To start off the trip we thought a last nice shower would be nice... nope, water was freezing because they had turned off the hot water for the break so took a frigid quick rinse off. Armed with just our backpacks, to give you a rough estimate on size I took my North Face backpack... the one I used to carry to school back home. Words now don't describe how sick I am of those clothes. We grabbed a 11:30 bus out of the city and started our adventure. The bus ride to Thessaloniki was absolutely gorgeous. Winding threw hills, over bridges and into the city we had some time to kill before our flight that evening. So we grabbed a gyro and moseyed along the strip on the Aegean Sea. A large tower at the end was our destination but got side tracked by a half hour booze cruise, free with the purchase of a beer... done deal. Little did we know that enjoying some rays and a nice cold beer would be the most relaxed and rested we would feel for the next 11 days.
Our flight from Thessaloniki to Milan left around 9 pm and got into a side city of Milan (none of the Ryan Air flights actually fly into any city what so ever something we didn't know before we left). An hour bus ride later we stumbled upon the train station, purchased out 60 euro trains to Zurich, Switzerland and headed out into the night with roughly 7 hours to kill. At the airport duty free we had picked up a half gallon of Smirnoff and round housed that in the local McDonalds. After we got amazing Prosciutto wraps, toasted with cheese. I must say it was a very different experience seeing a city at night. Michael, the only boy we were traveling with, had heard about a famous Cathedral, the Duomo, and so we set in that direction. Milan was an amazing city. Walking past all the shops with their lights still on you could see this was such a fashionable city and quite wealthy. Finally we made it to the Duomo. Little did we know it is the fourth largest Cathedral in Europe and absolutely spectacular. With no one around we set down our backpacks and did some exploring. After a little bit we just decided to lay down in the square, something you can't do unless you are literally the ONLY people there. Around three a groups of Italian teenagers came over to where we were sitting. The only reason the came over was because Michael had just mooned them. We struck up a convo with the little english they knew and half mix of spanish and Italian we formulated. One of the girls, I won't say who (not me) finally got convinced to give the birthday boy a kiss... his 18th birthday.
We arrived back at the train station around 4am and still had around three hours to wait. I now have a good idea of what it is like to be homeless. I don't think I have ever been so cold and miserable. We huddled for warmth in a long spoon shape but about 30 minutes later got woken up by the most annoying Italian police guards that didn't make it clear that we couldn't sleep on the ground. So we kept rotating the train station and getting woken up till finally the third wake up we figured out that we couldn't even sit on the floor. Odd rule. The next hours went by so slow at some points I thought time was moving backwards. Finally seven rolled around and we stumbled onto the train exhausted and slept all the way to Zurich. The few times I forced my eyes open the countryside was gorgeous. But as quickly as they opened then shut again.
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