Monday, May 18
We arrived in Greece after a 6 hour bus ride Monday afternoon. After getting our bus tickets back to Sofia for next week, had had the hell march to the hotel. We walked 3/4 of a mile on a single person sidewalk next to the kingston pike equivalent with lots of buses, while lugging our bags and luggage. I decided to take a girls extra bag because I only had one...but what a mistake! We arrive in the hotel nasty and sweaty as anything to find a pretty decent hotel, no internet though...We went out after an hour of recovering to tour Thessaloniki. It is a port city with a huge harbor and lots of industrial shipping. There are no beaches though...
Tuesday, May 19
Tuesday morning Chandler and I ran for a really good long run, about 35 minutes or 5 miles throughout Thessaloniki. After a shower and breakfast, we went to a huge complex at a company named Helexpo. They are a huge business convention center, attracting 6000 business to showcase products and over 700,000 people. This was the coolest business part by far, as the head of International Relations spoke to us for around an hour, in very clear english. After Helexpo, we walked back toward the port, because Dr. Elenkov told us he had been back there "many times." We got kicked out by the military and walked some more to find locked gates and refusals. After this we went to the hotel to rest, and I went to Starbucks to try out the internet access. After starbucks we walked around the markets and got a kilo of strawberries for 2 euros and ate them all, and bought bananas. On our way back after dinner, we saw a huge protest with lots of police re-directing traffic. It was apparently telecom workers protesting low wages and poor benefits. Overall it was a pretty good day, but Greece's heat and bad allergies stink!
Wednesday May 20,
Dang the European culture, smoke in every square "meter" is the entire continent...Greece is apparently in bloom also because my eyes have not stopped watering the past two days and last night I woke up with snot on my face and neck with both nostrils filled with European crapping pollen snot.
On a happier note, Greece is absolutely beautiful! I had the opportunity to hike up the old castle in Thessaloniki today after visiting the Byzantine museum. It was quite the hike, but totally worth it. I got some great pictures of various sights such as the entire city of Thessaloniki, the ocean, and an ancient castle surrounding us. We hiked a little further to the inner castle which had been coverted into a prison up until a hundred years ago. The wall was pretty incredible too because it had really random blocks making up the composition. There were bricks, mortar, broken pillars and random blocks with ancient inscritptions on them. It was pretty cool because we saw an own in one of the crevaces. It was the first wild owl I have ever seen in the daytime!
After climbing down from the castle we went back to the hotel around 4. We hung out and had a good dinner. Chandler and I went for a run at starbucks and then ran out of time sending emails...:(
Are you sure that owl was real? Looks a little suspicious.....The view is gorgeous from the lookout!
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