Thessaloniki

Day 11  Kavala, Greece > Thessaloniki, Greece

We woke up the next day in Kavala at a hotel ready to finally make it to Thessaloniki, Greece.  The plan is to take a 2 hour bus ride and finally reach our destination.  Easier said than done.  Our bus leaves at 1:00 pm, so of course we show up at 12:58 to the bus station.  I show my ticket to the bus driver, who doesn't speak English, and he waves me away saying this isn't the right bus.  Tanner and I look around and ask someone "which bus is going to Thessaloniki??"

The man points at the same bus that driving away!  I chased the bus down and start knocking on the window!  The bus driver is very angry at us but eventually lets us on.  Tanner then proceeds to get into an argument with him that almost gets us kicked off the bus.  Also, everyone on the bus hates us for being late and looking like tourists.

Finally, we made it to Thessaloniki!  We take a city bus to get to our couchsurfers apartment.  Easier said than done.  We placed our bags onto a seat that way they are out of the aisle so people don't trip over them.  About 10 minutes into the ride an older man comes storming to the back of the bus yelling in Greek furiously!  I didn't know what he was mad about until he grabs our bags and throws them into the ailse.  I stand up telling him they are our bags.  He freaks out! "Seats are reserved for old people, not bags!"  The whole bus is looking at me, except Tanner.  Tanner looks away, pretends to not know who I am, and acts like nothing happened.  This is out of the scene in "Dumb and Dumber" when Seabass asks "who threw the salt shaker?" and Lloyd points at Harry as if he has nothing to do with the incident. 

The next 20 minutes of the bus ride I am standing up and being eye balled by the guy who threw the bags like I am the most worthless human being on Earth.  Meanwhile Tanner is having a pleasant conversation with a local on the best coffee shops in town.  WTF???

We eventually get to the Couchsurfer's location.

Day 12 Thessaloniki

Our Couchsurfer is an incredible host and we are in a great location in the city (which is about a half million people).  Tanner and I have decided to order a shipment of ties which should be sent in about 3-5 business days and plan to sell them in the streets of Thessaloniki and Athens.  Time for some more fundraising for this trip!

 

 

Day 13 Thessaloniki

 

 

Did some sightseeing.

 

 

 

 

 

Days 14 and 15 Thessaloniki

 

 

Not much going on, just waiting for the ties to come so we can sell them! We found a chill bar called Café Columbia and we're becoming regulars.  The owner loves us and has given us great travel advice.  Also when people ask us where in America we are from we say near Chicago since no one knows where Iowa is.  Right away everyone says "Michael Jordan!" and "Chicago Bulls!"

 

Heading to Athens next week then taking a ferry to Italy.

 

 

 



On to Greece

Day 8  Istanbul

Last day in Istanbul so we decided to do some sight seeing.

 

 

Day 9  Istanbul > Turkey/Greece border > Alexandroupolis, Greece

It is time to leave Istanbul,Turkey and make our way over to Thessaloniki, Greece.  We have plans to stay with a couchsurfer there.  The plan is to hitchhike the 8 hour car drive from Istanbul to Thessaloniki.  Neither Tanner or I have hitchhiked before.

 

 

 

This was a crazy experience and takes a lot of patience.  We found out during hitchhiking that a lot of people are just going an hour or two down the road, not a straight shot to Thessa.  So our first ride was an engaged couple from Turkey who were incredibly nice.  They didn't necessary speak great English but they bought us lunch and gave us water/snacks.  They took us to the edge of town. 

 

Our next ride was from an English teacher who took us about an hour to the border of Turkey and Greece.  This is where the fun begins.  We were allowed to walk out of Turkey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 You can't walk across the border into Greece by foot, you have to be in a car.  Of course we tried it anyway.  We waited about 4 hours to try to get someone to drive us across the border.  Seems simple, but with crossing a border being stressful enough,  do you really want to pick up 2 complete strangers trying to get across?  Finally, Tanner pulled some strings and 3 guys brought us across the border to Alexandroupolis. 

 

It was late in Alexandroupolis so we just had them drop us off downtown and look for a hotel room.  The bad news is, all the rooms in town were booked.  So we slept at the train station on park benches.  This isn't exactly how I envisioned our trip to Europe.

 

 

Day 10  Alexandroupolis > Xanthi > Kavala, Greece

 

Tanner and I got up the next day with some optimism that we would make it to Thessaloniki no problem. Turned out it was a long day with a lot of rejection by cars.  Some dude gave us a ride from Alexandroupolis to Xanthi which was about an hour away.  Then we waited on the highway for about 5 hours for someone to pick us up!  Even a police car drove by and stopped and asked what we were doing and if we were ok.  Eventually someone pulled over and said he could get us 20 minutes closer.  In a point of disperation, we took whatever we could get.

 

He dropped us off at an overpass in the middle of nowhere.  Another 2 hours went by with no luck.  At this point, we have hit a huge low in the trip and going home to some office job sounds somewhat desirable.  We are both tired, hungry, and not really big fans of each other.  After about 8 hours of waiting for cars we have only traveled about an hour and a half.  Then finally another guy comes and picks us up.  He says he is going to Kavala.  We don't care, just somewhere with a hotel!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We get to this town and it's incredible!  Kavala is like what you see in brochures of small town Greece.  Old houses on a hill, a castle, and everything is sitting on the Mediterranean .  In the matter of 24 hours we just experienced the highs and lows of traveling.  We went from sleeping on a park bench to staying at a 4 star hotel in a resort town in Greece! :) 

 

Still in Istanbul

Day 4 Istanbul

 

Things I don't like about Turkey:

1. Public restrooms are hard to find and sometimes they charge you to use them.
2. You are not supposed to drink the tap water. It's been only a few days and I'm tired of paying for water.
3. No streets signs/easy to get lost...
4. The food hasn't been sitting well
5. You want an ice bucket challenge? Take a shower
6. They don't speak English and learning this language is pretty rough.
7. Everyone talks like a used car salesman and people try to cheat you.
8. You have to pay attention to what things cost and make sure you aren't over charged.
9. The cup size of coffee/tea is like you what you would give to a baby.
10. Did I mention I'm not really into the food?


We did stay at a cool Hostel though.  We met some really great people from all over the place.

Here is a conversation with a band member from American Authors.

Me: what's the name of your band?
Guitarist: American Authors
Me: cool. You guys on YouTube or anything?...
Guitarist: uh yeah, you should be able to find us.
 

*** They only have about 30 million YouTube hits on the song "Best Day of My Life".***

The band members were super modest and we talked to them for about 2 hours.  They are touring in Europe right now.

  Met a guy from near Amsterdam.  We'll nickname him "Stoner".  Stoner gave me some great hitchhiking advice as he has thrown out thumb from Amsterdam to Istanbul.
I
 

Day 5 Istanbul

We took the Ferry today and went from the Europe side to the Asian side of town.  Have I mentioned how massive this city is?  Spent a good 6 hours of our day just walking around somewhat lost and somewhat amazed at how spread out this place is.

Tanner is buying clothes because he still doesn't have his bag.  That's right, it's been 3 days and we are still waiting on it.  We went out to celebrate his birthday at least though!

Day 6 Istanbul

We met this girl we have nicknamed "Princess Warrior".  Here name is very similar to Zelda.  Hopefully you remember the Nintendo game "The Legend of Zelda".  She has offered to let us stay at her place.  So we left the hostel day 5 and now are crashing at her apartment.  She is very nice and hospitable!  I have been sick with a cold and she gave me medication.  I initially bought some medication on the street that a vender told me it was for colds.  Princess Warrior told me it was actually for low blood counts.  Ohhh nooo!!!




Day 7 Istanbul

Tanner finally got his luggage from the airport!!!  I smelled all day. Bad!  On Day 5 I washed my clothes then hung them in a closet.  They ended up getting mildew on them.  As I stood in crazy transportation all day, I saw other citizens look at me in disgust.  One guy smelled his shirt thinking it was him, then looked at me and turned away.  Princess Warrior wants to get a hose and spray me down.  It's been an up and down week but we are exciting about hitchhiking to Greece around Day 9.  :)




 

Start of the Adventure

Day 1 Denver > Chicago > Warsaw, Poland > Istanbul, Turkey
Today was a lot of flying.  18 hours and 3 stops, but my 8 hour flight from Chi-town to Poland was pretty legit.  Watched Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight rises. Then I landed in Poland.  At the airport I walked out of the bathroom the same time some dude did.  We both double did a double check and it turned out he went into the women's restroom! Ha, what an idiot tourist!!!! 
Finally made it to Turkey.  I got change from Euros to Turkish money to ride a train at the airport.  The security guard helped me figure it out, but I think he screwed me over.  I have some cash, change, and a random red token that looks
like it came from Chucky Cheese.






 

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Day 2 Istanbul

Ha, I was hoping to just kind of ease into traveling but this first day of a new country was near disaster.  After landing in Turkey (day 1 and 2 kind of blend together), the plan was to meet Tanner at the airport since his flight landed a couple hours after mine.  Turns out there is 2 airports in Istanbul and we didn't realize it.  We don't a have phone so we have no way of contacting each other besides messaging on Facebook.  So you figured it out,  we flew into different airports.  Not knowing this, I waited for a couple hours at the Airport expecting to see Tanner.  Finally I just decided maybe we will meet me at the hostel.  This is where the "fun" begins.  Istanbul is a city of 22 millions people and is spread out like 3 times the size of Chicago.  That alone makes it hard to figure out where you are going.  So I took a train a few stops, then went to a coffee shop to get Wi-Fi and see if I could communicate with Tanner.  Had no luck so got back on the train.  My train card I bought didn't work and some local who was tired of waiting behind me, graciously paid for my fare.  As I am waiting for the train I notice something weird.  The map route was different and there were no tracks on the ground.  Turns out I'm getting on a bus instead of a train.  Ah what the heck lets see where this goes.   30 minutes later I'm on the other side of Istanbul.  I stop at coffee shops looking at maps and actually think I'm pretty close, but unfortunately I'm not.   I am lost in a foreign country!  Hours go by.  I try to get a taxi to drive me to the hostel but they don't even understand how to get around this damn city.  Finally just past midnight I get a taxi driver who knows where he's going and drops me off near the location.  Another hour of searching/walking around and finally I am at the location!  Tanner is waiting on the top floor balcony laughing his ass off.  He had a similar getting lost experience as well.  In all his different cities he has been in, Istanbul was the worst he has been lost in.  Oh yeah, and his bag never made it here from his flight to Israel.  Other than that things are great :).  

Day 3 Istanbul
I was dead tired from the past couple days and slept until like 3pm.  Then Tanner and I went and threw the football around in some random alley.  I almost go ran over by cars while running routes but made a sweet one handed catch then ran into a tree.
Conversation while eating dinner.

Me: So yeah I'm glad I bought that water bottle.  I don't want to have to spend money on water here.
Tanner: Have you been drinking tap water?
Me: Yeah, why?
Tanner. Ha, you're not supposed to drink that.  Even the locals don't drink it.  Have you been drinking it the whole time?
Me: Ah, crap.

 

 

Routes n' Shout Outs

I am leaving tomorrow to Turkey and this will be the last pre-trip blog.  We have a change of plans in our itinerary.  Actually, we never had a schedule in the first place.  Tanner's Aunt wants to meet us for a week in September and Tanner's buddy, we'll call him "CY" because he's an Iowa State fan (super lame!), wants to hang out with us for a month in October.  Now we have to get from Turkey to Italy in the matter of about 3 weeks (Route #1).  Then CY will meet us in Italy (Route #2)

Route #1

Istanbul, Turkey > Greece or Bulgaria >  Macedonia > Albania > Montenegro (ha, I never heard of it either) > Bosnia > Croatia > Slovenia > Italy

Then we will hang out in Italy for about a week or so with his Aunt.  Hopefully she pays for everything...just kidding ( kind of :) ).

Route #2

Italy > Switzerland > Germany> Amsterdam, Netherlands> Belgium/ France/ England/Ireland

CY will likely meet us in Italy, then we will head to Germany for a lot of October.  That's right, we're going to Octoberfest! 

Basically that is about the first 2 months of the trip.  We still plan on making it to every country in Europe so we will be backtracking to hit up countries that we may have missed along the way.  If anyone wants to meet up or has a friend we can stay with, send me a Facebook message. :)

Shout-outs

Thanks to anyone that bought a tie!  I sold a total of 146 ties in 3 weeks and that money is going to shelter, food, and extracurricular activities for the trip.  Also big-ups to anyone that donated! I had one person with a huge donation!  He will be receiving an 8x10 "Crushing Europe" autograph photo.

Let the fun begin!  If this blog blows up then I am going to buy the rights to crushingeurope.com.

Ideas and Updates

In this 2nd blog I'm brainstorming ideas and updates of the trip.  As I mentioned in the first blog, I am heading to Europe on August 29th and traveling with my buddy Tanner. My excitement level is through the roof!  I can't sleep at night and I have dreams about people speaking in languages that don't even exist. I was going to talk about what I am planning on taking on the trip but then realized you guys don't really care how many pairs of socks I bring, so lets get this party started...!!!

Ideas:

So Tanner and I Skype and have discussed a few random ideas for the trip:

1.  One potential project is video taping me trying to pick up girls on the streets of each country. Tanner will hide in the bushes like a creep taking video of me using a microphone and spitting game.  The catch is I can only speak in the country's native language.  Example:  If I am in Spain I will approach a girl and try a pick up line in Spanish :

"Ojala fuera bizco para verte dos veces".  Translation: I wish I was cross eyed, so I could see you twice.


So I need to do some research of pick-up lines in other languages (as well as Spanish) and we will put these to the test and see how well I fare in each country.  This has YouTube video written all over it or at least just a lot of rejection.

2. Tanner suggested getting a motorcycle and sidecar so we ride around like Batman and Robin in Europe.  At first it sounded like a great idea, then I pictured us driving in the Alps.  Tanner has a French supermodel groping him well I'm riding "Han Solo" in the sidecar complaining about leg room.  Talk about 3rd wheeling it (pun intended)!  Also I don't want the sidecar to become unnattached at 80 MPH.  I think we'll stick with hitchhiking for now.

3. Dress as a gladiator in Athens ,Greece and be a street performer.  Have tourists take pictures of us while we take in a little income.

Updates:

Here are some things I'd like to share:

1.  I received a great gift from a buddy (thanks Seth). It's a new shirt of a map of the entire globe!  I plan on wearing this everyday of the trip that way if I am lost or I am helping someone with directions, all I do is have to look at the shirt!

2.  I'm doing some last minute fundraising for the trip.  I'm running a black market neck tie business out of my parents van as a 2nd job. I picked up a couple of interns off the street (my nephews). What these guys lack in sales skills they make up for in heart and hustle.  Tanner did the business transactions to get the ties and I am just the blue collar sales man.

So far I have sold 54 ties.  They are $10 each and 100% hand made silk! I have 400 left in 35 different styles.  Let me know if you are interested.  I can mail them to you.  Business motto: 100% customer satisfaction. :)

3.  I am getting a lot of questions in regards to when we will be in certain countries and what our itinerary is. We don't plan on mapping a route out just because anything can happen!  Like for instance after Turkey, we will likely head to Greece, but if 3 hot girls want us to go to Romania with them we're probably not going to turn that down. :)



*****The last thing is a little trivia: Guess the population of Istanbul, Turkey.  Comment below without looking up the answer.  Anyone with-in one million of the actual number will receive a small gift from the country of their choice.  I'm cutting this off after 5 people guess.  Also if you have any clever ideas for the trip/blog feel free to give feedback. :)

Pretrip

This is happening!  So I just booked my flight to Istanbul, Turkey on August 29th.  I am flying on some airline called Malaysian Airlines... you familiar with it?.... Jk :)  The plan is to do a trip around Europe with a buddy of mine.  So I am about a month out and I figured I would go over some of the details.  Here are some frequently asked questions and these are my responses....

Where am I going? Europe, ever heard of it?  It's a sweet continent where the countries are the size of our states. USA! USA! USA!

Why am I going?  Several reasons:  YOLO (that's 'you only live once' in case you are my parents age), never traveled abroad, experience different cultures, enjoy the history, exploring, and maybe find a wife or something.

How could someone do this?  Quit your job, sell everything you own on Craigslist including your car, start eating cheap frozen pizzas, only drink $2 PBR in a can anytime you go out to save cash,  and then stop being a puss and just do it. 

Where am I staying and how am I getting around?  Super low budget.  Typically most people stay in Hostels while backpacking Europe.  Our plan is to mostly Couchsurf/stay with friends.  Couchsurfing a is website where you say what city you are in then you ask if someone has a place for you to crash or people offer.  Sounds creepy right?  It's actually pretty safe and usually an awesome experience for the host/surfer.  So that's one way of saving money.  We're also going to mostly be hitchhiking from country to country instead of riding a train.

Will I work while I am there? Sure

What do my parents think of the trip?  They are excited.  I'm not sure how well they are going to do with Skyping me though.  They are still trying to figure out how to scroll up and down on a computer screen.

Who am I going with?  My buddy Tanner.  He has been traveling around the world the last 2 years.  He's in India right now.  This is my first time long term backpacking so he is helping me with preparation and giving me ideas to keep everything low budget.  He's a Couchsurfing "hall of famer" and is a pro at traveling.  His only draw back is he relives his high school football glory days more than Al Bundy.  4 touchdowns in one game? He scored 5.

We talked about this 5 years ago in a bar in Phoenix.  You know when you get a few beers in you and then you start dreaming about all these things you want to do then never do it?  Well we're going for it.

Do we have a set agenda? No

Why start in Turkey and where are we all going?  Since Tanner is coming from the East, Turkey seems like the right place to begin.  We have discussed different routes but after Turkey I think we will stay south and head to Greece, then a couple countries in between, then Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, and head north to the U.K. and Ireland and so on.  A goal is to hit every country, but I don't know if  that will happen.

How long am I staying?  Between one week and 5 years. Most likely 6 months- 1 year.

Don't you think this trip is crazy? No.  Some 14 year old girl sailed around the world by herself.  That's crazy.

Random worst case scenarios:
1) Ever seen the movie "Hostel"?
2) While Hitchhiking I am stabbed in the throat
3) I am robbed and have no money
4) The Leaning Tower of Pisa collapses on me
5) I participate in the bull run in Spain and I'm not fast enough
6) I get an STD that doctors have never seen before called "Europees." (Shout out to a friend that came up with that term)

Random best case scenarios:
1) I kill the Loch Ness Monster and become a hero
2) I become a Gondolier for a Gondola in Venice
3) I become a 'ball boy' at Wimbledon
4) I swim the English Channel
5) I become fluent in 10 different languages
6) "The Most Interesting Man in the World" starts coming to me for advice

This is my first blog and I hope to keep doing this while I am traveling.  I will probably write another one right before I go discussing packing/more planning of  the trip as well as other stuff.  I'm open to feedback/ideas. Thanks!