[Ed.'s note: Since I strive to make the reader experience my experiences as much as possible, I'm going to ask you to play and replay this song for the entirety of the blog post, as it was being whistled, sung, hummed, or otherwise stuck in every single person's head for the entire week:
There. Now you'll feel like you were there.]
The trip started off well enough. I woke up balls early on the morning of February 18th, met Simon at the correct time, met Kat, Sarah, and Jenn at the right time, and got into the airport at the right time. At this point we realize that we can't take both a carry-on and a personal item onto the plane, so we begin consolidating: I shove my toiletries and my homework stuff into my new Adidas bag and consider myself fine. As the backpack I'd brought somehow got a hole in the bottom at some point along our journey to the airport, this consolidation didn't really bother me. Sarah, on the other hand, whose shoes were hanging out of the side pockets on her backpack, probably had other opinions.
Kat's bag is too big, so she has to check it. Meanwhile, I'm looking for a place in the airport to dump my backpack that won't make it look like a bomb attempt. I find nothing. I ask the guy running the X-ray machine if he can just keep it, and he hands it back to me and tells me to take it upstairs. I am not pleased.
I take the bag upstairs begrudgingly, where we wait patiently for our gate to show up on the departures screen. Eventually it does, and we prepare to bounce to Greece. We get into the waiting area, and finally our plane boards. On board, I realize I don't have my backpack. I must have left it in the waiting area! I tell myself happily. That's right, I've graduated to only losing the things I'm trying to lose. Quite a change of pace, really.
SUDDENLY:
A voice calls from the heavens: "We're looking for a passenger named David Wile. If David Wile is on board, please press the assistance button overhead."
I freak out temporarily. How did they find out? I ask myself. Then, like a vision in one of those god-awful CSI episodes, I remember that I left the boarding pass from my flight to Berlin with my name on it in the front pocket of the bookbag, and these asshole detectives in the airport went to every length to reunite me with my useless, empty backpack.
After a brief internal debate, I press the button. They bring that burdensome, god-forsaken residual of creation in to me. "You're lucky, you almost left your backpack!" these naïve imbeciles tell me.
I thank them quietly and sit back down. The backpack's coming to Greece.
On the bright side, I get to bring both a carry-on and a personal item. On the other hand, my personal item is haunting my ass like the Ghost of Christmas Past. After some solid naptime, we land in Athens.
We get off the plane and head outside the airport, where, for the first time in our European lives, we experience warmth. We freak out, immediately begin stripping our clothes, and Simon tells us just how smart he is for not bringing a jacket. For the next week, just to show Simon up, the weather would never be this nice again.
Kat's bag is too big, so she has to check it. Meanwhile, I'm looking for a place in the airport to dump my backpack that won't make it look like a bomb attempt. I find nothing. I ask the guy running the X-ray machine if he can just keep it, and he hands it back to me and tells me to take it upstairs. I am not pleased.
I take the bag upstairs begrudgingly, where we wait patiently for our gate to show up on the departures screen. Eventually it does, and we prepare to bounce to Greece. We get into the waiting area, and finally our plane boards. On board, I realize I don't have my backpack. I must have left it in the waiting area! I tell myself happily. That's right, I've graduated to only losing the things I'm trying to lose. Quite a change of pace, really.
SUDDENLY:
A voice calls from the heavens: "We're looking for a passenger named David Wile. If David Wile is on board, please press the assistance button overhead."
I freak out temporarily. How did they find out? I ask myself. Then, like a vision in one of those god-awful CSI episodes, I remember that I left the boarding pass from my flight to Berlin with my name on it in the front pocket of the bookbag, and these asshole detectives in the airport went to every length to reunite me with my useless, empty backpack.
After a brief internal debate, I press the button. They bring that burdensome, god-forsaken residual of creation in to me. "You're lucky, you almost left your backpack!" these naïve imbeciles tell me.
I thank them quietly and sit back down. The backpack's coming to Greece.
On the bright side, I get to bring both a carry-on and a personal item. On the other hand, my personal item is haunting my ass like the Ghost of Christmas Past. After some solid naptime, we land in Athens.
 |
| Right to left: Jenn, Kat, Sweetness, Sarah, Satan himself. Photo credit: Simon Kurash |
We get off the plane and head outside the airport, where, for the first time in our European lives, we experience warmth. We freak out, immediately begin stripping our clothes, and Simon tells us just how smart he is for not bringing a jacket. For the next week, just to show Simon up, the weather would never be this nice again.
We had a number of options to choose from to get to the hostel:
Because getting places is literally the thing I am worst at on this earth, I thought it would be hilarious to take responsibility for getting us to the hostel. I watched that little film about five times the night before, and wrote down all the little tips for "Option 3: Metro." Simon leads us to the trains.
It is at this moment that the girls begin a wonderful, exciting new trend I started affectionately referring to as "always second-guessing Simon." This fun little fad starts with Simon choosing a generally correct direction in which to walk, with me steadfastly by his side. The girls then walk a few yards behind muttering to themselves, "I don't think this is the right way;" "I don't think he knows where he's going;" "I remember this, we needed to turn left back there." We then promptly arrive where we're intending to go. Like clockwork.
After some massive confusion regarding the train situation because the Greek authorities want to keep the specifics of their Metro system confidential, we get onto the train slightly frustrated with each other and get off at Monastiraki Square, right by some sweet-ass ruins and in view of the Acropolis. I take over from here. [Ed.'s note: Go up and hit replay on "Dynamite" again. I know you haven't done it for awhile.] I see the ice cream store, walk to it, turn left, find the street with Kodak on the corner, turn right, and pull up to the AthenStyle hostel. We waltz on in, noticing how nicely decorated the common area is.
We pull up to the desk, where the receptionist calmly searches for our booking, finds nothing, and tells us we're at the wrong hostel. After some brief moments of disbelief, the receptionist brings us around to her side of the argument, and we see the error of our ways. She tells us how to get to the hostel we actually booked. We have to go to the other side of the Acropolis, walk three-quarters of a mile with our luggage in tow, and ultimately find our real hostel. When we get there, it is just a green door, no sign, in the middle of shopping center next to an erotica shop. Somewhere along this detour, we realize how we reached such a state of confusion:
At our original planning sesh, only Simon, Kat, Sarah, and myself were present. We'd decided on AthenStyle at that moment. When we booked it with Jenn, there weren't any rooms for 5 people left. Without my knowledge, Simon booked a different hostel because only that one could fit us.
The entire situation was clearly Jenn's fault. For this, as self-proclaimed enlightened despot of the group, I gave her a strike: the first strike of the trip. This strike system would prove not just a useful tool of despotic maintenance, but a necessary one, as everything possible that could go awry went so; only the heavy-handed leadership of one so judicious as myself prevented the group from descending into pure and irretrievable Chaos.
From that thesis, the rest of the trip shall be documented in a Tara-esque list form.
ATHENS
What went wrong:
- The hostel situation, which forced us from a clean place with friendly service and a rooftop bar with a view of the Acropolis to this place:
 |
| Seen here on the set of our upcoming musical, Greekin' a Shit. |
- Simon didn't fit on the bed.
- Jenn turned on the lights post-naptime, for which she earned a second strike
- Athenian nightlife, which consists of loud music playing while everyone dares everyone else to start dancing to it
- Jenn struck out the next afternoon for not being at the table when, after 15 minutes, the waiter finally showed up to take our order, thereby making us wait even longer
- Sarah struck out shortly after that upon achieving the quickest strikeout in David-administered strikeout history
- I tackled Kat (beautiful tackle, mind you) on pavement, for which I took a strike as well
- I struck out swinging; specifically, swinging my left arm into the jar of pretzels on the nightstand next to me, spilling them majestically all over the floor of the hostel
- Simon's Snore-Fest 2011
- Sarah ate chips on the bed at 4 in the AM, and chocolate before bed every night, and then bitched about her digestive problems for the next five days
- That bitch who kept blowing her whistle and yelling at us to get down every time we used a ruin as a prop for a picture
 |
| Come on, woman, it's just the Altar of Zeus. Photo credit: Kat Semel |
- Jenn got followed back to the hostel by a less-than-upstanding-seeming Greek man
- Kat slipped on every staircase she could find
- Jenn convinced me and Simon to get off the bus at the wrong stop, making us walk two more stops to get back to the hostel
- Jenn eventually tallied 5 strikes in a single city, an impressive number when one considers the unbiased nature of the strike system
What went right:
[Ed.'s note: WHY ISN'T "DYNAMITE" PLAYING RIGHT NOW???]
ROME
- The initiation of the strike system
- Cheap, delicious food
- 2 Euro wine
- Really, the form on that tackle was just a thing of beauty
- The Acropolis
 |
| ACROPOLYPSE NOW!!! |
- My assumption of the role of tour guide
- A stray dog chased a stray cat into some ruins in the Acropolis; I jumped around screaming like a small child in front of God and all his children when I saw this happen. I will never experience the pure joy and happiness I felt in that moment ever again.
- The ascent of Mount Lycabettus, which gave us a view of the entire city
- I finally got to ditch my bookbag.
- Statue pics:
 |
| Photo credit: Kat Semel |
 |
| Photo credit: Simon Kurash |
 |
| Photo credit: Jenn Smith |
 |
| Photo credit: Jenn Smith |
ROME
What went wrong:
What went right:
- Grappa.
 |
| Grappa. Photo credit: Kat Semel |
- The ticket counter employee at the Castel Sant'Angelo flipped over our Freie Universität IDs to discover that we are not Art History majors, but rather "Politik- und Sozialwiss." majors, thereby foiling our attempt to sneak in free entry on account of our IDs being in German; apparently, "Politik" and "Sozial" are fairly universal words nowadays.
- Simon possibly bought a girls' sweatshirt
- Sarah's bladder
 |
| This scene occurred roughly 362 times per day. Photo credit: Kat Semel |
- We lost Jenn every 20 feet, only to have her pop up seconds later and claim she was there the whole time. Don't lie to me, Jenn.
- The 30 degree temperature difference between sun and shade
- I dropped 30 Euros on dinner the first night.
- Those fucking terrible people at the Spanish Steps who shamelessly hawked their wares; no, I do not want a little whatsamajigger that makes a sound vaguely reminiscent to that of a cricket - I find this item quite useless, actually, and I'm just trying to sit on some goddamned stairs, not find reasons to injure myself and others around me.
- Luigi, the hostel owner, and his breakfasts
- Ancient Rome
 |
| Impressive, but more so were it built in a day. |
- The Vatican, which we circumnavigated in about 2 hours looking for catacombs that apparently were not near the Vatican
 |
| "Well, would you look at that! A country. Right there!" Photo credit: Kat Semel |
- Gelato
- Jersey Shore in Italy with Italian subtitles; who lets this happen?
 |
| Meta-stereotype? |
- We ran into fellow FU-BESTers, who entertained us with delightful stories of drinking on the beach and then waking up getting choked out in a headlock mid-mugging.
- The memories of 6-year-old me were validated, although now that I think about it, there's very little chance that my mom, my brother, and I were the only ones in the Collosseum that day. Whatever. We were the only ones in the Collosseum that day that mattered.
[Ed.'s note: I think it's time to "entzünden diesen Club, sowie Dynamit," if you know what I'm saying. And I think you know what I'm saying.]
VENICE
What went wrong:
- That one time I had to pee for three hours kinda blew.
- We payed 7 Euros for microwaved lasagna from Asians in a bar after being tricked by the pictures on the menu
- Kat abandoned the group, which delayed dinner because then the group had to go looking for Kat despite the fact that she was fine. If you're gonna derail the group, at least get sexually harassed or roll an ankle or something. Jesus Christ, it's just common courtesy, woman.
- Jenn and Kat lead a popular revolt against the strike system which is put down not without difficulty.
- No one fell into a canal. Fucking ridiculous.
What went right:
- Every other sentence of mine became: "Where we're going, we don't need roads."
- Simon's dead-pan, upon running into fellow FU-BESTers inquiring as to the whereabouts of Kat during her group-abandonment phase: "We lost Doug."
- Our contemplations regarding the decision-making process that resulted in Venice happening
- Masks
 |
| It's practically an invisibility cloak. |
- I ran into Katherine Van Lent and Lauren Gardner from the American University, who are studying in Florence for the semester.
- No one broke any Murano glass; good job, team.
- Venice
 |
| SPLA-DOOSH. |
[Ed.'s note: Go ahead and turn off "Dynamite" now.]
No comments:
Post a Comment