Safely Home!

To everyone I met on my travels: Thanks so much for your kindness,
your sleeping surfaces, and most of all your company! These last 9
weeks of my life have been so much fun for me, as well as a great
lesson that you can meet wonderful people no matter where you go.
Sometimes, of a group of you that I've met, I only got one person's
contact information... please feel free to put me in contact with
others that we met, or at least forward this message of thanks along.
I haven't had a chance to friend all of you on facebook yet, but never
fear, I will (as soon as I've gotten a good night's sleep in my own,
comfy bed). If any of you ever come out to California, I'd be happy
to let you stay with me.

For those of you whom I haven't told, I kept up a blog of my trip at
pcombsforchange.blogspot.com. The European leg of my trip was
somewhat sparsely updated, but I intend to go back and write up as
detailed a story as I can remember, as well as post more pictures for
the whole trip.

Again, thanks so much!

Peter Combs

Last night in Europe

So I haven't been able to post much here... I'm spending my last night
in Europe with a couple friends from Princeton, living in London.
Tomorrow afternoon, I fly back to California, landing around 5 PM.

So many places, so little time to write

Since the last post, I´ve seen the absolutely gorgeous Alhambra
(though Alex thought the Alcázar in Seville was more impressive...
we´ve agreed to disagree), wandered the old medina of Tangier,
Morocco, and been across the bridges in Ronda, Spain. And met more
people!

Now we´re in Barcelona for a little bit, before heading off to Rome in
about 24 hours.

Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda!

Here I am at/
Old Granada

Places I've been since posting last

I only have half an hour on this computer, so rather than writing a complete blog post, I'll just give a quick summary of places I've been:
* The island of Mykonos (I have waltzed on a pier)
* Patras, Greece
* A ferry (I made friends with 3 Aussies and 2 Americans)
* Ancona, Italy
* Milan, Italy
* A sleeper train
* Barcelona
* A 186 mph train in Spain
* Madrid

My brother is not as stupid as I am

So Alex actually followed the instructions in the email from our couch surfing host (who is great!), and he actually went to the right part of town, and managed to find the place with little effort (though a bit of serendipity when he ran into the host right outside the building). So, well intentioned as my efforts to meet him at the wrong Dimitrakopoulou or between the station and there were, they were not necessary.

Today, Alex and I, and two other couch surfers Guillaume and Jane Ann went to the Acropolis and the Temple of Zeus. Then, Guillaume left to go bicycling with our host Giannis, so the three of us went to the National Archaeological Museum, wander around a park, and generally be tourists in Athens. Good times were had, along with lots of walking.

In the future, I would say to expect these posts to be shorter and less frequent. Now that Alex is here, we probably won't spend as much time in internet cafes, and also: now that I have someone to talk to regularly in english, this is not my one and only place to gush. Never fear, though, I am taking pictures! Lots and lots of 'em!

Edit: Actually, apparently Alex has a blog too. So Blogging will apparently be something we'll both be doing. I make no promises that there won't be significant overlap.

In Athens... but the wrong part of town.

So apparently there are 2 Dimitrakopoulou Streets in Athens, and Google Maps only knows about the wrong one. I walked an extra kilometer to find this out, when I discovered that the street number I'm looking for does not, in fact, exist. Now I have to walk back. I'm steeling myself for that one, and resting a bit.

I also have to hope I find my brother on the way, or at least hope that he didn't make the same mistake I did.

I thınk I'm sıck of Turkey

No, I thınk I'm lıterally sıck of the country. I was healthy when I arrıved from Syrıa, and sınce then I thınk ıt's possıbly been the same thıng, just masked by varıous medıcatıon.

So today I was plannıng on goıng on a boat trıp up the Bospbouros (sp?), but a nıght spent runnıng between my bed and the toılet meant that a) I was too tıred to wake up ın tıme to make ıt, and b) I wasn't sure ıt was a totally good ıdea anyways.

Instead, I had a pretty slow mornıng, went to a Turkısh Bath, and am more or less just plannıng on lazıng around for the afternoon.

The traın to Greece should be ınterestıng. I thınk my tıcket may only be good untıl the border, where I wıll have to get off and book contınuıng tıckets on my EuRaıl pass... We'll see how that works out.