"I think you travel to search and you come back home to find yourself there..."

15 cities and 9 countries later and I have finally made it back home to Newcastle.  I felt sad coming home from Greece today but as soon as we landed I was so happy to be back. Being away from Newcastle made all of us realize how much this place has become home to us and how much we have adapted to the culture and lifestyle here.  Traveling to all of these different places made me realize how lucky I am to be studying in a place like Newcastle which is now a second home to me.   It was an amazing month and I am so grateful to have been able to travel to so many different places with people that I love and to have seen and experience so much that I will never forget.  However, during my last few days of spring break I also learned some of the challenges that can come with traveling as well.

During our final stop of spring break we were out celebrating in our last Greek island, Mykonos, Greece.  We met with some of our other study abroad friends that were also staying on the Island and spent the day soaking up our last day in Mykonos.  After a big group dinner and a night out we returned to our hostel to find that someone had broken into our small studio apartment.  A man climbed up a side balcony and jumped to our balcony breaking in through our balcony doors, taking with him my MacBook Pro, and a friend’s iPad and wallet, which unfortunately also contained her Passport.  The man came back a second time not knowing my friend had come back early for the night and was in our studio apartment.  She saw him attempt to come back in through our balcony doors but once he realized that the apartment was no longer empty, he ran.  My friend immediately called all of us in terror of what had just happened to return to our hostel.  We all came back and realized what had happened, threw all of our belongings into our bags and crammed into our other friends hostel rooms for the night in fear that the man would come back.  We were all in tears shocked and terribly unsettled from the situation and what had just happened in our last few hours in Mykonos.  It was only that morning that my friends and I were talking about how smoothly our month of travels had gone.  We slept it off and left Mykonos the next morning one laptop less, one iPad less, and one passport less. 

We arrived back in Athens where we waited for our flight back to Newcastle the next morning.  Exhausted from spring break and the robbery we ordered food to our hotel room and were ready to go home.  Despite the unfortunate events that took place in Greece, it was by far my favorite destination of our spring break and I was so glad that we went.  Other than the fact that the islands were breath taking, the people we met along our travels there were some of the nicest people we had met. Many of them were excited to know our story and almost every day we were there someone treated us to free traditional Greek drinks or food wanting to share their culture with us.  We all felt fortunate despite the incident.  It is important to realize that bad things happen everywhere in the world and we weren’t going to let what happened to us shape our opinions on the country or the people.  Greece was an amazing place, and I look forward to one day returning.  However for now, It is good to be home.