Around the world with Emily

Emily was my roommate when we studied abroad in Lugano, Switzerland for the spring semester of 2005. We were pretty much attached at the hip from the start, so people would always call us by the other's name even though we look nothing alike. Our advisor/teacher started calling us "the twins" just because we were a package deal. Emily and I explored Europe together by train. One long weekend we took a 17 hour train ride to Taromina, Sicily to eat canolis and then spontaneously decided to stop in Pisa at 4am. We were so excited because we beat all of the tourists and for an hour we just played around with different ways of taking pictures with the leaning tower. For our third week break, we traveled by train and ferry and train again for 33 hours to Greece. I was convinced that Greece was out to get Emily. While we were in a four star hotel in Athens, she slipped down a marble staircase and crashed into a pane of glass, which shattered from the impact. Our friend Kris told her to run so she runs into the elevator, Kris starts down the stairs but is confronted by hotel staff, who think he's to blame, and I'm crouched over, picking up the large pieces of glass. The hotel staff was yelling at Kris and made us go to the lobby, Kris is screaming I didn't do anything! And they look at him like yeah right, then who did? And then the elevator dings, and Emily casually walks out from the elevator as if nothing happened. They told us we were going to have to pay for the damages and I say that's ridiculous (redonkulous if emily was telling the story) there was water on the staircase! That's dangerous! (There was no water...) We leave to go out for night anyway and walking down the street, I look at Emily's back and there is a hole in her jean jacket, she takes off her jacket and there is a hole in Emily! She was bleeding and still wanted to go out to a dance club. Gotta love her.
The next time Greece attacked Emily was on the island of Corfu. We were staying at the pink palace and after an hour of being in Corfu, we decided we wanted to go on an ATV safari. We get on the ATVs and put on our helmets and take off down the road, I was in front, following the guide, Kris was in the middle and Emily was behind Kris. About 30 minutes down the road, a guy zooms past me and stops the guide. We all pullover on the side of the road and the guy tells us that someone lost control of their ATV and crashed but everything looked fine, we just had to wait for everyone else. 20 minutes later.... still waiting on the side of the road and the other guide comes racing up and looks at me and says I think its your friend.... I immediately freak out and Kris and I ride back to the scene. I get there and Emily is sitting on the side of the road, holding a bloody rag to her face, her legs are bright red and scraped and her ATV is lodged in a tree. I think I was freaking out more than Emily, and she says I think I broke my nose. We spent the rest of the day in a socialist hospital, which looked like a highschool with a doctor who also looked like he was in highschool. Emily escaped with a few stiches, a busted lip and giant bruises covering her thighs from where her legs hit the tree. The next night there was a toga party, and Emily still wants to go even with her bandages covering her nose. (We called it "the beak") This picture is right after she was able to remove her bandages.

Everywhere from Spain to Turkey, we chased the sunsets together. And now as the sun sets today on my birthday I wish she was here to laugh at all of these stories that I replay in my mind everyday (and to force me to go to TOTS and drink a rail).
Emily, I miss you.
Love,
Meghan