Greece

I am writing this post from the safety and comfort of Ryan Corces apartment in Madrid, Spain. It has been a harrowing and beautiful three weeks and I would like to take a minute to TRY to relate the craziness of our lives…

Greece:

From around the 12th of October to the 18th, Joe and I took a hiatus from our pastoral lives to visit my family in Greece. After a couple whirlwind nights in my truly favorite city so far on the trip, Naples, we made our way to Bari, Italy where we took a ferry to Corfu, Greece. Easy right? I said a well-earned goodbye to Italy from ontop of the dark deck of the ferry as we slid down the Eastern coast of Italy towards the bluer waters of the Ionian Sea. We awoke to garbled message over the intercom and a peach sunrise of Corfu. We saw trucks exiting the belly of the ferry and slowly began the process of collecting our meager belongings and getting off the ferry. I was particularly excited because I knew that there was a large chance, despite my inability to create a clear line of communication without a cell phone or internet, that my parents were waiting for me on the other side of this 9 hour ferry. I calmly asked one of the crew members if this was truly Corfu and if we could exit the ship…in response I received some hand-waving and the incomprehensible but clearly enunciated fact that we were on our way to Igonemitsu. Surely enough, looking out the window, we saw the same scene of Corfu town sliding by, in the other direction as we left the port, with us still on the ship!
My waterworks started and the officer even tried calling the engine room to see if it was possible to turn the ship around. Sadly no, and we were on our way to Igonemitsu. In my mind I thought this was another 9 hour ferry, and the comfort of my parents after a long month in Italy just at my fingertips made me very sad. However, it was really only a 1 hour ferry, and we would be back in Corfu just 4 hours later with the mountain of finding my parents on this GORGEOUS greek island left. Joe was a trooper and carried my bag half the time we meandered our way to Corfu town in search of an internet café. (My knee at this point in time of the trip was all messed up and hurt to walk). We eventually found them on the other side of Corfu at Glyfada beach. After some showering and feeding we were back to normal after the harrowing 24 hours. We even were given our OWN hotel room with our OWN bathroom. The next week we spent riding around Greece in a car, looking at seriously old structures and sites. Like 2000 years before Christ old.

TO BE CONTINUED…