10 days in Italy and Greece

Many of you may have heard of Spring Break; well, in my part of the world, we call it March break since it is in the middle of March. Lots of families go away to Florida or the Caribbean Islands. There are also camps that children can attend in the community. I went to a catholic school, and every other year they have a humanitarian trip that you may voltmeter for. It also counts as the recommended volunteer hours that you must do to get your diploma. But in other years, students can go on European trips that the school organizes, and I had the fantastic opportunity to embark on this trip. I had previously written a version of this blog post/essay for my 10th-grade french class. I’ve translated and edited it because my writing style has changed over the years. Hope you enjoy it. 

On March 6th, 2014, our Little group of 100 students and teachers embarked on a 10-day trip to Italy and Greece, where adventures and great memories awaited. Friendships were also formed. This trip was my first time travelling without my parents and my first international trip. I was a bucket of nerve and excitement all at once.

The journey started in front of our school, saying goodbye to our family. We also got to skip class that morning because we left around noon from the school since we had a two-hour bus ride to the airport in Montréal, and we had a lot of us to pass through security for our 7 pm flight left. We could have left from The Ottawa airport as it is an international airport, but it is quite small and would have probably needed to land in Toronto or Montréal for a connecting flight anyway, so we all hopped on coaches and went straight to Montréal. Now because we were such a large group, we could not take the same plane to get to our final destination. So they split us into two groups; these would also be the groups for our coach buses once in Italy and Greece. My group flew to Paris and then to Rome. Whereas the other group flew to Swaziland and then Rome.

Friday, March 7th

We landed in Paris early in the morning since our first flight was an overnight flight. Our flight to Rome was 3 1/2 hours of a layover, so for some, it was sleeping on uncomfortable chairs and, in some cases, the floor. If you haven’t been to the Charle de goal airport in the international departures, its floor-to-ceiling and ceiling glass this is hard to get some shut-eye when the sun is coming up. The second flight was quite interesting; the plane mainly consisted of our school of 50 and another school from Canada, and they were also on a trip with the same tour group called EF tours.
Once in Rome, we’re greeted by our lovely guide Lorenzo and the handsome bus driver Stefano. They drove us directly to the center of Rome and gave us a few hours to explore and have lunch in the Piazza Navona, a big square with loads of shops and cafés with local artisans surrounding a beautiful fountain. I recommend going and just enjoying a cafe with a good book or even a great lunch with friends. I, for some reason, have a strange thing about remembering small and quirky details like what I had for lunch; it was a pizza, but the topping was not ordinary. It was potatoes that were shredded with a cheese grater. That night was quiet; we settled in our hotel rooms and met up with the rest of our school because they had gotten in much earlier than us and then went out for supper nearby our hotel.

Saturday, March 8th

No sleeping in for us, as we had a packed day. We started the day at the Vatican City, where we visited the St-Peters Basilica and the wonderful Sixtieth Chapel that was painted by one of the prominent four artists of the renaissance era Michelangelo. There is this little shop near the Vatican where I bought souvenirs for my family. This shop offered this service where you could get your purchases baptized by the pope, then once done, they delivered them to our hotel, where our tour guide gave them back to us. I did so for my grandmother’s rosary and a charismas tree ornament I got for my mother.
We also toured the Colosseum and the ancient city of Rome which have so many stories to tell. The modern city of Rome is built on top of the ancient city. Archeologists have excavated a small area it is wonderfully preserved and integrated into the city.

Sunday, March 9th

Still, no sleeping in, as we take a 4 hours bus trip from Rome to Florence through the beautiful countryside. The city of Florence was a big part of the renaissance with Michelangelo. Florence is also a prominent manufacturer of leather, which is impeccable. We took a tour of a leather workshop, where the shopkeeper taught us how to spot real and fake leather. I bought myself a leather bracelet and my mother this little pouch wallet as a souvenir. She still to this day uses it every day. On our tour, Gide recommended we have wood oven pizza in the famous square where Michelangelo lived for a big part of his life and where the statue of David used to stand. Now it is a replica on the outside, but you can still see the original inside of the museum nearby where they are preserving it. Once our exploration of Florence was done, we drove back to Rome, where we packed up our suitcases because the next day, we were heading south for our next adventure.

Monday, March 10th

Goodbye Rome, for now, ill be back and Hello Naples for a short time till we embarked on a fairy to the Island of Capri and then bake to the mainland to the city of Sorrento. All in one day’s work. The Island of Capri is a special place in my heart because one of my cousins is named after this Island, and ever since then, I have researched it and wanted to visit it. This day was the only day that was overcast, but that did not stop us from exploring. Because we went in March, some places were not in the open end for tourist season yet, but that was okay because we got to enjoy its picturesque views. Then we took a faerie back to the mainland. Now Sorento port is lower than most of the city because of how the terrain is. So because our mode of transportation where these big coaches, they could not get to us because of the narrow road and twisted and turns. So If we were going to get to our hotel, we would have taken the windy road up the mounting by foot, but there was a shortcut a quarter of the way through this road. Now, this shortcut was not short for me at the time because I was definitely not in shape; this was a 430 steps staircase. Once at the top, I was proud of myself for having made it. It was still a little light out, so we explored a little and then just hung out at our hotel because we were all exhausted from the day of adventure.

Tuesday, Marche 11th

 To the city of Pompeii, where we toured the old Pompeii and learned its stories. It’s so beautiful but also scary that what caused these tourist hotspots is brewing under our feet. The architecture of the city is art on its own to still be standing after something like this. There is sadness for all those lives lost and history lost. That night we said goodbye to Italy and embarked on a night cruise to Greece. The cruise was considered owned by Greece; therefore, we ended up having one step in Greece and one foot in Italy. As a 15-year-old at the time thought that was pretty cool. I did get a little nauseous on the ship but that might be because it was raining so the water was not the smoothest and we were not able to get some fresh air but it was all worth it for the view the following day.

 Wednesday, March 12th

   Once in Greece, our adventure took us towards Delphi.  Along the way, we stopped at this restaurant by the beach where we all spent over an hour just walking the beach. You could tell we were tourists because we were rolling up our pants and walking in the weather. The drive up in the mountains of Greece was beautiful but also scary because on one side of the bus it was this shear wall of rocks and tho on the other side it was a wonderfully long way to fall. The bus also didn’t have much space leveraged

for movement. Once in Delphi, we had a quiet night exploring the city by ourselves till supper. The hotel was the small quiet where we were staying in. We had the whole hotel apart from one room. Everyone was put into groups of four during the whole trip and those were your roommates. Everyone had quite small rooms but my group somehow ended up in the suite to the point where someone came in and slept with us because of space issues.

Thursday, March 13th

On this day, we got up at 7 am was pretty good, considering we were getting up at 5:30-6:00 every other morning. We tour the Delphi Archaeological Museum, the ancient city’s ruins, and all things Greek metrology. Like the temple of Apollo, the oracle and the sanctuaries of Apollo and Athena. I was told that this city was built in the mountains so they could be closer to their goods. It’s also believed to have a moving power that can sometimes heal people.

Then it was back on the bus down the mountain to Athens. If you get car sick, I don’t recommend this drive. I also don’t recommend it if you are afraid of heights cause one side of the road is rocky, and the other is a drop. Don’t get me wrong, it was beautiful, but sometimes I thought the bus would fall off. That night in Athens, we had a traditional Greek dinner, with lots of dancing and singing.

Friday, March 14th

This is our last full day in Greece, and we visited the famous Acropolis. It is situated on the high point of the modern city; in the distance, you can see Zeus Temple surrounded by a wooden area in the middle of the city. For lunch and the rest of the afternoon, we had the freedom to walk around Athens for six hours. Instead of taking a bus back to our hotel, all 100 of us took the metro; that was an experience. I had never been in one, and I, unfortunately, stumbled over on my feet as the train left the station. We also didn’t speak greek, so we were told that our stop was so many stops. So like a tourist, we counted the stops. Our hotel was situated next to a metro station which made it more accessible instead of trying to navigate through the narrow streets with a big bus. It was my first time on a subway; it was so cool in my teenager’s eyes. That night was quiet since we were leaving the following day from the hotel to be at the airport early. We had just had dinner by the time everyone was done; it was 10 pm, so we packed our suitcases ready to go that night and put alarms on just in case we fell asleep because our wake-up call was 2 am.

Return to Canada

I was sad that our adventure was coming to an end, but I was also excited to go home and tell my parents all about it. Wake up call was at 2 am, and on the bus at 3:15, ready to go to the airport with our suitcase. So we took a quick flight to Paris for my group, and the other went to Switzerland. Once in Paris, we all tried to get some shut-eye in the airport, but the international section of the airport was all glass, and we landed at 10 am. There were few choices for food, but we made do. Hoped on our second flight of 8h, part two of three of our journey home. We landed in Montreal it was freezing at -5C. Now that’s not that cold, compared to the nice sunny materterine at 19-20 degrees Celsius with only a hoodie. The last leg is our two hours bus ride to school, where our journey began ten days ago, where our parents were waiting for us. The jet lag came into effect quickly now. I was used to one-time zone differently because of where my grandparents live but this was different. We got home on a Saturday night slept all day Sunday and were back in school on Monday.
I hope you enjoy my storytelling of my first international travel
I’d gladly put it up if you read French and wish to read the original to make a comparison.

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