Long way to Turkey - 1st part

5th March 2002

Hi everybody... I'm sending this first e-mail to test if it works and to tell you that I'm leaving tomorrow (wednesday) morning. I'm departing deom International airport at 11:40. Arriving in Sao Paulo (SP) I will try to send another message. I will try to write from all airports and in Athens I may do it as I will expend 1 day there. My pictures I can only upload when I arrive in Eskisehir. Maybe if I'm lucky and one of my Istanbul friends have a good computer I do it from there.
That's all.
Kisses and hugs and wish the best to me (I'm ansious). Kendine iyi bak (take care) sonra görüþürüz (see you soon) hoþakal (bye)

6th March - Arrived in Sao Paulo

As I said, I would send news from everywhere I stopped. I'm in Guarulhos (SP) right now at the International airport. The flight was fine and fast, only 45 minutes. I'm a bit lost here whithout know what to do till the next flight. Imagine when I'm in Amsterdam :)
I found a place to stay in Istanbul, my friend Hakan told me I can sleep in his house... great! In Athens I still don't know what to do but I'm thinking about to leave the airport and go to a hostel, but I'm still deciding. I hope I can go to Achropolisand some other places. Well, I will have a lot of time to think about that till I get there.
Bye! See you in Amsterdan!

7th March - In Amsterdam

Well, I'm in Amsterdam... waiting my flight to Athens.

The flight till here was fine. Before the flight depart I started to speak in English (as I had to start to use it) to a lady seating by my side. After some minutes we realized that we both were brasilians :) I met also another brasilian girl at the flight as she was seating in front of us and heared portuguese being spoken. We talked the whole flight. Unfortunately both had to take another flight in Amstedam and I was alone again... and now in Europe, for the first time, by myself, speaking my very bad english.

I didn't like Amsterdam, specially because was 10 degrees in the Sun. As I was there I decided to take a boat tour to know the rivers... that was interesting...
Everything here is expensive... uau! I'm not going to dinner here and wait till Athens. I ate enought at the flight.
The airport here is amazing, then I'm waiting my flight here.
Let me go now because my Internet time is finishing. I send more news from Athens.

8th March - In Athens and the adventure started

I was in Amsterdam and came to Athens... nice flight... only 3 hours and I ate a lot. Arrived around 1am (local time). As I didn't eat in Amsterdam, I ate a lot at the flight. :)
As it was late I couldn't go to downtown to check the hostels and I decided to do what people were doing... relax and rest a bit at the airport seats. I didn't rest much because I couldn't sleep... I'm without sleep since I left Brasil, 4 days ago and I think I will only relax when I get in Eskisehir. From time to time I walked around asking where the bus station was... knowbody knew that there was a International bus station... I really started to get worried.

Around 5am I saw a group of forengners with a book about Athens... then I had an idea: or ask them or buy a similar book at the store. Of course I asked them to check the book and later I went to the store to get some more information, without buy anything :) Finally I found the bus station... or lets say... a bus stop. One good news is the bus ticket from airport to downtown I can use 24 hours in all public transportation... great... I'm using subway to go everywhere for free. I'm just a bit shy because I'm the only one not registering the ticket when getting into the subway station because it is already validated.

I already visited everything I planned... Achropolis, Pathernon, the National Museum, Athens Academy and some other places I don't remember the name. They are building the Olympic Stadium here but I don't know if I'm going there.

Well, here is 12:20 and I have to do samething till 7 pm, or earlier as I left my luggage in a pseudo-locker... I hope it is still there :) Talking about luggage, one of the cachaça bottles was broken when I got here. Now I have only 1.

Let me go guys because I'm here for a long time. See you all in Istanbul! 24 hours by bus till there!