Day 21 - Ferry to Venice

Tuesday, June 1st - I woke up the next morning feeling less than great - I was only on a few hours of sleep and hungover. I was thankful that we had a late start, we didn't have to be on the coach until 10am. We were catching a ferry to Venice but still had a some time to kill before it docked. Apparently we were lucky to even be getting a ferry as most of them were on strike. We spent about an hour in the markets of Corfu and then Sukhey and I grabbed some cappuccinos and relaxed until it was time to get back on the coach to head to the port. We ended up waiting over 2 hours for the ferry but we weren't sure exactly when it was coming in so we couldn't wander off very far. For the most part I just watched the boys kick around a soccer ball and grabbed some gelato. When the ferry finally came in it was well worth the wait - it was huge with tons of shops, a pool, disco and a few restaurants; as an added bonus beds were actually super comfy. Definitely an improvement over the ferry we took to Corfu. This would be our home for the next 24 hours.

After taking a quick tour of the ferry I decided to take a nap for a few hours. Sukhey, Jas, Sandra and I all met up for dinner and we joined Starr, Rochelle and Matty Ray. It was a high school cafeteria concept diner - just grab what you want. It ended up being really expensive, over 20 Euros and the food wasn't very good. Other members of the tour waited until 9pm for the restaurant to open up and apparently they had a great meal, I was jealous. After dinner we decided to get a game over Crazy 8's going in the lounge. We then started up a big came of Cheat with some of the other tour members. I'm horrible at this game, every time I tried to lie Alex knew right away and called me out on it. After our card game most people went to bed but a few of us stayed up. In the end it was Tom, Rochelle, Sukhey, the Amigo's and I left. We spent most of the night looking at all the pictures the Amigo's had taken from the first two weeks of the tour. I should mention that when I refer to the Amigo's I'm talking about Shane, Matt F and Ben, they were nicknamed that early on in the tour and it stuck. Between the 3 Amigos they were pretty good at documenting the highlights of the tour as well as everyone's worst moments. We all then decided to check out the disco but it ended up being a bunch of 15 year old kids dancing so we decided to just head to bed.

I woke up pretty late the next morning, the room was so dark I probably had my best sleep of the entire tour. We still had a few hours until we docked so I went wandering around looking for something to do. Eventually I ended up in the lounge and the Amigo's taught me how to play Hearts and we played a few games until it was time to dock.

Waiting for the Ferry to Venice

The Ferry - such an improvement over the first one!

Pool on the Ferry

Day 20 - The Greek Adventure Continues

Monday, May 31st - We had a free day to spend in Corfu so a large group of us decided to make the 1.5 hour trek to the beach. Most people caught the 10am bus, but Sukhey, Rochelle, Lorraine and I were a bit slow moving so we ended up catching the 11am bus. When we went to transfer buses we found out that the next bus to the beach wouldn't be coming for another 2 hours! We didn't want to miss out on the beach so the 4 of us decided to grab a cab to the beach. 20 minutes and 25 Euros later we made it, and only about 20 minutes after the rest of the group. The weather was perfect for the beach - clear blue skies and it was hot! The group of us spent the afternoon goofing around on the beach and in the water.

Sukhey, Rochelle, Lorraine and I decided to squeeze in some quick shopping in the city before going back to the hotel. There wasn't too much open because of siesta but we did find a few open shops where I was able to find a cute outfit to wear out that night. After quickly stopping for some gelato we went back to the hotel to get ready for our organized Greek dinner. My "contiki cough" was starting to get really bad so Suhkey and I went to the hotel bar to for a hot brandy. Another Contiki tour had arrived at our hotel the evening before and we ran into their tour guide at the bar, he was super friendly and really good looking. Can speak something like 5 languages - can we trade Sian for him?

We arrived at our Greek dinner and were greeted with a shot of Ouzo at the door - pretty good way to start a meal! The actual food was alright, nothing to complain about but didn't blow me away either. There was some Greek dancing going on during our dinner and after we got to partake in the traditional Greek dancing - the dance when everyone links arms in a big circle and dance around. By the end of dinner everyone had a pretty decent buzz going from all the free wine that came with our meal. A bunch of us decided to go out for our last night in Greece. Sian organized cabs for us and we were on our way. We ended up at an outdoor bar that was right on the water. This turned into a pretty drunken night - lots of free shots from the bartender and everyone got pretty smashed. Yuri and Jake were throwing people's shoes in the water - thankfully Kristen saved my Guess shoes from Jake. I would have been livid if they had gotten thrown in. Ended up being a pretty late night - everyone stumbled home around 4am. Kristen, Alex and I thought it would be a good idea to go wake up Ben who didn't come out that night, we found him and Shane sleeping and woke them up. I don't think they appreciated it! Finally got to my room around 5am and decided to sleep outside on the balcony because it was so hot in our room. It my drunkness I thought it would be quite nice to sleep outside, it actually kinda was!

Beach in Corfu

Sukhey and Rochelle enjoying some Iced Coffee, yum!

Waiting for the bus after the beach

Sukhey, Jas, Karisten and I at the Greek Dinner

End of the night at the bar

Day 19 - More fun in the sun in Corfu

Sunday, May 30th - We all got up early the next morning for our all day boat cruise on George's boat. We were all pretty hung over, especially Brylie and Jas. Before arriving at George's boat I had envisioned a boat of decent size with sun loungers and lots of space. I was wrong, the boat was actually pretty small with only benches to sit on. It was pretty chilly and overcast that morning, definitely didn't feel like a good day to be out on the water. George was an interesting character, loud and a bit vulgar. It's obviously a show and I got sick of it pretty fast. The first stop of the morning was a sports adventure place. I signed up for the banana boat with some of the other girls. I was only thrown off once, some of the other girls were thrown off twice and Chloe managed to stay on the entire time. I got my first gulp of salt water...I had no idea it was actually taste that salty. I did get a nasty bruise when I got thrown off - between the bruise from the previous night and the one from the banana boat I was starting to look pretty banged up. The boys then took their turn on the banana boat, they had more people then seats so Ali sat in the middle. The driver of the boat was a lot more harder on the boys then us girls, they were thrown off in about 30 seconds. Funny to watch. After I grabbed sun lounger on the and took a bit of a nap in the sun and then it was time to eat lunch on the boat. Yummy tzatiki, veggies and some really good fries.

After lunch we were back out on the water and we stopped after about an hour and a bunch of us jumped into the water for a swim. The water was nice and refreshing. After about 30 minutes we were back on the boat and headed over to skinny-dipping island and stopped off at a seal show on the way. A few people jumped off the boat at skinny-dipping island and a couple of guys took off their shorts in the water but I opted to stay on the boat. I had finally just dried off and didn't want to get wet again. Once everyone was back on the boat George had everyone stand up for their country and sing the national anthems. The Aussies went first - their national anthem is pretty upbeat, especially with 32 of them singing. Next us Canadians went up - there were 8 of us and wow, "Oh Canada" sounds pretty boring compared to the Aussie national anthem. After the Canadians the 3 Americans went up followed by the 3 UK representatives and finally poor Yuri got up alone to sing the Japanese national anthem. It was finally time to head back to land which I was more than ready for, it had been a long day.

The rest of the evening was pretty quiet. After another buffet dinner a group of people starting playing charades. I watched for a bit but then went to bed pretty early - the day in the sun had me exhausted.

George's Boat

Boys on Banana Boat

Girls on Banana Boat

Aussies Singing

Canadians

Day 18 - Greece!

Saturday, May 29th - We arrived in Corfu around 8am and got to our hotel around 9. The hotel was fairly nice but not exactly what I thought it would be. It did have a nice pool but it was really far away from the beach - two bus rides away! This was a bit of a let down. Our hotel room was pretty good, fairly large and had a balcony. After a quick shower we headed into the city for a few hours. There wasn't much sightseeing in Corfu so Sukhey, Jas, Sandra, Sarah and I decided to go shopping. We wandered around the markets in the old part of town and ended up at the port. We stopped to grab lunch at a restaurant called Tweety's and it was a fantastic meal! We were seated right on the water and the waiter was fantastic. The food was fabulous - feta, olives and tzatziki and large platters of chicken, lamb and pork. Finished everything off with complimentary shots of Ouzo. The 3 year old daughter of the owner of the restaurant took quite a liking to me, picking me out from the group to give me a flower and a hug. She was simply adorable and stole my heart. After lunch we ran into the amigos and a few others who pointed us towards the newer part of the city. We then found some decent shops and I picked up a few more things - a cute dress and a couple shirts.

It was time to head back to the hotel and I decided to check out the pool. There was already quite a lot of our tour mates in the pool and on the sun loungers. Sukhey and I grabbed a couple loungers and soaked up some of the delicious Greek sun. After a quick swim we went to the poolside bar and I got the most extravagant cocktail I've ever had - it was topped with rose petals! Tasted as good as it looked. Back on the sun loungers a bunch of us started playing Telephone, yes the same game everyone plays in kindergarten - still fun years later! I decided to go and grab a quick nap before dinner. I grabbed some pillows and blankets and stretched out on the balcony for a few quiet moments.

It was Amy's and Dustin's birthday so most people planned to go out that night. We did some pre-drinking in some one's room and then headed to Eden Bar which was suggested by Sian. The bar was pretty great - it was right on the water. First thing I did was kick off my shoes and role up my jeans to go test out the water. The bar also had watermelons for purchase that came with 26ers of vodka - a bunch of us bought one and Sian bought another one for Dustin and Amy. The only downfall to the night was the step from the patio going into the bar, I tripped on it more than once and banged up my knee pretty badly. Had a few nice bruises the next morning. After a long night of good drunk fun and dancing, I decided it was time to go home. Ben and I grabbed a taxi and last minute Amy and Kyle jumped in. Being Amy's birthday she was quite drunk, our cab had to pull over a couple times when she got sick - yuck. Despite the cab ride it was a great first night out in Corfu!

Yummy Cocktail

Watermelon and Vodka Slush

Alex, Tom, Ben and I

Kyle and the Watermelon at the end of the night

Day 17 - Pompeii and the ferry to Greece

Friday, May 28th - We had the earliest start of the tour this morning - we had to be on the coach by 5:30am. Lucky for me I was woken up around 4:45 am by a rooster crowing. There was some kind of farm adjacent to our hotel and they evidently had roosters and since I decided to sleep with the door open to our patio I got quite the wake up call. This lead to quite a grumpy morning. We had another "picnic breakfast" on the coach which consisted of fruit, pastry and some water. Similar to Barcelona I ate nothing of it. I slept a good part of the way to Pompeii, only waking up at our service stop where I had one of my favourite cappuccinos of the trip. It was so good I went back for a second, I'm still craving a cappuccino that would be close to the same. We arrived at Pompeii around 9am and met with our tour guide. He was probably the best tour guide of the entire tour, such an authentic Italian and really seemed to love his job. I was really excited to see Pompeii, I've been looking forward to visiting it ever since I learned about it in high school. It wasn't exactly what I thought it was - this probably sounds horrible but I was hoping to see all the artifacts including the dead bodies strewn about as it was when the volcano erupted but they were all being preserved behind glass. Pompeii was still awesome, it was great to hear about the history and walk the streets of an ancient place that has been preserved so well.

After our tour we had almost 2 hours to kill and Sian advised us to grab some lunch because we wouldn't be stopping for a while. I ordered a pizza and I've never seen anything greasier in my entire life. I tried to to blot out the grease but it was hopeless, I ate once piece and threw the rest out. Ben ended up stealing his lunch by accident; I had just finished paying for mine and he followed me out without paying and then some attendant just ushered us both to a table so he got his sandwich for free! Afterward Sukhey and I did a bit of shopping in the market and then it was time to drive to the ferry. We made it to the ferry and we all found out we were in for a rough ride for the next 12 hours. Sandra and I got to our room and found our toilet and shower shared the same space, how lovely. After getting settled we grabbed dinner which was quite interesting, I'm still not sure what I ate that night but I do know it tasted horrible. Going hungry was the better choice. A bunch of us hung out in the bar and I got a game of Crazy 8's going - seems to be a Canadian game, I had to teach the Aussies how to play. We played a few rounds but our group thinned out pretty quickly. Eventually it was only Sukhey, Ben and I. I had heard that we were steering into a storm so I really wanted to go out to the deck to see the storm. It was actually quite clear, full moon and heaps of stars. Sukhey ended up going to bed and it ended up just being Ben and I hanging out on the deck. Ben actually turned out to be a pretty funny guy, cracking jokes and such. We hung out for about an hour and then each went to bed. It was a fun night despite being stuck on a ferry for 12 hours.

Pompeii

More Pompeii

Even more Pomepii

Ferry to Greece

Day 16 - More Rome

Thursday, May 27th - The next morning was another early morning as we had to catch an early train for our Vatican City tour. I was lucky and was 1 of the 3 people who managed to get a hot shower before the hotel ran out of hot water. What kind of hotel runs out of hot water? We had a quick breakfast and then we were off. We caught the train and the only way I can describe the train was "ghetto train"; definitely not what I'm used to back in Canada. We arrived at the main metro station so we can switch trains. Sian led us through a complete maze of an underground system similar the to the PATH system in Toronto but was about a thousand times more confusing. It took us 10 minutes to get from one train platform to the next one. Sukhey, Rochelle and I had originally planned to do some shopping in Rome but scrapped that idea as there was no way we could find our way back on our own.

We hopped on the train and then arrived at the Vatican to wait for our tour guide. We had to wait in the tour queue for about 15 minutes, much better than the hours people spend in the public queue! We finally got inside and our tour guide had us all sit down and then proceeded to talk about the artwork of the Vatican Museum, The Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's for 45 minutes. It was probably the most boring 45 minutes of the entire tour, everyone was struggling to keep their eyes open. Finally Sian broke in and reminded the tour guide that we only had a limited amount of time so we ended up racing through The Sistine Chapel and St. Peter's Basilica in about 45 minutes. The Sistine Chapel was beautiful but St. Peter's was seriously amazing, it was absolutely huge and the artwork was beyond impressive. I would have liked to spend more time there but we were on a tight schedule to make our train for 1pm. After St. Peter's we hung out in St. Peter's Piazza while we waited for everyone in the group to catch up. The best part of this was Matt F and Jake "ghost-walking" some unsuspecting people, it was hilarious to watch.

We had the option to head back to the hotel or stay in Rome but the idea of trying to get back to the hotel on our own was too daunting, especially since trains stopped running at 6pm. We headed back to the hotel, some people headed to the pool, others napped and Sukhey, Sandra, Alex and I hung out on our patio. The boys were playing with a ball in the pool and somehow it ended up over the fence in the bushes, they spent about 25 minutes trying to get it out - it was pretty funny to watch. They finally got it out only to lose it again a few minutes later. We then all went up to the main lodge for dinner which was again quite horrible although I shouldn't have been surprised given everything else that had gone wrong at this hotel.

By now I was starting to develop the "Contiki cough" as most of the rest of the tour members by now. Sukhey had been treating herself with hot brandy's since Barcelona so Jas, Sukhey and I decided to all get one and take them outside and watched the sunset by the main pool. The bartender was nice enough to give us our drinks for free - wow the hotel actually has perks! The three of us had a good chat by the pool and then they decided to go to bed and I hung out with some of the other tour members by the pool. After an hour or so we all headed to bed as we had a very early start in the morning. Before heading to bed I grabbed a shower which turned out to be cold, I was quite happy to be leaving this hotel.

St. Peter's Basilica

St. Peter's Piazza

The boys rescuing their ball

The pool at the main lodge

Day 15 - Off to Rome!

Wednesday, May 26th - All roads lead to Rome! We left Florence around 8am and arrived in Rome shortly before 2, one of the shortest drives of the entire trip. We drove right into the city and started a whirlwind tour of Rome. Our first stop was the Mouth of Truth although I was never actually able to see it. The queue was too long to wait so we all just snapped photos through the gate. Next we headed to the Colosseum which was simply an amazing sight. Sian got us tickets so that we could jump the queue and walk right in. Once we actually got into the Colosseum I was blown away, I was in awe of standing in a place where so much history has taken place over two thousand years. Next we went to check out the Roman Forum, we wandered around the ruins a bit but Rome was super hot and we ended up spending most of the time in the shade trying to keep cool. I regret not having more energy to explore the Forum, judging from Ali's snaps there was a lot of great things to see but the heat was too much combined with exhaustion. Overall I wasn't prepared for our walking tour of Rome, Sian really hadn't given us heads up on the day's plans.

Next stop on our walking tour was Trevi Fountain. We only had about 10 minutes here but it was enough time for Sukhey and I to throw our 2 coins into the fountain - 1 to make a wish and 1 to ensure our return to Rome. Trevi Fountain is such a busy tourist spot - 3000 Euros are thrown into the fountain everyday! After that our next stop was the Roman Catacombs but I decided to skip out on going in and grabbed some gelato with Jas, Matt F, Shane and a few others. Definitely worth it, it was some of the best gelato I had on the trip. We then headed to the Spanish Steps and had a quick look around and then took a bit of a break sitting on the famous steps. We then walked past the Pantheon (although no time to stop) and then ended up in Piazza Noavona where we all broke off for dinner. We were all starving by now having just spent the last 5 hours wandering around Rome. Jas, Sukhey, Sandra, Pete, Monica along with a few others grabbed some dinner at an Italian Bistro and then it was finally time to head to our hotel.

I was excited to see our hotel, it was one of three "feature hotels" on the tour. After a an hour drive out of the city we finally made it. We were so far out of Rome that taxi's wouldn't come out to get us so we wouldn't be able to go out during our stay in Rome. The room at first seemed fairly decent - Sandra and I had a great balcony, it was huge! Things quickly went downhill from there, both Pete and Monica and Kyle and Amy's sheets were so damp I would call them wet. The rooms were super hot and smelled musty and we were told the pool wasn't open. We got settled and then a few of us went to see if we could at least grab a drink in the main lodge but no dice, the bar wasn't open either. With nothing left to do we decided to call it an early night and head to bed.

Mouth of Truth

The Colosseum

Roman Forum

Trevi Fountain

Spanish Steps