italian had another long conversation where she tried to explain to him that we wanted to sleep down there. I figured that this would never fly. However, eventually she came back and told us that he said we could sleep down there. She said that he was closing the gate and so we would be locked in until 7:30 am the next morning. We agreed, he showed us how to turn the lights on if we needed them, and then we went to our separate sleeping quarters. We ended up finding three beach chairs down there to sleep on. We curled up in our blankets, talked, and watched the stars for a while. The stars were amazing because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It is funny that we see the same Big Dipper, North Star, etc. as back home. We saw quite a few shooting stars as well that night. And if the night couldn’t get any better, just as we were about ready to fall asleep, fireworks started shooting off in the distance.

The night literally ended in fireworks

July 17

(13:00) We woke up from our sleep on the beach at about 7:30 am. It was an amazing sleep for being covered in sand and sleeping on a plastic reclining chair. The waves crashing onto the shore and the stiff breeze was all anybody needed to have a good night’s rest. Once we began waking up, we hauled our chairs back and started up toward the parking lot. We almost had everything ready when we were met by the flashlight man again. He wanted to know how our sleep went. We told him as well as we could that it was great and that we were very grateful. We got back in the car and drove back toward town. It was another beautiful day. We got back to town center and finally found a place to park. We needed to find a grocery store and a post office so Rebecca could send a suitcase of clothes home and so Ben could send a postcard to his grandma. We also needed to find an internet café so Rebecca could get some things sorted out back home. We accomplished all of these things over the course of the morning. We were even able to book a hostel in Greece upon our arrival.

Once we had finished our morning errands, we were walking back to the car when Rebecca informed up that she needed to have to car back to the rental place by noon (thinking she had at least an hour). I then informed her that it was 11:45 am. Since she had to drive a half hour to get there and we still were a good walk from the car, we all knew this wasn’t going to happen. She then decided that she would keep the car for another day, drive to Rome (about a six hour drive), and then fly to either Greece or Turkey. And I thought we were spontaneous. Once we finally arrived at the car, we got our bags out and she took off. We told her to facebook us if she ended up going to Greece. I don’t expect to see her again, but by the way this trip has been going, we just might. Right now we are sitting under a shade tree in the middle of the main drag, waiting for our ferry. Everything is closed up for the afternoon due to the Italian version of siesta time. Our ferry leaves at 6:30 pm tonight which means we now have only five hours until departure.

(21:00) Well we sat around in the shade until our free bus left toward the ferry. I bought a dozen plums at the convenience store. Ben ate two, there is three left, and I ate the rest. There may be some negative consequences that ensue from that decision. We will see.

We checked in and ended up walking the rest of the way to the ship. We later figured that there was probably a bus to take us the rest of the way to the ship, but no one was very helpful in our inquiries as to where we were supposed to go. That trend seemed to continue aboard the ship. First we tried to figure out where our seats were and the only thing they told us was that we had to go outside. We went outside to find flimsy chairs and benches as the only accommodations. Besides that, they were wet and stained with who knows what. We then went down to the common area to hang out for a while. I went and took a shower to try to get some of the sand out of my hair from the previous night. Once I got back, Ben was lying on the ground by our seats. Pretty soon we both laid down on the floor and used our bags as pillows. We laid like that for a couple hours before a crew member came and told us that there was no sleeping in that area. I’m not sure how you can make a rule such as “no sleeping,” but we were told to leave. We then went and asked the reception desk where we were expected to find sleeping space. His name tag said he spoke English, but he had to go get someone to translate for him still. Basically, he told us that we were supposed to be in an area that the previous guy told us we weren’t supposed to be in, so we went with his word. Right now we are camped out in a room with just rows of seats. We have our blankets rolled out in the isles, so we are hoping to sleep here without getting kicked out. I’m hoping to just wake up and be in Greece. Let’s see how that plan goes.