Top/bottom Sketchy experiences
From meghan's wonderful suggestion...i'm going to attempt to list the sketchiest experiences we had on our trip...that's right...this one will be humorous...and not the i can't count kinda funny...
1. This one will most definitely go to Athens, Greece. That's right...the whole place gets a big old number one on my sketchy experiences list...and for multiple reasons...when i think sketchy, i now think...hmm...athens. that's right. it was sketchy enough to make me redefine what i mean by 'sketchy' so enough explaining how bad it was...now to explaining why it really made the top of this unfortunate list...well, to start with, the train was quite sketch...that's just the beginning too! we got of at the correct station in athens, right? and well, it was hard to tell if it actually was the right station cause it was sooo poorly lit and well, i guess the term would be sketchy. and right as we get off the train (me first, of course) we are approached by a man (shorter than me) who is saying something i can't understand, but he won't get out of my face, it turns out that he was offering us a cheap cab to our hotel (um, no!!)...then we pull out the well...to put it lightly the shitty directions that we had to our hotel...and are approached by another man (this one is about my size) who is offering us a map to a hotel where we can stay and he'd show us how to get there/give us a ride...i think not!!!, but when we asked at the tiny information desk for a map (the worst map of any city we visited) he kept trying to shove his map into my hands and i had to be as polite as possible in saying, no thank you but we already have a place to stay...ugh! and that's just in the first five minutes we are there!! so we walk out the door to try and figure out where we are going...and that doesn't happen...cause the address, we are informed by the first non-sketchy person we come across...is in pireaus, which is the southernmost suburb of athens...but how to get there....we don't know, so we go back to the train station where the info dude is totally less than helpful...and get to the other train station (much less sketchy) and ask there and that guy is very helpful and we take the metro, switch trains, then take it all the way to the end of the line. then tried to find the hotel in the dark with bad directions...it took a long time and we finally found it and it was not so hot either...the nicest thing about athens was the metro and metro stations..all spotless and new from the olympics...but the rest of it...totally nasty and ugly and well...sketchy...thus the first place ranking! phew (long story on that)
2. this one is not as easy...so i'll go with the guy in the square in Milan. meghan got approached by this guy trying to hand her bird seed/bread to feed the pigeons as i was trying to take a picture of her in the square...and he tried to force her to take it, then got all pissy when she wouldn't...it was rather, well...annoying.
3. Milan's smell. yes, milan got two on this list. i have never seen so much trash in my life. milan literally smelled like a humongous city sized dumpster and looked like it too (in places) it was sooo nasty, thus its on the list.
4. Ancona. well, more of the walk from the port to the train station on the way back from greece...we just walked down the tracks...felt a bit wierd and homeless and yet i felt safer there than i did in athens.
5. Patras. Another Greek city (the port) where it seemed like all railroad cars/coaches/freight cars/etc. had found a graveyard of rust and weeds...it was just incredibly dirty and though the actual passenger train station was nice and clean, the process of getting there wasn't so squeaky clean.
6. A relatively minor sketchy experience...in fact i think this was a combination of goods and bads. the ferry to Greece. sketchy=sleeping on the floor freezing cold in the airline seats room with random people around us...a bit wierd. not so sketchy=random greek man who taught us a new card game kinda like rummy...we're calling it greek rummy, and bought us a big bottle of water and it was nice!
7. The tour guides at the Coloseum in Rome. i don't like getting pressured for things, especially when parting w/ my money and at the colloseum they have people come up to you and offer to give you a tour, plus ticket and immediate entry into the colloseum for a certain price...but they are quite pressuring..not my forte at all..but i hear it was worth it..cause rae and meghan paid for it, but i didn't.
8. Trams in Vienna. they were just a bit old and creaky...therefore a bit on the sketchy side, nothing too bad though!
9. Compartment on overnight train to Venice from zurich. six people, well, rather five and a half, cause it was me, meghan, a swiss girl, a girl from singapore (?), and an italian woman and her infant daughter. we were sardines in there=not fun. the baby didn't make any noise all night, quite a feat...so that was good, but still...didn't sleep well, mostly cause i didn't fit very well in the bed.
10. Train on the way to Rome from Bologna. we sat on the floor. that's right...we got on the wrong train (but to the right place) and didn't have seats, so we just chilled in the foyer where the doors were and sat on the floor...a bit sketch, but free and fast!
i'll leave it at that, cause i can't come up with any more good sketchy experiences...i think athens covers those up pretty well!!! time to write! happy weekend (it already began for me!)
1. This one will most definitely go to Athens, Greece. That's right...the whole place gets a big old number one on my sketchy experiences list...and for multiple reasons...when i think sketchy, i now think...hmm...athens. that's right. it was sketchy enough to make me redefine what i mean by 'sketchy' so enough explaining how bad it was...now to explaining why it really made the top of this unfortunate list...well, to start with, the train was quite sketch...that's just the beginning too! we got of at the correct station in athens, right? and well, it was hard to tell if it actually was the right station cause it was sooo poorly lit and well, i guess the term would be sketchy. and right as we get off the train (me first, of course) we are approached by a man (shorter than me) who is saying something i can't understand, but he won't get out of my face, it turns out that he was offering us a cheap cab to our hotel (um, no!!)...then we pull out the well...to put it lightly the shitty directions that we had to our hotel...and are approached by another man (this one is about my size) who is offering us a map to a hotel where we can stay and he'd show us how to get there/give us a ride...i think not!!!, but when we asked at the tiny information desk for a map (the worst map of any city we visited) he kept trying to shove his map into my hands and i had to be as polite as possible in saying, no thank you but we already have a place to stay...ugh! and that's just in the first five minutes we are there!! so we walk out the door to try and figure out where we are going...and that doesn't happen...cause the address, we are informed by the first non-sketchy person we come across...is in pireaus, which is the southernmost suburb of athens...but how to get there....we don't know, so we go back to the train station where the info dude is totally less than helpful...and get to the other train station (much less sketchy) and ask there and that guy is very helpful and we take the metro, switch trains, then take it all the way to the end of the line. then tried to find the hotel in the dark with bad directions...it took a long time and we finally found it and it was not so hot either...the nicest thing about athens was the metro and metro stations..all spotless and new from the olympics...but the rest of it...totally nasty and ugly and well...sketchy...thus the first place ranking! phew (long story on that)
2. this one is not as easy...so i'll go with the guy in the square in Milan. meghan got approached by this guy trying to hand her bird seed/bread to feed the pigeons as i was trying to take a picture of her in the square...and he tried to force her to take it, then got all pissy when she wouldn't...it was rather, well...annoying.
3. Milan's smell. yes, milan got two on this list. i have never seen so much trash in my life. milan literally smelled like a humongous city sized dumpster and looked like it too (in places) it was sooo nasty, thus its on the list.
4. Ancona. well, more of the walk from the port to the train station on the way back from greece...we just walked down the tracks...felt a bit wierd and homeless and yet i felt safer there than i did in athens.
5. Patras. Another Greek city (the port) where it seemed like all railroad cars/coaches/freight cars/etc. had found a graveyard of rust and weeds...it was just incredibly dirty and though the actual passenger train station was nice and clean, the process of getting there wasn't so squeaky clean.
6. A relatively minor sketchy experience...in fact i think this was a combination of goods and bads. the ferry to Greece. sketchy=sleeping on the floor freezing cold in the airline seats room with random people around us...a bit wierd. not so sketchy=random greek man who taught us a new card game kinda like rummy...we're calling it greek rummy, and bought us a big bottle of water and it was nice!
7. The tour guides at the Coloseum in Rome. i don't like getting pressured for things, especially when parting w/ my money and at the colloseum they have people come up to you and offer to give you a tour, plus ticket and immediate entry into the colloseum for a certain price...but they are quite pressuring..not my forte at all..but i hear it was worth it..cause rae and meghan paid for it, but i didn't.
8. Trams in Vienna. they were just a bit old and creaky...therefore a bit on the sketchy side, nothing too bad though!
9. Compartment on overnight train to Venice from zurich. six people, well, rather five and a half, cause it was me, meghan, a swiss girl, a girl from singapore (?), and an italian woman and her infant daughter. we were sardines in there=not fun. the baby didn't make any noise all night, quite a feat...so that was good, but still...didn't sleep well, mostly cause i didn't fit very well in the bed.
10. Train on the way to Rome from Bologna. we sat on the floor. that's right...we got on the wrong train (but to the right place) and didn't have seats, so we just chilled in the foyer where the doors were and sat on the floor...a bit sketch, but free and fast!
i'll leave it at that, cause i can't come up with any more good sketchy experiences...i think athens covers those up pretty well!!! time to write! happy weekend (it already began for me!)