Roma - Bari - Patras - Athina

On Saturday, as usual, Alex and I rushed to the train station... I'm never early for these kinda stuff... dang it!

Anyways, I managed to catch the train from Rome to Bari. It was about a 5-hour ride... which wasn't too bad... then, I had to catch a bus form the Bari train station to the port. For some reason I thought it would be right there... and I haven't even made reservations! yikes!

Luckily there's a bunch of people who speaks English heading over there too! I met Adam (from Canada, traveling for 3 months), Christian (form Mexico City, traveling for 2 months) and Tomoko (from Japan, traveling for 2 months)

On the ferry, we met more people! Yeay backpackers!!! There were 2 Canadian girls, Michelle and Emily (who happen to be couchsurfers too!!) and 3 guys from New Jersey (Chris, Bob a& Phil). We're a fun bunch!

It was a 15 hour ride, from 8 p.m. to the next day at 12.15p.m. - and we all got the deck passes - 17 Euros, on top of our Eurorail pass. 

Anyways deck passes meaning we're only allowed on the deck, out in the open, all night. So you can imagine, it was freezing cold and we had to use our sleeping bags and either sleep on the floor or on the bench.

It was an interesting night though - long... but interesting. We watched Juno on my macbook at about 10 p.m. , then... we started this really intense political conversation about the United States.

Chris, Bob and Phil seem to really know what the hell is actually goin on with the country, unlike many other American kids. And they were trying to explain to the Canadians (Michelle, Emily and Adam) about how things work in the States.

I'm not going to get into details but it was entertaining to listen in. So it went on till 3 a.m. We all decided to try to sleep. I was out the minute I was in my sleeping bag. As always, lol.

I woke up at 8a.m. sweating like a pig coz the sun was right there! And we got breakfast! (2 eggs, bacon, sausages - 4.50 Euros) 

At 12.15, we were in Patras and walked to the train station to head over to Athens. We had to wait for 2 hours - we met another 2 Canadian girls. I swear they are everywhere!!!!

On the way there, we were told to switch trains, so we all went down and had to wait for like an hour. As always, things are never uneventful. Adam left his phone in the toilet. He realized it right after he came out though, and went back it to look for it. It was gone. I tried calling it with my phone, then someone picked up!!! And everything I heard through the phone, I'm hearing right where I was standing! So, we figured someone must have had the phone and accidentally answered. We found out that it was a guy, who's in the toilet - taking a crap probably =)

So Adam was like knocking and yelling "Dude, you have my phone!!!", about to knock down the door, then this creepy looking man came out and gave him his phone. He took it out of his pocket. Pretty sketchy....

Anyways, we got to Athens and took the metro to the stop near Ubava's apartment - my 4th couchsurfing host. 

Oh, and I just converted Adam to be a couchsurfer!!! LOL, anyways, Ubava was nice enough to let us stay over. 

For dinner, I had the best souvlaki ever!!! (2 of them and a coke - 5 Euros)

According to Wikipedia:

Souvlaki (Greek: Σουβλάκι) is a popular Greek fast food consisting of small pieces of meat and sometimes vegetables grilled on a skewer. It may be served on the skewer for eating out of hand, in a pita sandwich with garnishes and sauces, or on a dinner plate, often withfried potatoes or pilaf. The meat is traditionally pork in Greece and Cyprus, or in modern times increasinglychicken. In other countries and for tourists, souvlaki may be made with other meats such as beef, lamb and sometimes fish (especially swordfish).

We got back, took a shower and went to a bar nearby.We met George, another Greek couchsurfer, yeay!!! and a couple of Ubava's friend came and join us. I had 2 pints of Alfa beer (Greek beer) - 8 Euros and at another club, a bottle of Heineken - 5 Euros.

Her group of friends were really fun and they speak good English! yeay again! they met through role-playing games... pretty interesting..

It's 4 a.m., time to go to bed.