I am sorry for all the neglect, it was practiced in the most innocent way possible.
I'm not in Greece, still, no.
Has a month nearly gone by? Ive been doing too many little and big things to accumulate on a 2 dimensional plane.
I remember now that we left Athens for Macedonia and very well I remember that there was no actual train to Macedonia at midnight like we had thought. There was a train, and it was 11:30 p.m. at an impossible station, and we could not understand how we had made such a big mistake. But that train was going somewhere and we were going nowhere without it so we thought about it for 9 seconds and bought tickets. I'm happy that we are of age to laugh and drink to the unforeseen hurdles in life, on an 8 hour train ride to hopefully someplace closer to Macedonia than Athens. 16 Euro train tickets...not bad, 16 Euro standing train tickets. HA. no more laughing.
Welcome to Thessaloníki the second largest city in Greece. still in Greece.
Welcome to Florina, the most beautiful city in Greece. still in Greeeeece.

Welcome to Macedonia

something for your mama

2 TBspoon red cavier
1/4 white onion chopped damn fine

blend completly

add 2 1/2 to 3 cups oil (0h!)
add 1/2 cup lemon juice
add 1/2 cup water

EAT EAT

wearing a UNICEF hoodie helps

Leaving the island I am a little relieved and a large sad because a part of our trip is sitting on the white bubbles of the wake. goodbye. I met Claire and Lulu for the first time and enjoy. However, we still left Lulu on the island.

Getting to Mykanos was a trying experience, no sleep, that got even stranger and filled with travelers aroma. After 36 hours I was pretty loopy but got some wannabe energy from seeing old friends on a different continent then I saw them last. So we made it 42 hours of no sleep. The island itself is similar to a replica of something Disney might have imagined for a children's film; Pirates of the Aegean. Very candy coated and shiny. Blue and very white. I would say a large part of its existence is for tourists and the ones that were there were mid twenty somethings. We grabbed our sleeping bags and went dancing and drinking, or drinking and dancing. Dancing with a pack on your pack looked at dumb as it sounds so we left them with the guys working the gyro booth around the corner. I honestly do not remember most parts of that night. I was tired and did not drink very much and I wonder if there was anything worth remembering. I remember being in self-preservation mode. We got a few free housing offers and we took one. Maybe not the best one but good at the time. Hitchhiking back in the morning was a happy ending.

Our island is called Mykanos. Island of lizards, blue water, Greek pride, sunshine, and the U.S. Navy.

Mykanos

this is my grandpa Nasko saying goodbye, no tears.



take green line 3000 kilometers

I remember somebody wishing me unexpected adventures so why am I not surprised that I am here. The bus to Athens was full of some interesting people that I either wanted to marry or kill. I met Stanislav because I manifested my want to sit by him and he made the 24 hours go by in 8 which was too bad because I was having a fun time. He is my age and moving to the Greek islands to find work. Not that finding work in Bulgaria is impossible just that getting paid is. He was really sweet and I admire that kind of uncertainty. What I do is not altogether so remarkable or scary. I have money and brains and I will be alright. He's moving away from his family, girlfriend, and country for something far short of an exotic vacation. He hopes that he can save some money to be able to pay a girl in America to marry him. By no means was he asking me, but I offered anyway. I may brains but not money?
The rest of our company was drunk, old, and toothless. Cant have everything go your way I guess and I did good to fake it.

Athens it was and what did I expect I found myself alone. The strangest kind of Deja Vu too. Last summer when I decided to stay behind in Thailand I was in a similar situation. I knew there was someone I wanted to meet up with, a vague idea of where they were, and no phone or address. Its funny I thought I would just find somebody in Athens, the place is beyond massive. It was also beyond impossible because Callie, Kendall, Claire, and Lulu weren't even in Athens, ha. Anyway getting on a boat to an island I knew nothing about was just like getting on the catamaran to Ko Tao to meet Christoph and Janos. Same same but different. I like travelling this way...holes in the game plan.

I take back half of the awful things I thought about Greeks. I don't think I've ever met such helpful and encouraging locals in my life. One man left his newspaper stand to walk me 8 blocks to the bus station that took me to Rafina Port. The guy that sold me my ferry ticket to Mykanos called all his friends asking where I could buy a sleeping bag near the port! Its been a long journey and I'm still not there. Left Varna 28 hours ago, should arrive someday...

yellowish something

this is what I've been up..














I wake up to animals


















Then climb
up to ancient burial chambers and...


To get to see this!!!!!!!
then my uncle does our laundry we compare blisters and drink and dance.

past tense party

First day of the wild wilderness!! so please step up into a crappy bus that retains all heat and odors and allows no breeze. I'd say that was a crafty move in preparing us for a more inconvenient lifestyle. The bus is more than full and our master head chief leader Kiro, not my uncle Kiro, is standing in the front. Thats a solid 45 people journey, all on the bus. Most of our group is older, from mid 50's to possibly even 70's, with a few middle agers and then us. Hormonal, tough, good humored team of 3, my uncle Kiro, me, and our friend Rogova. Rogi for short. She is actually a fellow dentist like my uncle and a hilarious person to spend 4 days with. Long live team terror. We started with a sleepy 5 hours bus ride to the central mountain ranges. On the road I breezed through Hail to the Thief and Grace and wonder if their somber melodies got me thinking so critically of the Bulgarian countryside. The abandoned buildings and amount of pollution on the streets, and more devastatingly, in the waterways near cities and even villages points out the harsh reality of Bulgarian economics. Clothes, bottles, and plastics lay clumped to the sides of the road and cling to the branches of weak trees. It may not be as visible to the people who walk by everyday but it marks a striking difference in what I take for granted in my green, comparably spotless Bellingham.

Our first interesting break was at an old monastery in the mountains. It was beautiful and thousands of years old and I probably would have appreciated it much less if I'd known that we would be stopping at every single monastery within a 300 cubic kilometer range of our four day travel route. So without dwelling too much on individual places of worship, unless they stand out significantly like Shipka, I'd like to say this; the thousand year old religious icons that are all hand painted by monks throughout the ages will always fascinate me. Being in the presence of the daily services that for the most part are done in the presence of no one but God, one priest, and one old nun to repeat scriptures will always fascinate me. Praying and lighting candles for my family and friends and for Eric Wise will always fascinate me.

This first day filled me up and took the most out of me. We spend hours and hours traveling, steadily to the Gabrovski Balkan. We started with an easy 6 hours hike to get a glimpse of the snow capped peaks of Stara Planena which was a esthetically pleasing reward that made our effort seem much more difficult. Snow in May! Funny that we thought that was the closest we would get. After climbing back down we got on the bus for a mere 10 minutes before unloading once again to hike up to the hesha(hostel) where we would be spending our first night. I was altogether completely unprepared for the difficulty in getting to a place to sleep. We climbed over 500 meters in less than 45 minutes. Thats a trail so steep that even its windiness helped little. That day we had hiked for 6 hours to see some snow far off, now we were crawling up to it! My blood pressure was beating a hole through my stomach and the pain in my lower back, from my snowboarding incident, was almost crippling from my heavy pack. Even now I'm not sure how our entire group made it. I'm sure their health is plagued with problems with blood pressure and arthritis and this impossible trek just seemed to be meeting some limits. Even my uncle had to lay and raise his feet over his head. He sent me ahead though to win us a good room since we would be sharing with up to 8 other people. I'm extremely pleased with myself for A) pushing myself mentally and physically B) being one of the four people that reached the ridge first and within 45 minutes when it was estimated to take up to 2 hours C) not ditching any of my baggage. I cant soundly say I've been very active or healthy lately so either way I was impressed with my strength. With me was a sixty year old woman who became a easy going trail companion for the rest of the trip. Her name was Lubka and her son was a musician and ski instructor in the Swiss Alps. Anna, a middle aged fit-as-fuck yoga instructor who paints on the side who I think my dad should consider for a 3rd wife, and a creepy man who was desperately trying to screw her. He nearly died trying to keep up with us.
Reaching the top was an experience that would have shut all four of us up if we had had breath enough to talk. The ridge opened up to an almost secret green plain with horses running free all around us. The mountains around us rose high and we were surrounded on all sides by the snow that remained on them, yet we were scorching inside and our sweat burned off our skin in thick clouds. We had reached the top right at dusk and the moon had appeared right over the wooden cabins of the shepherds and off in the distance the hostel where we would be staying. The building was enormous, old, moldy, and festive. Travelers rushed to change their dirty, sweaty clothes and catch some hot water before the boilers ran out. Once fresh we made our way to he main dining room and when I opened the doors....!!! Travelers from all ends of the earth filled the entire space! Long wooden tables were covered with goodies like a castle from Camelot. Musicians, meats, cheeses, salads, and alcohol appeared out of nowhere for everybody to enjoy. AND MUSIC. music music and people forgetting their soreness rose to dance traditional Haro, and for hours and well into the night! One man who had something I wanted asked me where I was from and then loudly welcomed me to the land with nothing...absolutely nothing but cheer and celebration! The party got louder, and stayed that way even when we were trying to fall asleep with the sound of the drums beating in our exhausted heads.

stephannie

This post site is stuck in a 6 by 6 foot hole of boredom. I have nothing interesting to write, in fact I feel as though any splinter of creative thought and smart assness has disappeared from my life and i'm stuck wondering what it is that is keeping me alive. Everyday I wake up and bring some stuff with me to the beach and lay there. Here are my choices in no particular order:

ipod
catch - 22
write postcards
write project journals
roll over

I'm losing my mind not having any work to do and I don't know if you can understand this but it kind of snowballs into not wanting to do anything. A combination of too much sleep and laziness has taken over and all I'm trying to do is make it until Saturday. I will be hiking for 4 days in the Bulgarian mountains with my uncle and a bunch of old "hippies".
There feel sorry for me.

Isn't it strange that your life flip flopping upside down and left and right when you are just simple living at home is more dynamic and exciting than mine, and I paid 237286328 dollars for an exotic experience. I know I'm being a little snobby, I've had a lot of fun up til now. Thing is I'm not even on the villa anymore, I'm in a stuffy apartment on the beach where the sea is too cold for swimming. Just the sight of that crystal blue water makes me furious.

I wanna be sitting at a bon fire, watching the sweet peas grow
Im glad time flies when you're young, so that I can fly home soon and do all that.
Noodles at lake padden, BBBBBBQQQtofu. Making some money.
scoring pizza slices from Rudy's.
economics 207..history...
O
I love my house in the summer time and this is the first time I'll be sharing it with someone, aww how special.

Ah girl cheer up just hang out til Saturday. Actually these last few days will probably be the last, and even now I always got a bike ride in the evening to look forward to. Two days after we return from our trip I'm packing my things and getting on a bus to Greece to meet up with Callie, Kendall, Lulu, and Claire. Oh how that will be just niiiiiiiiiice. I'm not stressing it at all, not that I tend to, but someone else is doing all the planning and I don't know what I'm getting into or where we are going until I'm in Greece. Thats just fine with me.

I keep having these dreams about Brazilian men. Maybe we are making a geographical mistake in our plans?? Just kidding. I hope and hope and pee my pants a little that central/south America becomes a reality this September. Even though I know it will.

Well my uncle is home, I can hear him swearing at the door. He always comes home with sweets for me now, after my grandpa made me cry by saying I was getting fat.
Sweet uncle, sweet grandpa.