So after 21 days and 6 cities, I am back in NY from my first "vacation" abroad since I started working. I think I am going to do this quite out of order - ideally I would have liked to record the planning before the trip, made a few en-route posts with pictures, and then follow those up with a proper conclusion (possibly with detailed list of expenses in a spreadsheet) afterwards. Well, since I was 1) in a high frenzy prior to departure and 2) too cheap to pay the 1 euro/15 minute to post while on the road, here I am trying to make up for all of that now, after my trip has ended.
I spent 12/14-12/25 in Italy, then 12/25-12/30 in Athens, and 12/30 - 01/04 in Istanbul. This trip was meant to be my first step to fulfill my childhood dream of seeing the world. I don't have long periods of free time, so I figured I could do this a little bit at a time. These three precious weeks were right in between the end of finals and the beginning of the spring semester. I planned the trip with small time margins and hoped to fully utilize my free time. It turned out that things barely fell into place in time, and that by trying to predict things that I could not control I had caused myself considerable stress and aggravation. This was especially true before the trip, with last-minute visa applications, snow storms and whatnot.
I followed through my plan of sleeping through the entire flight to Rome, thanks to the lack of sleep on the previous nights. Was not jetlagged at all. I had deliberately not planned out many things and wanted to give myself some freedom to be spontaneous (gasp). In retrospect this worked out well - I don't feel that I missed out on many things during trip, and for the few things that I did miss (like the Christmas Day Mass at St. Peter), I did so by choice.
I was quite wrong in my initial hope to escape the New England winter by going to the Mediterraneans region during winter. Venice was cold, and 2 out of the 5 days of my time in Istanbul, it snowed. Hence I always wear the same thing - the jacket - in all of my pictures. It was great not having to deal with the crowd however.
Breaking out of daily routines was great. One of the best thing about traveling was simply the feeling that one has endless options and can do virtually anything. Not that I actually did anything crazy (which is all relative depending on who you talk to...), but just having that idea was awesome. Traveling alone gave me a lot of time to feel, to wonder, to delve into old memories, and sometimes just let my mind go blank. For the first week I kept on wanting to turn off my cellphone whenever I walked into a quiet place like a church, only to realize repeatedly that I don't have the phone, and that I have no service abroad anyways. It was quite funny though, how it kept happening, like a reflex.
It's good to be back. Next I think I'll write about the foods.
