nobody expects a grecian fanny pack

So gang, it's been a little while, but this post re-commences the travel portion of this blog, otherwise known as the part where I do stereotypical study abroad traveling. This weekend was a long weekend, because on Thursday everything in southern Germany (and maybe the north too–I'm not sure) was closed for Christi Himmelfahrt, known in English as the Day of the Ascension. Considering this fabulous long weekend, Caroline, a fellow Tufts-in-Tübingen-er, and I decided to take a trip to Thessaloniki, Greece in pursuit of warm weather and beaches. It was most certainly an adventure.

To start, as cheesy and trite as the phrase "it's all Greek to me" is, it is also completely accurate. I arrived at Thessaloniki airport knowing two words "ano poli," which means old city, and no, I have absolutely no idea how to spell it with Greek letters. We arrived at the airport at 23:20 and managed to get the last bus from the airport. It was completely packed with people, so Caroline and I stood up at the front entrance with the driver. It was dark and we had no idea where we were going, more or less what anything said. Our hostel was a bit outside the very central part of the city, up on a hill with lots of windy streets. Thus when we got off in city centre, we took a cab, which I normally hate doing, but when the map looks like this, it's pretty necessary. 

We made it to our hostel just after midnight and were greeted by the single most friendly woman probably in all of Greece. Her name is Vicky and she runs the Little Big House hostel in Thessaloniki, which is–no exaggeration–the most beautiful hostel I have ever stayed in. The rooms are brightly colored and come with a kitchenette in addition to the main communal kitchen. There's a terrace to chill out and enjoy the beautiful Greek sunshine. They provide you with a free frappé (ie heaven on Earth) upon arrival. This place is the most wonderful. So yeah, that's that. Maybe 5 minutes after Vicky left, we went to bed. 

From the tallest point of Thessaloniki

The next day, we spent our time roaming around Thessaloniki. As I previously stated, we had hoped for two days of beaching, but it was raining on Friday morning, so we decided to explore the city instead. After breakfast, we started out at the highest point of Thessaloniki which has a little fort thing and the remainder of some of the Byzantine walls. So a bit of background the city is in the northern part of Greece, is the second largest city and a big port, and used to be part of both the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. The Turkish influences are pretty obvious looking at some of the architecture and inevitable if you step into a coffee shop, but more on that later.

Anyways, we wandered down to the White Tower which is right on the Aegean and then wandered along the water until we got to the markets. The markets are super cool and half open-air and sell lots of food and clothes. They are also very loud and lively and have Greek people rushing around and yelling about all sorts of different things–or at least I am assuming since I only know how to say "ano poli," good morning/afternoon/evening, please, and thank you in Greek now. We bought 1.5kg of cherries for about 5€ (best day ever), some olives, and I bought super awesome hippie pants, which my mother and grandmother think are super ugly but I love very much. 

Afterwards, we got gyros, which was an exercise in hilarity really, because the menu was in Greek. We went up sheepishly to the guy and just kind of where like "ummmm..." To which he responds, "gyros?" Then he asked what we wanted on it, to which I responded "whatever you like," so we got two different types of sauce on it (something that looked like barbecue and the other that looked like mustard), tomatoes, and french fries, and my God, it was delicious.
  
Once our super late lunch was over, we wandered around some more and ended up in a lovely café. The shop is a little dark, old-looking, and full of painting and knick-knacks and old iron furniture. Coffee and tea were quite the production and it was awesome. We got teas and Greek delight (roughly the same idea as Turkish delight) and it was wonderful. Then we wandered back up to the hostel to take a nap and relax. 

We got back to the hostel and promptly crashed into our bunk beds, but after a few minutes were greeted by a friendly Australian named Tony, who asked what we planned on doing later. We told him that we were probably gonna get food after our nap. After our nap, we dawdled a little and drank more frappés on the terrace and then decided on seafood for dinner. Vicky recommended us a local place close by, and so the three of us wandered up the mountain to the place and had seafood and it was absolutely wonderful. There was a cityscape view and everything. Also in case you haven't gotten the idea, a major theme of this trip was tasty food. (Sorry not sorry, hate all you want Pookie and Dobby.) Then us three went home, drank wine on the terrace and played a Taboo-type game. It was a lovely and chill evening.

The next day, Caroline and I woke up early to go to the beach, which was a series of mishaps. We wanted to take a boat to the beach, something that Vicky recommended, but it was too windy, so the boat wasn't going. Then we wandered around for 45 minutes trying to find the railroad station (which is really just a bus station now because most of the trains in Greece are no longer running because of the financial crisis). After much searching, we got on the first of two bus rides to go to a beach roughly an hour and a half away. It was a debacle, but it wasn't all bad. At the bus station, a man came up to me speaking Greek, and when I told him I didn't speak Greek, he started in German and said that he thought I looked Greek, which was something that I haven't gotten before–maybe I am tanner than I thought? And we did eventually make it to the beach. 

Since it was windy, the place was completely empty. So we got to relax in the sun on a mostly empty beach and it was wonderful. And I have a sunburned tummy to prove that I was there.

We got back to the hostel around 19 or so (after two bus rides filled with Greek high school boys wearing purses, fanny packs, or fanny packs as purses–wild stuff), and were so hungry that we ate more than half of our crackers, feta, and olives. Quite the tasty pre-dinner snack. Afters we grabbed some beers from the hostel bar and hung out on the terrace with quite the collection of people. There were folks from America (us), Australia, Brazil (who had done a study abroad year in high school in Neenah, Wisconsin of all the places–we bonded), France, Belgium (both the French and the Dutch parts), the Netherlands, Albania, and Greece, and ranged in age from 18 to 70. It was really wild talking to all of these different people. (And really even more wild that the Brazilian guy did a year of high in Neenah fucking Wisconsin–I mean, really what are the odds?) 

Caroline and I ended up going to dinner at a cute little "taverna" down the road with the woman from the Netherlands, who is a 69 year-old Dutch actress named Maria and the Albanian guy joined us (weird world, right?) His English was pretty rudimentary, and he only spoke Albanian and some Greek so communication between the three of us and him was partially a game of charades, but that was pretty fun. Maria, Caroline, and I ate "Greek-style" ie ordered three dinner main dishes (souvlaki, meatballs, and a beef ring–whatever that is) and a bunch of sides and split them, and it was awesome. 

And since we had an early flight in the morning (ie we just wanted an excuse because we were super tired), we denied Niko and Tony's requests to go out partying in the city, which I am not too sad about really, we had quite the full day. (God, I sound like a grandma.)

Anyways, other news in Sarah-land, this weekend I am going to the Schwarzwald (the Black Forest, for those that don't know the German name) with Unterwegs and then it's Pfingsten (Pentecost) on Monday (ie more closed stores) and then Tuesday begins the five-day-long Tufts-in-Tübingen-in-Berlin trip which promises to be both a nerdy and crazy time. Well, I am off to watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Stay tuned gang, things are getting wanderlust-y.