I want to break free

I arrived in Madrid a bit of a mess. I haven't been as sick as I was in Paris for a really long time and the train ride was the roughest part of the entire trip. Trains cancelled, trains delayed, insane amounts of waiting (like 2.5 hours for a 4 minute train ride), seeing way more of France than I really planned on and thinking that I wasn't going to make it to Madrid at all, I finally got here around midnight. Come to find out that EuroPride was going on in Madrid, which was probably why all the trains were booked. I don't know if I have ever seen so many dudes in one place. Tonight there was an incredible 4 hour parade. The energy that is jumping around the streets is ridiculous.

Meeting up with my family has breathed a little life into my travelling self. It helps that my family really knows how to travel and I can just sit back and relax. My mom says this is the least amount she has prepared for a trip...she knows the map of Madrid like the back of her hand and is a walking tour guide around the city. Awesome. Tomorrow night we leave for La Rioja region of Spain to check out a bunch of vineyards. It's a tough life.

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie

So I like Rome a lot more than I thought I would. A lot a lot more. The Vatican was a bit disappointing, being the only 'Catholic' in our group, I was asked a bit more about what I thought.

What I thought was that there was no way to be incredibly impacted by what we saw because of the infuriating system they made for showing it. I am sorry but cramming into the Sistine Chapel with hundreds of people who are talking and snapping pictures while the guards are shushing and clapping and yelling for people to stop talking and snapping pictures really took away from the grandeur of Michelangelo's works of art. It was really a shame.

Oh well.
The food is really good.

It is getting a little annoying that people keep thinking Adam and I are a couple though. Sick. No offense Adam.

ew

Are you hanging on the edge of your seat

Sitting in an internet cafe in Pompei right now. Belly full of gnocchi, espresso, crappy wine and faux tiramisu. After 50 hours of travelling that went off insanely smoothly, I am a pretty happy camper.

I think the weirdest thing about the places we have been are the toilets. From the club with no doors on any stalls or regular bathroom door, to the multiple toilets without seats (how difficult is it fix a toilet seat?), I get pretty happy when I find a nice bathroom. It is the little things that make me happy obviously. Like the clean pillowcase on my hostel pillow. Living the dream.

To our shores, to our own parts

Past conversation:
"Why are you going to Macedonia??"
"I'm a fourth Macedonian."... "Jenna's a fourth Macedonian."

Future conversation.
"Why did you go to Macedonia??"
"It's insanely beautiful, the people are awesome, it's cheap, why would you not go to Macedonia???...and I'm a fourth Macedonian."


Taking pictures, writing in my journal, I lose all eloquence when I sit down in an internet cafe. There will be a waterfall of posts once I get home...in less than a month.

It's raining stray cats and dogs in Istanbul right now. Good thing we're headed to Macedonia (FYRoM if you're annoying) via Bulgaria tonight. Nothing like getting to know your roots, what what.

pump your fist song

I have no idea what is going on in the world...Tonight we head back to Istanbul after our crazy cruise of Athens, Istanbul, Patmos, Kusadasi, Rhodes, Crete, Mykonos and Santorini...climbed a volcano, rode a donkey, got my knee cut up from the donkey, swam in hot (warm) springs... I will eventually write more. No time now, there's a bus to be caught and water to be bought. Here we go!