"What Happened to our train?"

- "Only God knows"

That was a translated conversation that we had with our train conductor mid-way into a 60-hour trek from Athens, Greece to Hvar, Croatia. We were in a train station in the middle of nowhere Serbia, and all of a sudden the caboose of the train took off without the rest of the cars. A Serbian woman asked what happened, and that was the conductor's response. Priceless. Other interesting things that happened:

- I was the only person on the whole train to be pulled into a Macedonian border police office. They made me pay 6 Euros for traveler's insurance for Taylor and I. I paid a woman in a small windowless office and she gave me change from her purse. It was by far the most terrified I've ever been in my life. As the border guard was walking me to the office, he kept yelling "American! American!" to nobody at all. Phew. I finally got my passport stamped, and we were back on our way.

- Met a bunch of friendly Danish people. One kid started every one of his stories with "This one time, when I was really, really drunk..." We also learned that Danish people called Danishes "Vienna Bread." If we go to Vienna, I will get to the bottom of that...

- Played cards for hours and hours. I beat Tom at Texas Hold 'Em and several rounds of Cut the Deck. Both beat me senseless at Speed.

Here is our sleeper car from Athens to Thessaloniki, Greece. Six of us slept in here. Woah.



Bored already and only six hours in:



I bought this here soda called "Cockta" in Skopje, Macedonia. It tasted exactly how it sounds:




We did a lot of this:



and this:



This was our buggy from Northern Greece to Belgrade, Serbia. It NEVER went above 40 MPH, and quite commonly stopped in the middle of nowhere for a while. They checked our tickets no less than 15 times, and the staff switched at almost every stop. Not surprisingly, we arrived in Belgrade 5 hours late:



When we arrived in Zagreb, Croatia, our bus to Split, Croatia was oversold and we had to sit on the floor. Taylor sat in the jump seat up front with an old Croatian dude who taught here a few words in Croatian:



We finally arrived in Hvar, and had to walk a mile or so uphill with all our gear. No big deal.





Waaaaaay out of the way:

Naxos: Taylor proves that she is the best scooterist of her generation; Tom places near the bottom

So after an overnight 7 hour ferry ride, we arrived on Naxos, which is an awesome island in the Aegean Sea in a chain of islands called the Cyclades. I was expecting a frat-boy party scene, but this place is far off the tourist map. There is a section of town that is very touristy, but the rest of the island is as it has been forever. We rented scooters and found dozens of beaches with only a few people on them, like this guy here:



Check this out! I'm basically the leader of a scooter gang now. Taylor went fast as Hades, but Tom crashed his less than 5 minutes in. He fared OK, but scraped his knee a bit. I guess they don't teach basic motor skills in grad school. Zing!



In case you were wondering if I got a little extreme on the scooter, here's your answer. Stunt time!



Not sure which way to turn here:



Taylor skipping rocks out into the Aegean:



Taylor and Tom in front of my favorite beach on the island, called Aliko.



What was my favorite part of Naxos, you ask? How's about this. I bought cheese whilst completely nude from this fellow here:



He had to walk down from his farm, climb down a cliff to get to the beach, and then climb back up. We couldn't communicate very well, so he wrote down how much the cheese was in the sand. He didn't seem to mind that I was naked, because he hung around and had a smoke.

Here he is making his exit:



Naxos was radical. We did some aggressive scooting, got some snorkel time in, and had fantastic weather. I don't think we ever saw a cloud. Now the hard part...getting from Naxos, Greece to Hvar, Croatia. It will take at least 2 days, 2 ferries, 3 trains, and a few buses. Damn. Will update when we get there.

Beach Time!

It's all Greek to me

So we left Alan's house in our rented buggy and made our way to London's Gatwick airport. The driving conditions couldn't have been worse for someone who isn't used to backwards driving. It was the middle of the night, foggy as hell, and rainy. To make matters worse, the motorway was under construction so only one lane was open. However, I triumphed over all these perils and arrived safely in foggy London town. We all hadn't slept, so as soon as we were seated on the plane, we fell fast asleep.

When we woke up, we were in Greece. No big deal. It was 90 degrees and sunny, which was a welcome change to the UK's weather. We took a bus into central Athens, and when we got off, we came to the realization that none of us knew a single word of Greek. After speaking "English for dummies" to a few folks, I realized that nearly everyone spoke English. Oops. Aaaaaanyway, we made it to our hostel just fine and then took a walk around Athens.

We:

Took pictures looking the wrong way!



Took pictures in front of the Acropolis!



Ate Squid!



More Squid!



Drank Mythos!



Did incredibly massive stunts!



We were supposed to leave for the island Naxos at 8:30 the next morning, but they canceled the boat without telling us, so we had to wait until midnight. Things like this are very common in Greece. So we basically did the same exact thing as the day before, but with a little less squid.

Interesting side note: We were briefly kidnapped by a taxi driver in Periais. He wouldn't let us off unless it was the other side of the bay we were on. You really need to be on your game with cabbies over here. Unless your lucky enough to get this guy! Wham! Take a look at that gent. I think the photo is blurry because this dude emanates so much Greek coolness that it distorts images.



Hot, hot, hot!

We left the North again, and traveled South again...

Much to our surprise, I managed to keep our car on the correct side of the road. We made it to Reading just fine, despite a route complete with no less than 30 roundabouts. Our route looked like this:



We stayed just south of Reading with Taylor's friend Alan and his housemates Will and Ben. Excellent hosts. They have a certified menagerie including:



and:



and Don Johnson here:



Unfortunately, when we woke up, my chicken friend had ceased to exist. Not sure what happened there...



Taylor and Alan tried to sacrifice Don Johnson, but didn't have the guts in the end:



Oh yeah...we went to Stonehenge. Massive!



Some tourists come to see big rocks, others come to see big stunts:





We also went to the Salisbury Cathedral. The original Magna Carta (circa 1215) is here. Pictures of the Magna Carta are forbidden, so you're going to have to take my word for it. Incredible medieval architecture:



Fish and Chips...again!



...with a cup of tea, proper.



Rad...thanks a lot Alan, Will, Ben, and animals. We had a blast.



Progress:



Next stop, Athens.

Backwards roadtrip

Instead of taking a taxi to the Wakefield bus station, a bus to London, and a train to Reading, we decided to rent a car for our journey. One problem...Brits do everything backwards. So, I bucked up and volunteered to drive the Brit-Mobile, aka "dumb-dumb wagon." The proof is in the Yorkshire Puddin':






Boo Ya Ka Sha!

Wakey, Wakey, Eggs and Bakey

The gang put Edinburgh at our 6, and headed south towards Wakefield, UK to stay with my friend Emma. We hopped on a bus in St. Andrew's Square and were on our way through the British countryside. Taylor and I played a bowling game on Tom's I phone for a while. I won...BIG TIME. No worries.

Here's Emma, Taylor and myself hangin' the F out. Common sense would say that Tom is not in the photo because he took it, but that is not the case. A passerby took the picture, but Tom's head made the rest of us look like midgets, so we opted to keep him out of it.



Emma took us into the countryside to a town called Haworth, where the Bronte sisters wrote their most famous novels (Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, etc). It was an awesome British country town that looked a-little something like this:



It was Emma's birthday and we had a proper fish and chips party. PJ's chippie hooked it up with 3.20 fish and chips. I got some mushy peas and some Dandelion & Burdock to wash it down. D&B is a soda-esque drink that tastes like Dr. Pepper but is made from all sorts of plant doo-doo.

PJ's!



We stopped at an awesome old cemetery in middle of nowhere where everyone was named Jonas.



Countryside stunts tend to be a bit more extreme:



We've skipped rocks in every body of water between Portland and Yorkshire.



Wicked...thanks for everything Emma. We'll see you on our side of the pond soon.