Rhodes

I awoke to the little blue star man tapping me.. Telling me it was time to get up.. Was I in Rhodes already!? On time!? No way. Sleeping hours on the couch were just over.. And everytime I dosed off and layed down he was back tapping me on the shoulder. So I learned to sleep sitting up. Then around noon sleeping wasn't fun anymore, so I did a walking lap, ate my bread, people watched, cleaned my burn, sewed my jacket up again, and grew restless. The ferry was supposed to be 7 and a half hours to rhodes... Or maybe it was to kos where I bought my ticket to... But we freaking stopped at every single island in the agean sea... I shoulda just got off at kos... Over 13 hours later, after eating all the raw pasta in my bag and giving in to a €4 baguette on the boat, we FINALLY reached rodos! good god. Everyone who was on the same journey at least looked equally haggard. It was now late afternoon instead of the bustling morning of 8 am.. I made aquaintaces with this canadian mom who thought I was 18.. She was traveling alone.. Had an 18 yr daughter, and complained about a million things... Your a mom.. You shouldn't be tryin out the youth hostel thing anyway.. She kept tellin me about Lindas place where she was goin to stay for only €35 a night.. I told her congrats.. That's more than my entire daily budget.. Have fun. And she followed me off the boat into the care of this little old man who ran a "youth hostel" for €10 a night.. Not as cheap as santorini, but I'll take it.. Apparently the Canadian lady was ready to give it a go too? And so us and a Japanese couple all crammed into this dudes 4 seated little red beat up car.. Yea 2 bags were on the roof. We went to what we later found out to be the Jewish quarters of the old town.. Cool for history, not for sleeping. I'm used to gross and dingy so I don't think twice about where I'm staying too much, but the weird feelin when we got there just wasn't right, and the Canadian lady's face... Haha get me outta here now! And the Japanese couple weren't lookin too thrilled either, so we all left together. And like the most unusual heard you've ever seen, we took on the adorable little town of rodos to find the tourist info. I had no idea how awesome the little town was almost worth the extra 5 hours on the ferry! Apparently it's the largest lived in medival city in Europe! The old town has like 12 or 13 gates for the apostles into the town, and you still have to use one of the entrances to get in/out.





So just outside the walls we found the info.. I got my real hostel, crazy Canada got her hotel Linda and her cab for 2 blocks, and the Japanese couple came with me back to the hostel. It was not the coolest place to be for sure, but poppy was nice and welcoming and brought a better atmosphere to the almost equally old place. I got a whole dorm room to myself which was actually spooky.. I didn't sleep well either night because I was freaked out.. But getting to sprawl my crap over 4 beds was fun. The fact that one of the windows looked straight into the old abondoned building across the alley didn't help much either. I went to the little convienience store and got some food.. It was down two teeny tiny alley ways that you couldn't even find unless you were hunting for them. I hung out with poppy for a bit as she told about Rhodes and the different cultures of people just on the island... And how every month has a different fruit or something to harvest. I read up out of an old school lonely planet about the Greek isles and getting to and away from turkey.. I knew it was quite old, but the new suggested route to kastelorizo to kas wasn't looking too promising, although many people had done it and apparently it's way cheaper if you willing to spend an extra 3 hours by boat.. Of course! So I took it in.. Talked about turkey, kinda, with my new Japanese friend who's name I would butcher if I tried, but again, he had learned all his English traveling over the last two weeks.. Kinda impressive.. Apparently we were great
Friends after our 30 min convo.. I received a yen and a business card, and a photoshoot. In return he got a painted rock.. leo got 2 yesterday because he didn't understand pick one.. It's kinda handy havin them around! Ha. So I went to sleep in my empty room and million degree sleeping bag. It really is as warm as it claims.. The only time I haven't sweat to death in it was sleeping in the car in Iceland.. Now I know you def don't need a 0 degree bag!!!

The next morning I slept in a bit.. Still tired from my long journey to Rhodes. I went around trying to find the prices straight to marmaris, turkey and to kastelorizo and onto kas.. Marmaris has a dumb €15 port tax, and the one hour ride is €33.... Dumb. Katerlorizo is only €18.50.. But there's no way to find out when the boat go to kas, you have to go there to ask and thus no way to find out how much they were.. I was tOld €5.. so I suspected maybe 10 or15.. Which is still way cheaper.. So I thought I'd go find the beach and think about if I was ready to head on another adventure and to a new spot in turkey, scrambling up my plans a tiny but, but nothing too serious.. since there is no actual plans :) I was supposed to go to lindos, that's the tourist beautiful beach an hour away by bus with another ancient acropolis.. Eh. I didn't have the motivation and didn't want to pay so much to get there.. So I settled for the beach just outside Rhodes town.... Not too shabby :) the water was like it was on fire it was sooo bright blue! And I could see turkey across the water.. Perfect for my rest and contemplation..





It was a lovely beach day of my crazy iPod and sudoku.. And watching the fat kids float in the water.. The wind was pickin up a bit.. So I packed up and headed back along the ports.. Stopping to ask the private day tours to turkey how muh they charge for a one way.. Apparently I got offered a very special deal.. The dude didn't tell me that like ever other sales person in the world.. Poppy did later! So for €20 I could go one way.. Basically the same as the other Greek island without the hassle and the long unknown journey i'm sure it would entail. Cool. I took it. So I went to go find Internet.. I found a little restaurant with free Internet.. Obviously you haveta buy something so i settled for a kebab and Romeos company.. He wanted to show me his cool iPhone and then I showed him mine.. Haha.. His was way cooler. Apparently iPhones are €700 in Greece! Aye yaye. Maybe for his white 32 gig one I hope at least. So Romeo fell in love with me too, o great.. I just wanted to use the Internet to Find a hostel and make sure that I could get to where I wanted to in turkey.. and admire the cool parrots who spoke greek, He tried to get me to crawl on the straw roof to see the swimming pool.. Hmm. I'm blonde but not that dumb. So he asked to meet up at night for a drink.. I'll legitimately left my opinion undecided and would see where the night took me as we agreed to meet at 10. So I roamed the walled in town And probably saw some famous important ruins I was too lazy to look up. Saw another Byzantine church and maybe a mosque.. This islands identity has been confused being ruled by the Romans, the Turks, the Italians, the Greeks, and so forth throughout the past few hundred years. It was getting dark so I headed home to poppy who had dinner guests over.. I more or less joined them.. There isn't exactly a lot of places to eat at. I started chatting with the ol English couple who come to rhodes 1-2 times a year they love it so much.. And next month they are headed to Malta, and Cyprus.. Rough life. They never go to America tho cuz Bob doesn't want to fly for more than 4 hours. But after talkig all night, yea I blew off Romeo to hang out with the 82 year old man, he said he'd come to California just to see me.. Except he got too drunk to remember my name.. It was pretty funny. And his wife was so embarassed. Apparently I made his night and whole year.. Guess they don't talk to too many young people or something.. He was hysterical, cheers-ing every minute to me and my chocolate milk.. Which bob later turned to wine. O gosh. And poppy fed me some pizza omelette potato Greek thing that was interesting. I turned in the fun and excitement early to pack up my explosion and get ready to catch my ferry early the next morning.


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