The Hairy Lemon

July 9-Day 9
We left this morning for Albania. We caught the bus at 7 am to take us the Corfu town. It's a half hour trip by cab. We bought our tickets to Albania and got on the ferry at 9 am. The ferry was only 1 1/2 hours and we were there. We walked over to the info center and it happened to not have much info. So we tried one hotel that ended up being to expensive. I remembered that we had a hostel card that a girl from the last hostel gave us and I called that number fro the hotel. It was answered by an English speaking woman who owns it. She sounded really nice and said she would come over and pick us up from the hotel. She was there in a min. which was great because we were all hot and tired. She arrived in an old jeep with the steering wheel on the wrong side. She told us that she only had two dorm rooms and we might not like that we said no we wouldn't so she suggested a place that she knew that had 4 beds and a little kitchen, but when she showed it to us it was too far out of town and very rustic and no stove or anything to cook on. Then she suggested that maybe we could come to her hostel we could have her room and she would bunk with the girls. We checked it out and it was an apartment with 3 rooms with bunks in each including hers. We loved the apartment and she was great so we decided to stay. The price for us all we only 30 euros including breakfast. We are thinking we will stay for 3 or 4 nights. We only have dial-up here so we won't be posting pictures. It seems like the town will be very interesting. The town is called Saranda and is in Albania. It is quite small with houses spanning up the hillside. There is a waterfront promenade where the small shops and restaurants overlook the Adriatic sea. Saranda looks out towards Corfu. The whole town is in an unfinished state of construction. There are new buildings everywhere you look. It looks like there is a building boom happening and yet nothing is happening. It is all at a standstill. There are buildings that a few floors are done and people or hotels are using and the five stories above it are unfinished. There is also lots of garbage and the streets are in very poor condition. It's like the people up and walked away. We haven't been here long enough to find out what is behind it all. The culture and town and people remind us a bit of what we would think it would be like in Egypt or Turkey, the local music and the bareness of the hills and the way the people look. We went to a wonderful restaurant that was recommended to us by our host. It was called Tani's. They had mostly Italian food, though Dean asked him to make a traditional Albanian dish and he made us mussels fried in butter, tomatoes, feta cheese, garlic and dill. It was amazing and I don't even like mussels. Every dish was the best we've had yet in Europe. There is a UNESCO heritage site here and we are planning on seeing it tomorrow. It is the ancient stone town of Gjirokastra. There is a 13th century castle and the whole town is built from stone. People still live there today.

Albania

We safely made it to Albania. I will post more soon.

Quad safari

July 7- Day 7

We have been very busy. You might think, why would we be so busy but it seems that by the time we get up and have breakfast and walk to 120 stairs and the next 150 steps down the hill and spend some time on the beach and then do it all over again to get back up the hill for supper it is time for bed.
Today we had a great day. We went on a quad safari aound the island of Corfu. Dean and I each got a 300cc quad and the kids rode with us. We started the day with a qroup of 8 quads and the first stop was a beach stop where we spent 30 min. on the beach and in the water cooling off. The temp. was around 35 degrees or so and the water felt great.
Then we continued our trip up the mountain for quite a while till we came to a small church at the top. There we had lunch and took some excellent pictures of the view from the mountain top of the island. The rest of the day we spent driving through small anchient villages and up and down narrow winding roads that were bordered by dark green towering cedars, silver colored olive trees, large flat cacti, grape vines everywhere ,flowers of evey kind and color and winding stone walls. The views were breathtaking and something I never want to forget. Along the way we stopped at a small café and had a gelato and a drink. Our day of quading was complete around 6pm so we had time for a quick dip (back down the steps and again up) before getting ready for dinner at 8:30. Tomorrow we will be heading off to Corfu town to see the sights on the other side of the island and make plans to take a ferry to Albania.

Ah... Greece

July 5-Day 5
Our ferry to Greece was 2 hours late last night and so we arrived to Corfu Greece around noon today. Ahhh Greece. It is already just as they say it is. We got off the ferry and our hostel, the pink palace, was there to pick us up. They drove us the 20 min. across the island to our new home for the next 5 days. We dropped our bags in our room, chucked on our suits and walked the 100 or so steps down to the beach. We were hungry, we hadn’t eaten since last night. We checked out the menu at our hostel and YES they had Greek food. Of course they do. WE ARE IN GREECE. (We have been reminding ourselves all day).
There was some of every kind that we were hoping for. I ordered chicken slovaki with Greek salad, tisiki, flat bread, and french fries. Dean ordered Gyro and Greek salad and Colton ordered a burger(of course). Oh man was it good. Mmmmm…..more for supper. I love Greek food.
We spent the whole afternoon at the beach resting up from our ferry ordeal. It was definitely not as romantic as it might seem. We ended up in a cold room with a very loud snoring man all night long. Bleck, it was ugly. Colton and Miranda handled it great of course. It’s us old people who can’t fall asleep on a hard cold floor without our perfectly soft pillow and absolute quiet. Oh well, we are rested up again and ready to go go go again tomorrow.
Oh I should try to describe the island of Corfu. It is a fairly large island as far as islands go. It is quite mountainous. The roads wind in and through and over the hills. The hills are full of grape bushes and olive trees. It is lush and gorgeous. It is a place that I could spend a lot of time. The roads are filled with drivers all seemingly in a hurry. But it could be they just want to get to supper. I know I do so I will talk more about this great country some other time. Ciao!

Rome

July 3-day3

We woke up this morning, quickly ate our breakfast of melba toast and jam and our ¼ cup of espresso. Mmmm mmm good.
Rome is magnificent and brutal at the same time. With the wrong attitude ( or if you are exteremely tired) you’ll be frustrated by the kind of caos only an Italian can understand, though we met many who threw up their hand in frustration. We took the train into Rome and now that we know more about the train system it was a positive experience. We bought the Rome pass so that we could get into a few museums and have free train and subway for the next 3 days. We hopped on the metro and went first to the Coliseum. The first glimpse of the ancient ruins was spectacular. It was defiantly something everyone should see. It was huge and amazing to think that it was here before Christ. Wow! We hired a tour guide to show us around and we both thought that it was worth it to hear about what we were seeing. I also think I would like to watch the movies the gladiator and troy. They have done some work on the floor of the coliseum and so now you can see a bit of how it looked before the floor disappeared.
We then jumped on the metro again and took a quick ride over to Vatican City. We now have been to 3 countries so far in the last 3 days. We stopped for .lunch in a little Italian restraint and had some pasta.
We first visited St. Peters Basilica. We walked in and were immediately in awe. It is the biggest most impressive church in the world. I can’t even describe how amazing it is. There is so much to see, we walked around for a few hours until we all had sore feet and it was time to stop for gelato.
We arrived back at our hostel around 8pm and had a supper of bread and cheese and I brought a package of mac and cheese for the kids. Time for bed. Tomorrow we leave Zagarolo for Bari where we will take the ferry to Greece.

Zagarolo, Italy

July 2-Day 2

I just woke up from a nap. It is 5pm and it is thundering and raining. It rained yesterday at this time also but we were standing in the train station. This feels much better.
Today we slept in. I till 9:30 and the kids till 11:30. Dean ran down to see if we missed breakfast and we just got there in time. I asked him to bring me some coffee. He took my go cup. I decided to go down after all and our host had made me coffee. It was in a small plastic coffee cup and the cup had about ¼ cup of coffee in it. So much for my long lesturly coffee. I filled the cup up with milk and downed it. We took the kids up a plate of buns and juice. The buns turned out to be lemon buns, so Colton had some left over crackers from the plane and peanut butter from home and Miranda had a granola bar from our stash. After hauling around all that weight yesterday we needed to start eating some of it.
After breakfast we decided to walk into town. It is a short walk down the hill from our hostel. The town is an old wine town in the hills call Zagarolo. It has narrow streets with little walkways going off from the main street down the hill. The town is build on a narrow long hill so there is one street down the length of it with buildings on either side. It is beautiful. There is an old fountain in the middle of a courtyard and a town hall and a small castle. There are small pizzarias and shops selling gelato. We stopped at a pizzeria that our hostel host had recommended and had eggplant parmation and pizza. Then we found a shop a few streets down and had gelato. As we wandered through the town we fell in love with the area. It will be hard to go back into Rome tomorrow and be in the husstle and bussle of the big city and all the tourists. In Zagarolo, we were the only tourists that we could tell. Just as we headed back to the hostel at 4pm the big thunder storm started. We were all ready for a rest anyways.
For supper, Dean and Colton went down to the markets in town and brought back salami, smoked ham, focatia bread,mellon and peaches. We had a great supper and shortly after the kids went to bed . Tomorrow we go back to Rome so it will be a busy day.

Italian planes, trains and automoblies

Europe Day 1

We left our home away from home on June 30th with rest and relaxation and less stress in mind.After spending the last month packing and planning we all needed a little less stress. That lasted until we landed in Rome or rather, when we tried to get out of the airport. Even that was not that bad. The part where I almost lost it was when we stood in line for 20 minutes to buy a train ticket and just when we were going to run to the train, Miranda said the words you really don't want to hear when you are in a hurry. "I have to go to the bathroom". Well where in the world is the bathroom? You could tell from the way she was crossing her legs that she wasn't kidding. So I took a quick glance around to find one that was close. Well things were looking up. So off we ran while Dean and Colton watched the bags. Down the stairs and there it was…. Oh no, we had to pay to get in. Well lucky for us Dean had given me some change before to try to use the phone and so I had something resembling money in my pocket. Try as we did, we had a really hard time figuring out how this thing was supposed to work . Finally we saw a change maker on the far wall and I got the correct change to get us in. Fhew, that was close.
We ran back up to the guys and took off to find the train among the many gates. There it was! We ran to the train, jumped on to find that it was packed. Totally packed, right to the doors. With just enough room for us. From experience we knew to ask the first person who looked friendly if we were on the right train. We asked a lady that we were standing next to and she looked at the place we wanted to go and the ticket and said "no, we were NOT on the right train" Ahhh! So we asked someone else (because you can't necessarily trust the first person), and no everyone around looked and said we were on the wrong train. We quickly got off as the train was ready to take off. So there we were, again standing on the platform waiting, not knowing where to go, again. We looked around for a info desk or something to get some kind of information on what to do. Nothing. We asked many a passing person for help. Nothing. We asked a police officer if he could point us in the direction of a info desk, and that was the most interesting. He said in perfect English "I don't speak English". So I said in my perfect imitation Italian accent, " Oh, information desk?". He looked me right in the face and said in a very condescending voice, "I don't speak English" and rolled his eyes. I said to Dean that he was a bit of a rude Italian B****** and then got crap from Colton for swearing. Yes, my best look under stress. So I apologized to Colton and we got back on our way for the search for the way to get out of this awful, busy city. This was the point that I remembered hearing about a girl who wanted to go to Europe after high school by her self and backpack around. She got to Europe and turned right around and came home. At this moment, I wanted to turn around and go home. I got tears in my eyes as I thought of all the hours we had been traveling that day and I thought of the hostel that we booked cancelling our reservation because we were late. I thought of a nice warm bed and food. We hadn't eaten anything but airplane food all day and night. It was already 6pm and we needed to get to our hostel and we couldn't figure it out. I was so frustrated. Because I had booked this stupid hostel I felt to blame that we couldn't find it. But Dean, ever so calmly said we would go back to the ticket booth (which was a far walk away and we still had to carry all our backpacks) and get new tickets. So we followed him back there as I wiped my tears of frustration away. The ticket guys was oh so sorry and issued us new tickets to the right town. So we ran back to the area to find the train to the right town. It was supposed to leave at 6:24 which came and gone, then at 7pm. As we ran back looking around for a schedule and gate number a man saw our frustration and helped us to call the hostel from a pay phone and tell them we were on our way. They told him they would be at the station waiting for us. That took away some stress knowing they at least knew we would be there that night. Dean went to read the time board again as we realized they had changed the train at the last moment and everyone ran for the new train gate and jumped on the train that was getting ready to leave. It was packed. Standing room only, with our packs we found a spot along a hallway and stairs and people kept jumping on and squishing in and soon we just huddled there together in the heat and again we asked the people around us who for a country that supposedly all speak English didn't understand us. Other than one young guy. Who in his broken English said we were on the right train as he was going to the same town. Yeah!!! So there we stood, without a window to look out of without knowing where we were going really, but at least we were going somewhere. I was not going to take my eye off the guy.
We rode the train for an hour till the guy said this is our stop and we all pulled our way out from the crowd into the fresh air. We followed the crowd of people walking to the station and there we found the hostel people waiting for us with their car. Oh thank God we were here. He helped us in and took us up the hill a bit and 5 min. later we were putting our pack down and sitting in our room. Ahhh, it was all good. The hostel is great, we are out of the city and in a small town where it is quiet and slow. They ordered us pizza from a great little shop and Dean went with them to pick it up. We sat down to a thin crust authentic Italian pizza at 9pm and went to bed. Day 1 over.