About three years ago I had to make a hard admission to myself....I'm not like other Greek American girls...I have an addiction...one that drives my mom nuts...that keeps me single...that forced me to give up my career and home...one that makes me constantly restless.

I have an addiction to travel.

Yeah okay, so does everyone else who reads BootsnAll, but my addiction has been life altering. Now, I'm not complaining as I don't want to be cured!

You see in 2002 I completed a 13 month around the world trip (see my entries in Diary of a Single Girl) in an attempt to finally purge the travel bug from my system. I was the luckiest of backpackers as my wonderful employer, General Growth Properties, held a position for my return. I had a year to see the world and my old life still waiting for me. I had my cake and was eating it too.

Only problem is when I returned I realized I no longer had a taste for vanilla cake. I'd seen many a different lifestyle, extreme poverty, simpler lives, exotic beaches, picture postcard mountains...my tastes had switched. Not only didn't I want the vanilla cake that was waiting for me, I didn't want cake at all. I craved Thai crepes, baklava, tiramisu. I wanted exotic and colorful. I wanted anything but vanilla cake.

Maria....before getting plumped up on that beach in Thailand

I just couldn't cut it in the corporate world anymore. So I gave up everything. The title I'd worked so hard to get, the fabulous money I was making, my chance at another comfy home, and spent six months sitting on a beach in Thailand, getting fat, tan and falling in love.

When the ticket expired I headed home with no money, no boyfriend, no job prospects and no idea what to do with my life. But sometime in my past I must have created some good Karma for myself because along came the opportunity to manage a hostel. I had long thought about owning my own hostel and now the chance to learn the business from the inside out was right in front of me. The money was crap - barely enough to pay the bills, but I decided to look at it as a paid internship, moved to Hollywood, California and began a new career as the manager of USAHostels, Hollywood.

Managing a hostel is hard, hard work, but the rewards of being your own boss, calling most of the shots, meeting and working with backpackers from around the world and getting such valuable experience has been well worth it. But it came at a price. Ten hour days, middle of the night phone calls, constant staff turnover and being away from all my friends back home in Chicago took its toll. After 10 months I needed a break, and my bosses - all travelers themselves of course - were generous to give me leave to have the once in a lifetime chance to be an Olympic volunteer in the nation of my parents and grandparents.

This is where my stories entitled Greek Odyssey: The inside scoop from an Olympic volunteer at Athens 2004 begin.