My Amazing, Superb, Fantastic Weekend in Turkey

Hello world!

Why yes, I AM still alive! Things have been crazy and, unfortunately, writing a blog post gets pushed to the bottom of the list most days.

First of all, some bad news to report. I, Emily, am sick. When every other person in this building was coughing and wheezing, I scoffed and said, "HA! That won't be me, I take vitamins!" Oh, how the mighty do fall. Hopefully it's just a cold. And nothing's really the matter with me except for my lack of oxygen, beet red face, and death rattle of a cough. I'll be fine.

But I'm really out of it, so if there are stupid grammatical mistakes in this post, don't judge me!

Happy March! I volunteered at a down syndrome clinic last Thursday and we made these red and white string bracelets called Martis (that means March--the Greeks wear them during this month) to ward off the sun, which will be coming out soon. Because SPRING is around the corner! We actually had a beautiful day last weekend and some of us went out to the waterfront and enjoyed the sun. I can't wait til it's warm outside and we can go to the Halkidiki beaches every day! Except on school days, of course....*cough*

Just a disclaimer: this is going to be a very long post. Two weekends ago we went to Istanbul, Turkey, and it was pretty much the best weekend of my life. So. I have a lot I want to write about!

Eight of my friends and I got our bus tickets to Istanbul from a place called Crazy Holidays (nice name, right?) and we took an overnight bus on Thursday night. We boarded at 10:00 pm (or 22:00 European time) and got there around 7 in the morning. It was difficult to sleep on the bus and as soon as I finally fell into a semi-sleep it was "BLAH BLAH TURKISH BLAH" on the intercom. Very loud. So we all groggily got up and were promptly kicked off the bus for the Greek border control. When we were allowed back on the bus, everyone again closed their eyes, only to be kicked off again at the Turkey border. Here, they made us stand in line to get our Turkish visas and then another line to get them stamped. Back on the bus. Once again, we heard that dreaded voice over the intercom. Off we go, again. This time to put our luggage through a scanner and have our bus checked. Then we waited outside in the cold while our bus drove in circles around us. At this point, we're like TURKEY SUCKS. But then it was back on the bus and all was well. And I have a Turkish stamp on my passport. :)

Friday, when we arrived in Istanbul (or Constantinople, as the Greeks insist it's called) we arrived full steam ahead. We rode the metro to the historical area and searched for our hostel. We finally found it and were very impressed. If you ever need a cheap place to stay, try hostelworld.com. We stayed in a 26 bed room and it was only 8 euros a night! It's so easy to meet people. And we got the full experience: farting in the middle of the night included. But it was very close to everything we wanted to see, so it was worth the noisy nights. They even had free breakfast, free lockers, and a shuttle service!

Here's the hostel! A place called The Sultan. 

That first day, we did lots of touristy things. We went to a nearby restaurant and got some authentic Turkish breakfast and sat in some cool bean bag chairs.

This is apparently what the Turks eat in the morning.

When we finished breakfast, our waiter came over and was like, "Hey, there's some ruins underneath us and I give tours. You want to see?" And he pointed to the glass floor, through which you could see giant arches and columns. BOOM, cultural experience.

Here's our lovely group!

 After the restuarant, we walked the 7ish minutes to the historical center and were confronted with the beautiful Hagia Sophia, located directly across from the stunning Blue Mosque. What a view.

The Hagia Sophia

Here's the Blue Mosque

First, we went to the Hagia Sophia. When it was first built, it was actually a Christian church, a fact that I was not aware of. The Christians painted beautiful artwork on the walls, but when the Muslims took over, they painted over them because they're not allowed to have any pictures. So when the church became a national monument (not sure how or when that happened...), people uncovered the old Christian paintings. So it is a very interesting blend of Muslim and Christian artwork.

Breathtaking 

In the Hagia Sophia, they had a hole in the wall that everyone was crowded around. Interested, we went over to find out that it was a "wishing" hole. Due to some ancient myth, it's said that if you put your thumb in the hole and twist it clockwise while making a wish, it will come true. Here I am, making my wish:

And you know what? I think it may have come true.

With the Hagia Sophia completed, we headed across the way to the Blue Mosque.

Now, here I would like to digress a bit and talk about the population of Turkey. Let's just say that the majority (and I mean the MAJORITY) of the people on the streets are men. Like, all the people are men. No women. Unless they are foreigners. As a Muslim country, the women usually stay inside and out of the public eye. Which made us, a group of 9 women, EXTREMELY popular. And the men of Turkey are not shy. Everywhere we went it was, "How beautiful you are!" "Look, the Spice Girls!" "Hello, Lady Gaga!" and my favorite, "You dropped something...my heart!" Such a great ego boost! And we got a loooooot of free stuff. But it wasn't like a creepy I-will-stalk-you attention, all the men were very nice and respectful. They just don't see women very often.

So back to the Blue Mosque! To get inside, we had to wear appropriate clothing. I was wearing long jeans, so I was fine, but Alex and Brittney had to wear skirts. But I got to put my scarf on my head! I think that makes me a nerd for being so excited. But I'm posting a picture ANYWAY.

Gina and I = scarf heads

The Blue Mosque was gorgeous. Inside and out. The had an area roped off specifically for those who wanted to pray, so it was very interesting to see such a different religion.

Here's the inside view

Next, we decided to walk around Istanbul and take in the sights. We passed by some people dressed in blue and beating random drums, so naturally we stopped to join. Even got some pretty cool glasses and hats in the process. They were promoting Istanbul Blue Night, which included festivities in various places around the city. We decided to go to the side across the river to join said festivities.

Now don't we look sexy?

For dinner that night, we were roped in by a waiter promising traditional Turkish dance, the Whirling Dervishes and a belly dancer.

The Dervishes were pretty cool, but after 30 minutes of them spinning in circles we were more entertained by the man across from us sleeping in his food. He woke right up when that belly dancer came on, though!

So after dinner was over, we headed across the river to the Istanbul Blue Night. We saw a building bathed in blue light, but other than that, I didn't really notice anything else blue. So, of course, we found a bar instead. Oh! The bar was called Blue something. At the bar, we took about 2,000 pictures of ourselves in various stupid poses, but I won't put all of those on here. After that we went to a club and then called it a night. Oh, and by "night" I mean at like 4am after two of the people from our hostel took a few of us up to the roof to see the lights of Istanbul.
End day 1.

Day 2 dawned bright and early! (Way too bright and way too early)
Today we went to the Grand Bazaar. Which was the most BIZARRE thing ever (see what I did there? HA.) I've never haggled so much in my life! People were everywhere, yelling and urging us to see what they had to offer. And always, the "Beautiful girls!" everywhere we went.

It's a little bright, but here we are!

Here I got some souvenirs (not telling you what, mom--it's a surprise), a scarf for myself, and a pair of beautiful Turkish boots. The boots were interesting, we haggled with the man for forever and I really think he was regretting showing them to us. My friend Gina was also buying a pair and she was five lira short and she was practically in tears begging him to bring it down. He finally consented, a bit angrily. Score for us! The lamps for sale were beautiful. Too bad I can't bring one back in my suitcase...

So the Grand Bazaar was quite the experience. We left and headed home to our hostel to get ready for our Turkish Bath. Yes! A bath. Also, quite the experience. Here're the rooms where we changed and kept our stuff:

This is the oldest Turkish bath in Turkey, made in 1475. We brought our bathing suits, but little did we know, the tops wouldn't stay on for long! Let's just say the 9 of us girls are very much bonded now. The experience was great, though. We first got in the sauna and then laid on this giant marble slab in the middle of the room. Some Turkish women came in and made us lie down 4 at a time. They scraped all the dead skin off with a tool and then we went to basins around the edge to wash off. We came back and they soaped us down with these really sudsy pillow-case like things. We were all covered in white soap bubbles. Then they gave us one of those massages that really hurts until they're done and then it feels amazing. After that, they shampooed our hair and we got into this very cold swimming pool. It took me awhile to get into that pool, I'm such a baby about cold water. But after doggy paddling around there for awhile we got back into the sauna and that was that! It was a very cool experience, and one that I might not ever have the chance to do again!

Here we are, wet and clean

When we were done at the baths, we walked to visit our favorite old Turkish man, seen below. He owned his own shop and he was the cutest, sweetest thing ever! Every time we went in he would make us tea, make special prices for us, and tell us stories about Turkey. He even invited us to dine with him at his nephew's fish restaurant! We couldn't because we were leaving. He was the best. And the green apple tea he made us was pretty much the greatest thing ever.

The next step of our journey took us to a hookah bar. Yes (mom), I know it's terrible for you, but when in Turkey... And I really didn't even see the appeal. But anyway, again--a cultural experience. While there we met a few very nice German and Dutch people who were on vacation as well. They invited us to go out with them, so away we went! Back at the hostel we met the guys who showed us to the roof the other night, and they sort-of invited themselves to come along. They took us to this awesome Turkish club that was completely jam-packed with people. It was on the roof of this complex and they were playing Turkish music and dancing Turkish dances and I was blown away from how awesome it was. We had to leave early because of all the people, but I thought that was so cool.
Everywhere we went, there were so many people. And it didn't matter how late it got, people don't sleep in Turkey! Including me... This was by far my favorite night.
End day 2.

On Sunday, we eventually woke up to the sound of Alex's alarm clock going off 15 times. Today was the day we had to check out, so we had to hurry and get our stuff together. The hostel let us hold our luggage in the luggage room since we weren't leaving until 10 that evening. Sunday was bright and beautiful weather and I think I even got to take my coat off! (That never happens!!) We headed over to the Basilica Cistern and Alex, Leighfonda, Gina, and I went in. It was underground and so beautiful.

You had to follow these raised paths because the bottom was full of water. It seemed like a maze in a way. At the "end" of the maze, there are two Medusa heads on two columns. It's a mystery why they were carved so many years ago. It's also unknown why one is upside down and the other is tilted on it's side. What does it MEAN?!

After the Basilica Cistern we wandered around looking for the spice market. And we wandered for...awhile. A long time, actually. But we saw many interesting sights and eventually found it! That was similar to the Grand Bazaar, but not as intense. We did get a lot of free samples, though! I didn't pay for a single bite of Turkish Delight and I'm pretty much set for a few years.

We left the spice market and made our way under a bridge to see the Bosphorus River! As we came out of the tunnel (packed with thousands of people), we were met with this sight:

See all those people fishing?? Insane.

To add awesome to more awesome, we purchased tickets to go to ASIA! Putting my continent list at three, BOO YAAA. Turkey is split into the European side and the Asian side, so it's really easy to cross over. We just hopped on the ferry and away we went! Here's our "we're stepping foot on Asia for the first time" picture:

After wandering around Asia for a bit (that sounds so awesome) we had to head back to catch our bus home. Sad. It was a little stressful finding the metro station, then the bus terminal, and then the actual bus, but we did it somehow!

And this just proves that Greece doesn't care at all about Turkey--to get back into Greece it was one stop for about 5 minutes. You could have brought anything back!

All-in-all, everything worked out way better than I had anticipated. I mean, we didn't get hopelessly lost, kidnapped, or sold into the sex trade. A success!

It was the best weekend ever and I cannot wait for other weekends to come.

Now I have to go to sleep because I'm losing consciousness. This was a really long post. You probably just skimmed over it, which is more than I would have done. (Except for you mom, I'm convinced you're stalking me.) Until next time! (And who knows when that will be...)

Kalinuxta!

Why, yes, that IS me in a pink wig...

Well hey there! So, right off the bat, I'll explain the title. And what better way than with a picture?!

So here we all are, in our wigs and disguises. But WHY?! I'll tell you. Last Thursday was Τσικνοπέμπτη  (Tsiknopempti) or Barbecue Thursday. I'm sure you've all heard of Carnival, the time before Lent where everywhere goes crazy with parades and floats and stuff. Like Marti Gras, but better. Because it's in Europe! Anyway, here in Greece they don't eat meat starting on the third Friday of February. So "Barbecue Thursday" is the day they stuff their faces with meat before they can't anymore. And downtown there is a giant barbecue and all the restaurants bring their food out and grill it outside and it smells DELICIOUS! So for some reason, on Tsiknopempti everyone dresses up like Halloween. I don't really know why and I'm not sure if the Greeks know why either. But we all made our way to the costume store and bought masks or wigs or ears. So I got a hot pink WIG! (That's me 2nd from the left.) My college hosted a party, so we went there after dressing up. We rode the public bus there and a little old lady patted my arm and said something in Greek that was probably something like, "Look at you and your pink hair!" At about ten o'clock we went downtown to see some of the other festivities, but because of a series of unfortunate events missed all of them. That was pretty disappointing because I wanted to see the bike parade and all the locals dressed up. But what's past is past, that just means I'll have to come back some day! So the night ended with a gyro and bed. Gyros can make anything better.

Here's a Carnival party we stumbled upon!

This weekend we went on our first major field trip. It was AMAZING! We left early Saturday morning and traveled first to Perama, which is a little village that houses a BIG cave. Here's a pic of that:

So after climbing the FIVE BILLION steps to get out of this cave (and believe me, my calves are still so tight I can barely walk) we hopped back on the bus to go to our next destination. Which was....Ioannina! Here we saw an old Turkish castle with a lovely view of a lake and then we walked around the town and ate lunch. Here's the lake.

Very beautiful

So then we ate our gyros (of course we got gyros) and then back on the bus to Metsovo, our next destination. Metsovo is the cutest little town in the world and it was covered in a layer of fresh snow. We checked in to our hotel and then a group of us went exploring. I'm so glad we did because we were just in time to catch the sunset. And who wouldn't want to see this in person?

I made this one bigger cuz it's so darn pretty

So after a night in a wonderful hotel, (they had a HEATING RACK in the bathroom!!) we set off for the main reason for the field trip.
METEORA!
Have you heard of Meteora? I hadn't before I googled it before coming here. It means "suspended rocks," if that tells you anything. But it should be one of the wonders of the world. Meteora consists of ancient monasteries build on the top of giant rocks. The rocks were formed millions of years ago when the whole area was underwater. Later, monks (or hermits, rather) lived in isolation in the many caves that can be found in these giant rocks. One day they decided to build on top of the rocks and BOOM. Meteora. It took years to build the whole monastery because they had to haul everything up by hand or with a basket thing. At one time there was over 20 around Meteora, but now only 6 remain. We did see the ruins of some while driving by, though. The first one we went to was Aghios Stefanos monastery. While there we saw a little old nun walking back to her quarters and my heart melted, she was so cute. They split their day into three parts. Eight hours is spent working, eight hours is praying, and the last eight is whatever they want, including sleep. I couldn't live the life of a nun, I'll tell you that. Complete obedience is needed, plus I doubt they have facebook.
The second monastery we visited was Megalo Meteoro monastery, which is the biggest one that's still around. When we drove up it was on the same level as us, but when we approached on foot, we noticed you had to walk WAY down and then back up. Here's a picture of these lovely stairs:

See where it comes out of the rock in the bottom? Yeah.

We had a guide around this monastery and got to see into the wine cellar and see the skulls. Wait, what?! Skulls?? Yes, that's right, there was a room full of bones. See, the monks and nuns have to be buried on the premise, and obviously they ran out of room, being on a rock and all. Their solution? Bury them, dig them up in seven years and stack their bones neatly with all the others!

Our little group of girls somehow got lost from all the other people on the tour, so we naturally wandered around till we happened across this great view:

Oh yeah, we had to wear these skirts!
(Which I actually thought were pretty cute, for being appropriate for nuns and such...)

So Meteora was an awe-inspiring, something I've never seen before, AMAZING experience.

 After Metora, we headed home, stopping in the town Kalambaka for lunch. I ate a whole pizza by myself. It was a mini pizza, but still. It was delicious.

So that was my amazing weekend!

Yesterday was school. Boo. And now I have to do homework for that school (double boo) so I'll say farewell.

Oh! I baked a chicken today. (Be proud, Mom!) I bought the chicken at the market for 2.60 Euros (from a man who kept talking and talking about Donald Trump and some other guy and saying that "You must come back and tell me!" while  writing a website and his name and number down on a sticky note---I have NO IDEA what that was about but I'm going to avoid that area now) and I baked it in our tiny oven! And you know what? I DIDN'T BURN ANYTHING DOWN! And I don't think we'll get salmonella either. WIN!

Later,

Emily

Everything is in GREEK!

Hey-o. So suddenly all my blogger Internet page is in Greek and I don't know what button does what! So I will be pressing random buttons until it works. So I haven't written much lately because things are actually starting to slow down! A bit.

Someone said today that they're starting to feel like a local and I must say that I agree. It's a really nice feeling to walk around the street and recognize where you are and not have to freak out about the bus system. While eating at a tarverna today for lunch, the waiter said our group looked European. SCORE!

But today was very productive, actually. I woke up early and a group of three of us went to church! My first church in a different country. It was a Presbyterian church (in Greek, of course) but someone met us there and translated for us. I thought it was so interesting and I especially liked the hymns. The Greek language is very phonetic, so it was good to practice my reading skills. And I have no problem singing "Ksi-ni-LA-fo" when it's completely wrong. The old man next to me gave me some weird looks. But it's whatever, I loved it. The lady who translated (Laura, I think) introduced us to many people and it was nice to talk to some local Greeks.

After church got out we went to the Jewish museum of Thessaloniki. It was a pretty small building, but very informative. I didn't know so many Jews were living in Thessaloniki, and how many were killed in the Holocaust. It was terrible, something like 45,000 were transported out of Greece to Poland and 37,000 were immediately gassed at Auschwitz. Very very tragic.

We walked by the Jewish memorial by the water and then went to Pier 1 (everyone automatically added imports to this) to see the photography museum. I don't remember the man's name that the exhibit was dedicated to, but it was very creative and urban, I guess. We stayed in the attached cafe for some time and then decided we were starving. So we left in search of food. We found a taverna where we got free desserts and a round of free nasty syrup-like shots. WOO!

So things have been getting pretty heated up in Greece with the austerity measures decisions and riots and all that good stuff. But I would just like to tell everyone (and by everyone, I mean my mother, who I know is freaking out right now...) that we live far enough away that we will not see any of the action. I went to Aristotle square yesterday, and yes, I did see protesters, but it was nothing big or scary and we were in NO DANGER. I repeat, NO DANGER. Stuff did go down later, but I was nowhere near it, nor would I have been anywhere near it. So mom and dad, pleeeeeeease don't freak out. No one knows where we live and they're not out to get Americans anyway. It is very interesting to see history in the making, though. I've never been part of a country going through such unrest. It almost makes me want to learn politics! Ha, yeah right. So anyway, that's my spiel about the protests here in Greece.
In other news, I got another crepe! This one included the crepe, a HUGE ENORMOUS candy bar of chocolate and strawberry yogurt goodness, and crumbly things maybe like graham crackers. So good. Probably like 4,000 calories. Whatevs. Tomorrow I'm branching out and playing volleyball at my school. This is a pretty big deal for the most un-athletic person that ever lived. But I'll give it my best and just laugh through my awful game-changing mistakes.

So I better go shower and make my lunch for tomorrow and everything.

Goodnight!

Emily

OPA!!!!

Heyyy guys!
So today's Sunday and everything is closed on Sunday. So I have time to write my blog! Wooooo.

Anyway, this weekend was definitely one to remember. In the best way possible. Thurday and Friday we had orientation (again) so we learned all about school and travel and stuff I've already forgotten (but don't worry, I took notes!) so now I have been extremely orientated. We took a tour of the American College of Thessaloniki (ACT--where I'm studying) and I was surprised how nice it was. The library especially was super nice. And the librarian was the most cliche librarian EVER. Like, glasses, swooshy hair, British accent, the whole package. Here's the library:

Thursday we went to IKEA! I had never been there before and it was pretty awesome! Way overwhelming, though. I couldn't figure out the whole grab-a-bag-at-the-beginning-of-the-line thing so I just ended up carrying everything out in my hands...kinda awkward. But it was fun to wander through the rooms and pretend like they were our apartments.

 Also on Thursday, we went on a group scavenger hunt around downtown Thessaloniki! It was really cold. After about 10 minutes I lost feeling in my feet. But we went around looking for crepes (yum), mullets, tsoureki (Greek sweet bread--we bought a loaf and devoured it like wild animals), churches, stray dogs in ruins, and man-purses. But basically we just meandered around Thessaloniki and took random pictures. But the best thing I saw?

Yessssssss.

So Friday after orientation was finished, we all went out for a group meal at a traditional Greek taverna. This night was pretty much the best ever. The food was delicious, there was unlimited free wine (wheeeeeee!), and then the Greek dancing started. It started out with the Greeks dancing in the traditional way, in the lines with the arms around the shoulders and everything. And then we Americans joined in and basically made it a dance party. The space was really tiny, so it was really fun and we got to know each other REAL well. There was dancing on tables, people throwing napkins, and WINE! Oh, did I mention that already?



                                                                             This is the owner of the taverna!

After this awesome dancing experience, the younger people from ACT took us out to the bar area of Thessaloniki. We went to one called Home 9-11 and it was very crowded. We left after a few minutes, went to the bar next door, realized half our group was missing, so natually we sat down and ordered a coke and whisky. We eventually made our way back to the first club and found our missing group! The club/bar was sooo much better than the clubs in Tulsa. Except for the dancing. They don't dance at clubs here! Whaaa? But, of course, we Americans made our own little dance club and it was really fun. They played all American pop music, which surprised me. We stayed there until around 4am, then caught a taxi home and crashed. It was a good night, and I didn't spend a single euro! (Oh, except for the taxi.) Let's see how long THAT will last...

Clubbin it up (that's my hand with the blue sleeve)



So today we went on a field trip to Vergina (pronounced ver-yee-na). It was about a 45 minute bus ride and we had a tour guide that talked almost the whole time. It was a really pretty mountain town and we went to the Royal Tomb Museum, which was underground. We weren't allowed to take pictures (boo) but it was awesome! There were huge temples and tombs that they unearthed and then left in the ground. I think someone from our group was taking photos on the sly, so I'll check their facebook and see if I can borrow a picture...Aha! Found it.



That's the tomb at the bottom



So that was very interesting and educational and we got to walk around the pretty mountain town and eat lunch at a cute restaurant. Then we went on a driving tour of Thessaloniki and the guide talked about the history and culture of Thessaloniki. But honestly, I fell asleep for most of it...whoops.

So afterward we came back, slept for 3 hours and then watched the SUPERBOWL!! Greek style. We left after halftime, though because it's 3am here. And the first day of school is tomorrow! Anyone notice Madonna's halftime show was Greek themed? Ohhhh yeah.

Night all,

Emily

Movin' Day

Today we finally moved into our apartments!! I'm in a building called Papakyriazi (don't ask me what that means in Greek...) and my roommate, Evan and I live on the 2nd floor. Which is actually the 3rd floor because they count the ground floor as 0.

Here's Evan with our room!

So after trying to lug our suitcases up three flights of stairs and giving up halfway through, we opened our door to reveal......the smallest room EVER. Well, ok, it could have been smaller, sure. We'll call it "cozy." But we have two beds, one desk, some shelves, a wardrobe, a kitchen area, and a table with two chairs. All in this space. Which is not big. Here's our kitchen:

Wooooooo, cooking! Can you cook real things in a toaster oven? I guess I'll find out! I wasn't actually too shocked by the size, I was expecting it to be smaller, like all things in the city are. And it has good wifi and a roof, so I can't complain! Although they DO shut the heat off around 2am each night and I hear it gets more than a little chilly...

I took my first shower here tonight and it was quite the experience. First, I'll show a picture to let you get the full effect:

Yeah, that tiny square of porcelain? That's the shower. But the pressure is great! So great, in fact, that when I turned it on, the pressure pushed the showerhead back and almost out of my hands! I've never had to wrestle with a shower before. I attached it to the holder where shower faucets normally are and on closer inspection, noticed that the face with the little holes was about to be blown off by the water. Ohmygosh. So I quickly turn the shower halfway off (which is where I should have started it) and continue circling in my two-by-two shower. Needless to say, water was everywhere when I stepped out.
I warned my roommate. Twenty minutes later when she stepped in? A crash and the lovely sound of water hitting the walls.

Meeting everyone was very interesting today. There are a lot of people here, around 50. We met a lot of them, but I can recall maybe 10% of the names. I'll work on it.

We got homemade crepes today!! I LOVE CREPES. I got Nutella and applesauce in mine and got to watch as the lady poured the batter, made the crepe, and stuffed a ridiculously large amount of Nutella in it. Mmmm... I'm hoping that has satiated my Nutella cravings for awhile, as I definitely cannot eat those all the time and remain un-whale-like.


Alex and I with our Nutella crepes

 So I'll wrap up for tonight. We have an early morning tomorrow, our orientation for the American College of Thessaloniki starts tomorrow. I think we'll have some annoying "bonding" games and a scavenger hunt. But the hunt's in the city, so that actually might be fun!

Emily

How did she GET there?!

Hello again! So today was very fun but different. It's really late, so this blog will be brief. We woke up, ate breakfast again, and then we had our Bridging Cultures seminar again. This time we talked about budgets and basically realized we will all be broke when we get home. Yaaaaay, foreign transaction fees... We also learned about cultural shock and all the things we will probably experience and yet not recognize when it hits us. But maybe it'll pass me by! So anyway, after our seminar we ventured out to lunch at a cute restaurant where we had bread (of course), salad, and an Italian dish of our choice. I got the 5-cheese penne, I think. It was very cheesy! We then met up with Kostas again and he took us to the Byzantine Museum of Thessaloniki.

That was very pretty with lots of columns and tombs and pottery and ANCIENT HAIR! I actually remembered something from my anthropology classes: organic objects don't last the test of time. So the fact that they had HAIR is super amazing. I think it was from Egypt and was preserved with the intense heat.

Hair, ewww.

Then we walked around the city a bit and saw some painted bikes. I read about this project in the magazine on the plane. It's a city project where people donate old bicycles and then they get painted and placed around Thessaloniki to make the city more beautiful. Each color represents a different aspect of the project (like a green bike means there's not enough nature, etc).

So anyway, we walked around some, went to dinner for our last group (and therefore PAID FOR) meal, and then went out for a "cultural event"! We were given tickets to Rock the Ballet: Dance Boys (I think?) and it was pretty cool. It was a weird sort of modern ballet dance with 6 guys and 1 girl. The guys were muy cute (although probably gay) and we enjoyed utilizing the binoculars that our program leader provided. They played American music, lots of Michael Jackson, Queen, and Prince. The theatre was beautiful, though.

So when we got home, we had to celebrate Adrienne's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADRIENNE!). So we congregated in our hotel room and talked girly stuff. And I'll not repeat what was said because contrary to popular third grade belief, secrets secrets ARE fun. So that was about it today!

Oh, the title "How did she GET there?!" comes from a homeless lady that resides outside our hotel. She's always sitting on the sidewalk and it looks like she doesn't have any feet (really sad, sorry.) But today we passed by a loooong ways away and she was sitting on the sidewalk playing with her Nintendo DS. Fishy? Yeah.

So since it's like really late now (don't look at the time I posted this, mom...) I'll say goodnight. Below is a nice picture I took when walking around.

Emily

So I got a blog...

Hello! My name is Emily and if you're reading this you probably already know me. I'm studying abroad this semester for 4 months in Thessaloniki, Greece and just arrived yesterday. I've never had a blog before, so I don't know exactly how this works. But I'll make it up as I go along! Oh, and any typos you see, just ignore them, k? Thanks. :)

So I left Oklahoma and my family last Saturday at 12:30ish. It was pretty sad but I was very impressed my mom didn't cry.



Here we all are!



My flights were pretty uneventful until I arrived in Frankfurt, Germany. When I left Dallas I was sitting next to a German man named Toby. He was super nice and we talked quite a bit. He was in Chile on vacation with some friends and even showed me all his hundreds of pictures (it was a 10 hour flight--we had more than enough time). When we arrived in Frankfurt, he helped me carry my luggage (I had to re-check my HUGE bag) and find the check in. It was great having him translate for me, as I had nooo idea was they were saying to me. Anyway, when we went to re-check my bag (which was under 23 kilos), they made me put my BACKPACK on the scale! Now, knowing they didn't weigh my carry-ons in America, I, of course, packed them FULL of everything that wouldn't go in my big bag. So she was like, "You can only have 7 kilos of carry-on luggage. You have 16." So naturally I start to freak out. Toby totally saved me here. He helped me rearrange and pack my backpack into my other carry-on. He even kept my laptop and some towels and sheets in his bag until I had weighed it for the lady and then we snuck them back in. (Is that illegal?) But this is a HUGE shout-out to him and I'm so lucky I sat by him on the plane. So that was my German airport experience!

Here's Toby:

Now you're probably sick of reading my long story about nothing really, but I want to talk about Thessaloniki! It's beautiful here. We have a "Bridging Cultures Program" we're doing right now, so we're staying in a hotel for a few days. It's interesting, I guess electricity is very precious here, so all the lights flicker on when you walk by and to turn on the lights in your room you have to stick your room key in a slot by the door. That's so you don't leave your lights on when you leave. Makes sense. We were so exhausted yesterday, I felt like I was in a haze. But we did walk around the city and they took us out to dinner, which was nice. We're about a block from the water and Aristotle Square in right down the street. We went to a taverna for dinner and they served us a bit of everything, it seemed. We literally had at least 10 dishes and I had to try everything! I'm going to have to find a gym as soon as I get to campus.... I was surprised by how many varieties of potatoes they eat. They had baked potatoes, fried potatoes, hash browns, potato chip things, and ALL drenched in olive oil, of course. My stomach didn't take too kindly to the food last night, so I was glad my mom made me bring those digestive vitamins (sorry for doubting you, mom). That was really all we did yesterday, and I slept for just about 11 hours. Sleep felt great.

This morning we woke up and had breakfast in the hotel. Breakfast was different, and I'm excited to try things tomorrow that I overlooked today. We then had our "Bridging Cultures" seminar where they talked about culture and not getting date-raped and good stuff like that. Then we went to lunch at Goodie's, which is kinda like McDonald's but waaay better. I said thank you (EfxarisTOE) to our waitress, my first Greek to a Greek!

Our tour guide, Kostas, met us there and we took a tour of the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. It was good. A lot of gold and pottery, but interesting. Kostas is so knowledgeable about everything in Thessaloniki and he was a great tour guide. After the museum, he took us around the city to look at historical sites. We saw an old castle ruin:

And some ancient baths (quite a lot of baths, actually...) and then we went to the church of St. Demetrius, which was beautiful. Kostas told us that Demetrius had been preaching the Christian gospel and somehow ended up being challenged to a gladiator duel by some other pagan guy. Demetrius killed the guy so the emperor got mad and imprisoned him beneath this church, in the baths. It was so awesome to go down there, it was like a cave and all secretive. Demetrius was actually killed there by spears, making him a martyr. But that's depressing, sorry! Here's a pretty picture to make up for it:



One of the baths! (In the lower part of the pic)



So then we came back to the hotel to rest up before dinner. Before we got to our hotel, we walked by the waterfront right as the sun was setting and got some very beautiful scenes. A local lady came up as we were taking our group picture and rearranged us so we were in order by height. Later, she started yelling at us to come take a picture of a duck. When we said we were from America she said, "Oh, America! Yes sir!" with a salute. It was hilarious.

After resting up at the hotel, we went out for dinner. Dinner was again, quite the event. We went to a different taverna and again had a FEAST before us. Salad, vegetable dishes, grape leaf wraps with rice, seafood risotto (really good, although the shrimp was literally staring at me), a meatball tasting sausage thing, eggplant, feta, and 2 cheesy dips for the excessive amount of bread we had, and Greek cheesecake with chocolate bread and ice cream to top it all off. SOMUCHFOOD. I only had a bite or two of each one and I'm so stuffed! Here's a picture of our table:

So that was pretty much it for today. It was busy, but full of awesome facts about Thessaloniki! I'm sorry this blog was so long, there was just so much to tell! To end I'll tell a funny story, so maybe it'll be worth all this reading. I was going to write in the journal my mom gave me (although this blog is pretty much a journal) but I was looking for a phrase to write in the front to kick it off. I googled a translator and then typed in "My Greek Adventure" so I could be all cool and write that in Greek in the front cover. It said, "we're sorry, but we don't have that in our records" or something and then it had other suggestions for me. The first one?

"My big adventure is staying at my Grandma Pearl's with her toe fungus"

Suitable? I think so.

Anyway, that's all for tonight! I'll try to keep up, but no promises. If you're reading this part, you either read it all or skipped to the bottom, but thank you either way!

Emily