Madrid

The blaring bass pounds in Alana's ears, shaking her down to her bones. She throws her hands over her head, joining the throng of sweaty bodies pulsing in time with the music. The seedy Madrid nightclub is poorly lit aside from the strobe lights, with neon signs of roosters and martinis lining the walls. The bar is long and red, strung up with fairy lights, and tended by the hottest bartender Alana has ever seen in her life--a lean, tan, Adonis of a man with a trimmed black beard and sky blue eyes.

Alana dances herself into exhaustion, giving herself entirely over to the music. Jello shots are plentiful and tasty throughout the night. As soon as she retreats to the quieter balcony upstairs, Alana is pulled into a philosophical debate about nature vs. nurture with the cannabis-smoking locals that lasts until the early hours of the morning.

Alana doesn't go home with anyone, though she's sorely tempted.

She collapses into her bed at the Sungate One hostel to sleep for a few hours, and then she's up again to travel to the picturesque Costa del Sol beach in the province of Malaga. Alana acquires a beer from one of the beach-side bars, and stretches out on the scenic white patch of sand. Crashing gently to the shore, the surf brings kelp up from the sea.

Sketching a bird picking at driftwood until the evening, when the sun crests over the sea, Alana Bloom rests.

Delphi

After an eventful two weeks in Athens, Alana is ready for a change of pace, and has only whet her palate for more of Greece. The village of Arachova, near Delphi, is just what the doctor ordered.

Due to its trendy cafes and shopping, Arachova is known as the "Mykonos of the Mountains," and Alana adores the town the second she steps off the bus. For lunch, she dines on creamy, delicious Formaela cheese--served as melted "saganaki" with a squeeze of lemon--Amfissa olives, and tsipouro firewater. Next, she visits the church of St. George, and hikes to the top of the picturesque clocktower rising over the village.

Afterwards, she relaxes in Lekka Square with a coffee, dining on a local specialty--slow-cooked, free-range wild boar with handmade pasta at Panayota. All in all, the day is a peaceful contrast to the fast-paced Athens.

The morning sees her refreshed for the first time in months. She sleeps in and misses her bus, but the next one is due soon enough that unpacking her computer would take too long. The view is so pretty, and she has a pen and a napkin handy, so she sketches it out--something she hasn't done in years.

On a whim, she purchases a sketchbook and some charcoal.

Her next bus sees her to the western slopes of Mt. Elikonas, just outside Distomo village. Alana explores the stunning monastery of Osios Loukas (St. Luke). There are two churches on the site: the 10th Century Church of the Theotokos, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and the Katholikon cathedral, built in 1011. She hikes up the bell-tower, pops in on the monastic cells, and sees the refectory. She's delighted by the Byzantine architecture of russet and cream-colored stone bricks, as well as the glossy marble and frescos. She can't resist trying to replicate them in her sketchbook, and spends hours losing herself in drawing.

Finally, Alana is ready for a pilgrimage in Delphi proper, starting at the Tholos of Athena Pronaia, where those who came to petition the oracle, named the Pythia, offered sacrifices. Her meandering path takes her to the Castallian Fountain, where worshippers of Apollo bathed before entering the site. She sketches it, just some simple lines, before having a sip of mineral water at the nearby mountain spring. There are wildflowers here, and the view is so picturesque that she draws that, too.

The Sacred Way takes her to the breathtaking Temple of Apollo, the god of music and truth. She wonders idly if Apollo ever came to Milliways, and whether she could meet him. She takes three hours to explore and sketch the site, leaving only when the sun sets--which is gorgeous.

As she lays her head down on the pillow of the hostel Athena, she looks forward to the next leg of her journey, in the city of Nafpilon.

Athens

Once Alana arrives in Athens, her first destination on her backpacking tour of Europe, she's overwhelmed by feelings: of loneliness, sure, but she's used to being lonely--and of panic. She spent so long in the bar, trapped in her tiny rooms, that the thought of exploring several countries is staggering.

She allows herself a few moments of uncontrolled anxiety before she takes a few breaths. She made it here, didn't she? She boarded the planes from America to Greece. She sets out to find her hostel--the Athens Studios, within walking distance of the Acropolis--and a wine bar for dinner. Alana is determined to make this trip work.

Alana knows enough Greek to mislead the locals; if she asked for something in Greek, they'd respond eagerly in the same language, only to be met by her confused stare. Luckily for her, most Greeks speak English.

After purchasing a 12€ four-day pass for entry to all the archeological sites, Alana tours until 3pm, when they all close--except the Acropolis, which closes at 7pm. Over the next four days, she marvels at the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthean columns at the Theater of Herod Atticus, the Theater of Dionysious and the Ancient Agora. Her next stop is the Benaki Museum, to see exhibits exploring continuous history from ancient to modern Greece.

She's jet-lagged and suffering insomnia, so she heads to the Agora-Athens central market in the early mornings to watch the trucks unload with a cup of coffee. The scents of meats and vegetables cooking in the restaraunts that line the market are delectable, and Alana spends all of the fifth day people watching. She wishes she had an apartment with a kitchen so she could join in shopping for food.

A child playing an accordion on Eolou Street catches her eye in the evening. "Spare some money, miss?" he says, running his small fingers over the keys.

Alana almost gives some to him, but then feels a second child pickpocketing her dummy wallet--a wallet with canceled credit cards and petty cash--from her back pocket. She allows it, and continues on her way.

Nafpilon

Alana's arrival to the city of Nafpilon entailed getting from Delphi to Athens to the Peloponnese via bus, metro, and on foot. By the time she made it from the KTEL station to her little hotel, she was already in love.

Legend has it that there are 999 steps to the top of the Palamidi Fortress. Alana started counting at the bottom, but then became distracted by the view of the peninsula, which she spends hours committing to paper with charcoal. The fortress, built in the 18th century, fell to the Turks before it was finished, but was later repossessed by the Greeks in 1822. Alana enjoys exploring the eight bastions, and seeing where Kolokotronis, one of the heroes from the War of Independence, was supposedly imprisoned.

At the end of the day, she acquires a coffee at the port, and ambles along the promenade, people watching. The sunset is gorgeous; the lighting in Greece almost makes the trip there worthwhile, and Alana purchases colored pencils to render it in color.

St. David's

"But... don't you love me?" Josef said, his deep, brown eyes filling with tears.

Alana tried to think on how she came to this point in her life, and realized that it had started with a sketch.

She was seated in the Oriel y Parc Gallery in St. David's, penciling in the work of abstract painter Graham Sutherland, when a German tourist cleared his throat behind her.

"That's beautiful work," he said, causing Alana to look up and catch his gaze. His eyes were the richest brown she'd ever seen, bright and playful. His hair was blond, and his five o'clock shadow matched, offsetting a youthful face with angular features.

Alana blinked at him, clutching her sketchbook to her chest. "Oh, um, thanks," she said, feeling heat flood her face. She hadn't shown anyone her drawings, and didn't think she was any good; it was just a hobby she'd become obsessed with over the course of the trip.

"May I see?" he said, his voice a warm tenor.

"You... You may," Alana said, lowering the sketchbook.

It turned out that Josef Koch was a freelance artist himself, with dreams of opening a hostel. A discussion of sketching styles soon turned to a cruise to the island of Grassholm which soon turned to moonlit kisses by the beach. He laughed easily, and worried about nothing, and Alana realized that she was captivated by his carefree nature. Their romance was a whirlwind in every sense of the word, and Alana soon found she could draw nothing else but Josef--and he sketched her in return.

But all good things must come to an end. Soon, the time came for her to leave St. David's. The wind had caught her around the middle, tugging insistently.

"Stay," Josef said, tracing his fingers over the small of her back. "Stay with me."

"No," Alana said, sighing. She raised her head from its lean on Josef's sculpted chest, looking him in the eye. "It's time for me to move on."

Josef blinked back tears. "But... don't you love me?"

Alana smiled, and kissed his nose. "It wasn't meant to be, Josef."

It wasn't meant to be. They both had whole lives ahead of them, which didn't include each other.

She still had the sketch.