Monday, December 21, 2009

I'll be home for Christmas...

The end has finally come, today is my last day in Greece! It is a very bittersweet feeling as I am very excited to come home, but sad to leave. Last week was busy with lots of last night celebrations pretty much every day since someone was always leaving. Jamie left on Thursday morning and I helped her get to the airport which was quite an adventure since there was a taxi strike we were unaware of. It has been a very quiet weekend; as of Friday there were only 7 or so people left in my dorm. I spent the weekend doing the last of everything, last bus ride home from school on the 58, last walk to the water at sunset, last gyro from 150, last taverna night, and last minute shopping of course.

During my last walk around the city I was thinking about how many things here I am going to miss, and its a pretty long list. I'm going to miss the weather for one (its about 40 degrees warmer than Boston right now). But I am very much looking forward to snow and a white Christmas. I'm also going to miss the food, the feta, the chocolate, and the tavernas. The Greek lifestyle includes sitting at restaurants or cafes for hours at a time with the staff in no rush for you to leave. In fact, they encourage you to stay with live music, and rounds of wine and dessert on the house. I'm going to miss walking down the street and seeing a group of old men sitting outside relaxing and playing backgammon. I'm going to miss the kiosks that line the streets and are really handy at night when you have a snack craving, just get there before midnight. Then of course, there are all the beautiful places here in Greece. Thessaloniki may not be a hot tourist spot, but all of Greece has some really amazing places. I'm going to miss being able to travel to another country within a few hours, and at a fraction of the cost it would be from America. Most of all I am going to miss the people that I have met here. It was crazy making such fast friends and then having to say goodbye when it feels like we just met. I'm sure that I'm leaving a few things out of that list that will come up once I get back home.

But, while there are many things I will miss, there are a few that I wont. I will certainly not miss communication with family and friends over skype with a connection that cuts out every few minutes. Not to mention the 7 hour time difference that makes finding a time to talk hard as well. I am not going to miss the public transportation. The bus home from school was always an experience, that I think I even prefer the Boston subway. I'm not going to miss having to throw toilet paper in the trash, although I will miss the signs all over the place. The best sign I saw was in Athens in a random restaurant. Naturally I took a picture...


Ha ha, it was a good one. I also won't miss the struggle that came with the language barrier, especially when trying to grocery shop and not being able to ready any of the labels. Granted, that did get a little easier when I learned a little more Greek, but trying to communicate with cab drivers never did. All in all, the list of things I'm going to miss is longer than the ones I won't.

After about 20 hours of travel, I should be touching down in Boston Logan Airport at 6:35 pm tomorrow. It has been an absolutely amazing semester, and has gone by so fast. I'm so thankful for the opportunity and experience I have had here. Also, I have really enjoyed sharing it with you all. Thanks for following me along the way. Have a happy and safe holiday season!


Saturday, December 12, 2009

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Even here in Thessaloniki, it is starting to look and feel like Christmas. Stores have snowflakes and red and green decorations in their windows. There are tons of buildings with little Santas hanging off the balcony like he's trying to climb a latter (very amusing). Many of the streets, including our own, have lights along them.

Last weekend was really fun just being in one place the whole time. I went to the modern art museum Saturday morning with our professor to see the Miro exhibit. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Sunday I got to sleep in as long as I wanted and I loved it. Then I realized that I had homework and finals to study for and that was not so lovely.

This is the last week of classes for most of us. Some people leave as early as this coming Monday! The building is going to get really quiet really fast I think. I had my first final yesterday and my last is on Wednesday. Classes ended well and I'm really happy with the ones I chose. Greek got a little more complicated but I've also been able to use more phrases around the city. We finally learned directions and adverbs of places which makes directing a cab driver much easier. My final yesterday was for the European Union politics class which although I've found the class interesting, the second half of the semester was not as exciting as the first. Still I think I've learned a lot in that class, and the final went well. Art History does not have a final, instead we get a take home exam and a research paper due January 8th. Maybe I can get it done and not have to work on it when I get home.

Last night was our dorm Christmas party. Since this is the last weekend everyone is all together we had to pull out all the stops. Everyone was dressed up in random holiday things that we were able to find around the city. Some people were even creative enough to make vests and hats out of wrapping paper. We hung lights from the interior balcony, including a light up Santa. It turned into a big event with a lot more people than expected from ACT and the other buildings, but it was a lot of fun. The rest of the weekend should be a little more relaxed including crunch time for finals on Monday.

Only 10 more days till I leave Thessaloniki. Tomorrow starts the single digits!
Hope all of you are doing well. Until next time.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Turkey and Turkey

So I started this post about 3 days ago but had to put it on hold to finish my final project for History. I think my parents will certainly agree that was a priority. So now that I've handed it in I'm here to finish it up and let you know how my Thanksgiving turned out.

While you were all enjoying Grandma's absolutely delicious turkey dinner and assorted desserts, I was enjoying Greek style Thanksgiving here at ACT. I attended the dinner that the school sponsored where everyone tried to bring a small dish to contribute. It was better than I expected to be honest. ACT gave us turkey and some stuffing that was not typical stuffing but still good. I brought some corn but it was cold since it sat in the fridge all day. The student group provided the refreshments including quite a few boxes of wine. Nothing like lots of wine and techno music to make it a really entertaining Thanksgiving. They sometimes have a DJ in the cafeteria area after like 4pm playing music, and it's mostly techno because they really like that here. It was no Alice's Restaurant but it was fun. (I listened to Alice when I got home :)) Anyway it was really nice to all have dinner together and I think it helped bring the spirit of Thanksgiving to the Greeks. We even got to try and explain to them where it came from too and how it is celebrated different for each family. The picture there is a few of the girls from my building, Amy, Diana, Jamie, and Allison.

After classes on Friday we packed up our things and headed to Turkey! I think almost all the study abroad students have been there at some point this semester. It's one of the cheapest places we can get to from here and probably the best. It was only about 60 euro for the round trip bus from Thessaloniki to Istanbul, and only 8 US dollars for the hostel for one night. We decided to take the bus rather than the train after hearing from a few other people that it was really nice. They had movies to watch and you each got a two seat row to yourself so you could spread out to sleep a little. The train was more expensive and less reliable time wise from what we had heard so we went for the bus. It left at 10 pm Friday night and got us to Istanbul at 730 am Saturday morning. I don't think I can say that I slept that night, whatever it was I got it was only a few hours and was not sleep. We did have to get off the bus twice going through the border to buy a visa and get passports checked, but we knew that was coming.

Getting off the bus Saturday morning was probably the biggest culture shock ever. I was half asleep because they did not wake us up until we had stopped so we weren't really ready to get off and suddenly we were moving. When we booked the tickets the lady told us that there are shuttle buses you can take to different parts of the city from where you get dropped off. I had the directions to get to the hostel out and we stood not knowing where to go for a few minutes. None of the taxi drivers that came up to us spoke English and we did not have any Turkish money to pay them with. A nice Canadian that was on our bus came and helped us out. I showed him where we were trying to get and he said we could take the subway but that it might be crowded so we could take a bus from here to somewhere closer to the hostel and then take a cab from there. We followed him because he was going the same way and without his help I think it would have taken us an extra few hours to get there. He was only the first of the helpful people we met this weekend.

Once we checked into the hostel at about 830 or so we decided that relaxing for an hour was probably the best idea before we started exploring. I didn't sleep because I figured if I did for only and hour I would just wake up even more tired than I was. Once we got moving again we stopped at a restaurant right near by for some breakfast. Jamie, Alisha and I had pizza because it looked so good in the picture and it was amazing. Most likely because we were so hungry. From there we headed over to the Hagia Sofia area and wandered around trying to figure out what the entrance was. Instead we made our way into the mausoleum there was a sign that said free entrance, kind of hard to pass that up. That was really neat and all the mosaics on the walls are so pretty. Next we wandered into a garden that led to a museum but being too tired to concentrate on a museum we turned around and made our way to what was finally the entrance.


Hagia Sofia was absolutely beautiful, but really crowded. The size was definitely impressive. I know this was a place a few people were going to be really jealous of so I took tons and tons of pictures to give you a little taste. But of course, it does not compare, you're just going to have to go see it for yourself :)


Probably the most interesting part was being able to see the all the art from when it was an Orthodox basilica next to the art added for the mosque.


After Sofia we went across the park area in the direction of the Blue Mosque. In the park between the two there are a lot of street vendors as well as a really nice fountain. I think that the Blue Mosque was my favorite of the two, the decorations inside were so beautiful. They do close down during the prayer times but we were able to go inside, but only without shoes and with enough skin covered.





After the Blue Mosque we did some shopping in one of the higher end bazaars. No haggling allowed apparently. We were all really excited to go to the Grand Bazaar with its 400 shops and really really good deals. However, we didn't plan very well and the weekend we went was a 4 day holiday so it was closed both days we were there. That was sad, but we made the best of the shopping opportunities we did have. We took a short break back at the hostel and planned out the rest of the night which included a traditional Turkish bath and hookah. The bath was probably the most interesting experience I have ever had. It is just like it was in ancient times, all women, all naked. We were all a little apprehensive about it before hand but determined none the less. I was told my many people including my art teacher that no matter what, you come out really glad that you went. With relative confidence we made our way in and discovered that they were in fact right. We started out in our comfortable towels but those were quickly removed when we reached the bath area that was all marble with large sinks that we sat next to and for about 30 minutes just poured hot water over ourselves. One by one we were taken by our heavyset half naked host to a large marble table where she rubbed off all of our dead skin with a rough pad, then it was the soap, massage, and final rinse. My skin has never been so soft and clean. There was also a short time in the sauna and at the end she even washed our hair. We really felt like little kinds being taken care of by our mom, except the mom was a stranger. It was really only awkward for a few minutes and then we just relaxed and enjoyed the pampering because that is what it was, and I am more than happy that I went.

When we met up with the boys again outside and made our way back to the hostel and got ready for dinner. There were a lot of restaurants near by and since there are not many travelers at this time they were all basically begging us to come to eat with them. We would stop at ones we thought would be good and they would offer us free tea or dessert, or a discount on the whole meal. It got down to being between 2 neighboring places both offering us discounts of varying degrees and claiming to have the best Turkish food. A guy who was already sitting at one of them outside, clearly heard the conversation and came over to suggest that we eat here saying he's tried a lot of the other places and this was the best, and has great service. We took his word for it and sat down. Dinner was delicious, I tried a traditional dish although I cannot remember the name. It had lamb with mixed vegetables in this amazing sauce and then stuffed into eggplant with rice. Yeah, I like eggplant now, at least in small amounts.

We spent about 5 hours or so at that restaurant just enjoying the food and company. The waiter was really friendly and kept coming over with different magic tricks that we would quickly figure out so he would leave to find another one to trick us. The guy who had originally told us to eat there was with his friend outside as well and we started to talk to them too. They gave us a few suggestions on what we could do for Sunday which was really helpful. Finally we made our way back to the hostel to turn in for the night.

Sunday morning we woke up some what early to go get some breakfast. The general plan was to take a ferry over to Asia so we could say that we had been on another continent. Then we would head to Galata Tower and the pedestrian street over there that has good restaurants. We ate breakfast near by again and enjoyed some more Turkish apple tea which is absolutely amazing. I ended up buying some to take home. (sorry, I'm keeping that for myself!) When we came out of the restaurant we ran into our friends from last night who happened to be heading the same direction as us. Since it was later than we wanted, and rainy, we decided to skip Asia. There isn't really anything to see anyway so I'll save that for some other time. They decided that since we weren't familiar with the tram system they would accompany. It was really nice to have someone helping us along but at the same time I do enjoy figuring it out on my own. They stayed with us for most of the day like our personal tour guides and we had a lot of fun. The tram was really really nice and easy to use, I was really impressed by it.




Our bus left at 10pm that night so after dinner we went to figure out how to get to the bus station. We took the tram again and got there to find that it is absolutey huge. There were so many different offices and things for each tour company. Each one was based on the destination but we did not realize that. We found the one that was our bus company and went inside to get the tickets. They directed us to the opposite side where our bus would actually leave from. Finally on the bus we watched a few more movies, attempted to sleep, and made our way back to Greece. It took a little longer on the way back because when we were at border control the door to the cargo underneath the bus was left open when the driver started to move and it hit one of the booths tearing the metal. For about 30 minutes I watched outside the window while about 10 men stood looking at it and not doing anything. Finally they did something to get it back in and fixed enough to drive again and we were back on our way. We got back the Thess at about 8 am, just in time to shower and get to school for classes. Monday was a really long day but worth it.

This week has other wise been busy with school work. Classes end the 11th and a lot of students start leaving the 14th so they have to take finals earlier than the already early finals. The semester goes into January so all of us are technically taking off early. I'll be taking one on the 11th and then the rest on the 14th and 16th. After that I am free till my flight home on the 22nd! This weekend I'm going to enjoy sleeping in for the first time since before Halloween, and not leaving the city or country. Saturday morning there is another museum visit with my art teacher to a Miro exhibit and the modern art museum just up the street, followed by some shopping. Christmas gifts perhaps??

Have a great weekend, until next week.