Day 1

Okay, so our fairly ambitious trek of visiting both Italy and Greece in just two weeks began in from the Helsinki-Vantaa airport. The weather in Finland was sunny and warm, making my attempts to drag my (heavy) rinkka from my parents house to the airport less than fun. It also gave me a glimpse (although a fairly moderate one) of how this dragging business would feel like.

So after almost missing the stop i was suppoused to get off on (the departure terminals had changed just before our trip, making me very confused) I walk into the (correct) terminal and see a bunch of excited young women sitting in a circle on the floor (which was also a good indication on what we would be doing a lot on this trip). They rudely laughed at me for being late, as i am usually the first person there.

So we check out luggage, and are not too suprised that Tea's bag is the heaviest. We have a bet on how many shoe pairs she brought with her, but we are suprised to hear she only brought two. Apparently, a lot of the weight came from various food supplies she is carrying. After the safety-checks we decide to go have a bit of coffee and food at the local Robert's coffee.

The plane ride is as painful as it usually is for me, and we land in Rome at around 12o'clock. Our stay in Italy begins very nicely. We ended up waiting for Kristiina's luggage for an hour, while getting practically no help from the locals. This too would soon to become a typical situation for us in Italy. After we do manage to recover the lost luggage, we head towards our planned sleeping area. The trip isn't long as we had decided (to save money and nerves) to not go looking for a hostel for that night, but to instead sleep at the airport.

This night was to be the first of many badly-slept nights on the trip.

*cue dramatic music*