greece.

my first destination this spring break was to the island of corfu, greece. although the mountains and aqua seas were breathtaking, the 49 hours spent on corfu did not make up for the 65 spent getting there and back to florence. that's right...65 hours. the journey there started with a five hour bus ride to the east coast of italy, followed by a twenty-some-odd hour ferry ride. in which i had no bed. oh, and once getting off this horrific ferry, we weren't even at corfu yet. we had to take another two hour ferry and then an hour bus. 

the best part of my time in greece was kayaking the ionian sea. my friend hilary and i paddled our way off the beach and to a rocky inlet about a half hour away. it felt incredible to get away from the group of 600 college students and listen to nothing but the sound of the waves crashing. from here, we let our adventurous sides take over, and kayaked to a little island we spotted in the distance. this island was the most tranquil, lovely place. we pulled our kayak up onto the sand and climbed to the top, passing caves, beautiful trees, and even some little bunnies (we choose to believe these bunnies were hopping around because easter was the next day).

even though i didn't think it was possible, the trek home from greece was about a million times worse than the journey there. our tour group was incredibly unorganized, and uninformative. we were not told  any of the logistics of our travel, and were basically dragged along in the rain, shoveled from bus to boat to boat like pieces of cargo. once arriving on the overnight ferry around midnight, we were lucky enough to book a cabin for the night. i figured this would fix everything that had gone wrong thus far, because i would be able to take a nice shower and sleep until the boat arrived in italy. but a storm, accompanied by twenty-five foot waves had to hit us. so i laid there, in my creepy cabin in the dark, with the bathroom door swaying as i tried my hardest to hold back vomit, as i felt like i was on the world's largest roller coaster for three hours straight. at one point, i was certain we were sinking. i even went to check (since we didn't have a window in our cabin). 

when hilary and i arrived back at our apartment building, we dragged our luggage up the three flights of stairs to our door, where twin was waiting in the doorway. the second i saw her face, i couldn't help but burst into tears. she just held me. 

greece, i'm sorry, but never again. 

on a happier note...

here are some photos that don't show how awful our travels were :)