Rome, Athens, Greek Islands and Turkey

Hey Everyone!

As you can see from my map i have been busy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12650085@N02/

So i left you all in Naples with big plans of going to Pompeii. Well those plans came to reality as can be seen in my flickr site. Pompeii was pretty cool but to be honest i dunno. I guess i built it up to much and expected there to be bodies everywhere and other cool stuff whereas almost everything good was removed and put in the museum in Naples which we didnt visit. The plaster casts of the depressions the bodies did leave were pretty cool though, as were the remains of the city. i did really enjoy it but i think i expected more thats all. Apparently Naples has the best pizza in the world and invented it. We went to arguably the best pizza restaraunt in Naples. They only serve Margherita and Napoli and although awesome, not the BEST pizza i have ever had. Actually i think Linden and I have cooked better. Jez im bagging this place out a bit. I really did love Naples, Pompeii and the Pizza I promise!

So after that it was pretty much time to head towards Greece and island time. So we jumped a train back to Rome (where we would fly to Athens). Coincidently our timing got us there on the right day for White Night! A huge festival that covers all of Rome with live music and all sorts of crazy fireworks and parades! It was awesome! I just walked the streets seeing amazing things! I stupidly left my camera at home though. It was sooo amazing to see fireworks and a live band in front of the arch at the foot of the colusseum, breakdancers and just below the palantino on the giant bit of free land there was a huge set up of thousands of coloured lit up globes! Amazing!

So then it was time for the flight which went off without a hitch and we were in Athens. We had to skip the ruins and exploring of southern mainland greece due to the fires but had a great time wandering around Athens. We saw the acropolis and the changing of the guard at both the unknown soldier and at the presidents house. We even checked out the stadium for the first olympic games. So close to jumping that fence and doing a lap... Then it was ferry time to the Greek Party Island Ios. On it we met an Argentinian guy named Andy and I ran into Dirk Heinz from Queens and his mate Matt from Hildas! So we hung and partied with those guys along with some other aussies we ran into in Pamplona and Lagos (Dan, Tab and Kiera). So we had quite a possie as we lay on the beach for 3 days and nights spending the nights partying VERY hard. You may have heard about the fight with the Melbourne Footy Boys on Ios. Yep that happened while we were there. And some random idiot punched me from nowhere while i wasnt looking. Im lucky that didnt turn into a fight because they turned out to be Bra Boys (Sydney Street Gang) and I might have been a lot more than just sorefaced. End of the day i was happy to bail the morning after to Santorini. We hired four wheelers and cruised around the island which was awesome before we lost Dirk, Matt, Robin (Belgian chick) and 2 aussie boys to the Athens Ferry. So it was down to the 5 aussies. We hung out the next day on Mykonos before James and I left for Turkey!

We arrived early in the morning and were pretty happy to just jump a local minibus to some accomodation and hit the beds for a couple of hours. Then it was time to see the ruins of Ephesus. Theyre 2nd century BC roman ruins and theyre pretty cool. The photos can be seen on the flickr. I especially like that latrine photo. Call me a nudist but im a pretty big fan of pulling my pants down with thousands of people around.... hehe, dont worry i waited till the coast was clear. The library there was restored and was pretty damn impressive. I must say now though we have seen about as much roman ruin as any man can handle! The lady who dropped us off was taken to hospital and didnt come to pick us up so we only got a little look at the Temple of Artemis. Which to be honest is just one pillar which we saw from a distance anyway. So theres a wonder of the ancient world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Artemis

The next morning we caught a bus down to Fethiye (pronounced Fet-Heeya, i have heaps of trouble with the pronouniation) and we chilled out a fair bit there as we waited for our cruise to start the next day. The roads here are really good and all through the mountains they have 3 lanes. its awesome and it just changes between solid and dashed lines on the bends so you can overtake when u can see and cant when u cant. genious! GENIOUS!

So the next morning we jumped our bus to Kas (cash) and boarded our cruise. Our yacht was called Blue Key and was awesome. 8 cabins and heaps of deckroom. Check out the photos! On board there were 4 Aussie chicks (18yr olds from Perth), 2 South African guys and 1 other Aussie from Melbourne. Plus Crew. And basically we just cruised around swimming and playing games during the day. And boozing and playing drinking games at night. Awesome fun. i must have a yacht one day! oh it was nice! just lying around playing backgammon and asshole (dont worry mum its a card game, hahahaha). Just what i needed after the stress of being on holiday for 4 months.... more holiday!

Then we got off the cruise just in time for the end of the South Africa VS Tonga rugby match which was fun to watch with the South Africans! Afterwards there was time for net, and a supermarket dinner run before james and i did the double buses through the night to arrive in Cannakle (chan-ackle-eee). Exhausted we grabbed some kebabs and hit the internet before passing out for about 13 hours sleep. This morning we visited the horse they used in the movie Troy because although we are very close to the ruins they are apparently not worth seeing so the photos will do us.

And in about 30 mins we are off to do the tour of Gallipoli which is going to be quite a lot to take in. ill write about it as soon as i can. So thats where i leave you all.

Sorry this one hasnt been very humerous! ill vomit and poo myself in the next few days to liven it up for ya.

Lots of love to all of you.
Hutch