My photos for the next few months will be severely lacking Julia standing on top of a large pile of rocks — a theme I am confident I could publish an entire book on. I counted and as of right now I have taken 3,603 photos. It has probably increased since this was published. 11.5 gigabytes. I am continually forced to remove everything from my computer to accommodate my hobby.

With a month left of travel time on my clock I decided it was time to see new places. It was hard leaving Greece, where I had a cozy place to stay with delicious fireside meals, a warm bed, good company, breathtaking sunsets and moonrises and an excellent travel partner. But don’t worry, while Julia and I are now on two different adventures the blog still goes on!

When I arrived in Athens I went straight to the train station where I discovered the next train to Patra would get in around 11pm. This was cutting it close with my 11:59pm boat but, for various reasons, taking a bus seemed less dependable. What the woman at the ticket booth failed to explain to me in her description of “transfering trains” was that actually there is a bus between this train transfer.

I shared my confusion on the back of this crowded bus with a banjo player from Berlin who was meeting up with his traveling circus in Patra. He offered me a place to stay if I did not make it to my boat. “I would have to ask my host. There are 12 of us staying in one room.” While the thought of crashing with a traveling circus sounded like an adventure that would lend itself to a very interesting blog post I was happy when our second train pulled into Patra right on schedule. I bid farewell to my circus friend and followed a boy who I had seen on the train was in possession of a boat ticket. He noticed I was stalking him and offered his umbrella to me if I could put his 6 or 7 dictionaries into my bag so they wouldn’t get wet. I declined, explaining that there was no room. I boarded quite drenched from the rain and settled in to a completely empty room of seats. An hour later an old couple entered the room and out of the 60+ vacant seats they chose the row right next to me. They would spend the entirety of the trip taking turns sleeping on the floor, taking breaks only to eat, pray and use the bathroom, the latter being the only one that required them to actually leave the room.

I choose to travel by boat for two reasons. It seemed the most interesting way to go and the cheapest. While I enjoy ferries I forgot that I don’t like cruise ships. The Eurostar Barcelona is somewhere between the two and consequently lacks the nicer qualities of both. Much too long of a ferry ride but without enough to do or places to go for it to be a cruise.

I found myself completely confused about what language I should speak on the boat . With Greeks I would speak English, seasoned with the occasional Greek word — hello, yes, no, please, thank you. With Italians I would speak Spanish, ending sentences with gratzie in place of gracias. The crew however seems to be a mixture of nationalities that all spoke varying degrees of different languages, some I don’t recognize. Consequently I stumble through my sentences using words from at least 4 languages creating some unnecessary confusion.  “Yasas, power outlet? …ne… para cargar mi computadora? Grac…em…gratzie…uh…efkaristo.”

I went through every form of entertainment on the boat. I finished two books, wrote some stories, ate food, drank coffee, walked around, listened to music, stared off into space, daydreamed, wrote a letter, did some drawing, followed the sign to “internet” in a circle around the boat, was told a simple “no” when I enquired about internet at the information desk, organized my music library, sorted my photos, and watched 2 movies (I ripped one that is half in Chinese onto my iPod accidentally without subtitles which seemed like an appropriate thing to watch given that I don’t understand most of what is being said around me anyway). I thankfully got sleepy which is the best form of entertainment, as it can occupying me for 8 hours at a time.

Amazingly, equipped with vague directions found online to an unmarked “green door”, I found my hostel easily. I spent the afternoon wandering up and down the winding streets. My only goal, which I completed successfully, was to get completely lost and find my way back, buying my train ticket to Florence in the process. I think I am really going to enjoy Italy.