It turns out the alleged "Free Wi-Fi" is actually "15-30 Euros/hour wi-fi". So no, no updated for you.
Btw. I'm back!
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UK was awesome. Love the people, love the underground, love to traffic (mind the taxis, they stop for nothing). It turns out the North Wall of Windsor castle is only three Maxs high at its lowest point (hah. inside joke).
Phrases I'll have stuck in my head for a while; "Hit the wall!", "Mind the Gap!", "Keep To The Right!", "Gang Way!", "MIND THE ****ING TAXI!".
People there = ^_^
You can run dead into them and get away with a "Pardon me".
9/10
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France. The first thing you see when you get off the train is a bunch of gypsies and a gun store. France's Metro sucks. You have to buy individual tickets, no option for a day pass. The people were kind of...eh...unfriendly. We had to pretend to be Canadian on several occaisons.
Ah! But the Latin Quarter (high student population). We were wandering around and we stumble on a book shop. Its not much more than a hole in the wall, ridiculously small...but in English. Free coffee, friendly owner, huge selection (push a shelf aside and...find a new one!), patient owner (knocked over like 4 piles of books and didnt get kicked out), and good prices.
So! France = 8/10
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Florence was great. Small city, everythings in walking distance. The people are nice, the prices are good...and we had 10 hours to do whatever we wanted. So, we got picked up off the street by some lady waving a menu around, walked 3 blocks, and wound up in a small, (italian) family-owned restaurant. Waiter didnt speak English, we didnt speak Italian, but we still got the best food we'd ever had. Oh, and gelatto.
Florence: 10/10
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Sorrento, Capri, Pompei, and Naples
Sorrento has a wall build into the cliff facing the harbor. Place's a fortress. Not much to say about it other than it looked cool - we only stayed one night.
Capri is an island resort. Beautiful (I wanted to climb the mountain - the guide said "You're insane.") too. We staggered around for a few hours, saw the blue grotto (a cave...the water in it glows blue), got more gelatto, and sailed off to Sorrento.
Naples. Dirty and Ugly. Glad we only drove through to catch the boat to Capri.
Pompei ... Nice, but we didnt get to see the big collection of plaster castes.
The lot of them = 6/10
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Now I'm getting lazy, so w/e.
Patras is on the Gulf of Corinth in Greece. We arrived on an overnight ferry from Beri in Italy...swam in said Gulf, tottered off to Delphi for a day then went to Athens.
Didnt like Athens. Crowded, insane traffic, saturated with homeless folks, and the people were generally annoying/rude. Also didnt like the food. 2 days there, then...
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The trip back!
2 hours at the Athens airport.
4 hour plane from Athens to London.
2 more hours at London Heathrow Airport.
8 hour plane from London to Baltimore.
3 hour bus ride from Baltimore to Richmond.
30 minute face-down nap on the carpet in my room.
